Tag Archives: Donald Trump

crime news

Portland is not ‘at war’

A letter to the Dallas Morning News editorial page published this past weekend confirms what I have been saying all along about the beautiful city where I came iinto this world nearly 76 years ago.

It’s not “at war” and crime is not running “rampant” through the city. Yet the faker masquerading as POTUS would have us believe the city is being torn asunder by gangs, drug peddlers, killers, sex traffickers and assorted nasty individuals who find “sanctuary” in the City of Roses.

Nothing like is happening.

A couple from Dallas made their first trip to Portland recently and found it to be a most pleasant place to visit, to hang out, to enjoy a good meal and a smashing cup of coffee. Donald Trump wants to send in the troops to quell a population that needs no quelling.

I’ll just say this up front: Trump is a rotten son of a bitch. He is politicizing this issue beyond all that is reasonable. He is targeting so-called “blue cities” run by Democrats.

Portland isn’t crime free. Name me a city that is and I’ll consider you to be as big a liar as Trump himself. It is not splitting at the seams.

Let’s cool the overheated rhetoric, shall we? Oh, and how about getting Trump to work on getting government back on the job doing the deeds for which we spend our hard-earned tax money.

medical news

Is Trump in decline?

The headline on top of this blog post demands an immediate answer … I have no clue as to whether Donald J. Trump is suffering any loss of mental acuity.

My reluctance to declare Trump to be off his rocker is more complicated than it seems. Consider the four years when Joe Biden was president of the United States. Critics asserted without a hint of ambiguity that they were certain the 46th president’s butter had slipped off its noodle. Did they have access to medical exams? Had they seen any test results? Were they fluent in body language that often gives away symptoms of mental decline?

No, no and no. Yet they persisted. I resisted the urge to join them. Why? For starters, I am a Joe Biden supporter. Second, I had no access to medical records. Third, I was not qualified to make any assertions about a high-profile politician’s mental fitness.

I am going to apply all those standards to Biden’s immediate successor.

Let me be clear on key point: I am likely to comment on the huge verbal gaffes that appear to be happening with stunning frequency. I cannot in good conscience, though, declare that Donald Trump needs a one-way ticket to the Funny Farm. Still, he does make me scratch my head when he said he ended a war between Azerbaijan and Albania.

Fair is fair. In fairness to the White House incumbent, I’ll let others talk among themselves about whether he belongs in the loony bin. I won’t join them.

media news

What can go wrong?

I’ve got a lot of friends in the media business, who are reporting the news fairly, impartially and without favor … but they also take time to vent their frustrations to me, a former colleague who now writes a blog to vent my own frustration.

So said one of them today. He wrote in a message to me: “It just annoys me that this man (Donald Trump) has his hands on levers that really affect me — health care, agriculture, justice, freedom of speech. And he’s just so aggressively stupid and so mind-blowingly unqualified. And I guess what annoys the most is the feeling (wrongly) that I’m the only one who sees it.”

He’s not the only one. I want to tell him so, right now.

Earlier, I had vented to my friend. I wrote: “Pete Hegseth is another example of an empty suit tasked with making decisions that have no relation to whatever skill he brings to the office he occupies. An absolute disgrace.

“RFK Jr is sentencing children and poor folks to death by rescinding drugs that would make them well; we have an ed secretary who confuses AI with A1; we have an AG who indicts a former FBI boss because Trump wants her to, and who has absolutely no legal grounds on which to indict him.”

My comment to my friend was aimed primarily at the numbskulls with whom Trump has surrounded himself. Why bring this up? Because the federal government is on the verge of shutting down.

Hmm. How can it be? Republicans occupy the White House. They have a slim majority in the U.S. House. They have a little larger majority in the U.S. Senate. Why can’t they, or won’t they, avoid a government shutdown?

My friend asked what I presume to be a rhetorical question, which was why are Republicans willing to shut ‘er down? I responded:

I have the answer. It’s because the MAGA disphits who control the GOP have no interest in or ability to govern. They want to make headlines. They are addicted to the sounds of their own voices and don’t give a pile of shit about the services they swore to provide to those they represent.

