Obama ‘pretends to be a Christian’? Really?

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How in the world does Mike Huckabee possibly know what’s in another man’s heart and soul? What on God’s Earth qualifies him to make such a claim by saying another man “pretends to be a Christian”?

That’s what the former Arkansas governor and current Republican candidate for president has done with Barack Obama.

He said the president “pretends to be a Christian,” suggesting quite openly that the president’s profession of faith in Jesus Christ — which he has made several times during his presidency — is somehow inauthentic.

Huckabee has stepped in it with this ridiculous assertion.

What’s more, he contends that the president and his administration are making it more difficult for Christians to worship as they please.

Let’s hold on here.

I would challenge Gov. Huckabee to offer a single example of how Christians these days are less able to worship in their church. He needs to provide specifics on how individuals are being punished or harassed or ostracized by the federal government because of their religious faith.

If he’s referring to the case of Democratic Rowan County (Ky.) Clerk Kim Davis, who’s made news by refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples based on her religious belief, well, that argument is a non-starter. Davis took an oath to serve all the people and she has no right under the secular law to which she swore to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

As a friend of mine noted on social media, the only authority that can judge someone’s faith “isn’t from Arkansas.”

Trump blackballs Fox … or did Fox blackball Trump?

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 04: Donald Trump and Bill O'Reilly attend the game between the New York Knicks and the Cleveland Cavaliers at Madison Square Garden on November 30, 2014 in New York City.NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

Donald Trump is mad at Fox News.

Fox is mad at Trump.

Trump says he won’t appear on Fox “for the foreseeable future.”

Fox says it has disinvited Trump.

My head is spinning.

Trump vs. Fox News might be the most interesting fight yet in this still-entertaining Republican Party presidential primary campaign.

But here’s something to ponder, even though just thinking about it gives me the heebie-jeebies: Suppose Americans have gone totally insane and actually elect Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States. What in the name of all that is holy would a President Trump do whenever some media outlet criticizes a policy decision? Is he going blackball them?

My strong hunch is that a President Trump won’t have any media covering anything he would do.

Fox News talk show host Bill O’Reilly had it right: “He wants people to like him. When people criticize him, he takes it personally,” the host of “The O’Reilly Factor” said. “So I just think this is just a extension of his reality show, ‘The Apprentice.’ This is just theater right now.”

Actually, Trump’s presidential “candidacy” has been nothing but theater from the moment he announced it.

Given this latest stunt with a major media organization, this man’s presidential candidacy cannot possibly be taken seriously.

For Yogi … it’s over

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Yogi Berra once reportedly said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

Indeed, the New York Yankees legend said a lot of interesting things during his long and colorful life. Well, for the great Yankees catcher, it’s over.

Yogi died today at age 90.

50 greatest quotes

Whether he said all those goofy thing, muttered those mangled malaprops, it doesn’t really matter. He once said he didn’t say “most of the things I said.”

But let’s put this man’s life and ability into a bit of perspective, shall we?

Berra served in the Navy during World War II. One of his tours was at a place called Normandy Beach, France, where he served as a gunner’s mate on an attack transport during the invasion.

One does not draw that kind of assignment by being a numbskull.

A dozen years later, Berra was the catcher while his teammate — pitcher Don Larsen — threw a perfect game in the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Berra’s task in that historic game was to call the pitches that Larsen would throw.

Catchers generally serve as a sort of surrogate manager on the field of play. They are the only position players who can see the entire field on every play.

One doesn’t draw that assignment, either, by being a dummy.

Yogi Berra made a name for himself first and foremost by being a great baseball player. The other stuff, the goofy statements? He might have said some of those things.

It was part of his shtick.

Motorists get phone-ban message on highway

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SAN ANTONIO — What a capital idea!

Texas’s second-largest city has a ban on handheld cell phones and texting while driving.

How do I know that? I read repeated messages on electronic highway signs as my wife and I tooled through San Antonio en route from Rockport to Johnson City.

Holy mackerel! I lost count of the signs I saw that warned motorists that texting and using handheld phones was in violation of a city ordinance.

What a concept! Letting motorists know while they’re driving through the city that they’d better behave themselves while weaving in and out of traffic.

