Monthly Archives: May 2020

national news

Biden is not Kavanaugh

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I feel the need to look briefly at two men who faced allegations of sexual assault. One of them has been a known quantity to Americans for nearly 50 years; the other one burst on the national scene only two years ago.

Americans know plenty about Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee. Tara Reade has accused him of sexual assault in a 1993 incident on Capitol Hill. Biden became a national figure the  moment he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972; he was 29 years of age at the time of his election. Then his wife and daughter died in a tragic auto accident. He took office under the crushing burden of unfathomable grief.

Yes, we know Joe Biden. No one ever has said anything publicly about this man being the kind of beast that Tara Reade alleges he became when he assaulted her.

What’s more, don’t you think Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, would have vetted Biden with utmost care and diligence when he selected him as vice president in 2008?

Then we have Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Donald Trump nominated him to the high court in 2018. Few of us knew a thing about Kavanaugh when he got the nod to join the court. Then up stepped Christine Ford, who accused him of sexually assaulting her when they both were much younger. Kavanaugh denied the allegation angrily.

The difference between Biden and Kavanaugh, I submit, merely rests in what we know about both men. I feel as though I know Biden, given that I have watched his public career from afar almost since the moment he joined the Senate in 1973. I find it difficult to believe he would behave with such boorishness as has been alleged. Justice Kavanaugh? I know next to nothing about him, other than his conservative judicial philosophy. I cannot make any kind of determination on the veracity of the allegation brought against him.

Joe Biden is another sort of politician altogether. I am going to stand with the former vice president until Tara Reade can persuade me she is telling the whole truth. I don’t believe she will deliver the goods.

national news

Justice on its way for jogger?

The incident occurred in February. The nation only heard about it this week.

The outrage has been ferocious and by most accounts highly justified.

Now comes word that that two men involved in the shooting of a jogger in Georgia have been arrested, jailed and charged with murder and aggravated assault.

Yes, the two suspects are white; the victim is black. One of the men is a former sheriff’s deputy and former district attorney investigator.

This is a hideous story.

Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael allegedly shot a young African-American man, Ahmaud Arbery, in Brunswick, Ga. Arbery was jogging in the neighborhood when one of the suspects shot him to death.

It has fueled yet again the argument that young black men are in peril simply because of their skin color.

According to CNN.com: According to a Glynn County Police report, Gregory McMichael, 64, later told officers that he thought Arbery looked like a person suspected in a series of recent break-ins in the area.

After they chased down Arbery, McMichael told police, Arbery and Travis McMichael, 34, struggled over his son’s shotgun. The elder McMichael told police that his son shot Arbery after the latter attacked him, according to the police report.
Obviously, I wasn’t there. But this whole story stinks like a rotting fish. It’s tragic that it took a dose of national outrage for the authorities to do what they likely should have done long ago. This saddens and sickens me.
medical news

This conspiracy is laughable, but not funny

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You know how I feel about conspiracies. If not, I will tell you simply that I despise them. More to the point, I despise the rumor-mongering that accompanies the so-called “theories.”

There is now a conspiracy bubbling up out there among The Trump Toadies who defend Donald Trump whenever they find a cause celebre to run into the ditch.

Some of ’em have latched on to some sort of goofy conspiracy involving Dr. Anthony Fauci, the world-renowned infectious disease expert who’s been a voice of reason and studied analysis among the members of the White House coronavirus pandemic task force.

He has at times contradicted Trump’s assertions about the future of the pandemic and whether there is sufficient testing, or when we might have a vaccine available for general use.

Now some of Trump’s cult followers suggest Fauci needs to be fired. They cite bogus reports of other doctors contradicting Fauci’s expert analysis. They accuse Fauci, and this is rich, of being in the hip pocket of “Big Pharma,” those pharmaceutical companies working feverishly to develop a vaccine to prevent the killer virus from taking more lives.

These nimrods, dipsh***, know-nothings need to get a grip. They also need to keep their yappers shut.

Dr. Fauci has served every president going back to Ronald Reagan. He is a brilliant physician and researcher. He needs to be heard. Fauci does not need to be vilified by idiots.

national news

Trump’s empathy is MIA

I keep looking — foolishly, I’ll acknowledge — for some signal that Donald Trump actually feels the pain of those who are stricken by the COVID-19 virus.

I cannot find it. It’s nowhere. It’s missing in action.

The other morning I turned on “Good Morning America” and watched Trump being interviewed by ABC News anchor David Muir. Trump got the question from Muir: What do you want to say to the millions of Americans who are suffering from the pandemic?

Trump said, “I love you.” He said “no one feels worse” than he does about the suffering. Trump said he has lost sleep over it.

Then he pivoted rapidly to reopening the country. He wants to get the country’s economy restarted. He said, “By the same token,” he wants business to get cranked up, boasting to Muir about how the nation was enjoying the greatest economy in human history when the pandemic struck.

Thus, Trump cannot speak with any semblance of sincere empathy to the suffering that his own administration exacerbated by its initial non-response to the growing pandemic.

