national news

Pandemic response gives way to police brutality response

Donald Trump’s response to the global pandemic has been chronicled thoroughly as a disaster, pure and simple.

Trump fluffed the initial response by dawdling and dismissing the COVID-19 threat. Now look at the toll just in the U.S. of A. More than 100,000 dead; more than 1 million sickened. Trump keeps yapping that he’s done better than anyone else on Earth.

It’s crap, man!

Now comes the response to George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, Minn. A police officer choked Floyd to death by pushing his knee into the back of Floyd’s neck. Three other officers stood by. They said nothing. They watched as Floyd cried out, calling for his mother, begging for his life. All four were fired immediately by the police department. The now-former cop who killed Floyd is charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

What has been Donald Trump’s response to the latest crisis to dominate media coverage? Has he called for a national conversation on the way police treat African-Americans? Has he said anything more than a perfunctory expression of sadness at the death of a man at the hands of rogue cops? No.

He has called for police to get tough. He said he is considering bringing the full weight of the military to bear in quelling the riots that have erupted in cities throughout the land. Think of that for just a moment … good grief!

Trump has castigated governors for being “weak” in their response to this crisis.

The nation needs someone who can speak with calm. With firm kindness. With an understanding of the cause of the crisis along with how to respond to it.

Donald Trump’s one-dimensional reaction to the national turmoil that has erupted provides just another example of how unsuited he is for the job he inherited.

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Tough talk from … a coward

I am not inclined to use Donald Trump’s refusal to fight for his country during the Vietnam War against him. Yes, this blog has mentioned it on occasion, referring to the hypocrisy of the present-day tough talk juxtaposed with the “bone spurs” diagnosis he received to help defer him from being drafted into the military.

Trump’s excoriating of governors for not being tough enough against the rioters who have brought severe damage and destruction in reaction to George Floyd’s death just is too inviting a target to ignore.

Donald Trump needs a slap across the face for saying what he did about the governors. He called them “weak.” He implored them to “get tough” with those who take protest to the next, destructive level.

I remember, too, how his nincompoop — while campaigning for the presidency — lampooned cops for being too “nice” to criminal suspects. He implored them to rough up the suspects. It’s fair to suggest, then, that the four Minneapolis officers who are complicit in George Floyd’s death took the candidate’s advice quite literally.

So now the man who reportedly said he wasn’t so “stupid” that he would make himself available to serve his country in time of war implores elected governors to get tough on those who are angry at the conduct of rogue cops.

Reprehensible.

local news

Club for Growth channels Empower Texans

I no longer live in the 13th Congressional District of Texas, but I remain interested in the political dynamics of that sprawling region of the state.

The upcoming Republican Party primary runoff election is the latest event to trigger my interest. Retired Navy Admiral/Dr. Ronny Jackson is running against Josh Winegarner for the congressional seat being vacated by longtime GOP Rep. Mac Thornberry.

Winegarner finished first during the primary in a huge field of GOP contenders, but didn’t get enough votes to win the nomination outright; so he’s facing the second place finisher, Jackson.

This is getting interesting. Jackson has received the endorsement of a group called Club for Growth, which an Amarillo political action committee, Amarillo Matters, describes as a group that “raises and spends a lot of money on political races, mostly pitting Republicans against other Republican candidates.”

They’re outsiders, according to Amarillo Matters. Club for Growth has no discernible interest in the 13th Congressional District, except to help elect candidates who hue to its right-wing national agenda. Amarillo Matters compares this outfit to Empower Texans, an Austin-based right-wing advocacy group that does the same thing. Empower Texans, in 2018, sought to unseat state Sen. Kel Seliger and state Rep. Four Price, both of Amarillo … but got its melon thumped by voters in Seliger’s Senate district and Price’s House district.

Amarillo Matters is backing Winegarner, contending that their guy is a locally grown candidate who knows the district. Jackson is a carpetbagger, having never lived within the 13th District.

Amarillo Matters writes: You might remember the name Chris Ekstrom. He’s a multi-millionaire from Dallas who spent more than $1 million trying to buy our congressional seat in the primary election. He was one of fourteen candidates that Winegarner beat by steep margins in March. In that election, Ekstrom received an endorsement from a nation-wide organization named Club for Growth. 

So now this outfit is at it again. It seeks to meddle where it has no real interest or concern. Don’t misunderstand me on this point: I don’t really care whether Winegarner gets the GOP nod. He’s a right-winger, too, and not precisely my kinda congressman. At least, though, he knows the district — unlike the retired naval officer and physician who once treated Presidents Obama and Trump.

Amarillo Matters has done a good job of alerting voters of the 13th Congressional District about what’s going on … supposedly in their name. Stay alert, my former neighbors.

national news

Biden faces biggest decision of his political career

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

There’s no way on Earth to overstate the importance of Joe Biden’s pending decision on who to select as a vice-presidential running mate in his campaign against Donald John Trump and Mike Pence.

When given the opportunity to speak of Biden, former President Barack Obama says often that his selection of Biden as VP in 2008 was the “best decision” he ever made as president.

So it will be for the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee in 2020.

Biden has pledged to select a woman to run with him. That wipes out roughly 50 percent of all the qualified individuals from whom he can select. The remaining field of VP candidates, though, is a rich one indeed.

Here is where it might get a bit sticky for the former vice president: He has this crisis involving the death of an African-American man at the hands of police officers who roughed him up, then suffocated him on a Minneapolis street. There is pressure building on Biden to select an African-American woman to run with him.

Make no mistake at all, the field — even if Biden is narrowing his choices even more — remains packed with talent, with accomplished individuals who have stellar public service records.

I will not get into trying to name the possible VP candidates Biden should consider. I would forget someone. I won’t go there.

However, it is no small task facing the former vice president — who President Obama has called the “best vice president we’ve ever had.” Whether he is the best ever or whether Obama was just saying so to brag about his executive appointment skills, what matters now is whether Joe Biden can find someone who will enhance his chances of defeating Donald Trump.

More critically, though, he must find someone who is able to serve as president of the United States. I mean, let’s stare reality in the face: Biden will be 78 years of age in November of this year; he has suffered some potentially serious health issues in the past.

Joe Biden has to hit this pitch out of the park.

national news

Fearing that police will be scarred needlessly

I feel the need to defend law enforcement officers.

It’s not that they need me to defend them. I do fear that the fallout from the George Floyd story well might scar police officers wrongly as protests keep turning into riots.

George Floyd’s death at the hands of a rogue cop has stunned the nation and the world. I got an email from a friend in Australia who expressed concern about the culture that produced the conduct that led to Floyd’s hideous death in Minneapolis. My friend is a learned man and I will accept his analysis as legitimate.

My concern rests with the universal police community that comprises men and women who do their jobs with diligence and honor every hour each day they go to work.

My career as a journalist put me in touch with many fine law enforcement officers over the course of nearly four decades. I respected all of them; I “liked” most of them, but not all. As a reporter and an editor, the cops and I occasionally would butt heads, which is more or less the nature of police/media relationships.

However, they were almost to a person individuals with the greatest integrity. I haven’t spoken to any of them since the Floyd story exploded, but I know what they would say. They would say they are horrified at what that Minneapolis did, that they cannot fathom “restraining” someone the way the cop did to Floyd, snuffing the life out of him over the span of nine minutes.

Legitimate protests are warranted if they are aimed exclusively at the police agency in question; in this case it’s the Minneapolis Police Department. Indeed, all law enforcement agencies are being handed an opportunity to examine closely their own policies regarding the detention of suspects.

What happened in Minneapolis is horrifying in the extreme. It doesn’t get easier to watch the video of George Floyd being confronted by the police and then plead for his life as it is slipping away under the cop’s knee pressed against the back of his neck.

I will not accept that what occurred nearly a week ago is standard operating procedure among all law enforcement agencies and among all the men and women who suit up every day to “protect and serve” the public.

national news

They are ‘rioters,’ not ‘protesters’

For as long as we continue to discuss openly the reaction of those who damage others’ property and inflict more misery and mayhem in the name of justice, I am hereby making a pledge.

I no longer will refer to them as “protesters.” They are “rioters.” I might even toss in another epithet or two to describe the imbeciles who take to the streets in the manner we have witnessed in the wake of the George Floyd murder by the Minneapolis, Minn., cop.

A protester is one who exercises his or her rights of “peaceable” assembly.” It’s laid out in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A protester is one who follows the example set by the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who preached non-violent civil disobedience and urged those who followed him to do the same.

George Floyd died when a police office suffocated him. He pleaded with the officer to “please, please” remove the knee from back of his neck because, he said, “I can’t breathe.” He begged for his “mama” before losing consciousness … and then dying.

The officer who killed Floyd has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. There should be other charges leveled against the three other officers involved in this hideous incident.

As for the rioters, they do not do a single thing to advance the cause for which they ostensibly seek to bring to our national attention.

I believe the rest of us who are horrified at the sight of George Floyd’s life being snuffed out need to reserve large amounts of anger at the rioters who have usurped the attention from actual protesters whose voices need to be heard.

national news

We need a president who cares

President Ronald Reagan consoled a nation shattered by the explosion of a space ship and the deaths of seven astronauts by telling us how they “had touched the face of God.”

President Barack Obama led a church congregation in a rendition of “Amazing Grace” after a gunman killed nine of their congregants in a senseless, hate-filled massacre.

President George W. Bush reminded us we would not go to “war with Islam,” but vowed to bring certain justice to the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.

Sen. Robert Kennedy, while running for president in 1968, stood on a flatbed truck and told an Indianapolis crowd that Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot dead by an assassin … and then he quoted Aeschylus.

