national news

It's all Bibi's fault for U.S.-Israel misunderstanding

The relationship between President Barack Obama and Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a turn for the worse.

Why? Well, it turns out Bibi didn’t talk Barack to advise him of an invitation he got to speak to the U.S. Congress, courtesy of House Speaker John Boehner.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/ron-dermer-john-boehner-israel-white-house-114771.html?hp=r1_3

He owed the president a phone call, observers have said. He didn’t make the call and accepted the invitation. The White House is fuming. I cannot blame the folks at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Now it turns out the Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer is saying it wasn’t his fault. He did everything by the book.

The invitation and its resulting tension between Obama and Netanyahu has become a major back story behind the out front story: the effort to impose sanctions on Iran while the U.S. and other powers are trying to negotiate a settlement that ends Iran’s nuclear program. The Obama administration opposes the sanctions — at this time. Boehner and Netanyahu want to impose them, so Boehner asked Bibi to make his case publicly before a joint congressional session next month.

Gosh, is it any wonder the Obama administration is torqued out of shape over this?

The speaker of the House has made a mess of this by sidestepping the White House. The Israeli prime minister has become an accomplice to this messiness by accepting an invitation that shouldn’t have come to him in the first place.

Mr. Boehner, we have only one president at a time. And it isn’t you.

 

political news

Mitt won't run! Oh, darn

What? Mitt Romney has decided against running for president in 2016?

I’m crushed, I’ll tell ya. Crushed!

I was hoping against hope that Mitt would make a third go of it, trying to make up for the mistakes he made in the 2012 campaign. Believer as I am in redemption, Mitt was the perfect guy to try to right what he do so terribly wrong.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitt-romney-decides-against-running-for-president-again-in-2016/ar-AA8M4tR

Now he tells supporters he wants to clear the decks for “new leadership,” that the Republican Party doesn’t want to hear from him in 2016.

I’ll honor his decision. My trick knee tells me Ann Romney had a lot to say about it. She had said “no way” to a third run for the White House many months ago. I didn’t think Mitt could persuade her to change her mind. Hey, they’ve been married a while and I’m sure Mitt knows how hard it is to change his wife’s mind once she makes a declarative public statement.

A Romney candidacy would have set up a bruising battle among the “establishment wing” of the Republican Party, pitting him against, say, Jeb Bush and maybe John Kasich in the fight to win over the more reasonable GOP faithful.

Bush is more likely now to run with Mitt out of the way, so it’ll be Jeb vs. The TEA Party wing of the GOP, which at the moment seems to comprise a much larger number of combatants.

Oh well. Thanks for teasing us, Mitt.

 

Intgernational news, national news

'Terrorist' requires a nuanced definition? No

The Taliban is a terrorist organization.

That’s my view and I’m sticking to it — no matter how finely the White House press flack tries to parse the definition of the term “terrorist.”

Press secretary Josh Earnest sought Thursday to say that the Taliban carries out “acts that are akin to terrorism,” but stopped short of calling the brutal killers and kidnappers “terrorists.” He said the Taliban falls into a “different category.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/taliban-terrorists-white-house/story?id=28588120

I guess Earnest, speaking on behalf of the president, is saying the Obama administration believes it’s OK to negotiate with the Taliban, whereas the White House refuses to negotiate with, say, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Hezbollah or Hamas.

I’m beginning to sense that the famed nuanced foreign policy apparatus that the Obama White House is conducting might be getting a little too cute.

The Taliban are taking credit almost weekly for attacks against civilians in Afghanistan. They’ve brought considerable havoc as well to innocent victims in neighboring Pakistan. Good grief! The Taliban send in suicide bombers, they set off explosive on roadways traveled by villagers going to market, they kidnap and disfigure girls and young women who have the gall to stand up for their rights.

You’re more than welcome to correct me on any of this, but doesn’t any of that fit the classic description of a terrorist organization?

Yep. That’s the Taliban.

 

medical news, Sports news

Brain injuries deserve attention, too

It’s fascinating to me to watch the media get all exercised and worked up over deflated footballs and whether one of the Super Bowl teams cheated its way into the big game.

Meantime, another actual crisis is festering and no one talks publicly about with the same fervor we’ve heard in recent days about “Deflate-gate.”

I’m talking about traumatic brain injuries. Concussions. Football-induced dementia.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/league-of-denial/?elq=2d2f5832acd34b95926649e0515f918c&elqCampaignId=1137

I want to mention it because Frontline, the acclaimed PBS documentary series, recently rebroadcast its special on this matter. It has gotten next to zero attention, as sports media — and even mainstream news talk shows — have fixated on whether the New England Patriots purposely deflated footballs in their AFC championship rout over the Indianapolis Colts.

