national news

Woman hits it big … real big

Some people have all the luck, and occasionally it’s quite good.

Take a young North Carolina woman, for example.

Marie Holmes is a single mother of four children. She’s unemployed. One of her children suffers from cerebral palsy. Then she took a chance at the Powerball payoff.

She won — big!

http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2015/02/nc_mother_of_4_who_had_to_quit_working_to_care_for_children_hits_powerball.html?wpisrc=topstories

Holmes is one of three winners of a jackpot totaling $564 million. Just like that, she’s a multimillionaire.

Stories like this make me almost happy that states sanction gambling in this manner. I say “almost”  because I don’t believe in these get-rich-quick schemes.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m happy for Marie Holmes and her children. She had to quit her job to take care of them, as she couldn’t afford the child care required.

Well, she can afford it now — and then some.

These kinds of stories tempt me to play the game. So far, I’m glad to say, they haven’t tempted me beyond my strength.

Hey, I’m still a dollar ahead in the Texas lottery. I bought my first lottery ticket for a dollar in 1991 and got $3 back. So, ahead by $2 at the time, I bought another ticket the following week; I didn’t win a thing.

That’s when I quit. Being a dollar ahead is good enough for me.

As for Marie Holmes, may she avoid the pitfalls that trap so many big winners. Hire a good lawyer, young lady.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Governor quits; let the cleanup begin

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber made it official: He’s leaving office in a few days amid a terrible ethics scandal involving his fiancĂ©e and a lobbying effort she allegedly launched using her position as “first lady.”

Now the attention is going to turn to incoming Gov. Kate Brown, the Oregon secretary of state who’s next in line for the top job.

Oregon governor resigns amid scandal

Kitzhaber had to go. Top legislative Democrats went to the governor, also a Democrat, and told him he had zero support in the Legislature. He couldn’t govern with all the tumult swirling about him and fiancĂ©e Cylvia Hayes.

What now? The state needs to continue pursuing possible criminal charges against Hayes, who reportedly violated state ethics laws by funneling state business to her personal lobbying firm.

Virtually all states — including Texas — have laws that prohibit public officials from using their public office for private gain. Texas occasionally gets a bit lax in enforcing those rules. Therein is the lesson for all states: If you have these laws on the books, then it is essential that they are enforced to the letter.

Kitzhaber’s resignation should stop the pursuit of what allegedly occurred with Hayes’s lobbying efforts. If she broke state law, or if the soon-to-be former governor broke laws, they need to be prosecuted. Too often, though, these investigations wither and die once an officeholder leaves office, as if obtaining a resignation is enough of a punishment.

If the state believes in the ethics laws it has on the books, then the Kitzhaber-Hayes saga is far from over.

national news, political news, religious news

Evolution, Bible not mutually exclusive

What is it with politicians who cannot answer a simple question: Do you believe in evolution?

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, one of a thundering herd of Republicans considering a run for the presidency in 2016, got asked that question in Great Britain.

He punted on it. Actually, he choked on it. Neither result is surprising given that he needs to curry favor with the evangelical wing of his political party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/02/12/scott-walker-dodged-a-question-on-evolution-that-was-dumb-but-not-for-the-reason-you-think/

Actually, I’ve never quite gotten the notion that evolution and the biblical theory of creation are mutually exclusive.

I long have held the view that one can believe in both ideas: that the world evolved over billions of years and that God orchestrated its evolution.

The Book of Genesis talks about how God created the world in six days and then rested on the seventh day. As one who believes in the presence of God, I’ve never quite bought the notion that the “days” mentioned in the Bible are days as we’ve come to know them as human beings. I long have held the view that biblical “days” can be measured in almost any increment we choose.

I get that the Bible doesn’t acknowledge the existence of prehistoric creatures or the existence of human beings in any form other than what is mentioned in Genesis or any of the books that follow through the Old and New testaments.

From my standpoint, that doesn’t discount the existence of those creatures or of prehistoric hominids.

So, Gov. Walker cannot answer the question about evolution because he fears some backlash by evangelicals? Come on. You can believe in both elements of creation. The way I read Scripture, they aren’t mutually exclusive.

 

legal news, local news

Police chief loses his badge

1 Comment

A report out of a tiny Texas Panhandle town makes me wonder whether I should laugh … or laugh harder.

It goes something like this: The police chief of Estelline has been charged with official oppression, ordered to surrender his peace officer’s license and now faces prosecution on charges that he threatened and terrorized two female motorists passing through his town of 130 residents.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/28095627/estelline-chief-of-police-charged-with-official-oppression

Duwayne Marcolesco is in trouble for allegedly stopping the women while he was off duty. The women filed a complaint with the Childress County Sheriff’s Department, which then brought charges against the former chief.

So, why the struggle to suppress my laughter?

It’s that Estelline has this reputation throughout Texas — and perhaps even parts of Oklahoma — for being a speed-trap town. You’d better obey the speed limit signs posted on either side of U.S. 287 coming into Estelline, either from Childress or Memphis, or else the cops’ll get ya.

That’s what residents in the Texas Panhandle are known to advise others from outside the region who are driving through Estelline.

Indeed, I received that exact advice when I arrived in the Panhandle in early January 1995 to take my post as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News — and I’ve been giving that advice to others for the past two decades.

The term “official oppression” is a kind of legalese for misusing one’s authority. Motorists have griped for as long as I can remember about that very thing as they drive through this tiny Panhandle town.

I don’t know what the former chief allegedly did to those women — but none of this sounds all that surprising.

 

military news, national news, political news

Take care in defining 'combat veteran'

It didn’t take Joni Ernst long to make a name for herself in the U.S. Senate.

The Iowa Republican is now defending her military record in which she defines herself as a “combat veteran.”

I would caution her to speak very carefully when using such terminology.

At issue is her service in an Iowa National Guard transportation company in Iraq and Kuwait in 2003 and 2004. She calls herself a “combat veteran” even though she didn’t face enemy fire during her deployment in the Middle East.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/joni-ernst-says-she-earned-the-right-to-call-herself-a-combat-veteran-despite-never-seeing-combat/

Sen. Ernst defends her record, saying that because she drew hazardous duty pay while deployed, she has earned the right to call herself a combat vet.

“I am very proud of my service and by law I am defined as a combat veteran,” Ernst said. “I have never once claimed that I have a Combat Action Badge. I have never claimed that I have a Purple Heart. What I have claimed is that I have served in a combat zone.”

Technically, she is correct. But it is a technicality that can be misconstrued. She needs to be careful how she uses such language in the future.

I understand where she’s coming from. I, too, served in a war zone for a time. The Vietnam War was raging when I arrived in-country in the spring of 1969. I received hazardous duty pay while serving as a U.S. Army aircraft mechanic and later as a flight operations specialist at the I Corps Tactical Operations Center in Da Nang.

Do I refer to myself as a “combat veteran”? No. I didn’t see direct combat — except for having to run for cover while the Viet Cong lobbed mortars into our position on occasion.

Sen. Ernst is rightfully proud of her service in Iraq and Kuwait, as I am of my service many years ago during another armed conflict.

But be careful, senator, when using terms such as “combat vet,” especially around those who’ve actually seen the real thing.

 

national news, political news

Hit the road, Gov. Kitzhaber

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It’s looking like lights out for Oregon’s embattled governor.

John Kitzhaber is now getting the word from top state Democrats — his own partisans — that it’s time for him to go. A growing ethics scandal involving his fiancĂ©e, Cylvia Hayes, is now threatening to overwhelm his ability to govern his state — my home state.

It’s not looking good for the governor. He can’t possibly hang on.

http://news.yahoo.com/oregon-governor-planned-quit-changed-mind-074856606.html

His fiancĂ©e has been implicated in a scheme in which she funneled state business to her lobbying firm, allegedly using her connections as the state’s de facto first lady to fatten her wallet/purse.

As for Kitzhaber’s role in this, well, he is the governor and his fiancĂ©e allegedly was acting as the state’s agent.

It’s bad, man. Real bad.

As for state Democrats telling the governor it’s time for him to quit, this has a Watergate-ish ring to it.

Flash back to 1974. President Richard Nixon was in deep doo-doo over the Watergate scandal. It was revealed that he had told the FBI to back off its investigation of whether the president’s re-election committee was complicit in the break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate office complex.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee then approved articles of impeachment against the president.

It was then that none other than Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater led a GOP delegation to the White House to inform the Republican president that he was toast, that he couldn’t be acquitted in a Senate trial. “You have to quit, Mr. President,” Goldwater said.

Nixon did resign a few days later.

History is sounding as if it’s repeating itself in the Oregon State Capitol Building.

You have to quit, Gov. Kitzhaber.

 

entertainment news

This is how you sing the National Anthem

Three years ago today, Whitney Houston died tragically.

