Monthly Archives: May 2020

national news

Imagine — if you can — Donald Trump giving this speech

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OK, I just cannot resist the obvious temptation that I know has crossed the minds of many millions of Americans.

I just watched Barack H. Obama deliver the “virtual” commencement speech to the nation’s graduation high school Class of 2020. It was a marvelous — albeit brief — speech to graduating seniors.

The thought that crossed my mind? I am seeking to imagine the current president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, talking to these young Americans with the wisdom, the love and empathy that we heard from President Obama.

By all rights, given what has transpired in this nation over the course of the past two months, it should have been Donald Trump delivering this virtual commencement speech. It was on his watch that the global coronavirus pandemic shut down traditional commencement ceremonies at high schools all across the land.

But, no! We heard from Barack Obama, who stepped up to deliver a message of hope to our the next generation of leaders who now must make their way into an uncertain world.

Yes, he delivered the goods.

national news

Good news: This will be Trump’s final campaign!

Millions of us have been lamenting the presidency of Donald J. Trump since the moment he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017.

It’s been a serious downer damn near every step along the way. Here, though, is some news that might bring the hint of a smile to your puss. This upcoming election will be Trump’s final campaign for the presidency.

Yep, win or lose, this is it! The U.S. Constitution — despite Trump’s public ruminations to the contrary — sets in stone that presidents can be elected to just two full terms in office. The Imbecile in Chief managed to get elected to that first term in 2016. He wants a second term … over my strongest objection imaginable.

Joe Biden must defeat him. How that will occur remains a work in progress.

Might a defeated Donald Trump seek another public office? Oh, sure. I suppose he can do that. The presidency, though, appears to be out of the question if Joe Biden is able to do what I hope he is able to do on Election Day 2020.

Having revealed a snippet of cheer for us to ponder as we gird for this campaign, I also feel the need to remind us of what is about to unfold. If you thought the 2016 campaign for president was as low as it could get, well I want to tell you that 2020 is likely to make the Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton scrap resemble a Girl Scout cookie sale.

Donald Trump is as ruthless an individual as any of us have ever witnessed in public life. He has no conscience, which means he lies without understanding the consequence he might suffer. He doesn’t care. He is not equipped with an ounce of shame.

So when he accuses Biden of committing crimes while serving as vice president during the Barack Obama administration, he does so blindly and with no thought to the defamatory nature of what flies out of his mouth. He will do the same thing with President Obama, just as he did for years fomenting the “birther” lie that Obama was not qualified to run for president.

We need to get ready for what is to come. The good news is that this will be the final time we’ll have to listen to this idiot’s campaign pitch. The best news will occur if Joe Biden emerges victorious from the campaign carnage that will ensue.

national news

You want major national change? Try this!

Mom and Dad saw the world change in front of them when we went to war against international tyranny. We emerged victorious from that world war and took our place as the world’s colossus … and the world changed forever.

Then came 9/11, when those terrorists flew jetliners into office towers and into the Pentagon. The nation went to war again against the monsters who sponsored those madmen. The nation is still fighting that war … and, yes, the world changed once again forever.

The world went through fundamental change in the 20th and 21st centuries because of senseless acts of violence brought to us.

Now we’re entering another fundamental change brought to the world by an “enemy” no one saw coming until it was too late. The world likely is going to change in ways we cannot even foretell now as we seek to stem the attack brought to us by the coronavirus pandemic.

Our world will change culturally, with no arena sports to cheer from grandstands packed with fans like you and me. Our interpersonal behavior will change. We’ll be far more cognizant of personal hygiene.

Think of this for a just a brief moment. Our government has enacted certain restrictions on our behavior. We must not gather in large crowds. We dare not venture into public places without wearing face masks. We pack sanitized wipes, little bottles of alcohol-based cleanser. We maintain what we now know colloquially as “social distancing” from those we meet.

We shouldn’t shake a stranger’s hand. We shouldn’t even embrace friends we haven’t seen in good while. Oh, sure, we aren’t prohibited by law from doing these things. It just is patently unwise given the nature of the COVID-19 virus that attacks even the heretofore perfectly healthy among us.

Therein lies the change that awaits us as we continue this struggle against the pandemic. My rumbling gut tells me we’re likely going to change forever … yet again.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/12/the-world-changed-75-years-ago/

State news

Time to re-impose restrictions in Texas?

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What the hell?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a reopening strategy for Texas business in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. What, then, is one of the results? A spike in COVID-19 infection throughout the state!

Texas beaches have reopened. Texas business has restarted, with limited capacity mandated by the governor. People are getting haircuts and getting their manicures, pedicures and other cosmetic enhancements.

Texans also are getting more exposed to the viral infection at an alarmingly increasing rate.

A lot of us have expressed concern about this decision to reopen the state. I had some hope that Abbott would make good on his pledge to rely on “data and the doctors” to make decisions relating to this reopening matter. Maybe he has, but the data and the docs might have misjudged the result.

