Monthly Archives: June 2020

medical news, State news

Just the bars, governor?

“If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would have been to slow down the opening of bars, now seeing in the aftermath of how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting.”

So said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott about the state’s plan to jump start the economy that had been shut down by the coronavirus pandemic.

Well, I have another regret or two for Abbott to consider.

He shouldn’t have allowed beaches to reopen fully in the manner he allowed, either. You’ve seen the pictures from South Padre Island, or from Mustang Island, or from Galveston. Texans were packed on the beach, declining or just plain forgetting to observe “social distancing.”

Doesn’t that bother the governor as well? If not, it should.

I get that Abbott regrets the opening of bars. He has shut them down a second time in selected large Texas counties. He ought to expand the executive order to include bars in all of Texas’ 254 counties.

The state has botched its reopening strategy. Counties are seeking guidance from the governor. Now his message is becoming practically as jumbled as the mangled messages coming from the Donald Trump administration.

Texas now is staking claim to a standing it clearly doesn’t want: No. 1 state in the country in the rate of infection from COVID-19.

We’re paying Gov. Abbott the big bucks to make tough decisions. At this stage of the crisis, though, they’re all difficult. Shutting down bars clearly qualifies as one that gives Abbott heartburn. An upset stomach and a bit of pain in the gut is the price he has to pay for making a mess of the pandemic response.

national news

We need compassion, empathy from Oval Office

I’ve given you a wish list of things I hope a President Joe Biden would do were he to take office next January … but I have one more item to add.

We have witnessed a president who is fully incapable of expressing genuine, sincere empathy and sadness over the plight of Americans and Lord knows we have endured plenty of tragedy during Donald Trump’s tenure in office.

The pandemic. Repeated gun violence. The deaths of African-Americans at the hands of rogue cops. Natural disasters, such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

Where in the name of humanity has the compassion gone from the office of president? Donald Trump is incapable of exhibiting it.

I want the next president – and I do hope it is Joseph R. Biden Jr. – to return empathy to the office. I want the next president to lead a nation that is suffering.

Joe Biden isn’t uniquely qualified to offer such compassion and empathy. I mean, many of us have experienced tragedy in our lives. Donald Trump, for heaven’s sake, lost a brother to alcohol abuse, so he, too, has suffered grievous loss. Trump, though, just isn’t wired to convey that grief into meaningful and authentic mourning on behalf of others.

Biden, though, has gone through hell. His first wife and daughter died in a tragic automobile accident in 1972; his two sons were seriously injured. Young Joe had just been elected to the U.S. Senate and he considered giving it up to care for his sons. He decided to stay in office. He endured loss and powered through it, raising his sons as a single dad … until he met the next love of his life, Jill, who – as Biden has said – “saved our life.”

Then his older son Beau became ill with cancer. He would die and then force the vice president to bury a second child. As has been said many times already, that is a parent’s worst nightmare.

I want a president who is able to convey that loss in a way that translates across the land. The nation is hurting. Illness is sickening and killing too many of us. I want a president who’s been tested by intense grief and has learned the lessons of how to cope, to survive and to seek restoration of his own human spirit.

A president of the United States can use that knowledge to lead a nation out of its collective grief.

national news

Here’s a wish list for you, Joe Biden

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

I have spent a lot of blog space griping about Donald John Trump.

I now want to devote a bit of forward-looking energy to what I expect from the individual I hope sends Trump packing after the November presidential election.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.? Listen up. I am talking to you.

I want the former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to do a number of things the moment he takes the oath of office next January.

I want Biden to make good on his pledge to issue an immediate executive order restoring the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals for U.S. residents who came here as children when their parents smuggled them into the country illegally. DACA residents do not deserve to be rounded up and sent to the country of their birth. They know only the U.S. of A. Many of them built productive lives as de facto Americans. Yes, they need to legalize their status. A President Biden should give them the chance to do so without fear of deportation.

I also want Biden to restore the U.S. role in the Iran de-nuclearization agreement hammered out by President Obama and other allied nations. Donald Trump pulled us out of that agreement, paving the way for Iran to proceed with its ghastly nuclear ambitions.

