Category Archives: political news

Texas GOP at war with itself

May 11, 2016 kanelis2012

Do you want to see a prime example of how badly fractured the Republican Party has become?

Take a look at the fight for the Texas Republican Party chairmanship.

This is an amazing development.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2016/05/challenger-for-texas-gop-chairman-says-incumbent-promotes-disgusting-homosexual-agenda.html

State GOP Chairman Tom Mechler has been accused of promoting a “disgusting homosexual agenda.” The accusation comes from supporters of Jared Woodfill, a Houston GOP activist who’s challenging Mechler for the party chairmanship.

Why is this so amazing?

Well, I happen to know Mechler. He hails from Armstrong County. He’s a Panhandle guy who is as conservative a politician as one can imagine. I consider Mechler to be a friend and, take my word for it, he doesn’t exactly line up with gay-rights activists’ world view.

The Texas GOP had the temerity to allow a gay and lesbian group to set up a booth at the upcoming state Republican convention. Does that constitute a “disgusting homosexual agenda”? I do not believe it does.

What it constitutes is a recognition that Texas comprises a wide array of individuals who have differing orientations.

That’s it.

Mechler is putting some distance between himself and the gay-rights group. According to the Dallas Morning News: “Mechler said he had nothing to do with the decision to allow the group, the Metroplex Republicans, to have a booth at the state GOP convention.”

Just as the national Republican Party is fighting among itself, the Texas GOP is exposing deep fissures within its own ranks.

The ultra-uber conservative wing of the Texas GOP is tossing out the “RINO” epithet at Mechler, who is the farthest thing possible from being a “Republican In Name Only.”

Believe me when I say this: Tom Mechler is a true-blue Republican believer. He’s the real thing.

media news, national news, political news

Let the horse-race … coverage … continue

May 10, 2016 kanelis2012 2 Comments

If you thought the media have done a terrible job of reporting on politics and policy — relying too heavily on polls — get ready for what’s to come.

The coverage is going to get worse.

The upcoming presidential campaign between Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Donald J. Trump is going to fill us to the brim with news about the “horse race.”

We’re going to be listening to evening news reports that will begin with coverage of the latest polls.

Trump has fed that narrative repeatedly during his amazing — and stunningly surprising — march to the GOP nomination. He takes the podium and blusters about his standing in the polls. The media cover it. Why? Because the public wants it.

Trump dismisses polls that show him trailing. He trumpets polls that show him standing tall over his fallen competitors.

And, yep, the media continue to cover it.

Look at me! I’m devoting an entire blog post to the coverage of polling in this upcoming campaign.

I’ve taken the bait. Swallowed it. Damn near choked on it, for crying out loud.

I am hoping we start paying more careful attention to what these candidates are going to say about things that matter. Policy stuff matters.

Foreign policy counts. Domestic policy affects our lives. Taxes. The environment. Economic policy. Those are the things that should have us riveted on this campaign.

They won’t. The media will continue to report on polls. Who’s up? Who’s down? Election probability will be the No. 1 topic of every news cycle — which, of course, has become a 24/7 phenomenon.

Let’s all get ready for a wild ride.

legal news, media news, political news, State news

Texas AG slams door on transparency

May 10, 2016 kanelis2012

Ken Paxton’s tenure as Texas attorney general has gotten off to a rocky start.

First, a Collin County grand jury indicted the Republican politician on charges of securities fraud, accusing him of failing to report income he derived from giving investment advice to a friend. The Securities and Exchange Commission followed suit with a complaint of its own.

Bad start, man.

Then the attorney general accepts the resignations of two top aides and agrees to keep paying them. What’s worse in this case, according to the Dallas Morning News, is that the AG isn’t explaining why he’s continuing to pay the ex-staffers.

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20160509-editorial-ken-paxton-should-answer-our-reporters-questions.ece

The Morning News accuses Paxton of bullying the newspaper’s reporters who keep asking questions about the payments. He’s not willing to explain why he’s using these particular public funds in this manner.

The newspaper has blistered Paxton in an editorial. It demands, correctly in my view, that he hold his office — and himself — accountable for the actions he has taken regarding the resignations of these individuals.

The Morning News asks a pertinent question, noting that state law allows public agencies to grant paid leave when it finds “good cause” to do so. Paxton decided to categorize their departure as paid leave, thus justifying the continued payments to folks who no longer work for the state. The paper asks: What’s the good cause? The attorney general isn’t saying.

