local news

Interim manager now just an ‘assistant manager’

Amarillo, Texas, once had an interim city manager get too far ahead of himself and has paid the price for his, um, boldness.

Andrew Freeman, as I understand it, made some high-level administrative moves without first consulting with the people who hired him: the city council.

The result? Well, he’s been booted back to his former job title of “assistant city manager.” Were I a betting man, I would suggest that Freeman will not be around when the city decides to hire a city manager who will take the job for keeps.

Freeman’s hubris showed itself when he created a new public safety director and elevated Police Chief Martin Birkenfeld into that post, then appointed an interim chief of police to take Birkenfeld’s former job. One problem with that and other appointments: He didn’t seek the “advice and counsel” of the city council.

Freeman sort of sought to suggest that he did notify the council of his intent, but absent any consent, he seemed to believe that notifying council members of his desire qualified as seeking their “advice.”

That is not how most of the council members saw it. Or so I am led to believe.

A few of my social media acquaintances accuse the council of “micromanaging” city government. I don’t see it that way. I consider the decision to return Freeman to his old post as an assistant city manager as a demonstration that they believe in the letter of the city charter’s rules and regulation.

“Advice and consent,” as I understand the term, means that the governing body must grant its approval before a senior administrator makes his or her move. Andrew Freeman, it sure looks like to me, got too far ahead of himself to suit the folks who sit on the city’s governing board.

There’s a clear downside to all of this nonsense. Will any of this make finding a permanent city manager more difficult? Yep! It damn sure will.

local news, national news, political news

Like minds make good friends

It never used to be like this … but the here and now suggests a new level of compatibility is required for Americans to make friends.

One such friend of mine is an admitted political junkie. She loves the political process and she is well-versed on political trends and those who set them.

We are of like minds politically. Which means that she can tell me what’s in her heart and on her facile mind. I won’t bristle.

It turns out that political compatibility measures up to things such as, oh, what kind of movies you like, the type of food you can eat, and your taste in music.

It wasn’t always like this. I have maintained many friendships over many decades with people who have supported politicians who were the polar opposite of the individuals I formerly admired.

These days, if you say “polar opposite” to people such as me, then you back a pol who disavows democracy and adheres to authoritarianism. That’s a deal-breaker in my book.

Do we take our politics more seriously than before? Umm, not really. I do take the hideous point of view being espoused by those on the opposite side of the field more seriously.

It’s not enough to consider tax policy, or even gun policy to drive me far from those with whom I differ on those issues. How should I think of someone who embraces someone who is unfit for public office? That makes it a whole new game for me.

national news, political news

GOP about to go ’round the bend

What passes for a once-great American political party tonight appears ready to ’round the ol’ bend, from traditional conservatism to something few of us recognize.

A former POTUS who was impeached twice by the U.S. House and now stands indicted in four courts — two state and two federal — of high crimes is likely to win enough delegates to seal his nomination to the presidency in 2024.

God help us all!

I have refused to mention this clown’s name on this blog. My pledge to avoid mentioning it remains strong. I am deeply troubled that the party he claims to represent no longer appears to care about a politician’s character. Indeed, the fellow who’s likely to be nominated in 2024 doesn’t have any character; he lacks morals; he lacks compassion; he lacks grace.

He is unfit for public office.

However, he is poised to claim the nomination of a party he has co-opted and hijacked.

I cannot even fathom what many of the great Republicans of the past would think of what has become of their party.

local news, political news

No one’s business … but my own!

I voted today in Princeton for the candidates of my choice, but I want to share briefly an exchange I had with a campaign worker standing outside the polling station.

She and I are acquainted. This campaign worker is a local politician; no need to tell you the office she occupies.

“Are you a Democrat or a Republican or are you an independent?” she asked. My answer was non-descript. “I have voted in both primaries,” I said. “Oh, I was just wondering,” she said.

Hmm. We exchanged a couple of pleasantries and then I went inside to cast my ballot.

Now, readers of this blog likely can determine which primary I cast that ballot. My campaign-worker friend had no reason to know, or any reason to ask which party to which I belong.

In Texas, we don’t “join” political parties before casting ballots. Ours is an open-primary system. What troubles me is that my acquaintance sought to question me out loud, in public, in front of a polling place. I don’t know how she would have reacted had I declared myself to be of the wrong political party.

