Category Archives: political news

national news, political news

Bush loses weight, gains momentum

Jeb Bush has lost weight.

It’s reportedly 20 to 30 pounds. The former Republican governor of Florida is considering a run for the presidency next year.

Does one have anything to do with the other?

Sure it does.

http://www.examiner.com/article/jeb-bush-weight-loss-will-bush-s-weight-loss-help-his-run-for-president

We’ve become obsessed with how candidates look. OK, maybe not obsessed, but its important in the minds of voters who want their national leaders to present themselves well.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another possible — if not probable — GOP presidential candidate, had some surgery to help him control his weight. He said at the time he was doing it for health reasons and because his wife and children were concerned about his health. I am certain of their concern.

But he said nothing about the cosmetic aspect of the weight loss surgery and whether his own ambitions for higher office had anything to do with his decision.

The last truly obese president we elected was probably William Howard Taft, who weighed in at 300-plus pounds. But that was in 1908. Enough said about that, yes?

These days, candidates have to look the role they seek to assume.

Thus, Jeb Bush’s weight loss serves as a precursor to what almost every political pundit/commentator/observer has been saying for months. He intends to run for president of the United States.

If nothing else, Gov. Bush’s weight loss is a testament to the stamina he’ll need to endure the grind he’s about to undertake.

 

political news

Be careful with war references, politicians

Listen up, politicians.

Whether you’re running for president of the United States, any seat in Congress, the statehouse or a seat at City Hall, take care when referencing any military experience.

There will be folks out here who are listening to your every word.

Roy McDowell is running for mayor of Amarillo. He’d been referring in public statements to his military service “in Vietnam.” Turns out McDowell didn’t serve in-country, but served during the Vietnam War era.

Why bring this up? Because some of us who actually did serve in Vietnam are keenly aware of these things and want to be sure that all vets — whose service is honorable — portray their service honestly.

Is this a deal-breaker? Probably not, but McDowell and other politicians need to be acutely aware that the world is watching and listening.

He’s not the first politician to fudge a little. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., did a doozy of a job mischaracterizing his own military service before being elected to the Senate. He, too, said he’d served in Vietnam when he hadn’t. Bad call, senator.

This also reminds me of a young man whose acquaintance I made some years ago. He told my wife and me he “flew helicopters” in Bosnia and Kosovo in the mid-1990s. When he said he “flew,” I assumed immediately he piloted them. We would talk about his experience “flying” Apache choppers for the Army. I assumed, of course, that he either was a warrant officer or was commissioned. He well might have flown aboard the choppers, but perhaps as a crew member.

Why make that leap? Well, years later, I happened to be browsing through his office and discovered his discharge certificate on a wall. It listed his rank as private, E-1. What? How could he have “flown” helicopters if he’s a mere enlisted man — and a buck private to boot?

Take great care, politicians. If you fudge on your service record, you can be caught.

 

national news, political news

Lynch gets key GOP ally

Politics occasionally produces peculiar alliances that develop at key moments.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked Attorney General-designate Loretta Lynch’s confirmation vote over an unrelated bill dealing with human trafficking. Then the Senate approved the trafficking bill. What did McConnell do then? He rounded up enough votes to get Lynch confirmed.

McConnell whipped for Lynch, avoiding nuclear fallout

His work to end a filibuster that had stopped Lynch’s confirmation apparently has angered the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz and other members of the Senate’s TEA party caucus.

My reaction? Live with it.

This seeming reversal gets to a key element of McConnell’s leadership. He can be a fierce partisan when the opportunity presents itself, but he knows how the Senate is supposed to work and he knows how to deal with the “other side,” namely Democrats, when that opportunity presents itself.

Compromise, therefore, isn’t a bad thing when a failure to compromise gums up the legislative works — as it did while Loretta Lynch waited an interminable length of time to be confirmed as the nation’s next attorney general.

So, now let’s move on to the next congressional crisis.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Lynch finally confirmed as AG

The vote was 56-43.

The only reason the full U.S. Senate didn’t vote on this key appointment was that Republican Ted Cruz of Texas didn’t cast a vote. He didn’t like the nominee being considered for attorney general.

Welcome to the U.S. Justice Department, Loretta Lynch.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/239878-senate-votes-to-confirm-lynch-as-attorney-general

A number of Republicans voted to confirm Lynch, whose nomination should have been decided weeks ago. It was bogged down by the Senate Republican leadership’s insistence that it deal first with a bill that had nothing to do with Lynch’s nomination.

But she’s in. That’s good. She’s qualified and she deserved long ago to get a vote by senators on her nomination.

But here’s a curious element to the vote. One of the “no” votes came from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who said this:  “The question for me from the start has been whether Ms. Lynch will make a clean break from (President Obama’s) policies and take the department in a new direction.”

So, the chairman wants the new attorney general to break away from the policies of the president who appointed her. When has that ever happened? When has a Cabinet official ever promised to go against the individual who selected him or her?

