Monthly Archives: August 2023

crime news, national news, political news

Irony runs through indictments

1 Comment

The ironic aspect of the indictments handed down against Donald J. Trump is so rich one almost can choke on it.

Let’s consider what is happening in real time.

Two grand juries — one in D.C. and one in Fulton County, Ga. — have concluded that Donald Trump conspired to “rig” or “steal” an election he lost to Joe Biden in November 2020. The grand juries, I must point out, comprised just plain folks summoned to do their civic duty under federal law and laws of the state of Georgia.

The grand juries have accused Trump of doing precisely the kind of thing he has said occurred on Election Day 2020. He says Democrats conspired to rig elections in several states that Biden won. Yes, he made that assertion, but without offering any evidence of it occurring.

Indeed, “forensic audits” of election returns in several key states have determined there was no voter fraud. Trump ignores those findings.

Instead, he launched his own election-rigging effort, complete with rounding up individuals posing as Electoral College members who would cast their votes for Trump instead of for Biden, which is required under the Constitution.

Trump has accused the system of being “rigged” against him. But now two duly constituted grand juries — both legally assembled and following the rule of law — say the former POTUS did precisely what he accuses others of doing to him!

Remind you of anything? How about the “fake news” mantra that has become so popular in Trump world. How in the name of truth-telling can this clown say any of this “fake news” crap with a straight face, given that he birthed the “fake news” baby with his lies about Barack Obama’s place of birth?

More irony, indeed!

This individual is a liar … and a bad one to boot!

crime news, legal news

Four for four for Trump

Well … it looks like the Donald J. Trump indictment parade has reached its end, or maybe there’s more to see down the road.

Fulton County (Ga.) District Attorney Fani Willis has delivered yet another gut punch to the ex-POTUS, indicting him and 19 co-conspirators on 10 counts of conspiring to defraud the government and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

This fourth criminal indictment against the 45th POTUS presents a most interesting turn of events, don’t you think?

Those who are indicted and then convicted in a state-run criminal trial cannot be pardoned by a future POTUS; Georgia law prohibits it. Willis’s announcement is thorough and comprehensive and it includes several individuals who worked with Trump (allegedly) to overturn the results of the election; special counsel Jack Smith chose to limit his indictments to just Trump, seeking to ensure a speedy trial.

What just blows my noggin to bits is Trump’s announcement that on Monday he is going to provide proof that the 2020 election was rigged. Really! That’s what he said. Why wait, dude? Give us the goods now, man!

Well, he won’t prove anything. Why? Because experts on these matters have concluded already there was no fraud in the election, which means Trump is blowing this all out of his overfed a**.

Meanwhile, the criminal defendant who once served as POTUS continues to defy U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s warning against popping off. She said Trump’s continuing challenge could force her to schedule the trial on the D.C. indictment handed down even earlier.

Donald Trump’s in a heap of trouble. He knows it. He is acting like the desperate criminal I believe he always has been.

local news, political news

Congressman: a non-funny joke

Let’s just lay a couple of cards on the table and see how they play, shall we?

Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle — a region of the state I know well — are served in Congress by someone who doesn’t belong there. Republican Ronny Jackson became embroiled in an incident at a rodeo near Amarillo the other day. He got roughed up by cops patrolling the event and then used language that — to say the very least — is totally unbefitting a member of Congress.

Jackson said he was trying to help a teenager who was under duress. Police say he was interfering with their efforts to do the same thing. A tussle occurred and Jackson got handcuffed briefly.

After being freed of the cuffs, Jackson launched a series of f-bombs at the cops and threatened Carson County Sheriff Tam Terry politically, saying in effect he would ensure he loses the next time he runs for re-election.

I’ve heard the bodycam audio of the incident and, so help me, it sounds to me like something one doesn’t say if (a) he is an elected member of Congress and (b) is totally in control of himself and is not intoxicated. Per the latter point, Jackson has been known to imbibe … you know?

I have taken a dim view of Jackson ever since he moved to Amarillo in 2020 to run for the seat vacated by longtime U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, a native of Donley County and an individual who knows the region well. I can say without an ounce of equivocation that Thornberry never would be caught saying the things to a police officer that flew out of Jackson’s pie hole.

This incident likely will blow over eventually. Panhandle voters will move on to something else. Jackson’s behavior will be swept away and he probably — as much as I hate to acknowledge it — will be re-elected in 2024. After that? Rumors are flying that he might decide in 2026 to challenge John Cornyn for the senior Republican’s U.S. Senate seat. It all would be a shame.

My own belief is that he has disgraced himself.

local news

This is no ‘distinguished gentleman’

Now we have bodycam footage of a member of Congress, a Texas Republican, being wrestled to the ground by a sheriff’s deputy.

