Category Archives: political news

national news, political news

Congress makes sausage-making look appealing

Watching the U.S. Congress stumble and bumble its way through legislating a budget makes the act of sausage-making look downright attractive.

The old saying about how legislating resembles sausage-making seems somehow kind of quaint. Turning a poor little piggy into something edible now doesn’t seem so grotesque.

Congress avoided yet another government shutdown on Friday. The House of Representatives approved a $1.1 trillion spending package over the objections of the TEA party wing of the Republicans and the leftist/progressive wing of the Democrats.

As President Obama noted, the legislation represents a classic “compromise.” You remember that, right? That’s when both sides give up something for the greater good. In this case the greater good amounted to keeping the government functioning.

Now the Senate is going to convene a weekend session and will begin to resolve its own differences. Meanwhile, senators are supposed to start processing some of the dozens of presidential appointments that have been languishing since the Beginning of Time.

That won’t come easily, though. The TEA party senators want to punish the president for that immigration executive action and want to defund it legislatively. Democrats, who for now still own the majority, won’t have any of that.

I totally understand that a representative democracy by definition is supposed to be messy and inefficient.

But this is taking messiness and inefficiency to new levels.

Isn’t there a better, less-heartburn-producing method of doing something so essential as approving a budget that keeps the government working for those who are paying for it?

 

 

national news, political news

Wait for it: Obama to get blame for oil prices

A recent blog I posted wondered how President Obama could get so much blame when oil prices were skyrocketing and so little credit now that they’re plummeting.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/12/11/presidents-get-the-blame-not-the-credit/

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 300 points today, reportedly over concerns about those falling oil prices that are producing dramatic declines in the price of gasoline at the pump.

A USA Today headline suggested this week that the oil price decline threatens the U.S. economic recovery that’s now under way.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/dow-drops-more-than-300-as-oil-continues-to-plunge/ar-BBgGViU

Then it came to me.

Obama’s critics now have a hook on which to hang blame on the president.

They just might start harping about those declining prices, which are a result of too much supply and too little demand. They can gripe that the price decline is harming the recovery, which of course had nothing at all to do — in the minds of the critics — with Obama’s economic stimulus package enacted shortly after he became president.

So if they’re going to insist on blaming the president for every single bad thing that happens in the world, they can turn to the declining oil prices as one more sign of a “failed presidency.”

 

political news

Run, Mitt, run!

The word is leaking out in dribs and drabs.

Mitt Romney is thinking about running for president one more time in 2016.

I think that’s pretty cool.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/mitt-romney-2016-run-113518.html?hp=t1_r

Mitt’s most recent run for the presidency came up short, of course. Ann Romney, the GOP nominee’s much better half, was said to have dismissed the notion of yet another presidential campaign. Now, however, Politico reports that insiders think Mitt’s giving serious thought to one more run for the White House.

(FYI: I want to refer to the former Massachusetts governor by his first name because everyone in America has done that with Hillary Rodham Clinton. If Democrats can claim a first-name-only potential candidate, then Republicans deserve one, too.)

Why do I want Mitt to run again? Well, it’s not that I think he’s the best Republican considering a run. Nor is it that I intend to vote for him in 2016 were he to be nominated.

It’s because I think he’s a lot smarter than he demonstrated during his 2012 effort, starting with that awkward primary campaign and his performance in some of those talent show/debates with the likes of Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann.

Who can forget when he offered lay down a $10,000 bet with Texas Gov. Rick Perry? Who in the world would blurt out a 10 grand wager offer? Most of us out here in Flyover Country would settle for a steak dinner or six-pack of beer. Not Mitt, the man with bulging money bags.

Or how about the time he said the $300,000 he earned one year in speaking fees amounted to just a little bit of money? When you’re worth zillions, then I suppose that is just walking-around money.

I’m a firm believer in redemption. Everyone deserves a chance to correct the record, or perhaps even rewrite the record.

That includes politicians.

Mitt thinks the potential GOP field is weak. He wants his party to win back the White House. He thinks he’s the man to restore his party’s standing. According to Politico: “He has assessed various people’s strengths and weaknesses dispassionately, wearing what one ally called his ‘consultant cap’ to measure the field. He has said, among other things, that Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, would run into problems because of his business dealings, his work with the investment banks Lehman Brothers and Barclays, and his private equity investments.”

I don’t know about that. All I do know is that I want Mitt to run. All he has to do now is persuade Mrs. Romney that the time has arrived once more.

Mitt was a sometimes-entertaining candidate in 2012. I’m ready for his return to the arena.

Do it, Mitt!

