Monthly Archives: January 2020

national news

Hoping for an issues debate in 2020 race for POTUS

You may choose to believe or disbelieve what I want to say next. That’s your call. I have no control over what you believe.

I want a serious issues discussion to unfold as we move into the guts of the 2020 campaign for the presidency of the United States. Sadly, and I say that with sincerity, I fear we’re going to devolve into a sort of 2016 Campaign 2.0.

Donald Trump will survive the Senate trial that will commence soon. He will run for re-election. Democrats will nominate someone from the field of contenders vying for the chance to run against Trump.

My serious fear is that Trump’s impeachment will dominate the campaign. What’s more, I also fear that the president will not want to veer away from it, given how I suspect he’ll spin the expected verdict from the Senate into an “exoneration.”

What should we discuss?

  • Climate change ranks near the top of my issues wish list. Trump has called it a hoax. Democrats say climate change poses the greatest existential threat to the nation’s security. Trump has rolled back environmental regulations. Democrats want to restore them.
  • Health care ranks up there, too. Trump wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with an unknown plan. Democrats keep saying they want to tinker with the ACA, improve the parts of it that need work. Democrats want to protect the insurance coverage for millions of Americans. Trump isn’t making that commitment.
  • Federal spending? Yep, that’s a big one. Donald Trump has stood by while the budget deficit piles up to record levels. Democrats have become “deficit hawks,” trading places with Republicans who used to own that title.
  • Immigration reform is necessary. Trump keeps saying “Mexico will pay for The Wall.” Democrats don’t like building a wall along our southern border. They want to enact comprehensive immigration reform. Trump doesn’t have a plan.

All of this presumes naively, I’ll acknowledge, that Donald Trump is willing to discuss these issues in detail. He won’t go there. The president doesn’t read anything. He keeps telling us he is the smartest man in human history. He governs by “gut instinct.” Sigh.

I fear the president is going to concoct scandals where none exists with whomever he faces in the 2020 election.

There you have what I think will occur juxtaposed with what I hope happens. The idealistic side of me hopes for the best. The realist within me is preparing for the worst.

national news

Bloomberg set to spend several fortunes on POTUS race? Wow!

There is something profoundly off-putting to learn that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is ready to spend a billion of his own dollars on his campaign to become president of the United States.

I’m not sure what Bloomberg is worth. I hear it’s anywhere from $20 billion to $50 billion. When he commits to spending as much as $1 billion of his own stash to become president, I realize it’s a mere drop of spittle in the man’s personal fortune. Good grief. He can piddle away that amount of money and never even miss it!

Is this what we can expect? Donald Trump’s election in 2016 marked a historical turning point in that regard … regardless of the countless other matters that have drawn so much public scrutiny.

Here we are again as we enter another election year.

Bloomberg is forgoing the early primaries. He is spending mountains of money on TV ads. They’ve been airing in Texas incessantly, focusing primarily on health care issues. Indeed, a Dallas Morning News story in today’s paper talked about how the still-large Democratic Party primary field is going to focus greatly on Texas as the POTUS train chugs its way toward Super Tuesday in March.

Does this portend a fight for Texas’s 38 Electoral College votes in the fall campaign once Democrats find a nominee? Well, time will tell.

I happen to one American voter who is likely to be turned off by the idea of a major party nominee purchasing a nomination with cash drawn from his bottomless pockets.

Perhaps there’s the issue, too, of the waffling that Bloomberg exhibited prior to getting into this contest. He made a fairly big show of telling the world that he would not run for president. Then he’s in, saying he was dissatisfied with the quality of the Democratic field fighting among itself to see who would run against Trump. Talk about presumptuous!

No one asked my opinion, but I happen to be one of those Democratic-leaning voters who is satisfied with the field that is running for the party nomination. One of them will emerge as the nominee and it is my hope the party selects someone with the right stuff to take on Donald Trump.

