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Tragedy averted in Dalhart

What on God’s Earth does it take to make people understand there are civilized avenues to follow if a child is born to a parent who cannot care for him or her?

The story out of Dalhart should sicken anyone to the core.

A young woman was arrested after a newborn infant was found alive in a Dumpster. Shonnie Smalley, 21, is charged with child endangerment.

Whoever did this likely is beyond redemption.

Let’s be clear about what’s out there for folks who bring unwanted children into the world.

They can take them to hospitals or to houses of worship. The state enables these places to receive unwanted children with no questions asked. They became instant wards of the state of Texas. I don’t know how many states have similar policies, but I’ll bet real money virtually all of them allow it.

None of us can pretend to know what possessed the individual who did this heinous deed. No one can yet understand how someone could discard a helpless human being in such a heartless manner.

The media ought to take this story and run as fast and as far as it can with it.

How? By developing public service announcements that advise parents that government is empowered to take care of these children if their parents are unable or unwilling to do so.

Then it ought to flood the airwaves and fill up print space for as long as it takes for the public to understand the conduct of the individual who did this to that poor baby in Dalhart is pure evil.

I get that eradicating this evil from society is likely too steep a hill to climb. Nevertheless, we ought to try.

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Terrible story playing out in Beaumont

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It pains me terribly to watch this story play out in a city I grew to love while I lived there.

The Beaumont Independent School District is no longer “independent.” The Texas Education Agency, led by Education Commissioner Michael Williams, is about to take over the public school system.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/TEA-to-install-board-of-managers-at-BISD-5620989.php

This is not pretty. However, it contains a lesson that other school systems across the state ought to heed with great care.

I lived in Beaumont for nearly 11 years before moving way up yonder to the Panhandle in January 1995. I saw the Beaumont district go through a lot of pain starting in 1984. The TEA at one point brought in monitors to watch the district’s every move up close and personal. The district worked its way through some messy administrative issues then.

Now it’s come to this.

Williams has named seven managers to oversee operations at the school district. The superintendent has been stripped of his duties. The board members are out of office. The managers comprise local leaders with a keen interest in restoring trust to the public school system. Of the seven people named, I know only one of them: Jimmy Simmons, president of Lamar University.

I’m not up to speed on all the particulars of what ails the Beaumont district. Near as I can tell, the district has fallen into a spasm of incompetence, fiscal mismanagement to the max, conduct that borders on malfeasance — all of which has destroyed the public’s trust in its school system.

I’ve been acquainted with Commissioner Williams for a number of years, going to his days as a Texas railroad commissioner. He’s an aggressive, proactive guy. He’s a West Texan, a lawyer from Midland. He doesn’t appear to suffer fools … at all!

The lesson here for the other 1,000-plus school districts is to ensure you keep your houses in order, spend your money wisely, do the best job possible educating the students in your charge — and do not anger those students’ parents.

I hope this Beaumont story ends well. If it does, it will emerge a better public school district. It might even become a great one.

Good luck, board of managers.

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Surprise! Most GOPers favor impeachment

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A part of me is glad the talk of impeaching President Obama keeps percolating.

It serves to remind much of the country that today’s Republican Party is being dominated by nutty zealots who would impeach the president for passing gas in a public elevator if they thought they could get away with it.

Poll: 35 percent say impeachment justified

A new poll shows that 68 percent of Americans who call themselves Republicans believe Obama has done something merit impeachment by the House of Representatives. The poll, sponsored by YouGov and the Huffington Post, reports that 8 percent of Democrats think it’s a bad idea.

Wow. I’m shocked, shocked!

Reasonable Republicans — and there remain some of them in high public office — think otherwise about impeachment. House Speaker John Boehner says it won’t happen. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia says the president hasn’t committed the type of crime that merits impeachment.

That hasn’t stopped the likes of former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah “Barracuda” Palin from weighing in with impeachment talk.

I rather like Attorney General Eric Holder’s response to Palin’s recent demand for an impeachment. He quipped that the former Alaska governor “wasn’t a particularly good vice presidential candidate.” Holder said Palin was “an even worse judge of who ought to be impeached and why.”

I figure that as long as the media keep reporting this impeachment nonsense, the better it is for those who oppose the idea of proceeding with such idiocy. It exposes the modern GOP as a party dominated by fruitcakes who, absent any constructive agenda for governing, are left to talk openly about an issue intended solely to stoke its fire-breathing base.

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Israel needs to strike back

How much clearer does Israel have to make it for the world to understand its predicament?

Terrorists in Gaza are launching missiles into Israeli cities and towns. They have injured Israeli citizens. Their targets are civilian neighborhoods, houses where families live with their children. Is the Israeli military supposed to let the attacks go without response? No.

http://news.msn.com/world/israel-says-its-downed-drone-along-southern-coast

Now it comes out that Israel shot down a drone launched from Gaza. It was downed near the city of Ashdod, just a few miles from the Israeli border with Gaza.

The United Nations is upset because of what some have called a “disproportionate response” from Israel to the attacks launched by Hamas, the terrorist organization that helps govern Gaza alongside the Palestinian Authority.

