Category Archives: political news

International news, national news, political news

Bibi shows his petulant side

netanyahu.si_

Readers of this blog know — at least I hope they know — that I am a fervent advocate for the U.S.-Israel alliance.

I want it to be strong. I have long understood the Israeli point of view as it regards the war against international terror. I got to spend a month in Israel in May-June 2009 and saw up close the proximity with which the Israelis deal with nations that want to destroy their country.

I get that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to protect his country with all the might he can muster.

Why, though, did Bibi cancel his planned visit to the United States without telling the White House? Why does he keep wanting to stick it in President Obama’s eye?

The White House stands firm on its belief that Netanyahu showed bad manners when he canceled his trip, which was supposed to include a meeting with the president.

Yes, the two men have had a frosty relationship, although they’ve both spoken of their nations’ commitment to each other. President Obama has been clear: We’re going to stand with Israel always when violence erupts. How much clearer does he have to make it?

But the prime minister is still fuming over the Iranian nuclear deal that seeks to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Several nations worked diligently to craft an agreement that seeks to create a safer Middle East.

Bibi isn’t buying it. Oddly, though, I get his reluctance. Iran has stated it wants to destroy Israel and the Israelis aren’t willing for forget that blatant threat.

A meeting, though, between two heads of government need not have been canceled because of it. If anything, Netanyahu could have come here and voiced his displeasure to Barack Obama’s face, in private, with no one else in the room.

He didn’t do that. He chose instead to make a grandstand play.

Maybe it’s all part of the political climate these days. Those Republican presidential candidates have been a pretty petulant pack themselves these days. It must be rubbing off on Bibi.

 

national news, political news

Oh, for the old days of presidential debates

Nixon-Kennedy-debate_1960

CNN broadcast a special the other night on the landmark debate series between two men vying for the presidency of the United States of America.

Democratic U.S. Sen. John Kennedy faced Republican Vice President Richard Nixon.

The special talked at length about the men’s preparation for the encounters and the consequences that they delivered to the U.S. electoral system.

If only we could return to those days when the most trivial thing we talked about was whether one candidate looked more robust than the other one.

These days, we’re talking about a lot of things that have pulled these joint appearances into the gutter.

The leading Republican candidate, Donald J. Trump, is fond of tossing insults out at his opponents. Lately, some of those foes have responded. One of them, young Marco Rubio, has introduced — in a round-about way — the subject of Trump’s sexual endowments.

We’ve heard comments about perspiration, watched Trump make fun of Rubio’s physical appearance, listened at Trump has called Ted Cruz a lying son-of-a-gun.

And then — from the peanut gallery — former GOP nominee Mitt Romney has weighed in with comments and questions about why Trump doesn’t release his tax returns; he’s also called Trump a “phony” and a “fraud.” Trump’s response? Romney is a loser, a has-been.

We are witnessing an absurd demonstration of petulance on a level many of us have never before witnessed at this level of what is supposed to pass for political discourse.

Fifty-six years ago, two men faced off in a series of three joint appearances. We were enthralled then just at the notion of watching them on live television. Those grainy black-and-white pictures now seem quaint.

The high-minded debate they engaged in, though, now looks statesmanlike, dignified, the kind of encounter one should expect to see between two individuals seeking to become the next head of state of the world’s greatest nation.

These days? It’s a clown show.

 

national news, political news

Why the qualified tribute to Mrs. Reagan?

bal-nancyphoto0611

The nation has heard from many leading political figures commenting on the death of former first lady Nancy Reagan.

They’ve all been lovely and heartfelt.

Still, consider this statement from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic candidate for president:

“No matter your party or political ideology, this is a sad day for America. Nancy Reagan was an exemplary first lady. A devoted partner, she was her husband’s most trusted advisor and, as such, served our country well. Even after her time in the White House, she was an outspoken advocate for stem-cell research to find a cure for Alzheimer’s. Nancy Reagan had a good heart, and she will be dearly missed.”

Is it just me or did Sen. Sanders offer something of a qualifier with that first clause: “No matter your party or political affiliation …”?

I venture to guess that most adult Americans who are even remotely aware of the current presidential campaign know that Sanders leans sharply to the left and that the late President and Mrs. Reagan leaned sharply in the other direction.