Moreover, my sentiment prefers that the nominee be battle-tested in a primary system that pits the nominee against the other candidates head to head.

Bloomberg is acting like someone who believes he should remain “above the fray.”

Uh, Mr. Mayor? That doesn’t necessarily play well with at least one primary voter. That would be me.

State news

Oh, the irony of Gov. Abbott’s refugee rejection

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, along with other governors, had the opportunity to “opt in” on an executive order issued by Donald Trump to allow refugees into our state.

He chose to opt out. Gov. Abbott has slammed the door on individuals and families who, by definition, are seeking refuge in Texas as they flee repression, violence, crime, corruption and physical harm in their home country.

I am trying to wrap my noodle around this decision. I am left only to ponder the profound irony of Abbott’s decision, making Texas the first state to opt out of Trump’s executive order.

The irony? Oh, well, we have this historical fact: Our nation came into being in the 18th century because men who had fled religious oppression in Europe had come across a vast ocean to form a republic that would become known as “the land of the free,” the “land of opportunity” and “a beacon of liberty” for the rest of the world.

It looks that in Texas at least, the door has been shut to those seeking freedom and opportunity and that the beacon has been turned off.

Abbott’s decision, quite naturally, has drawn plenty of criticism. As it should. To be honest, the governor’s refusal to opt in to the federal order is disappointing in the extreme. He has sought to say that the state should allow those who already are here to remain as refugees. But what about those who continue to suffer human rights abuses in nations south of us?

This is a very distressing decision by Gov. Abbott.

I cannot prove this, of course, but my hunch is that our nation’s founders would be unhappy beyond measure.

national news

Yes, POTUS did say Mexico would ‘pay for The Wall’

(Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Donald Trump is trying now to take back what he said the day he announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency.

You can’t do that, Mr. President. Really. You cannot!

He now says he never pledged to have Mexico pay “directly” for a “big, beautiful wall” he wants to build along our nation’s southern border. But actually, he did say it. Many times, in fact. He said it all along the campaign trail. He’s been repeating it since winning the 2016 election.

When you say “Mexico is going to pay for the wall, believe me,” then what else are Americans supposed to infer? When I heard him say it, I heard that “Mexico is going to pay,” period … full stop, end of story.

Sure, POTUS did seek on a few occasions say that he never suggested Mexico would “write a check” to cover the wall’s cost. He said it again Thursday at the White House. However, the direct payment idea has been crystal clear since the day he entered political life in June 2015, when he declared he would run for the presidency.

Let’s not play these games. The notion of Mexico paying for a wall along our nations’ shared border has been arguably the key campaign pledge that Trump made on his way to the White House.

He must not be allowed to lie his way out of what he said repeatedly.

The fact checkers  are hard at work keeping track of these things.

national news

Love, not hate, fuels anti-Trump rhetoric

I am an old-fashioned fellow in many respects.

I love pageantry. I love singing the National Anthem. I enjoy military parades. I take pleasure in shaking the hands of World War II and Korean War veterans. I revere political tradition and decorum.

Thus, when I criticize Donald J. Trump, it is not out of hate — as some critics of this blog seem to believe — but out of love. Not for the president, mind you. But for the office he occupies and my love of the tradition he has managed to trash almost since the moment he pulled his hand off the Bible at his inauguration.

Critics of this blog purport to read my mind and delve into my heart when they accuse me of spewing hate-filled rhetoric. The thing is, they don’t know me. Some of ’em, though, do like referring to me by my first name, as if to suggest some form of faux familiarity with me. They don’t understand why I say what I do about the president.

One does not go to war for a country he hates. He does so out of love for the country. I got the call to go to war for my country in 1969. I didn’t do so gladly, but out of a sense of duty to the nation that ordered me to go far away and participate in a war that was raging when I arrived and was still raging when I left.

It’s my love of country that fuels my anger today at what I see happening to our political institutions, to our national mood, to the tribalism that has consumed so much of the dialogue between and among various segments of our vast and diverse population.

Who’s responsible for that? It has to stem from our national leadership. It comes from the very top of the political food chain. It starts in the White House, where Donald Trump now resides. It festers in the policies coming from the Oval Office, where the president makes command decisions.

Do I love what I see and hear coming from the White House these days? No! Of course not!

Hatred, though, is not the spark that ignites the rhetoric coming from this blog. It is a deeply held love of country. I want a return to the tradition that I grew up admiring and revering. It cannot happen until we get a change in the leadership at the top of the political chain of command.

I don’t expect to change the minds of critics who’ll continue to ascribe hatred to the rhetoric they will read here. However, it is how I feel. Take it or leave it.

national news

C’mon, Mr. POTUS … let Bolton talk to Senate

Jumpin’ jiminy, Mr. President. Now we get word that you’re thinking about invoking “executive privilege” as a way to keep John Bolton from talking to the U.S. Senate during its impeachment trial.

How come? You keep yapping that the impeachment is a “sham,” a “hoax,” a “witch hunt,” a nothing burger. Then up steps your former national security adviser, who seemed to balk initially at talking to the Senate, now says he’ll answer a subpoena if the Senate issues it.

He wants to talk out loud. He wants tell us what he knows about that so-called “perfect phone” conservation you said you had with the Ukrainian president. Yeah, I know Bolton called it a “drug deal,” and reportedly didn’t like the request you made of the Ukrainians to deliver on a “political favor, though.”

However, Bolton was thought to be your guy, Mr. President. You brought him in to give you some national security cred. Then you fired him, or he quit … whatever. And for what purpose? Because you and he weren’t on the same page. Hey, I get that the national security adviser works at the pleasure of the president, that he or she is not a Senate-confirmed individual, that you can hire and fire whoever you want for whatever reason you deem appropriate.

Does any of that mean Bolton is going to knife you in the back? Maybe. Maybe not.

Back to my point, Mr. President. You continually tell us that you’re in the clear. You’ve done nothing wrong. You haven’t abused the power of your office or obstructed Congress. Democrats in the House and Senate are conducting a fishing expedition … you say.

If all that is true, then what gives with the “executive privilege” nonsense? That’s what I believe it is, Mr. President. Nonsense! It’s a diversionary tactic that looks to me like the action of a man with something to hide from the public.

That man, sir, is you.

national news

Get on with Senate trial and then move on to the next fight

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

My impeachment fatigue is worsening. It’s wearing me out. I am tiring of hearing the same news reports time and again about the upcoming trial of Donald John Trump.

Let’s get the trial done, shall we.

I believe my worsening case of impeachment fatigue is brought on the realization — which I have known for some time, truth be told — that the U.S. Senate will not toss Donald Trump out of the White House. It will not muster up the constitutionally mandated courage to do the right thing and convict him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Trump is likely to keep enough Senate Republicans in tow to avoid being booted out with a two-thirds majority needed at the end of the trial.

I would say “that’s fine,” except that it isn’t. It’s just the way this hand will play out.

It appears, too, that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who presided over Trump’s impeachment in the House of Representatives, caved in her demand that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell guarantee a “fair” trial before she sent the articles of impeachment to the Senate. I guess every politician has limits on his or her patience and I reckon Pelosi reached her limit.

So, what now? We get a trial. Trump stays in office. Then he runs for re-election as the first president ever to do so with the cloud of impeachment hanging over him. How that plays out depends on (a) how adroit Trump is in parlaying himself as a “victim” and (b) how well the Democratic Party nominee is able to articulate the case that an impeachment is a major scar on the president’s legacy.

I will devote much of this blog, therefore, to making the case as well as I can that Donald Trump needs to serve just a single term as president, that the next president will have some major cleanup work to do to restore the dignity of the office.

The impeachment fatigue, I am hoping, will dissipate once we get a Senate verdict. Then I’ll be ready to move on to the next battle.

