Monthly Archives: July 2020

local news

One more point about The Carpetbagger

I received an email from a longtime friend and former colleague who wanted to add a thought about Ronny Jackson, the Republican congressional nominee who wants to succeed Mac Thornberry in the 13th Congressional District.

My friend, who shall remain anonymous, made a point that I didn’t make in a blog item I posted earlier today. He writes:

Where Jackson permanently lost me was on a tweet a few months ago. The Obama admin hired him as one of his physicians. They gave him a chance. They said some very nice things about him and it was probably instrumental in that he was kept on by Trump.  Despite all of that, he had a tweet that ripped Obama for the absurd spy scandal, and said he was part of the “Deep State.” That didn’t speak well of his character, and just showed me, like Trump, who he worships, he will say anything.

The point my friend made essentially is that Jackson is a member of the Trumpkin Corps. He slobbers all over Donald Trump’s shoes. He trots out the Deep State canard that plays so well within the Trump base of lemmings, er, followers.

What is so terribly troubling to me is that many of my friends who live in the Texas Panhandle — people with whom I have developed wonderful friendships — are going to buy into the claptrap bullsh** that Trump tries to peddle. One of the dire consequences of that blind loyalty is that their interests in Congress will be looked after by a guy — Ronny Jackson — who doesn’t have a clue about the district he likely will be elected to represent.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2020/07/get-ready-for-another-texas-nut-job-in-congress/

local news

Get ready for another Texas nut job in Congress

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Oh, I hate to say this but it’s got to be said: The Texas Panhandle is likely to send a nut job to Congress to represent them and, ostensibly, their interests.

Thirteenth Congressional District Republicans this week nominated Dr. Ronny Jackson to run for the seat being vacated by longtime GOP U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry. What makes this upcoming contest so fascinating to me — a former 13th District resident — is that Jackson knows next to nothing about the district he likely will be elected to represent. I mean, he’s never lived there … until just in time to run for the House.

Jackson was born in Levelland. He joined the Navy, became a doctor, rose to thank of rear admiral, tended to two U.S. presidents — Barack Obama and Donald Trump — and then retired from the Navy after Trump sought to have him become the secretary of veterans affairs. The nomination didn’t go well. It turns out Jackson has no administrative experience and he also allegedly got caught prescribing drugs in a rather cavalier fashion.

He pulled out of the running for the VA job.  He sought a safe Republican seat and found one in the Texas Panhandle. Thornberry announced he wouldn’t seek a new term and in jumped Admiral/Dr.  Jackson.

He’ll run against the Democrats’ latest sacrificial lamb, Gus Trujillo, who beat a friend of mine, Greg Sagan, in this week’s Democratic runoff.

Now, though, it gets even more interesting. Dr. Jackson says face mask wearing should be an individual choice and has downplayed the importance of face masks in the wake of the COVID crisis that is killing Texans every single day.

I am quite certain that Ronny Jackson’s lunacy quotient doesn’t measure up to that of the guy who nominated him to be VA secretary … but statements like the one he issued about face masks make me wonder.

Texas has elected too many wackos to Congress over the years. The nuttiest of them all is Louie Gohmert, the East Texas birther conspiracist; a close second might be John Ratcliffe, the former Northeast Texas House member who happens to be the current director of national intelligence.

Step aside, gentlemen. You’re about to be joined by a medical doctor/carpetbagger who well could put your wackiness to shame.

national news

Sad for Sessions’ political demise? Hardly, however …

I would be saddened by Jeff Sessions’ loss this week in the race for the U.S. Senate were it not for the fact that I detest virtually his entire political record.

Then again, there’s an element to Sessions’ defeat in the Republican primary in Alabama that does make me a bit, um, chagrined.

Sessions once served in the Senate. He was the first senator to endorse Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy. He is partly responsible for Trump’s election in 2016 to the presidency. Trump appointed him attorney general.

