Monthly Archives: March 2025

education news

Why damage public ed?

For the ever-lovin’ life of me I cannot fathom why Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and most of the Texas Republican legislative caucus want to tear the guts out of our state’s public education system.

They want to siphon taxpayer money that pays for public schools and direct it to private schools throughout the state. Why the warfare against the state’s public education system? They contend the public schools are doing a lousy job of educating our children; they say the schools aren’t safe places for our kids to learn.

The solution, though, should not be to yank money out of the system. They want to use public money for vouchers parents can use to enroll their kids in private schools.

Abbott and Patrick say they have enough votes in the Legislature to approve the robbery scheme that Abbott hatched two sessions ago. He ran into resistance from, get this, rural Republican legislators who said weakening public education would damage their communities, where lives revolve around public school activities.

Former Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan agreed with his GOP colleagues and let the measure die in the 2023 Legisalture. He got punished for letting the “will of the House” dictate the fate of the proposal. GOP operatives sought to launch a primary campaign against Phelan in 2024 … but he pulled out of the speaker’s race.

I agree that public education has issues to resolve, but dammit, taking money out of the system doesn’t provide a cure! It only worsens the conditions that our state’s leaders say they want to repair.

It makes no sense to me.

national news

Don’t do it, Democrats!

Democrats in the U.S. Senate apparently are going to commit a form of political suicide if they stick together to oppose a Republican-sponsored continuing budget resolution aimed at keeping the government operating for the next month.

The Demoratic caucus doesn’t like the cuts in the budget, nor the increases in defense spending. They say they want to “send a message” protesting Donald Trump’s plan to overhaul the government.

We’ve had government shutdowns before. They usually have been pitched by Republicans. The longest one occurred during Trump’s first term in office. It didn’t go well for the GOP. Why? Because Americans want to depend on their government to provide service when they need it.

A Democratic-led shutdown won’t go down any more easily than the previous attempts did.

I wish Democrats and Republicans could hammer out a deal to keep the feds’ doors open for business. If the public rebels, Democrats will have no else to blame.

International news

Why is globalism evil?

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Donald J. Trump and his moronic MAGA followers decided about a decade agp to declare war on that thing they refer to these days as “globalism.”

They have all said they intend to “put America first,” even if that philosophy destroys our most successful international alliances. They are on track to destroy those alliances built on international fears of tyrants seeking to conquer the world.

Donald Trump came along nearly a decade ago to declare his presidential candidacy. He vowed to “make America great again,” believing foolishly that American somehow had surrendered its greatness. It never did. The country has remained great even during its most difficult crises.

Much of America’s greatness rested in its wilingness to become the leading nation in the global community of nations. Presidents of the United States assumed the unspecified role as leader of the free world. They did so with pride in the nation’s standing internationally.

Globalism, it was long thought, was a good thing. The world has “shrunk” in a figurative way with nations depending on each other for commerce, military aid and cultural exchanges. Globalism, therefore, was not considered a four-letter word.

That is, until Trump came along.

These days we hear from the MAGA minions that globalism lies at the core of perceived difficulties. Many of those so-called difficulties were figmants of political strategists’ imagination. Trump inherited the strongest economy in generations, yet he managed to persuade enough voters in 2024 that their retirement accounts were going straight into the crapper.

Well, many retirees are feeling pain now … but it’s caused by Trump’s tariffs and the uncertainty they bring.

Globalism is not the bogeyman the MAGA gang has made it out to be. It has helped keep us safe, it has generated trade and it has helped Americans keep the jobs they now are losing.

Uncategorized

Finally a good word for Trump?

Can it be that your friendly blogger — aka me! — will be able to send a good word of encouragement for something the Donald Trump administration did?

Negotiations in Saudi Arabia between U.S. and Ukrainian diplomats have produced a ceasefire agreement that seemingly strengthens Ukraine’s hand. It might lead to a peace treaty that ends the three years of bloodshed caused when Russia invaded Ukraine.

