Monthly Archives: December 2023

political news

Ain’t a ‘dog whistle’ now!

Political pundits refer all the time to pols using “dog whistle” language, terms that only their fanatic followers understand.

Donald Trump, though, has tossed the immigration dog whistle into the crapper. He’s saying out loud what he thinks about immigrants and, by cracky, his followers are buying it, too.

He said this past weekend that “immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country.” He didn’t distinguish between legal and undocumented immigrants. He appeared to lump ’em all together.

The irony of Trump’s patently racist epithet is too rich to overlook.

Dude is married to an immigrant. They produced a son, who now becomes a second-generation American. Did Melania “poison” our national blood when she moved here from Slovenia? And is the Trumps’ son, Barron, poisoning the blood by, um, being born?

Of course not. I need to mention, too, that Trump’s late first wife, Ivana, also was an immigrant and they produced three kids. You know their names, as they have been in the news of late.

Still, the hideous blathering from the ex-POTUS does reveal a dark, sinister and evil side of an individual who seeks to become president yet again.

I take particular offense to these remarks because I am the grandson of immigrants. All four of my grandparents came to the U.S.A. from Greece and Turkey. I want to stipulate something here: Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country, but my mother’s parents were ethnic Christian Greeks. Still, as I recall it, Trump referred to Muslim nations as, um, “sh**hole countries.”

OK, I’ll just say this out loud: Donald Trump is an unvarnished dumbfu**!

One of my grandfathers, the one from Turkey, enlisted in the U.S. Army at the end of World War I. Both of Mom’s brothers served in the military, as did Dad, his two brothers and one of his sisters. So, did I, along with several of my cousins. Oh, and Trump? He came up with a tale of bone spurs that kept him out of uniform during the Vietnam War.

Did my immigrant grandparents “poison” the nation’s blood when they arrived here in the early 20th century. No! They enriched it.

I hope you understand a little better just why I detest Donald Trump.

He — not the immigrants he vilifies — is the poison we must avoid.

Joe Biden, national news

Good government gone … not forgotten

Do you remember when government at all levels — from Capitol Hill, to state capitols, county courthouses and city halls — worked for the people who pay their bills?

It wasn’t necessarily a government run by liberals. There once was a conservative movement that railed against government, but whose adherents didn’t stand in the way of government seeking common ground.

Those days are gone. I hope, though, that good government as I recall it isn’t extinct, like the dodo bird and the woolly mammoth.

I long for its return.

Even during the Ronald Reagan era, government could rise to the occasion. The 40th president declared at his first inaugural that “government is the problem” and the cause for the nation’s ills in the early 1980s. President Reagan, though, found a way to work with his old nemesis/drinking buddy Speaker Tip O’Neill to find a way into the light.

We have an entirely different climate today in D.C. Those damn MAGA morons have taken obstructionism to a new level, almost turning it into an art form. The progressive caucus on the other side also has dug in deeply, seeking unaffordable government actions, such as Medicare for All and forgiving every former college student’s debt.

For the purposes of this blog, though, I am going to aim my rhetorical fire at the MAGA cultists.

Because of the MAGA crowd’s ignorance, the U.S. House this year required 15 ballots to elect a speaker … and then only after he conceded so much to the MAGA morons that he made himself vulnerable to the ouster vote that booted him out of office.

This Congress has proved to be among the least productive legislative sessions in history. Why? Because the MAGA crowd insists on seeking something on which to impeach President Biden.

This isn’t good government in any possible form.

Just maybe there will be enough Americans who are as fed up as I am to dropkick the MAGA crowd to the sh***er. I don’t have a problem, per se, with conservatives as long as they understand the value of outreach on occasion to the other side of the aisle.

President Reagan understood it clearly. If only he were around today to lecture the MAGA morons on how to govern while standing firm on their principles.

local news, media news

Freelance job adds joy to life

One of the purest joys of my gig as a freelance journalist in North Texas deals with the quality of people I get to meet along the way.

Such as what happened this morning when I ventured to a historic cemetery near Princeton, Texas.

They had a ceremony today to lay wreaths on the graves of veterans who are buried at Wilson Chapel Memorial Cemetery. The event is run essentially by the local Daughters of the American Revolution. I walked into the chapel today to introduce myself to some of the DAR members who were meeting in advance of the wreath-laying event. They greeted me warmly, thanked me for being there to cover it for the Princeton Herald, one of the newspapers for which I am writing these days.

I am doing what can best be described these days as “soft journalism.” I write human interest features and report on actions taken by local city councils and school boards. Almost to a person, I am accepted as media representative and no one hassles me, nags me, throws a dig at me or hangs a four-letter epithet on me.

Believe me when I say that back in the old days when I did this full time, earning a decent living for my family, I didn’t always walk into friendly zones. These days it’s vastly different … for the most part.