Instead, he speaks of jobs lost. Don’t misunderstand me: That is a huge deal, too. Then again, he appears incapable of speaking with compassion and empathy to those who have lost their income, who are struggling to pay the mortgage, the rent, the auto loan, student loan, to buy food and medicine. The Carnival Barker in Chief speaks only to the national economy, couching it in terms that play to his re-election chances.

I am acutely aware that no demonstration of empathy would fix matters; it won’t produce a cure for what ails us. All I want from any president in a time of crisis is an example that he cares about all of us, that he understands the misery that has been unleashed. If you’ll pardon the cliché, that he “feels our pain.”

This clown feels nothing. He needs to leave the White House.

Uncategorized

DOJ tosses out a guilty plea? What in the world?

3 Comments

I don’t think I misunderstand what has happened here.

Michael Flynn, who served for 24 days as Donald Trump’s national security adviser, lied to the FBI and Vice President Mike Pence about the Russian interference in our 2016 presidential election.

Then the retired Army lieutenant general pleaded guilty to charges brought by the FBI. He admitted to breaking the law!

Oh, but wait! Now the Department of Justice says Flynn’s admission of guilt is insufficient for him to be punished for committing a federal felony. So the DOJ declares it won’t prosecute Flynn.

I agree with what a friend of mine said on social media: Attorney General William Barr needs to be disbarred! This an absolute travesty of justice!

Barr’s rationale reportedly is that the lie that Flynn told the FBI and Pence wasn’t “material” to the Russia probe, which had been started by former FBI Director James Comey and continued by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Wasn’t this clown asked directly what he told Russian operatives about their attack on the election? Didn’t he then lie to the FBI and to Pence? And didn’t he then admit to lying?

This looks to me — and, yes, others — like a systematic dismantling of the Comey/Mueller probe into the Russian attack on our electoral system.

It’s not necessarily a done deal. The DOJ needs approval of its recommendation by the judge to whom Flynn entered his guilty plea. I don’t know what the judge will decide. My hope is that he tosses William Barr’s request aside and then chews the AG out for trying to circumvent justice.

Ridiculous.

media news

It’s getting too cruel, folks

3 Comments

Your friendly blogger — that would be me — believes it is time to level a complaint against a popular social medium … or more to the point, against the way some of my “friends” are using it.

I’ve given it away. I’m talking about Facebook.

In this Age of Donald Trump, I discovered long ago that many of his followers/cultists are using Facebook to launch attacks of amazing cruelty against those with whom they disagree. They get their cue from the Big Man his own self.

This is the guy who has mocked the physical appearance of his political foes and women who have accused him of sexual misbehavior; he has mocked a New York Times reporter’s physical challenges; he has denigrated the accent of his Alabama-born former attorney general. Accordingly, the Trumpsters out there have followed Trump’s lead and have sullied Facebook with hideous photos of those who have opposed the man who masquerades as the president of the United States.

I need to make a couple of points.

First, I have a number of Facebook “friends” who actually are friends of mine who fall into that category of Trump cultist. I even have some members of my family, individuals I love because they are family even though we disagree politically.

I have put some of them on notice, though, that if I see any future Facebook posts that trade on gratuitous cruelty, I will (a) delete the post from my news fee and (b) sever our Facebook connection.

I do not mind political disagreements in the least. I spent the vast bulk of my professional life dishing out opinions on newspaper editorial pages and taking plenty of heat and grief from those who disagree with what I had to say.

I damn sure do mind cruelty. I have sought to refrain from referencing a few of Donald Trump’s physical traits that have drawn barbs from others. I will disagree mightily with what Trump says and does, but I will not poke fun at matters that have nothing to do with public policy.

My second point is that fairness should require me to demand the same of anti-Trump individuals who post these social media messages and images that denigrate the president. Full disclosure: My bias gets in the way of fairness … and I regret that. My goal now is to look more critically at the hideous images that come to my Facebook feed.

I need to remind myself that I am better than the target of these attacks … even though he brings all of it onto himself.

medical news

Hoping we never lose our love for heroic responders

The world has been paying appropriate tribute of late to the heroes among us who save lives every day.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought our appreciation for those heroes to new levels. I want that appreciation to remain as intense as it is at this moment.

The media are full of stories of nurses, doctors, truck drivers, firefighters, neighbors, grocery store clerks, restaurant wait staffers — you name ’em — performing acts of kindness. Many of them are performing heroic acts in the face of exposure to a killer viral infection.

Moreover, the rest of us have found our voices of appreciation for all that we are getting. Those of us who found it awkward to offer a simple “thank you” no longer hide behind our shyness. We are speaking out. We are demonstrating our gratitude.

All of this, in my view, is one of the positive impacts of the pandemic. We are expressing ourselves in meaningful ways to those who serve us diligently even when we are not battling a silent but ruthless killer virus.