Many of us mourned her death, expressing anguish at the downward spiral her life took prior to her leaving this world.

I just wanted to post this video to remember one of the most marvelous musical instruments God ever produced.

This young woman could sing like few others ever have been able to do.

Enjoy the sound of her voice … one more time. And while you’re at it, take note of the joy on her face as she pays this marvelous tribute to our great country.

legal news, national news, political news

AG pick Lynch forced to wait … and wait

The game-playing is continuing on Capitol Hill regarding one key appointment to President Obama’s Cabinet.

It involves Attorney General-designate Loretta Lynch, who’ll now have to wait until Feb. 26 for the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote on her nomination to run the Justice Department.

What foolishness. What’s up with the newly empowered Republican Senate majority?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/republicans-delay-loretta-lynch-confirmation-115149.html?hp=c3_3

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Lynch wasn’t very responsive in answering the 200 or so written questions submitted by the panel. So he’s going to hold up the vote, even though virtually all the committee members’ minds are made up.

Lynch likely has the votes on the committee to be confirmed. She surely has the votes of the full Senate.

Meanwhile, the man GOP senators have come to loathe — Attorney General Eric Holder — remains on the job while Lynch is left twisting in the wind while the new Senate majority gets around to scheduling a vote to confirm her.

Lynch, the current U.S. attorney for New York’s Eastern District, is highly qualified to become the next attorney general. Several key Republican senators already have declared their endorsement of the Democratic president’s nominee.

Chairman Grassley, though, wants to drag it out some more — for reasons only he seems to get.

Some GOP senators object to Lynch’s support of the president’s executive action on immigration — as if they’d expect her to oppose the decision made by the man who has selected her to become attorney general.

Do they actually expect her to oppose the president? Do they really and truly believe she should undercut the nation’s chief executive?

Let’s take this vote, send it to the full Senate, then let all 100 senators vote on Loretta Lynch’s nomination.

Shall we?

 

International news

No ransom — ever — for terrorist hostages

President Obama is right to insist that the United States will not pay ransom for hostages held by terrorist organizations.

And yet, the death the other day of a young Arizona woman, Kayla Jean Mueller, at the hands of her Islamic State captors has shaken the nation at many levels.

Mueller died, possibly as a result of a Jordanian air strike against ISIL targets. The president confirmed this week that he dispatched a mission to obtain Mueller’s rescue, but it didn’t succeed.

Still, he said telling family members — begging for their loved ones’ safe return — of U.S. no-ransom policy is among the most difficult things he must do as president and commander in chief.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/232374-obama-confirms-the-us-tried-to-rescue-kayla-Mueller

But he must hold that line.

“The one thing that we have held to is a policy of not paying ransoms with an organization like ISIL. And the reason is once we start doing that, not only are we financing their slaughter of innocent people and strengthening their organization, but we’re actually making Americans even greater targets for future kidnappings,” Obama said.

This fight will go on, perhaps in perpetuity. No one knows how it will end or how the United States ever will be able to declare victory.

If we’re going to fight a ruthless enemy, we need to ensure they understand that there can be no monetary price to be paid for someone’s priceless life.

 

legal news, national news

Alabama's Roy Moore: judicial activist

Judicial activism is alive and well on one state’s bench, and it’s not a state where one would expect to find such a thing.

It’s in Alabama, where the chief justice of that state’s Supreme Court, has decided that the Highest Court in the Land — the United States Supreme Court — declined to overturn a lower federal court ruling that overturned the state’s ban on people marrying others of the same gender.

The high court, then, in effect endorsed the lower court ruling. The state’s ban on same-sex marriage is overturned, along with bans in 38 other states — including Texas.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/02/10/alabama-supreme-court-gay-marriage-editorials-debates/23200975/

As USA Today notes in an editorial, same-sex marriage has become as divisive an issue as the civil rights battles were in the 1950s and ’60s. Most Americans support same-sex marriage now, although in the Deep South, opponents of it remain in the majority.

Still, the entire nation is governed by a single Constitution and the federal courts are empowered to interpret that document in the manner they deem appropriate.

Federal judges have been striking down the bans generally on the grounds that they violate the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, the one that guarantees “equal protection” for all citizens under the law.

Justice Moore, though, doesn’t see it that way, even though he swore an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.

Don’t conservatives oppose judicial activism? Don’t they rail continually at judges who put their own bias above the law?

Alabama’s top state judge is on the wrong side of this issue. Period.

 

 

 

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