Category Archives: political news

national news, political news

Speak up, Mr. Leader, about your party’s nominee

mitch

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s tongue is tied up in knots.

Ask him a question about the Republican Party’s presumed presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and McConnell clams up.

He can’t speak. He won’t speak.

For two straight weeks, McConnell — the man who runs the upper legislative chamber on Capitol Hill, the guy who’s orchestrating the blockage of President Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court — just can’t bring himself to talk about Trump.

Good grief, dude. You talk about everything else.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/mitch-mcconnell-trump-no-answers-224617#ixzz4CFUjLicQ

Trump twisted off this past week about President Obama and whether the president might be in cahoots secretly with Muslim terror groups. What do you think about that, Mr. Majority Leader?

He dummied up.

This week, the Federal Election Commission reported that Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has 40 times the amount of money that Trump has in the bank. What are your thoughts on Trump’s empty war chest, Mr. Leader?

He said he doesn’t want to “critique” the presidential campaigns.

C’mon, Mr. Leader. You’re a politician. You’re a national leader. You’re leading a Republican caucus in the Senate that might be in mortal danger of losing its majority status because your presidential candidate might cost some key GOP senators their seats this fall. Aren’t politicians, by definition, supposed to talk a lot about whatever is asked of them?

Leaders, well, lead by telling us what’s in their hearts and minds.

Surely you haven’t lost either of them, Mr. Leader.

Surely …

 

business news, national news, political news

Yet another hard lesson for Trump: money

campaign-finance-leftover-money

Donald J. Trump’s campaign for the presidency seems to be officially in peril, as in serious peril.

It’s not the presumptive Republican nominee’s big mouth, by itself, that has gotten him into trouble.

Nor is it the man’s apparently shoddy management style that has cast a pall over his bid to become president.

It’s money, man.

Or, the lack of it.

Why is this an exceptionally big deal? Well, it has to do with the mouthiness of the nominee-to-be and his constant boasting from the campaign stump about how rich he has become. He keeps yapping about the vast wealth he has acquired. Trump keeps trumpeting the “success” of his enormous business empire, which he says will enable him to “self-fund” his presidential campaign.

Hmmm. Did someone call him a “fraud”? Wasn’t it one or more of his former Republican presidential primary opponents who hung that label on him?

The latest Federal Elections Commission filings reveal that Trump’s presidential campaign is virtually broke.

No worries, Trump tells us. In the words of Al Pacino’s character, Col Frank Slade, in “Scent of a Woman,” he is “just getting wahrmed up!”

Maybe. Then again, perhaps the “fraud” label has stuck.

Is he as rich as he says? Is he really and truly able to self-fund this campaign? His tax returns might tell us.

Oh, wait …

legal news, local news, national news, political news, Uncategorized

Seeing some symmetry between SCOTUS and APD chief picks

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Am I hallucinating, or do I see a certain symmetry between two appointments: one at the highest level of government, the other right here at home on the High Plains of Texas?

One of them deserves the opportunity to do his duties as an elected public official. The other one also has earned the right to perform his duty as an appointed one.

Amarillo interim City Manager Terry Childers has selected Ed Drain to be the city’s interim chief of police; Drain is set to succeed retiring Police Chief Robert Taylor on July 1.

There might be a point of contention, though. You see, Childers won’t be city manager for very long. The City Council already has begun looking for a permanent city manager and Childers has declared his intention to retire completely from public life.

The council, though, has given Childers all the authority that the city manager’s position holds. Childers can hire — and fire — senior city administrators. He also is able to enact municipal policy changes when and where he sees fit. What the heck? He was able to bring changes to the city’s emergency communications center because he misplaced his briefcase at an Amarillo hotel, right?

Now, for the other example.

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President Barack Obama has named Merrick Garland to a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia. The voters delivered the president all the power he needs to do his duty when they re-elected him to his second and final term in 2012.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate, though, have said: Hold on a minute! The president’s a lame duck. We don’t want him appointing the next justice. We want the next president to do it. They, of course, are hoping that Donald J. Trump takes the oath next January. Good luck with that.

Here’s the question: Should the city manager be allowed to appoint the permanent chief of police, or should the council demand that the decision be left to the permanent city manager?

My own take is this: I’ve railed heavily against the GOP’s obstructing Obama’s ability to do his job. Republicans are wrong to play politics with this process and they are exhibiting a shameless disregard for the authority the president is able to exercise. The president is in the office until next Jan. 20 and he deserves the opportunity to fulfill all of his presidential responsibilities.

Accordingly, the Amarillo city manager will be on the job until the City Council hires someone else and that permanent manager takes over.

Thus, Terry Childers ought to be able to make the call — if the right person emerges quickly — on who should lead the police department … even if he won’t be around to supervise the new chief.

national news, political news

Trump’s big pile of cash … isn’t there

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Donald J. Trump keeps boasting about all the money he has earned.

He keeps saying he will “self-finance” his campaign for the presidency.

Well, this is just in: Trump’s presidential campaign has $1.3 million in the bank.

Sure, that’s a lot of money to folks like me. For a presidential campaign in June? It’s pauper territory, dude.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/284214-trump-ends-may-with-just-13-million-in-bank

The presumptive Republican nominee is now facing the possibility of running out of money for a campaign that it plans to wage against a heavily financed, thoroughly staffed and profoundly professional effort on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrats’ presumed nominee.

Trump keeps telling adoring audiences that he is worth billions of dollars. He says he won’t ask for money from donors because, well, he doesn’t need it!

Actually, he does.

It is quite true that Trump won many of the primary races while being outspent by his opponents. But that was then. The here and now is quite different.

Trump waged his primary campaign by appealing to the GOP base that comprises primarily the TEA Party wing of the Republican Party. He’s now being forced to appeal to a broader audience. To reach those folks, the man needs money … that he does not have.

It’s time to start pouring some of that vast wealth of his into his bid to become president.

If he has it.

national news, political news

Trump campaign disarray is growing

cory

Campaigning for the U.S. presidency is a complicated and costly endeavor.

That’s just the way it is. These campaigns require cohesive planning, streamlined communications systems, a vast network of field officers running operations in states and congressional districts and it requires leadership from the very top of the pecking order.

Donald J. Trump’s campaign for the presidency is showing signs of, well, coming apart. It’s blowing itself to pieces at just about the worst time possible.

The presumptive Republican nominee canned his campaign manager Cory Lewandowski this week. He fired the guy who engineered his highly unlikely and apparently successful campaign to capture the GOP nomination.

Who takes his place? That’s anyone’s guess.

Moreover, reports suggest that Trump’s children — chiefly daughter Ivanka — had a huge hand in kicking Lewandowski to the curb.

Let me see if this adds up.

Trump is just about a month away from claiming his party’s nomination. He doesn’t have a campaign manager to oversee the state-by-state operations needed. The candidate reportedly has few field offices up and running across the country. He isn’t spending any money — yet — on media advertising in the critical battleground states he’ll need to capture if he has a prayer of winning.

There’s more.

Republicans in Congress are clamming up when media ask them about Trump’s campaign. Some of them are withholding their endorsements; a couple of GOP lawmakers have rescinded their endorsement.

Oh, and then there’s this: The insults keep pouring out of Trump’s mouth, not to mention the egregious innuendo about President Obama and whether he harbors secret sympathies for radical Islamic terrorists.

That’s OK, as Trump would tell his supporters. Not to worry.

He possesses a “good brain.”

national news, political news

Support, yes; endorsement, no

ronjohnson

The political media are starting to ask politicians around the country the question that’s on a lot of our minds: How can you “support” a candidate without “endorsing” him or her?

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican facing a tough fight for re-election this year, might have given us a clue.

It’s a matter of degree, Sen. Johnson told CNN.

“Well to me,” he told Dana Bash, “endorsement is a big embrace. It basically shows that I pretty well agree with an individual on almost everything,” Johnson said. “That’s not necessarily be the case with our nominee, so I’ll certainly be an independent voice where I disagree with a particular nominee. I’ll voice it, whether it’s Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, or anybody else.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/ron-johnson-donald-trump-224527#ixzz4C88C246t

It means, in effect, that Sen. Johnson is likely to vote for fellow Republican Donald J. Trump, the party’s presumed presidential nominee, but that’s it.

