Monthly Archives: December 2016

business news, national news

Fights break out … thanks for making me look stupid

I spoke too soon.

Just the other day I mentioned to my wife about how little I had heard about unruly Christmas shoppers this holiday season. I didn’t hear about near-riots — or actual riots — at shopping malls across the country.

Then it happened.

On the day called Boxing Day in British Commonwealth countries, Americans flocked to malls to return gifts and to do some post-Christmas shopping for their loved ones.

Fights broke out. They all were apparently unconnected. The cops in Aurora, Colo., ordered a big regional mall shut down after “multiple skirmishes” occurred in the Denver suburb. The picture attached to this post is of a Memphis, Tenn., mall that was locked down also by the police after fights broke out.

A police officer was assaulted in one of the melees that erupted.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fights-disturbances-and-chaos-breaks-out-malls-across-the-united-states/ar-BBxB0jP?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Right there, dear reader, is where we’re seeing this so-called “war on Christmas.” You can forget all that ridiculousness about whether to wish someone “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas.” The front line of this war is being fought in your local shopping malls by idiot shoppers who cannot control themselves.

Malls across America need to be declared combat zones.

If I had a helmet and a flak jacket, I’d wear ’em both next time I venture to the mall.

Folks, this ain’t the reason for the season.

national news, political news

Will the next president replicate this show of unity, grace?

This is an amazing video I felt like sharing on this blog.

It shows how one president can honor a predecessor with class and grace and how that predecessor can speak with amazing self-deprecating humor.

At some point during his presidential term, Donald J. Trump will get to invite his predecessor, Barack Obama, back to the White House for the unveiling of two portraits: of the president and the first lady, Michelle Obama.

President Obama and the first lady did that very thing when the portraits of President Bush and first lady Laura Bush.

This video presents a wonderful study in collegiality and comity.

I do hope the next president and the current president can set aside their intense personal and political differences when the Obamas return to the White House to unveil their own portraits.

International news, media news, national news, political news

Trump stretches unconventional approach

Donald J. Trump’s campaign for the presidency was unconventional.

His transition into the office he has won is even more so.

We often hear it said that “We have only president at a time.” Trump, though, is using his Twitter account to suggest something that borders on the otherwise.

The United States this past week abstained on a United Nations Security Council vote that condemns Israel over its settlement building on the West Bank; U.S. policy for years has been to veto such a resolution. Thus, the Obama administration broke with longstanding U.S. policy.

Then in comes Trump to tweet that the United States was wrong to abstain; that the U.N. is a “sad” organization.

The point here is that presidents-elect traditionally have let the current president conduct foreign policy. They wait relatively quietly while they prepare to take office; then they are free to change whatever policy they wish.

Trump isn’t waiting for Inauguration Day. He’s blasting the daylights out of President Obama whenever he sees fit using his Twitter account.

My wish would be for the president-elect to hold his fire until he becomes the president. Americans actually do have just one president at a time.

Donald Trump’s time is coming on quickly. Until he takes the oath of office, he ought to keep his trap — and his Twitter account — quiet.

national news, political news

Here’s the most meaningless debate imaginable

Well now … let’s commence the most meaningless political discussion possible, shall we?

Who would have won if Barack H. Obama had been the candidate opposing Donald J. Trump in this year’s presidential election.

The president of the United States says he’d win. The president-elect — big surprise here — disagrees.

The meaninglessness lies in the indisputable fact that we’ll never know the answer. The U.S. Constitution bars the president from seeking a third term, thanks to its 22nd Amendment.

But as long as the president has introduced this silly argument, I’d like to carry it a bit further.

I believe he would have won. Why? He’s got a ton of political moxie. He would have surrounded himself with he best political strategists possible. He would not have taken anything or any voter group for granted. Obama would not have “played it safe,” as he said Hillary Clinton did. He would have made mincemeat of Trump in any number of televised joint appearances.

There. That’s my view.