Is that a form of electioneering? I kind of think so.

The exchange made me uncomfortable this morning. I don’t believe casting one’s ballot — which we do in private — should be a cause for discomfort.

national news, political news

Optimism being tested

My eternal optimism is being put to the strongest test in my life’s history … as I watch this political drama play itself out.

Our nation’s constitutional framework is being tested mightily by forces loyal to an individual who declares his intention to be his followers’ “retribution.” How might he do that? By suspending — and these are his own thoughts — constitutional authority if only for a day were he elected to the presidency of the U.S.A.

I long have held firm to the notion that President Ford was right when he took office in August 1974 after President Nixon resigned. “Our Constitution works,” the new president reminded us … and it does.

It’s facing an entirely new set of challenges these days. What I find most remarkable is that the idiot who is challenging the Constitution is doing so with the blessing of the blind cultists who follow him. I will never subscribe to the notion that these followers comprise a majority of Americans. They are a minority, but dammit, they are vocal. Their vocal cheering of the trash that pours forth from their hero only empowers him.

My sense of optimism, therefore, is being tested like never before.

But you know what? I am not going to give in the idiotic belief that enough Americans are stupid and simple-minded enough to elect this fraud to high office.

We are a great country and most of those of us who are willing to cast our ballots for POTUS know the difference between who we are and who we could become … if we make the wrong choice.

local news, political news

End of ads looms … hooray!

I can state with a fair amount of confidence that the No. 1 reason I look forward to Primary Election Day 2024 is the cessation of the endless stream of political ads on TV.

Oh, brother. Spare me. Please!

They have been non-stop, repetitive, boring and only semi-truthful as far as I can determine.

The Republican Party primary is getting most of the attention, given the effort put forth by Texas Attorney General  Ken Paxton to defeat state legislators who favored his impeachment this past year.

And the next time I hear the words “true conservative” when describing these GOP candidates, I am likely to, well … aww hell, I don’t know. I might just curse out loud.

Liberals are called conservative and vice versa. This is just on the GOP side. Who do I believe? I don’t know. Nor do I care. That’s ignorance and apathy all rolled up into one Texas voter.

I am casting my ballot tomorrow morning. First thing. Going to the polling place in Princeton, where I am likely to run into a horde of campaign workers standing outside the designated wall of separation from the polling station.

I’ll just breeze on past ’em and cast my ballot.

Then I’ll get to wait for the next go-round in TV ads. For now, I am getting a breather. Not a day — or a moment — too soon.

local news, national news, political news

Pro-life, pro-choice: not mutually exclusive

Shall we now commence a brief discussion on what I believe could become the determining issue of the 2024 election?

It’s called euphemistically “reproductive rights.” Women across this land are angry that their rights have been stripped away by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively ended a 50-year landmark court ruling that granted women the right under the Constitution to end a pregnancy.

Yes, to get an abortion!

Republicans by and large line up in favor of the SCOTUS ruling; Democrats oppose it.

Where am I on this matter? No surprise to know that I favor allowing women the right to determine a matter that is deeply personal. Politicians — most of whom are men — have no business making that determination for them.

Am I pro-choice? Yes! Am I pro-life? Yes!

Am I a hypocrite for affirming both views? No!

As a red-blooded American male, I am in no position to determine whether a woman should obtain an abortion. I have no standing on that matter. Zero. None.

Neither, in my view, does any other human being.

To be clear, no woman ever has asked me whether she should get an abortion. For that fact I am eternally grateful. I pray to God Almighty I never will have to answer that inquiry. That doesn’t mean for one instant that I would counsel a woman to do something I consider to be an act of immense cruelty.

I live in a state, Texas, that has enacted a strict anti-abortion law; the Legislature acted in the wake of the SCOTUS decision. Texas legislators placed a six-week time limit on women; six weeks after conception, abortion is determined to be illegal. The law makes no exception for the health of the mother, let alone for the health and life of the unborn child. It also subjects women and their physician to criminal penalty if they proceed with an abortion.

Is that what you call a pro-life stance? Hell no! It is a pro-birth stance.

This matter is quickly becoming a major campaign issue in the race for U.S. Senate. Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz favors the idiotic law; his two main Democratic opponents, state Sen. Roland Guiterrez and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred oppose it.

