local news, State news

Collegiality? It’s toast!

It is virtually impossible to visualize this, given the intense partisan toxicity that exists in government at many levels, but there once was a time when Texas’s diverse congressional delegation was held up as the gold standard for bipartisan collegiality.

That was a long time ago. Congressional Quarterly, the Bible for many reporters who cover Congress for their media organizations, once reported on how the Texas delegation set the standard for getting along despite deep philosophical differences among its members.

Jim Wright of Weatherford, near Fort Worth, was speaker of the U.S. House. Every week, CQ reported, the entire delegation would meet for breakfast. Their agenda was to go over the issues important to the entire state. Republicans and Democrats broke bread together. They sought common ground in the search for legislative solutions. Farm policy, transportation, crime and punishment … it was all on the table. The state had elected its share of radicals from both parties. The fellow who represented me in the House, Democrat Jack Brooks of Beaumont, was as mean as they came, as he detested Republicans. GOP Rep. Dick Armey, who hailed from the Dallas area, was equally disposed to detest Democrats.

Yet they joined in the weekly breakfasts. And for a brief period each week, partisans on both sides laid down their long knives and searched for ways to get things done for the state they all said they loved.

CQ, interestingly, held up California as the opposite of the collegial atmosphere that permeated through the Texas delegation. California lawmakers couldn’t agree on the color of the sky or the wetness of the water, CQ reported. I guess they were the trendsetters who paved the way toward the political climate we have today.

I am not going to suggest an immediate return to those halcyon days of fellowship. I do want to remind readers of this blog that it could become the norm once again … even in this time of intense anger, rancor and revenge.

 

entertainment news

Beatles are done … forever

Friends can accuse me of being slow on the uptake and I wouldn’t mind, as I recognize that in my ownself.

Example? When The Beatles released their single, “Now and Then” in 2023, they said it would be their final song. No more Beatles records for those of us who believe they are the greatest rock band in history. My first reaction was kinda goofy. What do you mean no more?

“Now and Then” was presented to Paul McCartney by Yoko Oho, John Lennon’s wife along with two other demo tapes that Paul, George Harrison and Ringo Starr finished and released as singles in 1995. They all worked on “Now and Then,” then gave up on it, as the quality of the demo tape didn’t measure up to the other two. George was the first to abandon the “Now and Then” project.

Then, in 2001, George got sick and died of cancer in November of that year. John, of course, died in 1980 in one of the most senseless acts of violence I’ve ever seen.

Paul then got a wild hair and decided to finish the recording of “Now and Then” with Ringo, using John’s voice and George’s work on the unfinished recording. Technology has advanced well beyond what was available to the lads in 1995.

Where am I going with this? “Now and Then” was the last recording with all of The Beatles taking part. There ain’t no more. All of The Beatles have said the group does not exist without all of them present. George Harrison famously said in the 1980s when asked if The Beatles would reunite: “No. Not as long as John Lennon is still dead.” There you have it. One’s death is as permanent a condition as one can find.

As the cliche goes: The group is gone, but their music lives forever.

 

political news, State news

Democrats are working for their bosses

You want to know what is playing out in Austin in this congressional redistricting standoff provoked by Donald Trump’s insistence that Republicans redraw the lines to seek the election of at least five more Texas Republicans to Congress?

Democrats have bolted from the Legislature, leaving the body without a quorum to do business. GOP leaders accuse them of being derelict in their duty. They are wrong! Democrats are working for the voters who sent them to office in the first place by seeking to protect their voices in the legislative chamber.

Texas Democrats are demonstrating that they work for the people who elect them, not for the leadership of the other party that happens to control the flow of legislation.

This kiind of rebellion shows itself on occasion. I remember when it did in the 1990s. Republicans had taken over control of the U.S. House in the 1994 Contract with America election. House Speaker Newt Gingrich pushed forward legislation called Freedom to Farm. One of the key opponents of that bill was a congressman from West Texas, Republican Larry Combest. He said the bill ran counter to the interests of the farmers and ranchers he represented. Combest told Gingrich that he worked for them, not for the GOP leadership.

I praised Combest for his guts from my post as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News.

Combest’s courageous stubbornness cost him a key House ag committee chairmanship for a while. He stuck to his principles.

That is not dissimilar to what is occurring now with Democrats scattered hither and yon away from Austin. The special session will expire in a few days. GOP Gov. Greg Abbott says he’ll call another one — and wll keep calling them until the Legislature does Donald Trump’s bidding.

That kind of fealty to a charlatan sickens me to my core. Yet for Abbott and GOP Attoney General Ken Paxton to accuse Democrats of dereliction of duty makes me just as sick. Abbott and Paxton and the GOP majority don’t work for Donald Trump. They work for Texans who deserve a Legislature that knows how to govern.

local news

Traffic class has begun

I have just taken a master class designed to acquaint motorists such as me with what to expect in the Metroplex for the foreseeable future … and beyond.

It is a class in patience associated with coping with highway construction.

I’ve known this class was on the books and that the hundreds of thousands of us who drive through the Dallas/Fort Worth area each day are aware of what we can expect. We’re going to experience gridlock made famous in places like Los Angeles and New York City. I’ll throw in some foreign cities with which I am acquainted. Traffic flow in places like Athens, Bangkok, Taipei and Mexico City is nothing to dismiss, either.

I saw construction sites with utilities — water drainage pipes — piled along the thoroughfares such as Texas Highway 5 and U.S. Highway 380 through Princeton. Motorists traveling past these construction sites are using good judgment and adhering to warnings that they would be fined extra if they sped through them. Following state police warnings, though, slows the traffic to a near crawl.

I drove to Addison to have lunch with a friend. We parted company just ahead of rush hour. My GPS said it would take me about 45 minutes to get home. It took well more than an hour! Yes, I grumbled and cursed when I approached Allen and Princeton, where I started noticing the utilities strewn along the roadway.

I had to remind myself that this is a temporary condition. State highway planners hope to relieve traffic along US 380 by building those freeway bypasses around Princeton, Farmersville, McKinney and other cities.

However, and this is a big deal … I am 75 years of age and I might not be around when it’s all done. So, I shall pray for continued good health and my ability to operate a motor vehicle. I want to see them pick up those ubiquitous orange construction cones for the final time.

national news

Wanting a return, again, to normal

Every living, breathing, thinking American should join me in this simple request … a return to normal conduct by the president of the United States, his/her Cabinet, the political team that works for the individual in charge and a Congress that doesn’t demonize the other side as the spawn of Satan.

I soiught such a return at end of Donald Trump’s first term in office. Voters delivered it by elected Joe Biden president of the United States. Biden had spent his entire professional life in public service. He knew how the government works — or doesn’t work, in some cases — and sought to bring normal behavior back to the White House.

President Biden succeeded famously.

He served one term before the wheels flew off and he got caught in the mental acuity rumor mongering. Trump managed to parlay a weird public desire for weirdness into an electoral victory in 2024 and now we’re in the midst of a hostile dismantling of our democratic process.

Trump promised to exact revenge on his foes. He’s delivering the goods. All the while he is conducting himself in an amped-up version of his first presidential term. Who in the world knows where this is headed?

With all of that I want to wish out loud once again for a return to normal behavior. A return to what the late John McCain called “regular order.” I want spirited debate, but I don’t want recrimination and revenge when the lights go out.

The American political system appears to be broken. I do not believe it is beyond repair. Joe Biden managed — to the extent he could with GOP control of Congress — to restore a sense of normal behavior during his single term as president. He left the presidency after getting plenty of constructive things done for the country.

Trump is now well into the first year of his final term in office. I want him to succeed, too. I also want there to be a return to normal behavior, decorum, dignity and grace among opponents. With this guy in charge of the executive branch — and his penchant for surrounding himself with sycophants — my hope is fleeting.

However, I will keep the faith.

crime news

Trump nationalizes DC cops? Really … ?

Let’s stroll for a moment down a memory lane filled with frightening images and unprecedented presidential dereliction of duty.

Jan. 6, 2021 signaled the start of an insurrection against the federal government. Thousands of Americans stormed the Capitol Building that day, smashed through the windows of our government, battled DC and Capitol police, threatened the life of Vice President Mike Pence, defecated on the floor of the building, injured officers who were trying to protect Congress members … and Donald Trump didn’t lift a finger to halt it.

This weekend, Trump decided that crime had gotten so out of control in DC that it was time to nationalize the city’s police force, call up the National Guard to patrol the streets and issue arrest warrants. Was the weekend a horrendous one? No. It wasn’t. It was a typical time in the nation’s capital city.

Trump’s latest gambit is just one more dubious attempt to divert attention from the growing scandal involving the late Jeffrey Epstein, those files with all those names in them and whether Trump should release the files for public review to let us determine whether there’s anything incriminating about the POTUS.

Trump is a madman who is looking and sounding like a desperate individual looking for any and all methods to keep the law at bay.

If the numbskull in chief is going to insist on nationalizing the DC police force and deputizing the National Guard to make arrests, he’ll have to come clean with tangible evidence of a crime wave that he says is overtaking the nation’s capital city.

military news

Zelenskyy must take part!

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not a spectator, a bystander in what has turned out to be the bloodiest ground war in Europe since World War II.

Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago seeking to overrun the sovereign nation. It was supposed to take only a few days. The fight has turned into a quagmire, thanks in large part to the huge aid packages recommended by then-President Joe Biden.

Now, Donald Trump wants to meet with Russian goon Vladimir Putin — in Alaska, no less — to seek a way to stop the violence, the bloodshed, the war. I applaud the end Trump is seeking. I am concerned that a conclusion will not include the first political casualty of the Ukraine war, the president of the country that Putin attacked.

Zelenskyy already has rejected a Russian proposal that requires Ukraine to give back land it took from the Russian invaders. Russia is making zero concessions for the illegal invasion it launched. Or for the war crimes it has committed by bombing schools and hospitals. Or for the civilians the Russian army has killed.

Zelenskyy is not a spectator. He has been an active participant in this war. He needs a place at the negotiating table and he deserves to have his beliefs heard above the din of the battle.

State news

Stand your ground, Texas Democrats

The Great Texas Redistricting Standoff appears to be holding firm, but for how long remains an open question.

This Texas voter — and admitted fan of what Texas’s legislative Democrats are seeking to do — wants it to continue for as long as it takes.

Democratic House members are seeking to deny the legislative leadership the quorum they need to conduct the business of the Legislature. The key item under the gun is the Republican effort to redraw at least five congressional seats — at a time not prescribed in the US Constitution — to make them more GOP friendly. House Democrats have skedaddled to places out of state to prevent that from occurring.

The House Republican caucus’s effort is so wrong on so many levels.

Republicans are acting at the insistence of Donald Trump, the RINO in chief who wants to protect the thin Republican majority in the House. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to issue “civil arrest” warrants to bring Democrats back to Austin; why in the world would he act against lawmakers who are breaking no law? Paxton also is seeking to expel at least a dozen House Democrats from the Legislature … huh? GOP Gov. Greg Abbott wants to investigate the source of funding for Democrats who are getting help from political allies aiding them in their fight against this intrastate tyranny.

Donald Trump is seeking to rig the 2026 midterm election with this ham-fisted ploy to get the Texas Legislature to do his bidding. To think that this is the same dipshit who accused Democrats of rigging the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost without ever offering a shred, a scintilla, a tiny nugget of proof to back up what he alleged occurred.

No one can predict how long Democrats will hold out. The special session ends on Aug. 19. There might be another one called. What then? This endeavor is beyond bizarre … but for my money, it should continue until Texas Republicans realize that they are surrendering their hard-earned control of power in Texas to a maniac.

Uncategorized

A chance for peace?

Donald Trump and his good buddy Vladimir Putin appear to be preparing for a bilateral summit to figure out a way to end Putin’s illegal, immoral war against Ukraine.

While I welcome an effort to end the bloodshed, I am troubled by the seeming absence of the third party to this horrible event: Ukraine President Volodymr Zelenskyy. If there’s a hero among the three of them, it clearly is Zelenskyy and given that he has been leading the fight to preserve his democratic nation, he ought to be a party at whatever peace talks occur.

I am going to give Trump a measure of credit for at least calling Putin out on the way he has prosecuted this bloody war. It isn’t known how Putin has taken the open criticism. Nor is it known even if Trump will follow through on his threats of sanctions against Russia if Putin reneges on any portion of whatever agreement is found.

I have the fear expressed by many that Putin doesn’t take Trump seriously as a world leader. The Russian goon is the former head of the Soviet spy agency, the KGB. The guy is a killer, which makes him someone to be feared, even though he commands a third- or fourth-rate conventional military machine. He does possess those nukes.

The world will await the outcome of this summit. I only am left to express the hope that it is expanded to include a third chair at the negotiating table.

political news

Democrats are doing their job

Texas’s legislative Democrats are holed up in locations outside of Texas and of Austin, where they had been called to take part in a special legislative session.

Republicans such as Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton are livid because they cannot fulfill the dictates of Donald Trump, who instructed the Legislature to redraw five congressional districts to make them more GOP friendly in advance of the 2026 midterm election.

Democrats are now denying a quorum in the Legislature, stopping the body from doing any business. Abbott and Paxton are saying that Democrats are derelict in their duty.

What a pile of horse dookey! Democrats are acting legally and they are doing their duty as stewards of the policies they were elected to uphold.

Trump has targeted mostly minority districts in Texas. He wants them flipped to protect against a possible midterm surge against the Republican majority in Congress. Yes, Donald Trump is seeking to rig the 2026 election … and Democrats are having none of it.

Trump has been yammering about siccing the FBI on the wayward Democrats. Wait a minute! They aren’t breaking any law, let alone breaking any federal law. Abbott said he is pondering whether to issue “civil arrest” warrants against Democrats who have left for Illinois and locations in New England.

This clearly is a purely political maneuver being orchestrated by Texas Democrats. However, I and others in this state believe theirs is a noble cause. They want to protect the seats to which they were elected against an incursion by out-of-state Republicans who want to dictate how our legislators should do their job.

Stand tall and firm, Texas Democrats.

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