“League of Denial” chronicles what some have said has been the National Football League’s complicity in some of the brain injuries players have suffered. Indeed, some current and former NFL stars — former quarterback Brett Favre comes to mind — have declared they won’t let their sons play football for as long as they can control their sons’ activities. Why? The sport is too dangerous, they say.

The Frontline special can be watched online. It’s worth seeing over and over.

Perhaps it will awaken us to a real scandal about the health and welfare of professional athletes who take a beating that no human body can withstand.

Deflated footballs? I couldn’t possibly care less.

 

State news

Why ask for a specific pledge from Muslims?

Molly White has just taken her seat in the Texas House of Representatives and already she’s making noise.

That’s all it is, apparently, from the Republican lawmaker, who wants participants of a Muslim Day event in Austin to declare publicly their allegiance to the United States of America.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/231167-muslim-event-at-texas-capitol-disrupted-by-protestors

I’m still not sure what this is all about, other than to try to stir up anti-Muslim sentiment in Texas — as if it needs stirring up among many Texans.

White posted something on her Facebook page about a Dallas court adhering to — are you ready? — Sharia law, rather than being loyal to the U.S. Constitution, which I’m pretty sure is a secular document.

This is the kind of scare-tactic nonsense we likely can expect to hear from the people’s House, the lower chamber of the Texas Legislature.

White left a note in her Austin office and said she’s asked Muslim leaders to “renounce radical Islam.” Someone needs to tell Rep. White that Muslims in this country and all around the world have been doing precisely that, especially in the wake of the Paris shooting massacre at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. As religious scholar Reza Aslan has noted, if you haven’t heard the outcry, you “aren’t paying attention.”

The Muslim Day is organized as an effort to have the Texas Islamic community meet with legislators. What in the world is so scary about that?

Rep. White needs to take a chill pill and let her fellow Texans speak to their representatives about issues that are important to them.

 

International news

Michelle's just the latest to flout Saudi tradition

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Laura Bush did it. So did Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Same with Angela Merkel.

What did a former U.S. first lady, two former secretaries of state and the chancellor of Germany do? They appeared in public in Saudi Arabia — without covering their hair, as prescribed by Muslim tradition in the Sunni nation.

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/01/28/3616556/saudi-arabia-michelle-obama/

The current first lady, Michelle Obama, thus is the just the latest woman to flout the custom demanded of Saudi women.

It’s interesting at a couple of levels that the media would make any kind of mention of Mrs. Obama’s decision to go scarf-less in public.

No. 1, she is hardly the first foreign dignitary to be photographed doing this.

No. 2, and perhaps more importantly, is that she was virtually ignored while she stood in a greeting line alongside her husband — Barack H. Obama, president of the United States of America.

The dignitaries walked along the greeting line, shook hands with Mr. Obama but didn’t shake Mrs. Obama’s hand. What’s up with that?

Actually, I know. Saudis disrespect women whenever and wherever possible. That, too, is part of their custom. Women aren’t able to drive motor vehicles legally, for example. It should come as no surprise, then, that the potentates or whoever those gentlemen were greeting the president would ignore his wife.

To whatever extent she intended, Michelle Obama did a nice job of standing tall and proud for women in the country that played host to her briefly — and, in fact, for oppressed women all around the world. So did those who preceded her.

Well done, ladies.

 

national news, political news

Palin's non-speech sours GOP base

Can it really be that the hard right wing of the Republican Party has come to its senses regarding a former half-term Alaska governor who for the past half-dozen years or so has been its darling?

Sarah Palin stood before the Iowa Freedom Summit and delivered what can only be described as a rhetorical goulash of blather.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/palin%e2%80%99s-speech-draws-fire-from-the-right/ar-AA8HGpj

It didn’t play well in Peoria, let alone in GOP strategists’ living rooms.

Her TelePrompter, loaded with prepared remarks, went pffftt. Left to her devices, Palin stammered her way through a bizarre litany of nonsensical sentences.

As the Washington Post described it: “Her address was a 31 1/2-minute roller coaster ride of cliches, non sequiturs and warmed-over grievances. One line that stood out: ‘GOP leaders, by the way, you know, ‘The Man,’ can only ride ya when your back is bent. So strengthen it. Then The Man can’t ride ya.’”

Huh?

The Post reports that the critiques from those who heard Palin were harsh and unforgiving.