If it holds up and if the Russians agree to it, then I will be delighted to extend a good word to Trump for directing this big step toward ending a war that began because Vladimir Putin had empire-building on what passes for his cagey mind.

“The Ukrainian delegation today made something very clear, that they share President Trump’s vision for peace, they share his determination to end the fighting, to end the killing, to end the tragic meat grinder of people,” White House national security adviser Michael Waltz said after the meetings.

I have said all along that I don’t believe anything Trump says. If he says the sun sets in the west, I well might be forced to look it up.

But in this case, if there’s a glimmer of hope for an end to the killing in Ukraine, I am anxious to give Trump the credit for a potential breakthrough.

Uncategorized

What does an ultra-rich guy know?

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Placing federal budget-slashing authority in the hands of the richest man on Earth is a prescription for disaster.

The billions of dollars that Elon Musk is slashing from, say, the Education Department, or USAID, or Medicaid is no sweat off the nose of Musk, who cannot relate in any fashion to the troubles faced by Mom and Pop, or the young family seeking to survive.

But here is, making decisions that determine whether kids have enough food to eat, or whether parents can send their children to college or whether to send money to help impoverished nations.

Musk doesn’t get any of that. For that matter, neither does the POTUS, who grew up in a privileged household and was given millions by his father to chart his own business course. Donald Trump’s business record has been, shall we say, a mixed bag.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is designed to make government less bloated. I actually endorse what sounds like a noble idea. However, slashing and burning federal departments while depriving “normal” Americans of services they have grown to expect carries the strong hint of arrogance … and ignorance into how much regular folks depend on that service.

Elon Musk doesn’t get it … not at all!

national news

Trump is a fool …

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Why have we elected a fool as president of the US of A?

Can’t explain why, but his inaction the other day as Elon Musk decided to go after Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Cabinet meeting tells me Americans have elected a fool, who also happens to be a coward.

Reports from that meeting have disclosed that Musk — the unelected head of the Department for Government Efficiency — decided to chastise with malice Rubio’s handling of the orders that Musk has issued regarding layoffs at the State Department.

Rubio answered that he works a the pleasure of the president and not to Musk.

But what did The Man himself do about any of it? Not a damn thing! Hence, we must describe Donald Trump as a fool masquerading as the toughest man in the room. He is no such thing.

I happen to think relatively highly of Rubio, a former Republican senator from Florida. He once ran against Trump for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. He called Trump a “con man” and a fraud, urging Americans to resist casting their ballots the so-called champion “for the little guy.”

Rubio sought while running against Trump to expose him for the blustering buffoon he has turned out to be. Then he became a Trump toadie once his former foe got elected POTUS.

What I must remind y’all is that Rubio stands high up in the presidential line of sucession, at No. 4 behind the VP, the House speaker, and the Senate president pro tempore.  Musk’s standing? It’s nowhere, as he was born in South Africa, made his billions and now has the ear of the POTUS.

For Elon Musk to dress down the nation’s top diplomat is a disgrace. That the president would allow it is even more disgraceful.

Yep. Americans have elected a fool to be our head of state.

International news

World War III? Watch out!

All this brainless talk about the possibility of a World War III erupting, brings to mind a quote attributed to the great Albert Einstein, one of the men who developed the atomic bomb dropped on Japan near the end of World War II.

The brainlessness, of course, starts at the top, with Donald Trump warning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of that possibility during that hideous haranguing he and J.D. Vance delivered in the Oval Office.

Einstein put the potential of a third global conflict in graphic and ghastly perspective.

He said, “I have no idea how we’ll fight World War III, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

International news, national news

Most unforgivable of all …

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Donald J. Trump has committed many politically unforgivable sins since riding down the Trump Tower escalator in July 2015 to announce his 2016 presidential campaign.

They are too numerous to mention here, but the last straw occurred just the other day and that’s the one on which I want to shed a bit of light.

It is the abject reversal of support for a wartime president and an allied nation that is fighting to preserve its democratic state against an invading army from Russia. Yes, it’s Ukraine.

Trump’s staged berating of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not come as a surprise. After all, Trump has been telegraphing his infatuation with Russian goon/thug/despot Vladimir Putin since he was elected to his first term as POTUS in 2016.

What was astounding, though, is doing so in the Oval Office, in front of the media and the public, berating Zelenskyy for not possesing a “winning hand” against the Russians. He hurled insults at a man who’s conducting a war against an illegal invader … at considerable risk of personal harm.

Stunning as it was to watch, we should remember that Trump is doing what he suggested he would do were he elected in 2024. He all but admitted his intention to turn the country’s back on Ukraine and sidle up to Putin.

The reasons escape me, given that Russia is now a third-rate conventional military power and a fourth- or fifth-rate economic power with an economy that is roughly the size of Italy’s.

The dipsh** in chief, though, loves dictators. He adheres to strongman tactics, even though in reality he is weak and cowardly.

Donald Trump has essentially thrown into the crapper this nation’s 80-year-old alliance with NATO, formed after World War II to serve as a hedge against Soviet aggression. The Soviet Union is gone, but Russia remains … and the Russians are now seeking to advance into a neighboring sovereign nation.

And all this is with Donald Trump’s blessing! Absolutely despicable — and unforgivable.

environmental news, local news

DST or Standard Time?

Americans are going to go through that twice-a-year rite of bitching about the shift from Standard Time to Daylight Saving Time.

We’ll have to push the clocks ahead one hour before we hit the sack Saturday night. Or else we’ll all be late for worship and all other things we do on Sunday.

Then the gripes will come.

  • Why do we have to keep messing with our body clocks?
  • I hate this time change stuff; it messes me up!
  • Farmers and ranchers shouldn’t have to change the times they feed their livestock. I mean, cattle and horses don’t know the difference!

You know how it goes.

For one thing, changing the schedlule from Standard Time to DST — and then back again in the fall — never has been a big deal for me. I get, though, why some folks dislike the change.

Texas had a chance a few years back to vote on whether to change to one time-keeping system or remain the same. The Legislature didn’t get the legislation prepared in time, so lawmakers adjourned the session sine die and the bill never got put to a vote.

If I had to choose, though, I think I would prefer permanent DST. Why? I just like having more daylight at the end of the day than at the beginning. It’s just me, man … you know?

Changing back and forth, though,  never has been a big f****** deal me.

So ,.. let’s all spring forward toward the next long, blistering Norh Texas summer, shall we?

national news

How did it get to this?

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I can state with absolute conviction that Americans have elected — twice, in fact! — the most ignorant, arrogant and insulting individual imaginable to the presidency of the United States of America.

Which makes me wonder — yet again: How in the world did it come to this?

Donald John Trump took an oath in January to defend and protect Americans from enemies at home and abroad. And yet, he has declared war on the government he was elected to administer. He has unleashed the world’s richest man to slash, slice and dice the government, sending pink slips to millions of dedicated public servants.

He has imposed tariffs on our nation’s most faithful friends, namely Canada and Mexico, and guaranteed that the cost of goods purchased and used by Americans will skyrocket into the great beyond.

Trump has sided with Russia, the illegal and immoral invader of another sovereign nation. He has pulled away all American military aid to Ukraine in an astonishing display of betrayal.

Trump has the backing of congressionl Republicans who comprise a paper-tin majority in both houses of Congress. They, too, are cowards of the first order, refusing to stand up for their constitutionally granted power to control the federal budget. They have handed the POTUS sidekick, Elon Musk, the virtual key to the treasure chest and told him, “It’s OK, Elon … you can just have. your way with taxpayers’ money and our authority.”

So help me, I will go to my grave never understanding how Americans — who used to believe in seeking only the very best among us to hold this power — have sunk so low to elect a certifiable ignoramus to the highest office in the land.

God help us.