The paper offers this bit of advice to the public as it ponders the AG’s behavior: “Voters should take note.”

political news, State news

Local control? Who needs it in Fort Worth?

May 10, 2016 kanelis2012

What am I missing here?

Don’t statewide elected officials in Texas — all of whom are Republicans — tell us they prefer to let locals control their affairs? Get a load of this tidbit.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants Fort Worth Independent School District Superintendent Kent Scribner to resign. He’s demanding it, by golly.

Why? Scribner has drafted guidelines regarding transgender students in the district.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/09/patrick-wants-fort-worth-superintendent-resign/

According to Patrick, Scribner has gone off the rails with this transgender matter.

I believe I’ll set aside the correctness or wrongness of Scribner’s view on dealing with transgender students. My issue here is whether the state’s lieutenant governor should pressure a local school superintendent chosen by a duly elected local school board to quit his job.

Lt. Gov. Patrick should butt out. How a major Texas school district decides to run its affairs is solely the province of its elected trustees.

The Texas Tribune reports: “‘After less than a year as superintendent, Dr. Scribner has lost his focus and thereby his ability to lead the Fort Worth ISD,’ Patrick said in a statement. ‘He has placed his own personal political agenda ahead of the more than 86,000 students attending 146 schools in the district by unilaterally adopting ‘Transgender Student Guidelines.'”

Interesting, don’t you think?

Patrick said the superintendent has “placed his own personal political agenda ahead” of the needs of students. Isn’t that what Patrick is doing now, by demanding that a local school superintendent step down?

This issue should be decided by the constituents in Fort Worth who elect the school board, which in turn appoints the district’s chief executive officer.

Lt. Gov. Patrick’s primary job is to preside over the Texas Senate and to guide legislation through the Legislature’s upper chamber. It should not include telling local officials how to conduct their own business.

political news

Liberal offers an instructive scolding to liberals

May 9, 2016 kanelis2012 1 Comment

When a conservative scolds liberals about being intolerant, one can chalk it up to sour grapes or to the bias of the person doing the scolding.

The same can be said when the roles are reversed.

However, when a liberal scolds liberals — or when a conservative scolds his or her brethren — that gets people’s attention.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has offered an interesting lecture about liberal intolerance.

Here it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html?_r=0

He says liberal thinkers are none too tolerant of conservative thinkers on our nation’s higher education campuses. The intolerance undercuts liberals’ time-honored call for greater “diversity” of thought.

Hmmm. He’s suggesting that liberals want diversity as long as it agrees with their world view.

College and university campuses have erupted over many years when administrators invite conservatives to speak at, say, convocations or commencement exercises. Kristof’s essay talks about the reluctance of higher ed institutions to hire conservatives as faculty members.

Even in politically conservative regions, such as the Texas Panhandle, we’ve seen similar reactions to the presence of conservatives on college campuses.

Do you remember the mini-uproar that boiled up years ago when West Texas A&M University invited Karl Rove — the architect of President George W. Bush’s winning campaigns — to speak at an event honoring WT graduates? Some faculty officials disliked having Rove speak to the students.

Universities ought to welcome, embrace, even solicit differing — and diverse — points of view.

According to Kristof, though, they’ve become havens for liberal/progressive thinkers who dislike mingling with those on the other side of the fence.

Message received, Mr. Kristof.

national news, political news, State news

‘We let bygones be bygones’

May 9, 2016 kanelis2012

I generally like the craft of politics and, yes, I like some of those who practice the craft.

One of the aspects of politics, though, is the ease with which politicians can set aside amazingly hurtful comments they make about each other to pursue newfound friendships and alliances.

Take the case of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party, Donald J. Trump.

I would have bet real American money that the two men truly detested each other after hearing Perry skin Trump alive with comments about the real estate mogul being a “cancer on conservatism.”

Not long after that, Perry dropped out of the GOP primary race and then endorsed the formerly “cancerous” Trump’s bid for president.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/06/perry-defends-trump-endorsement/

According to the Texas Tribune: “We are competitors, and so the rhetoric is in the heat of battle. It’s in the chaos of a presidential bid,” Perry said, also noting his criticism of Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign. “If no one doesn’t understand that, then they don’t understand how our process of elections work. We compete, and then we let bygones by bygones.”

I guess Perry deserves credit for being a good sport. So, too, does Trump for accepting the Perry endorsement.

The things they say to and about each other, though, do seem to cross some imaginary boundary of decency.

I look back at the 2000 contest for the U.S. Senate seat in New York. The Democratic Party nominee for that seat was none other than first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. I considered it astonishing then that Clinton would want to serve in the legislative body with senators who actually voted to convict her husband of charges brought against him in that impeachment.

It also astounded me, after she won the seat, that Clinton managed to form constructive working relationships with her Republican Senate colleagues, who, you’ll recall, voted to convict President Clinton of the charges brought against him.

I didn’t think she’d run for the Senate seat. Nor did I believe she could ever trust her GOP colleagues as far as she could throw them.

I’m left to ask myself: Could I ever let “bygones be bygones” and throw in with former adversaries?

Umm. No.

national news, political news

GOP walks tightrope with Trump at top of ballot

May 9, 2016 kanelis2012

You’ve heard the phrase, no doubt, of “a distinction without a difference.”

How does a politician “support” another politician without “endorsing” that individual?

This is one of the myriad dilemmas facing Republican pols across the nation as the party gets ready to nominate a certifiable huckster as its next nominee for president of the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/08/us/politics/trump-endorsements-congress-republicans-gop.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

I refer to Donald J. Trump as the huckster.

Some leading Republican politicians, though, are seeking to hedge their bets in occasionally awkward manners.

Consider the statement of U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the GOP senator from New Hampshire, who said she can “support” Trump but cannot “endorse” him.

Ayotte is facing a potentially difficult re-election effort as Democrats likely will send Gov. Jean Shaheen against her. Ayotte can’t take the full plunge by endorsing Trump but, by golly, she’s going to support him.

A distinction without a difference?

It looks that way to me.

Other leading Republicans are walking away from Trump. Still others are offering tepid support. Sure, some have endorsed the hotel mogul and reality TV celebrity; former campaign foes New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who once called Trump “unfit” for the presidency, and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who once called Trump a “cancer on conservatism” have endorsed him.

It’s the Ayotte caveat, though, that I find most intriguing.

I’ve been watching politics for nearly 40 years. I studied political science in college. I became engaged in the presidential election process starting around 1968, when I shook Sen. Robert Kennedy’s hand at a chance meeting one week before an assassin robbed us all of a chance to see if RFK could be elected president.

This truly is the first time I’ve witnessed such intraparty reticence to clutch the coattails of the presumed party presidential nominee.

But it’s there. It’s real.

Sure, Trump has appealed to millions of Americans who claim to be “angry” with politics as usual. This clown “tells it like it is,” supporters tell us, while they ignore — or laugh off — the abject crassness of his rhetoric and the tastelessness of his insults.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, another former primary campaign foe, said it well: “I just really believe that the Republican Party has been conned here, and this guy is not a reliable conservative Republican.”

Just today, on “Meet the Press,” Trump said he would consider raising taxes on wealthy Americans, which by my way of thinking runs utterly counter to standard Republican Party tax principles.

This is the problem facing Republicans across the country as they ponder their own political futures. How do they run with someone who says whatever pops into his head?

Or do they seek to split hairs as finely as they can by “supporting” him without “endorsing” him?

It is tough to be a Republican these days.

national news, political news

Palin illustrates GOP affliction

May 8, 2016 kanelis2012 2 Comments

You might be wondering: Just how messed up is today’s Republican Party?

I might have an example to share with you.

The former half-term Alaska governor, Sarah Palin, said she’s going to work to defeat House Speaker Paul Ryan in Wisconsin’s upcoming Republican primary.

Why would the 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee do such a thing? Because the speaker says he cannot “yet” support the probable 2016 GOP presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump.

Palin has endorsed Trump. Ryan has so far declined. It’s not clear that he ever will. Why do you suppose the speaker is withholding his support?

My guess is that Trump isn’t a “real Republican,” that he doesn’t adhere sufficiently to basic Republican principles to suit the speaker.

Palin calls herself a true-blue Republican. But she’s backing Trump. Now she wants to work against a fellow true GOP believer, Ryan.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/08/politics/sarah-palin-paul-ryan-paul-nehlen-endorsement/index.html

As near as most of us can tell, the only principle to which Trump holds dear is to himself. I believe that’s why he’s been labeled a narcissist.