Darn! I was hoping she’d make a go of it, that her “serious” consideration of a White House campaign in 2016 would turn into the real thing.

Silly me. I guess I had forgotten — if only for a moment or two — about how miserable a campaigner she turned out to be when Sen. John McCain selected her as his vice-presidential running mate in the 2008 White House campaign. Or that she’d gotten twisted up in that goofy reality TV show. Or that she’s making a lot of money as a Fox News “contributor”; her precise contribution to Fox remains something of a mystery.

I suppose there’s some other stuff to mention, but I’ll just let it lie.

With that, I’ll bid adieu to Sarah Palin. It was nice while it lasted.

 

International news, political news

Wow! Ted Cruz praises Michelle Obama!

Times like these call for special attention.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TEA Party Nation, has actually said something complimentary about the first lady of the United States of America.

Cruz wrote on his Facebook page that Michelle Obama has stood up for the rights of women around the world by declining to wear a scarf covering her head while visiting Saudi Arabia.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/28/ted-cruz-michelle-obama_n_6564768.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

You go, Ted!

He wrote: “Kudos to First Lady Michelle Obama for standing up for women worldwide and refusing to wear a Sharia-mandated head-scarf in Saudi Arabia. Nicely done.”

Cruz, who’s actually from Texas (of course) isn’t likely to say nice things — ever — about the first lady or her husband. He’s entertaining a possible — if not probable — run for the presidency in 2016. He’s no doubt storing up plenty of negative things to say about the past eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency.

Just for grins and giggles, though, I am curious to know the reason Michelle Obama didn’t wear the scarf in a country where Islamic tradition plays such a huge role in people’s lives. My own hunch is that the Sharia mandate is for Muslim women and since Michelle Obama is not a Muslim, she and other women in the presidential party were exempt from the rule.

Still, it’s good to hear Sen. Cruz acknowledge the guts it took for the first lady to do such a thing in Saudi Arabia. Imagine what he and other critics on the right would have said had she shown up with her hair covered.

 

 

State news

Gov. Abbott must act as AG Abbott did on rebel plates

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott no doubt casts himself as a man of high principle.

Well, here’s his chance to demonstrate it. He can ensure that the state does not issue motor vehicle license plates that carry the Confederate flag on them.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/01/texas-faces-a-serious-confederacy-conundrum.html/

He should take the argument to the Supreme Court of the United States and argue the same thing he did while he served as Texas attorney general. The plates are offensive to a significant number of Texans and they should not celebrate Confederate Heroes Day. Period.

As the blogger Tod Robberson points out on the link attached to this post, the plates would “honor” individuals who became enemies of the United States of America by fighting to defeat the Union during the Civil War.

Robberson writes: “It shouldn’t matter whether it’s a visible symbol on a license plate or the in-your-face knowledge — especially among African American taxpayers of the state — that Texans have to pay state employees for the day off to commemorate people who were enemies of the United States and who fought for the right to preserve slavery. It’s offensive either way to a huge number of people.”

I will add that African-Americans comprise about 12.5 percent of the state’s population, or about 3 million people.

Gov. Abbott is the same man who served as attorney general. He was right to oppose the issuance of the plates before — as was then-Gov. Rick Perry. The new governor should follow suit and not allow these license plates on Texans’ motor vehicles.

 

State news

'Open-carry' votes missing in state Senate

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is showing some early signs of realism.

He said the Texas Senate might be unable to approve a bill allowing Texans to carry firearms in the open.

I hope his skepticism hold up.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/01/27/lt-gov-patrick-open-carry-votes-arent-there/

Patrick told the Texas Tribune that while he embraces the Second Amendment, open-carry legislation isn’t a top priority among state senators. “Second Amendment rights are very important, but open carry does not reach to the level of prioritizing at this point,” he said. “I don’t think the votes are there.”

I’ve waltzed all over the pea patch on this one. I used to oppose concealed-carry legislation, fearing the worst. The worst hasn’t happened and it doesn’t appear that it will, so I’ve acknowledged by mistaken fear of concealed-firearm carry legislation.

This open-carry business, though, still gives me the nervous jerks.

I keep asking myself: Back in the days of the Old West, was this a safer place with good guys packing heat right along with bad guys?

Yes, this no longer is the Wild West and we’re supposed to be more, um, civilized now than they were back in those days.

It’s just the idea of seeing folks with guns on their hips …

Patrick might be able to count votes among the 31 senators, but he’s got a wild bunch across the way in the House of Representatives who are going to put the pressure on enact this legislation.

Be strong, senators.

 

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