Monthly Archives: February 2020

business news

Just wondering: Would a Bloomberg nominee release his taxes?

Let’s play a game of “what if?” for just a moment.

What if somehow Michael Bloomberg manages to win the Democratic Party presidential nomination? What if he gets the call to run against Donald John Trump, the self-proclaimed “very stable genius” and the current president of the United States?

Trump at first promised to release his taxes per the custom set beginning with the 1976 election. Then he has backed away. He is fighting efforts to obtain those records.

What if Bloomberg gets the nomination and then releases everything, per what previous nominees of both major parties have done … until Trump came along?

Bloomberg is reportedly the world’s ninth richest person. Trump reportedly is worth, well, a whole lot less than Bloomberg.

Why hasn’t Trump done what he promised to do initially and then reneged on the promise? I have a number of theories.

One is that he ain’t nearly as wealthy as he claims to be. Another is that he doesn’t give hardly anything to charity. Still another is that he has business dealings in Russia that far exceed what he’s admitted to already. A fourth might be that he has paid damn little in taxes. May I try a fifth notion? It could be that he has done a whole bunch of shady deals that could be revealed in a full public scrutiny of his taxes.

Bloomberg is far from a sure thing in the still-developing Democratic primary contest. He’s getting beaten up by his primary rivals, not to mention Trump, who’s already hung a disparaging nickname on the former New York City mayor.

If he gets the party nomination, my hope is that he releases his taxes, as other nominees have done. It won’t shame Trump into doing the right thing. However, it would stand in stark relief against the game of fiscal hide-and-seek that Trump is playing.

Voters then can make their own judgment on who appears to be keeping some important information from public view.

national news

Recycling … yeah, it feels more like ‘home’

I have just returned home to North Texas after visiting what is arguably the recycling capital of the known universe … the Pacific Northwest.

I stayed three nights with my sis and her husband just north of Vancouver, Wash., but was able to travel during the day across the river to Portland where I visited with friends.

So, what’s the point here? Everywhere I went in Washington and then in Oregon I found evidence of that region’s environmental awareness. I found recycling bins next to trash bins. You put your cans and plastic bottles into the bins full of such material; you tossed the trash into the other bin.

I stopped to purchase something at a grocery store in North Portland, where — I understand — they no longer send groceries home with you in plastic bags. Oh, no. Now they “sell” you paper bags at a nickel apiece if you put your goods into them; in that moment, I chose not to carry my two small items out of the store with no bag.

Furthermore, I am proud these days to be living in a Collin County community, Princeton, where we recycle our household material in addition to sending trash off to the dump.

It makes me proud because, to be blunt and candid, I was quite unproud of Amarillo, where we lived for 23 years before moving to Princeton, which didn’t encourage its residents to recycle certain products. It sends everything to the dump. That’s not good, folks.

So, I have returned home after another brief visit to the region of my birth. I am proud to be a son of the Northwest, of Portland. Why? Because of that region’s enhanced environmental awareness. I now am proud to be living in a place that is exhibiting a growing environmental awareness.

It’s strange that my new home is feeling more like my old home.

national news

POTUS goes to war with justice system

Donald John Trump has gone on the warpath.

His latest weapon of choice is the presidential pardon power, which he invoked this week by commuting the prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Yep, the president calls a phone call that the governor made a “perfect call,” just as he described the phone call that got him impeached for abuse of power.

All Blagojevich did was offer a vacant U.S. Senate seat for money to the highest bidder. Where I come from, that personifies political corruption at its lowest. According to Trump, the call was perfect.

Actually, it was perfectly reprehensible, disgusting, corrupt.

So now he gets to walk out of prison. Blagojevich called himself a “political prisoner.” He was nothing of the kind. The former governor, a Democrat, conducted a slimy political shakedown in which he got caught. Period. End of story.

Except that it isn’t. He gets to walk away.

Disgraceful.

local news

What a wild emotional ride

I suppose one could say it’s one thing to experience profound sadness and great joy alternately, but it’s something quite different when you experience them both simultaneously.

Well, I am here to tell you that the latter emotional experience took over the past couple of days.

We gathered in Portland, Ore., to bury a beloved member of our family. Jim Phillips was laid to rest at Willamette National Cemetery after a remarkable service at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church. They played “Taps” at the cemetery; we watched a military honor guard march with intense precision; we watched as well the folding of the Stars and Stripes that shrouded his casket and the presentation of the flag to Uncle Jim’s wife.

I joined other members of my family who had the high honor of being pallbearers for Uncle Jim. Two of Uncle Jim’s grandsons joined his son and three of his nephews in accompanying him to his eternal rest.

Now, I know that these experiences are far from unique. Other families endure grief and pain when a loved one dies. They also remember the good times with joy and laughter. We had plenty of that as well.

What I found remarkable, speaking only for myself, is the emotional intermingling of the pain and the  joy … at the same moment! Yes, I am certain that at several occasions during this time of fellowship and family togetherness that I could feel the pain and laughter competing for my heart’s attention.

Those two unique emotions need not have competed. I found that my ticker has ample room for all of it at once. I felt joyful and sad, happy and mournful. It occurred without a single bit of emotional stress.

I am home now. My heart still hurts at the loss, but my heart also is full of joy at the celebration of a great man’s full life. He was the embodiment of human exuberance.

That is what I choose to remember … even while I wrestle with my grief.

national news

Just go ahead and quit, Mr. AG

The word is out via the Washington Post that Attorney General William Barr is so fed up with Donald Trump that he is considering taking a hike from his post.

He is tired of POTUS’s tweets about current cases and is tired of Trump’s attempts to undermine the legal pros who work for Barr at the Department of Justice. Or so it is being reported.

The quit-now chorus is growing in Washington, for those reasons and for others relating to the work he has done as attorney general, namely his seeming loyalty first to the president and his apparent rejection of the oath he took to defend and protect the Constitution.

I am generally in the latter camp. I am greatly disappointed in the job Barr has done. He has acted far more like Donald Trump’s personal lawyer than a man who took a sacred oath to protect the nation’s governing document.

However, if he wants to quit and cite the president’s interference, well, that’s fine with me, too.

William Barr would be entitled to use whatever reason he chooses to use. Indeed, the apparent burgeoning tension between the president and the AG would seem to be reason enough for Barr to call it quits on the guy Trump reportedly wanted to be his “Roy Cohn.”

And, just who was Cohn? He was the infamous attorney who stood up for the equally infamous Sen. Joseph McCarthy who launched the anti-commie tirade in the early 1950s. Cohn ended up getting disgraced and disbarred over the manner in which he conducted himself while McCarthy sought to ferret out communist infiltrators in our federal government.

In any event, William Barr likely needs to go. Count me as one American who’s all-in on the attorney general hitting the road.

national news

Jeb calls for a return to ‘civility’ in political life … yes!

Jeb Bush has been in the fight for a long time. The former two-term Florida governor has had his share of wins and losses.

On Presidents Day, the Republican offered a wish for the country: a return to a more civil tone as politicians argue over policy matters.

Hmm. Yeah. Don’t you wish? I certainly do.

Bush, who lost to Donald Trump in the 2016 GOP presidential primary contest, laments the hostile tone we’re hearing these days from the president and others in the arena.

He noted something interesting about his late father, the 41st president, George H.W. Bush. According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: George H.W. Bush, he said, could have claimed credit when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Instead, he stepped back and let the German people celebrate the accomplishment, he said of his father.

Try for just a moment to imagine how the 45th POTUS would handle such a monumental event. Imagine Donald Trump “stepping back” and letting “the German people celebrate the accomplishment.”

It wouldn’t happen, any more than one can expect a return to political civility for as long as Donald Trump is in the arena.

Still, Jeb Bush’s call is worth noting. It’s also worth wishing it can come true.

local news

Real ‘friendships’ are rarest of relationships

PORTLAND, Ore. — Admit it. We all toss the word “friend” around too loosely, in a manner the way use the word “hero.” I have sought to forgo calling someone a “hero” merely because he is good at, say, an athletic endeavor. The real heroes are those who risk their lives to save others.

Friends also are a rare commodity.

A visit this morning with a gentleman I’ve known since the spring of 1962 reminded me graphically of how I have fallen into the “friend trap” by referring to too many acquaintances as friends.

They aren’t. Friends, that is. Not like the relationship I’ve had with the longest-tenured friend in my lifetime.

We go back 58 years together. We met in junior high school. My parents had moved us all from our home in Northeast Portland to what was then the ‘burbs in Parkrose; the city long ago swallowed Parkrose up through annexation.

But as I sat in his mother’s living room this morning, reminiscing with him, his mother and his older brother about the paths our lives have taken, I was filled with the realization that I need to get over the habit of bestowing “friendship” on others who haven’t earned the place in my heart.

Oh, sure, one social medium — Facebook — has allowed us to become “friends” with others. To be honest, I have sough to differentiate Facebook “friends” from the real thing. The only problem I face now, though, is that I refer to the “real thing” as friends when in fact they don’t rise to that level.

My friend and I hooked up immediately when we made each other’s acquaintance in our junior high school home run. We remained friends through the rest of junior high and then into high school. We shared plenty of laughs together, got into plenty of mischief together, shared some down times and heartbreak as well.

But we stuck it out. We hung in there. He remains a friend in the truest sense of the word. I was fortunate, as well, later in the day to hook up with a couple my wife and I have known for nearly 45 years. They, too, qualify as the real thing. We also have been through much together and through it all we remain as close to them as anyone can possibly be.

I just felt compelled today to express my belief that a true-blue friend is a rare find indeed. I am blessed to have found these folks, and yes, a few others, along the way.

national news

Do you really want this, Democratic contenders?

All of the nine (or so) Democrats remaining in the hunt for the party’s presidential nomination say they want to be the person at the top of the heap.

But … do they?

It’s been fascinating in the extreme to listen to those in the the back-of-the-pack or the middle-of-the-pack crowd go after the front runners as they climb over each other in the race to curry voters’ favor.

We had Joe Biden standing as the prohibitive front runner for most of 2019. Then came the impeachment hearings and the Senate trial. Not only did Democratic opponents go hammer and tong at Biden, but then we had the congressional Republicans take up arms against him. They accused him, baselessly in my view, of being corrupt.

Biden has faded. Now it’s Bernie Sanders’ turn. Democrats are going after him for being a socialist, for advocating policies that will bankrupt the nation. Bernie is still standing relatively tall.

Oh, but Elizabeth Warren has gotten her share of brickbats from her Democratic foes, again largely on the same basis as the anti-Sanders attacks.

Pete Buttigieg has drawn his share of Democratic ire. He’s too green. He hasn’t developed a sufficient body of government experience.

OK, now it’s Michael Bloomberg’s turn. He is trying to “buy” the nomination. He is spending tens of millions of dollars of his own money to tell voters that he’s got the chops to do the job and — by the way — take down Donald John Trump.

It’s a nomination worth having for the moment. I am left to wonder though whether it will still be worth having when the Democratic contenders get done beating the stuffing out of whomever emerges from this donnybrook to go after the current president of the United States.

local news

All I could do to resist starting an in-flight incident

OK, where do I begin in telling you this brief tale of what happens when your jetliner seatmate makes what you believe is an unreasonable request?

I’ll start with this …

I boarded an Alaska Air jet this morning in Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport for a four-hour flight to Portland. I had booked the flight via an online agency, which means I didn’t get to select my seat; the airline did it for me.

It was a middle seat. A gentleman sat on the aisle; a lady sat at the window. They were husband and wife. The seat between ’em was vacant; it belonged to me. So, I sat down. The lady said she preferred the window, her husband liked the aisle “and no one likes the middle seat.” We both chuckled.

We took off. Then the husband and wife began passing food back and forth in front of me. Sandwiches and chips went from set of hands to the other.

Then the lady leaned over and told me that I should be sure to keep my arm off her side of the arm rest that separated her seat from mine. Sure thing, ma’am. Will do.

Then I guess I let my arm drift just a smidgen over onto her side of the arm rest. She pushed my arm back. I glared momentarily at her.

Then came the best part. The jacket I was wearing had flopped over onto her side of the arm rest. The pocket contained a couple of small items that I guess she found annoying. Then she lifted my jacket and stuffed it on my side of the arm rest.

Hmm. I glared again at her. That’s when I realized I had to sit with my arms folded across my chest. I dare not rest them at my side out of “concern” they would cross into her space.

I turned to hubby, asked him if I could get up to stretch my legs. I went to the back of the aircraft, chatted up the flight attendants who were sitting in the galley. I told one of them about my annoying seat mate; she responded with the usual “We get that on occasion” replies.

I took off my jacket, put it in the overhead bin, sat back down and then sat quietly — which is what I normally do on commercial airliners — for the duration of the flight.

Am I wrong to think the lady was being a bit too bossy?

My only regret now as I settle in for the night is that I didn’t look for a chance to tell her that “We’ll get off this plane soon and you and I will never see each other ever again.” 

media news, State news

Newspaper gets it right with its non-endorsement

I questioned the New York Times’ decision to endorse two candidates for president in the Democratic Party primary.

Also, I cast aspersions on the Dallas Morning News’ decision to recommend two candidates for the U.S. Senate in Texas, also in the Democratic Party primary.

However, I see where the DMN is coming from in announcing Sunday that it will not endorse anyone in the race for president in 2020. Instead, the paper said it plans to focus on the issues that it deems important for voters to consider.

The paper is planning a series of articles titled “What’s at Stake 2020.” It will examine issues such as climate change, education reform, energy policy, war and peace, taxation, federal budgeting, defense policy … a whole host of issues that it believes should be the focus of the presidential campaign.

The paper didn’t say so, but my strong hunch is that the editorial board at the Dallas Morning News might have made a critical determination about the candidates seeking to win election. One is that the incumbent, Donald Trump, has not earned — nor will he ever earn — the paper’s endorsement based on his term in office. The other is none of the Democrats running to succeed him excite the paper enough to win its endorsement.

Near the end of its lengthy editorial, the paper appears to long for a return to civil discourse and declares that its turning to the issues is an avenue toward that noble goal. The Morning News cites President Lincoln’s second inaugural, given as the Civil War was drawing to a close. The president declared his intention to govern “with charity for all and malice toward none.” An assassin, tragically, prevented President Lincoln from fulfilling that noble pledge.

The paper says the election is bigger than Donald Trump or bigger than any of the men and women running to succeed him. It wants to turn its focus on the issues that matter, and away from the personalities who seek to outshout each other.

To that end, the Dallas Morning News has set a constructive path forward as we move more deeply into a contentious election year.