 

national news, political news

End of ticket-splitting? Perish the thought

Mary Landrieu’s loss of her U.S. Senate seat in Louisiana might be the least surprising part of the 2014 mid-term election.

She was the last statewide Democratic officeholder in Dixie.

What does surprise me — and unpleasantly so, I should add — is that according to one veteran political observer, the ’14 mid-terms have ushered in the end of ticket-splitting.

http://www3.blogs.rollcall.com/rothenblog/stu-rothenberg-mary-landrieu-runoff-bill-cassidy/

More and more Americans are voting for the party rather than the candidate.

Stuart Rothenberg, writing for Roll Call, says voters are just hitting the straight-ticket spot on their ballot and that voting for individual candidates’ is becoming a rare occurrence.

What a shame.

Rothenberg attributes this to the growing ideological divide between Democrats and Republicans. The parties have become branded as standing for certain things and voters aren’t wasting their time studying candidates’ stands on key issues of the day.

Democrats are being identified as the party of liberals such as Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Al Franken of Minnesota and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. The Republican brand includes the likes of Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, two favorites of the TEA party movement within the GOP.

The casualty, therefore, becomes the practice of examining what the candidates say about issues, relying instead on the party’s message.

I would prefer we did away with the straight-ticket voting option. If someone wants to vote straight Republican or straight Democratic, then make them go through the ballot race by race, candidate by candidate and make them think — if only for an instant — about the candidate they’re about to endorse.

Why can’t we require voters to at least go through the motions of thinking about their vote?

 

national news, political news

Playing chicken once again with budget

Once more our distinguished Congress is playing chicken with citizens’ interests in the federal government.

They’ve cobbled together an “omnibus spending bill” that contains a lot of items tucked deeply inside.

Progressives are asking for a “no” vote on the $1 trillion budget because it has guts campaign finance reform efforts. Conservatives don’t like certain environmental protection elements of the budget.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/2015-gop-budget-back-up-plan-113498.html?hp=t1_r

But it’s all rolled into one big ol’ item everyone must accept as a whole — or nothing at all.

Rejecting the budget means the government shuts down — more or less — at midnight. Then members of Congress will spend the next few hours blaming each other for the mess.

Congressional leaders from both parties reportedly worked out the deal to prevent the shutdown. No leader on either side of the aisle wants the government to cease operating at full capacity. The only folks willing to take that leap appear to be liberals and those TEA party zealots on the other extreme end of the spectrum.

To be honest, I don’t know how much more of this gamesmanship I can take. For the life of me I cannot understand how we keep sending this clowns back into office even after they have taken us to the brink so many times in the recent past.

Pass the damn spending bill!

 

national news, political news, State news

No 'oops' for Perry next time around

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is soon to be a “former” governor — and a likely current candidate for the president of the United States.

He vows there will be no repeat of the infamous “oops” moment in late 2011 when he couldn’t name all three of the federal agencies he said he would cut from the federal government.

In an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, Perry said he’ll be better prepared if he decides to run again for the White House.

He’s also got that felony indictment alleging abuse of power to get worked out one way or the other.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/rick-perry-oops-wont-be-my-obituary/ar-BBgD52T

The most interesting element in the story attached to this blog post is how Harwood sizes up the potential 2016 GOP field with the 2012 cast of characters. The next Republican field is likely to include some serious politicians with serious ideas about how to solve serious problems.

That clearly wasn’t the case in 2012. The GOP field included a cabal of clowns: Herman “9-9-9” Cain? Michelle “Democrats are Communists” Bachmann? Rick “Say ‘No’ to Contraception” Santorum? Newt “I Impeached an Unfaithful President While I was Cheating On My Wife” Gingrich?

The next field, which might include Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, is much more credible than the previous field of candidates.

Perry will have to do battle with a much more serious band of GOP brothers (and maybe) sisters.

Oh, but he says he’ll be ready.

We’ll see about that.

 

legal news, national news, political news, Uncategorized

A presidential pardon may be in order

The beans are spilled. The cat’s out of the bag. The CIA just might have broken some laws when it detained suspected terrorists and subjected them to torture techniques immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

The spy agency says otherwise, that it broke no laws.

U.S. Senate Democrats on the Intelligence Committee insist that the torture techniques were real and allege that they broke U.S. law.

The New York Times editorial board refers to the findings in the just-released Senate summary of the “enhanced interrogation” as a sign of “depravity” that defies comprehension.

The thought has occurred to me. Perhaps it’s not an original thought, but I’ll toss it out there anyway.

Given that there’s really no serious need to prosecute anyone for alleged criminal activity, perhaps a presidential pardon would be in order.

