Monthly Archives: January 2024

legal news, national news

Founders weren’t ‘perfect’

Our nation’s Constitution has become the subject of considerable discussion in recent years as politicians seek ways to sidle up to what they believe the nation’s founders intended when they wrote it.

I never have considered myself to be a constitutional expert. However, I long ago appreciated the brilliant rhetoric the founders used to frame the document that has become the model for much of the rest of the world.

The Constitution’s very first sentence lays down the predicate for what has followed. The founders wrote: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union … “

We’ll stop there. You do realize, I hope, what I believe to be the three most critical words in our governing document: “more perfect Union.”

Our founders knew from the get-go that forming a “perfect Union” was way beyond their reach. They knew that perfection was unattainable.

I mean, we have amended the Constitution 27 times since its ratification in 1789. One of the amendments was enacted to overturn a previous amendment that turned out to be a monumental failure.

The 18th Amendment — ratified on Jan. 16, 1919 — sought to make the production, sale and consumption of liquor illegal. It didn’t take long for politicians to realize the mistake they made. On Dec. 5, 1933, Americans ratified the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment.

Where am I going with this? I am trying to understand what the founders intended  when –having won our nation’s independence after the Revolution — they crafted what I believe to be a “living document” that is subject to change, reform and improvement.

Indeed, the founders likely expected the Constitution to need improvement when they inserted the word “more” just ahead of “perfect” when they signed off on the greatest governing framework in world history.

Those who insist on following “original intent” so many years later, or proclaim themselves to be “constitutional conservatives,” should take heed of what I believe the founders intended.

national news, political news

Haley gets her wish … hold on!

Nikki Haley has been saying lately that she wants to go head-to-head with the Republican Party’s leading presidential candidate.

Well, as of today she got her wish when Florida Gov. DeSantis — once hailed as the lone alternative to the former Liar in Chief — folded up his campaign tent and then endorsed the guy he refused to take on with stern rhetoric.

Haley’s first big effort lines up in just a couple of days when New Hampshire Republicans go to the polls and cast real votes for the candidate of their choice. Haley, the former South Carolina governor and one-time U.N. ambassador, or the guy who appointed her as our envoy to the U.N.

I have no particular preference, other than to somehow ensure that the former POTUS never darkens the door in the West Wing ever again.

My personal desire when all the votes are counted in November is to see President Biden on the job for the next four years. As if you didn’t already know that.

Haley has been regurgitating some rhetoric repeatedly, saying that “rightly or wrongly, he brings chaos.” Well, duh! Someone will have to explain what she means by “rightly or wrongly.” How is it “right” for a leading politician to foment “chaos” wherever he goes?

I guess Haley doesn’t want to piss off the cult followers of her foe too much.

Whatever. It is now Haley vs. the pol who confuses her with Nancy Pelosi, who says he ran against Barack Obama, and who says Joe Biden is going to lead us into World War II. Spoiler alert: He didn’t run against the 44th president and we already fought — and won! — World War II.

***

One more thing. Perhaps you are noticing I refuse to mention the GOP frontrunner by name. I won’t, at least for a while. I am sick of seeing his name in print and hearing it on the air.

media news

Cynicism takes over

Far too many of my former journalism colleagues have conflated two terms in describing their reasons for becoming reporters.

They have told me they are “cynical” by nature and their “cynicism” makes them fit for the craft they pursued. I prefer another term in describing why we pursue that line of work.

That term is “skeptic,” or “skeptical,” or “skepticism.”

It’s easy to become cynical, particularly these days, when covering politics or reporting on policy decisions. I want to point y’all to the words and actions of the immediate past POTUS.

Skeptical reporters no doubt have grown cynical over the way the e-POTUS lies and is able to get away with it. Their task when covering this guy is to prevent their cynicism from infecting the tone of their coverage of his coming and going.

I offer the notion that it’s OK to look at what he says and the actions he takes with a huge dose of skepticism. It’s what good journalists always should do. Take it from me also that the world of journalism contains a many solid reporters who take seriously their pledge to cover their subjects fairly.

Even as they look with intense — but healthy — skepticism at what these pols are saying.

local news

Journey gets brighter

Many of you — those who follow this blog — know about the journey I have taken for the past year.

It started out painfully. It got better over time as I jumped into my pickup and — with Toby the Puppy riding shotgun — traveled to both coasts of this great nation.

We bid a good fu**ing riddance to 2023. My sons and I burned calendars in my back yard the evening of Dec. 31. I had just said so long to my puppy on Dec. 1, ending the year with nearly the pain I felt when I lost my bride, Kathy Anne, to cancer near the beginning of the year.