They are led by the MAGA dipshit in chief, Donald John Trump. So, we stand at the precipice of yet another GOP-inspired government shutdown. We will deny millions of Americans the services for which they pay. Thousands of Americans will lose their jobs.

You and I will be left to fume and vent our rage at the politicians who don’t know how — or care to learn how — to govern.

local news

Portland … hardly a hellhole

I received an Instagram message overnight from a dear friend in Germany who wanted to know if the city of my birth was the hellhole described by Donald Trump as he ordered the National Guard to hit the streets of the Rose City to curb the crime wave that he says is enveloping the city.

Of course, my friend knew the answer. It isn’t the place that Trump describes. He sent along images of children playing in downtown fountains, of people gathered under the Morrison Bridge for the Saturday Market. It showed food vendors peddling corn dogs and assorted treats.

But yet … Trump wants to declare that Portland has become overwhelmed by gangs, by drug dealers, rapists, murderers, child sex traffickers and various other evil elements he vows to exterminate.

Here’s a brief thumbnail sketch of the city where I came into this world 75 years ago. It’s home to about 650,000 people; it’s the center of a metro area comprising 2.5 million residents. It has a vibrant downtown district. It’s home to a major league soccer team and a National Basketball Association franchise. Every June, it salutes the roses that come into bloom with the annual Rose Festival and the Grand Floral Parade usually draws a crowd of about a million spectators. It’s a beautiful city, with Mount Hood towering on the eastern horizon and what’s left of Mount St. Helens looming to the north.

Yes, it has criminals. So does every city on Earth. It has a homeless problem.

But I’ll be damned if Donald Trump should get away with describing the city where I came of age as some sort of cesspool. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has pushed back against Trump deploying the National Guard. She said he has no authority to do so without the permission of the governor. She won’t give him permission.

This guy described by someone recently as an overfed man-baby is off his ever-lovin’ rocker.

national news, political news

Meanwhile, a shutdown looms … again!

As the political world frets and ponders the fate of the Epstein files, a James Comey indictment over a frivolous perjury allegation, Congress and the so-called president are locking horns over whether to allow the federal government to shut down … again!

No one is governing. Not on Capitol Hill. Not in the White House. Congress is grappling with yet another continuing resolution and whether to enact it and fund the government for a few more weeks. If not, then we shut the government down — or much of it, anyway — while Congress and the so-called POTUS argue among themselves.

This is a shitty way to run the world’s greatest democratic republic. I say that with caution, because our greatness is being whittled away by Donald Trump’s efforts to usurp power from Congress and grant himself power the founders never envisioned.

I continue to be utterly flabbergasted that this Congress allows a president to strip the legislative branch of the authority granted it by the founding fathers. The founders created a presidency with limited power. They limited the legislative branch’s power, too. A president proposes legislation, but Congress disposes it. That’s how it’s supposed to go. Presidents are asked to work hand-in-hand with Congress, including with members of the opposing party, to fund the government. Is any of that occurring? Hah!

The federal court system, meanwhile, is juggling issues that have nothing to do with governance, but everything to do with presidential conduct.

Our government is broken. I won’t say it’s destroyed, but man … the damage is piling up.

I know this sounds a little like a “both sides at fault” argument, but in the case of the budget shutdown, I have to lay blame at the two governing branches’ feet. It would be up to the courts to determine if either sides does something in violation of the US Constitution.

However, I am sickened by Trump’s ongoing petulance and the revenge he continues to seek against his political foes. It is Trump’s vengeance that is driving Democrats away. As the only politician elected by the entire nation, it falls, therefore, on the president to step up and do what is right.

Find a solution to this ongoing budget crisis!

local news, political news

Making a personal plea

I did something today I don’t normally do, which isn’t a big deal per se, but it’s big enough of a deal for me to post a brief item on my blog.

U.S. Rep. Keith Self, a Collin County Republican, is going to get a letter from me. It’s not a long tome. I am asking him to rethink his rock-solid support for Donald J. Trump. Self is my congressman. He is a Republican. He also is a good guy who I happen to like personally. He and I are acquainted. We have shared some things we have in common, such as the fact that we both lived in Amarillo. Self grew up there; I got there in January 1995 to advance my career in journalism.

Self, though, stands behind a man who I believe is trampling on the founding fathers’ graves by seeking to seize more power for the presidency than the founders envisioned. The Justice Department indictment of James Comey, the former FBI director, was the final straw for me.

I want Self to rethink his loyalty to Trump. The president is a menace. He poses a dire threat to our very form of government.

Keith Self fought for this country. He is an Army infantry officer, a Ranger and a man with high honor. He is a devoted patriot. Trump has never served his country. Even now he occupies an office that he aims to serve his needs. I am baffled beyond belief that Keith Self, with his background and history of serving the United States of America, would stand so firmly behind a politiician who spits on the memory of those who have served with valor.

I harbor no illusion about whether a single letter from a single constituent is going to do the trick. I’m hoping that others out there will take a moment to let Keith Self know this indisputable fact: He works for you and me … and not for the president of the United States.

national news, political news

Trump keeps promises, breaks a few others

Donald J. Trump fancies himself as being an atypical politician, but he’s just like all the others in this key aspect: He makes promises while campaigning for office and keeps a few and breaks others.

He ran for president in 2024 vowing to end the Ukraine-Russia war on Day One; he vowed to lower prices on goods. Trump fell short on those promises.

He also vowed to be voters’ “retribution” and said he would seek to punish his political foes. Bingo! He has kept those pledges.

It’s the pledges kept that cause me the most concern. Trump has launched probes in search of a crime. He has the targets, he just needs to find something to plaster onto them. Former FBI director James Comey today was indicted for perjury for testimony he gave to a Senate committee. Trump and Comey hate each other, but the evidence for an indictment doesn’t appear to stack up. That doesn’t matter to Trump. He’s going after Comey anyway.

Across the board, Trump is weaponizing federal law enforcement for the purpose of getting even with his foes.

Dang! He told us he would do it and yet a slim plurality Americans elected him POTUS anyway!

As for the other stuff, the policy matters that affect how much money we have to spend on food, transportation and housing, Trump is falling short. Oh, and the Ukraine war. Mr. Mind Changer now sings the praises of Ukraine’s effort at defending itself against the Russian invaders.

The charlatan in chief has gone bonkers.

national news

What about Trump library?

Admit it boys and girls … we’re getting closer to the first year of Donald Trump’s second term in office, which puts us a little closer to his permanent exit from the Oval Office. Thus, I know you’ve been thinking the same thought that has crossed my mind: What will Trump’s library contain?

Or will he even have a presidential library and museum?

The first such exhibit I ever saw was in 1973 in West Branch, Iowa, home of the Herbert Hoover presidential library. I thought of President Hoover only in one context, that the Great Depression began on his watch with the collapse of the stock market and he lost his re-election bid in a landslide to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I learned, though, that Hoover also was a world-class humanitarian and he parlayed his compassion for the needy into legendary acts of good for humankind.

Fast-forward to the present day and we have Donald Trump. He’s been impeached twice. He has been vilified by world leaders for a variety of missteps. He now is trying to dismantle our democratic republic while seeking to form an autocracy. He has boasted of grabbing women in their private areas, has denigrated immigrants, the media, his political foes (who he calls “the enemy”) and has been caught telling outright lies by the tens of thousands.

You get the idea, I presume. How does he define his time in office? What will be the signature act of good he will have performed while serving as president?

This past weekend, I toured the George W. Bush library and museum in Dallas. I didn’t vote for President Bush in 2000 or 2004, but I do admire his commitment to the Constitution and his years of public service. I admire the president’s steadfast courage after 9/11 and I admire the investment his administration made in education reform and in fighting HIV/AIDS.

Believe it or not, I do wish for a signature moment that could define Donald Trump’s time in office in a positive light. So far, he’s coming up empty.

national news, political news

Charley Kirk Day? Are they serious …?

Did I hear this correctly, that congressional Republicans are lining up for an effort to create a national holiday honoring the memory of a man slain because he espoused right-wing nut-job policies and supported the agenda put forth by the MAGA moron in chief, Donald Trump?

I believe I did hear it. Yep. GOP members of Congress want to create Charlie Kirk Day. A national holiday, yes? This can’t possibly be serious. But wait! The GOP is no longer a serious political party. It is the mouthpiece for the MAGA movement led by Trump and his sycophants.

One of them was Kirk, a 31-year-old conservative influencer. Kirk was speaking the other day at a rally at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, when a nitwit with a rifle shot him in the neck. Kirk died almost immediately.

Yes, it was a shock. Yes, I condemn political violence. Yes, it was a political assassination. And yes, Kirk leaves behind a wife and two small children, which alone is enough to cause great sadness and sympathy.

He is no martyr. He blustered some highly offensive policies, such as saying that Black Americans aren’t as smart as white Americans. He wanted to deport all immigrants. He was anti-gay, anti-transgender. He spewed hate at every event where he was featured.

To elevate this young man’s memory to a level reserved for the likes of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and presidents of the United States (starting with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln) insults the intelligence of rank-and-file Americans, not to mention the memories of those truly great men.

I am sad that Charlie Kirk died in such a violent manner. I won’t ever justify the actions of the idiot who’s in custody and faces a death sentence if he’s convicted of aggravated murder.

But … c’mon folks! Settle down with this national commemoration nonsense!

local news, military news

Hail to the chief … and to the heroes

I want to share briefly with you an experience I had this past weekend while visiting with a member of my family who came to North Texas to visit my sons, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and me.

To be honest, I was drawn inexorably into making direct comparisons between what I saw over the weekend and what we are experiencing now in real time as events continue to unfold in D.C.

On Saturday, we drove to the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum. My brother-in-law had not seen it yet, but it was my third or fourth visit. I love going there, if only to allow my sappiness to show itself while touring the 9/11 exhibit at the Bush Museum. I visited with one of the docents at the front door when we entered and I told her how much I have grown to admire President Bush in recent years, particularly in light of what his most recent successor has done to denigrate the office he inherited. She nodded in agreement. She gets it.

As we walked through the myriad exhibits, I was struck by the wisdom the museum presented that came from Bush during not only in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, but in his speaking on behalf of HIV/AIDS research the investments made in the PEPFAR program that the Bush administration created, which Donald Trump wants to dismantle. Bush spoke eloquently about how the nation’s response to 9/11 was not a war “against Islam,” but a war against the terrorists who perverted a great religion.

Bush’s fingerprints can be found on efforts to reform public education during his presidency and on his efforts to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

All told, we had a wonderful experience reliving those turbulent years … and wishing for a return to the wisdom that Bush was capable of exhibiting during difficult times.

The next day we ventured to Arlington to tour the National Medal of Honor Museum. I’ve written already about that experience. I won’t repeat myself.

However, I do want to note that I found the absence of meaningful remarks from the current president about the heroism on display at the Medal of Honor Museum to be striking. He has draped the medal around the necks of several heroes during his terms in office, but in each ceremony I have watched from afar I cannot eradicate from my memory the insults he has hurled at wounded warriors, his refusal to visit American graves in France during the D-Day commemoration, the horrible things he has said about a Gold Star family — Iraqi immigrants — whose son died fighting in Iraq while wearing a U.S. Army uniform.

I know I am not not the only American patriot who thinks this way. It saddens me terribly. However, it did not a single thing to take away the respect, admiration and love I feel toward the 3,600 men who have received the nation’s highest military honor.

I am a proud American patriot who was thrilled to see these exhibits designed to bring out the love I have for my country and for the people who have served it.