Monthly Archives: August 2020

national news

Battle is now joined

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We have just witnessed the first exchange in what is going to be more than likely the most miserable campaign for the U.S. presidency that many of us can remember.

Maybe in all of American history.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris spoke to us back to back about the abject failures of the Donald Trump-Mike Pence administration.

My initial takeaway, though, has to do with a personal aspect of the relationship between the members of the Democratic Party presidential team.

It is that Joe Biden does not carry a grudge. It was Harris, you’ll remember, who drew a bit of Biden’s blood during a Democratic presidential joint appearance when she hit him hard over his Senate opposition to federally mandated busing of school children.

The fact that Biden would select Harris to run with him tells me in stark terms: That’s OK; you took your best shot and I survived. Now, join me in this fight to the finish.

I am looking forward to watching this campaign unfold, even though the misery we can expect will be deep and will be intensely personal. That’s how Trump rolls.

national news

Welcome to the show, Sen. Harris

There once was a time when candidates joined national campaigns and their opponent would offer them a tepid “Welcome to the fight” greeting.

Not these days.

U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris became former VP Joe Biden’s running mate this week and Donald Trump began a Twitter torrent lambasting the California Democrat for being a weak Democratic primary presidential opponent.

Trump said Harris is the kind of candidate he dreams about. He calls her a champion of the “far left.” Hah! I’ll go instead with some of the progressive outfits who complain that Harris isn’t “far left” enough for them.

In reality, the more I consider Harris’s candidacy, the more I buy into her mainstream moderate approach to governance.

She is a former prosecutor, meaning she hunted down bad guys and put ’em in the slammer. She is no one’s fool. Harris is tough, resilient and vows to work as hard as she can to elect Biden as the next president of the United States.

Harris teamed up once with the late Beau Biden, the former VP’s son, in pursuing fraudulent bankers. Beau Biden happened to be attorney general in Delaware while Harris ran the California justice department.

The old days of common courtesy are gone. Donald Trump is lying in wait (pun kind of intended here, if you get my drift). He is going to cast every possible aspersion he can on Sen. Harris, not to mention what he plans for the former vice president.

Neither of them needs to respond in kind. They have plenty of political action organizations ready to do their own version of the kind of dirty work they can expect from the Donald Trump-Mike Pence team.

national news

Digesting this VP choice

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I admit my political bias regularly and without apology. I mean, we all have bias, we are imbued in it, it propels our political principles.

At least it propels my principles.

I lean toward the Democratic Party. I have been voting for president every four years since 1972 and not once have I cast a presidential vote for a Republican. I don’t regret my votes, although as I look back on one of them with decades of experience under my belt, I might have thought differently about the 1976 race between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.

I say all this as a cautionary tale to the excitement many of my fellow pro-Democratic Party voters are feeling today with the selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as the party’s latest vice-presidential pick.

She’s already made history by being the first woman of color to be chosen. She is black and she is of Indian descent; her father hailed from Jamaica, her mother from South Asia. That’s historic!

Sen. Harris now stands on the brink of making even more history in 88 days by being elected the first woman as vice president.

I am trying mightily to temper my excitement. I am going to succeed in tamping it down. How do I know that? Because I fear that Donald Trump, the current president of the United States, has the resources and the willingness to deploy them to win re-election to a second term. He will do whatever it takes to win.

Now, I most certainly don’t want that to happen. It is a fear that well might keep me up at night as we get closer to Election Day.

My bias remains as strong as ever. My desire to see Joe Biden elected president is at full boil. I intend to use this blog toward that end. I feel compelled, though, to reel in my excitement at the prospect until we get much closer to the election. I need assurances that the excitement is warranted.

I am hoping Kamala Harris can excite millions of Americans who are as frightened as I am at the prospect that Donald Trump can repeat the astonishing political fluke he performed in 2016.

national news

Sen. Harris? Let’s ponder this pick

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I will start with a bit of candor about U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris.

She was not my favorite choice for Joseph R. Biden’s vice-presidential running mate. Of the names that rose to the top, my preference gravitated toward Susan Rice, the former national security adviser during Barack Obama’s second term as president.

I also would have gotten fully behind U.S. Rep. Val Demings, U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Harris, though, is the one.

