Tag Archives: Texas Tribune

national news, political news

Time to wonder about Trump’s mental state?

I am not going to diagnose Donald J. Trump’s mental capabilities here. I am going wonder out loud, though, as to whether he needs counseling, or some related professional help.

The man is embarking on a fool’s journey by continuing to insist that 3 million to 5 million votes got cast in the 2016 presidential election by “illegal immigrants.”

The president hasn’t yet produced a single shred of evidence to back up the claim. He has continued to insist through innuendo that “in my opinion” such illegal activity occurred … and that all those millions of illegal voters cast their ballots for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Now he has declared that a Texan is the source of the allegation.

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/01/27/trump-says-texan-source-unsupported-voter-fraud-cl/

My head is going to explode at any moment now.

Trump’s assertions is an assault on the democratic process. It insults the hard work being done by across the nation — by state elections officials — to ensure “free and fair elections.” It is an assault on their integrity, on their good faith and on their professional competence.

In Texas, these officials are elected by voters who live in the counties. They are county clerks who take an oath — just as the president, governors, county commissioners and district attorneys do — to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution and to obey all federal and state laws.

When is the president going to get off this innuendo-driven effort to insist on something happening without ever providing a scintilla of evidence to buttress what he is alleging?

One more quick point: You won, Mr. President! Get off this ridiculous ride to nowhere and concentrate fully on your effort to “Make America Great Again.”

International news, national news, political news

Cruz is proving a point about topsy-turvy politics

Oh, that junior U.S. senator of ours.

He is dismissing concerns about possible Russian hacking of the U.S. election process, claiming it’s an effort to “discredit” Donald J. Trump’s election as president.

What might Ted Cruz of Texas say, though, if Hillary Clinton had won amid concerns that the Russians sought to influence her victory? My strong hunch is that the Cruz Missile would be screeching a different set of gripes.

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/01/05/cruz-dismisses-concerns-over-russian-role-election/

This is more or less a point I sought to make in an earlier blog post about how the political world has gone all topsy-turvy on us. Republicans historically have stood foursquare behind our intelligence-gathering professionals. Not this time.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/01/tables-have-been-turned-upside-down/

They’re standing against their conclusions that Russian hackers sought to tilt the election in Trump’s favor, apparently at the behest of the former head of the KGB who now is Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.

I get the politics of it all. The GOP’s guy won. They want his election to stand as a “mandate” to do things as president.

For the record — yet again — I don’t believe the Russians’ activities actually tilted the election toward Trump. That’s not the point. The point is that our election system is supposed to be immune from anyone seeking to do some skullduggery, to use our sacred voting process for nefarious purposes.

I don’t believe our election system is as bullet-proof as it should be. It’s also shocking to me that Ted Cruz would be so dismissive of what the CIA spooks have concluded.

medical news, political news, State news

‘War against women’ takes new turn in Texas

Let’s take a moment or two to connect a few dots.

* Democrats accuse Republicans of waging a “war against women.”

* Republicans deny such a thing.

* Republicans — many of them, at least — are adamantly opposed to Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s leading providers of health care services for women. Yes, Planned Parenthood refers women to abortion clinics.

* The Texas Legislature, which has a GOP uber-majority, has now decided to cut Planned Parenthood off from the state’s Medicaid program, which enables low-income Texans to get medical assistance at a drastically reduced cost.

* Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, another Republican, has signed on to this effort.

* Oh, and the government does not provide any money for abortions.

So, Planned Parenthood is now in the Republicans’ sights because, the GOP leadership insists, the organization allegedly treats aborted fetuses cavalierly; there also have been unspecified allegations of billing fraud. The video recording shows staffers supposedly talking about harvesting “fetal tissue” for medical research — even though there’s been zero proof provided that it’s even occurring.

Planned Parenthood denies any wrongdoing and the activists who insist that there is haven’t produced evidence to back up their assertion.

Is there a “war against women” going on in the Texas Legislature?

Planned Parenthood has become the prime bogeyman among legislators who are enraged that the organization has anything to do with abortions.

Here’s the thing: The government doesn’t pay for the procedure. Planned Parenthood, though, does provide a wide range of other health-related services to women who need them. Medicaid is a state-run assistance program aimed at helping low-income women obtain medical services they otherwise couldn’t afford.

State health officials have delivered the bad news to Planned Parenthood. In about a month, the state is going cut off millions of dollars in aid, affecting thousands of Texas women.

The women who rely on state assistance to obtain medical advice from Planned Parenthood deserve better treatment than they’re getting from Texas legislators and the governor.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/12/20/texas-kicks-planned-parenthood-out-medicaid/

According to the Texas Tribune: “In the final notice, Texas Health and Human Services Inspector General Stuart Bowen said the undercover videos — which depicted Planned Parenthood officials discussing the use of fetal tissue for research — showed ‘that Planned Parenthood violated state and federal law.'”

And there’s more from the Tribune: “Planned Parenthood has vehemently denied those claims, and it has criticized the videos the state is pointing to as evidence as being heavily edited to imply malfeasance. Its health centers in Texas have also said they do not currently donate fetal tissue for research. Their Houston affiliate did participate in a 2010 research study with the University of Texas Medical Branch.”

This is looking for all the world to me as though the Legislature has found a solution to an unspecified and unproven problem.

Meanwhile, thousands of Texas women will be chewed up in the political buzzsaw.

Is there a war against women being waged? Looks like it to me.

International news, national news

Texas lawmakers oppose Trump wall … who knew?

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Texas happens to constitute the largest single-state border with Mexico.

Do members of the Texas congressional delegation endorse Donald Trump’s notion of building a wall across our nation’s southern border?

Umm. No.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/12/20/where-texas-congressional-delegation-stands-trumps/

No Democratic member of the delegation favors the wall. Republicans who comprise a large majority of the state’s congressional delegation, interestingly, also are decidedly cool to the idea.

The Texas Tribune reports that Trump’s notion of building the wall runs headlong into a politically conservative principle. Check this out: “Among many Texas Republicans in Congress, the concept, while popular with the party’s base, collides with another conservative tenant: eminent domain.

“A wall would require the confiscation of ranching land near the Rio Grande, and several Texas Republicans expressed concern about the federal government taking away property — often held by families for generations — and the legal tangles that would inevitably arise from that.”

Well now. Do you think congressional Republicans will go along with federal seizure of private property, which happens to be a huge issue throughout our large state where private property owners possess almost every acre of land? There happen to be plenty of Republicans in New Mexico, Arizona and California who also adhere to the principle that private ownership is more important than a government takeover of property.

Eminent domain looms as the bogeyman that well could doom Trump’s ill-considered assertion that building a “beautiful wall” will end illegal immigration.

International news, national news, political news, State news

Rex Tillerson? Huh? Where did he come from?

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Eyes had turned to Mitt Romney, then to David Petraeus, then to Rudy Giuliani, then back to Mitt.

Then the president-elect shakes it all up and appears now set to name Rex Tillerson as the next secretary of state.

Rex the Texan. He’s the man Donald J. Trump is about to pick as the nation’s top diplomat.

Wow! Who knew?

Tillerson is president and CEO of Exxon Mobil. He’s another gazillionaire headed for Trump’s Cabinet.

You may ask: What does this fellow bring to the world of international statecraft? Man, I am officially baffled in the extreme.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/12/10/trump-taps-texan-and-exxon-mobil-ceo-rex-tillerson/

But here’s what many folks do know about Tillerson: His oil interests reach into Russia, where he reportedly has a good relationship with the Russian strongman, President Vladimir Putin. Oh, boy. Here come the questions.

Will the business interests get in the way of hard-nosed diplomacy? Does Tillerson’s friendship with Putin spell curtains for NATO, the Ukraine, Georgia and other nations affected by Russia’s sword-rattling? Does the apparent nominee’s lack of diplomatic experience hinder his knowledge of world affairs and the nuance required to deal effectively with foreign governments?

