All posts by kanelis2012

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Liar, liar …

Let’s talk briefly one more time about lies and lying.

President Obama’s critics accuse him of “lying” about the Affordable Care Act, specifically about the pledge he made that Americans can “keep their doctor if they so wish.” It turns out, with the unveiling of the ACA, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Republicans jumped all over Obama for “lying” to Americans.

The dictionary defines “lying” as the intentional telling of an untruth. To suggest someone is lying is to know beyond a doubt the person made a statement knowing it is untrue.

Did the president knowingly assert the “keep-your-doctor” pledge knowing it wasn’t necessarily true? I don’t know, and neither do his critics.

I also need to revisit one more time the so-called “lies” President Bush told us about whether Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. The president used WMD as a reason for going to war.

We invaded Iraq in March 2003, looked high and low for those WMD. We found none.

Intelligence analysts all over the world said Saddam had the WMD. Secretary of State Colin Powell said so in a statement to the United Nations. Were they lying? Did they purposely tell a falsehood? I don’t know that any more than I know that Barack Obama “lied” about the ACA.

I just have grown weary of the casual use of this particular “L” word.

How about cooling it until someone can produce incontrovertible proof that he or she is a true-blue mind reader?

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Security breach? Do you think?

San Jose, Calif., airport officials are seeking some answers to a vexing — and terribly embarrassing — question: How did that youngster get past security to stow himself away on an outbound flight to Hawaii?

We know the story.

A 15-year-old boy got past security, walked onto the tarmac at San Jose International Airport, climbed into a wheel well of a Hawaiian Airlines Boeing 767 and flew across the Pacific Ocean.

http://news.yahoo.com/teen-stowed-away-flight-hawaii-remains-hospitalized-212826541–finance.html

The most remarkable aspect of the story really isn’t the security breach. It’s the fact that the kid didn’t freeze to death at 38,000 feet above the water, where temperatures plummeted to 40 below zero. What’s more, the compartment wasn’t pressurized, meaning he had precious little oxygen to breath at that altitude.

The kid huddled in there for — what? — five hours.

Airport security in this country is supposed to be air tight in this post-9/11 world. San Jose is a fairly busy air terminal to be sure. A lone youngster, though, just isn’t supposed to walk undetected across a vast expanse of open space, climb into a jetliner compartment and then take off as a stowaway.

I see a very serious wakeup call in he making here.

San Jose is bound to deploy a lot more eyes and ears on everyone who ventures onto the airport site.

As for the youngster, who remains hospitalized from the ordeal, he’ll get to explain eventually just how he pulled off this amazing stunt. Someone will need to ask him what, if anything, he did just to stay alive.

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'W' surprises us with records release

George W. Bush presided over one of the more secretive administrations of the past century.

Thus, it is a pleasant surprise to see him prepare to release many of his previously classified presidential papers so openly and quickly after his two terms as president have concluded.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/george-w-bush-white-house-records-105851.html?hp=t1

President Bush is drawing deservedly high praise for this impending document release.

Politico sought the information about the Bush papers in a Freedom of Information request. The papers will reveal plenty of information and “talking points” used by the president and his chief aides.

Why is this important? Because it helps historians gain a fuller picture of a two-term presidency that — during its very first year — was jolted into a war by terrorists who flew those jetliners into buildings in New York and Washington. The war framed the rest of the Bush presidency and created a political climate the likes of which never had been seen in this country.

Observers note that President Bush is planning to be much more forthcoming in the document release than his immediate predecessor, President Bill Clinton. Some have concluded that Bush feels he has little to lose and much to gain by releasing the documents. Whatever the motivation, it is a welcome change from the manner in which the Bush administration at times conducted the affairs of state and government.

As Politico reports, “The high marks Bush is receiving for his letter are startling, since historians and a media coalition complained loudly and bitterly in 2001 about an executive order he issued ceding additional power to former presidents to prevent disclosure of their records. A judge struck down part of the order in 2007.”

The change of heart is welcome. A curious nation will look forward to seeing what’s in the record.

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A/C for Texas prisons on the way?

Turn up the air conditioner, will ya, Bubba?

That might be the new normal within the gigantic Texas prison system, if a human rights organization has its way.

The state’s prison system doesn’t have air conditioning. The University of Texas Law School Human Rights Clinic recommends installing A/C units in all 109 prison units and demands that the temperatures do not exceed 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Report-recommends-A-C-for-Texas-prisoners-5419486.php?t=6b4c931e085eb86e8f

Or else … there might be a lawsuit in the offing.

Given the state’s history with observing prisoners’ rights — you’ll recall the infamous Ruiz lawsuit that federalized the state prison system for years because of overcrowding — I’m thinking the air conditioning units might be cost-effective in the long run.

The feds took over the state prison system in the 1980s, forcing the state to launch a huge prison-building campaign to relieve crowded conditions. Now we see this report suggesting strongly that the state needs to make life a tad more comfy for inmates.

I learned of the state’s non-air-conditioning prison system when I took a tour of the Clements Unit in Amarillo back in 1995. I didn’t think much of it at the time, given that the heat here — while it can exceed triple digits — isn’t as oppressive as it is in many regions downstate. The Stiles Unit in Beaumont comes to mind, where the humidity is as stifling as it gets.

Inmates have died in recent years of exposure to the heat. As the Houston Chronicle reported, “The clinic’s recommendation is expected to draw controversy in a state that has never been known for treating its prisoners too well and could fuel new lawsuits in addition to the six pending over eight heat-related deaths in Texas’ prisons — many of them in East Texas — in the past three years.”

I don’t believe in molly-coddling prisoners and, yes, it’s going to be a costly endeavor to install air conditioning in all the state’s prison units.

If lawsuits are waiting to be filed and if the state is going to lose to plaintiffs in court over this, then it seems to make sense to get ahead of the curve by installing the units and cool the places down just a bit.

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Lesson to ponder for Earth Day

Today is Earth Day, a time we set aside to ponder the future of the planet and whether we humans are being careful stewards of this relatively tiny orbiting object.

Are we doing enough to protect it, and ourselves? I don’t think so but I pulled a resource book off the shelf to illustrate something I noticed some time back.

The World Almanac and Book of Facts is an invaluable font of information. I found this on page 734 of the 2013 edition:

The world is going to add 2.3 billion more people between now and 2050, according to data collected from a number of credible sources, such as the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce and the International Programs Center. The world has roughly 7 billion inhabitants now; the number zooms to 9.3 billion in the next 36 years.

Let’s look at an individual country to see just how dramatic this explosion can get.

How about, say, Nigeria? The population of Nigeria, a country in central Africa, is estimated at 170 million people. By 2050, the population there will is expected to explode to 402 million.

Why single out Nigeria? Consider that the country comprises an area of 356,669 square miles, which is about the size of Texas and New Mexico combined. The United States population, which stands at 310 million people today, is expected to climb to 422 million by 2050. The U.S. comprises an area of roughly 3.7 million square miles, the third-largest land mass on the planet.

Nigeria’s population density will expand from 438 people per square mile to more than 1,000 by 2050. The U.S. density is expected to go from 88 to roughly 100 in that time.

Some countries will see population decreases in this period of time, according to the World Almanac. They are largely in the Far East and in Europe.

I mention Nigeria only to ponder out loud: How does a country with such relatively limited living space care for all those people? And what will this explosion of humanity do to the land that supports it?

I’m very afraid.

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Happy Earth Day, everyone

It just occurs to me that with all the trouble in the world today, Planet Earth is going to have a big day.

Earth Day is upon us.

We’ve been obsessed with a lot of disheartening news of late: that missing jetliner that’s lying in the bottom of the Indian Ocean, the mudslide in Oso, Wash., the capsized ferry off the Korean coast, Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, the Syrian civil war … and a whole of other things that are too numerous to mention.

But now it’s the 44th celebration of Earth Day.

This is the day we’re supposed to call attention to taking better care of the tiny planet all 7 billion of us inhabit.

My wife and I spent a few days in the Davis Mountains region of Texas recently. We took a trip to McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, where we heard about the construction of a telescope that looks deeply into space. We heard narrations about billions of galaxies floating hundreds of billions of light years away. I tried for a moment to fathom the size of the universe; it cannot be done.

So I’m left to worry about our little, teeny-tiny speck of it that orbits around our relatively insignificant star we call “The Sun.”

Are we taking good enough care of this orbiting globe? Hardly.

We’re polluting our water, cutting down or burning forests, spewing toxic fumes into the air, filling our land with garbage we cannot — or will not — recycle. That’s just the beginning of it.

Earth Day came into being in April 1970, during the administration of that flaming environmentalist Richard Nixon, on whose watch the government created the Environmental Protection Agency. President Nixon had it right then to establish an agency charged with regulating industries’ standards and to hold them accountable for the mess many of them were — and still are — making of the environment.

The EPA since then has become the bogeyman of the far right, which doesn’t like government telling private industry how it should protect the land, air and water. I happen to like the EPA and hope it stays around for as long as human beings inhabit the planet — which I’m supposing will be long after I’m gone.

There’ll be rallies around the world. Well-meaning folks will remind us we can do a better job of protecting the planet. We’ll nod our heads in agreement; some of us will dismiss it as government overreach.

Then the day will pass and we’ll return to wondering about that jetliner and hoping war doesn’t break out in Ukraine.

Earth, though, has a special day set aside. Happy Earth Day, fellow travelers. Take care of this planet. It’s the only one we’ve got.

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Is race a factor?

Leonard Pitts Jr. poses an interesting question to President Obama’s critics who contend their criticism ha nothing to do with his race.

What would the criticism look like if race was a factor?

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2014/apr/21/leonard-pitts-jr-what-would-it-look-like/

Pitts, of course, is African-American, just like the president. So, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist is likely to be more sensitive to specific elements of the criticism that has been leveled at Obama since he took office in January 2009.

I have many friends and acquaintances who tell me time and again that race has nothing to do with their dislike of the 44th president of the United States. However, here is what Pitts wrote in a recent column:

“I mean, we’re talking about a president who was called ‘uppity’ by one GOP lawmaker, ‘boy’ by another and ‘subhuman’ by a GOP activist, who was depicted as a bone-through-the-nose witch doctor by opponents of his health care reform bill, as a pair of cartoon spook eyes against a black backdrop by an aide to a GOP lawmaker and as an ape by various opponents, who has been dogged by a ‘tea party’ movement whose earliest and most enthusiastic supporters included the Council of Conservative Citizens, infamous for declaring the children of interracial unions ‘a slimy brown glop’; who was called a liar by an obscure GOP lawmaker during a speech before a joint session of Congress; and who has had to contend with a yearslong campaign of people pretending there is some mystery about where he was born.”

Interesting, don’t you think?

No other prominent politician in my memory ever has been called such things by his or her foes. It’s the tone, the intensity of which defies reason.

Those who dislike the president can hide behind their policy differences, they can say all they want that race doesn’t matter to them one little bit.

I try like the dickens to accept what they say and accept that they simply disagree with his policies. To be clear, none of my friends ever has used the language that Pitts cites in his column. However, he is spot on to call attention to these statements that have been whispered and shouted at the same time.

Is race a factor in this intense loathing of the president? I have to say “yes.”

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Marathon ends in poetic fashion

It’s almost a dream.

An American today won the Boston Marathon, one year after bomb blasts killed three people, injured dozens more and launched a manhunt for two young terrorists that resulted in the death of one of them and the arrest of the other.

How poetic is this ending?

http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/meb-keflezighi-becomes-first-american-man-to-win-boston-marathon-since-1983-042114

The winner is Meb Keflezighi, who wanted to have his picture taken at the end of the race with survivors of those who died in last year’s horrific bombing. They weren’t available immediately after the race.

It almost goes without saying that this year’s Boston Marathon carries tremendous impact for Americans shaken by the events of April 15, 2013. Keflezighi is the first American to win the Boston race in decades. Greg Meyer won the men’s race in 1983; two years later, Lisa Larsen-Weidenbach won the women’s competition.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick promised a safe and secure marathon. Indeed, Boston, state and federal authorities made certain it wouldn’t be disrupted in such horrifying fashion yet again. They all deserve congratulations.

As for the winner, hats off to Meb Keflezighi. You’ve done your nation proud.

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Group hits Dewhurst where it hurts

The late, great U.S. senator, Lloyd Bentsen, was fond of calling politics “a contact sport.”

Granted, he didn’t create the description. He was accurate in describing it to those of us who follow politics and government.

David Dewhurst has just taken a body blow from a long-time ally, illustrating just how much contact can be delivered during a heated campaign season.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/04/18/analysis-betrayal-roils-top-political-race/

Texans for Lawsuit Reform has bailed on the Texas lieutenant governor. It has long backed him in previous campaigns, right up through this year’s Republican primary for the seat he’s seeking to hold. But as Ross Ramsey writes in the Texas Tribune, the group likely has redefined “political treachery.”

It’s looking more and more as though Dewhurst is toast.

Ramsey writes: “The standard for good old-fashioned treachery in politics is pretty low — in fact, many people think politics is a synonym for treachery. Even with that, the latest move by one of the state’s biggest business groups against the sitting lieutenant governor was breathtaking.”

Texans for Lawsuit Reform now is backing state Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston in the May GOP runoff. Patrick finished far ahead of Dewhurst in the primary, but failed to reach the 50-percent-plus-one-vote threshold to avoid a runoff. Now it’s Patrick and Dewhurst going head to head in the May 27 runoff; the winner will face Democratic nominee state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte this fall.

Ramsey calls the reversal “jarring.” He continues: “This group has stood beside Dewhurst through one successful race for land commissioner and three for lieutenant governor. After he lost to Ted Cruz in the 2012 race for the United States Senate, many supporters urged him not to seek another term in his current post. He tuned that out, and TLR stuck with him through a March contest that included, along with Patrick, the state’s sitting land and agriculture commissioners. The other candidates saw a vulnerable incumbent, but the lawsuit reform group hung on.”

There are frontrunners and then there is this. Texans for Lawsuit Reform has hitched up behind Patrick, apparently believing he’ll win the runoff and then go on to become the state’s next lieutenant governor. Van de Putte is a lost cause in the eyes of the lawsuit reformers, given that she’s from that other party, the one that favors plaintiffs.

Dewhurst has been a friend of TLR for many years. He doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment, even in the rough-and-tumble world of Texas politics.

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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.