Monthly Archives: April 2020

national news

White House leadership is MIA

President Harry Truman had that sign on his desk that said “The Buck Stops Here.”

President John F. Kennedy told the nation after the failed Bay of Pigs, Cuba, military operation that “Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, when he commanded Allied forces in Europe during World War II, planned the D-Day landing at Normandy and wrote a letter he would read to the world if the mission failed; he would take full responsibility for its failure … which thankfully he never had to read.

These men were leaders of the first magnitude. The current president of the United States, Donald John Trump, has demonstrated what I have to label as a “fair weather style of leadership.”

He takes credit when matters go well; he even takes credit when and where he doesn’t deserve it. When the strategy fails? He says he “takes no responsibility at all.”

We are witnessing how leadership becomes missing in action when the fecal matter hits the fan. Donald Trump keeps boasting about what he’s done to battle the coronavirus pandemic. Yet he denies the virtually proven instances when he fell short.

Trump’s leadership, such as it exists, has fallen far short of the kind of presidential leadership that an unprecedented health crisis of this scale requires. Trump can brag and boast all he wants. It doesn’t wipe out what we all know about the federal response to this crisis.

The nation needs focused, driven and dedicated leadership that presents itself at all levels. We are not getting it from this president, during this crisis.

Donald Trump’s mantra, unlike Harry Truman, is that the “buck stops … over there.” 

media news

A reporter boycott in the making?

This idea comes from one of my social media contacts; he’s actually a friend who comments on my blog regularly.

Donald Trump’s latest disgraceful dressing down of a broadcast journalist has become far too great of a distraction. His tirade this past weekend against CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond was just the latest example of his intolerance and petulance with journalists who merely are doing their job — which at times requires them to ask difficult questions of the commander in chief.

My friend posted this: They need to stage an organized walkout and not return or broadcast until he behaves decently. They’re enabling his behavior by tolerating it.

The “they” in his message are the reporters assigned to cover the White House for their various organizations.

Diamond asked Trump if it was appropriate of him to boast about the great response he has mounted against the coronavirus when the death toll surpassed 40,000 Americans. Trump was having none of it and lashed out at Diamond, at CNN and at the media in general.

I generally oppose boycotts, but I am starting to come around on this one.

A boycott by the media of the White House “briefings,” which no longer provide any real news is beginning to sound like a sensible response to Trump’s egregiously intemperate behavior.

These daily ramblings by the president of the United States have stopped providing anything useful for Americans to digest. They serve only as a forum for him to rant and roar against those who decline to lick his boots and kiss his backside.

Would such an act produce a change in behavior? Well, that’s the nagging question. The answer is far too elusive to pin down. I tend to believe it wouldn’t … but the notion is starting to appeal to me.

media news

CNN gets skewered for asking a legitimate question of POTUS

Jeremy Diamond is a fine young reporter for CNN, who on Sunday was doing his job while sitting in the White House press briefing room. His job includes asking probing questions of the man standing in front of him, the president of the United States.

Diamond happened to ask Donald John “Stable Genius” Trump why, in the face of a death count from coronavirus that topped 40,000 in the United States, he was congratulating himself for the “great job” he said he is doing. Diamond asked “Is this the time” for such “self-congratulation?”

That sent Trump into orbit. He said CNN delivers “fake news” and said he was speaking on behalf of all the first responders. He said Diamond doesn’t “have the brains you were born with.” Then he compared the treatment he allegedly gets from the press to what President Abraham Lincoln got when he ran for president in 1860. Good ever-lovin’ grief, man!

If you listen to Trump’s campaign rally-style riff at the briefing room, it is clear that he is speaking ofhimself and not of the men and women he purportedly was praising. Thus, Diamond posed a perfectly legitimate question of the individual who signed on to the presidency knowing he would be questioned aggressively by the media whose job is to hold him accountable for his actions.

Despicable.

International news

Crackpots come up with phony conspiracy theories

The right-wing crackpot machine is cranking out conspiracy theories in connection with the coronavirus pandemic.

Yep. They’re out there. I’m guessing they’re going to get even more ramped up the more this health crisis mounts, the more deaths we suffer, the more illness our nation has to endure.

Some demonstrators who have gathered in places like Lansing, Mich., and in Austin have told reporters, for example, that they disbelieve the casualty count being released. They say the numbers of deaths and illness are actually much lower. They tell the world that people are dying of causes unrelated to the COVID-19 unique virus, but that medical authorities are blaming the disease.

Yes, the authorities are making it up! That’s what the nut jobs are saying.

George Soros, the progressive political activist, billionaire philanthropist and all-round bogeyman for damn near every right-wing cause you can imagine, also has been dragged into the conspiracy muck. The right-wingers suggest Soros is feeding false information because he detests Donald Trump so much that he is willing to foment lies about the disease just to ensure that Trump loses the November presidential election.

Same for Bill and Melinda Gates, who earned their fortune through Bill Gates’s founding of Microsoft. They’re liberals who are financing false narratives being told about the virus. Their motive? It’s the same thing that’s driving Soros, the wackos say.

I have long been an anti-conspiracy American. I’ve never bought the conspiracies that suggest, for instance, that someone other than Lee Harvey Oswald murdered President Kennedy; or that men didn’t actually walk on the moon; or that President Bush lured the terrorists to attack us on 9/11.

The coronavirus erupted in central China. It came to the United States when infected passengers arrived in Seattle. It has exploded around the world.

Tragedies happen. It has happened in this instance. We are being subjected to unprecedented restrictions. Our nation’s economy has all but been shut down. The restrictions have angered many Americans, too many of whom have been concocting dangerous and hideous conspiracy theories designed to take our eyes off the target and to distract us from examining how we can find ways to repair what has gone so terribly wrong with our response.

These conspiracy nut jobs make me sick.

national news

Idiocy ignores the larger issue

The idiots who are marching on state capitals demanding that governors relax their restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic are missing an essential element.

They decry the restrictions, saying that stay at home, shelter in place and social distancing requirements represent a government overreach into their personal liberties.

Hold the fu**ing phone, folks!

These morons can hide for as long as they want hide behind the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights and proclaim their right to do as they wish. Fine. If they want to put themselves in danger and jeopardize their own health and well-being, then have at it.

However, the Bill of Rights does not grant anyone the right to put others’ health in peril. It does not allow anyone to expose other human beings to deadly viral infections. Just as the First Amendment grants us the right of free speech, it does not — as has been noted since the beginning of our republic — allow someone to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater.

Thus, when protesters march on state capitals, which they have done here in Texas, and proclaim that governors are restricting their rights, they miss the essential need for government to protect the well-being of all the people it serves.

And yet we hear from Donald J. Trump and others at the top of the governmental chain of command heap misguided and misdirected praise on the protesters, cheering them on. Trump, of course, doesn’t understand government’s role in protecting the people he was elected to serve. His primary focus has been all along on his own political future.

Therefore, if the protests suit his needs and call attention to the issues he is raising — which focus far more on the economy than on the science associated with the restrictions — why, that suits him just fine.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are seeing stupidity on full display. What’s worse is that the intellectual failure of the protesters is putting others in jeopardy. That, in my view, is a criminal act.

national news

Protests echo Trump re-election effort

Are we witnessing a Donald Trump re-election effort manifesting itself in the form of protests from those who object to governors acting to protect Americans against a deadly viral infection?

The protests are ongoing again today in state capitals where governors have shut down their states. They have imposed stay at home orders, and ordered residents to maintain appropriate social distancing while the world fights against the coronavirus pandemic.

Donald Trump wants the governors to reopen their states. He has declared his desire to have the nation reopened for business by May 1. That won’t happen.

However, he is egging on the protesters. He is backing them rhetorically, declaring that Americans who are carrying signs and demanding a reopening “like me.” What the hell is he trying to do?

Governors, most of whom are Democrats (and yes, Trump is a Republican), are clamping down with measures designed to inhibit the growth of the infection. Yet we hear now from some protesters who say they disbelieve the warnings coming from pre-eminent medical experts. They don’t trust the experts who say the killer virus is many times worse than influenza. Some of the radical protesters demand that Trump “fire” Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the voices of reason who’s been trying to slow down the reopening movement.

Donald Trump’s behavior should seek to unite the country. Instead, he is seeking to divide us. He is pitting his administration against many of the nation’s governors. Trump continues to rail against Democrats, the media and seeks to rub the blame for his own failure off on others.

The protesters are echoing the president’s disgraceful behavior.

medical news

Hell freezes over: Trump tells the truth!

I never thought this day would come, but it did … yesterday, during a White House campaign rally-style riff by the president of the United States who supposedly was briefing the nation about the health outbreak that has gripped the world.

A reporter asked Donald Trump whether he declined to appoint U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, to join a task force to reopen the country in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic out of anger at Romney’s criticism of him.

Trump said he is “not a fan of Mitt Romney. I don’t want his advice.”

So, the answer is “yes,” Trump is still angry at Romney because the Republican senator voted to convict the president of abuse of power during the Senate impeachment trial.

See what I mean? Trump actually told the truth that he does hold a grudge against Romney!

This fit of truth-telling isn’t worth any sort of praise, given the smallness and pettiness it represents about what passes for Trump’s thought pattern.

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 84: No yapping from this guy

You know by now that we consider Toby the Puppy to be just about perfect and I am going to provide you with a brief explanation of why we believe it.

We like taking Toby on walks through our neighborhood. It’s often a twice-daily ritual. When we do, we are greeted almost always by barking dogs locked up in homes along the way. We walk by the front yard, the dogs start barking.

If they are small pooches, the barks are more yippy and yappy. You know what I mean.

Toby the Puppy’s reaction to that commotion? He doesn’t even flinch. He keeps on walking. He doesn’t respond to the barks, the yips and yaps directed — I am quite certain — squarely at him.

You also know that Toby the Puppy is not a big dog. He is a Chihuahua mix, a mutt who tips the beam at roughly 13 pounds. He’s more or less a lap dog.

He also has a bark that sounds as if it comes from a much larger pooch. I mean it. Toby’s bark is not a yip. He barks loudly … on the infrequent occasions he chooses to bark. That is not often at all.

He doesn’t bark at other dogs walking in front of our house. He barely pays them any attention at all. He barks when people come to the front door. He’ll issue a warning bark to the visitor and then, when we instruct him, he quiets down.

We have had friends with smallish dogs. One in particular had a pooch that would start barking incessantly whenever we crossed our legs while sitting in our friend’s living room. Fortunately, we do not have that issue with our precious puppy.

He makes us proud … and we certainly tell him so.

Donald Trump

One of Trump’s ‘best people’?

I want you to ponder the image you see with this blog post.

The fellow on the right is Vince McMahon, the head of World Wrestling Entertainment. He is a friend of Donald John Trump, the current president of the United States.

McMahon has just been named to a task force charged with trying to find solutions to how the nation can reopen for business in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Yes, the guy who is mooning someone in the middle of a wrestling ring is going to be among the so-called “best people” that Donald Trump promised to associate with as he governed the greatest country on Earth.

Just something to consider.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 180: Bring on the park!

This blog post might not be of general interest, but those of you who have moved to your “forever home” might appreciate that I am smiling a bit while I write this brief message.

We moved to Princeton, Texas, a little more than a year ago. We settled into a new home in a subdivision that is still under construction. Just a bit south of us — about a block or so away — is a large tract of land that eventually is going to become a park.

Yes, the city is going to build a park. Lots of “green space” will be among the homes that are popping up all around us.

The Princeton City Council recently approved a design contract of $120,550 to start development of the park. Kimley-Horn and Associates will design the park. Get a load of this: It will include hiking and jogging trails, a restroom, a fishing dock and pond, two pavilions and flashing lights at pedestrian crossings.

The J.J. “Book” Wilson Memorial Park came to the city as a gift from a local landowner.

I am unclear when this park will be finished. I never have watched a park being built in real time. This forever home we are purchasing will enable my wife and me — along with our 7-year-old granddaughter — to watch the park come into being.

I happen to believe this is an exciting development in our retired life.

Our retirement journey brought us here for a singular purpose, to be near our granddaughter. She loves to play outdoors when she comes over. I hope she maintains that keen interest while we watch the park being developed.

I do know that her grandmother and I will enjoy the park as we continue to enjoy retired life.