Category Archives: political news

local news, political news

Getting to know a possible mayor

I shook the hand of a most engaging young woman today.

She is a candidate for Amarillo mayor. I had heard from friends of mine around the city that she’s the real article: smart, articulate, dedicated to the city’s well-being.

I am a believer.

Ginger Nelson spoke to the Rotary Club of Amarillo today at noon. She wasn’t there to talk about her mayoral candidacy. She spoke to us about her ownership of the Amarillo Building, which she and her husband Kevin have owned for the past several years.

A mutual friend of ours introduced me to her when I arrived at our meeting venue.

I believe she would do a marvelous job as the city mayor. The first impression I got was, well, impressive.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/12/welcome-to-the-fray-mayoral-candidate-nelson/

I was impressed by the passion with which she spoke about the Amarillo Building, which has a remarkable history. Nelson — a lawyer and a former member of the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation — offers a vision of how our past shapes our future. She seems to believe the Amarillo Building’s past is just a prologue to whatever comes along.

To hear her deliver the message and to hear the love she has in that piece of downtown Amarillo property is to get a brief preview of how this person could use the mayor’s office as the bulliest of pulpits.

My strongest sense, given her commitment to economic development and the need for the city to pull together as one, is that she will use that pulpit with great wisdom.

Ginger Nelson looks — at first glance — like the real deal.

legal news, national news, political news

SCOTUS fight drips with irony

I cannot resist commenting on the irony that envelops the upcoming fight over filling the ninth seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Donald J. Trump is going to nominate someone to fill the seat vacated by the death of conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia. U.S. Senate Democrats are vowing to fight whoever the new president nominates.

For the record, I’ll stipulate once again that I believe strongly in presidential prerogative on these appointments. I believe the president deserves to select whoever he wants to sit on the highest court; I also believe in the Senate’s “advise and consent” role in deciding whether to approve these nominations.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/senate-supreme-court-fight-mitch-mcconnell-chuck-schumer-233194

But here’s where the irony covers this discussion.

Senate Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s effort to nominate a centrist jurist, Merrick Garland, to the seat after Scalia died. They denied Garland a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. They said within hours of Scalia’s death that Obama must not be allowed to fill the seat; that task, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, belonged to the new president.

Senate Republicans denied Barack Obama the opportunity to fulfill his constitutional responsibility. They engaged in a shameless — and shameful — game of politics.

Their response now? Why, they just cannot believe that Democrats might vote en masse against anyone Trump nominates. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer vows that Democrats are going to dig in against anyone Trump picks for the court.

Revenge, anyone?

Senate Democrats likely cannot do what Republicans did when they denied Merrick Garland even a hearing to determine whether he should take a seat on the Supreme Court.

Indeed, the court needs a ninth vote to avoid deadlocked decisions. For that matter, the court should have welcomed the ninth justice long ago when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland.

Ahh, the irony is rich. Isn’t it?

local news, political news

City campaign slogans could get snappy

James Schenk has entered a growing field of candidates lining for the Amarillo City Council election this coming spring.

When I heard about it, my thoughts turned immediately to two things: Schenk’s recent rise to a sort of municipal celebrity status and the campaign slogans that could emanate from what propelled him into the spotlight.

Schenk might be considered a City Hall gadfly. He attends City Council meetings regularly and he’s been a critic of city policies in recent years. I do not know this man, although we are very casually acquainted through social media.

In November, Schenk stood before the council and criticized the city for its failed bond issue election, prompting the interim city manager, Terry Childers, to mutter “stupid son of a b****” under his breath.

Oops, Mr. Interim Manager. The microphone picked up what he said. Childers quit the next day, cleared out his office and was gone.

Thus, Schenk became a bit of a celebrity.

He wants possibly to parlay that status into an elected office. He filed the paperwork this week at City Hall declaring his intention to run for the council. I suppose he’ll choose which seat he wants to seek at the appropriate time.

Which brings me to the sloganeering we might get. Think of it:

“Elect James Schenk, not your ordinary ‘stupid son of a b****.'” Or try this: “Schenk: He might be an SOB, but he could be your SOB.”

I’m sure there could be an ad exec or two out there who can come up with more snappy patter to toss at voters.

Whatever the case, a loose-lipped interim city manager managed to create a local celebrity — who is about to become a politician.

Oh, this election is going to be fun.

International news, national news, political news

‘Tricky Dick’ surely earned his moniker

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Political chicanery certainly isn’t a new phenomenon.

Now, though, the world is learning that when it comes to matters of war and peace, not even the prospect of peace that could end years of bloodshed and the loss of thousands of American lives is above the hideous intervention of one prominent politician.

It appears to be confirmed now that President-elect Richard Nixon sought to derail a last-minute peace deal that President Lyndon Johnson sought to broker with North Vietnam near the end of his presidency.