Sure, it’s appealing to a lot of Republican “base” voters who like how Trump “tells it like it is.” Someone, though, has to explain to me what “it” really is.

Trump and Ryan plan to meet this week, as I understand it. Will they settle their differences? Don’t look for a kumbaya moment after their meeting.

As for Palin, I guess she’s trying to make herself relevant yet again by seeking to defeat the nation’s most powerful Republican politician.

What she is managing to do, though, is demonstrate — as if it needed further demonstration in the context of this year’s presidential primary season — how dysfunctional this once-great political party has become.

political news, State news

Perry portrait unveiled … sans glasses

May 8, 2016 kanelis2012

Let’s talk about something truly insignificant for a moment.

I’ve had a busy day doing one of my part-time jobs. I am a bit worn out, so I thought I’d share my view on former Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s portrait unveiling at the State Capitol in Austin.

He’s not wearing the glasses he donned prior to running for president the second time.

No, his portrait depicts him barefaced. No specs.

That’s all right with me. I came to know the governor without the corrective lenses. I always thought he donned the glasses prior to running for president for effect, anyway. They were intended to make him look smarter.

Actually, he didn’t need them for that purpose.

It’s not that I believe the former governor is a dummy. I don’t … and he isn’t.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/06/perry-portrait-unveiled-and-burning-question-answer/’

As a glasses-wearing individual myself, I am kind of partial to eye wear on politicians.

Now for a quick aside: I’ve worn specs since the eighth grade. I want to salute Mr. King, my science teacher at Parkrose Heights Junior High School in suburban Portland, Ore., for noticing I was squinting one day while watching a film strip.

The bell rang for the next class and he took me aside and asked, “Can you read what’s on the blackboard?” I responded incredulously, “Well, no-o-o-o,” as if he thought I should be able to read it.

He sent me home that day with a note to my parents.

Looking back on it many decades later I am convinced I was born blind.

I got the glasses. I threw up in the car on the way home from the optometrist. Why? Seeing the leaves blowing in the breeze made me sick to my stomach.

The glasses might have made me look smarter, too. They didn’t make me a better student.

Back to the former governor …

I’m glad the portrait shows him without the eyeglasses. I made his acquaintance in 1990 when he campaigned for Texas agriculture commissioner without them.

He did pretty well over the years in Texas — politically speaking — without dressing up his face.

national news, political news, religious news

Once again: Constitution is a secular document

May 8, 2016 kanelis2012

Tom DeLay knows his audience and he speaks their language.

In this case, the former U.S. House majority leader was speaking a couple of years ago on a religious program hosted by John Hagee Ministries.

If only, though, he would speak accurately about the very founding of this great republic.

Host Matt Hagee asked DeLay where he thought the nation had gone wrong. DeLay’s response was, shall we say, more than little off the mark.

http://www.rawstory.com/2014/02/tom-delay-people-keep-forgetting-that-god-wrote-the-constitution/#.VTt_WhZmKvw.facebook

“I think we got off the track when we allowed our government to become a secular government,” DeLay explained. “When we stopped realizing that God created this nation, that he wrote the Constitution, that it’s based on biblical principles.”

Well …

Where do we begin?

We’ve had a “secular government” since its very founding. The Constitution — as I’ve noted in this blog before — contains precisely two religious references. That would be in Article VI, which declares that there should be “no religious test” for anyone seeking election to public office; and in the First Amendment, where the founders declared there would be “no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

That’s it, folks.

The founders knew precisely what they were doing when they omitted any other religious references in the Constitution. They intended for the government to be free of religious pressure or coercion.

I happen to be totally OK with that.

DeLay, though, sought to parse the Constitution differently when he told the Hagee Ministries audience about how God “wrote the Constitution.”

This gets to the debate that continues to this day. Indeed, it’s been going on virtually since the United States of America emerged from its revolution.

The Rawstory item showed up on my Facebook feed today I suppose as a reminder that this national debate likely never will go away.

Can’t we just accept the notion that the founders built a government framework that would be free of religion, but which allowed each of us to worship as we see fit?

That happens to be — in my humble view — one of the true-blue beauties of a secular government.

High Plains Blogger