Then he did what Trump wanted him to do. He enforced the separation of children from their parents who tried to enter the nation illegally. He endorsed the president’s call to end protections for undocumented immigrants who came here as children. Indeed, this former senator’s record is replete with efforts to dial back civil rights reforms. He is a throwback to the stereotypical white Southern politician. Sessions was Trump’s guy at Justice.

Then the AG did the unthinkable in the Lawbreaker in Chief’s world: He followed the law by recusing himself from DOJ’s investigation into allegations that Russia attacked our electoral system. His recusal resulted in the hiring of Robert Mueller as special counsel.

Sessions then managed to incur the rage of the man who once hailed him as a legal champion. Donald Trump demanded the AG show him blind loyalty. Sessions said he can’t do that. The law required him to recuse himself, as he couldn’t investigate a campaign in which he was a key player.

Trump was having none of it. He sought to humiliate Sessions. He ranted and raged against him via Twitter. Trump has declared that hiring Sessions as AG was the biggest mistake he has made as president. He fired Sessions, who then ran for his former Senate seat. On Tuesday, Sessions lost the Republican Party runoff to former Auburn University head football coach Tommy Tuberville, who Trump endorsed over Sessions.

It’s apparently over for Sessions. He won’t run for political office again. It’s not that I will miss this man’s contributions to public policy. However, I am chagrined that the single noble act he performed resulted in a form of political triumph for an imbecile — Donald Trump — who refuses to accept the reality that Jeff Sessions understood the boundaries he could not cross.

national news

You have to watch it to believe it

I am not going to buy into the half-baked notion that Donald Trump is losing his marbles, much like the bullsh** that Trump’s team is peddling against Joe Biden, his presumptive Democratic Party opponent this fall.

Still, when you watch Donald Trump stand before reporters in front of the White House and then listen to his incoherent and incomprehensible riff about this and that, you start to wonder whether the president of the United States is afraid of losing.

I am sensing a serious fear factor weighing on Trump.

I see poll after poll suggest Biden is pulling farther ahead. I am not taking them to the bank just yet. You need to remember that President Hillary Clinton and President Michael Dukakis enjoyed wide margins against their foes in 2016 and in 1988; it didn’t work out well for them.

However, when you watch Trump make virtually no mention of the pandemic that has gripped the world and then launch into a campaign-rally riff at the White House, well … you get the picture, yes?

What’s even more amazing is how little connection all the myriad points he seeks to make have to each other. It all becomes a stream-of-consciousness tirade.

He boasts about what a great job his administration is doing to fight the pandemic, ignoring the 136,000 individuals in this country who have died from COVID-19. A nation with 4 percent of the world’s population has recorded 25 percent of the COVID infections and about the same percentage of deaths from the disease. That is success? Really?

Well, the campaign has begun. No need to wait for the traditional Labor Day kickoff. Trump is in full re-election campaign mode. Joe Biden is ramping up his effort to unseat Trump.

I will remain puzzled and baffled no doubt to the end, though, wondering how in the world Donald Trump can cling to the base of supporters who listen to the same nonsense that flows from this clown’s mouth that I hear.

They hear the Gospel according to The Donald.

I hear so much crap.

Go figure.

national news

Is this kind of transition possible?

I invite you to spend the next three or so minutes of your time watching the video I have attached to this blog post.

Then I want to invite you to imagine Donald John Trump issuing the same kind of statement to the individual who will succeed him as president of the United States.

Oh, how I want it to be Joseph R. Biden Jr., who will face Trump in this year’s presidential election. If it’s not, then we’ll get to wait until November 2024 — and, yes, I shudder at that thought — to hear Donald Trump begin to hand over power to the next president.

I just thought I would post this video to show you how a president is supposed to conduct himself when he prepares to leave the White House in the hands of someone he no doubt opposed philosophically, but who won a fair-and-square free election.

I do not expect this kind of grace from Donald Trump.

While I’m on the subject, take a look at the next video. It’s a bit longer but it depicts President Obama talking about Donald Trump’s election in 2016.