I don’t mean to parse and nitpick Sen. Sanders’ statement to death, but it seems to me he could have just started with, “This is a sad day for America” and gone on from there. The rest of the statement came straight from his heart.

One sees this kind of qualification added to tributes to those who have passed on. Lefties do it when righties depart this world and righties do it as well to the lefties who leave us.

Hey, maybe I’ve got too much time on my hands to worry about such things.

Any thoughts here? Am I off base?

 

national news, political news, Uncategorized

Little to fear from Trump? Here’s why

checks balance

I’ll admit to being one of those millions of Americans who is horrified at the notion of a President Donald J. Trump.

The horror comes not so much from whether he can achieve all the idiotic policy goals he’s set out. It comes from the idea of this guy speaking his mind in public, of having his words heard around the world by people who expect high-minded rhetoric from the head of state of the world’s greatest nation.

Yep, by golly, we’re still the top dog on Planet Earth — and whatever Trump says to the contrary is just so much horse manure.

I’m going to offer, though, a view that might put your mind to rest at least a little bit over what makes some of us afraid … very afraid.

That stuff about building the wall and making Mexico pay for it? How about the notion of banning Muslims from entering the country because of their religious faith? How about the idiotic tax plan that economists say simply will not work? Or the idea that he’ll single-handedly bring jobs back that have been lost to Japan, China and Mexico?

Trump’s not going to get any of that done without help from Congress. Who controls the legislative branch of government? Republicans, that’s who.

Yes, the very Republicans who at this very moment are working overtime, behind closed doors, sweating bullets … trying like holy hell to deny Trump the presidential nomination of their party.

Imagine what might happen, thus, if they fail in their bid to deny him the nomination. Now imagine — and this is the real stretch — Trump actually defeating the Democratic nominee to become the 45th president of the United States.

The Democrats are almost certain to nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Sure, she’s got baggage of her own. However, she possesses a formidable political machine.

If hell freezes over and lightning strikes multiple times in the same spot — and the sun starts rising in the west — Trump could be elected.

If that happens, do you really think he’s going to have any easier of a time getting anything done in a Congress dominated by Republicans — presuming the GOP even manages to maintain control of the Senate? And that seems like a potentially tall order in any event, given the electoral matchups involving many potentially vulnerable GOP senators.

And if Democrats take back control of the Senate competing fiercely against a Republican ballot led by Donald J. Trump, well, then Trump’s myriad cockamamie ideas become even more remotely doable.

There. Do you feel better now?

 

 

legal news, national news, political news

Litmus tests: virtually unprovable

litmus-test-300x199

President Obama has a big decision to make.

Who’s going to become the next nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court?

Now comes the inevitable question: Uh, Mr. President, do you have a litmus test that a nominee must pass?

Gee, how does the president answer that one? “Of course not! I don’t believe in litmus tests. My nominee will be the most qualified person I can find. He or she must be able to interpret law, not make it, and they must be studious as they ponder the constitutional decisions he or she must face.”

Actually, it is my considered opinion that answers like that are full of so much mule dung.

Of course there are litmus tests! The issue facing the politicians doing the appointing is that they dare not call them such.

Does anyone in their right mind believe that when, say, a president of the United States looks across a conference-room table at a prospective nominee that he or she doesn’t ask them The Question?

In a case such as this it might be: “Would you vote to uphold the Roe v. Wade abortion decision?” Or, “would you stand behind the Affordable Care Act?” How about, “would you continue to uphold the ruling that gay couples are guaranteed under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to be married?”

Do presidents ask those questions? Sure they do. You know it. I know. The presidents know it. The people they interview know it.

Let’s not be coy, either. Presidents of both parties ask them in search of the correct answer. Does anyone really believe, for instance, that President Reagan didn’t at least know in advance how Antonin Scalia would lean on, say, the Roe v. Wade decision when he considered him for a spot on the court? Do you think he might have asked him directly? I believe it would have been a distinct possibility.

Are all these meetings open to public review? Are they recorded for posterity? No and no.

That’s why the “litmus question” is a monumental waste of time. The answers mean nothing to me.

If only presidents would be candid. “Sure, I have tests that candidates must meet. Hey, I was elected to this office and most voters who cast their ballots for me knew what they were getting. Elections have consequences.”

