Monthly Archives: July 2025

national news

Immigration: way up in polling!

Here’s a news flash that ought to get immigrants’ heart pumping: a Gallup poll says 79% of Americans view immigration and immigrants favorably, compared to 64% a year ago.

Who knew?

I am the direct descendant of immigrants who came to this country in the early 20th century because they, along with millions of others, saw the United States as a place where dreams come true. Theirs did.

And yet, some folks in the Donald Trump administration believe immigrants are sullying the national culture. What the hell?

They aren’t just targeting undocumented immigrants. They want to slam the door in the faces of all foreign nationals who choose to become U.S. citizens. I shake my head in shame and wonderment … and ponder what my Mom’s parents would think of that.

I want to single out briefly my maternal grandmother. She was Yiayia to her 12 grandchildren. Hell, her children — Mom and her two brothers — even referred to her that way. She was as patriotic an American as you would find anywhere. She loved Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. I am prepared to argue that Yiayia was the greatest American I’ve ever known … or ever will know.

She did not sully the character of this nation. She enhanced it! She enriched it! Yiayia and others who choose to live in the world’s most indispensable nation make it even greater than it was before they arrived here.

When I see poll results that tell me that Americans now view immigrants positively, I am heartened by a belief that most of us are rejecting the palaver being offered by Trump and his MAGA cult followers. America’s greatness can be seen every day in the faces of those who chose to seek a better life in the land that offered it to them.

crime news, national news, political news

No apology for being right about this clown

A critic of this blog just cannot seem to grasp the notion that my mind was settled long before Donald and Melania Trump glided down the escalator in the summer of 2015 to begin Donald’s career in politics.

I concede the obvious. Yep. My mind was made up a long time ago. And the 45th and 47th POTUS has done nothing at all to change it. I believe then what I believe now, which is that Trump is categorically unfit for public office.

But you know that already. Correct?

What none of us knows at this moment is what can be done to improve matters in D.C.

I’ll start with a couple of possibilities. One is to turn the House of Reps into an organization led by Democrats. Voters need to wrest control of that chamber from Republicans. If that occurs in the 2026 midterm election, then the fun can begin anew. There might be a third impeachment of this fundamentally corrupt individual. This impeachment could center on his involvement with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein hanged himself in a federal prison cell. Trump is now believed to have had something more than a passing acquaintance with this sexual predator. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump sent Epstein a birthday greeting card years ago. Trump denies it. He has sued the Journal, which stands by its reporting. I’m inclined to stand with the WSJ.

We have seen some fracturing among the MAGA fanatics who have supported Trump since he rode the escalator with Melania. Many of them want Trump to release the documents that could reveal a whole lot about Trump and whether he and Epstein were besties.

The other option is to elect someone to the presidency in 2028 who is clean, scandal-free and who knows how in the hell to govern. It won’t be Trump … no matter what some of his ardent supporters would like to see happen. The Constitution has labeled Trump a lame duck until Jan. 20, 2029.

Then it will be good bye and good riddance to the singularly most stupid individual ever elected to the presidency. Then we’ll have to ensure we cannot make that mistake ever again.

national news, political news

Voters are a confusing bunch

The run-of-the-mill American voter appears to suffer from some form of political schizophrenia.

Think about this for a moment, because that might be all the time you care to ponder what I am about to put forth.

Americans twice elected a young man who blazed trails everywhere he went, as the first Black editor of the Harvard Journalism Review, the first Black president of the United States, who was faithful to his wife and who avoided any semblance of scandal during his two terms in the White House.

Then voters in 2016 and in 2024 elected arguably the dumbest man ever to hold the office, who has acknowledged cheating on all three of his wives, who paid a porn actress to keep quiet about a sexual encounter he said never happened, who has never acknowledged a single failure in his professional life, who denigrates war heroes and Gold Star families, who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War, who selects certifiable morons to serve in the Cabinet, who lies at a breathtaking pace, who provoked an armed attack on the federal government to stop the certification of a free, fair and legal presidential election in 2020, the one that the president has never admitted he lost.

This is the kind of strange behavior that defies description. It challenges anyone to explain how an electorate can transform itself from a body of Americans dedicated to real-life change for the better to one that falls victim to a cretin’s call to follow him backward into the era of Jim Crow.

