Tag Archives: social media

legal news

Gorsuch stands up for his judicial peers

I am beginning to think more highly of Neil Gorsuch.

The man whom Donald J. Trump has nominated for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court has put the president on notice, saying that Trump’s tweets about the federal judiciary are “disheartening” and “demoralizing.”

It’s tempting — for me at least — to wonder if Trump is going to withdraw Gorsuch’s nomination because he had the gall (and the integrity) to speak in favor of his federal judicial peers.

Of course Gorsuch is correct. The president’s petulance performance via Twitter has been beyond the pale and below the high standards of respect the presidency should demand.

Trump clearly demands that others respect the office. I submit that he should respect it, too. Perhaps he should respect it more, given that his behavior — or misbehavior — reflects directly on the office to which he was elected.

Trump’s tweets have been in response to a federal judge’s decision to strike down the president’s temporary refugee ban. The president has chosen to demonstrate his anger through this social medium — acting like, oh, a teenager who’s just been told his car isn’t as cool as the other guy’s.

Now a judicial gentleman has taken the president to task.

Good for you, Judge Gorsuch.

legal news

Founders got it right, as Trump is demonstrating

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison … wherever they are, must be enjoying what they are witnessing in the country they helped create.

They are possibly witnessing a supreme test of checks and balances as they intended for them to be used.

Donald J. Trump, the nation’s 45th president, is setting up a yuuuge fight with the federal judiciary. That would pit two of the three co-equal branches of government against each other.

Trump issued an executive order that bans refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries. He cited national security as his reason. He seemingly wants to ban Muslims from entering the country and is using “extreme vetting” procedures to find the bad guys among the refugees who are fleeing their native lands for the Land of Opportunity and Freedom.

A federal judge has ruled that the executive order is discriminatory on its face. A federal appeals court is considering whether to uphold the ban or side with the judge.

Trump, meanwhile, is embarking on a social media campaign to blast the judge who issued the order staying the president’s order, thus possibly enraging other federal judges — namely the eight individuals who sit on the U.S. Supreme Court who might be asked to issue the final ruling on the president’s order.

Thus, a showdown may be born.

The founders established an “independent judiciary” for the best reason possible: to protect federal judges from political coercion. They serve as judges for life. They are supposed to interpret the U.S. Constitution without pressure or coercion from politicians.

But wait! Trump is seeking to apply that very pressure by badgering the judges. He called the federal jurist who struck down the ban a “so-called judge”; he said the nation should “blame” him and the federal court system if a bad guy sneaks into the nation.

Trump is using Twitter to make his specious case against the federal judiciary.

All the while, the founders are looking down while patting each other on the back. “Yep,” they might say to each other, “this is precisely what we had in mind.”

entertainment news, media news

Arnold vs. Donald: so ‘unpresidented’

Donald Trump has become tweeter in chief.

His latest foil is another former prominent politician, a guy named Arnold Schwarzenegger. The two men connected by a reality TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” have been tweeting back and forth for a couple of days now.

Honestly, it is so damn “unpresidented” — to borrow a term — that it’s driving me batty.

Trump is telling us how “Apprentice” ratings have tanked since he left the show to become, um, president of the United States of America. Arnold — the current host of the show — has responded with a seemingly tongue-in-cheek attack on the president, suggesting the two men switch jobs; if only the U.S. Constitution would allow the Austria-born Schwarzenegger to do the job that Trump now holds.

I know this plea will fall on deaf ears. My Trumpkin friends who read this blog will scoff at me; the anti-Trumpkins out there might express some sorrow for my persistence.

Still, this activity by the president of the United States is so unbecoming of his office. I get that Arnold bears some responsibility as well, given that he once was a consequential governor of the nation’s most populous, wealthiest state — and who once was married to a member of two of the nation’s most prominent political families: Maria Shriver.

Maybe I should just heed my own advice and ignore this ridiculous behavior. I should stop commenting on it with this blog.

I guess I have to acknowledge that I am doing Trump’s bidding by calling attention to it, no matter how negatively I feel about it.

There, I just did. I still don’t like it.

Put down the Twitter device, Mr. President. You’ve got many more infinitely more important matters to occupy your waking hours. This is no way to “make America great again.”

media news

‘Fake news’ has become a conspiracy

TIGARD, Ore. — I have just spent a wonderful afternoon catching up with members of my family who came together to celebrate my uncle’s 90th birthday.

We laughed, hugged, expressed our love for each other and shared plenty of memories.

I’ll likely have more to say about that later, but for the moment I want to pass along a comment I heard from one of my cousins.

Jim said he reads this blog “religiously.” He likes my take on the state of the world and the nation. Thanks, Jim, I appreciate it more than you know.