There won’t be any campaign appearances with him. You likely won’t see Johnson introducing Trump to cheering audiences at campaign rallies. You won’t see him in political ads extolling the virtues of his party’s presidential nominee.

There’ll be a polite handshake or two if they meet somewhere, say, in that battleground state of Wisconsin.

If you’ll pardon the metaphor, there’ll be no political equivalent of a wet kiss exchanged between these two. You get my drift?

This is the kind of tepid “support” Trump is encountering all across the nation, particularly from endangered Republicans such as Johnson, who’s trailing in polls at the moment to the man whose seat he won six years ago, former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold.

Trump has said in recent days he’s able and willing to “go it alone” as he campaigns for president.

My strong hunch is that he’d better get ready for a relatively lonely journey along the campaign trail.

 

national news, political news, religious news

Profiling Muslims a possibility … seriously?

don trump

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, thinks profiling Muslims is something that U.S. law enforcement should consider.

Yes, that’s right. The nation that proclaims itself to be the champion of religious freedom, where the government doesn’t care which faith you worship … or even whether you worship at all, should consider singling out Muslims, according to Trump.

But wait a second! Hasn’t Trump proposed banning Muslims from entering the United States? Who, then, is he suggesting we profile?

Oh, I get it. That would be Americans!

I’ll set aside the obvious — in my view — un-American aspect of such a proposal.

How does one identify a Muslim? Would it be the scarves that women often wear? Would it be the names of the individuals being profiled? How does law enforcement discern who deserves profiling and who doesn’t?

I ask these questions because Muslims come from all ethnic backgrounds. What about the red-headed and freckle-faced Irish man or woman who converts to Islam? Or the blue-eyed blond from Scandinavia?

Oh, and then you have, say, the Palestinian who happens to be Christian. I have a bit of experience with meeting someone of that ilk. In 2009, my wife and I toured Bethlehem on the West Bank. Our tour guide? A young Palestinian who proclaimed his love of Jesus Christ as “our Lord and Savior.”

Trump told CBS’s “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson this morning that we ought to follow the model set by Israel, which he said profiles Muslims.

I’ll just add one more bit of personal privilege here. Having traveled to Israel and endured the grilling by security officers at David Ben-Gurion International Airport, I can state without reservation that the Israelis profile everyone who leaves the country through the Tel Aviv airport.

Take my word for it, you haven’t lived until you’ve been interrogated by an Israeli airport security guard.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/donald-trump-muslims-profiling-224529

Trump told Dickerson he hates “the concept of profiling.”

Fine. So do I. So should all Americans.

national news, political news, Uncategorized

So much grist on which to comment this election year

2 Comments

trump

I ran into a former colleague of mine at the grocery store in southwest Amarillo this afternoon.

We exchanged pleasantries, talked a little about how he’s doing at the Amarillo Globe-News, where I toiled along with him for a number of years; he offered me a glimpse of the pressure he’s feeling in this new era of daily print journalism, as he’s wearing multiple hats these days.

My friend then paid me what I took as a compliment when he said, “I enjoy reading your blog … especially the stuff you’re writing about the election.”

Ah, yes. I took a breath. “God bless Donald Trump,” I told him. “He’s giving me so much material.”

Indeed, it never seems to end with Trump as he marches toward the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

I told my friend that my confidence in an early prediction I made about a Hillary Clinton landslide was shaken a bit as Trump closed in on the magic number of delegates he needed to secure the GOP nomination. He seemed to pick up some momentum.

However, as I mentioned to my young friend, that confidence is being restored a bit by the unrest and unease being expressed by Republicans about the man they are about to nominate. Their angst is brought forward by the manner in which Trump has responded to recent crises and the continuing barrage of insults and innuendo he’s leveling at his critics.

Just so you know, I pay hardly zero attention to what the Democrats are saying about the prospect of running against Trump. I’ll just remind my Democratic friends out there what the Democratic moguls were saying back in 1980 when that cowboy former California governor/movie actor, Ronald Reagan, decided to run for president. Why, they couldn’t wait to run against The Gipper.

Bring him on! they crowed. We’ll make mincemeat of him.

It didn’t work out too well for President Carter, as he won a grand total of six states and lost by 10 percentage points in a serious landslide.

Republicans that year were brimming with confidence. This year it’s a different story, with Trump set to mount his steed while carrying the GOP banner into battle against Clinton and the Democrats.

My trouble with this blog that I write is that I’m having trouble focusing on things other than the myriad negatives that Trump is bringing to this campaign. I feel almost as though I need an intervention.

I’m going to try to do a better job from this point forward in finding some positive policy topics on which to comment. I can project with decent certainty that Trump won’t provide them.

I’ll have to look elsewhere.

When I find those topics, you’ll be the first to know.

national news, political news

Bad options await GOP convention delegates

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If you’re a Republican intending to take part in your party’s presidential nominating convention, you are facing at least two seriously grim options.

The Dump/Never/Anyone But Trump movement has resurfaced — more or less — in the wake of presumptive presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s latest volley of outrageous rhetoric.

It goes like this: Convention delegates might be given a chance to opt out of voting for the candidate to whom they are pledged. Thus, the belief lingers that enough of Trump’s delegates might decide to abstain on the first ballot and then free themselves to vote for someone else on a subsequent round of balloting.

All hell would break loose.

This bodes poorly for the GOP as it prepares to face the Democratic nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

So does the alternative, which is to nominate Trump.

Why the grim outlook?

Option No. 1: Nominate Trump and let him go down in flames.

Trump’s campaign is in a state of disarray. He made an empty pledge to become “more presidential,” only to revert to his insults, name-calling and innuendo. The Orlando massacre brought out the latest from Trump, when he boasted about “being right” about the threat of Islamic terrorism — while the nation was mourning the loss of 49 lives in that nightclub.

He is likely to continue railing, ranting and raving. He suggested the president of the United States might have some nefarious motive in refusing to identify the threat as coming from “radical Islamic terrorists.”

Trump’s hideous innuendo has managed to anger many within his party. Some key officeholders have pulled their endorsements. House Speaker Paul Ryan has told members of Congress they are welcome to “vote their conscience.”

Some of then actually might let their conscience support someone else, which might also carry over to their constituents out here in Voterland.

Option No. 2: Let the delegates pick someone else.

This is highly unlikely to happen. The reason might be the reality that Trump won more delegates than anyone else, by a mile, during the primary season. He collected a record number of GOP-primary votes. He won 38 states fairly and squarely.

To deny him the nomination after he won the war of attrition against 16 primary foes would be seen as a serious slap against those who voted for him.

If the delegates mount their coup and deny Trump his nomination, well, then you’re talking about a serious revolt occurring with the Republican Party.

The first option look bad for Republicans, given the nature of Trump’s temperament.

The second option looks even worse, given the reaction that would occur from those who have backed him to the hilt.

Good luck, GOP convention delegates. You’ll need it.

national news, political news

As nation grieves, Trump boasts

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“Temperamentally unfit … ”

We’re likely to hear that a lot during the next few months as Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigns for president of the United States against Donald J. Trump.

Examples? We’ve got plenty of them.

The latest example of temperamental unfitness presented itself in the hours after this past weekend’s slaughter of 49 people at the Pulse, an Orlando, Fla., nightclub.

The nation went into shock at the most gruesome mass murder in U.S. history. Trump’s response was to send out a tweet that boasted about how he predicted that Islamic terrorists were going to strike.

Trump said he called it. He was right. The president of the United States has been “weak” in the fight against terrorism, he said.

Republican insiders now are saying that Trump blew it badly by bragging during this time of national bereavement. “Only an a**hole says ‘I told you so’ the same day 49 people are killed on American soil by a terrorist,” said a New Hampshire Republican, who, like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously, according to Politico.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-orlando-response-224479

The massacre in Orlando has been generally categorized as an act of terror. The killer — an American — seems to have been radicalized by his fealty to the Islamic State.

It’s also been called the “worst act of terror on U.S. soil since 9/11.” That’s now a given.

I now shall remind us all of what national security officials said in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Almost to a person they predicted then that we’d get hit again. That the terrorists had smelled our blood and they wanted more of it.

It’s also been a given that we would feel this kind of pain.

Trump’s braggadocio was so profoundly inappropriate that it only feeds the narrative that Hillary Clinton is going to recite time and again as she campaigns for the presidency.