What you see in this video, as in the first one, is an example of a president calling the nation to put its differences aside, to wish the new president success and to assure a smooth transition.

Once again, just try to imagine Donald Trump offering this to the individual who will succeed him.

medical news

It’s official: Pence has flown off the rails

Man, I long thought of Vice President Mike Pence as a serious public official. After all, he served in Congress and as governor of Indiana.

Then he took on a job that requires him to slobber all over the guy who selected him. He is now vice president of the United States in a government led by Donald John “Loyalty Demander in Chief” Trump.

So, what did Pence say that persuades me that he has flown off the rails, has become certifiably loony, has swilled one or two too many helpings of the Kool-Aid that Trump dispenses within the White House?

Pence said we should ignore the guidelines established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that suggest how schools could reopen their classrooms to students and teachers.

Yep, the VP said it. In public. In front of reporters. For all the world to hear. Goodness, I think the man has gone bonkers.

The CDC is trying desperately to inform the public about how to respond to the pandemic that continues to strangle the nation. It also continues to sicken and kill Americans. Donald Trump wants schools to reopen as if everything’s OK. Now he has the VP joining in that amen chorus of foolishness.

I swear that the cult of personality that has overwhelmed parts of our federal government is going to be the death of many Americans … and I mean that in the distressingly literal sense.

medical news

Trump allies undercut POTUS’s positive COVID spin

For the life of me I do not know how you can possibly put a positive spin on more than 136,000 deaths from a worldwide pandemic in this country alone … but Donald John Trump is seeking to do precisely that.

It’s not working. Indeed, he now is getting pushback from his most loyal political allies, such as some of the Republican governors who opened their states up too quickly and now are paying a terrible political price for their rush to reopening.

You hear now from GOP Govs. Ron DeSantis in Florida, Greg Abbott here in Texas, even from Doug Ducey in Arizona. They are sounding downright alarmed at what’s happening in their states. Surgeon General Jerome Adams is pleading with Americans to “please, please, please” wear face masks while in public. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina acknowledges a “testing shortage” in his state.

Then comes word that some senior GOP politicians are forgoing attendance at the Republican National Convention. Why? They don’t want to get sick. And yet Donald Trump insists that it’s OK to stage an event — now planned for Jacksonville, Fla. — that includes jam-packed arena space full of partisans yelling in favor of the guy they intend to nominate for a second term as president.

Were I in the GOP pols’ shoes, I’d stay away, too. As for Trump, he continues to claim stupidly the notion that the COVID-19 virus is “under control” and that more testing necessarily means more positive cases.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials have set some guidelines down for reopening of schools. Trump wants to ignore the CDC. Yet former CDC heads now proclaim that no president in history has politicized a pandemic the way Trump has done.

I am going to circle back to a point I made some time ago. I no longer am going to listen to, let alone heed, a single word that flies out of Trump’s mouth. His political ambition is standing directly in the way of anything resembling wisdom on how to respond to this crisis.

I am going to rely on the medical experts. If they tell me I should worry … I am going to worry. Now it appears that other politicians are listening to them as well and are turning away from the Bloviator in Chief.

local news

Election volunteers step up in time of crisis

It’s time to acknowledge some folks who get damn little recognition during the good times, but they certainly deserve it these days while the nation is struggling in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

I refer to polling-place volunteers, the election judges and assorted volunteer staffers who herd voters to the proper places, making us all adhere to safety measures designed to keep us healthy, not to mention alive.

My wife and I voted today in the Texas runoff election. We went to First Baptist Church in Princeton. My wife, one of the most socially conscious people on Earth, brought our masks, our sanitizer and said she was ready to deploy some sanitary wipes if need be.

We donned the masks and entered the room where the voting booths are arrayed.

Everyone was masked. The floors were marked to show us where to stand. I took a step or two too many while waiting for my wife to process through to cast her vote and the lady behind the plastic screen politely asked me to step back; I did what I was told.

They were efficient in the extreme. We received our sheet of scanner paper we inserted into the machine and were given a cotton swab — aka a Q-Tip — to mark the spot on the screen next to the candidate of our choice. Is that sanitary … or what?

Everyone in the room complied with the rules. I didn’t hear a single word of complaint about the masks, about keeping our distance, about the extra precautions we were asked to take while we cast our ballots.

My wife took a moment to thank one of the volunteers for the time they are spending on this sweltering summer day in North Texas to make sure everyone stays healthy.

So I will offer a word of thanks as well to all the election volunteers all over the state. These are trying and difficult times. These good folks have stepped up and answered the call.

business news, economic news

Tax returns! Let’s see ’em!

OK, it’s time for an admission.

I am fixated by Donald John Trump’s tax returns, his financial record/history and whether he is as crooked as I fear.

Where did I obtain this fixation? From Donald Trump his own self, that’s where!

For as long as I’ve been aware of Trump’s existence — which goes back a good while — this fellow has been bragging his brains out about how rich he is. I’ll say that I detest braggarts. No one who is as rich as Trump says he is has to tell the world about it; nor does anyone as smart as he says he is have to brag about his or her smarts. Yet this clown has been doing so ever since Daddy Trump staked him to his business and got the boy started.

So then he announced the start of his political career. He did so with panache. Along the way to his winning the White House, Trump kept telling us about his immense wealth, his “self-made” success … and he pledged to release his full financial records as soon as the Tax Man completed a “routine audit.”

I’m going to presume that (a) the audit is now done or (b) Trump lied about the audit, given that he never provided a shred of evidence that it was being done.

So, where are the tax returns? He now is fighting like hell to keep them from us.

He is the nation’s highest elected public official. His personal records, by association, become our business. Trump helps set tax policy, he asks Congress to spend our tax money, he is commander in chief of our armed forces, he is our employee.

Trump has fought so hard to keep those records from us that he went to the Supreme Court. Hah! The high court showed him he ain’t the boss, declaring that presidents aren’t immune from prosecution, that even Donald Trump isn’t above the law.

All of this adds up to my fixation with the tax records and Donald Trump’s financial history. I want to know whether he is as rich as he claims to be, whether he has business dealings that might compromise our national security and whether he is a crook.

That’s not too much to ask. Is it?

medical news, national news

Open warfare over pandemic response?

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I can’t believe what I see unfolding before us.

It looks as though some members of Donald Trump’s administrative team are declaring open warfare against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert over the tone of Fauci’s remarks describing the state of the battle under way against the COVID-19 pandemic.

They dislike Fauci’s brutal tone, which contrasts the happy talk that Trump is delivering. So, they want to sideline Fauci. They are keeping him away from the Oval Office, away from Donald Trump.

The president keeps insisting that public schools need to reopen fully this fall, despite the spiraling infection rate from the pandemic. Medical experts join Fauci in trying to tell Trump that school classrooms pose a serious threat to the health of students, their teachers and the family members of them all. Donald Trump is ignoring them, listening instead to the “sage advice” offered by talk show gasbags like Sean Hannity and game show hosts like Chuck Woolery, who proclaims that the COVID scare is a “lie.”

Meanwhile, the Trumpkin Corps is putting out opposition research on Anthony Fauci, the Ivy League-educated physician who has served six presidents of both political parties. Indeed, it was on President George W. Bush’s watch that Fauci led the effort to deliver HIV/AIDS research to Third World countries afflicted by that disease.

Now he’s being vilified as one who “makes mistakes”? He is not to be trusted? Dr. Fauci doesn’t “know what he’s talking about,” according to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick?

Give me a break!

This internecine battle is one more startling example of the incompetence being demonstrated by Donald Trump’s administration as it wages what looks to many of us like a losing fight against a killer disease.

And … Trump wants to get rid of the nation’s leading expert on how to win that fight? Incredible!