Category Archives: national news

national news

How did this guy purchase a gun … legally?

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Someone will have to explain this one to me.

John Houser was known to behave erratically. He had a rap sheet as long as his arm, maybe both arms.

And yet he was able to purchase a handgun — legally, it turns out — in Alabama.

He then took the gun into a movie theater in Lafayette, La., cases the crowd watching the film and then opens fire.

Houser killed two people and injured several more — before killing himself with the gun he used to commit the horrible crime.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/us/louisiana-theater-shooter/

How in the name of all that is holy did this guy purchase a gun legally?

We hear, of course, that existing gun laws are sufficient. Obviously, and quite tragically, John Houser has demonstrated that they are woefully insufficient.

Let me think: A background check might have determined this guy was unfit to own a handgun. A three- to five-day delay in the purchase to give local authorities time to check him out might have worked. He could have been denied permission to buy the gun.

Would that have prevented him from obtaining a firearm illegally, from stealing it from someone? Probably not.

But he bought the thing legally.

I’m ready for the explanation — and the justification — for why this is OK?

national news, political news

Gov. Kasich: a man to watch … and hear

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I just listened to Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s interview on “Meet the Press.”

Something tells me this fellow is worth watching and hearing.

Kasich is the latest Republican candidate for president. He’s No. 16. There might be only one more to run. Sixteen is more than enough as it is.

Kasich seems to remind me of Donald Trump in this regard: He speaks simply and bluntly. The similarity ends right there. Unlike Trump, Kasich actually has knowledge of the complexity of government. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives before being elected as Ohio’s governor.

Kasich pledges ‘boots on the ground’ to fight ISIS

“Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd asked Kasich a question about his relationship with the union movement in Ohio. Kasich’s response was clear: When you’re on the short end of public opinion with an organization, you cut your losses and move on. He said he has a good relationship now with organized labor in Ohio.

If I had to make critical statement about Kasich, it would be his continual use during the interview of the euphemism “boots on the ground” to describe how would fight the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

“Boots on the ground” means sending young Americans into battle. If a President Kasich intends to send young Americans back onto the battlefield in Iraq, then he needs to say so directly, without the euphemistic reference to “boots on the ground.”

This is just a personal critique of the latest GOP candidate to enter the race. He seems like a genuine fellow.

I am going to keep listening intently to what he’s saying. John Kasich intrigues me.

media news, national news, political news

Thicken your skin, Donald; it’s going to get worse

Let’s see if I have this right.

Donald Trump enters the Republican Party presidential primary field and immediately rakes Mexican illegal immigrants over the coals and then says Sen. John McCain isn’t a real war hero because, as Trump said, he likes “people who weren’t captured” by the enemy in wartime.

Then the Des Moines Register, Iowa’ leading newspaper, publishes a scathing editorial urging Trump to withdraw from the campaign. He called Trump an embarrassment to the Republican Party.

And then Trump bans the Register from covering a campaign event in Iowa.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/trump-bans-des-moines-register-from-iowa-campaign-event-120615.html

And why? Because the Register was offering an opinion on the state of play in the GOP and Trump’s role in this campaign. That’s part of the paper’s mission, its franchise, its duty to those who read the publication.

Trump, though, just didn’t like the editorial. So, he decided to kick the paper out of his campaign event.

Wow! This is getting really, really fun to watch.

Trump’s got to get some thicker skin. Hey, he says he’s the master of the universe — or words more or less to that effect. Does the Man Who Can Fix Any Problem on Earth really have to react so badly because a newspaper is performing its duty?

I would think one with the clout that Trump proclaims wouldn’t have to worry about what a measly little media outlet would have to say about him.

This campaign is shaping up already as an amazing sideshow of insults, gotchas, payback and political stunt work.

Good grief! Those Iowa caucuses are still months away.

Donald, you need to toughen up. It’s only going to get worse.

media news, national news, political news

Trump is driving the media crazy

Donald Trump is confounding everyone who observes politics for a living … or for a hobby.

The most profound impact might be on the media and how they seek to cover this guy.

The New York Times has published an interesting analysis of the media coverage of this individual’s amazing rise to the top of the political heap.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump%e2%80%99s-wealth-and-poll-numbers-complicate-news-media%e2%80%99s-coverage/ar-AAdtnhP

It notes that his wealth and poll numbers are giving the media fits as they try to make sense of what this person means to the 2016 race for the presidency. Is he for real? Is he a showman who is seeking to elevate his real brand, which is as a reality-TV huckster? Or is this guy really in it for the long haul, seeking to change the course of American history?

Trump recently filed the financial disclosure forms needed to cement his run for the Republican presidential nomination. Some folks — me, included — thought that perhaps he wouldn’t file those forms, and that his campaign would go away after a suitable amount of fanfare and rhetorical fireworks.

So, he’s taken the next step.

Trump is getting a lot of ink and air time. Some pundits on the right think the media hate this guy. I disagree.

I believe the media love him, not because he’s Donald Trump and he’s going to single-handedly “make America great again,” as he proclaims. They love him because he sells newspapers and brings viewers to TV screens.

And yes, there’s a certain entertainment value associated with this Trump’s pronouncements, not to mention the angry response he evokes from his fellow Republican presidential candidates — and from those who’ve run for the office previously; Democratic candidates and “strategists,” of course, are loving every minute of this traveling carnival.

I’m going to keep believing, though, that Trump is a flash in the pan. His comments about Sen. John McCain’s war record, I believe, were too much for many serious Americans and I’ll keep insisting that his statement making light of McCain’s five-year captivity in a North Vietnamese prison cell will become the single event that dooms his candidacy for the White House.

However, until he exits the arena, the media will keep covering him — and will keep struggling with trying to decide just how to do so.

Good luck.

national news, political news

Cruz launches missile toward majority leader

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Let’s see, Ted Cruz has been a U.S. senator for a little more than two years.

He’s a rookie, still serving his first term; he’s not even halfway through his first term, in fact.

So what does the Texas Republican do? Rather than adhere to the Senate’s rather strict rules of decorum regarding besmirching fellow senators’ reputation — let alone that of the majority leader — he calls the Man of the Senate a liar. In public. In a floor speech.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ted-cruz-calls-mitch-mcconnell-a-liar-on-senate-floor/ar-AAdslYE

Oh, boy. Now he’s done it.

Cruz is running for the Republican presidential nomination. But he took some time this week to accuse Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of going back on his word regarding legislating involving the Export-Import Bank, which Cruz wants to see abolished.

“We know now that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and makes an explicit commitment, that he is willing to say things that he knows are false,” Cruz, said. “That has consequences for how this body operates.”

What’s the issue? McConnell inserted some amendments into a transportation funding bill that included reauthorization of the Ex-Im Bank. It angered Cruz, who said McConnell had vowed that wouldn’t happen. But it did. Cruz then accused the majority leader of running the place the same way that Democrat Harry Reid did when he was majority leader.

The Senate rules can be a bit tedious. But they’re pretty clear about a few things. One of them is how senators should talk about fellow senators in public.

Rule XIX says this: “No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

Is that clear enough? It is to me. Does the Cruz Missile know about that rule? Well, he surely does now.

This is the kind of thing that a lot of veteran senators have implied that they dislike about many of the new folks who take office in the “world’s greatest deliberative body.” They don’t respect the rules of the institution.

And yet, Cruz continues to flout them — to a rousing ovation of those who like the young man’s brashness.

He mentioned his understanding of “how this body operates.” Memo to Ted: It’s a pretty hidebound place. My guess is that there’ll be some hell to pay for the manner in which he called down the Senate’s main man.

national news

NASA finds another ‘Earth’

Well, how about this bit of news?

NASA announced it has discovered a planet that looks a good bit like Earth, orbiting a star that looks a lot like our sun.

The space agency has been hunting for this kind of scenario for decades. It means — maybe, possibly, potentially — that the planet, known as Keplar 452b, could be hospitable for, um, life … perhaps even as we know it.

That’s the good news.

Here’s the bad news: Keplar 452b is 1,400 light years away. How far is that? Well, a light year is the distance light travels — at 186,000 miles per second — in a single year. So, it’s 1,400 light years out there. That means, quite clearly, that we cannot get there.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/nasa-discovers-earth-like-planet-orbiting-cousin-of-sun/ar-AAdnQPj

Nor, one can assume, can they — if there is a “they” on Keplar 452b — can get here.

Then again, maybe they have come here and we don’t know it.

OK, I get that it’s not likely. Astronomers think the planet is in its rocky stage, which is a precursor supposedly to entering its “greenhouse” phase.

Still, this discovery is quite exciting.

I’ve long thought that the statistical probability is just too great for there not be life somewhere in our universe, given the known numbers of galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets and other orbiting celestial bodies out there.

How many gazillions of them are out there? Too many to discount the probability — let alone the possibility — of life.

national news, political news

Where have you gone, Capitol Hill collegiality?

A Facebook exchange with a friend today brought to mind a missing ingredient in today’s political recipe.

Collegiality is gone. Maybe forever, for all I know … although I hope it makes a comeback.

The exchange was precipitated by a blog I posted about President Reagan’s 11th commandment, which the late president decreed should prohibit Republicans from speaking ill of other Republicans.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2015/07/23/what-happened-to-the-gippers-11th-commandment/

My friend responded by saying the blog post reminded him of why he still missed The Gipper. He added that Reagan and the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill, the tough Boston Democrat, liked each other’s company, even though they agreed on virtually nothing.

This all brings to mind some other unusual political friendships on Capitol Hill: Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrat Ted Kennedy; Republican Bob Dole and Democrat Daniel Inouye; Republican Barry Goldwater and Democrat George McGovern; Republican Everett Dirksen and Democrat Lyndon Johnson. (Indeed, the Dirksen-Johnson friendship carried over into LBJ’s presidency.)

Two of those friendships — Dole and Inouye, and Goldwater and McGovern — were forged by common experiences during World War II. Dole and Inouye suffered grievous injury fighting in Europe and spent time in rehab together, where they formed a friendship that would last a lifetime; Goldwater and McGovern both flew combat missions as Army Air Corps pilots and they carried that common bond with them into the Senate.

These are the kinds of relationships we don’t see these days.

What we see instead is a continuation of what then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich once admonished of his Republican troops in the House of Representatives. It was to treat Democrats as the “enemy of normal Americans.”

The enemy? Yes, that was the word he used.

The parties today seem to have carried that outlook well into the 21st century.

It’s shameful in the extreme and it has resulted in the kind of gridlock that stalls the progress of worthwhile legislation. Democrats sought to throw roadblocks in front of Republican President George W. Bush and we’ve seen the payback in the form of even more intense opposition from congressional Republicans who seek to block everything that Democratic President Barack Obama pushes forward.

Each side is pulled away from the center by extremists. “Compromise” has become a four-letter word. Both sides ignore the basis of how legislation is conceived, created and completed.

Remember when Sen. Mitch McConnell declared in 2009 his “main goal” would be to make Barack Obama a “one-term president”?

There you have it. The Age of Collegiality has given way to the Age of Confrontation.

And they call this “good government.” Give me a break.

national news, State news

Never argue with those who carry guns

Sandra Bland likely would be alive today if she had followed a rule that I’ve followed my entire adult life: Never argue with someone packing a pistol.

Having said that, I want to stipulate in the strongest terms possible that the pistol-packing principal in Bland’s fateful confrontation never should have done what he did to escalate a minor traffic stop into what has turned into a shameful example of police intimidation.

Bland died in a Waller County jail cell after being arrested by Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Brian Enciana, who stopped Bland’s vehicle after she allegedly made a turn without signaling properly. As the Dallas Morning News editorial attached here notes, what should have been a routine ticket-writing event turned into a mind-boggling tragedy.

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20150722-editorial-troopers-bad-decisions-set-sandra-bland-tragedy-in-motion.ece

The editorial explains what happened. No need to detail it here.

What’s equally mind-boggling is that the DPS is a first-rate law enforcement agency. Its officers are well-trained and are taught to use restraint to cool down potentially explosive situations. Enciana did precisely the opposite. He ordered Bland to extinguish her cigarette; why he did that perhaps is the first great mystery of that case.

Granted, Bland didn’t react well. But as the Morning News editorial pointed, out Enciana is the one with the training — and he’s the one carrying the weaponry.

Maybe the most mind-bending element of all is that later today, when I leave my house to run some errands, I am likely to see dozens of people doing precisely what Bland supposedly did that caused Trooper Enciana to pull her over. Drivers routinely “break the law” by failing to signal their turns; indeed, I’ve actually seen law enforcement personnel doing the very same thing.

Someone, somewhere will have to explain how this case turned so terribly tragic.

We’re all ears out here.

media news, national news, political news, Vietnam War

Do the media really hate Trump?

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alg-donald-trump-jpg

Bill O’Reilly says the media hate Donald Trump because he doesn’t fear them.

Sure. Trump doesn’t fear the media. I get that.

But do the media really hate this guy? I think not.

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/bill-oreilly-the-media-despise-trump-because-he-124751397551.html

You see, the media get ratings boosts and readership bumps whenever this guy opens his mouth. Now that he’s running for president of the United States of America, the media have to report on the things he says. Most of those things are, well, utter nonsense.

Still, the media have to cover it. The way I see it, the media are doing their job.

It’s fair to ask, perhaps: Do the media have to give so much ink and air time to someone who has zero chance of being nominated by the Republican Party, let alone elected president of the United States? I think so. He’s polling quite well at the moment, grabbing an estimated 20-plus percent approval in a field of what seems like hundreds of GOP presidential candidates.

However, most of us — I think — realize that none of this is about Trump actually becoming president. It’s about Trump liking the sound of his own voice.

Are the media seeking to “punish” Trump because he’s such a blowhard? O’Reilly thinks they are: “(T)he media believe they need to punish Mr. Trump for being disrespectful and not cowering before them. Plus they don’t like his politics, generally speaking.”

It’s not just the media who are being critical, Bill-O. His fellow Republican candidates have fired plenty of ammo at Trump for the purely idiotic things he’s said, notably about many of them — not to mention what he’s said about one-time GOP presidential nominee and, yes, Vietnam War hero John McCain.

I don’t think there’s media “hate” at play.

The longer Trump keeps popping off, the more the media have to cover him. In this strange and wacky world where pop culture intersects with public policy, the media will keep reaping the benefit.

Keep blathering, Donald.

military news, national news

Thank you, Mr. President, for honoring those victims

President Obama heard the critics and he responded.

Today, the president ordered the White House flag, along with flags flying over all other federal buildings, to be lowered to half-staff in honor of the five men slain in Chattanooga, Tenn. The five men — four Marines and a sailor — were killed by a gunman who then was shot to death by police.

Many had criticized the president for not lowering the flags immediately. His reasons for the delay aren’t clear, but now that he’s acted, I’m glad that he did. Yes, I was one of the critics who said the White House flag needed to be lowered.

Obama lowers White House flag

U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, who happens to be my congressman, urged the president to “do the right thing” and lower the flag.

I’m not sure whether this announcement and the president’s stated tribute to the young men will assuage the criticism of those such as Thornberry, who’s been a constant critic of Obama, but we all should now take heed of the act and honor these men’s memories and their dedication to the country they loved.