My hope is a simple one. That we can reverse what we have done to our nation in 2026 and again in 2028. We are far better than what we have delivered to ourselves in the form of a national government.

crime news

Let’s see if there’s nothing to see

Donald J. Trump’s administration is doing a marvelous job of pissing off its political base, not to mention the rest of the country.

It has done pirouettes around the question of whether to release information about convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s prison time and the friends he made while steering girls into prostitution. Trump said initially that he wanted the information released. He incurred the wrath of his loyalists, who don’t want the material released.

He then changed his mind, angering the MAGA cultists who have joined their more progressive antagonists in insisting that Trump release the info.

Trump’s team, though, says there’s “nothing to see.” Really?

Hey, here’s a thought: Why don’t you release the information and let the public determine whether there’s any substance to reports that Trump and Epstein were besties … and that includes reports that the future president of the United States might have been up to his armpits in criminal behavior.

local news

Too good to be true?

You have heard it said, I reckon, that you shouldn’t trust an offer that is “too good to be true.”

I’ve been getting many of them lately in North Texas. Here’s how they go:

My phone rings with the message that says “Spam Risk.” OK, it’s a risk of a spam call, not necessarily a guarantee that it is some sort of come-on. I answer and the voice on the other end offers to sell me a home security system for my house “with no installation charge or set-up fee.”

Sigh …

I hang up. You see, I treat calls like that the way I treat motel marquee signs that tell you that the Flea Bag Motel has “free HBO.” No. It doesn’t have a freebie.

Nor do these home security pitches. You see, no one goes into business thinking of ways to throw money away. Which tells me in clear and direct language that anyone who says they’ll install a home-security system with no installation fee is going to make up the price elsewhere in the transaction. In the monthly fee, yes? Or perhaps in some sort of surcharge.

So, there will be no installation charge. Right. It’ll come to you in a different form, which gives the solicitor a justification for spinning a tale that borders on a falsehood.

Now that I have posted this item on High Plains Blogger, I am going to stop answering all calls that warn me of a “Spam risk.”

legal news

Loathing is alive and well in DC

Oh, boy … I just hate watching spectacles like the one I watched unfold today in a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

However, given the loathsome attitude that permeates the nation’s capital, it’s not surprising and it isn’t likely to be nearly the last such demonstration.

Committee Democrats stormed out of the hearing today because the Republican leadership on the panel wouldn’t allow further debate on a truly horrible appointment to the 3rd U.S. District Court of Appeals. Donald Trump has selected his former personal counsel, Emil Bove, to a lifetime post on the federal bench. Committee Democrats wanted to debate Bove’s appointment further. GOP Chairman Charles Grassley of Iowa said “no.” He ordered that the appointment proceed to a committee vote.

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey pleaded with Grassley, who he praised as a man of decency and character, to grant the extra time for debate. Grassley was having none of it. Booker wanted to know what kind of control Trump had used to coerce Grassley into denying the debate.

Bove is a patently preposterous choice to become a federal judge. This is the guy who once said it was OK to tell a court to “fu** you” while disobeying a court order. He represented Trump in his case against the woman who won a court judgment that held Trump liable for sexual abuse. He also has said it might be possible for Trump to seek a third term as president, even though the Constitution limits presidents to two elected terms. Roll that around a while … eh?

Never in my entire life have I seen relationships between the legislative and executive branches of government degenerate to the level where it sits today. I have implored all the parties concerned to seek common ground. They need to return to an era where political rivals can disagree on policy but retain a certain level of personal decorum.

It’s all shattered. I fear it is gone forever.

crime news

Open Alcatraz? What the f***?

Donald Trump’s well-spring of purely stupid notions has zero bounds, it is a bottomless pit of nonsense.

For instance, he is considering reopening Alcatraz prison, the long-abandoned lockup in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Holy crap! What in the name of ridding the government of wasteful spending is going on here?

The prison has been vacant for many decades. It is falling apart. It is now part of the National Park Service’s list of tourist attractions. Trump wants to reopen it? He wants to house prisoners there?

Why? For what possible reason? What is the incentive?

Has anyone told the dipshit in chief the cost of such a project? I will cost the government billions of dollars!

OK. All of that is the bad news. The good news is that it isn’t likely to happen. Congress won’t allow it. The matter will end up in the court system after someone decides to sue Trump over this latest form of pure political idiocy.

It’s worth calling brief attention nonetheless to the kind of nonsense that flutters around that vacuous skull that sits on Donald Trump’s shoulders.

environmental news

Our grief is intense, personal

Texans are still grieving the loss of life and the destruction brought to the Texas Hill Country on July 4; our collective sadness might be difficult to explain.

I think I’ll try.

The Guadalupe River roared to an unfathomable level the other day. The death count from the torrent stands far north of 100. About the same number of folks are still missing. The media have been covering this story with “team coverage” one sees only during terrorist attacks, school shootings or jetliner crashes.

I was visiting with friends this morning at a church meeting in North Texas and the topic of our grief came up. I mentioned to them that I believe we are feeling it so deeply because we know someone who (a) has escaped the carnage, (b) is among the missing or (c) is one of the victims.

I’ll toss out a fourth category, which would include those we know live in the devastated region, but we’ve been. unable to locate them. They might not yet be on any missing persons list.

I am friends with a couple that moved to Comfort, Texas, a few years ago. Comfort is at Ground Zero of the flood devastation. I once worked with the wife of that duo in Beaumont. My wife and I became friends with her and her husband and their now-grown daughter.

I don’t know where they are. I managed to send a note via snail mail to an address I had for them. As of this moment, I haven’t heard from them. For all I know, they might not have mail delivery in the area affected by the ravaging water.

I am just one person out of millions of Texans who are waiting to hear if their friends are OK. I’m praying every night for my friends’ safety. Still, the waiting is torturous.

Media organizations are advertising aid programs where people can send money to pay for food, medical supplies and clothing for the victims. They are raising a lot of money.

I’ve seen the pictures from the Guadalupe River bed and the destruction left behind by the roaring deluge. Many others have seen them, too … and we all are mourning together.

military news

What about the oath?

Every so often I spend part of my day at home watching YouTube of news events, many of which involve the president of the United States acting in his role as commander in chief.

I saw one the other day and it compels me to share something that President Obama said while awarding the Medal of Honor to a Navy SEAL. He said the special forces that operate in all our military branches adhere to a code that says they shouldn’t seek attention or glory for the actions they perform in defense of our country. They operate in the shadows, he said, eschewing the limelight.

The comments drew me immediately to the conduct of a SEAL who took part in the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The individual apparently didn’t adhere to the special forces vow to remain anonymous.

Oh, no. Instead, this fellow decided to make a big deal out of what he said happened that night in Pakistan when SEALs and their Army pilots landed in the compound where bin Laden was hiding. This guy claimed to have fired the shots that killed bin Laden. He’s written a book about it. He’s appeared on TV talk shows to tell the world about what he said he did.

The young man who received the Medal of Honor from President Obama is what is described as a “special warfare operator.” Obama made the point that the fellow, who’s now retired from the Navy, would rather be anywhere else in the world than at the White House surrounded by officials, well-wishers and TV cameras.

That’s the way heroes roll. They do their job at great risk to their own safety. Then they go home. They await the next order to suit up and deploy into harm’s way.

The SEAL to seemingly boast about his role in taking out bin Laden only cheapens what went down that moonless night in Pakistan. I just wish he would have kept his trap shut.

crime news

Trouble in MAGA land? Awww!

There appears to be trouble brewing among the MAGA morons who comprise much of Donald Trump’s base of support.

It involves whether Trump should release information related to the late Jeffrey Epstein’s prison term after his conviction on charges involving sex trafficking and the selling of children into prostitution.

Trump at first said he would release the information to the public. Now he’s back away from that pledge. What’s more, he has pissed off the MAGA cabal that still seemingly adores this idiot.

I’m not entirely clear on why the MAGA cult wants the info released, other than there might be some dirt tossed on many of Trump’s political enemies. Epstein reportedly kept some sort of “black book” on people he serviced with young women. One of them might have been his pal … Donald John Trump.

Trump once said he wanted the information released. Now he’s cowering. The MAGA morons are angry with their guy.

Do I really care that the MAGA loons might be about to jump from the Trump ship that appears to be listing significantly in these roiling political waters? Not really. It does highlight one of the inherent problems that Trump has displayed ever since he entered political life in June 2015. It is his unwillingness to speak the truth.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a true-blue MAGA moron, wants Trump to release the information. Johnson has some supporters backing his insistence that the Epstein files are open to the public. What is Trump going to do? Beats the bejeebers out of me.

I do know that he is handing Democrats tons of ammo to use against him as they seek to regain control of Congress in 2026.

Hey! Come to think of it … that’s why I care about this brewing conflict!