The incident involved someone at a rodeo who reportedly was under distress. The congressman, Ronny Jackson of Amarillo, reportedly was “trying to help” the youngster. The cops paint a different picture, alleging that Jackson was interfering with police efforts to control the scene.

Word to the wise: The following contains some very rough language blurted out by Jackson as the incident unfolded.

“You are a fu**ing full-on dick!” Jackson told the trooper after being brought off the ground, according to bodycam footage provided by the Department of Public Safety. “You better recalculate, motherfu**er!”

Bodycam video shows confrontation between U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, officer | The Texas Tribune

You know who I thought about when I read this? Mac Thornberry, the Republican whom Jackson succeeded in 2021 as the 13th Congressional District representative for the Texas Panhandle.

Try to imagine Thornberry ever getting involved in this kind of situation. Try to ponder Thornberry using that kind of language when speaking to a law enforcement officer.

The Texas Panhandle is now represented in the halls of Congress by a maniacal hothead. Makes you proud … right?

local news

Everyone loves animals

Collin County’s Commissioners Court has received a heartfelt lesson from some of its constituents … which is that we shouldn’t mess with efforts to take care of our furry friends.

That was the lesson delivered at a Commissioners Court meeting today as the five-member governing panel got ready to send a $683 million bond issue to voters to decide in November.

Part of the package includes a $5.7 million proposition to expand the county’s animal shelter compound. The proposition will be decided on along with four other propositions in the total bond issue.

My prediction, based on what I heard today? County voters are going to want to spend the money to improve county’s animal welfare system.

I want to be clear as well on the rest of the bond package: It looks like a good deal for the county, as it takes care of essentials, such as law enforcement, roads and highways and parks.

The folks who crowded into the Commissioners Court meeting room today, though, spoke only about animal welfare … which, the more I think about it, the least surprising it is to me.

I have covered a lot of issues over many years involving animals, namely dogs and cats, domestic pets that depend on human beings to care for them. Almost without exception I have witnessed the public rise up and speak on behalf of our furry critters. Indeed, I would hate to be the sorehead who speaks to a public hearing and disparages animals that have been abandoned or brutalized.

Collin County Judge Chris Hill, speaking at an Aug. 7 meeting in which commissioners received the proposed bond issue package, argued that the county might not need to spend the $5.7 million it had allocated for animal shelter expansion and renovation. His notion was voted down by his colleagues on the Commissioners Court.

Did he say a word endorsing his previous position before a packed house in the county courthouse Commissioners Court chamber? Don’t make laugh out loud!

I reckon he knew better.

national news

‘Are you better off … ?’

2 Comments

If only Ronald Reagan hadn’t used that all-time campaign zinger in 1980 while running for president of the United States.

Joe Biden well could co-opt or repurpose the question today as he seeks re-election to the office. It’s a tough sell, given that millions of Americans recall when Reagan posed the question during a debate with President Carter. The answer then, of course, was “no, we’re not better off!”

Today, were Joe Biden able to pose the question, the answer would be a resounding “yes!” We are better off today because we have gotten through a killer pandemic, we have recovered many millions of jobs lost during that terrible time, our jobless rate has returned to near-historic lows, manufacturing is up.

Yes, we have that nagging inflation issue, but that, too, is getting better.

It does puzzle me that President Biden’s job approval rating remains low, in the low to mid-40% range. Why it remains low is a mystery. I guess it has to do with the effectiveness of the opposition’s messaging machinery.

The MAGA morons have planted seeds of fear in the minds and hearts of voters, many of whom believe the clap-trap swill being offered by the MAGA goons.

I ain’t buying it. Nor should other American patriots.

We are better off today than we were at the start of the Biden term because the president has made good on his pledges to: fix the infrastructure, reduce the cost of drugs, whittle down the annual federal budget deficit; invest in clean energy development … and act like a president who governs all Americans not just those who voted for him.

crime news, political news

DA about to drop hammer?

For as long as Donald J. Trump has been out of office — and subject to criminal investigations — my thought during that time has been that the Georgia case was the most provable and possibly the most damaging.

Well, it now appears that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is about to deliver the goods to a grand jury that is going to consider whether to indict the 45th POTUS on allegations that he sought to rig the Georgia results of the 2020 presidential election.

Joe Biden won the state’s Electoral College votes. Trump, though, called Georgia Secretary of State Doug Raffensberger and demanded that he “find” enough votes to swing the state into the Trump column. Raffensberger said, in effect, “No can do, Mr. President. The Constitution doesn’t allow it.”

What did Trump do then? He threatened Raffensberger with criminal prosecution.

Here’s the best part: It’s all been recorded for posterity. 

