Monthly Archives: September 2023

crime news

Conspiracists are salivating

When in the world are the conspiracy theorists among us going to stop fishing for a quarry that they cannot ever catch?

Or … put another way: When will they stop looking for a second gunman who took part in President Kennedy’s murder nearly 60 years ago in downtown Dallas?

A new book by a former Secret Service agent now proclaims to have evidence of a “magic bullet” that he found in the president’s limousine. Sigh …

Paul Mathis was on duty that day in Dallas and has written an account of what happened.

As the Dallas Morning News said in an editorial published this morning: The investigation that led to the much-criticized Warren Report speculated that the bullet in question passed through Kennedy’s neck, then pierced Texas Gov. John Connally’s back, exited his chest, and also wounded his wrist and thigh. The theory was partly informed by the fact that the bullet was found on a stretcher that may have been the one holding Connally at Parkland Memorial Hospital later that day. The theory held that the bullet came to rest in Connally’s body or clothing after its miraculous journey, and fell out as he was being treated on the stretcher.

I do not believe in conspiracies. Especially not anything related to this dark and horrible incident. I have long believed that Lee Harvey Oswald was capable — given his military training — of firing three bullets from a rifle while sitting on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository building on Nov. 22, 1963. I also believe he was capable of hitting the president with a fatal rifle shot.

What’s more, I also know that bullets do strange and unexplainable things once they pass through human tissue.

Whatever. These conspiracy theories will live long past all of us who are alive today. As the Morning News noted in its editorial: But in 60 years, no tantalizing detail has managed to provide reliable evidence of a conspiracy or a second gunman. None likely ever will.

national news

No impeachment … OK?

Joe Biden doesn’t deserve to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. If you don’t believe me, then you ought to heed the warnings of some prominent congressional conservatives.

The president is being targeted by the MAGA caucus of the House for unspecified “high crimes and misdemeanors.” What they are must be anyone’s guess.

But, by golly, the MAGA morons are proceeding with an impeachment inquiry, come hell or high water. One of them happens to be my North Texas congressman, freshman Keith Self of McKinney. Good grief, dude. Get a fu**ing grip!

Many conservatives, though, say that impeachment is a non-starter. They include Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Mike Lee of Utah, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

We all know what is driving this idiotic endeavor. It’s revenge against House Democrats who spearheaded two impeachments against a Republican who served as POTUS. That’s it!

Do we have a crime? Is there anything President Biden has done to deserve impeachment? Not … a … damn … thing!

media news

Media conspiracy? Non-starter!

As I listen to Donald Trump’s idiotic rants about “media conspiring” to keep him from being elected to public office, the more I am drawn to a piece of wisdom a newspaper editor once told me.

He said that publishing a newspaper each day was nothing short of “a miracle.” Which means to me that just getting a newspaper out the back door and onto people’s front porches each day required every bit of know-how an editor and his or her team of reporters could muster.

OK, let’s establish off the top that Trump doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Let’s also establish something else … which is that your blogger acquired a good bit of inside info on publishing a newspaper during the nearly 37 years I spent pursuing my craft.

When I cite the editor’s contention of a “modern miracle” occurring, consider all the things that could go wrong during the publication of a newspaper. The presses could explode; electricity could fail; storms could erupt; a reporter might die on deadline as he or she is writing the lead story for that day’s newspaper.

I have been accused of conspiring against portions of a community. I have told accusers the same thing every time: I don’t have time to conspire against anyone; I am too busy just getting a newspaper published to think about how to damage a segment of my community. My answer usually didn’t dissuade the accuser. Whatever …

But in the larger debate, the media have become targets of the MAGA morons who insist that they — the media — have the authority, the ability and the wherewithal to conspire against right-wingers.

B … S!

The nature of the craft I pursued simply made such conspiracies impossible. The editor who told me about the daily “miracle” was onto something. It takes a journalist every bit of intellectual firepower just to get his or her work out the door.

national news

Time doesn’t heal this pain

They say that “time heals” damn near all emotional pain. I’m not sure about that.

We are commemorating the 9/11 attack on our nation today. Twenty-two years ago, Islamic terrorists hijacked jetliners and flew them into the World Trade Center’s towers, into the Pentagon and then — after fighting with the passengers aboard a fourth jetliner — crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa.