Speaking of nukes, I hope Biden re-states this nation’s intense desire to assure that North Korea ends its own nuclear ambition. I want an end to ridiculous talk from the Oval Office about a “love affair” between the president and North Korean murderer/strongman Kim Jong Un.

Joe Biden needs to restore our international alliances. I want the former VP to return to the Paris Climate Accord; I want Biden to dial down the anti-NATO volume and assure our Western European allies that the nation recognizes the immense value of the world’s most important military alliance. Donald Trump’s threats to de-fund NATO only embolden the Russians.

Speaking of Russia, I want Joe Biden to lay down in plain language that even Vladimir Putin understands: Do not interfere with our electoral process; if you do you will face intense economic sanction by the world’s greatest economic power. He also should remind Putin that Russia’s standing as a third-rate economic power does not entitle it to have a seat at the negotiating table occupied by the world’s industrialized nations.

I want Joe Biden to restore environmental regulations that incentivize the development of alternative energy sources to augment the nation’s already immense fossil-fuel development.

And I want Joe Biden to speak to the entire nation at once. No more of the divisive rhetoric that keeps spewing forth from White House.

It’s a full plate, Mr. VP. You’ve been involved with government for a long time. You can do this.

local news, medical news

Judge tells it straight: Knock off the gripes about masks

“I wear a mask not because I am afraid but because it is one way of showing that I care about my neighbors. There is a lot we don’t know about COVID-19, but all the evidence suggests that wearing a mask helps to prevent the spread of the virus.”

That is the comment of a smart man, an elected official in Texas, who is fed up with the griping about orders to wear face masks to combat the COVID-19 virus.

I refer to Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick, a lawyer who understands that health value should override convenience and comfort.

Branick is following the lead established by Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the health experts who have joined Donald Trump’s coronavirus pandemic White House response team. Fauci said this week that Americans have to become “part of the process” that officials hope will eliminate the pandemic, hopefully sooner rather than later.

I happen to agree with Judge Branick. As the Beaumont Enterprise reported: In a strongly worded open letter to the community, he acknowledged that he expected some pushback when he announced the new ordinance on Tuesday. “What I didn’t expect was the level of pure hatred and profanity laden messages that would make a sailor blush,” he wrote. 

I hope the open letter that Branick issued is taken to heart, taken seriously and that Texans who read it or hear about it understand that mask-wearing mandates aren’t intended to deal with people’s comfort or convenience. They are intended to protect human lives. What in the name of medical caution is wrong with that?

national news

‘Most corrupt election in history?’ Really, Mr. POTUS?

Donald J. “Tweeter in Chief” Trump has made a ridiculous prediction, which of course isn’t all that unusual.

He says the 2020 presidential election will be the “most corrupt” in U.S. history.

There you have it. Does the imbecile masquerading as president offer a scintilla of evidence to back up his allegation? Of course not! He just tweets this idiocy out there.

Donald Trump is running a campaign of division, of anger, of suspicion. This is the guy who promised to “unify” the nation after the 2016 campaign, which was pretty damn divisive. He never even tried to unify anything or anyone. As former Defense Secretary James Mattis noted, Trump’s aim is to divide the nation.

So now he campaigns for re-election by issuing blind threats of corrupt election results.

I only am presuming that he is going to issue the corruption charge if former Vice President Joe Biden manages to win the election in November. If hell freezes over and Trump wins, well, my strong hunch is that he won’t say a word about “corruption” or “fraudulent voting” or “phony ballot counts.”

What is most disturbing about Trump’s latest allegation about ballot “corruption” is the absolute absence of any evidence. That is Donald Trump’s modus operandi. He blurts out these allegations, giving his base reason to cheer his nonsense; the allegations grow legs and somehow keep circulating, casting doubt over a process where none should exist. I should add that in the process Trump casts aspersions on the dedicated county and local election officials who toil to preserve the integrity of our electoral process.

Indeed, the only “corruption” I can see will occur when the Russians, the Chinese or some other hostile foreign power attacks our process as the Russians did in 2016.

If this is the best that Donald Trump can do to persuade voters to return him to office for another four years, then I submit we have an incumbent president with no plan for the future, no constructive agenda, no sense of how he intends to lead the nation or where he wants to lead us.

What’s more, if enough American voters are foolish or stupid enough to buy into this idiot’s shtick to re-elect him, then our revered system of government is far more seriously damaged than any of us ever imagined.

local news

Happy Trails, Part 183: Sweat triggers early Texas memories

ATLANTA STATE PARK, Texas – A jaunt to this lush Piney Woods forest with our fifth wheel in tow triggered some memories for me.

Our family’s Texas journey began not terribly far from this corner of the massive state. I took a job in Beaumont, which is a bit — about 335 miles — due south along the Texas-Louisiana border, in March 1984. My family joined me in the Golden Triangle later that summer.

We learned quickly to become climatized to the intense heat and humidity in Southeast Texas. Our boys graduated from high school in the early 1990s. In January 1995, I took another job way up yonder in Amarillo. My wife and I moved there and spent the next 23 years enjoying gorgeous sunrises and sunsets and getting acclimated to the distinctly different weather patterns presented along the High Plains. We can attest to the truth of the saying that one can see all four seasons of the year in a single day in Amarillo.

The journey made its final stop in 2018 when we moved to Collin County.

I tend to reminisce when we return to regions with which we have some familiarity. I did so when we pulled into Atlanta State Park.

It’s the tall pines jutting out of the thicket of broad-leaf trees and assorted greenery. Then we had the downpour, followed by rising steam and, oh yeah … the humidity!

We have lived in Texas for most of our lives; that would be 36 years for me, as I am 70 … while my wife is a bit younger than I am. We’ve enjoyed the warm Gulf of Mexico water, the Big Thicket and jaunts to cities such as Houston and New Orleans; we took our belongings to the Panhandle, where we marveled at Palo Duro Canyon and watched a tornado develop less than a mile from our house in the southwest corner of Amarillo. We now are getting used to our new digs in Princeton and enjoying additional time with our precious granddaughter.

This retirement sojourn, though, does take us back to sweaty regions that remind me of what we endured way back when we were much younger and decided to pursue a new life in a part of the world we barely knew.

I remember it as if it just happened.

medical news

Partisan divide involves wearing of masks

I never in a zillion years would have imagine mask-wearing becoming a political wedge issue, something to divide Americans along partisan lines.

Who knew?

The world is caught in the grip of a pandemic that has killed 125,000 Americans. More of us are going to die and many more than that are going to get sick. Medical experts advising Donald Trump keep telling us to wear surgical masks to protect ourselves and, more importantly, others around us.

Still, Republicans have lined up on the side that hates the masks. Democrats line up against them, saying that masks are necessary to help keep us safe.

No flash here, but I am siding with Democrats.

However, the issue for my wife and me isn’t that Democrats favor wearing masks. The issue rests squarely on the effectiveness of mask-wearing. I believe Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, two of the infectious disease gurus advising Donald Trump, who tell us masks are an essential part of the overall strategy to fight COVID-19.

The nimrods out there who side with Donald Trump aren’t having it. They say they don’t care about the risks to themselves. What about the risk to others? What the hell kind of message are they sending to the rest of the nation? That they don’t care about anyone else, either?

The upshot of this, I suppose, is that it speaks directly and distinctly to the hideous political divide that has infected so much of our life these days … even those matters that should remain way above and beyond partisan politics.

national news

Trump = law and order? Bwahahaha!

When I hear Donald J. “Criminal in Chief” Trump proclaim himself to be the “law and order president,” I cannot stop thinking of all the individuals who helped elect him and who served in the government who are, um, fighting to stay out of prison … or who actually are serving prison terms.

