Category Archives: political news

national news, political news, Uncategorized

‘Unity’ appears headed for the cliff

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Donald J. Trump has a peculiar way of expressing his desire to bring the Republican Party together in a spirit of “unity.”

The GOP presidential frontrunner is emptying both barrels — rhetorically, of course — into Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus for allegedly stacking the nominating process against him … meaning Trump.

Trump is angry at the way U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas managed to corral all of Colorado’s Republican convention delegates this past week. He is steaming over losing the delegate count to Cruz while “winning” the Louisiana primary earlier.

Who’s to blame? Reince Priebus, said Trump. He’s working “against” the frontrunner. He calls the chairman’s alleged tactics “disgusting” and some other pejorative terms.

Priebus’s response is simple: The rules are the rules, Mr. Trump; get over it, work with them.

I’ve got to give Cruz credit, though, for outhustling Trump — the hustler in chief of this year’s GOP primary campaign — in obtaining committed delegates. Cruz’s team comprises political pros and veterans who know how to work the system established by the party. Trump’s team, until just recently, has been lacking in that kind of experience.

However, if Trump intends to “bring the party together” should he be nominated, he’s got to learn — as if he thinks he can learn anything — that you don’t accuse the guy who runs your political party of being a political crook.

You want unity? Trump might consider working more behind the scenes, quietly and with discretion, with the chairman. He also might consider tamping down the fiery rhetoric that keeps pouring out of his mouth.

That’s the tallest of orders. It would require the once-presumed GOP nominee to change the way he does business.

It won’t happen, which is OK with some of us out here.

I’m waiting anxiously for a fun-filled Republican convention in Cleveland.

 

military news, national news, political news

Mayor stands for principle in commissioning of ship

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USS Portland

This story caught my eye initially because it involved a vessel named after the city of my birth.

Then I learned more about the real story. It’s about principle.

The USS Portland is going to commissioned late next year in Portland, Ore., rather than in Pascagoula, Miss., where it was scheduled to be commissioned.

Why the change? Portland’s lame-duck mayor, Charlie Hales, said he wouldn’t go to Pascagoula to take part in the commissioning because of a Mississippi law he and others say discriminates against gay and transgender people.

You go, Mr. Mayor!

Hales is standing on the principle of non-discrimination and for that he should be applauded.

The USS Portland is an amphibious transport ship that the U.S. Navy has just built. It’s a gleaming vessel of the San Antonio class.

It’s going to be christened in Pascagoula. Hales was going to attend the christening, but backed out because of the discriminatory law.

Portland has some world-class freshwater maritime facilities, as it straddles the Willamette River near where it empties into the mighty Columbia River. According to a report in the Portland Tribune, the commissioning will occur late next year at Terminal 2.

As the Tribune reported: “’The commissioning ceremony of a Navy ship is steeped in a time-honored tradition that places a ship in active service,’ says Mike Hewlett, chair of the Portland Council of he Navy League, an international organization of civilians that supports the maritime services, including the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marines, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Merchant Marine.”

That “tradition” should not be done in an environment where some Americans face a state-sanctioned discrimination.

Accordingly, Mayor Hales should be applauded for standing firm on his belief that such laws mustn’t be tolerated.

I don’t know Charlie Hales, who has made me proud of my hometown.

 

media news, political news, State news

Communications director quits at TDA … here’s why

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They go by any number of terms.

Public information officer; spokesperson; communications director; press secretary; media representative.

A less-flattering term is flack.

Whatever they’re called, these individuals — particularly when they work for a government agency — fulfill an important task. It is to communicate accurately what’s being said to the public. After all, it’s the public’s business, given that these agencies spend the public’s money.

Are we clear … so far?

Lucy Nashed has just quit her job as communications director for the Texas Department of Agriculture. Here’s the kicker: She left without having another job.

Seems that her boss, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, kept sending out mixed signals to the public. He couldn’t keep his story straight, it appears, about a trip he took to take part in a rodeo.

Did he spend public money to rope and rassle cattle … or did he reimburse the public?