The Trumpkins aren’t yet confirming anything. Tillerson, though, appears headed for the State Department. For now. Unless the president-elect changes his mind. Again.

media news

Fake news infects the real thing

fake-news

We’re witnessing one of the more hideous and frightening aspects of the social media craze.

Fake news, man.

It’s this phenomenon we used to call “propaganda.” Internet trolls sit around the house and ponder ways to put out patently false stories — often involving celebrities/public figures/elected officials — and then watch the world react accordingly.

I’m not entirely certain if it’s a right-wing craze or a left-wing craze. I guess I’ll settle on the righty angle, given that’s what we hear about mostly.

Whatever the tilt of those who put this crap out there, it’s driving me to the brink of insanity.

Texas Tribune recently did a study of an elected official, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, and discovered that he’s become a big purveyor of fake news. He and/or his campaign staff puts these lies out there and, I reckon, laugh until their guts hurt as people react to it.

The Republican official’s response is equally “hilarious.” He says he’s not a “news source.” No s***, Sid! Still, someone is sending this crap into cyberspace and the worst of it is that people are buying it!

Didn’t someone recently put out a lie about Hillary Clinton being involved in a child porn ring or some such horse crap? And didn’t that provoke a violent reaction?

I used to tell people who would submit letters to the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for nearly 18 years until 2012, that they need to take care about what they read on the Internet. They would insist their information was “true, because I read it on the Internet.” My response usually was that they should believe only about 1 percent of what they read on the ‘Net and then check out the source of the information before passing it on.

Now, with this epidemic of “fake news,” I reckon the reliability percentage has plummeted even farther.

It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.

I’m longing for a simpler time when we recognized fake news when it appeared on those supermarket tabloid headlines — my all-time favorite of which was, “Chocoholic Mom Gives Birth to Super-Coated Baby!”

Ah … those were the days.

legal news, national news, political news

GOP looking to make Hillary’s service difficult

cruz

Ted Cruz has joined his Senate Republican colleague John McCain in declaring war on a potential — if not probable — new president’s appointment powers.

Cruz, the former GOP presidential candidate, says there is “precedent” for the Supreme Court to operate with only eight members. That is a form of code for saying that it it’s OK for the Senate to block anyone that a President Hillary Clinton would nominate to fill the vacant ninth seat on the nation’s highest court.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/10/27/cruz-says-theres-precedent-keeping-ninth-supreme-c/

McCain was wrong to say such a thing.  Cruz is equally wrong.

Assuming that Clinton wins the presidency in eight days, the Senate Republicans are digging in as they seek to block any appointment the Democratic president might make.

President Obama already has felt the sting of raw politics in that process. Antonin Scalia died eight months ago while vacationing in Texas. Obama selected federal judge Merrick Garland to replace the late Supreme Court justice — one of the conservative titans on the narrowly divided court.

The reaction from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was shameful in its political nature. Within hours of Scalia’s death, he declared that the Senate would block anyone President Obama would nominate; he declared that the nomination should be handled by the next president.

Well, Mr. Majority Leader, the next president is likely to be a Democrat, too. That has prompted Sens. McCain and Cruz to suggest that the next president won’t be able to nominate anyone, either.

Who’s playing politics with the U.S. Constitution? Republicans keep insisting that Democrats are doing it. They are shamefully lacking in self-awareness … as the continuing vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated all too graphically.

local news, national news, political news

Don’t mess with Texas polling places

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A motto designed to call attention to littering in Texas long ago took on new life as a macho mantra: Don’t mess with Texas.

Well, I guess I ought to apply the perverted definition of that motto here.

Don’t mess with Texas polling officials and places. This warning goes to the Russian government, which has declared its desire to “monitor” the U.S. presidential election that will occur on Nov. 8.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/10/21/texas-russian-official-dont-tread-our-polling-plac/

The state’s top elections official, Secretary of State Carlos Cascos, has declined the Russian request to place observers at polling places in Texas.

Good call, Mr. Secretary.

As the Texas Tribune reported: “Please note that only persons authorized by law may be inside of a polling location during voting. All other persons are not authorized and would be committing a class C misdemeanor crime by entering,” Cascos wrote last month in a letter to Alexander K. Zakharov, the Russian consul general in Houston. “We are unable to accommodate your request to visit a polling station.”

Frankly, I consider the Russian request to be the height — or perhaps the depth — of hubris.

Has the Kremlin bought into Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s allegation that the vote-counting will be “rigged” to produce Hillary Rodham Clinton’s election as the next president?

Indeed, U.S. intelligence officials across the board have stated their belief that Russia has been orchestrating the WikiLeaks barrage of e-mails that have sought to damage Clinton’s campaign.

So, they want to take a peek at our electoral process?

Give me a break, man!

The Russians should tend to their own issues. What’s more, imagine the Kremlin’s response if American officials sought permission to look over the Russians’ shoulders.

national news, political news

Check out this poll … from Texas, of all places!

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OK, as long as we’re talking about public opinion polls that are all the rage as the presidential campaigns heads for the stretch …

A WFAA/SurveyUSA poll puts Donald J. Trump up by 4 percentage points over Hillary Rodham Clinton … in Texas!

Trump, the Republican nominee, is reeling after revelations of that hideous recording of him boasting of what he tried to do and what he could do with — or to — women. Clinton, the Democratic nominee, is now beginning to put some distance between her and her foe in the campaign’s final weeks.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/10/13/poll-trump-leads-clinton-only-4-texas/

I’m not going to suggest that Clinton will win Texas’s 38 electoral votes. The WFAA/SurveyUSA survey, though, suggests some movement away from the GOP nominee in a state that has become as reliably Republican as they come.

And get this: The survey contains a 4 percent margin of error, which makes the Clinton-Trump contest in Texas a virtual dead heat.

Huh? What the hey?

Isn’t this supposed to be one of Trump’s “firewall” states, where he actually could shoot someone — as he once boasted — and still retain his supporters?

It is fascinating in the extreme that with all the utterly miserable statements Trump has made during his entire presidential career — which comprises this campaign — that a video and audio recording of Trump’s vulgar references to women has turned voters against him.

It wasn’t enough that he ridiculed Sen. John McCain’s service during the Vietnam War; or that he mocked a reporter with a physical disability; or that he said a U.S.-born federal judge couldn’t preside over a case involving Trump University because of his Mexican heritage; or that he would ridicule a Gold Star family because of their Muslim faith.

Oh, no. None of that stuck.

He talks dirty about women? He boasts about his attempts to commit “sexual assault”? His constant berating of women’s appearance? Yep, now he’s done it. Clinton has been talking about Trump’s “unfitness” for the presidency. There it is, in plain view.

Now we’re talking some serious erosion of political support — even, apparently, in Texas.

Maybe …

education news, State news

Shadow classroom issue comes to the fore

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I honestly didn’t see this one coming.

Texas Education Agency officials are asking state lawmakers for lots of additional money to help the TEA get to the bottom of a most troubling issue: improper student-teacher relationships.

The issue has rocked school districts across the state. Amarillo is not immune from the news of teachers allegedly having improper sexual relationships with students.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/10/01/tea-requests-more-money-student-teacher-relationsh/

I have no idea if this issue has reached epidemic proportions. I do know that we are hearing more reports of these kinds of events: teachers getting suspended, arrested and then fired over allegations of sexual misconduct.

TEA is going to ask legislators for $400,000 to hire more investigators to examine these alleged occurrences.

This is a hugely troubling issue, no matter how extensive it has become … if it has become extensive.

Parents send their children to school trusting educators to protect them as well as educate them. There can be zero tolerance for this kind of misbehavior.

I happen to be on TEA’s side on this one. If the agency believes there exists a problem in our public classrooms, then it ought to be incumbent on lawmakers — who parcel out public money to pay for our school system — to ensure that the agency has the tools it needs to investigate and solve these problems.