All the times I have watched the horrendous video of that day, witnessing all the carnage, the panic and chaos and I still well up when I gaze on what happened that day.

Indeed, it seems to worsen with time, not the reverse.

The event has spurred me to thank firefighters and police officers when I see them going about their usual day. I have done the same to ambulance drivers, EMTs and paramedics. They all represent a segment of our society that rushed toward the danger when it exploded in front of us on 9/11.

We’ll never forget that horrendous day … and may it always bring back the pain we felt in the moment.

legal news, local news, State news

Lt. Gov. deserves props

Dan Patrick deserves a good word from this blogger today … for the way he is conducting the trial of his fellow Republican, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Patrick, of course, is the GOP Texas lieutenant governor who at the moment is presiding over Paxton’s impeachment trial. Patrick pledged to be impartial and non-biased when the Senate received the overwhelming impeachment articles from the Texas House.

I had harbored private doubts that Patrick could be faithful to his pledge. I was mistaken.

So very often in high-profile judicial or, in this case, quasi-judicial proceedings, the presiding judge seems to hog the spotlight. Example given? Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, who presided over the so-called “trial of the century” in 1995 in the case of OJ Simpson and whether he killed his former wife and her friend.

Ito let the lawyers go on and on, ad nauseum, refusing to constrain them, which he could have done as the presiding judge.

Dan Patrick has been hardly mentioned in this first week of the Paxton trial. Which is a good thing. He has let the lawyers for Paxton and the House have the floor and has administered the proceedings efficiently and without bias.

Why was I concerned about Patrick? Hey, he’s a politician … and a gregarious one at that!

Whether this impeachment trial results in a conviction or an acquittal shouldn’t hinge on Patrick’s conduct as the presiding officer. That doesn’t appear to be the case and for that I, as a keenly interested Texas resident, am grateful.

national news

Polling data = real-time snapshot

All the polling data we are seeing these days showing a neck-and-neck race between President Joe Biden and the man he defeated in 2020 remind me of historical precedent.

Which is to say that today’s polling data don’t mean squat this far out from an upcoming election.

Yes, I have commented on my frustration that Donald Trump even can collect 35 to 40% of the electorate’s favor, given all he has said, done and demonstrated since he became a politician in 2015.

But I want to revisit some recent presidential polling history to remind you of how volatile these polls can become.

Remember that public opinion polls are merely a real-time snapshot of what is on people’s minds. Opinions change.

Prior to the 1984 election, Walter Mondale was seen as a legitimate challenger to President Reagan. The president was re-elected with an 18% margin and a 49-state Electoral College wipeout. In 1992, Ross Perot actually led President George H.W. Bush and former Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Perot finished with 19% of the vote and zero Electoral College votes, while Bill Clinton breezed to election.

Four years later, Sen. Bob Dole was neck-and-neck with the president, but then lost decisively. In 2008, Sen. John McCain was seen as a possible winner against Sen. Barack Obama; it didn’t happen. Obama was in danger four years later of losing to Mitt Romney; he won comfortably.

Today’s polling data mean next to nothing. Trump is going on trial on at least two of the indictments leveled against him prior to the GOP primary season. Americans are going to get a snootful from courtrooms about the way he conducted himself during his time in office and, most damaging, after he lost the 2020 election.

I am going to stand squarely on my view that Donald Trump is not electable in 2024. Period. He has no vision for the future, other than telling us how he intends to exact revenge on his foes. His unfitness for public office cannot be stated any more starkly than that.

The polling data will be there to remind us … in real time.

local news

Another trek awaits

I don’t have a need to preview my next road trip with Toby the Puppy, but I do want to explain briefly what I expect to gain from my next venture away from my North Texas home.

Not much … truth be told.

Is it my destination that bums me out? Hardly. I am heading to suburban Phoenix to visit a couple of cousins who have taken residence there. One of them invited to see him there; he lives part time in Arizona. The other cousin recently moved there from Portland. We’ll have a chance to catch up and I will take the opportunity to fill them both in on the details of the tragedy that befell my family and me at the start of the year.

As for the head-clearing, heart-mending aspect of this venture, well, I am happy to report that my noggin is essentially clear and my heart — while it remains severely damaged from the loss of Kathy Anne to cancer — is in a much more manageable state than it was prior to my previous sojourns.