 

business news, local news, political news

A suggestion for Eades replacement

Councilmen_2015

No … I don’t have anyone particular in mind.

Indeed, the Amarillo City Council has some time to ponder who should succeed Brian Eades, who’s leaving the council in July as he moves to western Colorado.

Eades is a grownup member of the council. He serves as one of two stalwart votes in favor of the momentum that the city is building toward its downtown revival process. The other sure-fire voice on the council is Mayor Paul Harpole.

Yes, the council has done well so far with its new three guys joining the team to move the city forward on its downtown rejuvenation. Crews have broken ground on the planned parking garage and on the Embassy Suites hotel across Buchanan Street from the Civic Center.

Work still needs to commence on the multipurpose event venue.

I don’t have serious concern about whether the MPEV will be built. I hope it is built and I hope the city welcomes an affiliated baseball team to play its home games at the shiny new ballpark.

My hope for the new council member runs along two tracks.

One is that he or she has a keen interest in moving the downtown effort forward. The projects have been discussed, debated and examined every which way from here to Kingdom Come. Amarillo voters made their decision known in a November referendum that they support a ballpark venue.

Second, I hope the next council member commits to running for election in the spring of 2017 when the city conducts its election for the council.

The most recent appointee, Ron Boyd, served as a place holder when he took the seat vacated by the death of Councilman Jim Simms. The next one, I hope, will take the seat with the understanding that he or she will seek a full two-year term.

The next council member will have plenty of time between taking office and the next election to earn either the voters’ approval or rejection next spring.

So, council members, proceed with all deliberate care.

The city is moving forward. It needs a governing council committed to maintaining that momentum.

 

business news, national news, political news

What happened to the calamity?

jobs

Just a shade less than a quarter-million jobs were added to the U.S. non-farm, non-government payrolls in February, according to the Labor Department’s latest monthly report.

The unemployment rate remained at 4.9 percent.

The federal budget deficit continues to decline.

But by golly, we keep hearing along the presidential primary campaign trail that Barack Obama is presiding over an economic calamity. We’re heading for the crapper. Bernie Sanders keeps harping on the “1 percent” who are making all that money at the expense of the rest of us.

It’s time to give Barack Obama some credit.

Tim Egan writes in the New York Times:

“By any objective measurement, (Obama’s) presidency has been perhaps the most consequential since Franklin Roosevelt’s time. Ronald Reagan certainly competes with Obama for that claim. But on the night of Reagan’s final State of the Union speech in 1988, when he boasted that ‘one of the best recoveries in decades’ should ‘send away the hand-wringers and doubting Thomases,’ the economic numbers were not as good as those on Obama’s watch.

“At no time in Reagan’s eight years was the unemployment rate lower than it is today, at 5 percent — and this after Obama was handed the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression. Reagan lauded a federal deficit at 3.4 percent of gross national product. By last fall, Obama had done better than that, posting a deficit of 2.5 percent of G.D.P.”

I’m not going to give the president all the credit for the economic recovery. However, I’m damn sure not going to condemn with the ferocity that we’ve been hearing — primarily from the Republican candidates for president — about all the gloom and doom.

On other side of the great divide, we hear Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders yammering about the richest Americans not paying enough taxes. He wants to enact fundamental economic change.

I can’t help but wonder: Why?

Yes, we’re in the midst of a contentious political campaign. Candidates are bound to say anything to get attention.

Which is precisely, as I see it, what they’re doing when they keep harping on the economic disaster that hasn’t arrived.

national news, political news

Romney speech put in perspective

mitt

I watched Mitt Romney blister the daylights out of Donald J. Trump on Thursday morning and all but cheered at my TV set as I watched the speech.

Then I thought a bit more about it and realized: Didn’t the 2012 Republican nominee support many of the positions for which he’s now blasting the 2016 GOP frontrunner? And isn’t the party to which he belongs culpable of the things associated with Trump?

One example stands out. You’ll recall Romney saying four years ago that he would make life so miserable for illegal immigrants that they would “self-deport” themselves back to their home country. Now he says Trump’s anti-immigrant position is inhumane.

The New York Times noted: “He also listed Mr. Trump’s offenses — ‘the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third-grade theatrics.’ Did Mr. Romney have any sense of irony when he said those words? For far too long, they could have been used to describe many in his party: legislators, congressional leadership, its policy makers.”

There was much to commend Romney’s remarks Thursday morning. Perhaps the most skillful put-down related to Trump’s denigrating the heroism exhibited by U.S. Sen. John McCain during the Vietnam War. Romney noted the “dark irony” of Trump saying McCain was a “war hero because he got captured.” Romney said that while McCain was being tortured by his North Vietnamese captors, Trump was gallivanting with married women.

I want Romney’s remarks to stick. I want them to make Republicans think long and hard about the man who says he wants to be their party’s nominee.

The reverse of what I want might occur. Instead of forcing GOP voters to turn away from Trump, Romney’s scathing rebuke might solidify Trump’s support among those primary voters who want to send some kind of message to the party high command.

Think about this, too. Mitt Romney embodies the very public policies embraced by the Republican establishment that’s become Donald Trump’s punching bag.

 

national news, political news

What took so long to go after Trump?

Cruz_Detroit2_jpg_800x1000_q100

The 11th version of the Republican Party presidential debate circus provided one more frontal assault tonight by the three remaining viable challengers to frontrunner Donald J. Trump.

I’m going to join others around the country in asking: What took these guys so long to muster up the guts to go after this guy?

Mitt Romney this morning unleashed a blistering critique of Trump. He challenged his temperament, judgment, his business acumen, his ethics, his morals, his shallowness … have I left anything out?

Then tonight Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich continued their assault on Trump.

This comes after months of seeking to “stay on the high road.” They were cowed by Trump’s lambasting of others who dared criticize him. Trump pointed gleefully at how others who would take shots at him would see their own campaigns evaporate.

Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham? All gone.

Jeb Bush? Toast.

The rest of them? See you later.

Cruz wants to be the last man standing in the anti-Trump brigade, according to the Texas Tribune. But another strategy is beginning to develop: It is to keep the field crowded and denying Trump the ability to gather enough delegates to win the GOP nomination outright on the first ballot at the party convention this summer in Cleveland.

Trump’s incredible crassness has been ripe for criticism all along.

His foes, such as they’ve been to date, have chickened out.

I’ll give former Texas Gov. Perry credit, though, for sticking it to Trump early — only to see his own presidential campaign fizzle out.

Were the other guys afraid that would happen to them as well?

 

 

national news, political news

No mea culpa from Mitt, but still pretty powerful

mitt

Mitt Romney didn’t take my advice.

He didn’t acknowledge his mistake in seeking Donald J. Trump’s endorsement for president in 2012. Still, despite what I had hoped he would say, the immediate past Republican Party presidential nominee did a fine job this morning of eviscerating the frontrunner for the party’s next presidential nomination.

Not that it’s sure to resonate with the legions of Trumpsters who’ve glommed on to the reality TV celebrity’s shtick, which is virtually what Romney has called the candidate’s political circus act.

The man is as phony as they come. He’s not one of us, the GOP elder said; he’s not even as astute a businessman as he portrays himself, Romney added. His domestic and tax policies would created a “prolonged recession,” and his foreign policy ideas would put the nation into grave danger around the world.

Trump lacks the temperament and the judgment to be the Leader of the Free World, said Romney.

There’s so much more to add. I won’t. just take a look at the link I’ve just attached to this blog.

At a couple of levels, the speech today was most extraordinary. Some pundits this morning called it “unprecedented” for a major party’s most recent presidential nominee to openly rebuke the presumed favorite to carry the party banner further.

Romney all but endorsed the idea of a deadlocked GOP convention this summer in Cleveland to enable the party to turn to someone other than Trump. Romney said voters in Florida should back Marco Rubio and those in Ohio should vote for John Kasich.

All of this begs another question: Would the party frontrunner chuck the whole thing if he can’t corral enough delegates to guarantee a first-ballot nomination?

Look at this way: He might think that since the party isn’t treating him nicely, he could decide to forgo the floor fight and then launch some kind of rogue independent bid in an effort to stick it to the party honchos who are working overtime to deny him the nomination.

It isn’t likely to happen. But you know … if this campaign has demonstrated anything it has shown us that not a single scenario is beyond the possible.

I am one who never would have thought — not in a bazillion years — that we’d have reached this point in a campaign for the presidency of the United States of America.