International news

Forget the 'water's edge' stuff about foreign policy

It’s safe to suggest that the time-honored belief that partisanship ended at “the water’s edge” has now been inundated.

House Speaker John Boehner went to Israel this week and declared that the “world is on fire” and that the United States is doing too little to put it out. He offered a blistering critique of U.S. foreign policy while standing in the capital city of one our nation’s staunchest allies.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/boehner-israel-jerusalem-isil-netanyahu-iran-116600.html?hfp=t1_r

It’s a new day. Or perhaps it’s a continuation of an old way of thinking.

I don’t know which it is.

I do know that wherever he is, the late U.S. Sen. Arthur Vandenberg is spinning in his grave.

It was Vandenberg, R-Mich., who criticized politicians for venturing overseas to criticize U.S. policymakers, coining the “water’s edge” definition of bipartisanship.

I’ve always thought it was wise to speak with a single voice, especially when politicians venture abroad to discuss foreign policy matters. Yes, I know that this affinity to blast presidents of the “other party” goes both ways and that Democratic pols have dissed Republican presidents as well as the other way around.

The speaker of the House, though, speaks with forked tongue when he warns of the world going up in flames and then promises to keep speaking out against the president of the United States — even as the world burns.

“I wouldn’t have believed that I would be involved in as much foreign policy as I am today,” Boehner said in Jerusalem. “And it certainly isn’t by choice. It’s just that the world is on fire. And I don’t think enough Americans or enough people in the administration understand how serious the problems that we’re facing in the world are.”

Is the speaker unaware that he well might be fanning those flames when he says such things?

 

national news

Menendez indictment seems oddly 'normal'

My proverbial trick knee is throbbing again.

It’s sending me a grim message that the federal indictment of Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey on corruption charges signals a hunt for others who are might be involved in the same kind of cozy relationships alleged in the 68-page indictment against the Democratic lawmaker.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/robert-menendez-indicted-116581.html?hp=r1_3

You hear about these kinds of things occasionally involving senators and House members. They do favors for pals, develop relationships that raise a lot of questions — not to mention eyebrows.

Is Menendez alone in this? That trick knee of mine tells me “No. Not by a long shot.”

Menendez is the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He’s stepping down from his leadership positions in the Senate until this matter gets resolved.

Also indicted is Dr. Solomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist and longtime friend of Menendez. The indictment goes into great deal about the emails exchanged over several years between the men, suggesting alleged criminal activity, deal-making and favors.

It’s pretty salacious stuff.

I’m wondering this morning if all this will lead investigators down a lot of other paths, toward the doorsteps of other members of Congress.

 

State news

Miller bringing some sizzle to Texas ag department

Sid Miller is becoming rapidly the most talked-about Texas agriculture commissioner since, oh, perhaps Jim Hightower.

That’s really saying something.

Hightower used to make reporters laugh out loud with his jokes and quips when he led the TDA in the late 1980s. Miller is making some waves of his own now, but many observers aren’t laughing.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/04/01/sid-miiller-backed-then-nixed-ag-agency-remodel/

Miller is having to explain why he gripes about deep budget cuts while at one time supporting expensive renovations to his department’s offices in Austin. He requested the flashy improvements shortly after being elected in November, then pulled back on the request. According to the Texas Tribune: “According to agency spokesman Bryan Black, Miller halted the renovations after realizing the extent of the department’s financial woes. ‘After learning of the serious budget challenges facing the Texas Department of Agriculture, Commissioner Miller put a stop to renovations at the agency,’ Black said in an emailed statement. ‘Commissioner Miller is committed to being fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars.’”

The Tribune reports further: “Among the requested items for Miller’s own office were 6-inch ‘hand scraped flooring,’ crown molding, indirect lighting, wooden blinds and custom ceiling tile. Items that don’t mention specific locations at the department’s Austin headquarters include a request for ‘office redesign/remodel, install shower’ and another order to remove carpet and replace it with tiles that resembled the ‘thin set terrazzo w/state or agency seal’ in the elevator lobby of the eighth floor of the Stephen F. Austin building.”

No one should expect our state officials to vow to work in squalid conditions … but holy mackerel!

Meanwhile, Commissioner Miller said deep budget cuts in previous legislative sessions have made it hard for the TDA to perform some of its core services, such as ensuring grocery store scanners work properly. Yet the commissioner wanted initially to gussy up his offices?

Let’s take a deep breath at the Texas Department of Agriculture.

local news

Candidates go on the air

Panhandle PBS general manager Chris Hays sent this email out to media representatives, so I want to share it here.

I’m excited to inform you about a special edition of “Live Here,” as individuals running for office in the upcoming City of Amarillo elections join us for a Candidates Forum. The special airs tomorrow at 7. 