Gosh, do you think other cities should adopt such a proactive approach to notifying motorists — particularly those who don’t live in that city — of such municipal restrictions?

Amarillo has a similar ban. It also has a couple of interstate highways running through it.

I’ve seen general messages on occasion flashed on electronic signs about the hazards of texting or using handheld phones while driving. I do not recall reading anything about a municipal ordinance that bans such activity.

I’m thinking it’s a pretty tool to let motorists know they’d better obey the law while they’re traveling through the city.

Footnote: I would have taken a picture of a sign across the freeway, except … well, you know.

 

 

The doc softens his view of a Muslim president

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It turns out that Dr. Ben Carson doesn’t really and truly think no Muslim could serve as president of the United States.

The good doctor is right to change his mind … more or less.

Sharia law at issue

Carson  — one of 15 candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination — said on “Meet the Press” that Islam is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution. Thus, he said, he couldn’t ever condone the idea of a Muslim running for president.

Now he says something different — and much more reasonable.

He believes now that if a Muslim were to disavow Sharia law then, by golly, he’d be all right with a Muslim running for — and possibly becoming — president of the United States.

You see — and I am sure Dr. Carson knows this — the Constitution is a secular document to which all presidents swear to defend and protect.

His purported fear of Sharia law was nonsense on its face when he said it over the weekend.

Anyone who takes the oath swears to set his or her religious faith aside when performing the duties of the public office. Sen. John F. Kennedy faced accusations during the 1960 presidential campaign that he would take orders — as a Roman Catholic — from the Vatican. He torched that concern with one speech in September 1960 in which he would promise fealty only to the Constitution were he to win the election.

According to The Hill newspaper: “If someone has a Muslim background, and they’re willing to reject those tenets [of Sharia law] and to accept the way of life we have, and clearly will swear to place our Constitution above their religion,” the 2016 hopeful said in a Monday night interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel, “then I would then be quite willing to support them.”

There you have it. Reason and sanity have taken their rightful place in this discussion.

Matney does the right thing … as always

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Paul Matney has been a pillar of Amarillo for far longer than the 20-plus years I’ve known him.

When I heard today that he resigned from a downtown Amarillo board over a potential conflict of interest, my first though was: Yep, that’s Paul. He usually follows the right path.

Matney joined a group that is promoting approval of the Nov. 3 advisory vote on whether to proceed with the multipurpose event venue. He also had served as a member of the Downtown Amarillo Inc., board, which is an arm of City Hall.

He’s now the co-chairman of Vote For Amarillo, which is launching a campaign promoting the MPEV.

Matney issued a statement that said, in part: “Even though I am serving Vote for Amarillo as a private and interested citizen, and not as a representative of DAI, in order to clear up any confusion, I believe the right thing to do is to resign from the DAI board. Thus, I have submitted my resignation from the DAI board.”

There’s enough confusion out there over this issue. There need not be any hint of it as it regards Paul Matney, a long-time educator and college administrator, whose last full-time job was as president of Amarillo College.

Matney’s standing in Amarillo is beyond reproach. His resignation from he DAI board demonstrates it.

 

How do these crises disappear?

TO GO WITH AFP STORY: MEXICO-MIGRATION - An entire family emerges from the bushes on the Mexican bank of the Rio Bravo --reduced in that particular point to a narrow stream-- 11 April, 2006 near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Thousands of illegal immigrants cross the border to enter the United States every day in search of better opportunities. AFP PHOTO/Omar TORRES (Photo credit should read OMAR TORRES/AFP/Getty Images)

ROCKPORT, Texas — Do you ever wonder how yesterday’s crises manage to vanish into thin air?

Two of them come to mind today as I sit here on the Texas Gulf Coast, pondering this or that.

  • Boko Haram’s kidnapping of those women and children. What’s become of these terrorists’ hideous treatment of Nigeria’s most vulnerable citizens. Boko Haram grabbed more than 200 victims, took them to some hidden location and became the target of international condemnation.
  • The influx of children from Central and South America into the United States. Remember when the Obama administration was being pilloried by critics who contended that our “porous” borders were allowing the flood of unaccompanied children into this country?

Both stories have disappeared from the world’s radar.

Were they resolved? No. The women and children still are missing. They might be dead by now for all we know. There was talk about Boko Haram releasing some of them, that the Nigerian government was working diligently to obtain their freedom. What’s become of that effort?