The bogeyman for Grassley and other Republicans was Obama’s executive order on immigration that delays deportation for an estimated 5 million undocumented immigrants. He wanted her to say she opposed the order. Good luck with that one, Mr. Chairman.

But what the heck. She waited longer than any other recent Cabinet appointment to get confirmed.

Let’s hope her new job will have been worth the wait.

 

International news, national news, political news

Benghazi report timing is, um, dubious

This shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The U.S. House Select Committee on Benghazi will release its report to the world sometime in, that’s correct, 2016. That’s right smack in the midst of a presidential campaign featuring the No. 1 principal in that investigation, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who — by the way — will be running for president of the United States.

I know. You just can’t believe the timing of it all, right?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/house-benghazi-report-release-2016-117231.html?hp=r3_4

The panel’s chairman, Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, had wanted to release the report no later than the end of the current year. Legal staffers, though, said they needed more time to assimilate everything and compile into a comprehensive report on what happened on Sept. 11, 2012 at the U.S. consulate in Libya.

What did happen? Some terrorists launched an attack on the consulate, a fire fight ensued and four Americans were killed, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. Clinton’s State Department has been accused of covering up key elements relating to what they knew and when they knew it. Previous findings have concluded there has been no deliberate cover-up. But the Republican-led House launched a select committee probe anyway.

This is certain to muddy Clinton’s presidential campaign, particularly if it produces a proverbial “smoking gun.”

What did she know? When did she know it? Did the secretary deliberately mislead Americans?

I’ve long thought this congressional panel already had pre-determined culpability, but was looking for the path that would reach that conclusion. Then again, I’m not in the hearts and minds of those who are conducting this investigation.

I’ll accept Chairman Gowdy’s assertion that he wanted to release the report prior to the election year.

My hope now is that we can choose the next president on the merits of their full public record, their campaign rhetoric and their pledges to lead the country toward an even brighter future.

My fear is that the Benghazi report is going to plow all of that noble intent into the ground.

 

national news, political news

Why bother with a congressional has been?

The last time I commented on former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s blatherings, some of my lefty friends asked: Why pay her no never mind? She’s out of office, irrelevant, she doesn’t matter any longer.

Allow this brief explanation.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/michele-bachmann-the-rapture-is-coming-and-its-obamas-fault/ar-AAboZhG

I chose to comment on Bachmann blaming the coming Rapture on President Obama because — believe it or not — a lot of Americans actually take her seriously.

I am not one of them.

Bachmann served a few terms in the House of Representatives. She became a favorite of the TEA party wing of the Republican Party. She ran for president in 2012 and for one brief moment during the GOP primary, she actually rose to near the top tier of the class of clowns running for the party nomination. For the record, I do not include eventual nominee Mitt Romney in that gaggle of goofballs.

Bachmann then decided to step down from public office in 2014, but she hasn’t stepped down from public life or from the public’s attention.

She remains relevant in some people’s minds, although for the life of me I cannot understand why.

So, when she says, as she did the other day on a right-wing radio talk show, that the Rapture is imminent, some folks listen to her. “We in our lifetimes potentially could see Jesus Christ returning to earth and the rapture of the church,” Bachmann said. “We see the destruction, but this was a destruction that was foretold.”

She said more. “We are literally watching, month by month, the speed move up to a level we’ve never seen before with these events,” Bachmann said. “Barack Obama is intent. It is his number one goal to ensure that Iran has a nuclear weapon.”

Sigh.

I never know whether to laugh or laugh harder when Bachmann opens her mouth.

She is giving folks like me plenty of commentary grist.

That’s why she remains relevant.

national news, political news

No diversity on Democratic bench? C'mon!

The Hill newspaper has a headline that shouts that actual and potential Democratic candidates for president lack “diversity.”

The Democratic “bench” is too, um, bland … or some such thing.

Hold on here.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/239460-democrats-have-no-bench-and-no-diversity-in

The trio of mug shots that accompany the news story attached here tell me something quite different.

* Hillary Rodham Clinton is, quite obviously, a woman. She was first lady for eight years from 1993 until 2001. She served in the U.S. Senate and then as secretary of state. Enough said there.

* Jim Webb is a former U.S. senator from Virginia. He’s a Vietnam War veteran. He saw combat as a Marine. He served in the Reagan administration, not exactly a bastion of progressive principles.

* Bernie Sanders is an independent U.S. senator from Vermont. He’s a card-carrying, say-it-loud-and-proud socialist. He makes no bones about his share-the-wealth philosophy.

I won’t mention Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who keeps saying she isn’t running.

Oops. I just did.

Those three individuals look pretty diverse to me. They each bring a different set of governing principles to a presidential campaign.

Only one of them, Clinton, has declared her candidacy. Webb has formed an exploratory committee, while Sanders is keeping his options open.

I get what The Hill means, though, about the lack of “diversity.” It refers to the Republican field that so far has two Hispanic candidates — Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. There well might be a woman, Carly Fiorina, in the mix as well. An African-American, Ben Carson, is likely to run.

Let us not dismiss the potential Democratic primary field as being bland and one-note boring.

Among the possible field of three — Clinton, Webb and Sanders — one can find plenty of ideological diversity.

local news, media news, political news

No lawn signs or bumper stickers … just yet

I had thought that when my daily print journalism came to an end in August 2012 I’d be able to wear my political preference openly.

It’s not going to happen any time soon, or at least that’s my hope.

The last lawn sign I put in my yard — I think — was in 1976. I put a sign out front for U.S. Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, who was a candidate for president in the Democratic primary. That was in Oregon, before my journalism career got started.

I went to work on the copy desk of the Oregon Journal in Portland and then took a job as a sports writer for the Oregon City Enterprise-Courier, a suburban afternoon daily just south of Portland. I toiled in the business for the next 36 years, moving eventually to Texas in 1984.

I’ve had a keen interest in politics for many decades, going back to my college days and even farther back, to a time when I was just a year out of high school.

That was when I had a chance meeting late one night in May 1968 with another U.S. senator, Robert F. Kennedy. I shook his hand as he got out of his car on the eve of the Oregon primary, got his autograph, we exchanged a few words and he disappeared inside the restaurant he was visiting.

RFK was murdered a week later in Los Angeles.

My print career ended more than two years ago, but now I’m back in the journalism game once again, in a new format.

So, I’ve decided I still cannot display lawn signs or paste bumper stickers on my vehicles. Since February, I’ve been writing for NewsChannel 10’s website, newschannel10.com, as the station’s “special projects reporter.” Moreover, I’ve been blogging for Panhandle PBS for more than two years, writing about public affairs programming. Thus, I’m back in journalism.

Am I having fun? Does the bear do his business … well, you know.

Does that disqualify me from writing this blog? I don’t see that it does. I just won’t make the leap and endorse candidates for local office, as much as I want to do so, while I’m writing about local political and civic affairs for a local TV news station.

That means my lawn will be sign-free and my vehicle will be bumper-sticker-free for the foreseeable future.

local news, political news, State news

Texans will have a say in 2016 contest

It’s nice to be loved, isn’t it, Texas voters?

Bet on it. The large and likely cantankerous Republican presidential field is going to cozy up to Texans about a year from now when the state casts its primary vote for president of the United States.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/04/20/analysis-what-happens-when-texans-votes-matter/

It’ll be just like the old day. Hey, even the not-so-old days. Harken back to 2008, when Democratic U.S. Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were slugging it out for their party’s presidential nomination.

By the time the Texas primary rolled around, the Democratic nomination was far from sewn up. So, what happened? Voters turned out in record numbers.

There’s more. Even in heavily Republican Texas Panhandle counties — such as Randall County — the Democratic Party polling places were far busier than the GOP stations. A lot of Republicans crossed over to vote in the Democratic primary and it likely enabled Sen. Clinton to win most of the state’s Democratic delegates.

As Ross Ramsey noted in a Texas Tribune analysis: “The mix of candidates could make a difference, too. Candidates with Texas ties, like Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Rick Perry and Rand Paul, could draw their own home crowds if their candidacies are still alive early next year. And candidates from different factions could attract different herds of support.

“This sort of turnout boom does not happen often in Texas. The parties tend to settle their presidential nomination battles in places like New Hampshire, South Carolina and Iowa. By the time they get to Texas, they’ve already all but chosen their nominees.

“Voters like a fight, and you can see the evidence of that in turnout. When there’s a big race, more people vote.”

They’re going to get one, more than likely, on the Republican side in 2016.

And what about the Democrats? Barring some huge surprise — which is entirely possible — the Dems’ nomination looks like it already belongs to Hillary Clinton.

The Republican field looks as though it’s going to be huge and it’s going to take some time to cull the losers from the field. Thus, when Texas gets its turn to vote, we’ll be in the mix.

Can you feel the love?

 

national news, political news

'91 percent chance' Graham will run

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News Sunday today there’s a “91 percent chance” he’s going to run for the Republican presidential nomination next year.

Ninety-one percent chance. Not 90. Not 95. The odds are now at 91 percent.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/19/lindsey-graham-president-2016_n_7095360.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063

Surely I’m not the only American wondering where the senator came up with 91 percent.

It’s usual for politicians to round these numbers off to the nearest zero or to the nearest 5. Isn’t that how it goes?

Sen. Graham, an Air Force reservist and lawyer when he’s not legislating in the U.S. Senate, must be from some school that suggests you should be as precise as possible when using numbers of any stripe.

I guess that includes numbers that set hypothetical odds on whether you’re running for president.

There’s also a 91 percent chance, therefore, that he’ll have to answer to critics within his own party that he’s too, um, “moderate” to suit their taste. He’s declared climate change to be the real thing and actually favors comprehensive immigration reform, according to the Huffington Post.

This might be the deal breaker among the hard-core GOP base: He’s actually endorsing some of President Obama’s Cabinet nominees and judicial appointees.

The chances of the hard right wing of his party forgiving him for those views? Zero.