Category Archives: political news

national news, political news, State news

LBJ had it right about the South

Wherever he is, Lyndon Baines Johnson is likely nodding and saying, “Yep, I told ya so.”

What he told the country came true long ago, which was that signing the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s likely would cost the Democratic Party its strength in the states of the Old Confederacy.

Over the weekend, the final Democratic statewide officeholder in Dixie — U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana — went down to a resounding defeat by Republican U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/bill-cassidy-mary-landrieu-2014-louisiana-senate-elections-results-113367.html?ml=po

The 36th president of the United States signed the Voting Rights Act knowing full well what it might do to the Democratic coalition in the South. It would splinter it. The new law, of course, removed all forms of taxation meant to keep minorities from voting. It guaranteed equal access to the election process for all Americans regardless of race.

Texas used to be a Democratic stronghold. Even in the Panhandle of Texas — where conservative Republicans first gained a foothold in Texas — one could find Democrats occupying political offices.

That’s all changed. Republicans now stand far and wide across the Southern landscape.

Landrieu didn’t just lose her Senate seat, she lost it badly, by more than a dozen percentage points.

How do Democrats get back their Southern mojo? Well, that remains one of the most monumental tasks facing modern political thinkers. They certainly cannot forsake their commitment to the Voting Rights Act that the late Democratic president — LBJ — staked out for the nation.

It well might be that Democrats cannot win back the South. It also well could mean a furthering fracturing of the nation into regional political interests.

Whatever the future holds, Republicans are the kings and queens of the political empire in Dixie.

Ol’ Lyndon would not be a happy man.

 

 

national news, political news, State news

Cruz becomes movement leader

It used to be said in Washington that the “most dangerous place in the world” was the space between U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm and a television camera.

Gramm has left public life and the owner of that title now happens to be another fiery Texas Republican, freshman Sen. Ted Cruz.

According to the San Antonio Express-News headline atop a blog post, the young senator has a movement that carries his name. Call it “Cruz conservatives.”

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/12/cruz-conservatives-abandon-gop-leaders-on-anti-obama-vote/

His ability to muscle his way past more senior Senate Republicans to the center of the political stage in less than two years is utterly astounding. The Cruz Missile exploded on the scene with his GOP primary upset in 2012 of Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, after which it became a foregone conclusion he’d be elected to the Senate from such a heavily Republican state.

These days, if you want some “good copy,” turn to Ted; the glib gab machine is loaded with it. If you want to know what the TEA party wing of the GOP is thinking, ask the junior senator from Texas.

Whatever became of the GOP’s senior pols, such as Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Chuck Grassley of Iowa? Sure, the party has its share of media hounds, such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida (I’ll throw Rubio into that mix, even though he’s been in the Senate only two years longer than Cruz).

To be fair, the Senate Democrats have their share of TV hogs. Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Claire McCaskill of Missouri come immediately to mind.

No one else — in either party — can match Ted the Canadian’s panache.

It used to be said that it took at least half of their first six-year term for senators to figure out the ropes, to earn their spurs and to find their way to the men’s room.

Not so with Ted. The young man is a force of nature — which makes me, at least, want to head to the storm shelter.

 

medical news, political news, State news

Governor's new digs need some fixin' up

Greg Abbott’s new residence awaits him and his family.

It’s a nice place, rather old, but quite elegant. It needs a little fixing up.

Abbott takes office in January as Texas’s next governor and the 134-year-old house into which he and his family will live never has had resident quite like the governor-elect. He’s been confined to a wheelchair ever since he was paralyzed in a freak accident in Houston; a tree fell on him while he was jogging, breaking his back.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/05/governors-mansion-tweaked-abbott/

The Governor’s Mansion was updated after an arsonist torched the place in 2008 with a Molotov cocktail. More work needs to be done, as there need to be upgrades to the governor’s office in the Capitol Building across the street from the residence.

There’s a certain slight touch of irony, of course, in the expense the state is incurring to accommodate the governor.

The state must comply with a federal law that requires accessibility for people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted in 1991 during the George H.W. Bush administration. It’s a wonderful piece of legislation that recognizes the needs of those who are confined to wheelchairs, or who have difficulty accessing public facilities.

Why the touch of irony? Texas is angry at the federal government these days. Outgoing Gov. Rick Perry has made quite a lot of noise railing, ranting and raving about federal “overreach.” The new governor has just filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its handling of immigration policy.

The ADA doesn’t fall into the category of laws that Texas officials want to challenge. It’s there for a good reason: to help disabled Americans gain the access they deserve to public buildings.

Good luck with the repairs, Gov. Abbott.

 

national news, political news

Calling it the TEA party from now on

Readers of this blog know that I refer often to the insurgent wing of the Republican Party, the one that gives the so-called “establishment wing” fits.

I am now going to refer to it as the TEA party, not the “tea party.”

TEA is an acronym, meaning “Taxed Enough Already.”