This crisis will end eventually. We’ll get back to what we hope will be a “normal life.” I happen to be one American who hopes the “new normal” will include our intense desire to express thanks to those who thrust themselves into harm’s way to protect the rest of us from harm.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 181: On the road again … finally!

LAKE MURRAY STATE PARK, Okla. — It took far longer than we wanted, but we finally pulled our fifth wheel out of storage.

We awoke the vehicle we nicknamed “Sally” from her winter of hibernation and arrived at a wonderful state park near Ardmore. We flushed the anti-freeze out of the plumbing and have enjoyed a brief respite from the housebound life in this era of the coronavirus pandemic.

To be sure, we are keeping our distance from our campsite neighbors. We holler at ’em from some distance, extend greetings and good wishes. We discovered that two of our neighbors right next door, a husband and wife, hail from Frisco, a mere chip shot away from us in Princeton.

Indeed, a key discovery I’ve made during our visit to this marvelous place is the enormous number of Texas license plates on the back of the RVs through the park. The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department remains closed to overnight campers, while opening only for day use. I reckon those other Texans skedaddled across the Red River to a state that hasn’t shut down its park system.

The Oklahoma state park system isn’t exactly wide open, though. If you travel into Oklahoma from a state such as, oh, New York or New Jersey — which have huge numbers of COVID-19 infection — then you will be quarantined for two weeks. Fortunately, we ventured just a little way and near as I can tell we’ll be able to hook up and head for the house in the morning.

It is good to get out of the house. It is good to come to a quiet place. It is good to relax and to prepare for the next stint of homebound living. A return to “normal” isn’t in the cards for us just yet, although this brief outing has been quite therapeutic.

national news, national security

DNI pick one of the ‘best people’? C’mon, man!

I cannot help but circle back to one of the many idiotic promises Donald Trump made while he campaigned for the presidency.

He kept telling us he would surround himself with the “best people” to help him protect us against our enemies and enact all manner of public policy.

The nominee to be our next director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, is so far from the “best people” category, it is laughable on its face. Still, he is likely to be confirmed by the Republican-led U.S. Senate.

Ratcliffe got the call to be the DNI in 2019. Then we learned he had fudged on his background. The East Texas congressman had little of the requisite national security experience on his record. He had instead a reputation of being a loyal Donald Trump sycophant, which he demonstrated amply during the impeachment hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives. That qualifies him for the job as the nation’s top spook. Ridiculous! Then he backed out of that earlier battle.

The previous DNI, Dan Coats, left office after disagreeing with Trump over, um, national security issues. Coats was one of the few grownups Trump picked at the beginning of his presidential term. He said the Russians attacked our electoral system in 2016, while Trump defended the Russians. Coats didn’t do what Trump demanded, so he was out.

Now comes Ratcliffe — again! Oh, brother!

Added to all of this are questions about whether Trump ignored the obvious national security threat posed by the coronavirus that has killed more than 70,000 Americans. He got the briefing that the virus posed an imminent threat in January. He looked the other way.

Would a DNI Ratcliffe have insisted Trump listen to the advice of the medical experts? Would a DNI Ratcliffe pitch a fit if Trump didn’t act more proactively earlier? Based on what I watched as Ratcliffe — along with other Republican lackeys on the House intelligence and judiciary committees — did to defend Trump against obvious high crimes, well, I doubt it … seriously!

Donald Trump’s version of the “best people” is going to get the sternest test imaginable if John Ratcliffe gets confirmed to become the next director of national intelligence.

We all should say a prayer for the nation.

media news

Hooray for community journalism!

Too often, it seems, when we ponder the term “community journalism,” we lapse into thinking of reporting on county fair farm animal competition or an outbreak of burglaries in the neighborhood.

However, the term always should include the kind of reporting and commentary that earns journalists the greatest prize their craft delivers for excellence.

So it is that the Palestine Herald-Press, a small East Texas newspaper, has won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. The award goes specifically to Jeffrey Gerritt, editor of the Herald-Press, who looked critically at a rash of deaths of inmates in the county jail.

The award makes me proud for Gerritt and for the work done far from major media markets by community journalists who work for small-town publications such as the Herald-Press.

Granted, Gerritt joins a long list of community journalists who do their job with dedication to their craft and who honor that craft with excellence.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/04/small-town-paper-makes-it-big-time/

I once worked for a newspaper, the Amarillo Globe-News, that won the Pulitzer for Meritorious Public Service in 1961 for the reporting of the late editor Tommy Thompson, who exposed corruption throughout county government. That prize, of course, pre-dated my time at the newspaper, but the paper’s legacy included that proud accomplishment.

Jeffrey Gerritt continues to further the cause of community journalism. As the Pulitzer board noted, Gerritt was awarded “For editorials that exposed how pre-trial inmates died horrific deaths in a small Texas county jail — reflecting a rising trend across the state — and courageously took on the local sheriff and judicial establishment, which tried to cover up these needless tragedies.”

That is how you deliver top-tier journalism to the community you serve.