Monthly Archives: December 2016

entertainment news

Get out of here, 2016! I’ve had it with you!

That did it!

I’m officially done with 2016.

Tonight I’m sitting stunned beyond belief at what the world has just learned: the acclaimed actress/comedian/dancer/singer Debbie Reynolds has just died — one day after her daughter, another beloved actress, Carrie Fisher, has passed on.

Has there been another year of tremendous loss as this one?

Muhammad Ali, Arnold Palmer, Prince, David Bowie, John Glenn, Alan Rickman, Alan Thicke … good grief, how many have I missed just now?

Then we lose Carrie Fisher and now her mother, Debbie Reynolds.

My head is spinning. My heart is broken.

My goodness! Get the hell out of here, 2016. I’m done with you.

International news, military news, national news

No apology for attack, but still a profound promise

As the son of a gallant World War II veteran who jumped into the fight just weeks after a treacherous attack against the United States, I was hoping for an apology.

It didn’t come. Instead, the prime minister of Japan — the nation that yanked us into a global bloodbath — offered something that came pretty close to an apology.

Shinzo Abe visited the USS Arizona Memorial in Honolulu as the guest of President Obama, who is on vacation there with his family. He spoke of the “precious souls” who died during the Japanese air attack on our naval and air forces on Dec. 7, 1941.

He vowed that Japan never again would go to war. Abe offered a statement of condolence that he said, in effect, will never end.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/27/world/asia/shinzo-abe-text-pearl-harbor.html?_r=0

The prime minister also expressed his gratitude for the generosity that Americans have extended to his people in the years since the “date which will live in infamy.”

“On behalf of the Japanese people, I hereby wish to express once again my heartfelt gratitude to the United States and to the world for the tolerance extended to Japan,” Abe said.

An actual apology would have been the best outcome of this first-ever visit to Pearl Harbor by a Japanese head of government.

This American, though, will accept the prime minister’s statement of eternal condolence.

local news

Get this one right, City Council

Amarillo’s city charter gives the City Council the power to make precisely one hiring decision: the council hires the city manager.

The five individuals who comprise the council, therefore, have to get this one right. There shouldn’t be any do-overs. They cannot foist it onto someone else. The strong-manager form of government for Amarillo gives the manager the authority to hire all other department heads.

The first hiring decision that the council makes, though, involves the individual who will grab the levers of government and implement council policy. The council is blessed — surprisingly so — with a strong stable of finalists from which to choose.

Thus, the council has only one thing it ought to consider as it ponders the choices for the city manager job: Which one of the five men selected as finalists is the best individual for the post.

The council, though, is getting a bit side-tracked. Imagine that. It’s arguing over how to structure the salary it will pay the manager.

Forget that stuff, council members!

The city paid its previous city manager and the guy who served as interim a handsome salary of more than $200,000 annually. Whoever gets the job next presumably will be the most qualified of the individuals who are competing for the job as chief municipal administrator.

Settle on that matter exclusively, council members. Don’t get caught up in some nickel-and-dime dickering over whether to negotiate a salary package based on an individual’s qualifications.

This is a huge deal, council members.

Get … it … right!

International news, national news, political news

This inquiring mind wants to know: What did Russians do?

I don’t doubt that Russian geeks hacked into our nation’s computer grid somehow and did something to influence the U.S. presidential election.

Unlike the president-elect, I am inclined to believe the analyses put forth by some of the best intelligence minds on the planet.

What I remain unclear about, though, is the nature of what the geeks did. What did they do — and I need a precise, detailed  explanation — to possibly tilt the election in Donald J. Trump’s favor.

* Did they put out fake messages that threatened voters in heavily Democratic precincts, decreasing voter turnout?

* Or, did they somehow make ballots cast for Hillary Clinton be logged as votes for Trump?

* Did the Russians float fake news stories about Hillary, telling voters that she is the child of Satan and that a vote for her would be a vote to send the nation straight on the express track to hell?

President Obama vows retaliation against the Russians. It could come as early as Thursday, according to some actual news reports.

But this inquiring mind — the one in my noggin — is anxious to the max to know what precisely the Russians might have done to influence our vote. Was it decisive?

Did we actually elect the wrong person as our next president?

Oh … wait!

International news, national news, political news

We still have only one POTUS at a time

Decorum matters. So does protocol. Say whatever you wish about a politician’s flouting of them both — whether you agree or disagree with him — they matter greatly in the conduct of foreign policy.

It is that backdrop, then, that compels me to say that Donald J. Trump is acting disgracefully during this transition period as he prepares to become the U.S. head of state and head of government.

The president-elect’s continual carping while President Obama conducts the affairs of state serves only to undermine the one president we have in power.

The recent decision by the United States to decline to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel over its building of settlements in the West Bank is the No. 1 example of how Trump doesn’t come close to understanding the meaning of protocol and decorum.

He launches routinely into his Twitter tirades, blasting the president’s decision, saying that Israel will have a true friend when the Trump administration takes over.

Consider, too, that another president-elect, Barack H. Obama, called a press conference shortly after being elected in 2008 to declare his intention to let President Bush conduct his policies the way he saw fit. President-elect Obama said he would wait until Jan. 20, 2009, the day he would take office, before weighing in with his own policy pronouncements. Indeed, presidents-elect going back many decades have honored that tradition.

What about that kind of behavior is lost on Trump? Why doesn’t this guy get it? Why can’t he resist the temptation to meddle in foreign policy before it’s his turn?

Trump has less than a month to go before he takes his oath of office, bids goodbye to his predecessor and then settles into the big chair in the Oval Office. This tweet storm he keeps launching is unbecoming of the office he is about to assume — and it damn sure is disrespectful of the man he is about to succeed.

Decorum and protocol, Mr. President-elect? You’ll learn soon enough how much it really matters.

national news, political news

That’s some non-apology, Carl

1 Comment

I’ve read phony apologies many times over the years.

They usually include the phrase “If I offended anyone ,,.”

Carl Palodino, the New York Republican operative/activist and former GOP candidate for governor, has taken the non-apology to a new level.

He said he wished President Obama would die in the coming year of mad cow disease and said Michelle Obama is really a dude who should live with gorillas in Africa.

Palodino’s explanation? What he said to an alternative newspaper in Buffalo, N.Y., was meant only for his “friends.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carl-paladino-email-apology_us_58629a35e4b0d9a5945920ff?section=politics

What? Huh? Are you kidding me?

This guy has said these kinds of things before. If this latest diatribe isn’t drenched in racist intent, then I have been living in some parallel universe for the past 67 years.

Palodino is a strong ally of Donald J. Trump. To its credit, the president-elect’s transition team has issued a strong statement of condemnation of Palodino’s hate-filled comment, calling it “reprehensible.”

As for this notion that he intended these hideous remarks only for his “friends,” how in the name of all that is holy does this guy’s non-apology make anything right?

legal news, national news, political news

What about a ‘consensus candidate’ for high court, GOP?

Americans are going to get a good look — probably fairly soon — at just how duplicitous many of our politicians can be.

Let’s consider the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly early this year while vacationing in Texas. President Obama then had to find someone to nominate to replace the longtime conservative icon. He found a centrist in Federal Judge Merrick Garland.

Republicans said before Garland got the nod that they would block anyone the president nominated. No hearing. No testimony. No vote. Nothing, man.

Throughout the president’s two terms in office, GOP senators had insisted that the Democratic president nominate “consensus” jurists to the nation’s highest court. He managed to get two justices confirmed: Sonja Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Garland was confirmable — had he been given the chance to make his case. Except for one thing: Confirming a centrist such as Garland would change the political balance of power on the Supreme Court, which held a slim conservative majority with Scalia.

A Republican now has been elected president. Will the new man, Donald J. Trump, nominate a “consensus” jurist for the high court? Will he find someone who splits the difference between liberals and conservatives?

Something tells me he’s going to tack to the far right as a sop to those who stood by him on the campaign trail.

Consensus? Who needs consensus when you and your political party control the White House and the Senate.

The upcoming Supreme Court appointment process is going to get ugly. Real ugly.

business news, national news, political news

Waiting now for Trump jobs reports

We know this much about Donald J. Trump’s presidency: the wall won’t be built any time soon, if at all; the Muslim registry won’t be enacted right away; all those jobs that have poured out of the country — supposedly — won’t be coming back right away.

However, we’re going to get a good feel for how Trump responds to a certain economic barometer. The U.S. Department of Labor issues its monthly jobs report right around the first Friday of every month.

For the past, oh, seven years or so, the Labor Department jobs figures have been ticking upward; roughly 150,000 each month, give or take.

Democrats have crowed about the figures. Republicans have been, well, more or less silent. If GOP leaders have had anything to say about these jobs figures, it would be to say that wages still stink.

The unemployment rate? Democrats have cheered the rate that now stands at 4.6, which is roughly half of the rate it was when President Obama took office eight years ago. Republicans pooh-pooh the numbers, saying that they reflect a diminishing number of Americans who are looking for work.

The first Friday in February will be just a few days after Trump takes office; nothing much to look for then. The March jobs figures, though, might give us a feel for how the Trumpkins respond to the Labor Department numbers. The feds will announce the jobs report on March 3, telling us how employers fared during February, which will be Trump’s first full month as president.

If they’re good, look for the Trumpkins to shout for joy. If they’re bad, look them to dismiss the numbers. Heck, they might suggest the numbers are “rigged” to make the new administration look bad. Oh, wait! He’s going to have his own labor secretary on the job by then.

Whatever news we get, we’re going to see a dramatic role reversal among partisans on both sides of the great — and growing — political divide.

local news, Sports news, State news

Not every Texas resident roots for Cowboys

Mom had a million of ’em … sayings, quips, one-liners that is.

If she said something that I didn’t quite get or understand, she’d say, “Don’t look at me as if I just grew another head.”

Ba-da-boom!

Today while at work a very nice woman asked me something and my response prompted that look from her that might have made me ask about the appearance of a second head.

“So,” she asked, “did you watch the Cowboys game last night?”

“Um, no. Not all of it. I was in and out of the game,” I said.

“It was a great game,” she said. “Sure it was,” I replied, “if you’re a Cowboys fan.”

“What? You aren’t a Cowboys fan?” she asked.

“No. Not really,” I said.

“How can you live in Texas and not be a Cowboys fan?” she asked, sounding borderline incredulous.

I proceeded to tell her that I am not much of a pro football fan. I mentioned that one of my sons lives in a Dallas suburb and he and his wife are huge Cowboys fans. He watched the game, I told her, and I assured her he likely is deliriously happy today that the Cowboys won.

I told her I’ve lived in Texas for nearly 33 years. I told her I went to a Houston Oilers (remember them?) game years ago in the Astrodome. My favorite pro football team growing up was the Oakland Raiders; I alluded to my upbringing on the Pacific Coast, so I guess it was a regional thing with me. I suppose it’s the same way here.

Then something occurred consciously to me that I’ve more or less felt for many of the past three decades-plus my family and I have lived in Texas: Mere residency in this state does not necessarily make one a Texan.

I suppose if I were a true-blue Texan, I’d be a serious Cowboys fan. Since my aforementioned Cowboys fan son came of age in Texas, he probably qualifies as a Texan — along with his brother — way more than their mother and I do.

I did mention to the nice lady that I used to cheer for the Cowboys back in the 1960s when they tried to beat the Green Bay Packers for the National Football League championship. Roger Staubach, Mel Renfro — a fellow Oregonian — and “Bullet Bob” Hayes were my go-to guys back then.

Am I wrong to dismiss the Cowboys? I wish them well as the playoffs commence. But if you’ll excuse me for identifying the team for which I plan to root, I’m going to stick with the Raiders.

They’re having a stellar season, too.

national news, political news

Give the smaller states a louder voice

This graphic showed up on my Facebook news feed as a statement against the Electoral College.

I looked at it and then thought: Wait a minute! What’s so terribly wrong with giving smaller states, such as Wyoming, a greater voice in the election of the president of the United States?

California has those 55 electoral votes; Texas has 38 of them; Florida has 29.

I remain officially undecided about whether to toss the Electoral College aside. It would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

But the more I think about it, the less inclined I am to support such a drastic measure.

The 2016 election ended with the “loser” winning nearly 3 million more popular votes than the “winner.” But the guy who won carried the Electoral College, which is what the founders intended.

I happen to be one who doesn’t begrudge little ol’ Wyoming the extra stroke it gets from the Electoral College.

When did power sharing become a bad thing?