Category Archives: political news

Is this election going to set a low-turnout record?

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Some months ago I mentioned to friends that I thought the 2016 election would produce a low-turnout result.

My friends laughed me out of the proverbial room. Why? They were certain that if the major-party presidential nominees were going to be Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald J. Trump that they would energize their parties’ respective bases like no other candidate could do.

Well, here we are. Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee; Clinton hasn’t quite achieved presumptive status yet, but she’s going to be the Democratic nominee, just as she boasted the other day to CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

What do I think now about the turnout?

It’s going to be low. How do I know that? I don’t know it.

But the talk all around Pundit World centers on the high negative feelings that both candidates engender among voters. Trump polls about 70 percent unfavorable; Clinton’s unfavorable rating sits at around 60 percent.

The previous low-turnout record belongs to President Bill Clinton and U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, who ran against each other in 1996. Clinton won re-election that year with just 49 percent of eligible Americans actually voting that year. Clinton, of course, didn’t collect a majority that year, winning a healthy plurality, just as he did four years earlier; third-party candidate Ross Perot sucked enough votes away to deny the president a majority.

I have to agree with those who say that Clinton and Trump both are deeply wounded frontrunners. Trump’s failings are too numerous to mention; at every level one can mention, Trump is the most unfit major-party candidate ever to seek the presidency. Clinton’s been scrutinized carefully for more than two decades and she continues to suffer from this perception that she’s shifty and untrustworthy.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people say — either to me directly or to others — that they’re going to sit this one out. Republicans cannot vote for Clinton, even though they cannot stomach the idea of Trump carrying their party’s banner into battle.

Democrats aren’t going to walk the plank in favor of Trump.

Where do they turn? A third-party candidate still might emerge to capture the imagination of voters who are disgusted with the major parties’ selections.

If no one emerges, well, this election is looking as though it will set a dubious record for non-involvement.

Is that a mandate the winner will embrace?

Yep, this campaign is going to get real nasty

melania-trump

DailyKos is a lefty website dedicated to promoting liberal causes and candidates.

There you go. I’ve stipulated that I understand where this outfit’s bias lies.

It posted a picture of Melania Trump, wife of the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump. Mrs. Trump is wearing a thong, she’s toting a pistol and is standing on the wing of her hubby’s airplane.

The picture is, shall we say, not very dignified.

Take a gander here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/21/1529429/-Trump-s-wife-posing-with-gun-Thong-and-Boots-And-they-had-a-problem-with-Michelle-s-bare-arms?detail=facebook

Is this what’s happening in this presidential campaign? We’re now going to be seeing more pictures of Melania Trump — a former model and beauty queen — posing in such a provocative manner?

Here’s the fascinating element of this picture: Trumpkins are giving Melania a pass. Imagine if, say, Michelle Obama were photographed in this manner. What might their response be to that?

True, liberals are using these kinds of images to suggest that Mrs. Trump’s history would stain her activities as first lady if she and her husband move into the White House.

I should point out that the picture was taken some years ago, I guess when Melania Trump was still earning an income striking these kinds of poses.

Her husband is making Hillary Clinton’s husband, the former president of the United States, an issue in his campaign. It might follow, then, that turnabout is fair play and that Melania’s past is fair game as well.

Sure, the former president got impeached because he lied about an affair he had with a White House intern. Does that worsen his wife’s credentials as a potential president.

My wish is for the candidates and their supporters to keep the spouses out of the argument.

If that wish isn’t to be granted, then I fear we’re going to see more pictures of Melania Trump striking poses not usually identified with first ladies.

 

Obama lacks GOP go-to pal in Congress

Valerie-Jarrett

Valerie Jarrett gave a stellar defense Sunday night of her boss and long-time friend President Barack Obama.

Her appearance on “60 Minutes” was notable in her defense as well of her role — in addition to senior adviser — as friend, confidante and her easy access to the Leader of the Free World.

But she pushed back when CBS News correspondent Nora O’Donnell asked her about the president’s continuing prickly relationship with congressional Republicans. She said Obama has done all he could do to reach out.

O’Donnell, though, asked — but did get an answer — about the lack of a leading Republican in either the Senate or the House to whom the president could turn to fight for his legislative agenda.