It’s meant to recall the Boston Tea Party, where colonials tossed tea into Boston Harbor to protest the tax they were being forced to pay for it.

The TEA party’s original mission seemed honorable enough. It has morphed into something else. TEA party officials have taken to opposing just about any kind of progressive legislation. Immigration reform? Forget about it. Health care reform? Pfftt!

I’ll simply remind the TEA party loyalists of their original intent in forming this wing of the Republican Party.

To paraphrase an earlier slogan: It’s the taxes, stupid.

 

political news, State news

Greg Abbott: plaintiff's lawyer in chief

It’s 31 lawsuits — and counting — for Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general who’s about to become the state’s next governor.

Abbott has sued President Obama over the president’s recent executive order that protects about 5 million illegal immigrants from immediate deportation. He made good on his campaign promise to sue Obama over this issue.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/12/03/greg-abbott-sues-over-executive-action-immigration/

I must pose some inquiries about this action.

First, how much are these lawsuits costing the state? It strikes me that Abbott — a self-proclaimed fiscally conservative Republican — is running up an incalculable legal tab as he challenges the president over immigration, health care reform and whatever else.

Second, as a Republican who has support tort reform efforts to rein in the cost of court settlements, he’s becoming one of those dreaded plaintiff’s lawyers Republican officeholders have loved to hate. We’ve all heard the mantra that Democrats are plaintiff-friendly, while Republicans look out for the interests of defendants in civil court proceedings. Texans seem to have sided with the GOP on that one, electing an all-Republican state Supreme Court, which rules fairly routinely in favor of business interests who’ve been sued by plaintiffs.

And third, does Abbott really have a case against the president or is he being pressured by the TEA party wing of the GOP to do something — dammit! — to stick it in Barack Obama’s ear? The Texas Tribune reports: “‘It’s ill advised. I don’t think he has standing. He gets the basic terminology wrong, and he protests too much when he says he’s not politicizing it, because all of it is simply about the politics of it,’ said Michael Olivas, an immigration lawyer and professor at the University of Houston. ‘He characterizes what the president did as an executive order — it is not an executive order. It’s executive action.'”

I didn’t used to consider Abbott to be a fiery conservative. I’ve long thought of him as a more thoughtful politician. He could be feeling the heat from the right wing of his party to carry through with his campaign pledge to sue the president one more time.

Well, he’s got 31 lawsuits in the can already. For my money, enough is enough.

 

 

national news, political news

Two sides 'laying down arms'

The current Congress hasn’t distinguished itself in many positive aspects.

It has a chance in its waning days, though, to recover at least a smidgen of the esteem it has squandered with the American public. It can avoid a government shutdown.

http://thehill.com/news/225805-reid-backs-boehner-on-deal-to-avoid-shutdown

It appears that the Senate Democratic leader and the House Republican leader have struck an agreement to prevent the government from closing its doors.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker John Boehner are on the same page. Neither of them wants the government to close in retaliation for President Obama’s executive order on immigration.

They are working to craft a budget agreement that keeps the government funded past the Dec. 11 deadline. It’s all tied up in some spending resolutions linked together in that crazy tangle of continuing resolutions.

Both leaders are fighting insurgents within their respective bodies. TEA party Republicans at both ends of the Capitol Building are willing to punish the president by taking it out on all the rest of us who depend on government for various services.

Perhaps cooler — and wiser — heads will win the day as Congress gets ready to button up and spend the holiday back home with friends and family.

If only the coolness and wisdom returns to Washington after the first of the new year when Republicans are in charge of all of Capitol Hill. Let there be hope.

 

 

military news, national news, political news

Now it's Ashton Carter at DoD

We’ll get to see just how partisan it’s going to get in Washington, D.C.

CNN reports that President Obama is going to nominate Ashton Carter as the next secretary of defense.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/obama-expected-to-nominate-ashton-carter-to-lead-pentagon-cnn/ar-BBgey1B

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson withdrew from consideration. So did defense expert Michelle Fluornoy. Presumably others have pulled out, too, for all I know.

Carter is a big hitter. He’s been a deputy defense secretary and was the main weapons buyer for the Pentagon. He also worked as a deputy defense boss during the Clinton administration.

He doesn’t seem to be overly political. He doesn’t have a lot of baggage. Carter seems to be a good fit for the Obama administration, which reportedly forced Chuck Hagel to quit as defense secretary after less than two years on the job.

However, in this day and time, politics seems to matter the most. Republicans who’ll take control of the Senate in January are likely to find all kinds of things to throw against Carter. The chief among them just might be that he’s Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Pentagon.

Senators have said they won’t block national security picks, while fighting other presidential nominees in retaliation for the president’s immigration executive order.

Many of us out here intend to hold them to their word.

 

 

national news, political news

NBC journalist faces conflicting interests

Chuck Todd wears an important hat for NBC News as moderator of “Meet the Press.”

He must remain impartial and he must be clear of any association with a partisan political campaign. And by “any association,” that means the woman in his life, his wife.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/12/chuck-todds-wife-aiding-jim-webb-199431.html?hp=l5_4

It turns out that Kristian Denny Todd is assisting former U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., as he considers whether to run for president in 2016. Kristian Todd is one of those Democratic “strategists” who assists people in public life.

Meanwhile, her husband is going to be covering the still-growing 2016 campaign and all its players. That must include former Sen. Webb, for whom his wife is working in an unpaid basis.

Todd’s role as a major news network’s main political reporters must be free of any association with a partisan campaign.

Let’s be clear about a thing or two. First, Todd isn’t the first network personality to make that crossover. Others include: George Stephanopoulos of ABC, who once worked in the Clinton White House; Pete Williams of NBC, who was spokesman for the Pentagon in the George H.W. Bush administration; Diane Sawyer of ABC, who once wrote speeches for Richard Nixon; the late Tim Russert of NBC, who worked for New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and the late Sen. Pat Moynihan of New York.

This kind of political affiliation involves both parties.

If Mr. and Mrs. Todd are going to allow this kind of association with a potential presidential candidate to continue, it falls on Chuck Todd to ensure that he doesn’t pull his punches with his wife’s boss if and when he gets the chance.

Be very careful, Chuck.

 

national news, political news

Oh, for that 'new car smell'

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Sometimes a simple throwaway line has this way of sticking to the wall.

President Obama just might have uttered it recently in an interview. He said the next president may need to bring a “new car smell” to American voters.

Former Clinton pollster: Hillary lacks ‘new car smell’

And that brings up the question: Does Hillary Rodham Clinton — the presumptive frontrunner for the Democratic Party nomination in 2016 — have that “new car smell”?

A former Clinton pollster, Doug Schoen, doesn’t think so.

According to The Hill: “‘The president said [last week] that the next president needs … a new car smell, and it’s pretty hard for me to say … that she [Hillary] has a new car smell,’ Schoen told radio host John Catsimatidis in an interview to air Sunday on New York’s 970 AM.”

Yes, she’s been in the public eye for a long time, dating back to 1992 when Bill Clinton told Americans if you elect him as president, “you get two.” She became a highly visible first lady, then became an equally high-visible senator from New York and then became an even more highly visible secretary of state in the Obama administration.

New car smell?

Hardly.

For that matter, Mitt Romney seems a bit musty himself if you consider that he’s run twice for president, been a high-profile governor in Massachusetts and also helped rescue the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

A Quinnipiac Poll shows Romney leading Clinton narrowly in a head-to-head matchup. But, hey, the election is two years off.

I’d bet real money that “new car smell” just might become something of a jingle once the next campaign gets going.

 

national news, political news, State news

GOP field taking shape for 2016

 

You can now — it appears — count lame-duck Texas Gov. Rick Perry as an unofficially official candidate for president in 2016.

Oh, boy! This is going to be fun.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/rick-perry-2016-campaign-113210.html?ml=po

Perry is courting wealthy Texas political donors, holding out his hand, polishing his message, showing off his new self and getting ready to make yet another run for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

Politico reports he has some company among those looking for that Texas largesse. It consists of a fellow Texan, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and a former Texan whose family is well-known around here, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Frankly, the Perry-Cruz competition for the GOP nomination — if it materializes — could prove to be the most fascinating political drama I’ve ever seen. I’m not crazy about either of them. I’ll give credit where it’s due, though: Cruz muscled his way onto the national stage instantly after winning the Senate seat in 2012 while Perry has demonstrated — despite his sometimes prickly public persona — to be a powerful vote-getter in Texas.

The dance they’ll engage in will involve both of them trying to outflank each other on the right, where they’ve both staked out some sizable territory of their own already. One of them — or maybe both — might fall of the stage.

Despite what you might have read about Cruz’s relationship with the so-called “mainstream liberal media,” they love each other. Cruz loves the attention the media give him and the media love him because he is so damn quotable. Perry’s relationship with the Texas media has been rocky at times, particularly since his notable absence from any editorial board interviews during his 2010 campaign for re-election as governor. But he’s burnishing that part of his dossier now as well.

Then there’s Jeb. His last name counts for something in Texas, even if it isn’t worth squat anywhere else. He’s the son and brother of two former presidents, one of whom is held in increasingly high regard (that would be Poppy), the other is, well, still trying to reconstruct his legacy. Jeb Bush, though, is smooth, moderate (by comparison to Perry and Cruz), articulate and marketable among Latino Republicans, given that his wife is Latina and one of his sons, George P. Bush, is about to become Texas land commissioner.

Perry’s 2012 effort fell flat. He’s hoping for a different result this time around. As Politico reports: “’If Gov. Perry is going to run, he’s going to be better prepared, and he’s going to have the resources necessary to compete,’ said Henry Barbour, a Republican national committeeman who is helping plan for a Perry 2016 campaign and organizing next week’s donor sessions.”

So, here we go. Hold on. It’ll be fun … I hope.