Category Archives: national news

national news, political news

Sen. Cruz goes low once more

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) speaks during the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, on Aug. 10.

 

Ted Cruz needs to get his mouth washed out with soap.

Or taken to the woodshed.

Or maybe sent to bed without his supper.

Hey, how about all three?

The young freshman U.S. senator from Texas — who’s seeking the Republican presidential nomination — did it once again. He uttered an inappropriate criticism at a leading Democrat at precisely the wrong time.

The man has no compassion filter … apparently.

Former President Carter announced this week he suffers from cancer. What did Cruz do? He punched Carter in the gut, using the standard GOP stump speech rhetoric about how bad things were in the late 1970s, when Carter was president.

“What I commented on was the public policy of the Carter administration in the 1970s, and it didn’t work,” Cruz said. “Millions of people hurt and as a result it sparked a grassroots movement to turn this country around. The same thing is happening because we’re seeing the same failed public policy.”

Couldn’t this young man have laid off the 39th president while the rest of us absorbed the terrible news about his very serious illness?

You’ll recall that a few days after Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Beau, died of brain cancer, Cruz poked fun at the vice president. That, too, was an inappropriate and tasteless remark and at the wrong time.

To his credit, Cruz did apologize to the vice president.

I believe another apology, to President Carter, is in order.

 

medical news, national news, political news

Carter demonstrates — again — his class and grace

**FILE**Former President Jimmy Carter takes a question during a conference at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Tuesday, June 7, 2005. An independent panel Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2005 reversed a Pentagon recommendation that the New London submarine base in Connecticut, base be closed. One of the panel members even said a letter from Carter _ the only president to ever serve as a submariner _ pleading the panel to keep the base open was one of the reasons he voted against closure. (AP Photo/Ric Feld, File)

First of all, let me stipulate — as if it’s needed — that I am praying for President Jimmy Carter’s full recovery from cancer.

None of us beyond the former president and his immediate family knows what the doctors told him when they revealed that he had cancer — and that it had spread to his brain.

But to watch the 39th president tell the world about his diagnosis was to get a hint — I believe — in a prognosis that doesn’t appear very hopeful.

“It’s in God’s hands now,’’ he said. My belief is that when someone invokes God, well … you know what I mean.

His absolute devotion to his deep Christian faith brings hope that he truly is at peace with whatever awaits him. The president told us all that he is ready for whatever outcome awaits him. And watching this man for nearly 40 years from afar, but getting a feel for his deeply held religious faith, you get the sense that he really and truly is at peace.

As many have noted, Jimmy Carter’s post-presidency has been far greater than the single term he served in the White House.

Someone asked him this week in Atlanta when he made his stark announcement about any regrets he had about his presidency.

He said he wishes he’d sent “one more helicopter” into the Iranian desert in April 1980 on that tragic mission to rescue the American hostages held captive by Iranian militants. Had he done that, Carter said, the mission likely would have succeeded and he would have been re-elected to a second term.

The reporters gathered in the room to record the event laughed.

President Carter smiled that broad, toothy grin we’ve all come to know.

He remains an optimist that he’ll win this battle. I’m hoping, too, that his inner strength will carry him forward to do more good work.

Peace be with you, Mr. President.

 

national news, political news

Should the VP run … or call it a career?

biden

My trick knee is throbbing again.

It’s telling me that Vice President Joe Biden is going to run a third time for president of the United States. It’s also telling me he likely should forgo the 2016 and call it a career.

Truth is, I don’t have an actual trick knee. But if I did it would suggest that the vice president needs to think as deeply about this possible campaign as he has thought about any key political decision he’s ever had to make.

One analysis suggests a Biden candidacy depends on an implosion by Hillary Rodham Clinton. The e-mail controversy keeps nipping at her. Will it forestall her expected nomination? Is the vice president the person to carry a similar message — whatever it is — forward onto the campaign trail?

I happen to like and admire the vice president. I believe he and the president have formed a true friendship; I also believe President Obama’s relationship with Hillary Clinton is, well, not nearly as warm.

But warm-and-fuzzy relationships with an incumbent president aren’t enough.

Clinton is going to remain a formidable opponent for anyone — be they Democrat or Republican. As someone noted last night on MSNBC, which political demographic group does Biden take away from Clinton?