The response does not upset me in the least. Of course, I have the comfort of living thousands of miles away.

Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a hardliner’s hardliner — makes no apologies for the air attacks his military has launched against the Gaza militants.

It falls on Hamas to stop the provocation. Immediately. Hamas started this conflict. The terrorists who run the organization do not want the Israelis to finish it.

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Do we ignore our guys’ missteps?

A friend of mine passed on a bit of wisdom this morning at the Amarillo Town Club that I’d like to share here.

All this give-and-take on social media — particularly Facebook — he says, makes him think about whether he is looking critically enough at his “guys'” missteps, mistakes, goofs and blunders.

He was speaking about some of the Facebook threads that have developed among people of differing political points of view. I’m happy to report that some of the threads to which he refers is in response to posts that appear on this blog.

I’ve given some thought to what he said and his wisdom makes sense.

We all have our own bias. I tilt to the left and I recognize my bias there. Many of my friends in the Texas Panhandle tilt the other way — no surprise there, right? I like sharing ideas with them, even though I recognize they’re always wrong and I’m always right.

OK, back to the seriousness. My pal, a well-educated man who works in the public sector, takes note of the need to assess whether we’re being as analytical as we can be when assessing some of these issues.

Some of the social media posts do twist off in irrational directions. Barack Obama is seen by many on the right and far right as a traitor who intentionally seeks to degrade America’s ability to defend itself. I try to restrain myself when I see that kind of opinion tossed into cyberspace. My friends on the left and far left are equally perverse, suggesting for example that George W. Bush actually sanctioned the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to get us into a war with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. I also restrain myself on that nonsense as well.

The vast middle ground between those extremes is where we need to focus our attention.

I’m willing to talk sensibly with anyone. I’m also willing to acknowledge that I tend to look differently when my guys mess up than when the guys on the other side mess up. I’m not going to apologize for that. It’s my bias and I’m entitled to wear it on my sleeve, just as the other side is entitled to display its own bias.

My friend’s point about taking care to look critically at my side, though, holds up.

I hereby pledge to seek to do so — even if it produces the same response.

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Women are ready for combat, more or less

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This blog post is going to get me in trouble with some of my female friends.

Here goes anyway: I have trouble accepting that women are capable of performing as infantry personnel in combat.

There I said it. Now I’ll explain why.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/07/10/marine-corps-dilemma-with-women-prompts-change-at-infantry-school/

The Washington Post reports on an experiment under way in the Marine Corps, where women will be taking the same Physical Fitness Test as men. As the Post reports: “The PFT requirement is the likely sticking point for many female Marines: To score a first-class PFT, men must do at least five pull-ups, assuming they rack up maximum points by running three miles in 18 minutes or less and complete 100 sit-ups. Under current rules for female Marines, women are not required to complete pull-ups.”

I’ll stipulate that I am well aware that women are performing well in some dangerous and deadly assignments in all branches of the military. They’re flying high-performance combat aircraft, as well as helicopters in close-air support roles on the battlefield.

Indeed, a young cousin of mine is now an Army master sergeant who has served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her earliest assignments in Iraq were with a civil affairs unit, which meant she would venture into villages to set up infrastructure for Iraqis — not knowing if the village was occupied by enemy combatants. In Vietnam we called the effort “pacification.”

I do not doubt that women can perform in two of the three combat arms: artillery and armor; the third one being infantry. They can drive tanks or armored personnel carriers and they can fire big artillery pieces.

I long ago disabused myself of the concern about women being emotionally capable of performing combat duty. I hold up my cousin as the prime example of a female soldier’s emotional stamina.

But does a typical 120-pound woman have the same upper-body strength as a typical 200-pound man, enabling her to lug around an 80- or 100-pound rucksack while slogging across some rough terrain?

I tend to think not.

Therein lies what I consider to be the problem with allowing women to serve as infantry personnel.

I fear this experiment is not going to work for either the Army or the Marine Corps.

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Obama might be able to fix border crisis

What? You mean the president of the United States has the executive authority to tinker with an immigration law and can start sending some of the children back to their home countries?

And he can do it without fighting with Congress?

Do it, Mr. President.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-may-hold-fix-flood-immigrant-kids-172132339–politics.html

Two key lawmakers, one Republican and one Democrat, think President Obama has it within his power to act. Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said the president needs to “re-engage” this effort. “We can safely get them home,” Rogers said on “Meet the Press.” He said, “And that’s where the president needs to start. So he needs to re-engage, get folks who are doing administrative work on the border. They need to make sure they send a very clear signal.”

But would he get sued for acting on his own? Let’s hope not. Congressional critics have been complaining that the president hasn’t acted forcefully enough on a whole host of issues, the immigration crisis being the latest. The children and young adults are political refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Sending them back willy nilly could expose them to mortal danger.

A 2008 law signed by President Bush was implemented to help prevent human trafficking. It supposedly makes it more difficult to send children back when they’ve entered the country illegally. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished. Smugglers have taken that 2008 and sent these young people here to take advantage of that law. And for that the president has been pounded?

Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said the law allows for administration action in the event of “exceptional circumstances.” She should know; Feinstein helped write the 2008 legislation.

If the president is facing a protracted fight with Congress over the emergency spending bill he has requested, then he should just take the action he has authority to take.

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More good news to share: oil

That doggone good news just keeps piling up. Why, I just don’t know what to do with myself as I look at this stuff.

Did you know, for example, that by the end of 2014 the United States of America likely will be the world’s top producer of oil and natural gas?

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2014/07/america_world_s_leading_oil_producer_as_we_re_pumping_more_we_re_using_less.html

All those pump jacks you see bobbing along the vast West Texas landscape suggest to me that hundred-dollar-per-barrel oil is paying some dividends for the U.S. of A.

Bloomberg reports that American oil production surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia earlier this year. We’ll be No. 1 soon, according to the business news outlet.

Let’s add natural gas to the mix. Oil production is up 49 percent since 2008, according to Bloomberg. Adding natural gas to the mix boosts the increase way beyond even that impressive figure.

On the flip side, there’s even more good news. We’re using less fossil fuel because of more fuel-efficient motor vehicles. Hmmm. Interesting, yes? Is that because that big, mean old government has required vehicles to burn fuel more efficiently?

And what about all this doom-and-gloom talk about how the feds were intent on “destroying the oil industry” by making it so difficult to explore for these fuels? Has the destruction occurred? Not by a long shot.

A favorite mantra among politicians of all stripes is the need to rid this nation of its dependence on foreign fossil fuel, particularly the fuel that comes from those crazy places like the Middle East.

Let’s see. I think we’re doing that.

The Bakken Field in North Dakota and Montana appears to contain the largest reserve in world history. Canada continues to be our friend by producing copious quantities of fossil fuel. However, let’s be mindful of yet another cheerful development: We’re importing a smaller amount of our oil — from friend and foe alike — than at any time in our history.

Gosh, I hate be the bearer of good news when we’re frothing over all these foreign crises.

Oh, I’m just kidding. I kind of like trying to add a little fuller context to the gloominess that seems to energize so many Americans.

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Tax cut … with no spending offsets?

I’ll have to admit that I’m a little slow on the uptake at times.

Folks have to explain some things to me on occasion to help me make sense of trends and decisions.

This decision by the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives falls into that head-scratching category.

http://www.kxly.com/news/politics/house-republicans-vote-for-business-tax-cut/26906060

The House has approved a $287 billion business tax cut. It hasn’t included any spending offsets to pay for it. Speaker John Boehner boasts that the House is working to create jobs. Maybe it will. Then again, maybe those businesses benefiting from the tax cuts will take that money straight to the bottom line. That’s been happening quite a bit lately, you know?

What’s got me puzzled is why the House GOP keeps insisting on spending offsets whenever the Obama administration proposes job creation ideas. Infrastructure spending? Can’t afford it unless we cut spending in other places.

Another thing needs noting. The deficit is coming down in rather dramatic fashion. A tax cut of the size just approved by the House is going to blow up the deficit yet again.

My memory isn’t perfect, but I do remember a time when Republicans belonged to the party of “fiscal responsibility.” They loathed deficits, while Democrats blew them off. Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980 partly because President Carter and Congress ran deficits of a whopping $40 billion annually; there was some other stuff also that contributed to Carter’s defeat.

Memory also reminds me of how quick congressional Republicans were to share in the credit for the balanced budget and the surpluses run up during the final years of Bill Clinton’s presidency. They made sure we all knew that their spending restraints were more responsible for the surplus than the modest tax increases proposed by the president — and, oh yes, approved by Congress.

The new age of Republicanism, though, sees the party in control of one half of one branch of government talking out of both sides of its mouth.

Spending offsets only count when the other guys want to do something. Tax cuts for business? Who cares?

In the meantime, President Obama is asking for $3.7 billion in emergency spending to help deal with that crisis along our southern border. The GOP response? It costs too much money.

Go figure.

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Cassidy personifies courage

The current Bravest Person in the World is a 15-year-old Texas girl named Cassidy Stay.

She has just witnessed the worst act of cruelty any human being can ever imagine: the slaying of her entire immediate family, her parents and her four siblings, ages 4 through 13. Cassidy also was a target of the shooter. She was hospitalized in critical condition but she’s now out of the hospital.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/12/justice/texas-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Cassidy today stood before friends and family members gathered at a memorial service and quoted Dumbledore from the Harry Potter stories. “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times,” Cassidy said, citing J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” “if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

How does anyone — let alone a teenager — stand before the world and offer comfort to the rest of us?

Cassidy lives in Spring, a Houston suburb. Ronald Lee Haskell is charged with capital murder. He allegedly barged into the Stays’ home and opened fire. He was seeking his estranged wife, who wasn’t in the house.

Her strength and courage defy description. “I know that my Mom, Dad, Brian, Emily, Becca and Zach are in a much better place, and that I will be able to see them again one day,” Cassidy said at the gathering.

My goodness. How does one summon the strength to say such things in public so soon after witnessing what no one ever should witness?

The nation should pray for this little girl. I’m doing so right now.

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