Monthly Archives: February 2020

national news

Former VP heading for last stand in South Carolina … maybe?

I have quit relying on my proverbial trick knee to give me insight into all matters political, but this brief observation is worth a mention.

It is looking to me as though Joseph R. Biden Jr. will have to go all-in for the South Carolina Democratic Party primary if he has a prayer of continuing his bid to become the next president of the United States.

Biden might finish in the middle of the pack tonight when they count the New Hampshire primary ballots. He could be in fourth, or fifth — maybe even sixth place! If he fails to make any sort of noise at all in the Granite State, he is going to likely put everything he has into South Carolina to inject viability into his faltering campaign.

And that ain’t looking too promising … at this point.

Biden’s once-vaunted African-American support reportedly is withering away. It is being scooped up by other contenders running alongside him.

If the stars are misaligned for the former vice president and he finishes anywhere but first or second in South Carolina, I am virtually certain it will be curtains for Biden.

That saddens me greatly.

Joe Biden brings sparkling credentials to this campaign. Thirty-six years in the U.S. Senate, a compelling personal story, eight years as a consequential vice president, great working relationships with lawmakers of both major parties, a vast international network of friends and political allies.

He isn’t perfect. Biden has stumbled all along the way. He says things that require “clarification.” He has seemed at times baffled, bemused and bewildered while answering questions.

Biden is my preferred choice to run against Donald John Trump, the nation’s current president. However, I am sorry to acknowledge that he might not make the cut.

Oh, my.

local news

Rep. Granger plays key role in conflicting TV ads

I am so very glad I don’t live in U.S. Rep. Kay Granger’s congressional district. You see, the Fort Worth Republican is being featured in conflicting TV ads that ought to make her constituents’ head spin.

On one side we have a conservative political action committee that takes her to task for opposing Donald Trump on the border wall, on immigration in general, on taxes, on abortion. “I am a pro-choice Republican,” Granger says in that TV spot. You name it, she’s on the wrong side of the issue.

And then we have this: Granger’s allies are running an ad that features the same Donald Trump saying what a great partner the congresswoman has been. “Thanks, Kay,” Trump says to her in the ad.

So, which is it? Is Rep. Granger a Trumpkin or not? Is she for his policies or against ’em? Is she a friend or a foe of the current president of the United States?

I’ll just have to wish them all the best of luck over yonder in the 12th Congressional District. I’ve got my hands full here, in the Third District, trying to decide how to cast my own vote.

local news, Sports news

They’re getting anxious in Sod Poodles Land

I am hearing some faint — but growing — rumblings of excitement from up yonder on the Texas Panhandle, on the Caprock.

The fans of Amarillo’s Texas League champion Sod Poodles baseball team are counting down the days to the start of spring training in Arizona. The Sod Poodles will be preparing for their second-ever season alongside their parent club, the National League San Diego Padres.

It’s really quite cool for this former Amarillo resident to watch friends and former neighbors getting juiced up — no pun intended — in advance of the next season of hardball.

The Sod Poodles had the good fortune to win the Texas League pennant in their first season. Now comes Season No. 2. The team’s fans are getting hyped up. Heck, so am I … and I no longer live there!

Still, the Sod Poodles will play some games near where we live these days in Princeton. The Frisco Roughriders play in the same league as the Sod Poodles.

I’ll get a chance to watch the Sod Poodles this season just down the road a bit in Frisco. I’ll be there yelling loudly for the Sod Poodles.

I cannot join the fans in Arizona as the team prepares for their new season. It still excites me to see the anticipation building in the Panhandle.

national news

Looking for a centrist alternative to the current POTUS

I reckon the time has arrived to declare a preference for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

I have kinda/sorta danced around the topic, declining to make that declaration — until right now.

My preference is for a centrist Democrat to succeed the current president of the United States, Donald John Trump. I have spoken already about my admiration for Joseph R. Biden Jr. I long have admired his Senate work and I believe he served ably as vice president during the Obama administration.

Of all the Democrats running for president, my belief at this moment is that Biden is the best candidate to take on Trump. He is, as a pundit once described it, my “Goldilocks candidate.” He is not too liberal, not too conservative. He seems to fit the bill of a man who is equipped at virtually every level to become the next head of state.

Joe Biden could restore some dignity to the presidency, which Donald Trump has sought systematically to destroy through his idiotic behavior.

Trump has declared war against damn near everything that Barack Obama and Joe Biden sought to do during their two terms as president and vice president. Biden doesn’t appear inclined to do anything of the sort were he to win the presidency later this year.

My fear for the Democratic Party right now is that it is lurching toward nominating a far-left progressive, perhaps even a “democratic socialist,” in the form of Bernie Sanders. It is my considered opinion that the party is courting disaster were it to nominate Sanders to run against Trump.