I will venture to suggest that neither of these two Democratic pols would advise an abortion any more than I would. The religious right, though, will sling arrows at the individual nominated on Tuesday to run against Cruz.

This issue is fundamental to women across the state and the nation. I stand with them — and against the fanatics on the right — in this important battle for personal liberty.

I stand with them proudly as a Texas resident who is both pro-choice and pro-life.

national news, political news

Pledge? What pledge?

Nikki Haley is now hinting that the “pledge” she made earlier in the Republican Party presidential primary to support the eventual nominee isn’t really, well, worth honoring.

Haley was one of a gaggle of GOP candidates to make the pledge to endorse and presumably campaign for the nominee. Well, the nominee now appears to be the ex-POTUS, the guy who was impeached twice and who is indicted and awaiting trial on four felony allegations.

Not so fast, said the former South Carolina governor and former U.N. ambassador. After all, she didn’t sign a legal document. There’s nothing on paper that binds her to some bogus promise to back the party nominee.

If she chooses to back away from the pledge, well, I cannot really blame her. Not that I care one damn bit whether she keeps the pledge or chooses to back someone else.

The nominee in waiting is damaged goods to be sure. I get that he leads President Biden in most of the public opinion surveys we see. However, as they say, a week is a lifetime in politics.

This is one weird political season for certain. The idea that a once-great political party could nominate a potential convicted felon for the presidency is something I never would have imagined even two decades ago.

I am still going to hold on with both hands as we travel the rest of this electoral journey.

As for Nikki Haley … you do what you must.

media news, national news, political news

Heartened by media performance

The so-called “mainstream media” are doing the job for which their practitioners signed on as they cover the campaign of the idiot who wants to return to the Oval Office.

I believe they have learned from the mistakes they made when they “covered” his initial campaign president starting with his announcement at the NYC tower that bears his name (for now!).

The media chose to essentially give him a pass on the lies that poured out of his mouth. They gave him space in newspapers and airtime on TV and radio, letting him say things about other politicians, immigrants, war heroes and the dispossessed without challenging the veracity of the claims he made.

Not so in this election cycle, or to some degree the 2020 election cycle when he sought to be re-elected as POTUS.

The four years of the moron’s time as president taught many in the media a bitter lesson, which was that it was duty-bound to call him a “liar” when they detected an untruth spilling out of his overfed pie hole. Only a few commentators, I recall at the time, had the fortitude to call him what he was, is and always will be: a liar.

The media now have the court system to buttress what many of us known all along. A New York court has determined, for instance, that The Former Guy lied to bankers about his wealth to obtain favorable loans. He overstated his self-proclaimed empire, he got caught doing it and has been adjudicated to be a bald-faced liar in a court of law.

Of course, we have The Big Lie, which the former Moron in Chief has used to suggest that the 2020 election was rigged against him. I’ve lost count of the number of court decisions that have declared those allegations to be false. He keeps fomenting The Big Lie and his cult followers continue to buy into it.

Moreover, the media now are reporting the lies up front and with all due vigor and professionalism. They didn’t do so when he first entered the political arena in the summer of 2015.

I am grateful that my former colleagues are doing their jobs now. May they continue to keep us informed … as they must.

environmental news, local news

Goodness survives the flames

Stories about fire that rages out of control bring fear and hopelessness to many of us; we worry about what it all means and the lives it affects.

It seems the Texas Panhandle wildfires that have burned something far north of a million acres of rangeland would produce so little news to cheer.

Then I hear about all the trucks hauling hay into the fire zone. The hay is being trucked in to feed the livestock that has survived the inferno. It’s coming from neighboring ranches unaffected by the rampaging flames.

These demonstrations of selflessness remind us of the good that resides in the hearts of those who feel the pain being inflicted on those who must face down nature’s fiery wrath.

I no longer have a personal stake in what is happening in the Panhandle region of this great state. We moved away from there in 2018. Our son sold his home this past year to move near his brother’s family and me after my dear bride passed away.

I do have friends remaining in the region. I know of at least two families that have evacuated their homes and then returned once the danger had passed; they are thanking God Almighty their homes are still intact.

I am going to cling to the knowledge of the good that has presented itself as the remote region of Texas fights the flames. May it remind us of the good in humanity that fire cannot destroy.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience