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Impeachment talk is driving me insane

For the ever-loving life of me I cannot fathom how on God’s Earth Republicans around the country think Congress should impeach the president of the United States.

A new poll from CNN-ORC says two-thirds of Americans oppose the notion of impeaching President Obama. Yet the nutcases on the far right keep fueling this idiocy by suggesting the president has committed some specified impeachable offense.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/213323-majority-opposes-impeachment-calls-and-lawsuit-poll-finds

House Speaker John Boehner says impeachment is a non-starter. Other key Republicans say they oppose it, too. One of them, most interestingly, is former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who got himself entangled in an earlier impeachment effort against President Clinton. It didn’t work out too well for Gingrich and his House GOP brethren. The House impeached the president, but the Senate acquitted him on all the charges. Gingrich, meanwhile, resigned hi speakership and then left the House because of his own shabby personal behavior and because he lost the confidence of his House colleagues.

The pro-impeachment cabal has even less on Obama than the goons on the right had on Clinton. With Clinton, at least they could say the president lied under oath to a federal grand jury about his fling with that young woman who worked in the White House. Perjury is a felony.

President Obama’s alleged misdeed? He’s using the power granted him by the Constitution to invoke executive authority? What else is there?

Republicans are playing with some serious fire if they keep up this nonsense.

Can’t we get back to the business of governing, for crying out loud?

The mid-term elections might give Republicans control of the Senate — but it’s not nearly a sure thing. They’ll likely retain control of the House. If Capitol Hill goes fully Republican, then the GOP will have to settle into the role of co-equal partners in the process of running the richest, most powerful country on Earth.

Impeachment rhetoric from the GOP peanut gallery is an utterly ridiculous exercise.

It is irresponsible and reprehensible in the extreme.

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Gosh, I now am asking my own congressman, Republican Mac Thornberry: What say you, Mac, about this idea of impeaching the president? Please tell me you haven’t swilled the GOP goofball Kool-Aid.

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V-22 Osprey earning its wings

Here is some news that is going to cheer up the good folks assembling a state-of-the-art airship next door to Amarillo’s international airport.

A law student and former Marine who’s studied the bird says the V-22 Osprey is good ship.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/actually-the-v-22-aint-half-bad-25a39df9a336

It’s shown some weakness, some vulnerability and certainly been through some controversy, but it is superior to the aircraft it was designed to “displace,” the CH-46 twin-rotor helicopter.

It flies much faster and delivers troops and supplies in far less time.

The V-22 has had a rocky ride to be sure. You’ll recall the ship that crashed in Arizona, killing 19 Marines on board. Development and assembly was stopped in Amarillo. Critics began yammering about how dangerous the bird could be to fly.

The Marine Corps and Bell/Textron engineers fixed what was wrong and the aircraft has performed well on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Every leading-edge aircraft has gone through difficulty. The V-22 is really no different in that regard. Its bugs have been troublesome and, yes, have produced some tragic consequences. I ask, though, isn’t that the norm when introducing aircraft with technology never before used?

It takes off like a helicopter, tilts its rotors forward and flies like an airplane. It’s a difficult ship to learn to fly, but as a Marine Corps test pilot told me once years ago, once you learn how to fly the Osprey “it’s a joy to operate.”

I’ll take him at his word.

The Osprey isn’t perfect, as the essay attached to this blog notes. It still costs a lot of money to manufacture and its capabilities have limits.

But it plays a key role in our nation’s defense and our neighbors at the assembly plant in Amarillo deserve high praise for the role they play in that effort.

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Space flight video chokes me up

I am not prone to weeping openly. That is, I don’t just start sobbing when something pushes my emotional hot button.

But I tend to swallow hard, get a little choked up at sights. Historic videos do that to me.

I cannot, for instance, watch Muhammad Ali light the 1996 Olympic torch in Atlanta without getting teary-eyed; the same thing happens when I watch video of Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes in 1973 and the announcer says he’s “running like a tremendous machine!”; ditto for watching Sen. Robert F. Kennedy say “on to Chicago and let’s win there” moments before the gunman wounded him mortally in Los Angeles.

So … I’ve been choking back tears this week watching CNN’s series on “The Sixties.” The segment this week dealt with the space race. The United States competed with the Soviet Union to be the first nation to land someone on the moon. We won that race. It was a come-from-behind victory, you’ll recall.

The segment that does it to me every time I see it is the launch of Apollo 8, the first lunar orbit mission that blasted off from Cape Canaveral on Dec. 21, 1968. The launch itself is an emotional moment for me. It reminds me of when my late mother and I would get up early to watch the countdown of those Mercury and Gemini launches. The thrill is something that has never left me.

The CNN series, though, takes you through the launch and quickly to the point where Apollo 8 commences lunar orbit with astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders aboard.

Then, on Christmas Eve 1968, Borman pulls out his Bible as he trains the TV camera on the Earth-rise over the moon’s horizon and he starts reading from the Book of Genesis … reminding us of our world that God created.

Yep, that chokes me up.

1968 was a hideous year. The Vietnam War was going badly; assassins killed Martin Luther King Jr. and RFK; our streets were erupting in chaos as Americans protested the war.

Then, to have the commander of a space mission read on Christmas Eve from the passage in the Bible that takes us back to the beginning of our very existence in the universe …

As Tom Hanks says on the CNN segment, “Who wrote that script?”

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Did condemned man die from 'torture'?

John McCain knows torture when he sees it.

The Republican U.S. senator from Arizona was victimized by it as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than five years. So when the 2008 GOP presidential nominee says an Arizona inmate was tortured before he was executed this week, I tend to listen.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/25/justice/arizona-execution-controversy/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

I’ll declare here that I oppose capital punishment, largely because keeping someone alive to think about the crime he or she committed is punishment enough — in my book.

Well, this week Joseph Wood became the latest condemned man to die in what amounts to a botched or nearly botched execution. He gasped, moaned, snorted and writhed on the gurney for nearly two hours before succumbing to the drugs pumped into his body. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, another Republican, has ordered a complete review to determine what went wrong; the state attorney general has halted future executions until the review is complete.

Wood wasn’t a good guy. He committed a terrible and violent crime that put him on death row. Hardliners out there say they feel not a shred of remorse over what happened to him on the death chamber gurney. He still got off easy compared to the pain he inflicted on his victims, they will say.

Still, the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.” States that used to hang, shoot, electrocute or gas inmates to death have gone to lethal injection as a form of supposedly “human” execution. Well, James Wood didn’t die humanely. Neither did the Oklahoma inmate who was executed in a hideously botched process in which the lethal drug was injected into tissue, rather than into his bloodstream.

What are states to do? Texas, which had gone on a death row killing spree in recent years, has somehow slowed the pace of executions. We still kill inmates more regularly than other states. We’ve had none of the instances lately of the kind of torture that John McCain described in the Wood case.

“The lethal injection needs to be an indeed lethal injection and not the bollocks-upped situation that just prevailed. That’s torture,” Sen. McCain told Politico on Thursday.

Yes, the state should review its capital punishment procedures. However, if states cannot guarantee prevention of the type of agony suffered by a condemned inmate, perhaps there ought to be some serious debate about ending the procedure altogether.

Let these inmates rot in prison for the rest of their natural lives.

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Honesty should go far in public life

Must we demand our public officials be perfect in every way?

Of course not. Scripture tells us we’ve had one perfect man walk among us. The rest of us are sinners … pure and simple.

The question is worth asking, though, in the wake of a scandal involving a member of the U.S. Senate running for election to a seat to which he was appointed.

John Walsh, D-Mont., was caught plagiarizing a master’s thesis at the Army War College. He didn’t just copy a sentence of two without attributing their source. Oh no. Walsh lifted huge sections of his thesis from other people’s work and then sought to pass it off as his own.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/213398-montana-senator-backtracks-on-ptsd-comments

He blamed the act initially on post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered from combat duty in Iraq. Now he’s backing off. The criticism has been intense, as it should be. The plagiarism likely will doom his election effort; Walsh had been selected to fill the rest of the term of Max Baucus, who quit to become U.S. ambassador to China.

The point about perfection among public officials is key here.

I don’t expect politicians to be perfect. I do expect them — to paraphrase a common saying — to be better than the average bear.

By that I mean we should expect them to live up to the manner in which they sell themselves to voters. Walsh held his military record up as a reason to vote for him. Now that record has come under attack by virtue of the plagiarism to which Walsh has admitted.

Politicians run on morality all the time, only to have it revealed that they’ve cheated on their spouse, or broken the law along the way, or done something in their past that some would consider to be immoral.

John Walsh’s transgression isn’t the worst improper act ever committed. It does, however, betray a hypocrisy that voters shouldn’t tolerate. No one is perfect. Voters, though, should demand that the people who represent their interests just be better than the rest of us.

That’s not too high a bar to cross.

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POTUS never off the clock

Wait for it. The critics are sure to climb all over this one: President Obama is going to raise money for Democratic Senate candidate while he’s vacationing with his family at Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

They’ll raise a serious ruckus about (a) the president taking a vacation at all and (b) taking part in political fundraisers while the world is exploding all around us.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/obama-fundraiser-marthas-vineyard-109346.html?hp=r14

I’ll make this point until I run out of proverbial breath: Presidents of the United States are never — ever — off the clock. They are entitled some time away from the Oval Office with their family.

Does that mean they’re shutting themselves off from the world? Hardly. They get national security briefings daily. They are told immediately when crises erupt. They are able to talk immediately to any world leader of American politician as events warrant. They aren’t sealed away in a vacuum chamber.

As for the fundraising part, well, I need to remind y’all that Republican politicians will take part in these kinds of activities as well when they take their summer break. Presidents and lawmakers do share a common theme: They’re all politicians, which by definition compels them to raise money for other politicians. It goes with the territory.

And just so we’re clear, I’m not sticking up for this president because I happen to agree with most of his policies. I’ve said many times over many years about many presidents of both political parties that they deserve time away.

And so damn what if they raise money? That’s part of the job as well.

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Ted Cruz: Texas-sized embarrassment

Ted Cruz is my senator. I accept that he’s one of two men who serve in the U.S. Senate on behalf of Texas.

I didn’t vote for him in 2012. I likely never will vote for him for anything. Still, he’s my senator.

And that gives me the right to declare that I am ashamed of him. Deeply so, in fact. His latest shameful attack has been leveled at the State Department, the Federal Aviation Administration and the president of the United States over his idiotic suggestion that the FAA ban on U.S. flights to Israel is somehow intended to do actual harm to our strong ally in the Middle East.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/ted-cruz-faa-ban-state-department-109322.html?hp=l21

This guy is a Harvard-educated lawyer, right? He’s supposed to be a bright guy, correct? What on God’s Earth is he suggesting here? It cannot possibly be that President Barack Obama actually wants Israel to be wiped off the map, which is what the Hamas terrorists want to happen.

Hamas launched the conflict in Gaza by firing rockets into Israel. The Israelis have responded with tremendous force to put down the uprising. The terrorists have ratcheted up their own response by landing a rocket near the major international airport outside of Tel Aviv.

The FAA suspended U.S.-carrier flights for less than two days. The ban has been lifted. Cruz, though, has suggested the FAA, the State Department and the White House are politically motivated, that they want to harm Israel.

Commentators on the left have compared Cruz’s fire-breathing rhetoric to the stuff that came out of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s mouth in the 1950s, when he accused the State Department of hiring communists.

I’m wondering now if Ted Cruz’s reckless implications today will produce the kind of response that McCarthy drew from his critics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1eA5bUzVjA

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College finds another home-grown leader

Russell Lowery-Hart appears headed to the office of Amarillo College president.

There goes my advice to the college board of regents, which was to cast a wide net to find a successor to retiring AC President Paul Matney.

Lowery-Hart is the second in command at AC and the board has voted unanimously to declare him as its sole finalist in the search for a new president.

I still favor wide-as-possible searches — if only to strengthen the local candidates, making them compete head to head with qualified individuals with fresh ideas and outlooks.

That won’t happen with Lowery-Hart, just as it didn’t happen when the college picked Matney to succeed the late Steven Jones, who did come from beyond the Panhandle to run the college before he died.

Lowery-Hart will take office with overwhelming support from AC faculty, staff and students. That gives him a huge advantage, just as it did for Matney.

I am not going to criticize this pending appointment. I’ve heard from those close to the situation that Lowery-Hart brings a lot to the office. He’s a West Texas A&M University grad; he got graduate degrees from Texas Tech University. He’s well-educated and knows the college well. He appears to be a solid pick.

I’ve long been amazed about Amarillo College’s community standing. AC seems almost immune to significant criticism, such as what one hears about Potter and Randall county governments, or Amarillo City Hall, or even the Amarillo and Canyon independent school districts. AC has escaped many of the barbs that get tossed at public institutions.

That speaks well for the leadership of the school.

I am optimistic that the new president-in-waiting will maintain that standing.

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Vets health reform stalled by … yep, politics

If you’ll recall when the veterans health care scandal rocked the nation, you’ll also recall high-minded statements by politicians proclaiming veterans’ health care to be their top priority.

By golly, they wouldn’t let politics stand in the way of improving the delivery of health care to veterans.

Fast forward to today. Politics is standing in the way. This is outrageous in the extreme.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/213222-talks-on-veterans-bill-in-full-meltdown

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has co-authored a bill along with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would enable veterans to get non-VA health care if the nearest Veterans Administration health facility is more than 40 miles away.

It’s hit a roadblock. Where? In the House of Representatives, where penny-pinching Republicans control the place. They are bickering with Democrats over how to pay for this bill.

There now seems a realistic chance that Congress is going to adjourn for its lengthy summer recess without approving this needed reform.

The veterans health care scandal rocked the nation to its core. Remember that? Remember when we got all twisted up over news of veterans dying in Phoenix, Ariz., because the agency couldn’t deliver health services in a timely fashion? How about the news that the VA was cooking patient logs to cover the backsides of administrators? Didn’t that news send pols and pundits and orbit?

Those lofty declarations of wanting to improve health delivery to vets have given way to the usual partisan bickering, backstabbing and bloviating.

Sanders wants to negotiate a deal with the House. House leaders are critical of Senate Democrats for boycotting meetings to discuss possible changes.

Congress’s approval ratings are low enough as it is. The politicians who serve in both congressional chambers know the consequence of those poll numbers. They could cost them their jobs this fall. And for what? Because they cannot settle on legislation that four months ago everyone said had to get done … no matter what.

Get it done, ladies and gentlemen of Capitol Hill.

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This man would be out of place today

Every now and then when I think about Republicans who wouldn’t make it in today’s political climate — yes, I actually think about these things — the name of Victor Atiyeh pops into my skull.

I didn’t know Atiyeh well, although I knew plenty about him. I met him once while he was campaigning for Oregon governor back in 1978. I was a reporter working for the Oregon City Enterprise-Courier — a small suburban afternoon paper about 15 miles south of Portland. In those days, politicians thought it was important to talk even to small papers in order to get their message out to the voters.

Atiyeh, who died this week at age 91, had served many years in the Oregon Legislature. He was running against Democratic Gov. Bob Straub in 1978. The contrast between the men was striking.

Straub, a nice guy, was a scatter-shot speaker, unfocused, rambling and seemingly nervous to be in the presence of us small-town media types.

Atiyeh was the picture of coolness and calm. I remember that he smoked like a freight train during our interview. The Republican challenger was focused, engaging, looked me in the eye when giving direct answers to direct questions.

Atiyeh won that election and would win re-election four years later.

Here’s a couple of things about Atiyeh that need saying. One is that he was the first politician of Arab descent ever elected to a governor’s office in the United States. The other is that he was a consummate “establishment, mainstream Republican” who made tough choices they needed to be made. An editorial in the Portland Oregonian spells that out:

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/07/vic_atiyeh_truth-teller_editor.html

Atiyeh likely couldn’t cut it in today’s Republican Party. He was as staunch a Republican as any politician of his time. Today, though, being faithful to the GOP’s traditional pro-business, low-tax mantra isn’t good enough. You have to be mean-spirited, angry, obstructionist and accusatory — all traits that Vic Atiyeh never exhibited.

He was a gentleman through and through and he turned out to be a very good governor of my home state.

May this good man rest in peace.