Category Archives: national news

national news

Ohio pols take great interest in Alaska’s business

Denali National Park

Technically, I suppose, Ohio Republican politicians have a smidgen of vested interest in the renaming of North America’s highest peak.

Mount McKinley has been renamed Denali. The former name honored the late president, William McKinley, who — as luck would have it — hailed from Ohio. The new name is a native Alaska name used by the residents of the nation’s 49th state.

President Obama’s formal renaming changes the name of the peak on a federal registry of geographic locations. Therefore, I guess, it becomes a federal issue. Ohio politicians say they’re insulted by the renaming of the peak and want to take action in Congress to reverse the order.

Good grief, folks. Get a grip.

Alaska’s congressional delegation is all for the name change. And they’re all Republicans, too.

They’re the ones who look at Denali when they’re home. Sure enough, their constituents, get to ogle the 20,320-foot peak all the time.

Alaskans generally are agreeing with the name change.

So, what’s the deal with these Ohioans sticking their noses into something that — as a practical matter — is none of their damn business.

Butt out!

national news

Resign from your office, Kim Davis

same-sex-marriage

Consider this an open letter to Kim Davis, the rogue county clerk in Kentucky who thinks she’s above the law.

Madame Clerk, quit pretending you’re serving the people of Rowan County, Ky., your state and your nation.

You keep refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because, you say, God doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage.

But the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that gay couples are entitled to be married, just like straight couples. It ruled recently that you cannot keep refusing to issue the licenses to gay residents of your state. You still refuse. Hey, does that mean you’re in contempt of court?

I get that you’re invoking your religious liberty.

But your freedom to pray as you wish isn’t being threatened here. What’s at issue is whether you’re going to remain faithful to the secular oath you took when you became Rowan County clerk.

It says you will uphold the laws of the state and the nation. It doesn’t provide any qualifiers; there’s nothing in the oath that allows you to say “but only if those laws do not conflict with my religious beliefs.”

You adhere to all the laws or none of them. If you can’t do your job, then quit.

To be honest, I would salute if you did exactly that.

Kim Davis defies the high court

 

national news

Now it’s a mountain name that brings criticism

Mount_McKinley,_with_US_Flag_at_Eielson_Visitor_Center_(5300913475)

You almost could have predicted this would happen.

President Obama decided to rename Mount McKinley, which had been named in honor of a Republican president, William McKinley. The tallest peak in North America now is called Denali, which is a native Alaskan term.

But here it comes: Ohio Republicans are angry at the mountain renaming. They think it’s a slight to a GOP president who, by the way, never set foot in Alaska, let alone climb the peak.

Ohio GOP up in arms

House Speaker John Boehner, who hails from Ohio, says the president shouldn’t have acted unilaterally. Other lawmakers from Ohio say they’ll try to block the name change legislatively.

Oh yes. Then there’s Donald Trump, the GOP front runner for the party’s presidential nomination, who says if elected president he’ll undo Obama’s decision.

Alaska’s Republicans, though, are in favor of the name change. The state’s senior U.S. senator, Lisa Murkowski, its House member, Don Young, and its junior senator, Dan Sullivan, vow to block any effort to reverse the decision.

Alaska has been calling the peak Denali since 1975. The president’s action changes it in the federal registry of geographic names.

Oh, but it’s now a slap in the face to a former president who happened to hail from Ohio and that it detracts from his legacy.

Good grief. Can we call a halt to this partisan bickering over an issue that makes not a bit of difference, except perhaps to the native Alaskans who can recite the grand peak’s new name with their own sense of pride?

What in the world is wrong with that?

International news, national news, political news

About those walls …

falls

As long as we’re talking about building walls to keep illegal immigrants from streaming into our country, let us ponder some things.

My wife wondered recently about the proposed Trump Wall along our southern border. “What does Donald Trump propose to do about those who would tunnel under the wall?” she asked.

Good question, Girl of My Dreams.

What does Trump propose for the wall and how deeply does he want to sink it into the dirt along our 1,900-mile-long border with Mexico? Ten feet, 20 feet, 30 feet … 100 feet!

Has he heard about how the infamous drug kingpin El Chapo dug his way out of that maximum-security prison in Mexico?

OK, so Trump has been joined in the Build-a-Wall chorus by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who said over the weekend it’s worth considering a wall between the United States and Canada.

That one would be roughly double the length of the Trump Wall.

Remember that we have a significant border with the Canadians along our Alaska state line.

So, not only would a U.S.-Canada wall stretch 3,000-plus miles along our countries’ east-west border, it would go another 1,200 or so miles north and south from the southern tip of the finger of Alaska that deeps south to, um, the Arctic Ocean — wa-a-a-ay up yonder.

And while we’re on the subject of the northern border, Gov. Walker, what are you going to do about some shared attractions?

Niagara Falls — which my wife and I visited in 2011 — comes to mind immediately.

This wall-building rhetoric is easy to throw out there. It gets applause and cheers from the Republican Party faithful.

However, this nonsense requires some serious thought … which we have not yet heard from any of the people who want to be president of the United States.

 

 

International news, national news, political news

Let’s wall off entire U.S. … not!

First bricks of new house. Brick wall foundation isolated 3l illustration

The wall that Donald Trump keeps yapping about might get a bit longer.

The Republican presidential primary front runner wants to build a “beautiful” wall along our southern border. He says he can do it because he’s “good at building things.” It’ll run 1,900 or so miles.

Now comes Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, one of the thundering herd of challengers seeking to catch Trump. He wants to out-Trump The Donald. How? He says he’s “open to the idea” of building a wall across our northern border, the one that separates the United States from Canada. It’s been the longest unsecured border in the world since, oh I guess maybe forever.

He said this on “Meet the Press”: “Some people have asked us about that in New Hampshire. They raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago … I think we need to secure borders in general.”

Here’s more from Walker

While we’re at it, let’s build underwater obstructions along the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts. You know, the kind of things the Nazis erected along Normandy as they sought to fight off the D-Day invaders in June 1944?

We’d need to keep shipping lanes open, of course. But if we’re going to “secure our borders in general,” as Walker suggested, then by golly, let’s go all in.

The last thing we ought to do is sand blast that inscription from the base of the Statue of Liberty, which says to other nations they are welcome to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free … ”

 

national news, political news

‘Boxcars’ no more acceptable than ‘ovens’

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hillary

Admission time.

I’ve been goaded into saying something about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s remark concerning Donald Trump’s “immigration reform” idea, which is to round up 11 million or so undocumented immigrants and ship back to where they came from.

She said recently that Trump and other Republican candidates intend to ship immigrants back to their homeland in “boxcars.” The remark drew understandable rebuke from those on the right who said the Democratic presidential front runner is invoking images of the Holocaust with that kind of analogy.

Clinton’s campaign has denied any connection.

You decide.

The campaign flacks are mistaken if they do not believe many Americans understood the juxtaposition of “boxcars” and “Holocaust.”

These presidential candidates need to understand that gravity of making such highly offensive comparisons.

Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, you’ll recall, criticized the Iran nuclear deal by declaring President Obama would march Israel to the “oven door” if the deal is approved by the Congress. That remark also drew expected — and deserved — criticism from those on the left.

A critic of this blog reminded me that I had been silent about Clinton’s nasty reference to boxcars. I took the criticism as a challenge to be as vigilant on both sides of the political divide about comments that deserve rebuke.

Clinton, Huckabee and the whole crowd of presidential candidates should declare a moratorium on comparing anything that occurs presently to what happened between 1939 and 1945.

World War II — and all its ghastly consequences — stands alone.

 

 

International news, national news, political news

Some self-awareness, Mr. Vice President

cheney

Dick Cheney’s utter lack of self-awareness is an astounding thing to behold.

The former vice president and his daughter, Liz, have co-written a book, “Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.” In an extended excerpt published in the Wall Street Journal, Cheney writes that President Obama has made “false” statements about the Iran nuclear deal.

False statements? Yes, the man who orchestrated — along with the rest of the George W. Bush national security team — this nation’s invasion of Iraq on a whole array of falsehoods has now laid the charge on the man who succeeded President Bush in the White House.

He has joined the GOP amen chorus in blaming Obama for the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, contending that the United States has “abandoned” Iraq and is “on course” to do the same thing in Afghanistan.

I don’t disagree with the title of the Cheneys’ book. The world does need a “powerful America.” I will simply add my own view that the world still has a powerful America in its midst.

