local news

Consequential day is at hand

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Well, kids, here we are as Texans from Orange to El Paso, from Borger to Brownsville  begin casting their ballots in what is being called — as they always are — the “most important election in our lifetime.”

I know you’ve heard that said before. This time the projection actually might be true.

Americans across the great state have a chance to change the frightening trajectory on which Congress appears to be headed. W’ere voting early beginning at 7 a.m.  Central Daylight Time. We’ll be able to vote early until Oct. 30.

I’ll be one of them. Years of resisting calls to vote early have given way to a fear I have developed that Republican election manipulators will try to gum up the works. Our best defense is  to cast our ballots early, get ’em recorded and then hope that they’ll be counted when the time comes to finalize the result.

Approximately 15 million Texans are qualified to vote. I don’t know how many of them are registered to vote. Those who are registered, here is your chance to have your voice heard.

I’m done bitching about the clown show the Republican Party has brought us. I will heed the words of President Obama, who urges us to forgo “booing.”

“Don’t boo,” he says. “Vote!“

local news, media news

Can’t have too many issues

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I have been blessed beyond measure to be able to do what I did professionally for nearly 37 years.

Damn near every day I went to work, I entered my place of employment with a smile on my face. There is, however, a paradox, given that the source of my smile was one of this nation’s most horrific episode. I refer to the 9/11 terror attacks on New York, on Washington and aboard the United Airlines jetliner that crashed into the Shanksville, Pa., field.

I can relate the paradox to 9/11 because since that fateful day, I became faced with an opinion page editor’s dream: having to decide which issue I can set aside for another day. In other words, I generally had more to comment on than otherwise.

Writer’s bloc? Didn’t happen since Sept. 11, 2001.

Where am I going with this post? I want to reiterate how much fun I had writing editorials and signed columns for two newspapers in Texas and in my home state of Oregon. I once thought that you couldn’t have “fun” while working for a paycheck. What in the name of serious discussion is wrong with that? Not a thing, I’ll tell you.

I always took my task each day with absolute seriousness. But not myself.

I guess that’s where the fun comes together. I wish the dwindling number of daily newspaper reporters and editors can grasp that work and fun can mean the same thing.

national news, political news

Trump scrapes bottom of barrel

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We all know that elections have consequences, but I am going to presume that few of us saw the consequence that is emerging from the 2024 presidential election.

Donald Trump won a second term as POTUS and vowed to populate the executive branch of government with the brightest minds in all of humanity. Oh, man … he’s falling far short.

It’s beginning to look to me as if Trump is going to be left with an assortment of clowns, frauds, bozos and bimbos for the rest of his time in office. White House press flack lasted one week on her job. Trump gave her the boot. Seems that the flack lied about her academic credentials.

He’s got utterly incompetent nincompoops running the Defense and Justice departments, the FBI, the Treasury Department, the Commerce Department, the Agriculture Department … and on it could go. You get the point.

The self-described genius at hiring “the best people” is now hiring a hysterical assortment of flakes. No one’s laughing.

I’ll just ask: Does anyone believe that a President Kamala Harris would stoop to plucking people off of TV talk shows or hired them from the ranks of personal legal counsel to fill these spots?

And so … we shall soldier on.

military news

What to do with this hat …

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For far longer than I can remember, I have possessed a headgear item that once sat atop the noggin of a young man who — if given the chance — would have killed my dad.

My father brought it home from World War II, where he served for more than three years in the U.S. Navy. He saw the bulk of his combat in the Mediterranean Theater. The headgear, of course, belonged to a German Nazi soldier who was among other enemy fighters who surrendered to American troops in the Med. I don’t recall how Dad actually acquired this helmet. It’s not dented or pocked with any bullet strikes. I guess the guy who wore it knew enough to keep his head down.

Dad died in 1980. My memory of what he told about those days have faded quite a bit in the decades since we lost him. I do recall him telling me that the Germans who were captured generally acted like gentlemen even as they were interrogated by Allied troops. Not so with the Italians, who were still in the fight until 1943, when they surrendered to the Allied onslaught on Sicily and the Italian mainland. They behaved “like animals,” Dad told me. Whatever, back to the helmet.

I wrestled for a time with what to do with this piece of history. Do I get it appraised and sell it? Do I donate it to a museum?