Let’s all get ready.

Sports news

Hoping the KC Chiefs bring home Lombardi Trophy

I have a clear favorite among the eight teams still vying for a chance to play in the Super Bowl next month in Miami.

It is the Kansas City Chiefs. Why the Chiefs? Here we go.

I am a longtime fan of the former American Football League. The Chiefs came into being as the Dallas Texans, one of the charter franchises in the AFL in 1960. The Texans packed up and moved to Kansas City and became the Chiefs.

With that all said, I will now ignore the National Football Conference playoff lineup. I don’t care about any of the teams in that “other” conference.

The Chiefs and the Tennessee Titans are the two original AFL franchises still in the hunt. However, I remain profoundly angry that Bud Adams, the owner of the Houston Oilers, decided to move his team to Nashville because Houston wouldn’t build a stadium with luxury boxes. Hey, the Oilers played in the Eighth Wonder of the World, the Astrodome. That shoulda been good enough for the Oilers. It wasn’t. Adams got greedy and bolted for Grand Ol’ Opryland.

The Baltimore Ravens? Pfftt! They once were the Cleveland Browns, one of three old NFL teams that moved into the AFC when the AFL and the NFL merged in 1970.

The fourth AFC team is the Houston Texans. That franchise is new to the NFL, having been created after the Oilers left the Bayou City. They don’t count, either.

In all my years watching the Super Bowl, I have rooted for one NFC team to win the Lombardi Trophy. That would be the New Orleans Saints in 2010. They beat the Indianapolis Colts. Two factors came into play for that Super Bowl. First, New Orleans needed a lift after the 2005 devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina. Second, the Colts have no AFL history, as they were among the NFL teams moved into the AFC when the leagues merged; the third team to join the AFC, by the way, was the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Chiefs played in the very first Super Bowl, losing 35-10 to the Green Bay Packers in 1967. Then they came back in 1970 to beat the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV, pummeling the heavily favored NFL rep 23-7. That was the final Super Bowl before the leagues merged.

It’s been 50 years since the Chiefs played for the pro football championship. It’s their time … I hope.

State news

Texas won’t take refugees? Shameful decision!

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Critics of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are understandably outraged over a decision by the state.

Abbott has decided that Texas will not participate in a federal refugee resettlement program, which around 40 other governors — from both political parties — have agreed to do.

I am profoundly disappointed in Gov. Abbott’s decision to opt out of the resettlement effort.

By definition, refugees are those who are fleeing terrible living conditions. They seek to enter the United States because, for varying reasons, they fear for their well-being in their native countries.

Many of those on the far right declare fealty to their religious faith. They are chiefly Christians who adhere to the Jesus Christ’s teachings.

Sigh.

I cannot find a single New Testament passage that suggests Jesus would approve of any effort to turn away the dispossessed, the downtrodden, those who are fleeing repression.

According to the Texas Tribune: Abbott said the state and nonprofit organizations should concentrate resources on those already here, according to a letter the governor sent to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

This is not the action of a compassionate government with leaders who proclaim themselves as caring about their fellow human beings.

national news

An apology comes forth — and it’s a real one to boot!

How about this?

U.S. Rep. Doug Collins popped off on a cable news show this week that Democrats are “in love” with terrorists and are “mourning” the death of Iran’s leading terrorist, Gen. Qassem Soleimani in an air strike ordered by Donald Trump.

Democrats became outraged. They lambasted the Georgia Republican for his heartless comments.

Then he apologized. It was the real thing. Collins wrote on Twitter: “Let me be clear: I do not believe Democrats are in love with terrorists and I apologize for what I said earlier this week.”

I am speaking only for myself, but I accept Rep. Collins’s apology. I wish he hadn’t made that hideous statement in the first place. The apology doesn’t expunge the public domain of what he said.

However, his apology sounds to me like the real thing. I’m glad he had the guts to say he was wrong to say such a thing.