Now, that all said, I am left to place my faith in the selection process that Biden — himself a former vice president — used to make this dramatic selection. Biden served with great distinction as VP during the eight years of the Obama administration. President Obama has said many times that his selection of Biden was the “first major decision I made” as a presidential nominee and he never regretted it.

So, Biden presumably went through the same grueling process to which he was subjected during his own vetting to be VP during the Obama years.

In one respect, Biden’s selection of Harris suggests that the former VP, indeed, holds no grudges. It was Harris who drew blood from Biden during one of the Democratic primary debates when she challenged his boasting of being able to work with segregationist senators. Biden could have held that against her. He didn’t.

As some observers have noted already, this new Democratic team reminds them of Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush teaming up in 1980 after Bush called Reagan an adherent of what he called “voodoo economics.” The Reagan-Bush team steamrolled to two landslide victories.

Do I have any concerns now about Kamala Harris? Again, I will defer to Joe Biden’s knowledge of the vetting process. If she checks all the boxes to Biden’s satisfaction, then that is good enough for me.

Just as Joe Biden wasn’t my first pick to lead the Democratic challenge against Donald Trump, Kamala Harris wasn’t my first pick to join him in that effort.

Now that they’re a team, I’m all in.

International news

U.S.-China relations get even stickier

As if relations between the United States and China needed to get even more prickly … we have this bit of news.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is visiting Taiwan, the country that the PRC considers to be a “renegade province.” Taiwan has no official diplomatic relationship with virtually the entire world, which essentially recognizes a “one-China” policy.

Well, let me stipulate one point.

I have visited Taiwan five times dating back to 1989. I have seen the country up close. It is a vibrant, successful and energetic democracy. It is far from being the “renegade province” the PRC says it is.

It did break away from the PRC after a bloody civil war in 1949, when the communists seized power from the ruling nationalist party. It operated under martial law for decades in the years since then. It lifted the martial law a few years back.

Taiwan operates as an independent nation. It just has declined to declare its independence, concerned about a possible military reaction from Beijing were it to do so.

Over time, Taiwan’s population has become more native to the island nation, with far fewer citizens with roots in the PRC.

It’s an independent nation. Still, Secretary Azar needs to take care that he doesn’t say something that will rile the commies on the mainland even more than they no doubt already have become.

This, I submit, China-Taiwan is one of the world’s most complicated relationships. Tread carefully, Mr. Secretary.

national security

‘T-word’ tossed out there … again

Oh, that goofball/demagogue/liar Donald J. Trump just can’t stop hurling the “t-word” at Barack Obama.

He said the former president of the United States likely committed “treason” by spying on the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. He said that former CIA director John Brennan knew about it; so did former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper; same for former FBI director James Comey; of course, let’s not forget former Vice President Joe Biden … he knew about it, too.

Trump today called it the “biggest political scandal in history.”

Was it “treasonous,” Mr. President? Are you kidding me?

First of all, there was no “spying” done on the campaign. There were questions raised about allegations of Russian interference during the 2016 campaign. The Obama administration was obligated to examine it under the law.

Furthermore, for Trump to toss out “treason” once again amounts to demagoguery at its worst.

For the record, treason is defined by federal statute as a betrayal of the country, of doing something to aid an enemy state.

What’s the punishment for committing an act of treason? Death! 

I am so damn weary of hearing Trump spew this trash.

We have an election just over the horizon. For my money, it cannot get here soon enough. Donald Trump’s incessant posturing about alleged “spying” is dangerous and it needs to end.

It appears to me the only way to shut this liar down is to vote him out of office.

national news

Yes, a dilemma for sure

REUTERS/James Glover II

A Facebook friend of mine — someone with whom I am acquainted from my years in Amarillo — has posted a fascinated quandary that vexes many of us.

She writes: What a weird Catch 22 we’re in. If Donald Trump was competent and handled the crisis the way he should, and then the economy got back on track he would have a greater chance to be re-elected. God, what do you root for?!

Hmm. Interesting, yes? Well, I think it is.

We hear often how presidents who hand the office over to someone from the other political party wish their successor well. President Bush 41 famously wrote to President Clinton a letter in which he said he would root for the new president’s success. President Bush 43 said much the same thing to President Obama … who then said in a statement after Donald Trump was elected that he hoped for the new president’s success.

Trump’s tenure as president has presented many of us with a dilemma. Do we want the nation to suffer on any president’s watch? Of course not! I don’t wish pain and misery on my fellow Americans, let alone my friends and family members.

However, my loathing of Donald Trump seems to transcend all of that. I want him gone from my White House. I do not want to listen to his lies. I don’t want him to embarrass me. I love my country and revere the presidency too deeply to want this individual as my head of state/government/commander in chief.

It’s personal. It’s visceral. It has nothing to do with ideology … because Donald Trump does not govern according to any known ideology.

If only we could achieve some success in the COVID-19 fight, revive our economy — and then boot Trump out of office because of the terrible mess he has made along the way.

Sports news

Get ready: no football

Aside

I believe football fans from coast to coast to coast need to steel themselves for some very bad news.

There might not be football this autumn. Two college conferences — the Lone Star and Mid-American — have “postponed” all football games until the spring. The Ivy League canceled its football season altogether.

The “power” conferences — such as the Big 12, the Pac 12, SEC, Big 10 — are set to play football. But wait! Are they really going to expose their student-athletes to the pandemic, to the coronavirus that continues to kill Americans?

I have this feeling in my gut, right along with my trick knee, that we aren’t likely to see college football this autumn. Or, perhaps, too the National Football League.

A lot of players are opting out of NFL play, citing concerns over the virus.

Am I dreading the thought of no football this fall? Yes. More so regarding intercollegiate football. I care less about the NFL than I care about NCAA football.

I care much more, though, for the well being of the student-athletes, their coaches, their family members, their friends and assorted loved ones who could be infected a potential killer that continues to ravage this nation.

national news

Who’ll make the call?

(AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Tradition is a big part of Election Night.

The TV networks and news agencies, with their analysts on hand to parse the results, make their calls on states as the vote totals roll in. Eventually, we get a winner. Someone crosses the 270-electoral vote threshold to become elected president of the United States.

In November, we’ll go through it again.

One of two men, Joe Biden or Donald Trump, will emerge the winner. I hope it’s Biden. You know that already.

Suppose the polls we see today showing Biden winning big on Nov. 3 hold up. Biden wins. Tradition dictates that the person who falls short calls the winner to concede, to offer his congratulations and, presumably, his support and cooperation during the transition.

Then, according to tradition, the winner strides to a microphone to declare victory. While making that declaration, though, the winner usually mentions the “gracious and warm phone call” he gets from the opponent.

Ahh, that’s where it might break down … if the guy I want to win actually wins.

You see, Donald Trump has said a number of things that seem to put that Election Night tradition in some jeopardy. He might not accept the election result. He might challenge  it. He’ll accuse someone of “rigging” the result. What’s more, we’re likely to slog our way through the campaign with heaps of mud being slung … from Trump to Biden and perhaps some in response from Biden to Trump. These men will not end this campaign as friends.

I have this fear that the tradition we long have boasted about — the peaceful transition of power from one party to the other one — might not play out once we get the ballots counted.

Does anyone expect Trump to say anything gracious about his foe no matter the result? For that matter, should we expect Biden to speak well of his foe given what we can expect to come from Trump throughout the remainder of this political bloodbath?

Tradition is in trouble, I fear, as we await the result of what is sure to be a most consequential election.

Then again … we can hope that sanity prevails on Election Night.

local news, Sports news

Wait’ll next season

They’re done playing hardball at Hodgetown, the gleaming new baseball park in downtown Amarillo, Texas.

The Amarillo Sod Poodles were supposed to defend their Texas League title, but the COVID-19 pandemic put the kibosh on their season. Instead, the team ownership came up with an idea that sold quite well with the Sod Poodles’ enthusiastic fan base.

They formed two teams comprising college athletes. They decided to sell about 3,000 tickets per game played in the 7,000-seat ballpark, enabling fans to “socially distance” themselves while cheering for the young men on the field.

From what I understand, the makeshift season went over well. The fans got a good dose of baseball just when their hopes were dashed that the Sod Poodles would be unable to play even part of a season.

I consider this to be an example of quick thinking on your feet. To that end, the Sod Poodles’ management earns a bouquet from this former Amarillo resident. Well done. As one of the Sod Poodles fans said on Facebook:

Thank you to the coaches and players who came to Amarillo this summer to play America’s game. You guys just simply rock!! This season, as the old saying goes, was short but sweet! I know the fans in Amarillo are already anticipating another fun filled and exciting season in 2021! Go Soddies!!