International news, military news, national security

Looking for the leaker, but no answers on bounty

Well now, it appears Donald John Trump is really angry … at the individual who leaked the item about the Russians placing bounties on the heads of U.S. service personnel.

He is going after the person who spilled the beans to the media about what might shake out as arguably the most damning scandal we’ve seen during Trump’s scandal-ridden tenure as president of the United States.

He vows to root out the leaker and punish him or her to the extent that he can. Although it’s unclear to me what precisely he could do other than fire the individual.

But … what about the bounty? When is Trump going to speak directly to the issue of Russian intelligence officials reportedly paying $100,000 to Taliban terrorists who kill our men and women on the battlefield? He’s been stone-cold silent on that matter.

I happen to have a personal stake in this issue. Two members of my family have seen combat in Afghanistan since we went to war against the Taliban after 9/11. One family member is now retired from the Army and is living in Colorado. The other family member, though, is on active duty and well could be sent back to Afghanistan. Obviously, I do not want him harmed. Therefore, I am imploring Congress, the intelligence community, the executive branch of the government to get straight to the depths of what has transpired.

Trump’s initial reaction to the bounty story was to denigrate the reporting of it. He called it “fake news.” He said he never was briefed by his national security team when it first collected intelligence about the bounties.

Reporting on the matter, though, suggests something quite different. Normal National Security Council procedure compels officials to brief the president when it obtains information of this magnitude.

Did they tell Donald Trump when he should have been told? If they did and he ignored it, then I believe we have an act of treason on our hands. If they withheld that information because they feared how he might react to negative news about his pal Vladimir Putin, we have something quite different but also seriously egregious.

Trump keeps saying how much he cares about the troops under his command. He has yet to demonstrate that love and caring in a tangible manner as it regards this hideous story.

Now he’s going after the leaker? That is a shameful dereliction of duty and a disgraceful violation of the oath he took when he became our commander in chief.

medical news

What if POTUS tests positive?

The news out of Brasilia, Brazil that the president of Latin America’s largest nation has tested positive for COVID-19 leaves me with terribly mixed feelings.

I don’t want Jair Bolsonaro to get seriously ill from the virus, even though he is what you could call a “pandemic denier.” He and his pal Donald J. Trump had locked arms in solidarity in dismissing the danger posed by the coronavirus that has swept around the world.

Now he’s sickened by it. He wasn’t taking personal precautions. Bolsonaro was running around without a mask, he wasn’t keeping appropriate distance from others. He was calling it no worse than the flu.

OK. Now he’s tested positive for the disease. Will the docs in Brazil treat it like the flu? I doubt it. Seriously.

What about his pal, The Donald?

So far, Donald Trump has tested negative every time he’s been tested. Or so he tells us. Is he telling us the truth? I have difficulty taking anything he says at face value. About anything at all.

Don Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, has tested positive and has been quarantined for two weeks. That means the virus is inching ever closer to the president, who’s already seen several members of his staff and the Secret Service detail afflicted by the virus.

My mixed feelings are troubling to me. I am not proud of acknowledging that I care far less about Donald Trump’s personal well-being than about the government he was elected to lead. It’s just the way I feel about the man, given his own callous disregard for others. I figure he’s merely reaping what he’s sown in my own heart.

I do worry about the executive branch of our government, which isn’t running well as it is. What might occur if Donald Trump takes ill? What happens to the decision-making process? Does the chaos accelerate?

These aren’t far-fetched questions to ponder, given what we’ve seen occur in Brazil with another world leader who has been as cavalier about the pandemic as the U.S. president has been.

Might President Bolsonaro’s illness be something of a wakeup call for his good buddy in Washington? Perhaps we can get some actual seriousness from the White House about the tragedy that has befallen so many Americans.

local news

Pandemic forces State Fair cancellation

BLOGGER’S NOTE: A version of this post was published initially on KETR-FM’s website.

If this was the year you would try out some fried beer at Fair Park in Dallas … you’ll just have to wait until 2021.

The Texas State Fair isn’t going to occur this year. Fair organizers have canceled the annual event for the first time since the end of World War II; back then we were too busy celebrating the end of the bloodiest conflict in world history. This year’s cancellation comes – as if you need reminding – because we are in the midst of another struggle against the coronavirus pandemic.

This is absolutely, unequivocally and without question the correct call.

The State Fair is a gigantic public event, drawing millions of visitors to Dallas every year. They’re crammed along the fair midway, sampling this and that fare that passes for “food.”

The fair board said the 2021 event will occur Sept. 21 through Oct. 17. The Texas Tribune reports that 2.5 million spectators attended the 2019 fair. Given the social distancing rules governing outdoor venues this year, well, let’s just say the attendance would be significantly less than in recent previous years.

We shouldn’t complain about this cancellation. I am fully supportive of the decision.

According to the Texas Tribune: “One of the greatest aspects of the Fair is welcoming each and every person who passes through our gates with smiles and open arms,” said Gina Norris, board chair for the State Fair of Texas, in a written statement. “In the current climate of COVID-19, there is no feasible way for the Fair to put proper precautions in place while maintaining the Fair environment you know and love.”

More from the Tribune: Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said in a statement that he was saddened by the closure, but that the organization made the right decision.

“COVID-19’s spread is rampant in our community, and public health must come first,” he said. “We all have to do what it takes to slow this virus so we can save lives and livelihoods and get back to doing what we enjoy.”

I now will await the griping from those who contend the state’s “heavy hand” is denying Texans their God-given right to expose themselves and others to the deadly virus. Let ’em gripe.

What is not entirely clear, at least to me, is the status of the annual Texas-Oklahoma college football game, which occurs at the Cotton Bowl smack in the middle of Fair Park and during the State Fair. My hunch is that the game will proceed, although there might have to be some serious restrictions placed on the number of fans who will be able to watch the game. Big 12 officials say they intend to play football this season. Whether they do so in stadiums filled with fans remains a seriously open question.

Texas happens to be in dire straits at the moment as it fights the COVID-19 pandemic. We need to take great care as we move ahead with staging these athletic events.

As for the State Fair, well, let’s wait a year before we scarf down that fried beer.

national news

Stupidity rules in some quarters

Sigh …

Actually, that’s a heavy sigh laced with anger at the moronic tenor of that message.

The photo showed up on my Facebook feed this morning. I don’t know where it was taken, or certainly who these individuals are, but oh my does that picture enrage me.

Those folks’ “freedom” isn’t worth a nickel more than anyone else’s “safety.” For Americans to protest their government’s effort to protect us from a killer virus is to suggest a blatant and dangerous ignorance of what government is empowered to do … under the U.S. Constitution.

I just felt compelled to share this picture with readers of this blog. It speaks so loudly to the idiocy that has infected our political discourse in light of this public health menace.

national news

Trump campaigns against … himself?

Cornell Belcher is a Democratic pollster, so I will acknowledge up front that he is a political partisan.

Still, he offered a fascinating analysis of Donald Trump’s re-election campaign strategy. Speaking on National Public Radio this morning, Belcher said, in effect that Trump is campaigning against his own record as president.

Belcher noted that Trump is painting a picture of a nation falling apart, that it’s crumbling before our eyes, that our social fabric is disintegrating. Is the president seeking to unify the nation? Is he calling on voters to support all the strength he has brought to the nation?

No. He is running as if he is the challenger seeking to defeat an incumbent who’s done a horrible job. Get it? How does that bizarre strategy work?

Belcher also noted that Trump’s re-election strategy is light years removed from President Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign theme that it was “Morning in America.” Reagan won a second term that year in a 49-state landslide.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is slipping farther behind his challenger, Joe Biden. Come to think of it, if this trend continues, we’ll see a new “morning in America” once we get all the ballots counted later this year … and Donald Trump can prepare to depart the White House for the final time.

local news, medical news, national news, State news

When will GOP pols hit the wall as it regards POTUS?

1 Comment

Here is my latest Question of the Day: When in the name of sane government will Republican governors around the country decide they have heard enough from Donald J. Trump?

I’ll look specifically at Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, given that I am acquainted with him and he might actually see this blog post.

Abbott has slammed the brakes on the state’s reopening strategy in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. He has ordered masks in public places, told us to maintain social distancing, and ordered businesses to limit capacity. Yes, he was slow to enact the measures and, yes again, he is scaling back his too-quick order to reopen the state’s business community.

Abbott, though, at least is giving lip service to the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic.

Meanwhile, we hear from Donald Trump that the killer virus is going to disappear. It’ll be like a miracle, he says, adding, “I hope.”

Then came this tidbit from one of his Fourth of July weekend speeches: He said that 99 percent of all COVID-19 infections don’t amount to anything of consequence. Virtually all infections, he implied, are nothing to worry about.

Really! He said it. Oh, I guess I should point out that 130,000 Americans have died, which is about 20 percent of the worldwide death count.

These Republican politicians need to speak out forcefully, telling Donald Trump to keep his trap shut. Every time he dismisses the death counts, makes light of the infection rates, calls for “less testing,” he makes state and local politicians’ duties that much more difficult.

He’s got that damn bully pulpit that he is misusing to the detriment of Americans’ health. GOP politicians need to start calling him out.

Gov. Abbott, I’m talking to you!

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 85: He’s gotten jumpy

Toby the Puppy has gotten jumpy, but we think we know the source of his newfound skittishness.

It’s not a worry. Indeed, I get a bit spooked at the very thing that seems to have gotten under Toby’s skin.

It’s the sound of thunder. He no longer likes it. In fact, the sound of it sends our puppy scampering for a bed under which he can curl up.

Toby is now a little more than 6 years old. He’s been through a lot of thunderstorms in his life. He has exhibited little regard to the sound of the thunder … until now.

For that matter, we have discovered he has an acute dislike of the sound of fireworks. The bombs and rockets we ignite on New Year’s Eve or the Fourth of July send him into a state of near panic.

But we think we know where he acquired the unsettled behavior.

We attended a fireworks display on the Fourth of July, 2019. We were gathered along a lake in Northeast Texas, with many dozens of other fine folks. We were very close to the launching site for the rockets.

They were loud. As in really loud. Toby the Puppy heard all of that and, shall we say … he didn’t like it one single bit.

His Mommy — aka my wife — took him away from the blast zone, seeking to shield him from the din. It didn’t work.

Toby hasn’t been the same since.

He isn’t traumatized. Of that I am certain. He is an extremely well-adjusted and adaptable puppy. He travels better than any human being I’ve ever seen, with the possible exception of my late mother-in-law. Toby is a road warrior, as was my wife’s mother.

However, we have discovered a weak spot in his emotional armor. It’s the loud booming sounds, be they artificial fireworks or the sound and fury created by Mother Nature herself.

Despite all that, Toby the Puppy is practically perfect.

national news

Trump alienating his own party

The Lincoln Project has risen to speak out.

So has a coalition of staffers who once worked for Republican President George W. Bush.

Ditto for any number of conservative thinkers/pundits/commentators.

There might even be some hidden Republican members of the U.S. House and Senate ready to bolt.

What do they have in common? They are speaking collectively against a man who calls himself a Republican, but who has no affiliation, understanding or appreciation of what used to be considered basic Republican Party principles.

Donald J. Trump’s re-election appears to be in trouble … at this moment! Yes, that could change. I mean, this guy has managed to survive some of the more hideous faux paus in recent memory. He has held on to that base of support. He told us he could “shoot someone on Fifth Avenue” and not lose any votes; many of us cringed when he said that, but there is a distressing belief that he might have been correct.

The Lincoln Project, of course, is named after President Lincoln, one of the nation’s great Republican presidents. They used to call the GOP the Party of Lincoln. It has become the Cult of Trump.

The party that once was the champion of civil rights for all Americans, whose senators enabled a Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, to push landmark civil rights legislation through Congress, has become unrecognizable to President Lincoln. It has coalesced behind an individual with no discernible moral compass, no philosophical guidepost.

Thus, tried-and-true real Republicans are locking arms in the hope of defeating this GOP imposter. Whether they belong to an actual organization such as the Lincoln Project, or are a loosely held gang of former GOP presidential aides, they seem to stand for a single cause: defeating Donald Trump.

What’s more — and this is truly astonishing — they are standing publicly and loudly in favor of a Democratic candidate, Joseph R. Biden Jr. One finds occasionally during every election cycle a notable partisan or two who might abandon the candidate of his or her party, but who cannot endorse anyone on the other side. That’s not happening these days.

My biggest concern at this point — given my own often-stated loathing of Donald Trump — is whether any of this will translate to tangible support when the election rolls around.

I merely want to caution everyone that Donald Trump was losing badly to Hillary Clinton at this point of the 2016 campaign. Then the wheels flew off the Clinton campaign. If there’s a lesson for the Biden team to glean from that effort it is that the 2020 Democratic nominee needs to avoid repeating the goofs that doomed an effort that fooled every political pundit in the land.

national news

Donald ramps up his demagoguery

Let’s call it Demagoguery by The Donald.

It was on full display this weekend as Donald Trump spoke to the nation during two Independence Day events.

He said this, among other things: “Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities.”

How about that? Makes you proud, right? Well, if it does, then you’re as sick as Donald Trump.

Trump’s full-on, all-out assault on our nation’s culture contains so many red flags, I almost don’t know where to begin.

A “merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes …”

I want to visit with that statement for just a moment.

Defaming “our heroes” is nowhere to be found in this current effort. The “heroes” to whom Trump refers are actually traitors to the nation. These are the individuals who sided with the Confederacy that in 1861 seceded from the Union. Their aim was to overthrow the federal government. They went to war against the United States.

Why? Because they wanted to preserve slavery. They wanted to retain the ability to enslave human beings, to treat them as property.

These individuals might be “heroes” to those who endorsed the treason they committed, but not to the rest of us. They are traitors.

Yet these are the individuals Donald Trump wants to salute. These are the treasonous characters Trump wants to salute.

I am having trouble recalling a time in my life when I’ve heard such blatant, bald-faced demagoguery coming from the president of the United States.

There it is. Laid out there for all to see and hear.

This individual is a disgrace.

entertainment news, national news

Can this PR stunt explode, too?

Photo by Brent N Clarke/Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Kanye West is running for president of the United States as part of some weird publicity stunt.

I am certain of it. The rapper/reality TV spouse/goofball cannot possibly be seriously considering things such as, oh, how to lead a nation out of a pandemic or waging rhetorical battle with political foes.

He won’t win. Or at least he shouldn’t win.

Then again, we have the case of Donald Trump, who I am equally certain launched his 2016 presidential campaign as a publicity stunt.

Except that it blew up in all of our faces.

Donald Trump ended up winning against all reasonable odds and expectations. Look at what his fluke victory has gotten us, where it has taken us, what it has produced. We’re in a world of hurt these days because an incompetent buffoon somehow managed to buffalo enough voters in just the right states to get elected leader of the world’s most indispensable nation. Who knew, right?

Well, 2020 isn’t likely to produce a repeat of the political cataclysm that befell the nation four years ago. Then again, if Donald Trump’s victory four years ago taught us anything, we learned that is foolhardy in the extreme to overstate the collective intelligence of American voters.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience