Donald Trump, national news

Stage set for midterm wipeout

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Donald J. Trump could have followed the path forged by every one of the men who preceded him in the office he occupies.

He could have reached out to Democrats and said, “I pledge to work with you to cure what ails us.” Well … he didn’t do that when he stood in front of a partially filled House of Reps chamber to deliver the State of the Union speech that has been widely panned.

Instead, he called Democrats names for their refusal to attend the speech. He accused them of inflating the cost of food, of following an “open border” policy pushed by former President Biden, of putting Americans in danger.

The SOTU didn’t go well for Trump. Polling data suggests that Americans saw straight through what he was doing, which was he talked to his MAGA base, seeking to rally the shrinking core of fervent Trumpkins to get out and vote.

I watched about half of Trump’s speech. I didn’t see the staredown he had with U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona or when he introduced all the celebrities who attended the speech. I understand Democrats joined their GOP colleagues in applauding the U.S. men’s hockey team fresh from winning Olympic gold in Milan, Italy; the bipartisan ovation was a nice touch to be sure.

Trump, though, has set the table for a GOP rout when the midterm election comes around in November. I have no clue how many congressional seats the Democrats will gain. I am going to hope for all my worth that the Constitution will stand strong against Trump’s all but admitted attempt to rig the election.

I believe we are now witnessing the beginning of the end of Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the democracy the rest of us cherish.

State news

Comptroller becomes … aggressive?

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For the 42 years I have lived in Texas and covered state government, I have considered the State Comptroller of Public Accounts to be the state’s bean counter in chief.

He or she has been charged with telling the Legislature how much money they can spend each legislative session. The comptroller keeps immaculate count of the money that’s on hand.

Now, though, as the Texas Republican Party primary campaign draws to a close, we are seeing the bean counter in chief’s office being portrayed as a stern policy maker, a place where the man or woman at the top can make Texas great again, how it can follow the Donald Trump lead in fighting drug cartels, illegal immigration, ban Sharia law.

What the hell is going on here?

I never knew the Texas comptroller had that kind of authority or desire to get mixed up in policy fights with legislators and other politicians. I am wondering if the GOP kingmakers are asking the next comptroller to step out of his or her lane for the sake of making headlines.

It reminds me of a similar ploy enacted in the late 1980s by a Democratic attorney general. A University of Texas student was kidnapped and murdered in Mexico. The governor brought in the Texas Rangers to lead the investigation into the murder. That wasn’t good enough for AG Jim Mattox, who donned his hip waders and trudged through muddy fields south of the Rio Grande, vowing to bring the bad guys to justice.

But … wait a second. The attorney general’s office is a civil law practice. The AG is responsible for administering child support payments, alimony settlements and defending the state in lawsuits brought by those who have a bone to pick with a state agency. I still don’t think of the AG as a top-dog crime fighter.

The same kind of evolution appears to be taking place in the GOP campaign for Comptroller of Public Accounts. Silly me. I just want someone who can count money into the billions and issue timely reports to the legislators who we elect to know how to spend it wisely.

Donald Trump, national news

Our Union is broken

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Donald Trump is going to lie about the State of the Union in a little while, so I thought I would get ahead of him and tell what I believe to be the truth about our national condition.

The State of our Union needs triage. It needs attention to repair the damage that Trump and his goons have delivered to the nation we all love. I cannot wait for what I know will be a cascade of untrue assertions. He will declare the economy is the strongest in human history, that our military is locked and loaded and ready to go to war, that Americans love him and his policies, that the border is secure and his get-tough immigration policies are working.

The Union is strong, he will tell us. It isn’t. Not at this moment in history.

I will declare that the Union can be repaired. It can be stitched together into the kind of government our founders wanted when they created the Constitution in 1789.

The rebuilding will take patience and time, as we will learn in real time that a structure can be dismantled far more quickly than it can be rebuilt. I am going to stand by my faith in the court system the founders created.

Trump has surrounded himself with a cadre of yes men and women. We have watched them lie just like the guy to whom they are faithful. Polling data suggest that Americans across the board — Republican, Democrat and independent — have had their fill of the lying. Therein might be our way out of this slop. The midterm election in November can deliver us from the evil of Trump, who has no working majority in Congress.

I will offer a word of advice to those who choose to listen to Trump deliver his SOTU speech: Don’t believe a single statement that flies out of his mouth.

national news, political news

Trump teaches master class on projection

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Listening to Donald Trump rant and rail against RINOs provides us with a master class on projection in which someone with certain despicable traits seeks to project them onto others.

Trump is the master instructor on projection.

He calls those who oppose him Republicans in name only, RINOs. Trump is the RINO in chief, as he has tossed aside damn near every conceivable Republican tenet to achieve his standing on the American political landscape. Low taxes, smaller government, working for the “little guy,” ending wars? They’re all lies.

As for his labeling media outlets the purveyors of “fake news,” let us remember that the liar in chief got his political chops by seeking to convey the lie that Barack Obama was ineligible to run for president because he was born in another country. Yet he calls reporters “terrible,” and “despicable” because they ask him questions he cannot answer.

Projection, man. It’s all projection.

Uncategorized

Asians: a new major minority

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I picked up my copy of the Dallas Morning News the other morning and was stunned by the top story on the front page: It dealt with tensions rising in Frisco over the emergence of South Asians who now call the community home.

I am not going to pass judgment on the rightness or wrongness of the concerns. I know that it’s real, that some North Texans are concerned that their culture is being changed by an emergence of immigrants from a region far from this hemisphere.

Frisco has grown tremendously since 2000, with a population these days of something just a bit south of 300,000 residents. Indian Americans once accounted for about 2% of the population; today they number about 33%, according to the Morning News.

It’s a changing world out there, ladies and gents. We had better get used to it.

I found a similar tension arising in another North Texas city not long after I began reporting on the city council there. Sachse, which straddles the Collin-Dallas County line, remains a smallish city of about 30,000. But my first exposure to the city brought forth complaints from a couple of residents who are afraid that Sharia law — the ultraconservatve tenet is Islam — will be taught in schools in Sachse.

Uhh, no. That won’t happen. The First Amendment to the Constitution prohibits religion from being taught in public schools. It doesn’t prohibit citizens from forming private schools to teach religion. We are free to practice our faith or not practice it. It’s our call.

I am going to hope that my new friends in Sachse keep their wits about them. I want them to settle down and allow their new neighbors to establish themselves as devoted Texans. I am going to wish the same for the folks in Frisco, a city that is undergoing an enormous evolution from a sleepy burg into a city bursting with commerce.

political news

What is a ‘Trump conservative’?

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I am laughing — kinda/sorta — at the least funny joke in the history of political chatter. It is a term called “Trump conservative.”

I want to understand what it means. How do you define such a person? Here is what I can determine.

A Donald Trump conservative favors active government. He favors siccing the government on political opponents. He favors the government blocking news organizations that report on dissent from Trump policies from entering government buildings.

A Trump conservative wants to establish a state religion … Christianity, of course. That is despite the Constitution’s strict prohibition against making laws that establish a state religion.

A Trump conservative wants to toss the notion of small government into the shitter. He or she doesn’t care about enormous budget deficits or adding to the monstrous national debt.

This individual also favors getting involved in wars that have no bearing on protecting Americans. He or she wants us to become the “policeman for the world.”

Are we clear now on what constitutes a Donald Trump conservative? It sounds for all the world like a new-fangled conservative has become a liberal proponent of massive government interference in Americans’ lives.

Actually, I am not laughing at any of this. It’s not funny!

national news, political news

Independent voter? Less so now!

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My list of acquaintances in North Texas is a lengthy one, as I have become acquainted with lots of folks as I move from place to place in my daily routine.

When they learn of what I did when I was a working man — as a journalist who spent 37 joyful practicing my craft — the question often comes: Oh, say, how do you lean politically? Are you a Democrat or a Republican?