Here’s part of the Texas Tribune’s account of what happened:

“The Houston Chronicle reported over the weekend that Miller took a state-paid trip to Mississippi to participate in the National Dixie Rodeo but later repaid the state with campaign and personal funds. He told the Chronicle that the intent of the trip was to meet with agriculture officials there, making it a legitimate state-covered business trip. Miller said after those meetings fell through, he repaid the state for the trip.

“More than a week before the Chronicle story, Nashed told the Tribune that the Mississippi trip — which was always designed to be a personal trip — was mistakenly booked by a staffer as a business trip. Once the staffer realized the trip was personal, Nashed said, Miller repaid the state for the trip. Nashed said Monday that was the information she was originally given.”

Miller has become something of a loose cannon since taking over as head of the state agriculture department. He’s a bit of a showman, bragging about his good ol’ boy appeal and his ability and willingness to toss aside policies just because he can.

Nashed had a tough job working for the Republican officeholder. Her task was to make sure his thoughts and statements were communicated accurately. However, she complained about a “tremendous lack of communication” within the TDA, a condition she acknowledged made it difficult for her to do her job.

The fact that Nashed quit without having a place to land speaks loudly and clearly as well.

There’s no misunderstanding — or miscommunication — there. She wanted out. Now!

national news, political news

Gov. Kasich faces a bitter irony

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John Kasich must feel like the unluckiest politician in America.

He’s caught in perhaps the most bitter irony in recent political history.

The Ohio governor is running for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. He’s one of three men still standing in what began as a 17-candidate GOP primary free-for-all.

Given that we’ve been talking — a lot! — about public opinion polling in this presidential campaign, it’s good to mention this: Kasich stands alone among the three men still running as the only candidate who can defeat probable Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton. Donald Trump loses big to Clinton; so does Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.

Why, then, does Gov. Kasich still struggle as the longest shot of all the GOP candidates who will become the party’s presidential nominee this summer?

The Republican base has endorsed Trump and Cruz in all those primaries and caucuses. Kasich has won exactly one contest: in Ohio, the state he governs. Hey, man, he had to win that one, right?

I’ve heard pundit after pundit, voter after voter say the same thing: Gov. Kasich is the last grown-up in this race.

Trump and Cruz are despised by the Republican establishment for varying reasons. Trump lacks a governing philosophy; Cruz seems to have virtually no friends in the U.S. Senate, where he has served since January 2013.

It appears, though, that one of those two individuals is going to carry the GOP banner into the fall against Clinton. Those polls? They keep showing they’ll lose. Maybe by a lot.

Kasich continues to poll far better vs. Clinton than either of them.

He also continues to lag far behind in the Republican Party polls of primary voters.

Poor guy. I feel sorry for Gov. Kasich.

 

national news, political news

Ryan settles it: He’s will not accept it

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I’ve been waiting for this declaration.

Today, it finally came from U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who declared that he will not accept the Republican Party’s presidential nomination if it’s offered to him.

There. It’s a done deal.

Ryan’s declaration spells out a gloomy prospect for the Republican Party. It’s going to nominate — more than likely — one of two men who hold tremendous negative ratings among rank-and-file voters.

Donald J. Trump will go to the GOP convention with more delegates than anyone else. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas will show up with the second-most delegate stash.

Neither of these fellows is going to defeat probable Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, although surely their partisans will argue differently.

Ryan might have been able to rescue his party from what could turn out to be an electoral landslide loss. He’d bobbed, weaved, dodged and danced all over the question about whether he’d be open to a draft at the convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

“Count me out,” he said today. The convention should nominate someone who “actually ran for the job,” he said.

Don’t misread my intention here.

I don’t think Paul Ryan should become the next president. I voted against the ticket on which he ran in 2012 as the VP nominee with GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

It would have been a fascinating development in the extreme, though, to see whether the convention could turn to him as a sort of political savior.

It won’t happen.

Now the party is left with a sour choice.

legal news, political news, State news

Texas AG now faces SEC accusation

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is under indictment for securities fraud.

Now, though, the Securities and Exchange Commission has weighed in on the attorney general, charging him with a similar misdeed.

Let’s see. A Collin County grand jury — in Paxton’s home county — has issued a criminal indictment. The SEC now has accused the AG of failure to disclose he was being paid a commission for investment advice he was giving.

Is there a pattern here? Does the state of Texas really deserve to be represented by a top legal eagle who’s now under a dual-edged complaint?

As one who believes in the presumption of innocence, I have been reluctant to call for Paxton to step down from this high office.

Until now.

Paxton has proclaimed his innocence. Of course he would, yes?

I recall during the 2014 campaign for attorney general, though, that Paxton — who served in the Texas Legislature — actually admitted to doing what the grand jury accused him of doing when it indicted him. The grand jury indicted him for failing to disclose that he had been paid for the investment advice he gave.

Still, Texas voters elected him.

According to the Texas Tribune: “People recruiting investors have a legal obligation to disclose any compensation they are receiving to promote a stock, and we allege that Paxton and White concealed the compensation they were receiving for touting Servergy’s product,” Shamoil T. Shipchandler, director of the SEC’s Fort Worth regional office, said in a news release on the complaint.

SEC joins in

This doesn’t look to me like a political witch hunt. The SEC is a regulatory agency run by professionals who are charged with ensuring that investment policies are followed to the letter.

The grand jury? It’s in the very county Paxton — a Republican — represented in the Legislature. Many of the grand jurors likely voted for the guy.

This doesn’t bode well for the attorney general.

For that matter, it doesn’t bode well for the state’s pursuit of top-notch and credible legal advice from its top lawyer.

I wouldn’t shed a tear if Ken Paxton decided to quit so he could devote his full attention to defending himself against these serious charges.

 

national news, political news, State news

Cruz and Cornyn: an uneasy Senate team?

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Every state is represented in the U.S. Senate by two individuals who, under an unwritten rule of good government, would seek to work in close political partnership.

The Texas Tribune has published an interesting analysis of the relationship of Texas’s two Republican senators, one of whom is running for president of the United States.

Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, according to the Tribune, aren’t exactly close. They aren’t joined at the hip. You don’t see them singing each other’s praises.

Is it a metaphor for what we’ve heard about Cruz?

It’s been stated repeatedly during this Republican primary campaign that Cruz hasn’t made many “friends” in the Senate. He doesn’t “play well with others,” the saying goes. He called the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, a “liar” in a Senate floor speech and then just this past week said he had no intention to take back what he said.

It might be a big deal — in a normal election cycle. This one isn’t normal. As the Tribune reports: “In any other circumstance, it would be curious that a viable presidential candidate did not have the support of his fellow state Republican. But each man in this case represents the visceral divide raging in the party: Cornyn is the consummate establishment team player, while Cruz is the TEA Party insurgent.”

Cruz has been a senator for slightly more than three years. Cornyn was elected in 2002. What’s more, the Senate is Cruz’s first elected office; Cornyn, on the other hand, served as Texas attorney general and, before that, as a member of the Texas Supreme Court.

Cornyn knows how to play the political game in Texas. He’s good at it. Is he exactly my kind of senator? Hardly, but I do respect the man’s political skill.

Cruz brings another element to this game. I would consider it his amazing degree of hubris and utter fearlessness.

It’s long been said that the U.S. Senate is a 100-member club that requires a bit of time for members to feel comfortable. It took young Ted Cruz no time at all to grab a microphone on the Senate floor and begin blasting away at his rivals.

It’s only a hunch on my part but it might be that the Texas rookie’s rush to the center of the stage could have been a bit off-putting to the more senior legislator.

It used to be said that the “most dangerous place in Washington” was the space between Sen. Phil Gramm and a microphone. Gramm left the Senate some years ago. Ted Cruz has taken up that new — apparently with great gusto.

Is he a team player? Are Texas’s two senators — Cornyn and Cruz — on the same page all the time? Consider this from the Tribune:

“There are no whispered tales in Senate circles about heated arguments between the two men or icy glares on the Senate floor. Instead, the most frequently used word observers use to describe the relationship is ‘disconnected.’”

 

 

national news, political news

No mandatory vote law needed, Mr. President

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Barack Obama is frustrated at the political division and the apparent apathy among voters in the United States.

I share the president’s frustration.

However, I don’t share his enthusiasm for a suggested remedy.

Make voting mandatory, he said in a speech at the University of Chicago law school.

The Australians  do it right, he said, by requiring citizens to vote. He said such a requirement would be “transformative” by boosting turnouts to the 70 to 80 percent range.

There are ways to encourage turnout without making citizens do it, Mr. President.

We could declare Election Day a national holiday. Give everyone a day off from work to vote. That’s an idea.

As for mandatory voting, the U.S. Constitution grants us the right to vote. It doesn’t specify it as a condition of citizenship. Our rights as citizens depend on whether we choose to take full advantage of them.

I am proud to vote. I almost always wait to do so on Election Day, whether it’s in the primary or in the general election. There’s just something ham-handed and, dare I say, dictatorial in declaring that Americans must vote.

I also lament the pitiful voter turnouts. Only 53.6 percent of Americans voted for president in 2012. The Australian turnout was greater than 90 percent in its most recent general election. Yes, that is vastly better than our own electoral performance.

“We really are the only advanced democracy on Earth that systematically and purposely makes it really hard for people to vote,” Obama told the law students.

That might be true. There are many options out there to make it easier for Americans to vote. Writing that requirement into law isn’t one of them.

We must remain free to vote — or not vote — as we see fit.

For better or worse, that’s the American way.

media news, national news, political news

Boston Globe crawls under Trump’s skin

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Donald J. Trump’s thin skin causes some hysterical reaction.

Take his response to a satirical front page the Boston Globe published today that imagines a Trump presidency.

The paper’s front page screamed with headlines about deportation of illegal immigrants, a tripling of immigration enforcement personnel and the filing of libel lawsuits against the media.

Trump called the Globe “worthless” and launched into a tirade in which he said the paper wrote a “dishonest story.”

It was a joke, Mr. Trump. I get that he wouldn’t find it funny. I also get that he dislikes any media outlet that criticizes him for the statements he has made while campaigning for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

But the Globe’s editorial page laid down the predicate for the bogus front page. There was no secret agenda involved here. The paper’s view of Trump is well-known. The editors of the Globe do not want the real estate mogul to become president. So, they engaged in a bit of satire to illustrate their point.

In the highly unlikely event that Donald Trump ever were to be elected president, he would certainly face a torrent of criticism for the statements he would make and for the policies he would enact. Sure, he also would get praise from some quarters.

This kind of critical analysis, though, simply goes with the territory.

The man needs to toughen up his skin.

 

national news, political news

Paradise awaits political panderers

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New York is a paradise for those who love to pander for votes.

That’s especially true in New York City, the Big Apple.

Think of it: The city of 8 million-plus residents has a large Jewish-American population; the Catholic Church is big there, as well; it has a large African-American bloc of residents and a significant LGBT community; it is home to blue-collar and white-collar residents; progressives and conservatives live there; a lot of veterans call NYC home; immigrants from all over the world have settled there.

Why, there’s a group to which to pander for any of the five candidates competing for their parties’ presidential nomination.

The city has enough groups to go around several times among all five of them.

The state’s all-important primary is coming up a week from this coming Tuesday.

For Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, this is it. He’s got to win it to stay viable as a presidential hopeful. Donald J. Trump must win the Republican primary big, too. Bernie was born in Brooklyn; Trump was born in Queens. They’re home boys. They might have less need to pander than the others.

Rest assured, though, they’re going to pander to the home-boy crowd, the folks who want to vote for one of their own.

I can hear them now talking smack with crowds about how they know more about the city than their rivals. Yep, that’s pandering, too.

Meanwhile, the others — even Hillary Clinton, who represented New York in the Senate for eight years — are going to try to out-pander each other in their quests for votes.

It won’t be pretty.

Then again, gut-fighter politics hardly ever is a thing of beauty.