As ABC News reports, the Texas infection spike hasn’t resulted in a total that rivals what has happened in New York, but clearly the infection rate has not yet “flattened out.”

This makes me ask: Should the governor re-impose the restrictions he put out when the pandemic took root in Texas and around the world?

Whatever he decides, know this: Yours truly isn’t changing a thing. We are going to keep sheltering in place.

You also may take this to the bank … if you dare venture out: This trend makes a mockery of Donald Trump’s assertion that we’ve turned the corner on the pandemic.

The disease is still winning this war against humanity.

State news

Partisan justice is at work

Judicial rulings aren’t supposed to be tainted by partisan considerations, which is what the founders sought when they created an independent judicial branch of the federal government.

Then we have states such as Texas, which elects its judges on partisan ballots. You have to be either a Democrat or a Republican to run for a spot on any court in the state. That includes the state’s highest civil court of appeals, the Supreme Court.

So what does the all-GOP Supreme Court do? It halts any expansion of mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic. Texas Democrats want to ensure that more — not fewer — Texans vote in this year’s presidential election. They want the state to institute mail-in voting to allow greater participation among the state’s estimated 15 million eligible voters.

That’s a non-starter for Texas Republicans — and apparently their allies on the Texas Supreme Court. They have reeled in the reddest of herrings by alleging that all-mail-in voting invites rampant voter fraud.

No. It does nothing of the sort … provided that county election officials do their due diligence to ensure that every ballot cast is done by a legitimately registered voter.

My version of political perfection would rely solely on Election Day balloting. However, we cannot have everything we want. The pandemic has made polling-place voting a potentially life-threatening event, which is why mail-in voting is beginning to appeal more to me.

As for voter fraud, well, that is the serious non-starter. Five states have all-mail voting already. They all report without reservation that the incidents of fraudulent voting are rare. There is no such thing in any of those states of “rampant” voter fraud. Why is that? Because election officials take their tasks seriously and they all swear an oath to protect the sanctity of their political institutions.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argues that voter fraud is a major concern for him. Baloney! Paxton’s major concern is whether he is doing the bidding of Donald Trump, who has led the phony chorus of claims of voter fraud. He has actually griped out loud that mail-in voting would doom Republicans’ electoral chances in the future. Aww. Cry me a river.

“Among the State’s highest and most profound interests is protecting the integrity of its elections,” Paxton wrote. “To advance that interest, the … Legislature requires almost every voter to vote by personal appearance at a designated polling place, where trained poll workers confirm the voter’s identity before issuing him a ballot.”

I get that. Really. I do. However, mail-in voting as it has been done in a handful of states is just as secure as it is when it’s done the old-fashioned way.

The Supreme Court is going to hear oral arguments next week. Then it will make a final decision. Anyone want to bet how the all-GOP Supreme Court is going to go on that one?

medical news

What? Mitch says he’s wrong?

I guess hell can freeze over on occasion.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has admitted to speaking incorrectly about an issue involving former President Obama.

McConnell said erroneously that the Obama administration didn’t leave the Donald Trump administration with a pandemic response action plan.

D’oh! Turns out the former president did leave a 69-page playbook for the Trump team to use in case a pandemic were to erupt. “I was wrong,” McConnell said in a Fox News interview.

Now, it turns out that the Trump team didn’t look at it. I guess it had something to do with Barack Obama’s name on it, which I am going to presume made Donald Trump go berserk, given his irrational envy of anything associated with President Obama.

Well, it’s good to know that even the mighty Mitch McConnell can admit to making a mistake. Do not expect anything of the sort coming from Donald John Trump.

local news

City does the right thing for its cops, firefighters

Farmersville Police Chief Michael Sullivan has been protecting and serving the public for 34 years while working for various police agencies throughout North Texas.

He told the City Council this week that he — along with all of his police colleagues — knew when they became cops that they were going to do “dangerous” work. “We didn’t sign on to handle a pandemic,” Sullivan said.

So it was this week when the Farmersville City Council extended its hazardous pay ordinance for the city’s police officers and its two paid firefighting staffers; the Farmersville Fire Department is an all-volunteer force led by Fire Chief Kim Morris and Assistant Fire Chief Kevin Lisman.

The City Council took what I have been led to believe is an unusual step in providing extra pay for police and firefighters during this coronavirus pandemic. The city was able to obtain a portion of grant funds obtained by Collin County, which then distributed about $168,000 to Farmersville that the city will use to pay the cops and firefighters the hazardous duty pay.

The city has stepped up and is standing behind the personnel it asks to stand in harm’s way, which they do no matter whether they are battling the pandemic.

Farmersville, on the far eastern edge of Collin County, has set an interesting example that other cities ought to emulate.

Police officers and firefighters are exposing themselves to potentially deadly infection when they answer calls for help in the community. Sullivan said the police department has plenty of personal protection equipment on hand. He said the cops take each other’s temperatures at the beginning and end of every shift. They seek to protect themselves to the max against the viral infection.

Still, the increased danger exists … even as police and firefighters face potentially imminent danger with every call they answer.

