Category Archives: political news

political news, State news

Get back into the game, Jerry Patterson

RailRoadCommissioner_2_jpg_800x1000_q100

The Texas Railroad Commission is a misnamed panel that does important work for the state.

It no longer regulates railroads. It does regulate the Texas energy industry.

So it is with some anticipation that I read today that Railroad Commissioner David Porter won’t seek re-election next year to the three-member panel.

Patterson may run for RRC.

His decision is spurring some activity among Texas Republicans. One of them happens to be someone I happen to respect and admire very much.

He is Jerry “The Gun Guy” Patterson, the former Texas land commissioner and a one-time state senator from the Houston area.

Patterson is a proud Marine and Vietnam War veteran. He also has delightful self-deprecating sense of humor; he once told me he graduated in the “top 75 percent of my class at Texas A&M.”

Patterson also was the author during the 1995 Texas Legislature of the state’s concealed-handgun-carry law. I opposed the law at the time, but my view on it has “evolved” over time. I am not an active supporter of the concealed-carry law; I just don’t oppose it.

Patterson did a great job running the General Land Office. He helped he GLO provide low-interest home loans for Texas military veterans.

I cannot speak to any expertise he might have on oil and gas issues. I do, though, respect him greatly as a dedicated public servant — and I hope he decides to get back in the game.

 

media news, political news

Command decision: no-politics policy to be lifted …

trump and carson

… The day after Christmas.

I’ve made a call on the immediate future of High Plains Blogger. I can do that, because it’s my blog.

I had pondered whether to maintain the “no-politics zone” policy on the blog through the entire holiday season. I stated it publicly here. My hope initially was to keep presidential political commentary out of this blog through Christmas and through the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

I no longer can maintain my silence in this forum for that long.

We’ve only got 15 more days until Christmas. I believe I have the intestinal fortitude to keep presidential political commentary out of High Plains Blogger through Christmas.

After that? No can do.

There’s too much material out there. Too much low-hanging fruit. Too many fish in that barrel. Too many targets of opportunity. The environment is just too damn target-rich.

I won’t name names. You know who  I’m talking about.

For now, I’ll leave it at that.

I’ll keep offering brief commentary via Twitter, which feeds to my Facebook news feed.

High Plains Blogger, though, will remain a no-politics zone.

For now …

 

legal news, political news, State news

Always a political back story

refugees

I am a strong believer in what the Founding Fathers intended by creating an independent federal judiciary.

They gave the president the authority to nominate federal judges for lifetime jobs, pending approval by the U.S. Senate. The intent, as I’ve always understood it, was to de-politicize the judicial branch of government.

It works.

Judge blocks order

Then again, politics always seems to be part of the subplot of every federal judicial decision.

U.S. District Judge David Godbey, for example, today struck down Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s ban on Syrian refugees coming to Texas. Paxton cited security concerns in asking for the temporary restraining order. Godbey ruled within hours of the request that Paxton had failed to demonstrate that the refugees posed any kind of threat.

Godbey wrote, according to the Texas Tribune: “The Court finds that the evidence before it is largely speculative hearsay,” the judge wrote. “The [state] has failed to show by competent evidence that any terrorists actually have infiltrated the refugee program, much less that these particular refugees are terrorists intent on causing harm.”

So, it’s fair to ask: Is this judge sitting on the federal bench because a liberal Democratic president, Barack Obama, appointed him? No. He was selected in 2003 by Republican President George W. Bush to serve the Northern District of Texas. Paxton, let’s point out, is a Republican as well.

Does it really matter, then, whether a judge gets picked by a Democrat or a Republican? It shouldn’t. Judges take an oath to uphold the Constitution without regard to political favor. They do, remember, have a lifetime job.

But the politics of this particular issue — the refugee crisis and the political debate swirling all over it — causes one to look carefully at who’s making these decisions.

Judge Godbey appears to have put the law above his political leanings.

entertainment news, media news, national news, political news

Knock off the vulgarity, talking heads

sav

I’ll give Fox News credit for exhibiting a low tolerance for what poured out of the mouths of two of its contributors.

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters and Stacey Dash decided to get downright filthy when referring to President Obama. I won’t repeat what they said here, but let’s just say that Peters’s comment included a profane reference to a certain private body part, while Dash referred to fecal matter when describing what the president thinks about the war on terrorism.

Fox suspended both of them.

This is important to note for a simple reason. Other notable Americans have used hideous language when discussing public figures and politicians. Yet no sanctions were leveled against them.

The most notable example involves comedian Bill Maher, who fancies himself as a political commentator, who once used an equally disgusting term to describe former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. He’s still on the air, to the lasting shame of the network — HBO — that carries his show.

The political debate is overheated enough already. The tone has been set by at least one of the Republicans running for the presidency.

As for the comments of the likes of Dash and Peters, well, suffice to say that their employer — the Fox News Channel — is known as a magnet for conservative television news viewers. Perhaps their vile commentary comports with the views held — if not expressed — by many of those viewers.

The issues are serious and they deserve equally serious analysis. Dropping vulgar bombs on the air only distracts us from the importance of the matters under discussion.

I’m just glad to see that the network has established that such language isn’t appropriate when referencing candidates for the presidency, let alone the man who’s already holding the most important office in the land.

A once-respected comedian — Bill Cosby — once decried fellow comedians’ use of filthy language. He would say that those comics who resort to f-bombs and other profane terms do so because they don’t have anything clever or interesting to say.

The same can be said for political commentary.

 

national news, political news

Willpower is enduring tremendous stress

donald

Donald Trump is making it very hard for me to keep my pledge to create a “no politics zone” in this blog.

He keeps coming up with outrageous and disgraceful pronouncements, the latest of which is the notion that he would ban all Muslims coming into the United States of America.

I’m not going to comment on it here. I’ll save my comments to Twitter.

You know how I feel about this particular notion and about Donald Trump in general.

***

But let me offer this brief perspective on something not related directly to his idiotic declarations.

Time magazine reportedly has Trump on its short list of candidates for Person of the Year.

Trump’s influence in 2015 on the upcoming presidential campaign has been profound. Of that there can be zero doubt. For that reason, I can understand if Time decides to declare him as its Person of the Year.

There can be little, if anything, positive to say about the substance of what he’s brought to this debate.

But his influence on its tone and tenor is beyond dispute.

Look at this way: He ain’t Hitler, Stalin or the Ayatollah. They all got the magazine’s nod for their influence on the world — for better or worse.

national news, political news

Jeannette Rankin: ideological purist to the core

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I started thinking about how I might describe ideological purity and then I came up with the name of someone who embodied it in spades.

Jeannette Rankin was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Montana. She served during two eras in the House and they coincided with our nation’s entry into the two world wars that dominated the 20th century.

What sets Rankin apart is that she voted against declarations of war in both instances.

While we lament politicians’ lack of ideological core and their willingness to bend in whichever direction the winds are blowing, we have this individual who stands tall as the purest of the pure.

Rankin was elected to the House in 1916, four years before women even had the right to vote! President Wilson came to Congress seek a war declaration in 1917 for entry into the Great War. He got it, but Rankin was among 56 House members to vote “no” on the request.

She left the House, but then was elected again in 1940.

Then came the “date which will live infamy,” Dec. 7, 1941. President Roosevelt came to Congress to ask once again for a declaration of war against the Empire of Japan. Every House member — except one — voted to declare war.

The lone holdout? Rep. Rankin.

She was a lifelong pacifist. When given a chance to vote for war, she opted twice to stick to her principles.

It wasn’t popular, particularly in the hours and days immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, to stand on a belief against war. Rep. Rankin did.

When I hear of individuals such as that, I become torn between conflicting emotions.

My dark side tells me to condemn these people for failing to heed their constituents’ wishes. My strong sense was that her Montana constituency favored going to war in both instance.

My kinder side wants to give her credit for standing foursquare on a principle she held dear to her heart.

I believe that today, as we remember Pearl Harbor and the war we declared against Japan and later, against Germany and Italy, I’ll give more credence to the part of me that salutes Jeannette Rankin.

 

political news, State news

Texas GOP comes to its senses

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I’ll admit something.

Part of me wanted Texas Republicans to be able to vote on whether to support the goofiest idea conceived since, oh, just before the Civil War. A Golden Triangle-based group wants a secession referendum placed on the GOP primary ballot in March.

My thought was, hey, let ’em vote on it. Let ’em vote it down and then we can be done with this nonsense. It won’t happen.

The Texas Republican Party executive committee has voted the idea down. It’s not going to the party’s ballot in March after all. The GOP frowns on outside groups, such as the Texas Nationalist Movement, putting issues on party ballots. My hunch is that the executive committee decision will stand, no matter what the Nationalist Movement does.

The Texas GOP sometimes seems a bit goofy. But with this decision, the party seems to be run for the most part by grownups.

The state Democratic Party was harsh in its criticism of the pro-secession measure. Imagine that. According to the Texas Tribune:

“Calling it ‘unpatriotic,’ the Texas Democratic Party had seized on the secession debate as evidence that the state GOP was falling victim to extremists in its own ranks.

“‘Every hardworking Texan should be worried that fringe issues are now the hot topic in the same party that controls state government,’ Crystal Kay Perkins, the executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement after the vote Saturday.”

Well, no need to worry about that now.

Reason has prevailed at the top of the Texas Republican Party.

Still, a resounding defeat at the polls would have sent an equally clear message.

 

International news, military news, national news, political news

President restates anti-terror policy, and then …

barack

President Obama has asked something of Congress that the legislative branch of government isn’t likely to do.

He wants Congress to authorize the commander in chief to keep up the fight against the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations abroad.

The president’s speech from the Oval Office tonight didn’t break much new ground. He restated what he’s already done in the effort to destroy ISIL.

The bombing campaign will continue; we’ll deploy special forces to work with local ground forces in Iraq and Syria; we’ll keep hunting down terrorist leaders; we will work with allies such as France, the U.K. and Germany to pound terrorist targets; and we will seek to negotiate a ceasefire in Syria so that our allies and “other countries, such as Russia” can concentrate on eliminating international terrorists.

Then came the challenge to the other branch of government that needs to buy into this struggle.

Congress must vote to authorize continued action. The British Parliament enacted a similar authorization this past week and within minutes of the vote, British jets took off to hit ISIL targets in Syria.

The president has asked Congress, in effect, to issue a declaration of war against ISIL. Will it happen? I’m not holding my breath.

Republicans who control both legislative chambers seem to believe we need to commit ground troops to this fight. They want to return American service personnel to the battlefield. Air strikes aren’t enough, they say. So, let’s put “boots on the ground.”

The president won’t do that. He reiterated that view again tonight.

However, he has tendered a reasonable challenge to Congress. Let’s put forward a united front to our enemies, authorize the president to continue the fight and demonstrate that the United States is fully committed to winning this war.

My own view is that we’re at war with the Islamic State, then the president needs to ask Congress to issue the declaration of war … and that Congress needs to act.

What we have now on the table is the next-best thing.

Members of Congress, give the president the authorization he seeks to fight this war.

 

political news

Gun violence has terrorized us yet again

shooting

Let’s add one more city to the infamous list of communities that have been plagued by shocking gun violence.

That would be San Bernardino.

Fourteen people are dead, about 17 more are injured.

And while the media are reporting on the breaking story, they are fixating on a question that, to my mind, need not be asked.

They wonder: Was this an act of terrorism?

My thought? Well, yes. Absolutely. Look at the picture I’ve attached to this blog post. Does she look terrified?

By its very definition, what happened today terrorized a community, if not the nation.

So, here’s my thought. Why not broaden the definition of terrorism to include any act by individuals that frighten the senses out of individuals or communities of individuals?

We don’t yet know the motive behind the individuals who walked into the social services agency and opened fire. They reportedly were dressed in what police called “tactical gear.” They were heavily armed with assault weapons and assorted “long guns” — which has become sort of the latest term of art to describe weapons that one shoots with two hands.

Does it matter right now, this moment, what kind of terrorism transpired? Domestic or foreign, it matters little to me.

I am frightened for our country and equally terrified at the frequency of these types of attacks.

We are being terrorized.

 

International news, military news, national news, political news

Have we — or have we not — contained ISIS?

islam-at-war

One of two key figures in the war against the Islamic State has it wrong about whether American military power has “contained” the terrorist organization.

President Barack Obama said ISIS has been “contained” on the battlefield. He said so the other day and then on the very next day, the Islamic State launched those horrifying attacks in Paris.

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee that ISIS is “not contained.”

Who you gonna believe? The politician or the career military man?

I am going to stick with the Marine on this one.

Do I think we’re losing the war? I tend to believe we will be able ultimately to destroy the Islamic State. It’s going to take a lot more than just U.S. air power to do it. More nations already have joined in the fight, most notably France and Russia, two nations that have paid heavily for ISIS’s terror tactics.

Gen. Dunford told the committee — chaired by Republican Mac Thornberry of Clarendon — that “technically we are not at war” with the Islamic State. The word “technically” is critical here. To be at war requires — in the strictest sense — a declaration issued by Congress at the request of the president.

But in reality, we’re at war.

As for whether the general has contradicted the commander in chief and the secretary of defense and whether that puts Gen. Dunford’s status in some jeopardy, I’ll just add one final point.

We put the military under civilian command. Gen. Dunford answers to Defense Secretary Ash Carter and President Barack Obama, both of whom have said one thing about ISIS containment; meanwhile, Dunford has said something else. Yes, I believe Dunford’s time as Joint Chiefs chairman might be coming to a close.