We remain the world’s pre-eminent military power — by a long shot. Our economy is still the envy of the world. People are aching to gain entry into the United States. Yes, many of them come here illegally, but many more come here legally and in accordance with federal immigration law.

Let us stop denigrating our current role in the world — as many of the GOP presidential candidates have done — by suggesting we’ve lost our place at the top of the geopolitical food chain.

As for the former vice president, he needs to take time for some serious introspection before he accuses others of stating foreign-policy falsehoods.

Read more on this link.

International news, national news, political news

Refugees or criminals? Which is it?

immigration-9

One of my very best friends in the whole, wide world is a lawyer who lives in California.

I’ve known Tim Lundell since I was in high school. He was my best man and we’ve shared a lot of emotions over many years.

Tim posted this comment today on Facebook.

“Isn’t it funny? In Europe they have ‘desperate migrants, embarking on a perilous journey in search of a better life.’ Here, according to certain politicians, we have ‘illegal immigrants who rape and murder.’ I guess it’s just a matter of humanitarian perspective.”

The target of Tim’s barb, I’m certain, is Donald Trump, who’s gained considerable mileage over his rants about illegal immigrants who come to the United States from points south … meaning Mexico and beyond. Republican primary voters are eating this stuff up, giving Trump a tremendous boost in the current public opinion polling

I do not dispute the notion that some of those who come into this country without the proper documentation come here to do harm, just as Trump has said.

But many others do come here to seek a better life, just as those who are fleeing the Middle East and heading for places such as Greece, Italy, France and Germany are doing.

I’ll also acknowledge that the influx of immigrants into Europe has spawned a considerable backlash from right-wing extremists, who contend that the refugees present a considerable danger to the European way of life.

However, as we keep debating the issue of whether to deport all 11 million illegal immigrants from the United States, shouldn’t we keep in mind that many of them are here for the right reasons and are not here to commit crimes?

The blanket condemnation of illegal immigrants does not square with the reality of why many of them are here in the first place. They are here to make a better life for their families.

I am not suggesting they all should be granted amnesty, or that they shouldn’t be required to start the process of obtaining legal immigrant status.

Let us just try to understand that people come here for a lot of reasons — and many of them have no intention of committing crimes against the country they want to call home.

 

 

 

national news, political news

Name-calling becomes a hit

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insult

Republicans are becoming the party of name-callers.

Let’s run a little tabulation.

Sen. Lindsey Graham called Donald Trump a “jackass.”

Trump has called Graham, former Govs. Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney “losers.”

Trump also has said that every official in the U.S. government is “stupid.”

House Speaker John Boehner has chimed in with a “jackass” epithet hurled at Sen. Ted Cruz.

I know I’ve missed some, maybe a lot. But these come to mind immediately.

What’s up here? Are the candidates for the presidency getting under each other’s skin?

I’ve lost count of the bad names Sen. John McCain has tossed at folks who disagree with him. Then again, he’s not running for president this time around.

I’ll give the current GOP bunch this much credit: At least they aren’t tossing out f-bombs, at least not publicly.

It was then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s dubious honor to reveal his potty mouth when, during a Senate floor debate years ago, he told Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy to go f*** himself.

Hey, just think: The presidential campaign is just getting warmed up.

 

legal news, local news, national news, political news

Read your oath of office, Mme. Clerk

same-sex-marriage

Kim Davis took an oath when she became a county clerk in Kentucky to uphold the constitutions of her state and her nation.

The oath, I’m quite willing to suggest, didn’t include any exemptions for her religious faith.

Thus, it becomes imperative that she fulfill all the terms of the oath she took.

But she’s refusing to do that.

Instead, she’s refusing to grant marriage certificates to gay couples. She cites her religious belief opposing gay marriage and the U.S. Constitution’s protection of religious liberty.

I get that Kim Davis’s Christian faith is important to her. Mine is important to me as well.

But she took an oath to uphold the law. What’s more, the U.S. Supreme Court this year has ruled that gay marriage is legal in all 50 states. That includes Kentucky.

To their credit, Potter County Clerk Julie Smith and Randall County Clerk Renee Calhoun declared they would issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples who request them. I also would have applauded either or both of them had they resigned if their religious faith interfered with their public oath.

Davis should resign from her office, as some county clerks have done around the country. She cannot serve in an elected public office without carrying out all the duties that the office requires.

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