Then he offered this observation. He wants me to keep fighting against what he believes is a “conspiracy” to build up “fake news” that he thinks has become so pervasive that it is dumbing down society so much that we don’t know “real news” when we see it.

“Am I right?” he asked. Well, I don’t know precisely if he is correct. It might be a bit early to determine the pervasiveness of fake news and whether it has overwhelmed our information flow to the extent Jim — and likely others — believe it has.

I do believe this: It is that the presence of fake news has made most — if not all — of us more wary about the items we read on the Internet. Digital sources have proliferated to such an alarming degree it has become next to impossible to discern fiction from fact on many of these “news” items that are bouncing around in cyberspace.

Fake news has put me on my toes. I intend to stay there probably for the rest of my life as a full-time blogger. If it overwhelms me, then I’ll just have to shift the focus of this blog to more “life experience” kinds of topics.

I’m not yet ready to give up the fight to keep filling cyberspace with my own view of the world.

Thanks for the show of support, Jim. As someone once said, “Everyone is entitled to my opinion.”

media news, national news

Chelsea stands tall in defense of Barron

Barron Trump has joined a club that is almost as exclusive as the one his parents have joined.

He becomes one of the kids who will grow up in the White House. Thus, he has become — to the shame of many — an easy target of ridicule.

Barron doesn’t deserve such treatment any more than one of his predecessors did. And she has come to Barron’s defense. Barron? Meet Chelsea Clinton … if you haven’t met her already.

Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky sent out a tweet over the weekend urging the public to let Barron, who’s 10 years of age, to “be a kid.” If only the Internet trolls out there would back off.

His parents, Donald and Melania Trump, have assumed the highest profile possible as president and first lady of the United States. With that responsibility, though, a lot of attention gets riveted on their son.

It’s good to see Chelsea Clinton come to the youngster’s defense. She knows better than most White House kids about the hurtful things that foes of her parents can sling — not just at them, but at her as well.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/chelsea-clinton%e2%80%99s-years-in-the-spotlight-%e2%80%94-from-first-daughter-to-mother-of-two/ar-AAm93OJ?li=BBnbfcL

Indeed, I was privy once to a hideous comment from a local clergyman in Amarillo about Chelsea. I called him on it later in a note I wrote to him. He apologized to me several weeks later.

This social media craze has erupted over the past decade. Barron’s mother has made cyber bullying her main cause as first lady. Barron’s father has used Twitter to insult his opponents and assorted critics during the past year and a half. Clearly there needs to be some serious introspection within the Trump household as it relates to the use of certain social media — and as the first lady starts to ramp up her efforts to end this cyber scourge.

As for the youngster — and I won’t repeat some of the crap I’ve heard said about him — he doesn’t deserve any of the kind of abuse that’s being flung in his direction.

He is a boy, for crying out loud! As for Chelsea, she’s grown into a successful woman — who happens to be a friend of Barron’s half-sister Ivanka, who grew from a child of privilege into a woman who’s carved out her own successful life.

I now will doff my proverbial hat to Chelsea Clinton for speaking out nicely on behalf of a youngster who’s now faced with growing up under the brightest glare imaginable.

local news, political news

Feeling better about City Hall now

Check this out. It’s a news brief item from the Amarillo Globe-News about some serious tumult downstate, in Corpus Christi.

Suddenly and quite unexpectedly, I don’t feel quite so badly about the state of play at Amarillo City Hall.

Corpus Christi Mayor Dan McQueen quit his post after 37 days on the job. He announced it on Facebook and then used the social medium to criticize staffers and fellow council members.

Ouch, dude!

I’m not privy to the details of what drove the mayor to bail on his constituents. I’ll have to look it up.

I can grasp this, though: Whatever issues are bedeviling the Amarillo City Council and whatever might drive the debate surrounding the upcoming city election seem downright tame and civil compared to what’s happening in the Coastal Bend city down yonder.

national news

Trump’s anti-CIA tweets are media’s fault

Let me see if I have this correct.

Donald J. Trump sends out dozens of tweets questioning the CIA’s intelligence-gathering ability while dismissing the agency’s conclusions about alleged Russian hacking during the 2016 election.

Then he blames the media for it.

It’s the media’s fault that it reported the president’s tweets.

Is that he said today while meeting at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-visits-cia-blames-tensions-with-intelligence-community-on-the-media-213121618.html

I admit to being slow on the uptake at times. This one, though, muddles my cognitive ability.

Here’s the thing that’s even nuttier. There will be those among us who will agree with Trump. The media have somehow made up something that the president himself stated about the CIA. Didn’t he criticize the spooks for sending out false intelligence about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction?

The media deserve criticism for reporting it?

Trump said this today while meeting with CIA operatives:

“I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth, right? And they sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community. And I just want you to know that there’s a reason you’re the No. 1 stop: It is exactly the opposite,” he said.

