High Plains Blogger

national news

Trumpism likely to outlive its founder

December 21, 2022 kanelis2012

No matter what fate holds in store for Donald J. Trump, my fear now is the survival of the political movement he sired and foisted onto the rest of us.

Trumpism is likely to outlive its founder, the megalomaniacal businessman who is now facing the real possibility of being indicted for felony crimes associated with his losing the 2020 presidential election.

The House 1/6 select committee has referred criminal allegations to the Justice Department, charging Trump with obstruction of justice, inciting an assault on the U.S. Capitol, conspiring to commit an insurrection.

That doesn’t count the investigation that special counsel Jack Smith is conducting into the taking of classified material from the White House and storing it in unsecured rooms at Mar-a-Lago. Talk about a serious violation and a threat to national security … eh?

Donald Trump’s days as a major political figure appear to be vanishing like the sun into a smoggy dusk. He will not be elected president in 2024. It now is looking unlikely that he’ll even win the Republican Party nomination. He is facing an oncoming stampede of legal difficulties, starting with the aforementioned potential indictments.

Then we have the financial doom that awaits. New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a $250 million lawsuit against the Trump Organization, which also has been pounded with guilty verdicts on assorted tax violations.

But … here’s the kicker. The election deniers who did survive the slaughter many of their ilk suffered in the midterm election remain on the scene. They continue to foment The Big Lie about vote fraud. Why, even the Texas secretary of state has determined there was no such widespread fraud in Texas. That will not shut the traps of the treasonous blowhards who continue to insist the 2020 election was “stolen” from their cult hero.

Thus, that thing called Trumpism is likely to survive for a good while longer than its creator. May the rest of us remain vigilant and alert to the lies they continue to sputter.

local news

No ‘widespread voter fraud’ in Texas!

Audit shows Texas elections secure despite COVID “irregularities” in 2020 | The Texas Tribune

Guess what … after all that bellowing, blathering and bloviating about “widespread voter fraud,” the Texas secretary of state has determined that the 2020 election was secure.

We can sleep better now.

Secretary of State John Scott, who is leaving office in two weeks, conducted a thorough audit of four of Texas’s most populous counties. They are Collin (where I live with my wife and one of our sons and his family), Dallas, Tarrant and Harris counties.

Scott’s team found no evidence of widespread fraud, despite the yammering of those who believe the 2020 election was fraught with corruption. There were some reported COVID-19 “irregularities,” but they amounted to a major nothing-burger in the grand scheme.

So … may we now put this crap into the ground where it belongs?

The Texas Tribune reported: (Tarrant County elections administrator Heider) Garcia added that Collin County, which the report considered a “model” of how Texas elections should be run, could perhaps offer some tools to further improve Tarrant County’s elections. Both counties are in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

That, right there, gives this Collin County resident comfort knowing that our ballots were counted properly and recorded for history’s sake as being legitimate.

I am delighted to know that the state’s audit of our system proved what many of us have known all along … that claims of widespread voter fraud are the work of demagogues and liars.

local news

Municipal complex promotes transparency

Princeton’s new municipal complex has lost its “new building” smell after being occupied by the Texas city’s administrative staff for a year.

However, it remains something of an architectural marvel … at least to my eyes.

I have had occasion to visit with senior city staff in recent weeks. I have met with City Manager Derek Borg and some of his administrative officials in rooms designed — in the words of Borg and Mayor Brianna Chacon — to promote governmental transparency.

How does it do that? They have installed lots of glass that otherwise could be walled off from public view.

I recently met with Borg in a conference room next to the city’s development office. As he and I visited, I could see people walking back and forth; most of them were staffers, but I noticed those I presumed to be just plain folks … like me. Therein was the reason, as Borg and Chacon explained it, for installing all that glass in this building.

It certainly provides a spacious working environment for Princeton’s staff. The structure brings the police and fire departments under the same roof as the city administrative staff.

It also does — in its subtle way — give the impression of a transparent operation. Anyone walking into the building can peer through the windows and watch those who work for the public at work on their behalf. I realize it’s mainly symbolic, but the transparent symbolism is important, too.

I find it refreshing, even as I am doing my job as a reporter trying to get information from the various officials who work for my neighbors and me.

crime news

How does GOP defend this?

As I listened today to the members of the House 1/6 select committee lay out the allegations against Donald J. Trump, I could not help thinking about how Trump’s sycophants will defend the individual’s indefensible actions.

How are they going to say that Trump’s speech on the Ellipse on 1/6 didn’t incited an angry mob of traitors? How are they going to defend the ex-president’s refusal to stop the assault on the Capitol? How are they going to defend with a straight face the actions of that mob, other than to say they were engaging in “legitimate political discourse”?

Make no mistake: They will do all of that. They will continue to cower in their cowardly fealty to Trump. The cabal of cultists in Congress will high-five each other, slap each other on the back and defend what only can be called the actions of a criminal.

crime news

Ethics referral: DOA?

Many of us are stunned by the news that the House 1/6 select committee referred four criminal charges against Donald J. Trump to the Justice Department.

There happens to be another bit of news released today by the committee that held its final meeting before it is disbanded. It is the referral to the House Ethics Committee on four Republican House members for their refusal to testify before the committee.

The congressmen are Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs and Scott Perry. All of them received subpoenas by the House committee to testify. They all refused.

I must report that I fear that the Ethics Committee referral likely is dead on arrival. Why is that? Because the Republicans will take control of the House after the first of the year and they likely will toss the referral into the Dumpster.

That, of course, would be a travesty.

When a duly constituted congressional committee orders one to testify before it, you are obligated to follow the panel’s instruction. That’s the law. It is not normal to stiff a congressional committee by refusing to obey a summons when the committee issues it.