He channels another crooked president, Richard Nixon, who made many of the same proclamations while running for president in 1968 and again in 1972. It didn’t work out well for President Nixon, whose attorney general went to prison along with his chief of staff, chief domestic policy adviser and an assortment of campaign flunkies. Nixon, of course, quit the presidency just as the House of Representatives was preparing to impeach him. The Senate was sure to convict him as well of obstruction of justice and abuse of power. So the president, cutting his losses, high-tailed it to San Clemente, Calif.

So, I guess Trump is channeling Nixon, all right. You see, he is facing the same sorry outcome for his various minions, too. Yet he continues to declare he is going to bring “law … and order” to America “right here and right now.” Give me a break, dude.

I actually am believing that Donald Trump is outperforming Richard Nixon in the Crooked Presidency Sweepstakes. Good grief, I have lost count of the criminal indictments that have landed in the laps of Trump toadies. Some of them have resulted in guilty pleas and prison time.

So, when Donald Trump makes his “law and order” declarations, I am inclined to suppress derisive laughter. Except that it isn’t funny. The presidential imposter is a disgrace to the office he occupies.

medical news

Terminate ACA … now? Heartless!

Is it possible that there is a more heartless, inhumane or incompetent governmental administration than the one that runs the executive branch of the United States government? I have trouble thinking of one.

The Donald Trump administration, which is losing its fight against the coronavirus pandemic, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to toss out the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

Think of the ramifications here. Donald “The Imbecile in Chief” Trump has no replacement lined up to succeed the ACA, the legislation that has brought tens of millions of Americans into the realm of those covered by health insurance. Dismantling the ACA would push about 20 million Americans back into the world of the uninsured. Meanwhile, the nation is fighting the pandemic and, to my eyes, is losing the fight.

This is just one more example of Donald Trump seeking to eliminate all vestiges of his immediate presidential predecessor, Barack H. Obama. The reasons why remain somewhat of a mystery to me, except that Trump simply cannot stomach the notion of the country’s first African-American president accomplishing anything of significance.

This is yet again a fundamental demonstration of Trump’s petulance.

Why in the world he continues to insist that the ACA is a “failure” is another mystery to me. Is the ACA perfect? No, it isn’t. However, President Obama has said many times during his time in office and afterward that he would welcome changes to improve the standing law. That doesn’t fly with Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans.

And now he is asking the high court to strip away the ACA while the nation is engaging in this fight against an “invisible enemy” that is sickening and killing thousands of Americans every day.

Reprehensible!

medical news, national news

Pence continues the Trump lie about COVID-19 fight

Vice President Mike Pence stood before the nation … and lied through his pearly whites.

It was edifying and instructive that he had some medical experts on the podium with him to set the record straight about the condition of the nation that is fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Pence – filling in for the Liar in Chief – had the brass to tell us the pandemic is under control, that states have corralled the killer virus, “thanks to the leadership” of Donald J. Trump. It was the first “briefing” from the coronavirus task force in two months and to be candid we didn’t need to hear the nonsense that Pence spewed forth.

He uttered the lie on the same day that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order shutting down bars, ordering restaurants to operate at 50 percent of capacity and pushing local authorities to insist on stricter enforcement of social distancing. That’s how Pence defines “under control”?

Meanwhile, Drs. Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx and Robert Redfield – the nation’s top medical pros fighting this pandemic – had to the good sense to issue much more dire warnings about what lurks ahead of us. They didn’t contradict Pence directly, but they certainly cast the peril in more, um, accurate terms … at least the way I see the trend developing.

I was struck, too, by the vapid response Pence gave to reporters who asked him to explain how Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla. – which went forward with thousands of Trumpkins sitting shoulder to shoulder without face masks – isn’t contributing to the spike in infection we are seeing. His answer? The people’s right to assemble peaceably “is enshrined in the Constitution” and “we have an election coming up.” He said that medical emergencies do not negate people’s civil liberties. Well, actually they should if people’s very lives are endangered by irresponsible behavior at campaign rallies.

So, the charade continues, even without the Carnival Barker in Chief. His No. 1 sycophant showed once again that he is fully capable of parroting Donald Trump’s lies.

Shameful.