I want a nominee with foreign policy chops. I want someone who has demonstrated an ability and a willingness to work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

More than anything, I want a president who can return the presidency to a more traditional posture on our political landscape.

I acknowledge the difficulty that Joe Biden faces at this moment. His good name was pilloried during the impeachment inquiry and during the Senate trial that acquitted Trump of two serious “high crimes and misdemeanors.” He is paying a potentially grievous political price for the savagery visited on his name and reputation.

It also might be too late.

I just thought it was time to stake my claim in this most consequential fight for the presidency.

national news

Bernie is waging a ‘class warfare’ campaign

Bernie Sanders and his political allies seem to take pleasure in accusing Donald John Trump of separating Americans by class, that the president favors the rich over the poor, given the nature — they say — of the tax cuts that Congress enacted.

But … wait!

The Vermont independent U.S. senator who is competing for the Democratic presidential nomination is waging a class warfare campaign of his very own.

Listen to him. He blasts billionaires, accusing them of trying to “buy” the presidency. He says — with justification, I should add — that his campaign is being funded by non-billionaires, that he is soliciting small- to medium-sized contributions from regular folks.

Sanders vows to govern on behalf of the “average American” wage earner he is elected president of the United States near the of the year.

There’s plenty I do not like about Sanders. I oppose his Medicare for All mantra; I believe his pledge to give every American college student a free education is unrealistic; I am much more of a capitalist than a “democratic socialist.”

I also am wearing of hearing him invoke his demonization of wealthy Americans, of weaving the scolding lecture into virtually every answer he delivers to every question he receives.

Sen. Sanders is waging a class war while at the same time vowing to “unify” the nation he wants to govern. Just how does he do both things at once?

International news

It was the manner of the firing that rankles us, Mr. POTUS

Hey, I absolutely understand that a president of the United States needs to trust those who are closest to him and that the POTUS has the authority to hire and fire staffers at will.

Thus, when Donald John Trump, the nation’s current president, fied Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council staff after Vindman offered negative impeachment testimony to congressional questioners, I get it.

However, the manner of the dismissal and the spectacle that Trump and his senior White House staff made of it is what gets under my skin.

Lt. Col. Vindman is a war hero. He is a decorated Army officer who has shed blood on the battlefield in defense of his adopted country. He is a Ukraine native who came to this country as a toddler when his parents fled the Soviet Union.

How did the president let him go? By ordering him escorted out of the White House in broad daylight. He was shown the door and told, in effect, to “hit the road.” What’s more, so was Vindman’s twin brother, who had not a single thing to do with the Ukraine matter that got Vindman on the wrong side of the president. Yevgeny Vindman’s only “sin” is to be related to twin bro Alex.

Why couldn’t Trump have shown just a touch of discretion, of class, of empathy for a war hero? He could have issued a private directive, told Vindman to vacate his White House office. Then he could have issued a simple statement declaring that he had relieved Vindman of his duties based on, oh, “differences in policy.” Sure, those who had paid any attention to what Vindman said during the House impeachment hearings would know what he means … but that would be for us to determine.

That isn’t how Donald Trump rolls. He wants to make spectacles of others around him, not to mention of himself.

media news

Time of My Life, Part 45: Back to where it began

I am positive you’ve heard it said that there are some things you always remember knowing how to do.

Riding a bicycle comes to mind.

Well, I spent the bulk of my journalism career writing opinion pieces for newspapers in Oregon and Texas. However, like most ink-stained wretches, I got started covering news events, or writing features, chronicling the events that made our community tick.

I am now retired from the daily grind. However, I have been given a chance to return to where it began for me. I am a freelance reporter for a weekly newspaper near where my wife and now reside.

I asked for this gig when we took out a subscription to the Princeton Herald, a weekly publication that is delivered via mail every Thursday. The publisher of the Herald, C&S Media, also publishes papers in other communities nearby. Farmersville is one of them.

The “S” in C&S Media is Sonia Duggan. She asked me recently if I would be interested in covering Farmersville, which is about seven miles east of Princeton. I said yes. So I am back in the game.

I attend Farmersville City Council meetings twice a month, reporting on what transpires at City Hall. I get to write the occasional feature story about Farmersville, a growing community in Collin County, Texas.

The most rewarding part of it, though, is getting to know the people who make the city. I am developing sources, becoming familiar with the community’s unique qualities. I am making my presence known at council meeting.

Man, it’s just like it’s always been.

Moreover, I get to cover these stories straight up, without injecting my own opinion into any of the text I write for the newspaper.

My boss knows, too, that my wife and I might not be available all the time to cover every story that comes along. Given that we’re retired, we have the luxury of traveling in our recreational vehicle, which we do during peak driving season in North Texas. That’s OK, she says, expressing her keen understanding that a freelance gig enables us to operate without too many burdensome requirements.