The 16 mayoral and city council candidates will participate in this exclusive forum with members of Amarillo media-television, radio, print and online-asking the questions. 

Viewers have the opportunity to see the candidates respond, listen to their answers and decide for themselves which ones deserve to represent them. Share your thoughts on each candidate’s answers on Twitter using the hashtag #LiveHerePBS. 

Here’s Panhandle PBS blogger John Kanelis’ preview of the forum. 

That’s public television truly serving the public. Be an informed voter before you head for the booth (and you will head to the booth, right?). Tune in Thursday, April 2 at 7 p.m. for this special edition of Live Here…”City Elections 2015: A Candidate’s Forum.”

OK, I just left in the part about the blog I had written about that Panhandle PBS posted earlier.

But the crux of this post is to drive home an important point that I’ve sought to make on High Plains Blogger as well as the blog I write for Panhandle PBS. It is that the local elections matter more than elections at any level.

Sixteen residents of Amarillo have offered themselves as candidates for Amarillo City Council and for mayor of our fine city. Their commitment to doing something positive for the city is demonstrated merely in their declaring their intention to run for public office. The offices of council member and mayor are essentially volunteer positions; we pay these folks $10 per weekly meeting, plus whatever expenses they might incur doing business on behalf of the city.

Why not, then, demonstrate our own commitment to the city simply by listening to what they have to say at the televised candidate forum and then voting on the candidates of our choice when the time comes?

Once more, for the record, I’ll simply point out that the message of turning out for local elections should resonate far beyond Amarillo’s corporate border. Wherever you live, in whatever city, you need to pay attention to what your fellow neighbors have to say when they seek public office.

Do not let your next-door neighbor, or the folks across town, decide this election for you.

Citizenship works better when more people — not fewer of them — get involved in the government process.

It starts with voting.

 

national news, political news

Good move, Gov. Hutchinson

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is a smart politician, and I don’t say that intending to be snarky.

His state’s lawmakers sent him a bill that looks like the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act — the one that caused all that furor. What did Hutchinson do? He sent it back to the legislature and told lawmakers to rework the bill to ensure it doesn’t encourage discrimination against gays and lesbians.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/arkansas-religious-freedom-bill-recall-asa-hutchinson-116574.html?hp=r1_4

If only Indiana Gov. Mike Pence had dialed in his own radar when he got the bill that he signed into law.

RFRA is intended to protect business owners from being sued for denying service to gays and lesbians. It is seen, though, as a license for business owners to discriminate against the LGBT community. The uproar has been furious.

Hutchinson heard the fury all the way down in Little Rock. His view is that the Arkansas bill needs to reflect the 1993 federal law signed by President Clinton that protects the rights of all citizens and disallows business owners from discriminating against anyone.

“My responsibility is to speak out on my own convictions and to do what I can as governor to make sure that this bill reflects the people of Arkansas, protects those of religious conscience, but also minimizes the chance of discrimination in the workplace and in the public environment,” Hutchinson said.

This debate has raged now for several days and it likely will continue to rage until the Indiana legislature does what Gov. Pence has requested, which is to rework it to protect all citizens’ rights. As for the Arkansas bill, Gov. Hutchinson took the advice of his son, Seth, who informed his father that he signed a petition urging Dad to veto the bill as it was presented to him initially.

Sons usually are told to listen to their fathers. In this case, Dad did the listening — as he should.

 

political news

New folks hogging all the air time

Ted Cruz has done it. So has Tom Cotton. The two Republican senators,  from Texas and Arkansas, respectively, have managed to muscle their way onto our TV screens and into our local newspapers with their actions, even though they’ve been on the job such a short time.

Same with Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts. She’s been on the job about two years and she’s everyone’s go-to gal when the subject of Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy comes up.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/04/01/elizabeth_warren_dems_must_emphasize_differences_with_gop.html

I posted a blog earlier this week about the late Edward Kennedy’s adherence to Senate tradition, how he didn’t make a floor speech until he’d been in office for a year.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2015/04/01/r-i-p-ted-kennedys-u-s-senate/

All bets are off these days. The new folks are not bashful at all about hogging up media air time and space.

Cruz is running for president. Cotton drafted that letter to the Iranian mullahs and recommended they reject a nuclear deal worked out by the United States.

Now it’s Warren.

Didn’t she say she “is not a candidate for president” in 2016? Why are the media still digging around the roots of that story?

Is she going to challenge Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party primary or not? I thought she was declarative in her statement about not running. Oh, wait. She spoke in the present tense. “I am not running,” she said, if memory serves. That means the door is still slightly open for her to change her mind.

These new senators — and House members, too — are overshadowing the senior members.

Republican Orrin Hatch? He’s nowhere to be seen or heard. Democrat Barbara Boxer? She’s announced her impending retirement — and that’s been it. Republican Thad Cochran? He almost lost the GOP primary in Mississippi but got renominated on the strength of African-Americans who didn’t want the other guy to win. Democrat Patty Murray? She’s been as quiet as Hatch.

The new folks keep showing up. They’re everywhere.

The “new normal” in Washington is to let the newbies have the floor.

 

national news, political news

Gov. Pence, we hardly knew ye

So much for Mike Pence’s White House aspirations.

The Indiana governor had been considered a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016. His state’s economy is in good shape. He’s a “telegenic” fellow, meaning he looks good on TV. He’s an articulate politician.

Then he put his name on a piece of legislation that has created a serious political firestorm that is engulfing his state.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/mike-pence-indiana-2016-116569.html?hp=t2_r#.VRwXtFJ0yt8

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act has been viewed as a pretext to allow businesses to discriminate against gay people. It protects business owners from being sued if they refuse service to gays and lesbians based on their religious beliefs.

The backlash has been ferocious. Other state governors have banned non-essential government travel to the Hoosier State. The men’s collegiate basketball Final Four tournament to be played in Indianapolis is facing enormous economic pressure.

Gov. Pence wants to tinker with RFRA to exempt the LGBT community from discrimination.

The damage is done. RFRA has become synonymous with discrimination and, yep, it has Gov. Pence’s name on it.

A potentially crowded Republican presidential field has been narrowed — more than likely — by one.

International news, Uncategorized

Closer to home … how about Cuba?

Shifting our attention closer to home for a moment or two …

A new poll shows that most Cuban-Americans agree with the U.S. policy shift toward that fearsome foe of freedom, Cuba.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/poll-cuba-obama-cuban-americans-florida-116570.html?hp=l3_4

President Obama this past year announced plans to restore full diplomatic relations with the Marxist government in Havana. The United States has lifted many travel restrictions already. Our governments are now talking directly to each other. Before too terribly long there likely will be an exchange of ambassadors and the nations will have embassies in each other’s capital cities.

This policy change should have occurred decades ago. That it’s occurring now is a sign of the changing times.

The U.S.-led embargo against Cuba has needed to be lifted. Indeed, any possible threat Cuba posed to this country evaporated in 1991 when the Soviet Union disappeared. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis provided a scary two-week standoff that well could have brought about nuclear annihilation, but it ended well when President Kennedy forced the Big Bad Bear to “blink,” and remove those offensive missiles from the island nation.

Yes, the nation has human rights issues it needs to resolve. Then again, so do many other nations with which the United States already has full diplomatic relations.

Cuban-Americans, who hold considerable political sway in this country, now appear to be climbing aboard the U.S.-Cuba relationship restoration vehicle.

Let us proceed to make that restoration a reality.

 

national news, political news

R.I.P., Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate

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President Barack Obama was among many dignitaries gathered this week in Boston to honor the opening of an institute that tells the story of the U.S. Senate.

The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate honors a place that the late Massachusetts Democrat served for more than three decades. The Senate that Kennedy served no longer exists, according to the president.

What a shame.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/letter-from-boston-obama-says-kennedys-senate-is-dead-116516.html?hp=b1_r3

Ted Kennedy was admired and reviled. His friends cherished his loyalty. His foes loathed his ferocity.

Kennedy, though, had this amazing ability to make friends across the political aisle. Many of his former political foes came to Boston to remember him for his wit and for the good cheer he spread among those he met.

Where is that collegiality now? Barack Obama wondered how the Senate functions today.

“What if we carried ourselves more like Ted Kennedy? What if we worked to follow his example a little bit harder?” Obama said. “People fight to get in the Senate, and then they’re afraid. We fight to get these positions and then don’t want to do anything with them. Ted understood the only reason to get these positions is to get something done.”

No, the late Liberal Lion was far from perfect. He had his faults and demons. He behaved badly off the clock at times in his life. Despite his occasional missteps, Kennedy knew how to legislate. He worked well with others, which in a legislative body comprising 100 occasionally monstrous egos is an essential element of good government.

Kennedy also knew about tradition and believed it meant something important. As Politico reported: “Kennedy waited a year to deliver his first speech on the Senate floor, Obama recalled at the institute, noting dryly that ‘that’s no longer the custom.’ (Freshman Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton had barely been sworn in before he riled up the White House over his own maiden speech and his open letter attacking the Iran talks.) The president looked over to former Senate majority leaders Trent Lott and Tom Daschle, joking that they could talk about the time when traditions meant something, though he left out his own impatient ambition that led him to announce a presidential campaign two years into his first term.”

There’s a glimmer of hope, though, for the Senate.

Edward M. Kennedy can’t come back. A constructive U.S. Senate is able to rebuild itself, however, into an institution that relearns how to build consensus across the aisle and avoid demonizing the other side as being an “enemy” of the common good.

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