The children who fled to the United States? Has the migration stopped? Did Mexico do what it should have done all along, which was stop the migration through the entire length of the country into the United States?

Our attention span gets diverted to other things so easily, it’s a shame that these one-time crises become old news.

Those innocent victims — in Nigeria and inside our own borders — still need our help.

 

Spread the love around the city

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Amarillo City Councilman Elisha Demerson may be about to initiate an important conversation about the future of the city he helps govern.

Demerson says he favors efforts to revive downtown Amarillo, but thinks the city should look beyond the central business district to revive blighted neighborhoods.

He toured one of them this week: San Jacinto.

Demerson speaks out

He told NewsChannel 10: “I’m concerned about these older established communities that are being lost to blight and to disarray. San Jacinto use to be a vibrant community at one time and now when we look around it’s no longer a vibrant community.”

OK, so what does the city do about it? Does it invest public money? Does it redirect money from other neighborhoods? Is there enough money to go around to take care of all the city’s needs?

The city’s public investment in downtown involves public infrastructure. The downtown hotel is being funded by the developer; the proposed multipurpose event venue will receive hotel-motel tax revenue.

A downtown revival, if and when it arrives, is a lead-pipe cinch to provide more money for the city to invest in neighborhoods, such as San Jacinto, which well could be a noble long-term goal for the city to pursue.

One more point is worth noting: Councilman Demerson is using his office — to which he was elected on citywide vote — as a bully pulpit to call attention to neighborhoods that need it.

Don’t mess with Planned Parenthood, GOP

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What part of “Don’t Shut Down the Government” is the Republican caucus in Congress failing to understand?

Yet here we are yet again. Congress is threatening to shut down the federal government because some of its members dislike Planned Parenthood. The GOP caucus in Congress doesn’t believe that the federal government should fund Planned Parenthood because, they say, it provides abortion services to women who want to end their pregnancy.

Well, that’s just a small part of Planned Parenthood’s mission. As for abortion funding, Congress years ago approved a law — the Hyde Amendment — that banned federal money for abortion services, so the argument that the government funding of abortion falls flat.

The rest of Planned Parenthood’s mission? Oh, things such as exams designed to guard against cancer, contraceptive services … those kinds of silly things that help keep women alive and allow them to avoid unwanted pregnancies.

What’s more, we’re possibly treading into that minefield in which the government decides to deny government services and programs across the board that have nothing at all to do with Planned Parenthood.

Do these individuals in Congress forget what happens when the legislative branch acts in this petulant and ultra-punitive fashion? Do they not know how badly the public reacts when Congress does such a thing?

The public gets quite angry. At Congress. And, yes, at the those who belong to the party that run both legislative chambers. That would be the Republican Party.

A government shutdown is a fool’s errand.

If only the fools who comprise a significant segment of the majority party in Congress would just get the message.

 

Now it’s ‘only’ 15 in the GOP field

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker speaks to the Illinois Chamber of Commerce Tuesday, April 17, 2012 in Springfield, Ill. Walker says he's using Illinois and its many problems as an argument for keeping him in office. The first-term Republican faces a recall election in June primarily because he restricted union bargaining rights for state employees.  (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

Scott Walker wasn’t supposed to call an end to his Republican presidential campaign … so early.

Wasn’t the Wisconsin governor at or near the lead in Iowa? Didn’t he appeal to those Christian evangelicals? Isn’t he the guy who stood up to those unions in Wisconsin, which plays well with the GOP base?

Well, then he started talking.

He equated those union workers to the Islamic State.

He then decided it is worth discussing the possibility of building a wall across the nation’s border with Canada.

Then along came Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina — three political outsiders — to knock the wind out of Walker’s “establishment” message.

The end of Walker’s campaign comes only a week or so after former Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s swan song.

It’s becoming a bit of a guessing game now.

Who’s next? Ex-New York Gov. George Pataki? Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore?

While the media are fixated on polls and whether any of the still-large GOP field is able to reel in Trump, many of the rest of the GOP field are trying to have their voices heard.

Unfortunately for Gov. Walker, those times he actually was heard … he managed to make declarations that exposed him to ridicule.

Let the culling of the field continue.

 

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