I won’t lie about this matter: 2023 has been the sh**iest year of my life! There is nothing I can do to redeem this year. However, I am able to cope better with the circumstance that brought such pain.

I am hoping to declare victory over the pain in due course.

crime news, legal news, national news

FBI says ‘no insurrection’? Hmm …

I have been schooled by a critic of this blog who tells me the FBI can find no evidence of an “organized plot” to overturn the 2020 presidential election result.

This, for instance, comes from the Daily Beast: Over 570 alleged rioters have been arrested since the storming of the U.S. Capitol in January—but the FBI has reportedly found little evidence that the riot was an organized plot to overturn Donald Trump’s election defeat.

All righty. I will accept that. I must have been looking the other way when the FBI made that determination. I never have declared myself to be all-knowing all the time.

But … what does any of that do to the case leveled against Donald Trump? In my mind? Not much.

The grand jury that examined the 1/6 assault on our government did not cite “insurrection” as a specific charge against Trump. It speaks to obstruction of justice and other assorted crimes allegedly attributable to the ex-POTUS.

I am going to stand with the findings — as I have understood them — of special counsel Jack Smith’s team that Trump impeded efforts to quell the violence that day.

Again, from the Daily Beast: Reuters reports that the FBI has so far found scant evidence to suggest that the riot was centrally coordinated by far-right groups, the former president himself, or his close allies. 

OK, then. However, no one can deny the attack occurred. Nor can anyone deny that Trump delivered a speech that morning on the Ellipse that stirred a lot of individuals up. Many of them were video- and audio-recorded saying they were acting at Trump’s behest, which he delivered to them on the Ellipse. Is that a “centrally coordinated” event? Not in the strict sense of the terminology.

However, he could have stopped it. He could have issued a statement urging the mob to go home. He could have taken to Twitter to issue that call. He didn’t do anything of the sort. He watched it unfold from the White House.

And did nothing!

Am I a bit wiser now about the FBI’s view of what happened? Sure I am. I also remain convinced that Donald Trump needs to be held accountable for his role in what transpired on that horrible day.

national news

Foundations take a stand for democracy

This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day, but it has and the fate of democracy in the United States well might benefit greatly from this statement.

Six presidential foundations have issued a statement calling for a revitalization of democratic principles ahead of the 2024 presidential campaign. The statement came initially from the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas; cosigners are the LBJ Foundation in Austin, the Obama Foundation in Chicago, the George and Barbara Bush Foundation in College Station and the John F. Kennedy Center and Library in Boston.

The statement didn’t name names, but it didn’t need to. We all know who is the object of the statement’s warning … it would Donald J. Trump and his fixation with autocracy.

“As a diverse nation of people with different backgrounds and beliefs, democracy holds us together,” the groups said. “We are a country rooted in the rule of law, where the protection of the rights of all people is paramount. At the same time, we live among our fellow citizens, underscoring the importance of compassion, tolerance, pluralism, and respect for others.”

Presidential foundations call for return to democratic values ahead of 2024 elections (ketr.org)

Indeed, our nation’s founders launched a revolution against a government that sought to subjugate colonial residents to the iron fist of autocratic rule. What emerged from that conflict in the 18th century was a nation founded on the notion that peaceful dissent is part of our governing fabric.

Let us never lose sight of what our founders intended.

national news

Who is this new carnival barker?

Who in the world is Vivek Ramaswamy, who I believe is trying to emerge as the Republican Party’s new snake-oil vendor of choice?

Dude is 38 years of age. He’s never held a public office. I don’t yet know how he acquired his wealth … I’ll have to look it up. He talks some wild game about opposing further aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, and then says Donald Trump’s actions on 1/6 were “abhorrent” but he remains in Trump’s camp if the twice-impeached, four-times indicted former POTUS gets nominated by the GOP next summer.

Ramaswamy is weird, man.

This political newbie might be making some waves among Republican base voters, aka the MAGA morons on the far-right wing of a once-great political party.

What part of Ramaswamy’s background concerns me the most? It might be his lack of political exposure or experience. We saw what happened the last time Americans elected such an individual. He shot off his mouth and got impeached for seeking a political favor from a foreign head of state; he got impeached again for inciting the mob to storm the Capitol Building to stop the counting of Electoral College votes after the 2020 presidential election.

Do we want to hand another political neophyte the nuclear launch codes?

Hmmm … hell no!