Category Archives: political news

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?

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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.

 

national news, political news

Wondering if Romney will express regret over endorsement

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures and declares "You're fired!" at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, June 17, 2015. REUTERS/Dominick Reuter TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY - RTX1GZCO

Mitt Romney is going to weigh in shortly on Donald J. Trump.

He’s going to call him a few choice names. I’ve heard “fraud” and “phony” kicked around. There no doubt will be more.

I’m not sure why the 2012 Republican Party presidential nominee wants to engage in this boiling intraparty debate over Trump’s ascendancy to become the party’s next nominee. Romney has said he’s not going to run for president again and I believe him. Perhaps he wants to become the gray eminence of the GOP establishment that is now seeking to derail the Trump Express.

Of all the things he can say today when he makes that speech in Utah, I’ll be waiting to hear if he’s going to express any regret over seeking and embracing Trump’s endorsement four years ago when Romney was running against President Obama.

I know that circumstances change in politics.

Trump, though, has always been the showman. He’s never exhibited any philosophical grounding. He’s never offered a constructive and reasonable solution to any problem facing the nation

Build a wall to keep illegal immigrants out and force Mexico — a sovereign nation — to pay for it?

Impose an unconstitutional ban on people entering this country because of their religious beliefs?

Use the power of the presidency to ensure that retail business owners wish customers a “Merry Christmas”?

Is this guy for real? I know the answer to that question.

He’s what he’s always been.

I am looking forward to hearing from Mitt Romney who today is looking a whole lot better as an alternative to Donald Trump than he might have looked — to me, at least — four years ago.

I remain hopeful he’ll admit he goofed back in 2012 in accepting this clown’s endorsement for president of the United States.

 

political news, religious news, State news

SBOE tranquility might be about to end

texas-education-hat

The 15-member Texas State Board of Education has been alternately a raucous body and one that seems to get along relatively well.

My strong sense is that if a runoff election way over yonder in the Piney Woods of deep East Texas turns out the way some folks fear it might, the era of raucousness might be about to make an unwelcome return to the SBOE.

This runoff is worth watching.

Mary Lou Bruner, a retired teacher — yes, that’s right — is in a runoff election along with fellow Republican Keven Ellis for a seat on the board that sets public education policy for the state’s 6 million students.

Bruner, shall we say, is a serious piece of work. She’s the individual who declared on social media that President Obama was at one time a gay prostitute.

She is a “social conservative.” Bruner is likely to fit in with other such conservatives on the SBOE who’ve battled with more moderate board members about curriculum issues, textbooks selection, investment of public money.

Bruner finished first in the three-person race for the SBOE seat and the word out of the Piney Woods is that she’s in good shape to actually win the runoff against Ellis. Why ? Well, her base of support is quite dedicated and those folks are more likely to return to the polls in the next few weeks to nominate her.

And, yes, she’ll become the prohibitive favorite against the Democratic nominee, Amanda Rudolph.

Candidates such as Bruner make me wonder why Texans decided years ago to return to an elected state education board. Texas experimented for a time with an appointed SBOE, but then amended the Texas Constitution to return to an elected body.

Thus, the majority decided it was better to entrust public education to politicians rather than to academicians.

We’ve elected some serious doozies as a result. There have been serious disputes among board members over whether we should teach Biblical teachings of Earth’s creation in science class.

Much of that argument has settled down in recent years. My fear is that it’s going to return to the front burner if East Texans elect a fire-breather such as Bruner to the state education board.

Hey, if she’s capable of making absurd assertions about the president of the United States, one only can imagine how she might engage in debates over the fate of public education.

 

national news, political news

Trump confounds foes on all sides

trump and carson

Just how wacky is this presidential campaign?

I cannot identify any single source, but it seems as though we can find some element of that wackiness in this scenario.

Donald J. Trump is getting pounded by foes on both ends of the spectrum as he continues to lead the way among the Republican Party presidential candidates.

Consider this, for instance.

Intellectual conservatives say Trump isn’t one of them. They point to his statements in favor of a woman’s right to choose an abortion; they take note of his stance in favor of universal health care; they question why he has said President Bush “lied” the nation into fighting the Iraq War.

He’s not a true Republican, let alone a conservative Republican, which is where the party establishment has been leaning for the past decade or two.

The party establishment cannot stomach the idea of Trump being the party nominee. They fear what that would mean for the party’s control of the U.S. Senate and in the many statewide races across the country. Trump cannot possibly lead the Republican slate of candidates, they say.

Then we have those on the other end. I’m one of those folks.

Trump’s public presence is a ghastly reminder of how ignorant he is about government. He doesn’t understand the limits of the presidency. Trump’s stated intention is to do all manner of things by himself, or so one could be led to assume.

Many of us are horrified at the insults he has hurled: at a TV news anchor, at disabled people, at a U.S. senator’s distinguished military service, at voters of Iowa, at all of his political foes, at Hispanics.

He recently actually threatened the speaker of the House of Representatives, fellow Republican Paul Ryan, by saying he could pay a price if he and Trump don’t get along.

And, oh yes, there’s that feigned ignorance of who ex-Klansman David Duke is and what the organization to which he once belonged stands for.

Those on the right and those on the left cannot stand this guy.

But he’s leading the race for the Republican Party presidential nomination. Who’s voting for him?

Evangelical voters are giving him a pass for his acknowledged extramarital affairs. Hard-core Republicans are backing him because he “tells it like it is.”

They’re fed up with “politics as usual.”

Well, what they’re likely to get with Donald Trump is a brand new kind of politics never before seen.

You want wackiness? This guy is delivering it.