Category Archives: political news

media news, national news, political news

‘Liberal media’ take no prisoners

November 7, 2015 kanelis2012 1 Comment

Ben Carson has counterattacked the “liberal media” for what he calls a “witch hunt.”

Questions about his past have become all the rage. CNN keeps poking around in the hunt for corroboration that he once stabbed someone in a fit of anger. The network can’t find anyone to back it up. Now we hear that Dr. Carson, um, didn’t exactly get offered a West Point scholarship in the manner he said he did.

The media want to know the truth.

The counterattack points to what the doctor/Republican presidential candidate said is a double standard as it regards Democrats running for president. The media don’t look quite as intently at them as they do Republicans, according to Dr. Carson.

Hold on, doc.

Barack Obama faced intense scrutiny over:

His relationship with a fiery Church of Christ pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
His friendship with anti-Vietnam War activist William Ayers.
His place of birth and whether he was constitutionally qualified to run for president of the United States.
His academic records at Harvard, which Carson brought up again this week.

And, oh yes, Hillary Clinton, the current Democratic frontrunner has, throughout her public career, faced down matters involving:

Allegations that she covered up information about Benghazi.
Her involvement with her husband, the 42nd president, in the Whitewater real estate matter.
The death of her good friend, Vince Foster, who some in the media have suggested was murdered.

So … let’s take a breath, shall we?

I also should mention the names of other prominent Democratic pols who’ve wilted under the media glare.

Do the names Gary Hart and John Edwards ring a bell? How about Anthony Weiner and Barney Frank?

Let’s get back to the story at hand. Did a leading candidate for president of the United States misrepresent whether he was offered a West Point scholarship?

Well … ?

military news, national news, political news

‘Cadet Carson’ never suited up

November 6, 2015 kanelis2012 3 Comments

The vetting of the latest Republican presidential front runner has begun.

It’s gotten a bit bumpy for the noted neurosurgeon.

Politico reports that contrary to what he’s written about himself, Dr. Ben Carson never was offered a scholarship to the U.S. Military Academy. He didn’t even apply for admission, Politico reports.

Carson, though, says he was told when he was 17 years of age that if he applied, he’d be offered the full ride. Who told him? He said it was Army Gen. William Westmoreland, who had just finished commanding U.S. forces in Vietnam.

So … did the good doctor lie, fib, “misremember,” or what?

Carson’s record is under scrutiny more than ever now for a simple reason. He’s among the leaders of a still-packed GOP presidential field of candidates.

If he made it all up, then he’s likely guilty of something approaching stolen valor … you know, when folks make up war stories about themselves. It’s more or less what former NBC News anchor Brian Williams did when he claimed to have to been shot down by an Iraqi rocket-propelled grenade in 2003; oops, didn’t happen, we found out later.

Still, one shouldn’t be allowed to get away even with “misremembering” such details about one’s life when he seeks to become president of the United States of America.

It kind of reminds me of when Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton once said he didn’t remember getting a draft notice. Interesting. As one who did get such a notice from Uncle Sam, I can speak for others who did as well that you do not forget getting such a letter.

Dr. Carson has some serious explaining to do. His campaign now says he didn’t get the scholarship or the appointment to West Point.

Now, let’s hear from you, Dr. Carson. Did you make it up?

local news, political news

Turnout good for Amarillo … but it’s still poor

November 6, 2015 kanelis2012

Forgive the wet blanket I’m about to toss over some of the celebrations around Amarillo.

I cannot let this go.

The citywide referendum Tuesday that resulted in voters’ approval of a multipurpose event venue/ballpark was a positive step for the city. I’ve heard some mild crowing, though, from those who are extolling the turnout.

And what was it?

It was about 23 percent. Twenty-three percent of the registered voters in Amarillo — that’s 22,444 of them — cast ballots on an election that led local newscasts for weeks. Print media covered it like a blanket. Advocates for and against the MPEV were seen and heard all over town.

They placed ads calling on people to vote. They urged it in public forums and discussions televised on public TV.

And with all the fire and brimstone, hell and damnation, fury and ferocity — on both sides of the debate — four out of every five registered voters in Amarillo, Texas, stayed home. They didn’t vote.

Here’s something else to chew on. More than 13,000 residents voted early. That means about 9,000 of them voted on Election Day. I take little comfort in realizing that the Election Day turnout was so dismal.

Hey, it’s even worse when you consider that if you count the number of people who are eligible to vote, but who haven’t even bothered to register, the number plummets even farther.

Do not misunderstand this, though. I am glad the turnout was far greater than it usually is on these municipal matters. The regular City Council elections routinely produce single- or low double-digit turnouts. So, compared to what is customary, a 23 percent turnout does look good.

It’s all relative.

Friends and neighbors, we can do a lot better than that.

national news, political news

Bush 41 deserves to be heard

November 6, 2015 kanelis2012

I’ve long thought that George H.W. Bush might have been the most qualified man ever to hold the office of president of the United States.

His resume is sparkling: World War II fighter pilot, business executive, envoy to the United Nations and China, head of the CIA, Republican Party chairman, congressman, vice president.

Now, in the twilight of a long and glorious life, he has chosen to speak out on matters of which he knows plenty. He has offered stinging critiques of former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the way they advised President George W. Bush — Bush 41’s eldest child — on how they conducted foreign policy.

Bush 41 has been chided in return by Rumsfeld, who said the 91-year-old former president “is getting up there in years.” Hmm. Well, Rumsfeld ain’t exactly a spring chicken himself, at 83.

But my point here, I suppose, is that a man with President Bush’s distinguished public service career deserves to be heard and not dismissed as someone just getting a little long in the tooth.

He is in frail health these days, suffering from a form of Parkinson’s disease. He was interviewed over the course of nine years by author Jon Meachem, whose new biography on the former president is about to be published. From all that I’ve heard about President Bush, his mind is still sharp and he can articulate cogent and thoughtful commentary on issues of the day.

He referred to Cheney and Rumsfeld as being “iron-ass” about foreign policy. True, the nation was struck hard and hurt badly by the 9/11 attacks, but Bush 41 insists that Cheney became someone he didn’t recognize from the time the then-vice president served as defense secretary in 41’s administration.

History is still being written on the presidencies of both men named Bush. I look at George H.W. Bush view of his son’s time in the White House as one more important puzzle piece that eventually will complete the picture.

The former president’s thoughts shouldn’t be dismissed.

media news, national news, political news

Trump vs. Kelly: Round Two

November 5, 2015 kanelis2012

It fascinates me to no end to watch Donald Trump lash out at the media.

The leading Republican presidential candidate (depending on whose poll you believe) is going after Fox News’s Megyn Kelly yet again.

He’s chiding her for not citing a poll she once cited when his poll standing was slipping. Now that he’s back up again — for the life of me, I don’t understand this — he’s calling out Kelly for ignoring the survey data.

This begs the question about how Trump might react to media criticism in the event hell freezes actually over and he gets elected president of the United States a year from now.

What on God’s Earth is he going to do when the heat gets really, really hot and he makes a serious blunder and insults the wrong individual here at home or abroad?

And as every president since the beginning of poll-taking has observed, their approval ratings go up and down. President George H.W. Bush was at 90-plus percent approval — remember? — when he launched the Persian Gulf War and our troops kicked the invading Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

That was in early 1991; the president lost his bid for re-election the following year.

This is a strange political season. The kinds of insults and personal attacks that used to scar candidates for life now have become the preferred method of campaigning … or so it appears.

What has become of us?

local news, national news, political news

Voting: Feels like the first time …

November 3, 2015 kanelis2012

A young Facebook friend of mine posted a giddy comment about something she did today for the first time.

She voted.

The object of her excitement was being able to vote “FOR” the multipurpose event venue that city voters today are deciding whether to endorse or reject.

I’m glad my young acquaintance is so thrilled at voting for the first time. I hope she remains engaged, involved and energized by the political process that has rippled through the city in recent weeks.

I remember my own first vote. It was, shall we say, a very long time ago.

It was 1972. I had turned 21 two years earlier. The minimum voting age would be reduced to 18 in 1971 with enactment of the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

So, that meant I could vote in 1972. I got involved politically in the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. George McGovern. I had separated from the Army in 1970, re-enrolled in college in January 1971 and became involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement.

Heck, I’d taken part in that war and was as confused over the reasons for fighting it upon my return to the States as I was when I went over there in the spring of 1969.

McGovern became my candidate of choice. I registered new voters among fellow college students. We held rallies, carried signs, chanted slogans … all those things that young activists do when they’re fired up about a candidate or a cause.

Well, all that energy didn’t produce the desired result.

President Nixon cruised to re-election that year, winning 61 percent of the popular vote and 49 of 50 states.

Ouch!

Still, it didn’t dim my love of politics and policy … and my strong desire to make sure my vote is counted at any and every level of government.

That is my wish for my young Facebook friend as she moves forward with her own life and her own interest in politics and public policy.

Keep up the good fight, young lady.

business news, local news, political news

Down to the wire with the MPEV

November 2, 2015 kanelis2012

This conversation occurred today between yours truly and someone I know who’s in the commercial real estate business.

I wasn’t taking notes. I did not tell the individual I would post this commentary on High Plains Blogger. So, with that I’ll protect his identity.

As has been the case with many folks I know who are involved at some level with the municipal election that’s coming up Tuesday, the question comes to me regarding the $32 million multipurpose event venue proposed for downtown Amarillo: How do you think the election is going to go?

I told my friend the same thing I’ve told others who’ve asked me the same question: I have no idea.

Then our conversation went something like this:

Me: I am not very good at predicting these things. I tend to speak more from the heart than from the head. My heart wants the MPEV to be endorsed. My head, well … it’s telling me something else might happen tomorrow.

Friend: Me, too. What do you think of the turnout for early voting?

Me: Again, I don’t know. My gut tells me that the big early vote turnout means those who otherwise might sit the election out have been motivated to vote. Who’s doing the motivating? My sense is that it’s the pro-MPEV side that’s getting the message out. They seem to have the momentum.

Aw, heck, I don’t even know what I’m talking about.

Friend: (Laughter). Yeah, you do. But you know what? I’ve learned over many years that no matter what the voters in Amarillo decide, we’re going to be all right. It’ll turn out the right way for us. We find a way to get through whatever issue of the moment is driving the discussion.

I’m not suggesting my head is predicting a defeat for the MPEV. My noggin instead is telling me to corral the heart talk, rein it in just a bit.

I’ll go with that … while still hoping that my heart has been telling me the truth all along.

media news, national news, political news

Hey Democrats, get ready for softballs

November 2, 2015 kanelis2012 2 Comments

A reader — and an occasional critic — of this blog has just given me a valuable piece of intelligence that, frankly, got past me.

I chided Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for suggesting that future GOP presidential debates be “moderated” by folks more friendly to their cause.

This reader said I got my “tighty whiteys” into a knot over it. Then he informed me that the next Democratic event, which occurs this Friday night at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., will be “moderated” by Rachel Maddow. It’s being filled as a “forum,” and not a “debate” sponsored by the Democratic National Committee.

Whatever. It serves the same purpose.

You know who she is, right? Maddow is an MSNBC commentator and host of a nightly cable TV talk show. She’s a flaming liberal. I mean, man, that she’s on fire with her progressive views.

She’ll have three Democratic candidates standing in front of her Friday night: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley.

All three of those folks are tacking left — to their party’s base — just as the still-huge GOP field is tacking right, to its party’s base.

Should we expect Maddow to get tough with the candidates on the debate stage later this week? I’m not holding my breath. Put me down as one who doubts Democratic Party primary voters are going to learn a single new thing about any of the candidates.

Just as the Republican candidates were whining about the questions they got at their most recent joint appearance, if only the Democrats would be subjected to the same level of scrutiny and occasional harshness their GOP colleagues got.

entertainment news, national news, political news

Sen. Thompson made his mark early

November 2, 2015 kanelis2012

There will be tributes a-plenty in the next few days and weeks as politicians — and actors — remember one of their own: former U.S. senator and former TV and film actor Fred Dalton Thompson.

The Tennessee Republican was a larger-than-life guy who died today at his home after battling a recurrence of lymphoma.

He ran for president once. Served in the Senate. Acted in some pretty good films and had a good run as the district attorney in the hit TV show “Law and Order.”

I want to remember this man in another fashion.

R.I.P., Sen. Thompson

The first time I saw him was in 1973. It was on TV. I was a college student majoring in political science at Portland State University in Oregon and Thompson was serving as chief counsel for the Republican senators serving on the Select Senate Committee on Watergate.

Its chairman was the late Democrat Sam Ervin, the self-described “country lawyer” from North Carolina.

Thompson’s role in that committee was to provide legal advice for the Republicans on the committee. The panel was investigating the Watergate scandal that was beginning to metastasize and eventually would result in the resignation of President Nixon.

Fred Thompson had really bad hair, as I recall. But appearances aside, he was a tough interrogator, as was the Democrats’ chief counsel, Sam Dash.

My memory of Thompson was jogged a bit the other day by MSNBC commentator Lawrence O’Donnell who opined — after the daylong hearing of Hillary Clinton before the Select House Benghazi Committee — that senators and House members shouldn’t be allowed to question witnesses. O’Donnell cited the work that Thompson and Dash did in pursuing the truth behind the Watergate scandal.

Leave the questioning of these witnesses to the pros, O’Donnell said. The Benghazi committee congressmen and women, he said, made spectacles of themselves.

Thompson, indeed, was a tough lawyer. My memory of him at the time was that he questioned anti-Nixon witnesses quite hard and didn’t let up very much on those who supported the embattled president.

He did his job well.

That is what I remember today as the nation marks Sen. Thompson’s passing.

May he rest in peace.

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