After giving it some thought — but not too much of it — I have decided to keep it. I might even hang it on a wall in my man cave. I have some pictures and other framed documents from Dad’s Navy service hanging on a wall in my home office. I could buy some nail anchors that are heavy enough to hold this piece of metal headgear. So, that’s what I think I’ll do.

I want to display it as a testament to Dad’s courage in enduring the constant aerial bombardment that fell on him and his fellow sailors. I want it to be my tribute to his love of country when, at age 20, he enlisted in the Navy on the very day the Japanese hit us at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

I also want it to be a lasting tribute to the sense of patriotism he imbued in me as I have come of age and am now enjoying my elderly years in this great nation of ours.

crime news, education news

This fellow is a serious hero!

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We toss the word “hero” around a bit too cavalierly in this era … using the term to describe pro athletes whose only “heroism” is doing what they are paid handsomely to do, which is run fast, throw hard and otherwise perform up to what is expected of them.

Let’s save the term for the real deal, shall we? Such as the fellow who followed the 16-year-old lunatic into the Bend, Ore., elementary school and then killed him in a firefight. The killer murdered three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher. Four lives lost at the hands of a moron who seemingly aimed his rifle at the kids and then killed them.

I get that this idiot was a teenager. His brain wasn’t quite finished developing, or so psychologists will tell us. But what kind of animal would seek to harm children in this manner? The world is a bit safer now that he’s been removed from the population.

As for the hero, I will salute him with all the emphasis I can muster. He clearly knew how to handle the weapon he carried into the school. Bend police report that he “engaged” the shooter the moment he saw him inside. Well done, sir.

As a personal note, I want to share with you this item. My wife and I began our married life together when we honeymooned in Bend back in September 1971. It was a four-hour drive over the Cascade Range from Portland to our resort hotel. It was brand new then, and Bend was a whole lot smaller than it is now. But I have grown to know the city well as I have watched it grow to around 100,000 residents.

Their hearts are broken … and so is mine.

local news, media news, national news, political news

Paxton ‘debut’ awaits election result

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No matter the outcome of the Nov. 3 midterm election for the U.S. Senate seat from Texas, we’re going to get a good look at the type of man Democratic candidate James Talarico calls “the most corrupt politician in Texas.”

I refer, of course, to Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

I want to stipulate two key points. One is that I want Paxton to lose the contest to Talarico. I want there to be no doubt who wins this race. My hope is that Talarico wins by a healthy enough margin to forgo any sort of mandatory recount. The second point is that even though Paxton has been AG for more than a decade, I cannot ever recall hearing him make a speech in public.

It has been a brutal campaign for the seat now occupied by John Cornyn, whom Paxton defeated in the Republican Party primary. Paxton has been troubled by ethical and legal difficulty almost since the day he took office in January 2015.

I am wondering what kind of man emerges when the dust settles on Election Day. If lightning strikes and Paxton actually wins, will he give his opponent his due as a worthy foe? Or will he aim his rhetorical guns at the “liberal media” and the “communists and socialists” who despise him? I suppose I can wonder the same thing if Paxton comes up short on Election Day.

For his part, Talarico — a state legislator from Austin — has campaigned on his record as a Democratic man of faith. He refers frequently to New Testament scripture that instructs us to love our neighbor and, yes, our adversaries. Paxton, though, has been poisoned by the hate spewed by Donald Trump and other MAGA morons.

It’s not clear to me what kind of speechmaker Paxton is or can be. He’s been in the public eye for a long time, yet he remains a bit of a mystery.

We well could learn a whole lot about him … quite soon.

media news, military news

Good for POTUS to back off livestreaming execution

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I hereby give credit to Donald J. Trump for having the good sense to call of a planned livestreaming of a man condemned to die by firing squad in December.

Trump re-thought a decision to allow the public to witness the killing of former Army Major Nidal Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009. He backed away from that ghastly decision, proclaiming that the execution will go forward … just not in public view.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been making a lot of hay about televising the execution, proclaiming that allowing the public to view it could deter future lunatics from doing what Hasan did. I don’t think so. I do believe that Hasan’s death at the hands of an Army firing squad will be sufficient deterrent, if it, indeed, does deter anyone from killing innocent victims.