It brought to mind the kind of relationship that previous presidents have cultivated with members of the “loyal opposition.” President Lyndon Baines Johnson could turn to GOP Sen. Everett Dirksen in a pinch; President Ronald Reagan had a fabulous after-hours friendship with Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill; GOP President George W. Bush relied on help from Sen. Ted Kennedy to push through education reform.

Barack Obama doesn’t seem to have that kind of personal friendship with members of the other side. He relies on his own instincts, his own circle of friends — such as Jarrett — and the vice president, Joe Biden, who to this day retains close friendships with Senate Republicans.

It’s that lack of kinship that has troubled many of us who want the president to succeed. I recall having this discussion once with retired Amarillo College president Paul Matney, who lamented that Obama had not developed the legislative know-how that LBJ brought to the presidency.

LBJ had served as Senate majority leader before his one-time foe John F. Kennedy asked him to be his running mate in 1960. Ol’ Lyndon knew how the Senate worked and he was able to parlay that knowledge — along with tremendous national good will after JFK’s assassination in 1963 — into landmark legislation.

Barack Obama has been forced to struggle, to battle relentlessly, to get anything past a Republican-led Congress intent on blocking every major initiative he has sought.

The reasons behind the ultra-fierce resistance will be debated long after President Obama leaves office.

He seems, though, to have lacked one essential ingredient to move his agenda forward: a good friend and dependable ally on the other side of the aisle who could run interference for him.

 

Nazi references beyond the pale

JayJoch2-flickr

“I can hear the glass crunching on Kristallnacht in the ghettos of Warsaw and Vienna when I hear that, honest.”

So said former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld. What drew that hideous description? Donald J. Trump’s proposal to round up 11 million illegal immigrants and deport them to their country of origin.

Weld, though, just isn’t any former politician. He is about to become a vice-presidential candidate seeking election on a Libertarian Party ticket led by former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.

Weld’s reference is to Adolf Hitler’s persecution of Jews in Europe.

I’ve already lamented the careless references to Hitler and to the atrocities he committed prior to and during World War II.

This is another such reference.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/280836-libertarian-vp-candidate-again-compares-trump-to-nazi

I’ve already noted in this blog that I am giving the first hint of consideration to a third-party ticket when I get ready to vote for president this fall.

What’s more, I happen to think highly of Gov. Weld, the former Republican governor of the Bay State — and of Gov. Johnson, another Republican.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2016/05/third-party-looking-more-like-an-option-really/

I do not wish to hear more of these Hitler references, though, when discussing Trump’s moronic idea of rounding up every illegal immigrant and booting them out of the country.

It’s unrealistic, cruel, and un-American.

The idiocy of this idea can produce plenty of arguments against without referencing Hitler.

 

 

Here comes the gun-rights demagoguery

Some of the weapons collected in Wednesday's Los Angeles Gun Buyback event are showcased Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012 during a news conference at the LAPD headquarters in Los Angeles. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office says the weapons collected Wednesday included 901 handguns, 698 rifles, 363 shotguns and 75 assault weapons. The buyback is usually held in May but was moved up in response to the Dec. 14 massacre of students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

The National Rifle Association, to no one’s surprise, gave its blessing to the presidential candidacy of presumed Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.

And also, again to no one’s surprise, Trump stood at the podium at the NRA meeting to condemn likely Democratic Party opponent Hillary Clinton’s view on gun violence.

He did so with his customary panache, meaning his customary hyperbole and outright lies.

Trump said Clinton wants to rescind the Second Amendment. He said she wants to “disarm American women.” He said he intends to rescind “gun-free zones” at local schools.

Trump’s answer to gun violence? Put more guns out there.

I’ve been going through the public record of Clinton’s statements on gun violence and, for the life of me, I cannot find a single statement that could be interpreted remotely as an effort to repeal the Second Amendment. It’s not there.

She’s talked about regulating the purchase of firearms. She joins other Americans in condemning the hideous increase in gun violence across the nation.

Does she intend to propose a rescinding of the Second Amendment? Does she really intend to disarm Americans?

Hell no!

That won’t deter Trump and continuing his demagogic tirades.

Let’s all get ready for more of the same.

 

Ex-felons have rights, too

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Some of the talk along the presidential campaign trail has turned to felons.

Do those who have been convicted of felonies deserve the right to vote? Sure they do … under certain conditions.

It’s becoming a bit of a sore point among many who think that felons must not have their rights of citizenship restored. If they’ve done something egregiously wrong, why, let them pay for the rest of their lives. That’s the mantra.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe recently granted ex-felons the right to vote in that state, much to the consternation of conservatives who argue that, by golly, McAuliffe is a friend and political ally of Democratic nominee-to-be Hillary Rodham Clinton. So, naturally he’d want to grant ex-felons the right to vote.

Former GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz of Texas actually said that those who commit crimes are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. Let’s not paint with too broad a brush, Sen. Cruz.

Texas — of all places! — allows former felons to vote.

Check this out from the Texas Secretary of State’s Office:

http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/effects.shtml

If a felon completes all the terms of his or her release from prison — and that includes fulfilling all the parole requirements — then he or she is eligible to register to vote. The restoration of these rights do not extend to those wanting to run for political office.

Honestly, I fail to see why this is a big deal.

A left-leaning website chides the National Rifle Association for opposing the rights of ex-felons to vote while at the same time pushing for the rights of ex-felons to own firearms.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/05/22/3780685/nra-wants-ex-felons-guns-not-voting-rights/

I won’t wade into that snake pit here. Maybe later.

However, the idea behind incarcerating people convicted of committing serious crimes is to force them to “repay their debt to society.” Once they complete a prison sentence and once they complete the terms of their parole — if they’re let out of The Joint early — then they have paid their debt in full. That’s how the judicial system sees it.

This clearly is a state-by-state issue. It need not enter the federal realm.

I’ve been critical in the past of many Texas laws and those who make them here. On this one, though, the Lone Star State got it right.

 

Unqualified … and unfit to become POTUS

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I am so very reluctant to put words in other people’s mouths, but I cannot resist the urge here.

The probable Democratic Party presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, said the other day that presumptive GOP nominee Donald J. Trump is “unqualified” to become president of the United States.

I beg to differ. He’s not only unqualified. He is unfit for the job.

Technically, Trump is qualified. He is a U.S. citizen; he’s well past the minimum age. He doesn’t have a felony conviction (I am presuming).

It’s the fitness that matters more to me.

The dictionary provides an inadequate definition of the term “unfit.” Its primary definition is “inappropriate.” Yeah, do you think?

A man with no public service record who refuses to release his tax returns wants to trust us to do the right thing. A reality TV celebrity who once operated beauty pageants wants to become the head of state of the world’s greatest nation. Someone who has lied repeatedly ever since becoming a candidate for the Republican Party nomination wants to become the moral leader of this nation.

Trump has no philosophical grounding. His world view depends on the last person to whom he has spoken. He changes his views at every opportunity.

Someone with zero grasp of governing wants to become the chief executive of the United States of America. He wants to “build a wall” to keep illegal immigrants out. He wants to ban Muslims from entering the country.

Trump wants to take the United States out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He wants to kill family members of terrorists. He says it’s OK if Japan and South Korea develop nuclear arsenals. He wants to talk directly to North Korean dictator/nutcase Kim Jong Un.

Trump has mocked an individual with a serious physical handicap. He has said amazingly crass things to — and about — women. He says the Mexican government is deliberately sending “rapists, drug dealers and murderers” into the United States.

No, the issue here isn’t his qualifications. It’s his fitness for the job.

Donald Trump fails the fitness test at every level imaginable.

 

Third party looking more like an option … really

ORLANDO, FL - SEPTEMBER 22:  Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson speaks in the Fox News/Google GOP Debate at the Orange County Convention Center on September 22, 2011 in Orlando, Florida. The debate featured the nine Republican candidates two days before the Florida straw poll. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

I am a dedicated two-party presidential election traditionalist.

My tendency is to dismiss third-party candidacies. My thought always has been that they have no chance of winning, therefore I won’t waste my vote, which I value greatly.

I am now about to announce that I am considering following the lead of one of my sons, who declared just the other day that he’s likely to vote for someone other than Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton.

There, I’ve announced it.

Two former moderate Republican governors have teamed up as Libertarians seeking to run for president and vice president.

New Mexico’s Gary Johnson is running for president; he’s tapped Massachusetts’ William Weld as his running mate.

The Libertarian Party must nominate them. My strong hunch is that they will.

This won’t be Gov. Johnson’s first rodeo. He ran four years ago and collected about a million votes. I’ll bet you some serious money he and Gov. Weld will do a lot better than that this year.

The last major alternative to the two parties came in 1992 when Henry Ross Perot challenged President George H.W. Bush and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. He won 19 million votes, but not a single Electoral College vote.

And, no … he didn’t cost President Bush his bid for re-election. I’ve seen ample polling data that suggest that even without Perot on the ballot that Clinton would have won by roughly the same margin he rolled up in 1992.

Why am I thinking about a third party? I’m not entirely thrilled with Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. Trump never — in a zillion years — would get my vote.

Don’t misinterpret me here. I haven’t yet committed to a third party candidate. I’m merely thinking about it, which by itself represents a major shift from my normal political thought process.

Johnson’s major claim to political fame was his call for legalization of marijuana. I was working for a newspaper — the Amarillo Globe-News — at the time he issued that call and the paper’s corporate ownership never would support legalization of marijuana; therefore, I wrote editorials criticizing Gov. Johnson’s “wacky” notion. I’m now writing my own blog, under my own name, and my view on that issue is, well, evolving.

Weld is another moderate former GOP governor. No single stands out, but I’ve long perceived him to be far from what’s becoming the Republican “mainstream” that wants to round up illegal immigrants, wants to criminalize abortion and wants to send American troops into battle at the slightest sound of gunfire.

Yes, this is just another example of how wacky this election campaign has become.

 

Has conflict frayed Trump’s fundraising efforts?

Oklahoma State alum T. Boone Pickens, Jr. fires up the Cowboy fan base during a tailgate party on the East Plaza of AT&T Stadium before the Cotton Bowl game against Missouri, Friday, January 3, 2014 in Arlington, Texas. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News) 01042014xSPORTS

T. Boone Pickens says he’s committed to electing Donald J. Trump as the next president of the United States.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, is far friendlier to the oil and natural gas industry than his likely Democratic foe this fall, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Pickens — a former Amarillo resident — made his immense fortune in oil and natural gas.

It follows, then, that Pickens would be in Trump’s camp.

But there’s been a hiccup. Maybe. Perhaps.

Pickens was going to play host to a meeting at his sprawling Mesa Vista Ranch north of Pampa on June 11-3. The meeting was for a super-PAC supporting Trump. It’s been called off.

Why? Pickens’ spokesman blamed it on “scheduling conflicts,” which often becomes kind of a throwaway excuse for anything that gets postponed, or canceled.

There have been reports, though, of strife and turmoil among the Trump campaign and its fundraising machine, according to the Dallas Morning News.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2016/05/t-boone-pickens-postponing-major-fundraising-event-for-donald-trump.html/

Which is it? Scheduling and logistics? Or is there trouble in Trump World?

I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Pickens three times — the most recent time just two weeks ago. I don’t know him well.  I know a lot more of him, though, having studied him from some distance over nearly 30 years.

A part of me just doesn’t believe he would have announced a big event at his ranch without having nailed down all the particulars he needed to make it a reality.

And that kind of makes me wonder if the issue doesn’t lie within the Trump apparatus.

Pickens’ team says the event will occur later this summer, after the Republican convention.

We’ll just have to wait and see … yes?

 

Pay attention, Gov. Abbott

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There’s little I can add to this blog post by Brian Sweany of Texas Monthly.

Except, perhaps, this: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has a sharp legal mind and he ought to know more than he’s acknowledging regarding the conduct of the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton.

Here’s Sweany’s blog post:

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/abbotts-feigned-ignorance/

Sweany asks a pertinent question: Why doesn’t the governor know more than he knew more than a year ago about Paxton’s conduct?

The AG has been indicted by a Collin County grand jury on felony accusations of securities fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint as well. Paxton is accused of failure to disclose properly income he earned while giving investment advice.

As for Abbott’s “feigned ignorance,” as Sweany calls it, I’ll just add this.

Abbott was a trial judge in Houston before being elected to the Texas Supreme Court. He then was elected as the state’s attorney general, a post he held until January 2015 when he became the state’s governor.

Paxton succeeded Abbott at the AG’s office.

It would seem implausible that the governor knows nothing more now than he did a year ago. I don’t want Abbott to convict his Republican colleague, either, through statements to the media.

Still, to borrow a phrase: Gov. Abbott, what did you know and when did you know it?