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Pentagon strikes hard at al-Qaida

Something tells me the Pentagon brass is embarrassed enough to take some serious action against the world’s pre-eminent terrorist organization.

A video surfaced a few days ago in Yemen that showed a large crowd of al-Qaida thugs rallying in broad daylight; they were chanting, cheering and carrying on as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

You remember al-Qaida, yes? They’re the murderers responsible for the 9/11 attacks, not to mention countless other acts of bloody terrorism before and since that heinous act more than a dozen years ago.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/21/world/meast/yemen-drone-strike/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Well, the video suggests that al-Qaida is growing yet again. The group is brazen enough to prance around in the open, apparently right under the noses of U.S. and Middle East intelligence-gatherers.

Over the weekend, drone strikes and special operations forces began a concerted effort to wipe out a number of these terrorist leaders. Pentagon officials called it a massive operation conducted in cooperation with Yemeni government operatives and commandos. News of the strikes was announced late Sunday and early Monday it was revealed that the strikes are continuing.

This is the nature of war these days. The war on terror that President Bush declared after the 9/11 attacks is continuing. My hunch is that it will continue for as long as terrorists lurk among us anywhere on the planet. Osama bin Laden is dead, but others have surfaced to take his place.

Al-Qaida got our attention in a serious way when its henchmen flew those jetliners into the New York skyscrapers and into the Pentagon. All that dancing and prancing just made us angry all over again.

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Statewide texting ban? Bring it!

Texas is going to consider next year whether to ban texting while driving all across the state.

I’m all for it! Do it, please.

http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/story.aspx?id=1033475#.U1SGTVJOWt8

Texas is one of seven states that doesn’t have a ban on the practice, which is a ridiculous exercise in multi-tasking. A motorist operating a vehicle — possibly at a high rate of speed — needs to be brain dead to try sending a text message while at the wheel of that vehicle.

No punishment, short of the Big One, seems to be too severe — to my way of thinking — for those convicted of endangering other motorists and pedestrians. My thought off the top is that anyone stupid enough to send a text message while driving is too stupid to drive a motor vehicle; thus, suspend their license indefinitely, if not forever.

Amarillo has a ban on the practice. It even bans the use of hand-held cell phones while driving, although enforcement of either ordinance appears to be spotty, according to some reports. Other cities report varying degrees of effectiveness.

Gov. Rick Perry vetoed a bill a no-texting bill in 2011. It didn’t come up in the 2013 legislative session. I haven’t asked our legislative delegation what it thinks of the idea. My guess is that Reps. John Smithee and Four Price, and Sen. Kel Seliger think it’s some form of “government intrusion” or some unenforceable law.

I see all of them on occasion. I intend to lobby them personally to support the idea.

Whoever is governor next year, Wendy Davis or Greg Abbott, might have a chance to sign such a bill into law. It is my fervent hope either of them will do what Rick Perry failed to do.

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Rick Perry needs a makeover

Politico.com reports that Texas Gov. Rick Perry has embarked on an extreme makeover to make erase memories of a disastrous — and short-lived — run for the presidency last time around.

He’ll need it, badly.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/rick-perry-extreme-makeover-105843.html?hp=t1

Perry reportedly is more relaxed and confident sounding these days, Politico reports. That’s as it should be, given that he’s a lame-duck governor. He’s held the office seemingly since The Flood and is now heading for some other mission in life.

He wants to be president, or vice president perhaps.

My own feeling is that he’s got a long way to go before he achieves either office.

A friend of mine — a former Republican state legislator who is no friend or fan of Perry — thinks the governor actually wants a No. 2 spot on the next GOP presidential ticket. He believes Perry knows his brand as a Republican presidential nominee has been damaged beyond repair, so he’s willing to settle for running as the GOP veep nominee in 2016.

“Where I have noticed it profoundly is in the last few weeks, the national TV appearances, whether he’s been on a number of Fox shows or Jimmy Kimmel and some of the others, he just seems like a very confident, upbeat and articulate spokesman for conservative policy and values,” former Perry aide Ray Sullivan told Politico.

Perry’s brand is well-established in his home state of Texas, where his unique brand of good-ol’-boy conservatism plays well. It hasn’t yet taken hold in the rest of the country, let alone in the rest of the Republican Party, which is full of tea-party conservatives who so far have done a better job of selling themselves to a willing party base.

Let us not forget that those infamous pre-2012 GOP primary gaffes — namely the “oops” blunder in which he couldn’t name the third agency he would dismantle were he elected president — will be on the record … forever.

Good luck with your makeover, governor. You’ll need to be unrecognizable from what you’ve shown us so far.