“I love you,” Trump concluded. “There’s nobody I respect more.”

Which is it, Mr. President?

media news, national news

Tweeter in chief doesn’t appreciate majesty of his office

In just a couple of days, Donald J. Trump is going to become the 45th president of the United States of America.

He’ll be head of state of the greatest nation on Earth. And, yes, it’s still the greatest nation, Mr. President-elect.

It’s fair to ask, given this fellow’s use of Twitter as his primary mode of communication: Does he truly understand the majesty attached to the office he is about to assume?

Trump has tossed countless conventional norms into the dumper on his way to become president. He has gotten away with countless insults, boorish stunts and profoundly bizarre statements. All of them — or any one of them — would have disqualified him in the eyes of voters.

Instead, his supporters stiffened their spines. They stood behind him. They cheered him on for “telling it like it is.” Good grief!

They also are cheering on his Twitter taunts and tirades. They, like their man, are giving raspberries to the very office that Trump is about to inherit.

He uses Twitter, in the words of some pundits, to “punch down” at critics. Presidents of the United States are supposed to be better than that; they’re supposed to hold themselves above the petty bickering that erupts all around them.

Twitter is supposed to be a tool reserved for schmucks — like, oh, yours truly — to fire off barbs or share others’ barbs.

Not so with the president-elect of the United States of America.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that he doesn’t appreciate the grandeur of the office he sought — and won! He has had zero dealings with any of its previous occupants.

He acknowledged meeting President Obama for the first time after the election. And this comes after he spent years questioning out loud whether Barack Obama was qualified to hold the office. You know … the birther baloney.

You know, there at least is the remote possibility that after he takes the oath, bids good bye to the Obama family and then settles in behind the Oval Office desk he might appreciate the immense power and tradition of the presidency.

He might …

I am not holding my breath.

 

local news, media news, national news, political news

Criticism should keep us all humble … not make us angry

This is going to sound presumptuous and for that I apologize up front.

Donald J. Trump’s knee-jerk reaction to criticism via Twitter got me thinking about how most folks who say or write provocative statements react to comments from those who disagree with them.

I want to count myself in that category. I write this blog and it draws its share of negative reaction. I take all of it seriously. I choose not to respond to all of it directly.

If only the president-elect would show just a little more reticence when someone delivers a barb. I mean, c’mon! You’re about to become president of the United States of America, dude!

I pulled a blog post I wrote nearly seven years ago, back when I was working for a living at the Amarillo Globe-News. Here it is:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2010/01/damnation-to-the-max/

I used to keep a “Praise and Damnation” file full of notes that, um, praised and damned me. I regret that I have destroyed that file. I did so when I got into a file-cleaning frenzy about a year or so ago. My thought was, “What’s the point?” The bulging folder was taking up room in my filing cabinet and I rarely, if ever, looked at the submissions in it.

I recall what I said in 2010 about that folder and about a particular letter that caught my attention back then. Now, as it was then, I believe criticism keeps me humble. It kept me grounded while I was writing opinion pieces for newspapers and it does so today now that I am writing strictly for myself.

I was unaware of Twitter seven years ago, if memory serves. Heck, I don’t know if it even existed then.

The world is full of know-it-all smart alecks like me who think they know better than those in the public eye. However, we smart alecks have something in common with celebrities such as, oh, the president-elect: We get our share of criticism in return for our comments.

The difference, though, lies in our reaction to that criticism. Grown-ups just let it ride and not fire back angrily. The more childish response is to do what Donald J. Trump has been doing.

In the words of Vice President Biden: “Grow up, Donald. Grow up.”

media news, national news, political news

Now, about the new first lady …

With all this chatter and clatter about Russian hackers, conflicts of interest, White House nepotism and controversial Cabinet picks, I want to look briefly at an individual who stands near all this commotion.

Melania Trump, I’m waiting to hear more from you.

The incoming first lady put forward an interesting and provocative goal for her first ladyship: cyber bullying.

She made her statement, drawing some rather mixed responses across the land.

Why not start with your husband, Mrs. Trump, who campaigned as a primo cyber bully through his use of Twitter as an insult machine? Many of us thought and said as much in reaction to Melania’s initiative.

But there’s another reality to consider. She’s actually picked a legitimate and noble issue to pursue as first lady.

Young people are victimized by Internet bullies, she said. It must stop. We must educate our young people about how destructive such conduct can become and the consequences of bullying.

To that extent, I stand 100 percent in support of what Melania Trump wants to accomplish.

She’ll assume her place on the national stage on Jan. 20, when her husband takes the oath office to become the 45th president. It will be time for the new first lady to turn up the volume on her worthwhile effort on behalf of young people — around the world!

But … first things first. Tell your husband, Mrs. Trump, to knock off his ridiculous and potentially dangerous Twitter tirades.