Other communities ought to follow suit.

national news

Trump’s irony just keeps building

Donald Trump’s political career is rich with the grandest examples of irony I ever have witnessed.

He ran for president in 2016 as a “populist.” By definition, a populist purports to stand with the down and out, seeking to disempower the rich and powerful, to hand more power to the “little guy.” The “little guys” out there loved hearing it.

He ran on that platform while living in the most luxurious environments one can imagine. He had Mar-a-Lago in Florida, Trump Tower in Manhattan, Bedminster in New Jersey. When he went home at night he damn sure didn’t hang out with the folks for whom he purportedly spoke.

They have hung with him throughout the man’s presidency.

Now, leave it to none other than shock-jock Howard Stern to put it all into amazing perspective. I don’t listen routinely to Stern, although I know a little bit about him. One thing I know is that he and Trump used to hang together.

Then Stern tossed the proverbial live grenade straight at Trump. He said Trump “hates the people who love him.” The dispossessed. The down and out. Those who think the world hates them. These folks, according to Stern, are the “losers” Trump keeps denigrating.

Trump sees the world comprising winners and losers. He loves winners and detests losers. The way I understand Trump’s definition of “loser,” many of the folks who comprise The Donald’s “base of supporters” fall directly into that category.

Therefore, we have the richest of ironies imaginable.

I suppose that the only way to top that irony is for Donald Trump to hoodwink enough voters on Election Day 2020 to send him back for another four years as president.

Howard Stern knows of which he speaks when it regards Donald Trump. He and Trump are both natives of Queens, N.Y. They used to hobnob among the same crowd of beautiful people.

So, when Stern says that Trump despises those who love him, those who hang on his every word, who voted for him because he spoke their language, he delivers what I consider to be a message that rings true to my ears.

The irony must end on Election Day.

national news

How stirring, Mr. POTUS

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook, so I thought I would share it here.

This message comes to us from the 45th president of the United States, Donald John Trump. They just make you want to stand up and cheer … don’t they? Well, no!

  • President Abraham Lincoln stirred us in 1865 at his second presidential inaugural when he declared “with malice toward none and charity for all” he would seek to heal the wounds inflicted by the Civil War.
  • President Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president and in 1933 told us during the Great Depression that “the only thing we have to fear is … fear itself.”
  • President John F. Kennedy stood before the nation in 1961 and implored us to serve our country, that we should “ask not what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country.”
  • President Ronald Reagan stood at the Berlin Wall in 1987 and demanded that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, if he intended to work toward creating a better world, to “tear down this wall.”

This president has reduced such soaring rhetoric to utter nonsense such as what he said this week about whether testing for the COVID-19 virus was helpful in stemming the rate of infection by the worldwide pandemic.

Yep, this is what we got when we elected this clown.

I am shaking my head in disgust.

local news

GOP looking for another Trump toadie

BLOGGER’S NOTE: This blog was published originally on KETR.org, the website for KETR-FM public radio based at Texas A&M/Commerce.

John Ratcliffe is likely to be confirmed as the nation’s next director of national intelligence.

How and why that will happen is a mystery to me, given that he was nominated to the post in 2019 but then pulled out when questions arose about his resume, his background and intelligence-gathering credentials. I don’t believe Ratcliffe is any more qualified now to become DNI than he was a year ago … but that’s out of my control.

Meanwhile, the Fourth Congressional District of Northeast Texas that Ratcliffe represents needs to find a successor to Donald Trump’s fiery defender.

Republican activists have set an Aug. 8 election to select a successor. They have their favorites in mind.

The Fourth Congressional District is a reliably Republican stronghold. I am fascinated by that factoid, given that the district once was represented by the late, great House Speaker Sam Rayburn, the legendary Texas Democrat who mentored many members of Congress from this state, including one of them who later became president of the United States … a guy named Lyndon Baines Johnson.

That was then. The here and now suggests that the next member of Congress from this district will be a Donald Trump loyalist. The three favorites to succeed Ratcliffe, according to the Texas Tribune, are:

Jason Ross, Ratcliffe’s former district chief of staff who is campaigning on continuing in Ratcliffe’s footsteps, promising to “stay the course with a principled conservative and proven leader.”

Floyd McLendon, the runner-up in the March primary for the Dallas-based 32nd Congressional District. McLendon, a former Navy SEAL, finished behind Genevieve Collins, who narrowly won outright in the five-way primary, capturing the nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, a national GOP target.

A third candidate is TC Manning, a Navy veteran who unsuccessfully ran in the March primary for the Houston-based 18th Congressional District.

Here is my major takeaway, though, from the Tribune’s reporting on these candidates. Two of the three top individuals are, dare I say it, “carpetbaggers.” McLendon and Manning ran in districts a good distance from the Fourth Congressional District. So they have decided that with an opening about to occur in Northeast Texas, they must figure it’s time to jump into the fray in a district where they might – or might not – have any knowledge of its specific needs.

Unless, of course, the prevailing “qualification” for service in this GOP bastion is a candidate’s commitment to Donald John Trump.