Trump and Hegseth had gotten a lot of backlash from both sides of the political aisle over the decision livestream Hasan’s death. I am glad that the commander in chief thought better of it. I want him now to fire Hegseth, who is unfit to lead the Pentagon … period, full stop.

legal news, media news, national news

Back to the beginning with Trump

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One of my initial arguments against Donald Trump ever seeking, let alone winning, an election to the White House has proven to be true beyond measure.

I said prior to his ride down the escalator in Trump Tower in the summer of 2015 that the candidate-to-be lacked any exposure to public service. His entire professional life had been staked to his personal enrichment. His glorification. His desire to be recognized for every good deed that occurs on this planet.

As I look back on his nearly a decade in politics, I find that my assessment of the individual was correct. I don’t say this to brag about it. I wish I was wrong. I also wish Trump would prove me wrong and that he would have brought a level of success to the only public office he has ever sought.

I scan the immediate past of this guy’s record and I see his desire to put his name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; he wants to build a triumphant arch; he has torn down the East Wing to build a gold-encrusted ballroom; he keeps insisting he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize; he contends he was elected in 2024 in a landslide; he hired the world’s richest human to cut the daylights out of Medicare, Medicaid, USAID, CDC with no understanding of how it affects everyday humans’ lives.

The man has called military vets “suckers and losers” because they want to don the uniform of their country. Thanks a lot … Donald, you loser!

These examples only prove what many of us have said all along. Donald Trump has no business in the office he occupies.

local news, political news

This ‘tradition’ is a goner

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Doing something a certain way because you deem it a “tradition” does not lock you into doing it forever, as circumstance can compel you to make a change.

Early voting is an example. At least it is for me. I have spent my voting life casting ballots on Election Day. I consider voting a rite of passage steeped in tradition.

Times have changed and the threat of a political party performing dirty tricks to muck up the process has made me change my view of early voting. I am going to cast my ballot in the midterm election early … as in the first day it becomes available.

Texas Republicans are threatening to do something that could change the way we vote or could affect the number or voters taking part in the election. To avoid all of that I intend to cast my ballot in time to get it logged into the Collin County, Texas, system. Where it will stand forever as my statement of the way things are shaping up in Texas.

I have lived and worked in Texas for more than four decades. The election processes in three Texas counties I have called home — Jefferson, Randall and Collin counties — have all worked seamlessly. I got to know county clerks and I consider them all to be hardworking, conscientious public servants. The same can be said of two Oregon counties where I worked early in my career.

The pressure being applied by Donald Trump and his hooligans is scaring me enough to change the way I vote. Polling marshals, tossed-out ballots, constant rhetoric from Trump about how “corrupt” the system has become all are weighing on me as Election Day draws ever closer.

One way to secure my mind is to vote early then await the results.

media news, national news, political news, State news

What? No mention of policy?

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As many of you are experiencing the same thing that’s occurring at my home in North Texas, I want to share an observation I made after reading — from front to back — a campaign brochure sent by Donald J. Trump on behalf of GOP U.S. Senate nominee Ken Paxton.

In the piece, Trump offers his “complete and total endorsement” of Paxton, who is in the fight of his political life against Democratic candidate James Talarico.

The text covers four full pages. I want to share an observation of what I have determined to be an error of omission.

Not once does Trump mention a policy decision from the White House that Paxton allegedly endorses. Nothing on the tariffs that are a regressive tax on all Americans who purchase items that come to us from offshore sources. No mention of the Iran war that Trump launched; so far 20 Americans have died in this “forever war” that Trump vowed he never would start were he sent to the White House in 2024. Not a peep from POTUS on the Ukraine war that Russia launched three years ago.

Trump has experienced difficulty defending these policies all by himself. Every president since Republican Herbert Hoover has called tariffs a tax. This guy says foreign governments are paying them. That is utter crap. The wars both have gone badly for our side, although Ukraine might be on the verge of declaring victory against the marauding Russians.

The brochure is vintage Trump. It is short on substantive debate and long on invective. He and Paxton spend most of the space in the letter to voters like me denigrating Talarico, his background, even making fun of his name.

If the POTUS is going to proclaim his endorsement for a damaged candidate such as Ken Paxton, it would seem to make more sense to explain why the candidate’s apparent endorsement of Trump’s policies is a reason to vote for him.

Oh, wait! Never mind! Trump won’t go there because he knows what we all know … that his policies have stunk up the campaign trail.

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