Notes acquired by journalist John Farrell suggest that Nixon’s intervention in those peace talks are far worse than anything the future president would do during the Watergate scandal that forced him to quit his office in August 1974.

According to the New York Times: “In a telephone conversation with H. R. Haldeman, who would go on to become White House chief of staff, Nixon gave instructions that a friendly intermediary should keep ‘working on’ South Vietnamese leaders to persuade them not to agree to a deal before the election, according to the notes, taken by Mr. Haldeman.”

LBJ was seeking to start peace talks that could have brought the fighting to a much earlier end. Nixon, according to Farrell’s upcoming book, didn’t want the Democratic president to succeed and give a boost to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who was Nixon’s primary opponent in the 1968 presidential race. To block any possible boost to Humphrey’s campaign, Nixon finagled a way to keep the South Vietnamese away from the peace table until after the election.

Can you say “treason”?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/nixon-tried-to-spoil-johnson%e2%80%99s-vietnam-peace-talks-in-%e2%80%9968-notes-show/ar-BBxPrcF?li=BBnb7Kz

This is so profoundly offensive to learn of this so many years later, I almost don’t know where to begin.

So, I won’t go into too much detail here. I do, though, want to suggest that the moniker “Tricky Dick” now seems more appropriate than ever.

The idea that a president-elect would interfere directly with a sitting president’s initiative to seek an end to warfare that was killing Americans crosses the line with both feet that defines treason.

Nixon campaigned in 1968 on the promise to deliver a “secret plan” to end the Vietnam War. Of course, he wouldn’t tell us that the plan involved derailing his predecessor’s effort and then drag the war effort on for another five years.

The link I attached to this blog post goes into amazing detail about what Farrell discovered at the Nixon presidential library. Take a look at it.

Warning: It might turn your stomach as much as it did mine.

national news, political news

Clintons to attend Trump inaugural … who’da thunk it?

Bygones won’t necessarily be bygones come Jan. 20 for Bill and Hillary Clinton.

But they’re going to attend the inauguration of the fellow who pulled off arguably the most stunning presidential election upset of the past century … and it involved one of the Clintons.

The Clintons are going to attend Donald J. Trump’s inauguration as president — even though Hillary Clinton fell victim to that shocking upset at Trump’s hands.

Words nearly escape me as I seek to describe the nature of the Trump-Clinton campaign for the presidency. “Rough,” “brutal,” “angry” seem far too timid of descriptive terms.

I’ll leave it to others to attach the appropriate adjective.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/312542-clintons-to-attend-trumps-inauguration

I am glad, though, to know that the Clintons will attend this event and pay their respects to the office that Bill Clinton once occupied and that Hillary Clinton thought she would assume. Their individual and collective respect for the 45th president, though, likely remains a topic of some speculation.

The only living former president who won’t attend will be George H.W. Bush; he cites health concerns that will keep him away. Former Presidents Carter and George W. Bush will attend, along with Bill Clinton.

A lot of eyes, of course, will be focused on Hillary Clinton. In a normal election year, the spotlight would be on her. As we all learned — many of us to our dismay — this was far from a normal presidential campaign.

Suffice to say that Hillary Clinton’s decision to join her husband at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration speaks loudly and clearly to her own character and grace.

entertainment news, national news, political news

Who needs congressional ethics oversight?

The late comic genius George Carlin used to poke fun at the English language and a favorite target of his was the use of what he considered to be oxymorons … you know, phrases that contain words that are mutually exclusive.

Jumbo shrimp? Military intelligence?

Let’s try “government ethics” on for size.

The House Ethics Committee is now going to take over the policing of alleged ethical breaches by members of Congress. It’s a goofy idea proposed by Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a leader in the Republican caucus. Given that the GOP controls the House of Representatives, it’s going to become a new rule for the 115th Congress, which convenes today.

This marks a departure from previous practices, which allowed an independent bipartisan oversight arm to examine complaints — not that it was as aggressive as it should have been always.

Now we’re going to have the proverbial fox guarding the proverbial chicken coop.

Sheesh!

Wherever he is, George Carlin is laughing out loud.

national news, political news

‘Our Constitution works …’

You want a feeling of dire straits in the greatest nation on Earth?

This 11-minute video ought to remind us all that we have a resilient nation, with a government cobbled together by a document that is as stout as ever.

I mention this because of those who insist we are about to enter an “unprecedented” era of crisis with the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States.

Not so.

On Aug. 8, 1974, the nation watched one president resign and another one take office.

Gerald R. Ford ascended to the presidency after being appointed vice president less than a year earlier; the man he replaced as VP had pleaded no contest to corruption charges. Before that he was a congressman from Grand Rapids, Mich., whose No. 1 ambition was to become speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Fate would steer Gerald Ford down an entirely different path.

As president, he told us that “our long national nightmare is over.” Richard Nixon was flying off to private life in California as President Ford took the reins of power.

And as the new president told us, “Our Constitution works.”

Indeed it does.

I harbor deep reservations and concern about whether the new president is up to the job he is about to assume.

However, I take comfort in the words that an earlier president, Gerald Ford, delivered as we sought to recover from a constitutional crisis the likes of which the nation had never before endured.

We certainly did recover. Whatever missteps the new president makes as he begins his term, I remain confident that our Constitution will continue to work just as our founders intended.

You have to keep the faith.

national news, political news

GOP claims ‘mandate’ will drive its congressional agenda

There goes the “m-word” again.

Congressional Republicans say they have a mandate to reel in government spending, to launch a true-blue conservative agenda and, presumably, to enact sweeping social legislation.

How does that comport with the president-elect’s agenda, as if one can figure it out?

Beats me, man.

Donald J. Trump wants to build a wall, keep Muslims from entering the country and plans to appoint pro-life judges to the federal bench. Oh, he’ll bring back jobs, cut taxes — and he’ll repair all the nation’s roads and bridges at a cost of about a trillion dollars.

Can the president-elect forge some common ground with the conservatives who control the congressional agenda?

Suffice to say he lacks any hands-on experience — at any level — with working with politicians of any party, let alone his own.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/claiming-mandate-gop-congress-lays-plans-to-propel-sweeping-conservative-agenda/ar-BBxNwZB?li=BBnb7Kz

Donald Trump is creating a government on the fly. It’s on-the-job training for the new head of state/head of government/commander in chief/leader of the free world.

Will he listen to the pros who know how this government of ours works?

One can hope. Frankly, though, my serious doubts persist.

national news, political news

Trump makes friends with dreaded Democratic leader

If we are to believe Donald J. Trump’s statement to the New York Post, then he is making at least one great friend on the other side of the political divide.

The president-elect’s new best friend appears to be incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a liberal New York Democrat.

Schumer reportedly told the Post that he gets along better with Schumer than he does with congressional Republicans.

My first reaction when I heard this was, “Well, duh?”

Two factors come immediately to mind.

One is that Schumer and Trump are home boys, hailing from the same state. Trump grew up in Queens; Schumer was born in Brooklyn and thus also is quite familiar with New York City.

The other is that Republicans in both legislative chambers worked against their party’s presidential nominee in 2016, only to see him defy the odds and be elected president.

Yep, a lot of us were surprised. I heard just this past week that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was certain that Trump would lose the election. Who knew? Certainly not the Kentucky Republican.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/report-trump-likes-schumer-more-than-gop-leaders/ar-BBxN73N?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

I am taking what I have read about Trump’s newfound friendship with Schumer with a massive dose of salt. He is quite capable of changing his mind in the next, oh, hour or so.

But if it’s true — that Trump and Schumer have become political BFFs — the GOP establishment that featured the “Never Trump” wing of the party is largely to blame.

national news, political news

Obama and Trump: no longer BFFs

That didn’t last long.

President Barack Obama pledged to do all he could to ensure a “smooth transition” to the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

Now we hear that the men are at each other’s throats. They’re sniping from lecture podiums and over social media.

Trump has been sniping at the president over his decision to forgo a U.N. Security Council veto of a resolution that condemns Israel for its construction of settlements on the West Bank. The president, meanwhile, is talking out loud about the dangers of isolating the United States from the rest of the world.

How will all of this — and more — affect the transition? No one can yet determine how the men’s staffs will work together. Indeed, that’s where the transition must occur without a hitch. Chiefs of staff need to talk constructively to each other, along with other White House staffers. National security experts need to talk candidly about the threats to the nation.

Even though I shouldn’t give a damn how this affects the two men’s personal relationship, I feel compelled to recall an anecdotal story I heard some years ago about two earlier presidents.

Harry Truman left the presidency after Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952. The two partisans despised each other. Truman, the Democrat, couldn’t stomach the idea that Eisenhower, the Republican, would occupy the Oval Office. They barely spoke to each other during the transition.

The men reportedly set aside their personal antipathy at the funeral of another president a decade later. President Kennedy was gunned down and Give ‘Em Hell Harry and Ike managed to patch up their personal relations as they joined the rest of the country in bidding farewell to JFK. Did they realize at that time that life, indeed, is too short to harbor grudges? Perhaps.

No one really expects Obama and Trump to become BFFs. Given the mercurial temperament that Trump exhibits — describing his meetings with Obama as “terrific” and “terrible” in the same week — one cannot predict how the president-elect is going to respond.

President Obama has spoken eloquently about the graciousness extended to him and his staff by President George W. Bush’s team in 2009. The transition from President Clinton to Bush in 2001, as we have learned, wasn’t quite so smooth with reports of keyboards missing the letter “W” and other pranks being pulled.

The stakes are much greater, of course, when rocky transitions involve heads of state instructing their staffs to undermine the other guy in this troubling and unsettled time.

Barack Obama and Donald Trump have three more weeks to put this campaign behind them. Let’s get busy, gentlemen.