The House Ethics Committee, I also am saddened to report, traditionally has been a toothless beast. It rarely takes any serious action against members when it gets referrals such as what has been delivered regarding these four GOP blowhards.

That all said, I will not be holding my breath waiting for the GOP-controlled House of Representatives to take action against these four MAGA nimrods.

The House GOP caucus, we must remember, is populated by a cabal of cowards.

crime news

Trump makes history!

Donald John Trump pledged — in so many words — to make history if voters elected him president of the United States in 2016.

Well … today the ex-president made good on that promise by making history of a staggering type. He became the first POTUS in U.S. history to ever be referred for criminal prosecution by a duly constituted congressional committee.

The House 1/6 select committee held its final meeting today and referred four charges against Trump to the Justice Department. They all refer directly to his role in inciting the 1/6 insurrection and in refusing to stop the attack on the Capitol that resulted in many injuries and some deaths.

The treasonous mob’s intention was clear: It was acting on Trump’s orders to stop the Electoral College certification of the 2020 presidential election.

Now comes the real hard task awaiting DOJ. It must decide whether to indict Trump on any of these referrals. Therein we have the words of Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has told us repeatedly that “no one is above the law.”

To be absolutely clear, the congressional referrals have zero legal consequence. They are symbolic in nature. However, Justice Department prosecutors have been handed an enormous pile of evidence that ought to persuade them that Trump did obstruct justice, that he did conspire to overturn the 2020 election results and that he most surely did incite the assault on the Capitol Building.

My head is spinning as I ponder the consequences of whatever the Justice Department decides. If it indicts Trump but then whiffs on getting a conviction, then the MAGA crowd will be energized beyond belief. If it chooses to forgo any indictments, it will signal to Congress that the work of the select committee was essentially a waste of time.

Then again, if DOJ indicts Trump and a trial jury convicts him of a felony … I would spend American real money to see this individual hauled away to spend time behind bars.

medical news

Vaccines aren’t evil, Ron

Ron DeSantis is showing us what kind of presidential candidate he likely will become; he will trade on voters’ unjustified fears about proven medical treatments designed to rid the nation of a killer virus.

The Florida governor, likely to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, vows to launch a probe into the evil nature of the various vaccines approved by the federal food and drug agencies to fight the COVID-19 virus.

DeSantis, certainly no medical doctor, is getting some shi**y advice from his staff on what to say about the vaccines. Every infectious disease I have heard has said they are safe, they are effective and they shouldn’t be cause for worry among those who need to take them to fight off the virus … that is still killing Americans.

What the hell is DeSantis talking about?

I believe he is blowing it out his backside. It sounds like a precursor to a GOP nominating campaign that is going to trade on more lies and deceit.

local news

Road work does not end

A wacky millionaire in Amarillo, the late Stanley Marsh, was proud of posting signs around the city. One of them said “Road does not end.”

I now live in a community, Princeton in Collin County, Texas, where it can be said with a straight face that “road work does not end.”

We have this highway, U.S. 380, that runs through our city in an east-west direction. Traffic on it stalls westbound in the morning and eastbound in the afternoon as motorist go to work and then return home from work, respectively.

The Texas Department of Transportation and cities along the U.S. 380 route are planning ways that they acknowledge — if you ask them — that their big ideas are going to cause a whole lot of teeth-gnashing for the next several years.

They all want to relieve the traffic pressure on U.S. 380. Princeton City Manager Derek Borg told me recently that sometime in 2024, TxDOT will begin work on widening the highway from four lanes to six. Sheesh! Do I have to tell you about the disruption that will occur along that right-of-way? I won’t bother. I think you get it.

That’s not nearly the end of it.

Sometime soon, TxDOT is going to build freeway passes through communities along U.S. 380. Princeton, Farmersville, McKinney, Prosper, Little Elm and God knows where else will feel the impact of that work.

TxDOT has been gathering information from the communities, assessing the environmental impact of the monumental job. I am not sure when the agency plans to start work. This much I know: When it starts, there will be headaches a-plenty all along the highway.

When will it end? I haven’t a clue. I do believe it will bring significant traffic relief for cities such as Princeton … until the state decides to do even more work on our roadways.

The road work does not end!

national news

History to be made

No matter what transpires after this week, I believe you and I are about to witness a history-smashing event when the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection meets for its final public meeting.

All signs — every single one of them — tell us that the panel is going to recommend at least one criminal referral against Donald J. Trump.

Now, to be sure the House panel cannot indict Trump. That task rests with the Justice Department. History will be shattered, though, when the panel votes on the referral. It will be the first time in U.S. history that a congressional committee has made such a recommendation on a former president of the United States of America.

An even more critical question will arise when the committee takes its vote: Will the DOJ follow the recommendation handed it by the House? All the smart money in the land says “yes.” Why? Because Attorney General Merrick Garland hired a career prosecutor, Jack Smith, to serve as special counsel.

Smith hit the ground in a dead-on sprint. He has been working to finalize the evidence gathered by the House committee and by the probe that the DOJ had completed before Garland decided to recuse himself from the insurrection probe and the examination of the pilfering of classified documents from the White House as Trump was leaving office.

To be absolutely clear, the fecal matter is going to hit the fan when the committee casts its vote Monday. We can expect the MAGA cultists in Congress to yammer and yowl about “partisan witch hunts,” and “weaponizing the Justice Department” and, yes, there will be calls to impeach Merrick Garland.

It’s all BS. The committee was constituted correctly at the beginning of this saga right after the insurrection. It has collected damning testimony — most of it coming from Trump loyalists within the administration!

I believe there is sufficient evidence to indict the ex-POTUS on any number of charges. But … first things first. The House committee needs to make history for the rest of it to proceed. I also believe we should prepare for a monumental moment.