For starters, my politics had nothing to do with my job as a journalist. I generally was able to check my partisan label at the door. It’s different these days. Yes, I still cover local communities in Collin County, but the issues never tread onto partisan ground. However, I keep my head in the big game of national politics.

Now comes an admission. For longer than I dare seek to remember, I have declined to hang a party label on my politics. I long considered myself to be an independent voter. I have split my ballot generously between Democrats and Republicans. My presidential votes, though, have been Democratic since 1972, when I cast my first vote president.

Today’s national mood, I am sad to acknowledge, is driving me more solidly into the Democratic camp. I haven’t changed my basic world view. I remain a deficit hawk and I am not going to embrace some of the far-left progressive policies — such as Medicare for all and forgiving all student loans — that have become all the rage. However, I do believe government has a significant role to play in supporting Americans who need help.

When I hear the MAGA morons extol the virtues of the MAGA chieftain disguised as the POTUS, I am reminded each day how little I think of them and the nitwit they follow. I want secure borders as much as the next American, but I also want my government to treat everyone who comes here — legally or otherwise — with a degree of compassion and humanity.

Therefore, it is becoming safer to say that anyone who cares to ask me whether I “belong” to a politial party, I can still say “no,” given that Texas doesn’t require us to register with any partisan organization … but I can say the Democrats appeal to more than ever.

And it has much to do with the blind, gullible and feckless fealty that too damn many Republicans keep expressing for Donald J. Trump.

local news, political news, State news

MAGA field launches suicide mission

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Watching the enormous Texas Republican primary field trying to out-MAGA itself is sorta like watching a circular firing squad eliminate a traitor … in that there will be plenty of stray bullets to take out bystanders.

Actual conservatives are now being called “Republicans in name only” by Donald Trump loyalists who seek to keep the MAGA meister relevant to the current policy debate. They seem to ignore polling data that suggest Trump’s approval rating among all voters is cratering more rapidly than a Mar-a-Lago minute.

The MAGA crusade is good for the base of the party that still remains wedded to what passes for Trump’s philosophy — as if he actually had one, which he doesn’t.

Real conservatives like U.S. Sen. John Cornyn have been hung with the RINO tag. Same with state Rep. Candy Noble of McKinney, who’s been called a “liberal” by her primary foes. Congressman Chip Roy has been called “disloyal” to Trump by MAGA adherents; Roy answers that he is stands with Trump on virtually every policy one can mention; he is running for Texas attorney general!

The good news for the rest of us is that the MAGA cultists are likely to win many of these primary races, setting up the possibility of a massive congressional rout in favor of real patriots in the fall election. I can’t speak for what might occur in some of these Texas-centric races, as the state’s political makeup remains a bit of a mystery to me.

I will cast my vote in the other party’s primary, which seems to be progressing on my realistic, reasonable grounds. I still intend to wait for Election Day, March 3. I am praying my candidates don’t mess up between now and then.

political news

End the political messages … now!

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A friend and former colleague beat me to the punch, but I now intend to join him in his call to political strategists, candidates and other policy hacks in this desperate message.

End the incessant demands for money that are flooding my message and email inboxes! Now is a good time to start … or shall I say stop?

The culprits are Democrats seeking to flip Congress. I am hearing from candidates seeking seats on faraway locales at either end of the country. I delete them as soon as I discover them. I usually follow the deletion with a message to discontinue the deluge. It’s no good. You see, for as often as I delete the message and get acknowledgment that they won’t send me any more messages, other pop up like weeds in the Texas spring.

I am growing increasingly tempted to pull the hair off my skull by the roots.

I might hear from the occasional MAGA-inspired correspondent seeking to boost Donald Trump’s agenda. But it’s almost always Democrats who I reckon know the nature of High Plains Blogger or I have communicated with in some back-handed fashion. They’re going for the jugular. Only in this case it’s my jugular.

Well, I have made my pitch. If you see me around town with splotches of hair missing from my noggin, you’ll know how they got there.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience