Monthly Archives: March 2020

national news

Is she really ready to become POTUS?

I am going to commit political heresy by questioning the qualifications of a woman of color who happens to be on a lot of folks’ short list for the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nomination.

I present to you Stacey Abrams.

Joe Biden has declared he will select a woman to run with him if he becomes the Democrats’ presidential nominee this summer. That’s a done deal. No doubt about it. The former vice president has carved it in stone, signed his name in blood. For all I know he has sworn on a Bible.

I keep seeing Stacey Abrams’ name on short lists for that call.

So, I have looked up her background. I found some fascinating chapters in her life story.

The question that any presidential nominee must ask of a VP selection is this: Is the person I choose qualified to step into the presidency in the event I no longer can serve? Is Stacey Abrams qualified to do that?

She ran for Georgia governor in 2018 and lost by a whisker to Republican Brian Kemp. Prior to that her only political experience was as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives. Anything else … politically speaking? Nope. That’s it.

Now, let me be clear. Stacey Abrams is bright and well-educated. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Spelman College; she earned a masters degree in public administration from the University of Texas-Austin; and … she earned her law degree from Yale University. She packs plenty of intellectual wattage.

I just wonder whether she has earned a place on Joe Biden’s short list of candidates to be the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nominee.

The former VP has a gigantic field of competent and highly qualified women he can examine as he looks for a potential running mate. He ran against some of them in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. But there are governors and other members of Congress he can consider.

I am just a bit leery of someone of Stacey Abrams’ limited political experience being thrust into this role of vice-presidential nominee.

She is young enough to gain more valuable experience. Abrams might do well working in a Cabinet-level post in a Biden administration. I just don’t think it’s her time … at least not yet.

Please forgive me.

national news

Disease knows no political labels

Donald John Trump needs to understand — although it is impossible to expect that he ever will get it — that the pandemic sweeping the planet is a non-partisan “enemy” of all humankind.

Thus, when he warns our nation’s governors that they need to express appreciation for the work he says he is doing, the president is politicizing a fight that requires all elected officials at all levels to pull together.

It ain’t happenin’.

You’ve heard the slogan that “We’re in this together.” But … are we?

Governors criticize the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic as being unorganized, scatter-shot, too full of mindless happy talk. They make a valid point. The federal government, which the president was elected to lead, has been too slow to respond all along the way.

But then we hear the president blast governors for doing a “terrible job,” for failing to recognize that the “we’re doing a hell of a job” at the federal level. They need to toe the line, he tells them.

I should add here that the criticism is coming from Democratic governors. Their complaints don’t matter to the Republican president. His ignorance of the need for bipartisan cooperation was so plainly evident at the bill-signing ceremony Friday when the only individuals standing behind him were Republicans. Congressional Democrats lined up with the president to ensure enactment of the coronavirus relief bill that Trump signed into law.

I should point out, too, that they weren’t practicing the “social distancing” that medical experts implore us to practice … but I digress.

The blame game will continue. It’s unfortunate in the extreme, primarily because the individuals who are going to pay the price ultimately are Americans like you and me might need help from our government if any of us get stricken … and it won’t arrive.

Disgraceful.

national news

Trump shows his pettiness to a maximum degree

Donald Trump sickens me daily. He’s been doing so since the moment he declared his presidential candidacy.

Today provided yet another example of the president’s hideous petulance.

He said that if governors — the men and women who are fighting against the coronavirus pandemic — aren’t nice to him that he isn’t going to call them and offer words of support, encouragement or to update them on the federal response.

He mentioned Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Jay Inslee of Washington. If they don’t support him, he won’t support them.

Tit for tat, right? Oh, did I mention that Whitmer and Inslee are Democrats? That they happen to speak critically of the federal government’s strategy — such as it is — in dealing with the pandemic.

This man is a profoundly incompetent boob who has no plan for anything. He cannot be trusted to tell Americans the truth about the peril they are facing with this virus. He continues to spew happy talk when he should be sounding an alarm.

***

One quick personal note: I heard tonight from a dear friend who is married to a physician in West Texas. She is at the breaking point. She is the office manager for her husband’s medical practice. Her writes that her husband “puts on his full face shield respirator and I don my n95 mask to see patients that probably voted for the man that lies to everyone nonstop.” 

And this guy, the president, wants everyone to talk nicely to and about him before he’ll do the job he was elected to do.

Despicable.

State news

Lt. Gov. Patrick ought to eat those idiotic words

This editorial cartoon is one of many that have blasted to smithereens the remarks from Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who had the boorish bad taste to say that old folks ought to sacrifice themselves to the coronavirus to save the nation’s economy.

He’s taken his share of criticism. I have joined those who suggest that Dan Patrick’s butter has slipped off his noodles. He hasn’t responded to me, nor do I expect this goofball to fire back at little ol’ me.

However, I continued to be appalled that the state’s second-ranking elected official — and arguably Texas’ most powerful politician, as the presiding officer of the Texas Senate — would even think such a thing, let alone say it aloud.

Yet this clown said that elderly folks shouldn’t seek aid if the virus strikes them down. Dan Patrick’s alleged rationale? The economy needs to be Priority No. 1 over the care for aged Americans.

This guy disgusts me at virtually the same level as the president of the United States, Donald John Trump.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2020/03/not-afraid-to-die-for-the-economy/

I’m even more ashamed of Patrick now than I was when I posted this blog item.

Sickening.

local news, medical news, national news

How will this crisis change our beloved country?

The bad news is obvious: Too many Americans are suffering from the coronavirus pandemic, as are too many of our fellow human travelers around the world.

The good news is a bit harder to find, but it’s there: We will emerge from this crisis in due course. It likely won’t be as soon as Donald Trump keeps saying it will occur, but we’ll get through this.

Now for some  uncertain news: How will this crisis and our national reaction to it change this country we all love beyond measure?

My strong sense is that when we emerge on the other side that we won’t be quite the same as we were prior to the first death was recorded what seems to long ago.

Maybe we should adopt tighter personal hygiene habits. We should wash our hands more frequently than we did prior to the pandemic. Perhaps we should adopt some modified form of “social distancing.”

To be clear, I am a hugger. I tend to embrace good friends I haven’t seen in some time. That might change, particularly if my friends wave me off, suggesting I should keep my distance. I guess I’ll take on a case-by-case basis.

On a government level, we most certainly should reintroduce the pandemic watchdog element to our National Security Council. Donald Trump eliminated that arm of the NSC not long after he took office as president of the United States. We are paying for that inattention now. Each of our state governments perhaps ought to find the will and the wherewithal to establish pandemic-oriented agencies as well.

The change in our national psyche also is likely to linger long after the disease runs its course. I hope with all my strength for a vaccine, much like we developed in the 1950s with polio. Many other diseases have emerged since then, but we haven’t found cures for them; I think of HIV/AIDS in particular.

Our daily lives are likely to see changes. What they turn out to be remains one of the great unknowns, one of the uncertain elements that awaits us.

Until the end of this crisis arrives, I’ll concentrate on hoping for the best news … that it’s over. Then we can start planning for the uncertain future that lies ahead.

medical news, national news

Why not invite Democrats to that bill-signing, Mr. President?

Donald John “The So-Called Unifier in Chief” Trump signed an important bill into law today.

It was the coronavirus pandemic emergency response bill approved by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both chambers of Congress. The Senate approved it 96-0; the House approved it by a voice vote, thanks to some procedural maneuvering orchestrated by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

But …

Pelosi or other Democrats were nowhere to be found in the Oval Office today as Trump signed the bill into law.

Hasn’t he promised to unify the country? Hasn’t he pledged to work with Democrats as well as Republicans to “make America great again”? I believe the fate of this bill, which Trump supported after at first opposing it (while blaming Democrats, naturally, for wanting to load it up with unnecessary provisions) depended on Democrats as well as Republicans.

Oh, but of course Trump is still enraged at Pelosi because the House speaker engineered the impeachment of the president. That’s his rationale, although he hasn’t said it directly.

This individual’s petulance makes me sick.

medical news, national news

Let us give thanks to medical first responders

For many years I have been offering unsolicited thanks to firefighters and police officers when I see them out and about. It’s the least I can do to let those who take an oath to “protect and serve” the rest of us.

I don’t go to hospitals much these days, which quite obviously is a good thing. Thus, it is hard for me to thank doctors, nurses, various medical technicians and others who toil in our hospitals.

These are dangerous times. Our nation is battling a coronavirus pandemic. The United States is now the world’s leading country afflicted by the virus; we have surpassed China, where the pandemic began, and Italy, which is suffering grievously as a result the illness that has felled so many Italians.

I want to use this forum to offer a brief, but supremely heartfelt, thank you to those who are struggling to tend to those stricken by the virus. It might sound cliché, but these individuals have been thrust into harm’s way in a manner that is every bit as dangerous as the men and women who fight for us on battlefields around the world.

Bullets aren’t flying in our hospitals, emergency room clinics, nursing homes or convalescent centers. The enemy there is that damn virus. It’s invisible, to be sure, but it is dangerous in the extreme.

If I encounter medical personnel at the grocery store, my intention will mirror my actions when I see firefighters and cops. Until then, I will rely on this forum to offer only this: Thank you.

national news

Now … what about Bernie’s political future?

It seems oddly petty to talk about U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ next big political decision while Americans are fighting hammer and tong against the coronavirus pandemic that has sickened many thousands of us.

Still, I have to ask: Why doesn’t Sen. Sanders call it a campaign, step aside, cede the Democratic Party presidential nomination to Joseph R. Biden Jr., endorse the former vice president … and then make good on his pledge to do all he can to defeat Donald John Trump?

Sanders cannot win his party’s nomination. Biden has too many more convention delegates lined up than Sanders. It is impossible now for Sanders to catch up.

His campaign insists that Sanders is staying in, yet we hear of reports that the senator is “assessing” the status of his campaign. He can assess all he wants, but many of us already has issued our own assessment, which is that the fight is over.

Sanders fought hard. He has argued, with some justification, that he has won the argument over ideology. Biden has drifted a little to the left, but he’s nowhere near where Sanders is perched on the far-left end of the Democrats’ ideological ledge. That’s more than all right with me. I want a centrist to take on Donald Trump, not a candidate who calls himself a “democratic socialist” and who would be smothered by a Trump slime machine.

I don’t know what Sanders hopes to accomplish by staying in the fight. I do know what he has said is his No.  goal, which is to defeat Donald Trump. Where I come from, it looks like the better way to fulfill that mission is to bow out and line up alongside the candidate who can lead that fight.

local news, medical news

One county judge peers into a neighbor’s ‘yard’ and offers sound advice

If I were sitting in Collin County Judge Chris Hill’s chair at this moment I might be inclined to tell Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins to mind his own bee’s wax.

Then again, were I occupying Jenkins’ chair, I might respond with, “Hey, Chris, we’re all in this together. I’m looking out for everyone in the region. That includes the residents of Collin County.”

Jenkins took part in a conference call among local county judges and local health officials who were meeting to discuss the coronavirus pandemic; Hill didn’t take part. Jenkins has issued a shelter-in-place order for all Dallas County residents, essentially ordering all non-essential businesses to close; Hill has asked folks to stay at home, too, but has kept businesses open.

Jenkins seems to think that his neighboring county judge hasn’t gone far enough. So that’s why he’s admonishing Collin County residents to stay at home while scientists, doctors, first responders answer the call to battle against the coronavirus.

Hey, I live in Collin County. I am heeding the advice given by Judge Jenkins. As for Judge Hill, well, he ought to rethink his reluctance to order the closure of those businesses.

As the Dallas Morning News has reported: Asked about the call with the hospital executive, Hill said it was accurate that he didn’t participate but that he had participated in two other calls with county judges Thursday that Jenkins didn’t take part in. “We need regional cooperation right now in North Texas,” Hill said. “And I urge Judge Clay Jenkins to reconsider his position.”

I need not remind anyone that the coronavirus cases in North Texas are growing rapidly. Accordingly, as a taxpaying constituent of Chris Hill, I hereby ask him to rethink his position.

We have “regional cooperation” in North Texas, even with Clay Jenkins’ apparent scolding.

national news

Pence servitude ignores Trump’s early denial

Whenever I have the misfortune of listening to Vice President Mike Pence’s slobbering praise of Donald Trump’s “leadership” in handling the coronavirus pandemic, I cannot help but circle back to Trump’s initial reaction to the outbreak.

He all but denied the existence of the outbreak, which had felled people in Wuhan, China. Trump called it a “Democrat hoax.”

Then he reported that the nation had about 15 cases of COVID-19, but soon would melt away to zero. Trump said a “miracle” would occur.

Trump has continued to insist — as the death toll in the United States has topped 1,000 victims — that he has done a “fantastic” job. The United States is now the most infected country on Earth, surpassing the former epicenter nations of China and then Italy.

The president says we’ll have a vaccine ready to go shortly, only to be contradicted openly by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading medical/science expert working on the Trump administration response team.

Donald Trump’s “leadership” has been MIA since the beginning. It is still missing in action at this moment. He blames the media for fomenting panic, for disrupting the economy … all for the purpose of undermining Trump’s re-election chances.

Mr. President, your political future is in your hands and yours alone.

I am just sickened beyond measure at the extent that this president’s alleged “leadership” is aimed for one purpose, which is to advance his own effort to win re-election.

Leadership? It hasn’t revealed itself in the White House.