There could be a huge surprise waiting for us, though, once the grand jury hears from the DA. The panel might decide against indicting Trump. I say “might” because, well … you just never know what they’ll hear and what they’ll decide.

But I don’t believe that will happen.

Trump already has accused Willis, a Black prosecutor, of conducting a “racist witch hunt.” It’s the same language he used to condemn the indictment issued in New York by a grand jury after it heard from another Black prosecutor, Alvin Bragg. Do you believe any of that goes down smoothly with either of these two officers of the court?

Obviously not!

If an indictment comes forward this week, it will be the fourth such pending criminal proceeding filed against Trump. Two come from state courts, the other two from the Department of Justice, the agency Trump once pledged under oath to “defend and protect.”

The man is in a world of pain. Am I going to worry about him? Not for a nano-second!

crime news

Waiting for FBI to say: POTUS has broken the law

Donald Trump hired his share of clunkers during his term in office, but Christopher Wray, the head of the FBI, is not one of them.

Indeed, Wray has served the nation honorably and with as much dispassion as possible, given the immense pressure he must endure from the right-wing MAGA goon squad that occupies so much of the congressional Republican caucus.

I offer that as my declaration that if FBI director Wray says that the president of the United States has done something wrong, that he has broken the law, that he has done any of the misdeeds associated with the right-wing slime machine … then I’ll believe the crap being tossed around about President Biden.

Does it occur to anyone out there that Wray is a Trump guy, that he is known to be a lifelong Republican, that he harbors no particular favor toward Democrats, let alone to the current president?

None of that seems to matter to the right wingers who insist that Wray is part of the “deep state” who has “weaponized the FBI,” turning it into a cudgel to whip Donald Trump.

He is nothing of the sort. His agency has acted responsibly and within the parameters of the law in seeking evidence involving the former POTUS.

So, until Christopher Wray determines that Joe Biden has committed a crime, I am going to give the phony allegations against him all the attention they deserve.

Which is nothing!

medical news, political news

Why now, RFK Jr.?

Many things get past this old codger, one of them being the Democratic Party presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I’ll stipulate once more that RFK Jr. was given the name of my first political hero, his father. His campaign for the White House, though, is based on conspiracies that, to my mind, do not exist.

Moreover, he expresses deep personal affection for President Biden, who enjoys the overwhelming support of RFK Jr.’s family.

He says the mandated COVID-19 vaccines were an overreach by the government, which he said should never have required us to be vaccinated against a virus that killed about 1 million Americans.

Hmm. Wow! What do you suppose the death toll would have been had the Biden administration not ordered the vaccines? My hunch: a whole lot more than those who perished.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not be elected president. Not this year. Not any year. Never. He sounds like a goofball nut case seeking to make a name for himself. Imagine that if you will … a man with arguably one of the most revered political names of the past century seeking even more attention.

I’m still trying to wrap my arms around this guy’s candidacy.

For now, I am left merely to shake my noggin in astonishment.

media news

‘Protecting’ Bidens? Seriously?

The conspiracy theorists who populate the MAGA crowd really and truly just crack me up!

They contend with a straight face that journalists are “protecting the Bidens” from exposure for the crimes they reportedly have committed. Bribery, extortion, money laundering. They say it all leads to the top of the family food chain, which in this instance means also to the top of the U.S. government.

Wow! I now want to explain a little something about journalism and those who practice an honorable craft.

I keep my hand in the career I pursued for nearly 37 years. My days as a full-time journalist are long gone, as I am now an old man who still reads the news daily and enjoys the rough and tumble of journalistic combat.

OK, what do I know about the craft? It is populated by highly competitive individuals. Newspapers compete against each other. So do TV networks, streaming services, digital outlets. Those who continue to work in journalism vie with each year for recognition among their peers for the good work they do.

I offer this as my way of telling you the conspiracy theorists ignore the competitive nature of journalism, even in the form it is taking these days. No journalist worth a damn is going to sit on a story involving a politician with whom he agrees politically because he doesn’t want to “embarrass” him or her.

A journalist is going to expose anything he or she believes is worth reporting to the public. That is part of the job they all sign on for when they hit the streets in search of the next big scoop.

I also must remind everyone who reads this blog that journalists are not bound by ideology. They do not just “seek out conservatives” because they work for the “liberal media.”

Let me toss out a few names for you: John Edwards, Anthony Weiner, Jim Wright. Oh, wait … Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton! These all are prominent politicians, all are Democrats, all are so-called members of the “liberal elite.” They all were targets of aggressive journalists looking for the truth behind the assorted allegations that rocked their respective careers.

You can spare me the bullsh** notion that the media are “protecting” President Joe Biden and his son because they want to protect the president. In the real world of gumshoe journalism, such an allegation is as phony as it gets.