However, it’s only my speculation, just as it is anyone’s speculation — including Barack Obama himself — about how an Obama-Trump contest would have ended.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/obama-vs-trump-dispute-erupts-over-who-would-have-won/ar-BBxAD1A?li=BBnb7Kz

Here, though, is a bit of reality to toss into the mix.

Consider the context of the 2012 presidential election. Obama’s presidency was considered by many experts to be on the ropes as he prepared to run against the Republican nominee, who turned out to be Mitt Romney, another formidable and successful businessman — who also had political experience as a one-term governor of Massachusetts.

The economy wasn’t performing all that well. The Affordable Care Act was being vilified as a failure. The Republicans saw a huge opening for their nominee as the campaign commenced.

Oh, but what happened? Obama used his crack political team to target selected audiences in various regions of the country and hammered Romney relentlessly over comments the GOP rival had made. Recall the “47 percent” gaffe.

Obama ended up winning the election by a comfortable margin: 5 million ballots and 332-206 Electoral College votes.

Would he have defeated Trump? I believe so.

However, it’s a silly debate to have.

President Obama is leaving office in less than a month. Donald J. Trump is the man of the hour.

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 30

Toby the Puppy fears no one.

He doesn’t realize he is a small pooch. He spots a big bruiser, a dog with much more heft? “Let me at him!” he seems to say.

Now, having said that, I need to stipulate that we don’t let him loose to interact with said bruiser-dogs. We keep Toby on a short leash as we walk through the ‘hood. Just yesterday, a large boxer spotted Toby from across the street and sprinted toward us — at which point we picked our puppy up to avoid any kind of potential canine-on-canine conflict.

However, Toby has developed a curious friendship with another critter on our walks. It’s a neighbor’s cat.

The kitty lives on the street that’s one block north of ours and about two blocks east. We see the kitty frequently, as its home is along our normal route; we haven’t checked closely, by the way, to determine the gender of this furry feline.

The kitty initiates the contact when we’re walking by. It approaches Toby with zero trepidation. They sniff noses and, oh yes, occasionally sniff each other’s backsides; I guess this is something dogs and cats have in common.

The kitty makes no hostile moves. Nor does Toby, although he tends to tug on his leash in an apparent effort to engage the cat in a more friendly/aggressive manner. We discourage it — with emphasis.

My wife and I are longtime kitty parents, so we have a keen understanding of cat psychology. Now that we’ve been puppy parents for about two years and three months, we’re getting pretty good at reading dog psychology, too.

Has our puppy become a sort of “critter whisperer”? Hardly.

Unless, of course, we find him nuzzling one of the many squirrels we encounter during our strolls through the neighborhood.

media news, national news, political news

‘Baby daddy’ quits post on Trump team?

Leave it to Twitter to knock someone flat on his face.

Jason Miller quit suddenly this past week as communications director in Donald J. Trump’s new presidential administration. He offered the usual “spend more time with my family” reason for quitting a key job in a new administration.

Then comes this from another Trump transition aide: “Congratulations to the baby-daddy on being named WH ­Comms Director!” That’s what A.J. Delgado wrote on Twitter, adding that Miller is the “2016 version of John Edwards,” referring to the former Democratic U.S. senator and presidential candidate John Edwards, who had an extramarital affair that produced a daughter.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/transition-adviser%e2%80%99s-tweets-add-intrigue-to-trump-aide-jason-miller%e2%80%99s-sudden-resignation/ar-BBxyRYw?li=BBnb7Kz

The Washington Post reports that Delgado deactivated his Twitter account, which leads me to believe that what he wrote has more than a grain of truth to it.

Is this important? I suppose it is if you want your presidential administration to be free of the kind of scandal that brings down other presidential contenders. Consider, too, that Edwards — who ran as the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee in 2004 on a ticket led by John Kerry — came within just a few thousand votes in Ohio of actually becoming vice president of the United States.

So, you don’t want your chief spokesman — in this case Miller — speaking for a president when he is lugging around some potentially explosive baggage.

Trump insists that he uses Twitter to communicate policy issues in real time. Others within the president-elect’s circle of advisers apparently use it as a not-so-secret weapon.

legal news, national news, political news

U.S. Supreme Court: a victim of collateral damage

Elections have consequences … as the saying goes.

Nowhere are those consequences more significant, arguably, than on our judicial system. Which brings me to the point. The U.S. Supreme Court has suffered what I would call “collateral damage” from the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States.

A nearly perfect jurist, Merrick Garland, waited in the wings for nine months after President Obama nominated him to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Sadly, Garland’s political fate was sealed about an hour after Scalia’s death when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared that the Senate would refuse to act on anyone Obama would choose for the nation’s highest court.

It was a shameful, reprehensible display of political gamesmanship and yet McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans had the temerity to accuse the president of playing politics.

McConnell took a huge gamble — and it paid off with Trump’s election this past month as president. Now the new president, a Republican, will get to nominate someone.

The New York Times editorialized Sunday that whoever joins the court will be sitting in a “stolen seat.” The Times, though, offers a pie-in-the-sky suggestion for Trump: He ought to renominate Garland, a brilliant centrist who Republicans once called a “consensus candidate” when he was being considered for the Supreme Court back in 2010.

That won’t happen.

Trump, though, could pick another centrist when the time comes for him to make his selection, the Times suggested. Frankly, I’m not at all confident he’ll do that, either. Indeed, with Trump one is hard-pressed to be able to gauge the ideology tilt of whomever he’ll select, given the president-elect’s own lack of ideological identity.

Scalia was a conservative icon and a man revered by the far right within the Republican Party. His death has put the conservatives’ slim majority on the court in jeopardy. But, hey, it happens from time to time.

President Obama sought to fulfill his constitutional duty by appointing someone to the nation’s highest court. The Senate — led by McConnell and his fellow Republican obstructionists — failed miserably in fulfilling their own duty by giving a highly qualified court nominee the full hearing he deserved.

Now we will get to see just how consequential the 2016 presidential election is on our nation’s triple-tiered system of government.

Will the new president administer some kind of conservative “litmus test” to whomever he chooses? Or will he look for someone who — like Judge Merrick Garland — has exhibited the kind of judicial temperament needed on the highest court in America?

I fear the worst.

national news, political news, religious news

His majesty, the president-elect?

The Republican National Committee will have to explain itself with a good bit more precision.

The RNC put out a message that says the following: “Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King. We hope Americans celebrating Christmas today will enjoy a day of festivities and a renewed closeness with family and friends.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rnc-dismisses-controversy-over-christmas-press-release/ar-BBxyL5J?li=BBnb7Kz

The “new king” is, um, who … precisely? Would that be the president-elect, a guy named Donald J. Trump?

The RNC says oh, no. It’s merely referring to Jesus Christ, whose birth has been celebrated by Christians all over the world.

Perhaps I’m a little thick. I could swear as I read the statement that the RNC was making a direct reference to the new president.

RNC communications director Sean Spicer — who’s about to become the White House press flack — said this in a tweet: “Christ is the King. He was born today so we could be saved. Its sad & disappointing you are politicizing such a holy day.”

So help me, Sean, I would say that you folks — with this “new King” reference — are politicizing the day.

local news

Here is my wish for my city

A truly crappy year is moving into its final week.

Americans have elected a seriously deficient individual as president of the United States; we lost a lot of iconic celebrities in the arts, sports, pop culture and politics. I’m going to hope for the best as it regards the new president and, of course, I can’t do a thing about those we lost.

Here at home, Amarillo is in the midst of a serious municipal makeover. Since we’re heading into down the stretch of a tumultuous year, I don’t believe it’s too early to offer a wish or two for 2017 for the city I’ve called home for the past 22 years.

Here goes …

They’ve knocked down a Coca-Cola warehouse and distribution center downtown. They’ve relocated it at a new business park on the north side of the city. What happens next to the now-vacant site depends on what happens in San Antonio and whether our local government authorities can negotiate a good deal for the downtown business and entertainment district.