There was one notable difference, though, that I can relate to you.

I walked into a school board meeting room a couple of years ago for the first time to cover this local school board. I extended my hand to one of the trustees, who promptly pushed me away, muttering something about the nasty organization for which I am working. He said something about a story that was published that cast him in a negative light … and he didn’t like it one single bit.

He blamed me for it! I sought to tell him I didn’t know what he was talking about, that I just started working for the newspaper. That didn’t matter. I was still the bad guy.

Well, several weeks later, this individual approached me, extended his hand and apologized. He said he was sorry for the way he acted when we met the first time. He said there were some issues in his personal life that affected his behavior and said, in effect, that he was acting totally out of character.

Our relationship ever since has been delightful.

I enjoy this kind of relationship with sources in the community. My bosses don’t ask me to dig deeply into reports of corruption. I’m fine with it.

This is a part-time gig. I do it for fun and to earn a little walking-around money. I am not in it to make a name for myself. I had plenty of that in earlier posts back when I did this job for a living.

Therefore … I am living the dream. Truly. I am.

local news

Kitty steps up? You bet!

Most of us know that cats are a bit harder to read than dogs. Their personalities are more, um, hidden from human eyes.

However, I am going to presume something about one of my grandkitties that you might find implausible. Or … you might get it!

We lost Toby the Puppy on Dec. 1. Cancer had become too much for him, so we had to let him go.

For several months, my Princeton house has been occupied by two kitties, Marlowe and Macy, who moved in with my son when he relocated here from Amarillo shortly after my dear bride, Kathy Anne, passed away.

Marlowe and Macy made themselves at home quickly. They and Toby reached an understanding almost immediately … which was that this is Toby’s house and he was the boss.

Well, since I lost Toby, Marlowe has become my latest bunk mate. He sleeps with me almost every night. He often will snuggle with me, pressing his brutish body against mine as he gets comfortable.

I have difficulty reading Marlowe’s mind the way I could read Toby the Puppy’s mind. But I am going to conclude that he is feeling Toby’s loss as much as I am. He is reaching out to his “grandpa,” telling me it’s OK, that I have Marlowe and his sister, Macy, to give me comfort.

Is this possible? Well, since I cannot prove that it isn’t, I am going to presume the best about my grandkitty.

local news, Sports news

Going back to the beginning

Back in the olden days, I was a young whipper snapper looking to break into the newspaper industry as an up-and-coming reporter.

We had a weekly newspaper in my hometown of Portland, Ore., that decided to hire me as a part-time sportswriter. It was the Community Press. I worked for a guy who served as sports editor; he later went on to work as a reporter for the Oregonian. I went on to something else, too.

But now, nearly 50 years later, I am going back to the beginning in my freelance capacity while working for KETR-FM public radio. I am going to cover a college football bowl game. The Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl awaits next Tuesday.

I won’t cover the game, reporting on the snaps, touchdowns, turnovers, and the final score. Instead, I am going to focus on one team’s rather dramatic rise to bowl-quality football. University of Texas-San Antonio built a football program from scratch over the course of just 12 years. The Roadrunners are now going to face off against Marshall University in the Frisco Bowl.

This is quite a novel assignment. I write a feature each month for KETR.org; my boss at the Texas A&M-Commerce radio station publishes the feature on the station’s website. Honest to goodness, I am really looking forward to covering this game and reporting to our readers and listeners about how UTSA rose so quickly to a bowl-quality college football program.

I’ll have to dust off my knowledge of football lingo so that I can know what I’m writing. It’ll come back to me quickly.

national news

Hunter Biden sticks it to ’em

Most of the time I would be inclined to chastise a public figure for refusing to answer a legally issued subpoena.

Not this time. The public figure of the moment is Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. A congressional committee had subpoenaed Hunter Biden, demanding that he testify in private to the committee.

Biden is having none of it. He wants instead to talk publicly to the panel, in front of the world, on the record so that everyone can hear his answers to the questions that will come.

I am forced to wonder: What is wrong with that? I can’t think of a reason why Hunter Biden would want to go behind closed doors. I can think of plenty of reasons for him to insist on public testimony.

First of all, he wants to expose House Republicans’ efforts to find any sort of crime that can connect him to his father. He has said that Daddy Biden derived “no financial benefit” from his son’s corporate work.

Second, he wants the committee to seek to explain publicly why it is conducting the hearing in the first place.

Third, Biden would take an oath to tell the whole truth. Failure to do so would result in punishment. He could take the oath, speak the truth and let the public draw its conclusions over who is telling the entire truth.

The Hunter Biden probe is headed for oblivion, in my humble view … right along with the Republicans’ impeachment inquiry aimed at finding impeachable dirt on his dad.

national news

Now it’s OK for ‘partisan impeachment’?

US House Speaker Mike Johnson is on record saying that “partisan impeachment” by Congress sets a dangerous precedent.

Oh, but wait. That was then. The here and now suggests that Johnson has changed his partisan mind. You see, the House yesterday voted along party lines to launch an impeachment inquiry to find something on which to charge President Biden.

Every Republican voted for the inquiry; every Democrat voted against it. The GOP caucus is looking for something. To date, they don’t even have a suspected “high crime and misdemeanor” to allege against Biden.

But, hey, who cares what the speaker once said? He must’ve been kidding when he called for a bipartisan impeachment. The inquiry, for sure, doesn’t necessarily guarantee an impeachment against President Biden.

My hunch tells me that if one comes, it’ll be along partisan lines.

Disgraceful.

local news, medical news, State news

Rewrite this cruel abortion law!

Have we become so wedded in Texas to the notion of following a hidebound ideology that we cannot consider the human impact from policies that come out of our Legislature?

Don’t answer that. I know the answer. I believe it is yes.

Kate Cox is now the official poster woman for a policy that needs a serious revisiting when the next Legislature convenes in January 2025. Cox is the Dallas woman who was pregnant with a child who was doomed to die days if not hours after being born. Cox needed an abortion. Why? Because doctors told her that giving birth could harm her reproductive future, that she might be unable to get pregnant again.

Cox could obtain that abortion in Texas because of a cruel law that makes the procedure illegal, except when a pregnancy endangers the mother’s life. No other exceptions are allowed. Cox got kicked around. A lower court granted her permission; the Texas Supreme Court nixed that ruling. Then it issued a permanent ruling that disallowed Cox’s desire to end her pregnancy.

She went out of state to receive the procedure.

This is an insane law. It needs to be rewritten to allow for the type of exception that Cox faced.

The so-called “pro-life” movement is heralding the SCOTEX decision. This movement has nothing to do with being pro-life. It is instead a “pro-birth” movement that put Kate Cox’s parental future in dire peril.

The Texas law — one of the nation’s most restrictive — makes abortion illegal after six weeks of pregnancy. Hell, many women don’t even know they’re pregnant so soon after conception! That didn’t matter to the numbskulls who forced this bill onto the books.

To worsen matters, they wrote a law that punishes doctors who perform an abortion with criminal penalties. And, of course, they didn’t allow for the type of circumstance that Kate Cox faced were she to give birth to a baby who had zero chance of survival.

Think for a moment about the heartbreak that awaited Cox and her husband and their family.

The next Texas Legislature has the power to improve a bad law by broadening the exceptions allowed for ending a pregnancy. If our legislators have a beating heart, they will act to lessen the chance of other women being trapped in the vise that could have delivered permanent reproductive damage to Kate Cox.

business news, economic news

Bidenomics: It’s working!

How is this going to play out? For the life of me I cannot fathom the current trend.

President Biden’s economy is rocking along. The nation added 199,000 jobs in November; joblessness is now at 3.5%; inflation registered a 3.1% uptick, which is far better the 9% it was registering earlier this year.

And yet …

Republicans keep yammering about the “sagging” economy. How Americans are unhappy with their lives’ economic trajectory.

President Biden and Congress approved the nation’s largest infrastructure bill in history. He got Congress to approve the Inflation Reduction Act. We’re investing in “green energy,” and the GOP calls that a bad thing.

It’s working, man! Yet the GOP keeps lying to us that it isn’t.

I am shaking my noggin. I do not get it!

International news, military news

We cannot hold Ukraine aid hostage

The United States has gone all in on aid to Ukraine as it defends itself against Russian aggression. Therefore, it is imperative that congressional Republicans stop holding our aid to Ukraine hostage to security issues relating to our own border.

They are jeopardizing our standing as the world’s leading defender of democracy as it seeks in Ukraine to fend off the advances of the autocracy run by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.

Of course, that seems to matter little to the MAGA crowd that calls the cadence for Republicans to follow. The MAGA cultists have swallowed the poison blathered by Donald Trump who continues to extol the “virtues” of Putin’s alleged toughness.

What’s at stake is the possible involvement of NATO nations in a ground war with Russia if Putin decides to extend his territorial land grab to nations that belong to NATO. Were that to happen, then, well … all hell is going to break loose in eastern Europe.

Do we really want that to happen? Do we really want to send U.S. forces into battle with Russians, which would appear to be imperative if Russia attacks a NATO nation? We have that clause in the treaty that declares that an attack on one NATO state is an attack on the entire organization.

We cannot possibly in good conscience turn away from helping Ukraine defend its sovereignty against a foreign aggressor, which attacked Ukraine without provocation more than a year ago.

Putin is an evil despot whose misadventure in Ukraine must be stopped. Period!

That the GOP would seek to hold our assistance hostage to an unrelated issue is unconscionable on its face.