Donald Trump? His reaction to the global pandemic that has killed more than100,000 Americans has been to boast that it could have been greater had he not closed entry from China. He has chided Democratic governors. He has blasted the media for reporting “fake news.” And then he has told us in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of rogue cops that “when there’s looting there will be shooting.”

Oh, my.

We need a president who can rise to the level set forth in the role of consoler in chief. Donald Trump cannot — or will not — rise to that level. He is unable or unwilling to shed the politics of the moment and speak to the entire nation in the moment of grief.

I keep saying — and will continue saying it — that he is unfit for the office he is now seeking to retain. He shouldn’t have been elected in the first place. But he was. Many of us knew all along that if and when the moment presented itself — and it has with the pandemic and now the George Floyd matter — that Donald Trump would be unsuited for the task before him.

We wanted to be wrong. Sadly, this individual has proven us right.

science news

There he goes again … taking undue credit

There he was yet again, Donald John “Braggart in Chief” Trump taking credit he doesn’t deserve for the return of the U.S. manned space program.

Trump slathered himself with praise over the successful launch Saturday of the SpaceX rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., saying that only on his watch could this effort have become a reality.

Actually, it was the result of an effort began a decade ago during the Barack H. Obama administration, which in fact was a continuation of an effort started during the George W. Bush administration.

According to National Public Radio: “Today is the culmination of three and a half years of renewed leadership in space,” said Vice President Pence, who called the launch “a tribute to the vision and leadership of a president who, from the very first days of this administration, was determined to revive NASA and American leadership in human space exploration.”

C’mon, man! Get real!

Yes, I have lamented the end of the space shuttle program, even with its two disastrous missions — Challenger’s explosion in 1986 and Columbia’s disintegration in 2003. However, the SpaceX program initiated by Elon Musk now holds a huge new promise of manned space flight for the United States, as it was demonstrated Saturday with the launch and the successful docking today with the International Space Station.

It has been many years in the making, long before Donald Trump soiled the presidency with his presence in the Oval Office.

But that wouldn’t dissuade Trump and Pence from taking undue credit. Hey, it’s an election year … so I’ll presume that everything now becomes fair campaign game.

Disgusting.

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Misery is spreading

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Dallas erupted overnight in a spasm of violence related to the death nearly a week ago of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man suffocated by a rogue cop who snuffed the life out of him by placing his knee on the back of his neck for 8 or 9 minutes.

Businesses were damaged. People were injured. More victims emerged from the aftermath of the hideous incident in which the cop was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

It is everyone’s sincere hope that the violence will end. That we’ll start now to assess seriously the ongoing problem of police relations with communities of color. That police departments might take a long and sober look at whether their officers enforce the law differently when principals involved are ethnic or racial minorities.

The cops used tear gas on the Dallas protesters. Police Chief U. Renee Hall has justified the use of the gas. That’s her call and I won’t get into whether the PD was right or wrong.

Dallas was just one of many cities that erupted. Will there be more of it today, tonight and into the future?

Please! No!

I am officially mourning my country at this moment. We are battling that pandemic with shabby and shameful lack of leadership from the top of government chain of command. Now this! The top of that command chain, namely Donald Trump, has again acted with little demonstrable anger over what he surely has witnessed along with the rest of us … which is the sight of that cop killing George Floyd. Instead he has directed his anger at the angry mobs. I get that he’s angry about the damage being done; it angers me, too.

However, I want the president to look at the cause of that anger and to redirect his anger at the brutality that created this firestorm.

So it goes. My goodness. This madness must end.

national news

GOP chatter … then silence

I keep hearing snippets of encouraging news from inside the Republican caucus in both chambers of Congress … which is that GOP members are finally beginning to get fed up with Donald John Trump’s behavior as president of the United States.

The latest bit of chatter involves U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a longtime champion of government accountability and of the watchdog program set up to help sniff out corruption in government.

He’s angry, reportedly, that Trump has let so many inspectors go. He wants the IGs on the job rooting out wrongdoing.

But then … what does he do to hold Trump even more accountable? What does he do to ensure that Trump doesn’t continue his frontal assault on government accountability and transparency?

Nothing, man!

The nation’s founders established co-equal branches of government. They intended to limit executive authority, along with limiting congressional and judicial authority. Donald Trump is running roughshod over the founders’ intent. Meanwhile, those congressional Republicans who should be fighting fiercely to protect their constitutional authority become subservient to the Imbecile in Chief.

I probably shouldn’t worry too much about what the GOP political leadership is going to do about Donald Trump. His future likely rests in the hands of voters who will decide this November whether to keep him on the job for another four years. Oh, how I hope voters have the good sense to turn away from the bad sense they exhibited four years earlier by electing this clown in the first place.

If only that Republican leadership that occasionally bristles at Trump’s power grabs, his ignorance and his arrogance would act on what they see right along with the rest of us.

It is that the president of the United States is a danger to the nation he swore an oath to protect.

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