But now a new year has arrived. We’re three weeks into 2024 and I am happy — no, thrilled and delighted — to report that the pain has all but subsided. I have laid the foundation for a new life in North Texas.

I am committing to some worthwhile projects. I am socializing more. I vowed to find the light at the end of that dark journey and I am going to declare that the light is shining brightly on me. I hope it shines on my sons, my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter.

We have all been through a lot together. I hope they all know how indebted I am for the strength they have shown and demonstrated and I am hoping they have received some strength and encouragement from their old man. They know I love them with every beat of my heart.

My friends all have said that I always will have those moments when emotion takes control of my senses. I get it. Honestly, I truly do.

But I will be damned forever if I let it control me as I soldier on with the rest of my life.

I am looking forward to a year of adventure, I hope a surprise or three, and one that produces plenty of additional cherished memories.

crime news

DOJ report: Police failed miserably in Uvalde

Words fail me at this moment as I ponder the release of a nearly 600-page report chronicling the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland told the world Thursday of a systematic failure — from top to bottom — of the police response to the massacre of 19 children and two educators.

For 77 interminable minutes the cops did nothing while an 18-year-old lunatic was holed up in the school … and murdering children and the teachers who sought to protect them.

State troopers were present, along with Uvalde municipal cops, officers of the Uvalde school district, sheriff’s deputies. They were leaderless. They received no instruction to storm the school and take the shooter out.

The officers sat on their hands and allowed the carnage to continue.

I have no words of wisdom to offer. I cannot think of a way to prevent this sort of tragedy from recurring.

All I know is that the men and women who suit up as “leaders” failed to perform the essential tenet of leadership. They failed to issue orders to storm the school and do whatever it took to “neutralize” the moron who had purchased legally an AR-15 rifle and then used it to take the lives of innocent and precious children.

AG Garland took specific note that the AR-15 is intended for “the battlefield.” Its purpose is to kill people as quickly as people. It does not belong in the possession of individuals — such as the Uvalde madman — who then can rein havoc and mayhem on defenseless children.

How do we stop this madness? I have no clue on how one can do so while navigating the rough political water that so far has prevented any meaningful laws to curb such senseless violence.

Were I the King of the World, I might ponder whether there’s a way to amend the Second Amendment, the one that gun-rights advocates use as their political shield against solutions to the gun violence plague.

But I’m not. I am left only to gasp in horror at the findings of the Department of Justice and share the attorney general’s grief over the senselessness of the slaughter that no doubt will continue.

 

national news, political news

Polls aren’t predictors

I have to remind myself of an important fact as I ponder these public opinion polls showing President Biden possibly losing his re-election bid to the leading Republican challenger.

It is that the polls are not predictors of what will happen many months from now, but merely are snapshots of the public’s mood in the moment. What does that mean? It means that circumstances can change the public mood in dramatic fashion.

And, oh Lord, there are factors a-plenty out there that could change the minds of millions of Americans preparing to cast their votes for president.

We have several trials awaiting the GOP frontrunner. They are a dizzying array of felony charges. The former POTUS could be convicted of any of the felonies, from one accusing him of seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, to hiding classified documents in his posh digs in south Florida, to pressuring election officials in Georgia to “find” enough votes to award him that state’s electoral votes.

If a jury convicts him of any of them, he no longer can run for public office, let alone serve in the one he seeks. It’s on the books, man.

That means voters who currently favor the former POTUS in his bid to return to the office from which he was drummed out in 2020 will have to make decide whether they really want to vote for a convicted felon to become commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military and head of state of the world’s most indispensable nation.

The ex-POTUS can yelp and yammer all he wants about whatever decisions come down. The facts, though, will stand on the record forever if he is convicted of any of the serious charges that have been leveled against him.

President Biden has been a national politician for more than five decades. He knows his way around the political pea patch and no doubt will be able to exploit the obvious flaws in his opponent’s record … presuming, of course, that Republicans are foolish and stupid enough to nominate him.

Am I worried, therefore, about what these polls are telling us today? Nope. The worry will kick in on election eve if they are delivering the same message.

God help us if that occurs.

national news

Patriot? Hardly!

Vivek Ramaswamy ended his 2024 Republican presidential campaign this week and then endorsed the idiot who finished ahead of the shrinking GOP field in Iowa.

What, though, did the businessman call the former Liar in Chief? He called him a “patriot.” OK, I am going to dispute that label with every fiber of my being.

The GOP frontrunner is not a patriot. Pure and simple, he chastises who he says “hates America” … but he is the hater who is leading a cult cabal of haters. 

What else would you use to describe a mob that storms the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 and traipses under the Dome brandishing a Confederate flag? They did that heinous deed at the behest of the former POTUS who vowed to “take our country back,” from whom never has been clear to me. The Stars and Bars was never seen in the Capitol during the Civil War, as it symbolizes a group of states that went to war with the United States of America.

That isn’t the act of a patriot. Nor the act of someone who reveres our government or respects the work that our nation’s founders did to write a Constitution that serves as the framework for the greatest form of government ever created.

He ain’t a patriot. Not by my sense of the word, or the sense of anyone who believes we are a great nation and those who honor any oath we take to be loyal to the nation’s government document.

The man whom Ramaswamy is backing is — in my humble view — a traitor to the nation.

local news, Sports news

Try someone new … Jerry

Jerry Jones, the egomaniacal owner of the Dallas Cowboys, won’t accept any advice from someone who in truth doesn’t really give a crap about the organization he calls “America’s Team.”

But I’m going to offer it anyway.

A Dallas man submitted a letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News, which published it in this morning’s paper. The fan writes that the team has gone “28 long years” since it last played for an NFL championship; the team has burned through 1,484 players, six head coaches and one general manager. “Can you guess the common denominator for all these … failures?” he writes.

Sure. That’s Jones, who doubles as GM as well as the guy who signs the ample paychecks.

Jones’s ego compels him to pretend he knows something about pro football. He won’t give up the GM post to a real football pro. But he damn sure should.

The Cowboys choked this past weekend against a team described as “upstart.” The Green Bay Packers came to play tackle football. The Cowboys didn’t. There likely should be a coaching change in the Cowboys’ immediate future.

As for the GM matter, that’s up to the owner … who must decide whether to “fire” himself and then hire someone who knows how to build and maintain a professional football team.

That won’t happen. It certainly should, if only the owner’s ego would allow it.

crime news, national news

What has happened to GOP?

The Iowa caucus results are in and the 45th POTUS is the clear and convincing winner of 2024’s first contest of the presidential cycle.

I had hoped for a different outcome, but … well, it didn’t happen.

Thus I am left to wonder anew about the state of the Republican Party, whose caucus-goers would embrace a man who:

  • Calls a Vietnam War hero a “loser” because he was captured by the enemy.
  • Admits to cheating on all of his wives.
  • Says he might “date” his daughter were he not her father.
  • Mocks a reporter for a physical disability from which he suffers.
  • Says he can grab women by their genitals because he is “famous.”
  • Dismisses the intelligence findings of his spy network of experts in favor of some remarks by the murdering Russian dictator.
  • Boasts about a “love letter” he received from another tyrant, the guy who lets North Koreans suffer.
  • Tosses love at dictators around the world for the “strength” they show in subjugating their people.
  • Pledges to assert authoritarian power “on the first day” of a presidency were he elected at the end of this year.
  • Never once admits he lost the 2020 election and denies his successor the “peaceful transition of power” he deserves.
  • Chastises those who planned the mission to kill Osama bin Laden because they didn’t do it sooner.
  • Threatens to pardon the mobsters facing criminal prosecution for their participation in the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on our government.
  • Has been impeached twice by the House and faces four indictments on 91 felony criminal counts.

This is the guy Republicans seem to prefer for the office of president of the United States of America?

God help them. And the rest of us, too.

environmental news

Yes, climate is changing

You hear it almost unfailingly whenever we get hit with a cold snap, such as what has gripped North Texas — and much of the rest of the country of late.

It comes from climate change deniers who scoff at the notion that our climate is changing, and the globe is getting warmer. I heard it the other morning while having breakfast with some gentlemen with whom I am acquainted. They dissed the notion of global warming.

I didn’t say a word, as I don’t know them well enough to challenge such nonsense.

One of our local TV meteorologists put it well recently in a public service announcement. The weather, he said, defines what is happening in the moment, while “climate” defines longer-term trends.

That was his way of telling us to disregard current weather conditions when discussing whether the climate is changing.

I believe he is correct.

I remember the time during an earlier D.C. cold snap when climate change denier U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma took a snowball to the floor of the Senate to make some kind of idiotic argument that climate change is a hoax, a product of liberals seeking to damage to the fossil fuel industry which, I should add, was a big contributor to Inhofe during his years in public life.

The term “global warming” has for all intent been replaced by “climate change,” which I believe is a more inclusive description of what is happening to our good Earth. We indeed are suffering through more climate extremes from year to year.

The data we receive from worldwide meteorological organizations is beyond dispute. It is that despite these cold snaps, Earth’s mean temperature is rising year over year, the global ice caps are melting, mountain glaciers are receding and that thousands of species of wildlife are endangered by the changing climate.

When I hear the climate change deniers dismiss the evidence because they’re bundling up to protect against frigid air temps, I am left only to shake my head in dismay at their ignorance.