Monthly Archives: November 2019

Sports news

Get ready for the ridicule, Sean Doolittle

Sean Doolittle isn’t the first athlete to decline a White House invitation. Donald Trump isn’t even the first president to receive a refusal from a championship-winning athlete.

Neither of them will be the last individuals take part in such a strange tango.

However, Sean Doolittle — a relief pitcher for the Washington Nationals World Series champion baseball team — is likely in for a rough ride from the president of the United States.

Why? Because Doolittle said he cannot attend a White House ceremony presided over by Trump, a man he detests. Doolittle said he doesn’t like the way the president talks about immigrants, the poor and those who come from so-called “sh**hole countries.”

Doolittle said he and his wife adhere to the principle of kindness and have worked to help those in stricken “sh**hole” nations.

Trump, of course, has invited a lot of this kind of reaction from athletes and the teams on which they play. The Golden State Warriors stayed away from the White House after winning the NBA title a couple of years ago. Trump made quite a bit of hay over it via social media.

Will he do the same to Doolittle? What if other Nationals players decide to stay away? Will they get the social media bullying that has made the president infamous?

The Trump era as president is going to take another bizarre turn as he seeks in his usually clumsy fashion to honor some pro athletes, many of whom quite likely would rather be somewhere else than in his presence.

religious news

Trump’s weird association with evangelicals takes an even weirder turn

It looks as though the nation’s strangest political alliance has taken a strange new twist.

Donald Trump has hired a thrice-married, money-loving televangelist to be his link to the evangelical Christian community that continues to support the president, even in the wake of a mountain of impeachment evidence that is piling up all around him.

This person’s name is Paula White. She is far from your run-of-the-mill person of the cloth. She has been marred by marital scandal. She lives in a glitzy mansion in Florida. She reportedly believes God wants believers to gather wealth. She delivers her ministry on television.

Doesn’t sound so, oh, very Trumpian? I believe it does.

The New York Times noted some fascinating spiritual comparisons.

The Times reported that Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon turned the Rev. Billy Graham, who the Times said was “so ubiquitous he became known as America’s Pastor.” President Obama turned to Rick Warren, whose best-selling book “The Purpose Driven Life” became the second best-selling hardcover book in American history; the No. 1 best-seller is, um, The Bible.

Read the Times story here.

Paula White comes from a vastly different mold than previous presidential pastors. She is, shall we say, more than a tad unconventional in her approach to God’s holy word.

She preaches something called “the prosperity gospel,” which the Times reports has drawn widespread criticism from mainstream religious leaders. Imagine that … if you can.

But there she is, working within the White House as a sort of “spiritual adviser” to a president who, to my way of thinking, has lived one of the most un-Christian lives of any notable public figure I’ve ever seen.

Didn’t he once tell us that he’s never sought “forgiveness”? He has admitted cheating on two of his three wives; and there’s plenty of evidence that he’s fooled around on Wife No. 3. He has preached a doctrine of toughness to obtain business success. Trump has mocked others’ physical disabilities, their appearance, their intelligence.

Does any of that resemble what Jesus Christ would endorse?

Don’t answer that.

Now he has someone named Paula White advising him. She will work to shore up his religious movement support.

Weird, man.

local news, State news

Parking It, Part 3: An undiscovered treasure

MARTIN CREEK LAKE STATE PARK, Texas –– My wife and I some time ago declared ourselves to be in love with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.

Specifically, we love the state parks system.

We have discovered what we believe is one of TP&W’s hidden treasures. Martin Creek Lake State Park is about a three-hour drive from our home in Princeton. We made the drive and then found this gem of a public park.

One minor difficulty proved to be no difficulty at all: Every spot in the park is a back-in space, meaning we had to back our fifth wheel into the space we had reserved. It turned out to be wide enough, roomy enough and, by golly, we got ‘er done!

However, the scenic nature of this park is quite stunning.

As we have found with all the Texas state parks we have visited since we took up RV life in retirement, this one is well-maintained, well-groomed and well-managed. There are plenty of scenic hiking trails throughout the park, which isn’t a large park.

What’s more, there is plenty of space between RV campsites. There’s no crowding of folks parked right next to the site next door.

So help me, I recommend to all of our Texas-resident friends that the state park system is worth using.

My wife and I make notes of those parks we intend to visit again when we see them for the first time. Martin Creek Lake has just elbowed its way to the head of the line of return-visit locations.

We love this place!

national news

POTUS works overtime to hide ‘nothing’

Donald J. Trump keeps insisting he has done nothing wrong. He calls the Democratic effort to impeach him the “greatest witch hunt in our history.” The president calls it a hoax. He calls the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution a “phony” proviso.

All that said, why in the name of presumed innocence does he keep acting like someone who’s trying to hide things from congressional inquisitors?

The House is getting ready to impeach the president. They have a trove of issues on which to decide. They include obstruction of justice, abuse of power, violating his oath of office, possible bribery.

However, the president says he has done nothing wrong. That July 25 phone conversation with the Ukrainian president in which he sought a “favor, though” in exchange for weapons was “perfect,” as Trump has described it.

His newly installed press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, said Trump “has nothing to hide.”

C’mon, gang! With nothing to hide, with there being no “there” there,” why does Trump keep acting like someone who’s trying to keep the goods out of Congress’s hands?

He did the same thing when special counsel Robert Mueller III was trying to ascertain “collusion” with Russians who interfered with our 2016 election. Trump is continuing the same tactic now as House Democrats proceed with their impeachment inquiry.

Hey, I am sitting in the peanut gallery. I get that I am nowhere near the center of the action. Still, from my perch out here in Trump Country, Donald Trump is acting far more like someone with plenty to hide than the victim of a “witch hunt.”

local news

Why did he vote against this resolution?

I am going to do something I don’t normally do.

I intend to write my congressman a letter. I want to ask him: Why did you vote against a resolution that seeks to do the very thing you and your colleagues demanded?

My congressman is a freshman Republican from Plano, Texas. He is an earnest young man. A Marine Corps veteran who served in Afghanistan. Van Taylor is not a loudmouth. He is a quiet House member. I know him a little bit and hope to get to know him better.

The House approved a resolution that lays down the groundwork for the impeachment inquiry that seeks to learn all the facts about the allegations surounding Donald Trump. Did he break the law by soliciting a foreign government for a personal political favor? I think he did. Congress needs to establish it before filing articles of impeachment, which I believe it will do eventually.

House Republicans accused Democrats of conducting a star chamber inquiry. The resolution aims to take away that complaint.

But every GOP House member who voted this week on the measure voted “no.” How come?

The inquiry will be made public. Trump’s legal team will get to cross-examine witnesses. It could become a terrific made-for-TV spectacle, which is right up Trump’s alley.

I don’t know if Rep. Taylor will answer my letter. I hope he does. His staff might see this blog post, for all I know.

I intend fully to keep  you apprised of what he says.

Or if he remains silent.

medical news

Far from persuaded that Medicare for All is worthy, practical

I will need some additional persuasion, perhaps a lot of it, to be sold on the idea of Medicare for All, the pet project of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the newly anointed “front runner” for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

She now says it’ll cost “trillions of dollars” over the next decade, but she won’t raise taxes on middle-class Americans to pay for it.

I must stipulate that I am an elderly American. I am nearly 70 years of age. I am enrolled in Medicare, but also am enrolled in the Department of Veterans Affairs health care program. My VA membership trumps Medicare, given that if I need acute medical care, I am going to rely on the VA to take care of my needs.

So this Medicare for All notion is out of my wheelhouse. Or my wife’s wheelhouse. My sons, though, would be eligible for this program that Sen. Warren is pitching, along with our 6-year-old granddaughter.

I don’t want them to go broke looking for medical care or trying to find insurance that would pay for it.

I am just trying to wrap my noggin around how our federal government — which already is gazillions of dollars in debt — would be able to foot the bill on a government-financed medical plan that by definition would cover “all” Americans.

Warren says, if she’s elected president, she wouldn’t push for a middle-class tax on all Americans to pay for this package?

I need to figure this one out.

national news

Was it ‘fair’ to boo POTUS at World Series? Absolutely … yes!

I keep seeing the question popping up on social media sites and elsewhere about the greeting that Donald Trump got when he showed up at Game 5 of the World Series the other evening between the Washington National and the Houston Astros.

The public address announcer told the crowd that the president of the United States was at the Nats’ ballpark. The crowd of 41,000-plus erupted … on boos and chants of “Lock him up!”

So, the question persists even after the Nats winning the Major League Baseball championship: Was it fair to boo the president?

Of course it was fair! He got what he deserved!

I mean, consider what this clown has done to others. He has enabled campaign rally crowds to shout “Lock her up!” in connection with Hillary Clinton’s controversy over email use. He has used social media to bully his opponents. Trump has fomented lie after lie about his foes and about former presidents of the United States. He has denigrated war heroes, a Gold Star family, mocked a reporter with a physical disability and kowtowed to hostile foreign-power leaders.

So, a baseball crowd decides to boo this individual and some on the right and in the media question whether it was proper for Americans to voice their displeasure about him?

Give me a break.

national news, State news

Beto wipes out on wave he hoped would win the White House

Beto O’Rourke rode a huge wave to a near win in a 2018 campaign for the U.S. Senate in Texas.

Then the former El Paso congressman decided he would ride that wave in search of a bigger prize: the White House.

Today, though, he called it quits. He is no longer running for president of the United States. Indeed, O’Rourke never quite caught the same wave that excited so many Democrats in Texas and for a time got ’em pumped up in many other parts of the country.

I’ll admit to being disappointed. I had hoped to cast my ballot for O’Rourke once the Democratic Party primary parade marched its way toward Texas. However, O’Rourke never quite ignited the same level of interest in his presidential campaign that he did while he challenged Sen. Ted Cruz a year ago.

Oh, I wanted him to win the Senate seat in the worst way. He campaigned in all of Texas’s 254 counties. He took his message to progressive bastions such as Travis, Dallas and Bexar counties as well as conservative strongholds in the Panhandle, the Permian Basin and Deep East Texas.

O’Rourke finished Election Night 2018 less than 3 percent short of victory. In Texas, that constituted some sort of “moral victory” for Democrats who have lusted for a statewide election victory for more than two decades.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be as O’Rourke sought his party’s presidential nomination.

There might be another elected office in O’Rourke’s future. Just not this next year.

Nice try, Beto. Many of us still want to see you stay in the game, even if you’re no longer a candidate for public office.

national news

GOP demands more transparency … then rejects it!

I must have missed something in the translation.

Congressional Republicans have spent the better part of the past month or so trashing their Democratic colleagues because, they say, Democrats are conducting “secret” impeachment inquiry hearings into the conduct of Donald J. Trump.

Democrats are not doing anything in secret. Republican members of Congress have been taking part right along with Democrats as witnesses are deposed in private sessions.

So then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed suddenly this past week to hold a vote of the full House of Representatives to formalize the impeachment inquiry. The result of the vote will launch the public portion of the inquiry.

Yes, committees will open their hearings up to the public. Americans of all stripes will get to witness the hearings on TV in real time.

However, the vote that the House approved Thursday didn’t collect a single Republican vote. Not a one of ’em decided to endorse the public inquiry. What gives with that?

I feel the need to remind y’all that the vote in the House was to formalize the inquiry. It was not an impeachment vote. That will come later. Then again — even though it is highly remote — an impeachment vote might not occur. Suppose most of the House decides that they lack the evidence they need to decide on articles of impeachment.

I know. That seems so distant these days, given the mountain of evidence that is piling up that Donald Trump sought personal political favors from a foreign government. That is against the law and it violates the oath the president took. It’s impeachable, man!

Back to my original thought: If congressional Republicans demand more transparency in these hearings, why didn’t they vote for the measure that the Democratic House speaker laid at their feet?

business news

POTUS, a lifelong New Yorker moves to Florida

What do you know about this? Donald Trump, a native of New York City, the guy who built his business there, who has called Trump Tower in Manhattan his official residence since 1983, now has changed his residence to Florida.

What gives? I wonder if it has something to do with Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s subpoena demanding eight years worth of Trump’s tax returns relating to the DA’s investigation into that $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn queen with whom Trump (allegedly) had a one-night fling in 2006.

Do ya think? Well … I do.

I’m not sure if Trump’s declaring Florida as his official residence makes it more difficult to obtain those returns. Still, it sure looks to me as if the president is trying to keep something out of someone’s hands.