The vice president has run twice already for the White House. His 1988 campaign cratered over reports that he was lifting statements from a British pol and using them in his own stump speeches. His 2008 campaign ran into a buzzsaw operated by a young U.S. senator from Illinois, Barack H. Obama.

That ol’ trick knee is telling me he doesn’t want to lose a third time.

As much as many of us out here would like to see him run, my hunch is that the vice president is going to call it career.

 

national news, political news

Birthright debate set to rage

deport mom

Let’s get some conversation started on this birthright citizenship business.

A number of Republican Party presidential candidates want to do away with the constitutional provision that grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States of America.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wants it to remain a right of “natural-born” Americans. He writes this:

“Ending ‘birthright citizenship’ used to be an idea embraced by far-right whackos. But since Trump trumpeted it, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, Scott Walker, Rand Paul and others have joined him. Even Chris Christie now says the current policy needs to be ‘re-examined.’ And Jeb said today he doesn’t find the term ‘anchor babies’ offensive in the slightest.

“Can we get a grip? The right of anyone born in the United States to be an American citizen lies at the core of the post-Civil War concept of citizenship. It underlies the entire framework of rights and governance built around citizenship — including the 14th Amendment. It undergirds our entire history of immigration. And it prevents America from having permanent underclass of non-citizens spanning generations, as some other countries do.

“For Trump and other Republicans to make this proposal a centerpiece of their campaigns is not just to scapegoat immigrants for the economic anxieties of the middle class but to scapegoat innocent children as well. It is shameful.

“Your view?”

I think it’s the “innocent children” aspect of this effort that offends me the most.

So, talk to me.

 

national news, political news

A Trump exit strategy emerging?

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures and declares "You're fired!" at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, June 17, 2015. REUTERS/Dominick Reuter TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY - RTX1GZCO

This is not an original thought. I heard it day before yesterday on CNN, but it’s worth sharing here.

It goes like this.

Donald Trump’s poll numbers are as high as they’re going to get; they’re at around 22 to 25 percent. Republican voters who currently prefer other candidates — that’s about 70 percent of them or so — overwhelmingly don’t want to vote for Trump as an alternative.

That means Trump has no chance of being nominated, let alone being elected president of the United States in November 2016.

Thus, he’ll drop out before the first contest in Iowa, which is just about four months away.

You see, the idea goes, Trump has been calling his GOP foes “losers.” He doesn’t want to be labeled as such.

So, he’ll find a way to couch his withdrawal in non-loser-like fashion. Maybe he’ll find a way — and this is my thought — to declare his intention to “pursue other interests.”

Then he’ll be gone.

Actually, I want him to stay the course. Take it to the limit, Donald. This is too much fun to let go.

 

national news, political news

Birthright citizenship: tough to eliminate

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baby citizens

A part of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says this:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

It’s clear, yes? Everyone born in this country is a citizen of this country.

Why, then, do some Republicans — maybe most of them — want to amend the Constitution to single out those who have the misfortune of being born to individuals who are here illegally?

GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump wants to end the “birthright citizenship” clause of the 14th Amendment. He’s led the amen chorus on that one. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has joined him.

But as Eric Greider of Texas Monthly points out, some Republican presidential candidates are standing for the Constitution. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is one of them; so is U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida; same for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

What do these men have in common? They all have been elected in states with substantial Latino populations, which of course is the audience being targeted by those who want to repeal birthright citizenship.

If we get rid of this citizenship provision, we will have to amend the Constitution. Don’t conservatives generally stand foursquare behind the nation’s governing document?

 

 

national news, political news

Clinton needs to steel herself over server

Hillary Rodham Clinton is getting the third, fourth and maybe the fifth degrees over this server business.

The Democrats’ presidential frontrunner is under fire over the way she handled e-mail communications while she was serving as secretary of state and her use of a personal e-mail server to conduct State Department business.

She cut off a press conference when the question kept coming about the server issue and whether she destroyed information that belongs to the public.

At one level, this continuing investigation has partisan politics written all over it. Republicans do not want her to become the 45th president of the United States; thus, it’s understandable that they would do whatever they can to deny her the office.

The e-mail controversy — and I refuse to call it a “scandal” — has given them a quiver full of ammo to fire at former secretary of state.

She said today she did everything that is prescribed by law and insisted she broke no laws.

On a human level, I understand her continuing frustration over the continuing coverage of this matter.

On another level, though, I want this matter settled. She has turned her server over to the Department of Justice. My hope is that Clinton will answer all the questions posed to her.

At some point it will have to become as obvious to the rest of the country — as it is to Clinton — that the investigations into the e-mail matter will produce zero criminal culpability.

Therefore, all the politicians involved in seeking to undermine her candidacy will realize they are doing more damage to themselves than they are to her.

First things first, though. Hillary Clinton needs to deliver all the goods about this e-mail business for thorough public inspection.

national news, political news

Trump continues to confound

So help me, I was certain that Donald Trump sank his presidential campaign when he made light of John McCain’s heroic service during the Vietnam War.

It didn’t happen.

I was certain that he would implode during that first Republican joint appearance with nine other “leading” GOP candidates.

That didn’t happen, either.

Then he got into that public feud with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly over that ghastly remark he made about the source of “the blood.”

Hey, no problem.

Trump said “I’ll build a wall” to keep illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. through its southern border. Yep, he’s going to do all this all by his ownself.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on this stuff.

The latest poll numbers show that Trump is putting some distance between himself and the rest of the GOP field — which comprises some serious, intelligent and accomplished individuals.

What in the world is happening here? Have we become so celebrity conscious that we (meaning the Republican Party’s most faithful voters) place celebrity above actual knowledge of things, such as, say, the limits of the office at stake?

Trump is sounding like someone who wants to take singular control of the federal government. All those first-person singular references to all the action he intends to take suggest he doesn’t understand that the U.S. Constitution inhibits the power of the presidency.

Checks and balances, Donald?

The current president, Barack Obama, has used his own executive authority rationally and in accordance with the law … and yet we keep hearing from GOP leaders about the “lawlessness” they insist pervades the Obama administration.

Just wait’ll they see what a President Trump might try … not that it’ll matter to them.

And yet the man continues to set the pace in a field of highly qualified GOP contenders.

What in the world gives?

 

legal news, national news, political news

Woodward knows a ‘scandal’ when he sees one

Bob Woodward knows his way around a political scandal.

He once was a young police reporter working for the Metro desk at the Washington Post. Then some goofballs broke into the Democratic Party National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex. Woodward and Carl Bernstein, another young reporter, began smelling a scandal in the works.

It turned out to be a big one. President Richard Nixon ended up resigning when it was learned he ordered the cover-up of the burglary.

Woodward sees a similarity between then and what’s happening now with Hillary Rodham Clinton’s e-mail controversy. The e-mail matter deals with messages Clinton sent on her personal server that might have contained highly classified information while she was serving as secretary of state.

According to The Hill: “’Follow the trail here,’ Woodward said on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe,’ noting that emails erased from Clinton’s private server when she led the State Department were either sent or received by someone else, too.”

Clinton erased the e-mails, just like those audiotapes were erased back in the 1970s as the Watergate scandal began to creep up on President Nixon. That’s according to Woodward.

The man knows what a scandal looks like. The Clinton e-mail controversy isn’t a scandal. At least not yet.

business news, national news

Blue Hole: an opportunity missed?

blue hole

SANTA ROSA, N.M. — The attraction pictured here is one of the cooler places I’ve ever seen.

It’s an 80-foot hole in the ground. It is surrounded by rock. The water is about 80 to 90 feet deep. A spring feeds it and the water temperature is at a constant 64 degrees.

The Blue Hole is just off of Historic Route 66 in this tiny community about 150 or so miles from Albuquerque and about 55 miles west of Tucumcari.

My wife and I took a dip in the Blue Hole. The water is, shall we say, bracing.

The Blue Hole is known as a mecca for scuba divers. On the day we visited, we saw several classes of divers being instructed by experts. They dove deep into the hole, practicing rescue techniques. There were others, such as my wife and me, who were there just to get wet and jump into the crystal clear water from the ledges above its surface.

I came away from visiting the place wondering how a community such as Santa Rosa doesn’t capitalize on the obvious attraction that this place is to many people. We drove all along Route 66 through town and couldn’t find a single dive shop, or other specialty outlet that caters to divers who come here — presumably — from great distances away just to partake in a thrilling activity.

The marvelous natural attraction gives visitors bureau officials loads of incentive to build marketing campaigns around efforts to lure tourists here.

From my vantage point, I didn’t see any advantage being taken to cash in.

Rather odd, actually.

But it’s still quite a sight to see.