I just have to say, though, that learning about a new community fills me with great joy and, yes, even a bit of anxiousness. I expect the joy to remain even as I grow less anxious over what I discover about Farmersville.

political news

We desperately need to shore up faith in our electoral system

I make this statement with considerable pain in my heart.

Our nation’s electoral system is in potentially dire peril. The Russians sought to sow seeds of mistrust when they interfered in — or attacked, if you prefer that verb — our electoral process in the 2016 presidential campaign.

They have succeeded. Maybe beyond their expectations.

They hacked into Hillary Clinton’s campaign system, apparently heeding the request of Clinton’s Republican opponent, Donald Trump. The mistrust began, seemingly at that moment.

It’s gotten worse.

The Iowa caucus just this past week and the “app” glitch that fouled up the vote-counting and the delegate-apportioning process has made it all the more troublesome.

As Ross Ramsey writes in the Texas Tribune, when you trifle with our electoral process, you are messing with democracy itself. Read Ramsey’s analysis here.

One gets the sense that everyone is going to suspect hanky-panky at damn near every electoral level. Legislative races? Statewide contests? Presidential primary contest? How about the 2020 presidential election itself this coming November?

If the Russians sought to spark discontent among Americans, they can declare victory. They were able to do so during the 2016 election.

The Russians aren’t the only villains. American politicians are looking for ways to suppress voter turnout. They scheme and conspire to make voting among minority Americans more difficult. Their aim is to elect non-minority candidates to public office, thus depriving minority Americans a voice in the halls of power among those who look like the voters they represent.

Yes, democracy is under attack. As we move more deeply into this election year, I believe we need to more vigilant against enemies — foreign and, yes, domestic — who seek to undermine all Americans’ right to vote their conscience.

national news

Standing with a courageous GOP senator

I want to stand with an embattled Republican U.S. senator who chose to honor his sacred oath rather than following a path toward blind partisan fealty.

Mitt Romney, the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee, voted to convict Donald John Trump on an allegation of abuse of power when the Senate cast its vote to acquit the current president.

That has brought a barrage of scorn and recrimination from Trump’s loyalists. One of them is Fox News talker Jeanine Pirro, a former judge from New York who said this, according to The Guardian: “get the hell out of the United States Senate,” while claiming that “your dream of endearing yourself to the Trump-hating left is a joke.”

Sigh …

Pirro doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Sen. Romney, a freshman from Utah, is more of a Republican than Pirro or her Fox pals ever have been or ever hope to be. He is a man of deep religious faith. He takes the oath he took to deliver “impartial justice” as seriously as he could take any oath he’s ever taken.

So he voted to convict Trump on a single charge brought to the Senate from the House of Representatives impeachment. Trump was still acquitted. Romney’s vote didn’t matter, a point he made while declaring his intention to cast a “guilty” vote in a speech on the Senate floor.

I am reminded a bit by a former Republican House member I got to know well while I worked as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News.

Larry Combest represented the 19th Congressional District, which for a time included the southern portion of Amarillo. In the mid-1990s, Combest resisted a GOP-led farm policy overhaul. It was called “Freedom to Farm.” Combest stuck it in then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s eye when he opposed the Freedom to Farm legislation.

Gingrich demanded loyalty to the party platform. Combest was unwilling to grant it. Why? Because the farmers and ranchers in West Texas — for whom Combest worked — opposed the legislation. Combest was more loyal to them than to the House party leadership.

Accordingly, Mitt Romney was more loyal to the oath he took than to the president of the United States. Mitt Romney didn’t get my vote for POTUS in 2012. He gets my undying respect now.

national news

Mayor Pete lacks ‘experience’? Please …

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

I am giggling at home as I read about how Democratic Party presidential candidates aredinging Pete Buttigieg over an alleged “lack of experience” to become president of the United States.

Former Vice President Joe Biden makes an issue of it. So does U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Same with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Hey, I have three words for them: Donald John Trump.

Allow me to be crystal clear on this point: I am not saying that Donald Trump’s absolute absence of any public service experience has served the country well. It hasn’t. He is a disastrous excuse for a president, a commander in chief, the leader of the world’s most indispensable nation.

I just want to caution those who contend that Pete Buttigieg isn’t equipped to run the federal government’s executive branch.

Donald Trump got elected in 2016 despite lacking even a lick of experience. Buttigieg, the former South Bend, Ind., mayor, looks to me like a seasoned government hand compared to what Trump offered voters.

Does he have the chops of many of his rivals, such as the U.S. senators against whom he is running, or the former vice president (who also served for 36 years in the Senate)? No.

Remember, though, what has become something of a mantra about the current president, which is that if Donald Trump can be elected to the nation’s highest office, well … then anyone can get elected!