Go ahead and snicker. This is a serious suggestion, even absent any formal criminal charges being filed against the principals involved — namely President Bush, then-CIA director George Tenet, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Hey, President Ford pardoned his immediate predecessor in the White House, Richard Nixon, for crimes he may have committed while covering up the Watergate burglary. That was the right call in 1974. A similar pardon just might be the right call now.

Let’s have the debate over whether the suspected terrorists were tortured illegally. Both sides will vent. Both will have their say.

There well might be an inclination in some circles to prosecute those in charge at the time. Others will be declare that there’s no need now to punish those who might have committed a crime.

That’s where President Obama can step in.

He’s got the power to issue summary pardons. This well could be the time to act.

 

political news

Palin actually makes sense … more or less

Hell froze over this evening.

It happened the moment I read an online account of an interview that former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin did in which she proclaimed her desire to see a woman “on both sides of the aisle” campaign for the presidency in 2016.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/09/sarah-palin-2016_n_6297570.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

Why did hell freeze over? I actually agree with Palin.

Then she talked some more about the next presidential race and said she gets asked whether she intends to run for the White House in two years.

Would the ex-governor be the Republican who runs, probably against Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Perish the thought. No, blow that thought to smithereens, never to be mentioned or even thought of ever again!

Sarah Barracuda must not run for president. Then again, were she to run, she might be exposed for the intellectual fraud that she’s always been. But the Republican Party is full of serious politicians who are committed to fulfilling their public responsibilities — unlike Palin, who quit halfway through her only term as Alaska governor. Reality TV and Fox News beckoned with big bucks. Moreover, New Mexico has a competent governor in Susana Martinez; Oklahoma is governed by Mary Fallin; newly elected U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa might turn out to be a pleasant surprise.

Palin for president? Good grief, no. A billion times no!

However, I concur with her desire to see women in both major parties suited up for a run for the presidency. It well might be time to cross that important political threshold.

 

political news, State news

Beck's barbs won't unseat Straus

How cool is this? Glenn Beck, the radio gasbag, has weighed in with a commentary on whether Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, should be re-elected speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.

He calls Straus a “RINO, a Republican in Name Only.” He said Rep. Scott Turner, R-Frisco, should be the next House speaker because, according to the Beckster, he’s the real deal.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/08/turner-and-beck-throws-barbs-straus/

I believe young Glenn ought to go back to pontificating about matters of which he is an expert, such as whether Earth’s climate is changing or whether the president of the United States “hates white people.”

Joe Straus is a mainstream Republican who, I reckon, doesn’t quite conform with how some people think Texas Republicans ought to act or say.

One doesn’t hear him vowing to sue Barack Obama for doing what the Constitution allows him to do. One does not hear Straus say that the Affordable Care Act is the worst thing to happen to this country since the Civil War.

No. All the speaker has done to incur the wrath of TEA party conservatives and loquacious radio talk-show hosts is worth with Democrats and seek to craft legislation that benefits the state. Why, they just can’t stand that kind of thing.

Turner won’t unseat Straus, who’s reportedly gathered enough pledges of support to guarantee his re-election as speaker.

Once the speaker retains the gavel, perhaps Turner will return to the back bench of the House chamber and represent his Metroplex constituents to the best of his ability.

As for Beck, stick to tossing out half-truths and outright lies about Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.

 

political news, State news

Abbott turns focus on public education

Texas Gov.-elect Greg Abbott just cannot stand the fact that California — and not Texas — is home to five of the nation’s top 10 public universities.

That’s what he said today at his first news conference since being elected governor.

Thus, he vowed to make public education the top priority of his administration.

To which I say, “Very good, Gov. Abbott.”

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/08/governor-education-will-be-abbotts-top-priority/

Now comes the obvious question: How is it that California’s public universities rate so much better than Texas’s public institutions of higher learning?

Here’s a guess: Because our fellow countrymen way out west invest in their public institutions, rather than gut them.

The past two legislative sessions have seen dramatic cuts in public education at many levels. The state’s been short of money, so it takes aim at one of the bedrocks of its future: public education.

At no level at all does that make sense. Yes, conservatives — led by the TEA party movement among Republicans — keep saying you can’t “buy a good education.” Well, actually you can.

You can spend more to hire quality faculty and administrative staff; you can invest on physical infrastructure at our major university systems. Both of those things can — and do — attract top-quality students, who then boost academic performance measurements and, therefore, create a public educational system that becomes the envy of other states.

California has done that, even as it, too, has struggled to recover from the economic collapse of late 2008.

Texas public officials are fond of ridiculing California. Yes, we do a lot of things right in Texas. They also do some things correctly in California.

Developing a first-rate public university system is a strategy worth emulating.