Category Archives: political news

medical news, national news, political news

Ebola 'czar' gets expected criticism

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Is there any better example of being “damned if you do, or don’t” than President Obama’s appointment of an Ebola “czar”?

Let’s meet Ronald Klain, who is the new manager of the government’s response to the Ebola situation. Klain is a trusted adviser to the president, a Mr. Fix-It sort of individual. He is known as a master government technician who knows how to make things work.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/obama-names-ebola-point-person-211624626.html

He’s not a medical professional. However, he comes into the game reportedly with a good deal of nuts-and-bolts know-how.

Republicans in Congress have been yapping about the president’s propensity for naming these “czars.” He’s got a czar for all kinds of things.

Yet … the GOP wanted him to name an Ebola czar because, they contend, the government’s response to this so-called “crisis” has been tepid, ineffective, milquetoast.

So then Obama puts Klain on the job.

GOP leaders now contend that Klain is the wrong person for the job. I haven’t yet heard who they think is the right person, or even how they would describe that individual.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/17/politics/ebola-czar-gop-reaction/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

I’m not at all certain the president even needed to appoint a czar to do this job.

A surgeon general would have been an appropriate person to lead the nation’s response to this matter, but Republicans have blocked the naming of that individual for reasons that have nothing to do with his or her medical qualifications. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is run by someone who’s qualified to coordinate the effort; but Dr. Thomas Frieden has been criticized — again, by Republicans mostly — his own agency’s failure to manage this “crisis.”

The president is damned yet again for doing what his critics have demanded he do.

political news, State news

'Hypocrisy' becomes focus of campaign

Wendy Davis is attacking the “hypocrisy” of her opponent.

That is fair game. The question now is the tactic she has used. Was it a “disgrace” that she posted a picture of an empty wheelchair while criticizing Greg Abbott, who also happens to be wheelchair-bound?

I wouldn’t use that kind of term to describe the ad in question. This campaign for Texas governor is now heading into some seriously rough terrain.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/13/davis-says-controversial-ad-about-one-thing-hypocr/

Davis is the Democratic nominee; Abbott is her Republican opponent. Abbott remains the favorite to become the state’s next governor, but Davis isn’t going to give up without fighting hard.

The ad in question lasts 30 seconds. It shows an empty wheelchair. The narrator mentions Abbott’s accident that left him paralyzed and how he sued successfully and won millions of dollars in a settlement. It then mentions how he has fought against provisions in the Americans with Disabilities Act and how he has opposed large settlements for plaintiffs who have filed suit — just as he did.

Is that hypocritical? Yes.

Davis defended the ad the other day. “This ad is about one thing and one thing only — it is about Greg Abbott’s hypocrisy,” she said.

I remain uncomfortable with the use of the wheelchair in the ad. However, I do not view it as a “historic low,” as Abbott’s campaign has called it. The attorney general has not hidden his use of the wheelchair from the public, which in this era would be impossible. I still believe Davis could have made her point without the wheelchair image, although it could have been a whole lot worse had the ad shown Abbott sitting in his very own wheelchair.

The campaign will trudge on.

Texas politics being what it is — a “contact sport,” as the late Lloyd Bentsen would say — don’t bet the farm that the road doesn’t get a whole lot bumpier.

national news, political news

JFK conspiracy? I still doubt it … seriously

A few of my closest friends and members of my immediate family know that Robert F. Kennedy was the first politician I grew to actually admire.

I watched him grow from a ruthless operative to a serious leader of Americans looking for a serious change in the political landscape.

An assassin ended that dream in June 1968.

I am dismayed, then, to read that RFK harbored some doubts about the official findings associated with the death of his brother, President John Kennedy, who also was cut down by an assassin on Nov. 22, 1963.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/was-bobby-kennedy-a-jfk-conspiracy-theorist-111729.html?hp=pm_1#.VDvTQFJ0yt8

According to author Philip Shenon, Bobby Kennedy believed the mob had a hand in his brother’s death. The Warren Commission, charged by President Johnson to examine the details of the assassination, didn’t interview RFK, who reportedly had this notion that the mob figures working with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro played a role in the murder in Dallas.

I cannot pretend to know all the details. RFK, then the attorney general of the United States, had access to information very few Americans ever will have. Who am I to doubt his view that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a grand conspiracy?

Well, I keep going back to this fundamental question: How does anyone keep quiet about such a monstrous act over the course of 51 years?

The answer I keep getting is this: Because there’s no one to blab; the one guy who did the deed was himself shot to death in the Dallas Police Department basement two days after he killed the president.

Still, this notion presents another set of questions.

What precisely did RFK know? If he knew something was amiss, why in the world didn’t he say something publicly at the time when the Warren Commission released its findings?

We cannot know the answer to either of those questions. Robert Francis Kennedy is the one man with the answer. We cannot bring him back.

Thus, these theories live on.

political news, State news

'Wheelchair Ad' all about the visual

Let’s call it the “Wheelchair Ad.”

It’s gotten a lot of attention in recent days. It’s a 30-second TV political ad that shows an empty wheelchair with a voice that talks about how Republican Texas governor nominee Greg Abbott was injured in a freak accident, paralyzed and how he sued to win millions of dollars in a settlement; it then goes on to accuse Abbott of working against Texans seeking similar justice.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/12/davis-pollster-wheelchair-ad-working-despite-criti/

The ad was approved by the campaign of Democratic governor nominee Wendy Davis, whose pollster said the ad is working in Davis’s favor.

Maybe so. Maybe not.

If the candidate had asked my opinion, I would have counseled her against using the wheelchair.

Apparently that is the crux of the criticism coming Davis’s way. I haven’t heard anyone actually contest the facts stated in the ad, but they are talking openly about the wheelchair, saying the ad is a low blow in what figures to be a bruising battle to the end of this contentious governor’s race.

My sense is that Davis’s campaign could have said all the things mentioned in the ad without the wheelchair. The campaign, though, chose to use the wheelchair I suppose to highlight the obvious — which is that the Republican attorney general is confined to a wheelchair as a result of the tree falling on Abbott when he was in his mid-20s.

I don’t have a particular problem with mentioning that Abbott is paralyzed. His own campaign has highlighted that fact in ads of its own. It’s just that troubling image of the wheelchair that has given Abbott grist to accuse Davis of attacking “a guy in a wheelchair.”

Election Day is only about three weeks away — and they might turn out to be the longest three weeks of our lives.

national news, political news

Krugman comes to Obama's defense

Paul Krugman isn’t exactly an impartial observer of American politics.

He leans hard left. He writes for the New York Times and other publications. He’s also an Nobel prize-winning economist who knows a thing or three about economics.

He also has determined that Barack Obama has crafted one of the most successful presidencies in American history.

http://www.lovebscott.com/news/rolling-stone-names-president-obama-one-of-the-most-successful-presidents-in-american-history

Go figure that one, eh?

Well, I’ll await the judgment of more historians on the Obama presidency, which still has about 26 months left before he leaves the White House.

Krugman has written a lengthy essay in Rolling Stone in which he lays out his case for the success of President Obama’s time in office.

Here’s a small part of what Krugman has written:

“Obama faces trash talk left, right and center – literally – and doesn’t deserve it. Despite bitter opposition, despite having come close to self-inflicted disaster, Obama has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history. His health reform is imperfect but still a huge step forward – and it’s working better than anyone expected. Financial reform fell far short of what should have happened, but it’s much more effective than you’d think. Economic management has been half-crippled by Republican obstruction, but has nonetheless been much better than in other advanced countries. And environmental policy is starting to look like it could be a major legacy.”

I get that Krugman has his critics. They sit on the opposite end of the political spectrum. They’re going to dismiss his assessment of Obama’s presidency through their own bias, contending that Krugman’s bias has tainted his own view.

Funny thing about bias. We always see it in others, never in ourselves.

I must acknowledge this much, even though it pains my friends on the right whenever we lefties bring it up: Barack Obama inherited a first-class financial and economic meltdown when he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009. He took measures almost immediately to stop the free fall. The government pumped billions of dollars into bailing out auto manufacturers; it slapped important regulations on lending institutions that had loaned money to millions of Americans who couldn’t afford to pay the money back.

All of this drew stinging rebukes from Republicans, who didn’t offer any serious solutions of their own — except to say that the president’s initiatives would fail.

Health care? Oh yes. There’s that. As Krugman notes, the Affordable Care Act isn’t perfect, but it’s working.

I’ll look forward to reading the entire article. I’ll still hold my own final judgment on Barack Obama’s presidency. We need some time to take it all in.

local news, political news

This responder spews rubbish so well

I don’t think I’ve done this before, but I want to offer a brief tribute to someone who has taken me to task on a blog I recently posted.

Here’s the blog:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/10/09/political-discourse-needs-cleansing/

This person’s response — and my reply to it — is at the bottom of the posted item.

The blog post discusses the lack of civility in today’s political discourse. The comments come from someone I don’t know — or at least I don’t think I know who it is. He/she posts the responses under a user name.

But honestly, the individual responding to my blog does so with such flair and panache, that I just couldn’t help but call attention to it.

This person says he/she “hates” liberals. Hates? Man, that’s tough language.

The individual also says he/she doesn’t question their “patriotism,” but believes their love of country is for another entity that none of us red-blooded Americans would recognize.

Liberals, according to this individual, want to form a new country in the place that currently comprises the United States of America.

Well, I salute this individual for (a) responding to my blog, (b) doing so in such an artful fashion and (c) proving my point in a way that I cannot say any better.

local news, national news, political news, State news

Bill Clinton helps more than Michelle Obama? Umm, yes

The headline over Dallas Morning News blogger Rodger Jones’s post asks: Does Bill Clinton help Van de Putte more than Michelle Obama helps Wendy Davis?

Well, duh? Do ya think?

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/does-bill-clinton-helps-van-de-putte-more-than-michelle-obama-helps-wendy-davis.html/

The 42nd president has endorsed Democratic lieutenant nominee Leticia Van de Putte. Meanwhile, first lady Michelle Obama has recorded a radio ad for another Democrat, the nominee for governor, Wendy Davis.

With all due respect to the first lady, who I consider to be profoundly successful in her role, she ain’t no Bill Clinton.

President Clinton is a genuine political rock star. He’s the 800-pound gorilla in any political setting imaginable. He can walk into deeply red Republican regions — as he did in 2008 when he campaigned in Amarillo for his wife’s bid to become president — and pack ’em in.

Jones refers to Clinton as “Bubba,” and his endorsement amounts to a “seal of approval.”

Van de Putte will need all the help she can get in her uphill fight against Republican nominee — and fellow state senator — Dan Patrick. Clinton’s standing as the leading Democrat in the nation — yes, even more than the man who now occupies his old office in the White House — gives any candidate who receives his blessing maximum oomph.

It’s an astonishing comeback for the second president ever to be impeached. The Senate acquitted him of those politically motivated charges relating to his misbehavior in the White House. It didn’t take long at all for the president to regain his standing among many Americans.

And in the 13 years since his leaving office, that standing has grown almost beyond all recognition.

Will his endorsement put Van de Putte over the top? I doubt it. Still, she isn’t going to erase this “seal of approval.”

military news, national news, political news

War College revokes senator's degree

Here’s a welcomed post script to an embarrassing political story.

The Army War College has yanked the master’s degree from U.S. Sen. John Walsh after determining that the Montana Democrat plagiarized the paper for which he was awarded the degree.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/army-war-college-revokes-sen-john-walshs-degree-26108518

This is the final blow to a political career that was on the ropes to begin with, but which now has been dealt a knockout.

Walsh was running for election to the seat to which he was appointed after former Sen. Max Baucus became U.S. ambassador to China. It would have been a tough pull for Walsh to hold the seat in a Republican year running in a state that tilts toward the GOP.

Then came the revelation that he copied much of the master’s thesis he wrote while attending the War College. He pulled out of the race after receiving a torrent of criticism.

Honor and integrity have to count when one portrays oneself as a proud member of the military; Walsh is an Army reserve officer who served combat tours in Iraq.

Walsh blamed his transgression on PTSD, to which the Army College review board responded, according to ABC.com: “The board said in its findings that other students have had similar or more serious issues during their time at the war college, but they were able to do the work ‘without resorting to plagiarism or other cheating.'”

There you have it.

So long, senator.

national news, political news

A single vote causes confusion

Alison Lundergan Grimes wants to be the next U.S. senator from Kentucky.

She’s taking on a heavyweight, Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.

Grimes has much to commend her for the job. However, there’s a strangely awkward reticence that is getting in the way. She declines to say whether she voted for President Obama in 2012.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/alison-lundergan-grimes-obama-vote-111766.html?hp=r5

This is a strange distraction. Come on, Ms. Grimes. What’s the story? Did you or did you not support the president, a member of your very own Democratic Party?

Politics creates such a fickle environment. Little things like this become big things in a heartbeat.

In a way, I understand Grimes’s reticence. Our votes, after all, are supposed to be done in secret. We cast our ballots with no obligation to tell anyone how we vote. Where I come from, that’s a sure sign of liberty. Voters become “liberated” by their votes, giving them more than ample justification to speak their minds on policy issues and the people who carry them out.

However, Grimes is running for a public office. That means her life essentially is an open book. The public is entitled to know to what level they endorse another public figure’s public policy stances.

Thus, her vote becomes grist for comment. It also becomes a target for inquiring minds.

Her reluctance might have something to do with the president’s low standing among Kentuckians. His approval rating is about 30 percent. Grimes has told at least two newspaper editorial boards — in Louisville and Lexington — that she’s a “Clinton Democrat.” She has declined on several occasions to say whether she voted for the president.

This kind of clumsiness angers her base, which she’ll need if she intends to defeat McConnell on Nov. 4.

It’s such a petty matter in the grand scheme. It has become a bigger matter than it deserves to be.

political news, State news

Political ads starting to fly

Here we go.

Three weeks until Election Day and Texans are starting to get a gut full of TV ads — mostly of the negative variety.

It’s going to get nasty, ladies and gents.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/wendy-davis-greg-abbott-wheelchair-ad-111783.html?cmpid=sf

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wendy Davis has just released a brutal ad attacking Republican opponent Greg Abbott over his work against others seeking assistance in the wake of catastrophic illness and injury. The ad, though, makes specific mention of the crippling injury Abbott suffered as a young man when a tree fell on him, leaving him paralyzed. It notes that Abbott sued and won millions of dollars, but has worked to deny others the same sort of award.

A group called Texans for Greg Abbott has released a radio ad alleging that Davis has used her position as a legislator and, before that, as a Fort Worth city councilwoman for personal gain.

The Davis ad attacking Abbott has drawn some serious criticism. Politico reports: “‘It is challenging to find language strong enough to condemn Sen. Davis’ disgusting television ad, which represents a historic low for someone seeking to represent Texans,’ said Abbott spokeswoman Amelia Chasse. ‘Sen. Davis’ ad shows a disturbing lack of judgment from a desperate politician and completely disqualifies her from seeking higher office in Texas.’”

I’m left to ask: Is the ad false? I cannot find a falsehood in the information presented.

Same for the anti-Davis ad I heard this morning on the radio.

People keep saying how much they detest negative advertising. I have said it myself from time to time. However, the political gurus who manage these campaigns know what works. They craft these ads because voters respond to them.

So it will be for the rest of this campaign in Texas. The state ballot is full of contested races that are bound to produce more than their share of negativity.

Get ready for it.