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This constable earns his pay

DRIPPING SPRINGS, Texas — Those who know my views on things know that I have had a long-standing loathing of constable offices.

I consider them to be non-essential functions of law enforcement in counties where their duties could be performed by municipal police officers or county sheriff’s deputies. They cost counties — and the state — money that could be spent in other areas.

However …

While visiting my wife’s brother, I heard a story this morning that proves that in at least one Texas county, constables are able to perform an actual function that justifies their existence.

Here’s how the story goes.

My brother-in-law was visiting friends at a local diner recently in Dripping Springs, a tiny town just west of Austin. A constable burst into the place and told my brother-in-law that he needed a juror to sit in on a trial being held at a justice of the peace court in the county seat of San Marcos.

Michael’s friend said he was too busy, as he had to attend a funeral later that morning. The constable turned to Michael and said, in effect, “OK, pal, you’re it. Come with me.”

My brother-in-law accompanied the constable to the courtroom, took his seat on the six-person jury and listened to a trial involving a fellow who was being evicted from the house where he lived. It was a slam-dunk case for the county, my brother-in-law said, and the jury voted to toss the guy out of his house.

I heard the story and couldn’t stop laughing. The very idea of a uniformed law enforcement officer virtually ordering someone to serve on a jury is something I’ve never witnessed, or frankly, ever even heard of happening. It does, quite obviously, in some rural counties that employ constables.

My feelings about the office haven’t changed. I still believe the Texas Legislature needs to give counties the power to get rid of the office if they see fit. Randall County, where my wife and I live, has suffered through constable woes for longer than officials care to admit. They can’t get rid of the office, because the Legislature doesn’t give counties the power to act cleanly.

Hays County, at least, puts their constables to work. More power to them here, just not where I live.

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Big-time brouhaha in Beaumont

Some major trouble is brewing in a city I used to call home. It pains me to watch this play out even from such a huge distance.

The Beaumont Independent School District is about to lose control of itself. The Texas Education Agency — headed by Education Commissioner Michael Williams, no shrinking violet, to be sure — is about to seize control of the troubled school system.

The school board has voted to appeal the TEA takeover. It won’t work. To whom will the BISD board appeal?

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/opinions/editorials/article/EDITORIAL-BISD-appeal-is-not-justified-5405143.php

I haven’t followed the details of the troubled district. BISD seems to have been run like a three-ring circus. I’ve read accounts of the superintendent allowing the construction of a huge new activities center that will carry his name. There have been significant personnel issues involving key senior school district administrators. Money hasn’t been spent wisely. Academic performance among students continues to flounder.

And school trustees continue to fight among themselves.

That last item seems to go back several decades.

I arrived in Beaumont in 1984 just as two school districts were merging under a federal court-ordered desegregation edict. One district, a mostly white one, merged with another, mostly black district. The combined district held a school trustee election the very week I arrived at my post at the newspaper. For the first time in the community’s history, a majority African-American school board emerged from the voting result.

You’d have thought Planet Earth had just changed course and began hurtling toward the sun, in the eyes of many folks all over the city.

It has been rough sailing ever since.

The TEA already has intervened in BISD’s affairs, sending in monitors in the late 1980s to keep a close eye on matters. The school system managed to right itself then. This matter seems much worse.

It’s painful to watch even from way up yonder.

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Captain violates law of the water

Whatever happened to the idea that a ship’s captain “goes down with his ship,” or at least ensures everyone else is safe before he jumps off?

Lee Joon-seok was piloting a South Korean ferry this week when it tipped over and sank. He fled the ship mere minutes after sending out a distress call.

http://news.yahoo.com/deeply-ashamed-ferry-captain-among-first-abandon-ship-112032771–abc-news-topstories.html

He now says he is “deeply ashamed.” Imagine that.

Rescuers are working feverishly to search for possible survivors still trapped aboard the partially submerged ferry. They’re pumping air into the ship hoping to find folks holed up in sealed compartments. Several lives already are lost.

Meanwhile, the captain of the ferry has some serious explaining to do, not unlike the captain of the Italian cruise ship that ran aground in a shipwreck that killed several passengers off the coast of Italy. He, too, was one of those who fled aboard a life boat, leaving passengers and crew members stranded. That former captain has been banished from ever having a ship command.

Something tells me this isn’t going to end well, either, for Lee Joon-seok.

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Stopping illegal flow is a pipe dream

Texas lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick lives in a dream world.

He’s dreaming of a day when Texas can stop illegal immigrants from streaming across our southern border. As it is noted in the link attached here, that is an impossible goal. It can’t be met, short of erecting a wall along the entire length of that border and positioning armed guards every 500 yards.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/castro-v-patrick

Patrick is running in the Republican runoff against Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for the job Dewhurst has held since 2003.

He recently debated the issue of immigration with San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro. The two men shook hands afterward and parted on friendly terms. However, Castro is right and Patrick is wrong on the best way to handle the issue of illegal immigration.

We cannot seal off our border; it’s too expensive and too difficult to maintain. We cannot deport every illegal immigrant who’s come to this country in search of a better life.

We must enact immigration reform that gives those who are here illegally some path toward citizenship if they want it. If they don’t, well, we can show them the door out of here.

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Deal struck in Ukraine?

Winston Churchill once said it was better to “jaw, jaw than to war, war.”

The great British statesman was right then, and he would be right now. Ukraine and Russian diplomats today announced a potential breakthrough in the standoff between the countries that well could have led to open warfare in eastern Europe.

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/203788-kerry-says-deal-reached-on-ukraine-violence

The Hill reports, “Secretary of State John Kerry said the framework hashed out by foreign ministers meeting in Geneva would disarm separatist militants in eastern Ukraine and have them vacate the government buildings, streets and squares they have occupied. In return, the Ukrainian government has offered amnesty to all pro-Russian militants who lay down their arms, with the exception of those who committed capital crimes.”

The agreement comes after diplomats from the European Union, NATO, the United States, Russia and Ukraine haggled over a way out of the standoff that seemed to bring Russia and Ukraine to the brink of war.

Will it be implemented? Will the deal hold? Will both sides back off? Will there be an end to what’s been called the worst crisis since the end of the Cold War?

This is a potentially huge deal that strikes a blow for the power of diplomacy.

It remains to be determined what impact the economic sanctions may have played in bringing the Russians to the bargaining table.

The United States doesn’t want war. The Russians don’t want it. All that’s left is to talk to each other … and to keep talking until you get a deal done.

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Who's Putin calling meddlesome?

Russian President Vladmir Putin is exhibiting some major stones, brass, cajones … whatever.

He sends troops into Crimea, which used to be part of Ukraine, and takes over the region from another sovereign nation. He masses tens of thousands of troops on the Ukraine’s border with Russia, threatening further military action.

He then accuses Ukraine of acting irresponsibly by using its own military to put down pro-Russian demonstrators. Furthermore, he accuses the West — including the United States — of meddling in Ukraine’s affairs.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304626304579506741617026658?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304626304579506741617026658.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

Kettle, meet pot.

It’s quite astonishing to hear the leader of a large nation with a substantial military force lecture the rest of the world about such matters.

Russia has interfered in another sovereign nation’s internal affairs. Russian troops have entered Ukrainian territory. And Russia’s strongman president has the gall to lecture the United States and its allies about diplomatic decorum?

Unbelievable.

The European Union, NATO, the United States and other key allies are preparing to ratchet up further economic measures aimed at crippling the Russian economy. The first rounds of sanctions already are taking a big bite out of the Big Bear’s backside.

Putin’s stern language is not going to help quell the tension or ease the pain that is about to be inflicted on his nation.

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Phone call symbolizes enmity

A simple phone call, that’s all it was supposed to be.

But now, as Politico.com has noted, the two principals in that conversation cannot even agree on its nature.

President Obama blistered congressional Republicans over their refusal to enact comprehensive immigration reform; then he telephoned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va. Did the two men talk about immigration reform or did they, as the White House said, exchange pleasantries as the president wished Cantor, who is Jewish, a happy Passover?

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/immigration-barack-obama-eric-cantor-105764.html?hp=f2

Cantor responded to Obama’s attack with one of his own.

To be honest, I’m wishing a plague on both sides of this matter.

I’m also believing Cantor is right that the president and his team still haven’t learned how to work with the very people they need to enact their agenda, namely the members of Congress who happen to be from the other party.

It’s fair, however, to wonder whether the president simply has run out of patience with the loyal opposition.

The testy exchange went like this, according to Politico.com:

“The president called me hours after he issued a partisan statement which attacked me and my fellow House Republicans and which indicated no sincere desire to work together,” Cantor said in a statement. “After five years, President Obama still has not learned how to effectively work with Congress to get things done. You do not attack the very people you hope to engage in a serious dialogue,” he continued.

The president had said this earlier:

“Unfortunately, Republicans in the House of Representatives have repeatedly failed to take action, seemingly preferring the status quo of a broken immigration system over meaningful reform. Instead of advancing common-sense reform and working to fix our immigration system, House Republicans have voted in favor of extreme measures like a punitive amendment to strip protections from ‘Dreamers.'”

Both sides keep talking past each other, even as they insist it’s time to start working together.

There isn’t a Lyndon Johnson or Everett Dirksen among any of them.

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