The old Coke site is slated to become home for a ballpark. Its cost now sits at about $45 million. It is supposed to be the home field for a Class AA minor-league baseball franchise currently plays hardball in San Antonio. That team’s owners want to bring the Missions to Amarillo.

However, San Antonio has to lure a Class AAA team to fill the void. If the Alamo City can’t consummate that deal, then the Missions won’t leave. At least that’s my understanding.

Meanwhile, the Amarillo Local Government Corporation, which the City Council has tasked with negotiating the deal to bring the Missions here, says it needs a signed agreement before it will agree to start construction on the multipurpose event venue at the former Coke site.

My hope is that the city can bring the Missions here; that it can start work on the MPEV; that all the other construction projects now underway — the Embassy Suites Hotel and the parking garage — get completed; that retail outlets lease space in the parking garage.

The Chase Tower is going to see a lot of floors go dark in 2017. Xcel Energy is moving into a new office complex on Buchanan Street and will leave the Chase Tower. And … West Texas A&M University also will vacate the Tower by 2018 when it opens a new downtown campus at the totally made-over structure formerly known as the Commerce Building.

A partner in the Gaut Wittenberg Emerson commercial real estate firm has given me rock-solid assurance that the Chase Tower vacancies will be filled. We’ll be watching, man.

Polk Street is witnessing a serious construction boom at the moment. New restaurants and bistros are being built. The city has just been awarded a Cultural District designation by Texas Arts Commission with the hope of boosting interest in the arts and cultural amenities offered in Amarillo.

So …

The city is undergoing in the midst of a serious makeover. We’ll have an election in 2017 that could be as dramatic and consequential as the 2015 municipal election that brought us three new City Council members.

Oh, and the council is now poring over the qualifications of five competent individuals seeking to become the next city manager.

You want change? It’s here folks.

My hope for the city is that we steer it in the right direction.

International news

Barack-Bibi feud ratchets up seriously

Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanhayu have been anything but BFFs ever since they became leaders of the United States and Israel, respectively.

President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu have had a final falling out that seems a bit difficult to understand. I want to share my own perspective on what I believe lies at the core of antipathy.

Obama reportedly instructed the U.S. United Nations delegation to abstain from a resolution condemning Israel over its construction of settlements in what often is called “occupied territory” that Israel took from Palestinians who call that land their own.

The abstention has enraged Netanyahu, who I believe has a point.

It is this: During the entire existence of the Israeli state, the nation has gone to war against its neighbors. None of the conflicts has been of Israel’s choosing. It has responded to attacks from its Arab neighboring nations: in 1956, 1967 and 1973. While the Israeli armed forces weren’t being mobilized for battlefield combat, they have been summoned time and again to put down insurrections in places like Gaza and the Golan Heights.

The Israelis feel a direct threat from their neighbors every day. Yes, they have peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt; Syria, of course, presents an existential threat with the presence of Islamic State fighters doing battle with government forces that answer to a dictator who’s also a sworn enemy of Israel.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has vowed to exterminate Israel; the Hamas terrorists who run the government in Gaza also have vowed to destroy Israel. Hezbollah runs wild in Lebanon along the northern border of Israel.

Is there any reason to doubt why the Israelis view their situation with a great deal more alarm than any other state leader can fully appreciate? I’ve been able to peer into Gaza from just outside its border; I’ve been allowed to see damage in Israeli cities such as Sderot by rockets launched from Gaza; I’ve seen the heavily secured border fences along the Israel-Lebanon border; I’ve had the pleasure of obtaining passage through the heavily guarded wall separating Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Thus, in my view the Israelis have ample reason to feel a sense of betrayal by their allies in Washington who over many years have used their U.N. Security Council veto power to quash these resolutions.

The Israelis have never provoked armed conflict with their neighbors, but they certainly have finished it.

Thus, our most reliable Middle East ally is asking itself: Will the United States of America stand with us if the shooting ever starts again? The question, if it’s being asked, is not an unreasonable one.