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G-8 gives Russia the heave-ho

The Group of Eight industrialized nations has reduced its ranks by one.

The more I think about it, this might be the unkindest cut of all that Russia will endure as punishment for its interference in Ukraine’s sovereign affairs.

The G-8 is now the G-7, as the remaining nations have given Russia the boot.

http://news.yahoo.com/kicking-russia-g8-now-g7-214800555.html

The G-8 had planned to meet in Sochi, Russia. The G-7 will meet in Brussels, Belgium.

The punishment is going to sting because Russia sought hard to be included in the industrialized consortium of nations after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Joining the other great industrialized powers — such as the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, Italy, Canada and Germany — meant a great deal to a nation struggling to find its way out of its communist past.

The Russian Federation emerged from the post-commie era a corrupt and struggling nation. Then it took its place at the table along with the other great industrialized powers.

Now it’s been relegated to pariah status, owing to its takeover of Crimea, its interference in Ukraine’s political unrest and its threat of more military intervention.

It’s been suggested by some in this country that the United States should arm the Ukrainians, that it should rattle its sabers more loudly. U.S.-led economic sanctions already are beginning to bite. Will they persuade Russia to back out of Ukraine? Probably not.

Will the G-7 decision to no longer include the Russians change the Kremlin’s attitude? Again, no.

It’s still going to sting. A lot. As it should.

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Closure, finally, for Flight 370 families

Sixteen days after a Boeing 777 disappeared, the grieving families of the 239 people on board have a semblance of closure.

Finally, it has come.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced today that Flight MH 370 crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, far from any possible landing sites.

http://news.yahoo.com/malaysia-pm-plane-plunged-indian-ocean-140639275–finance.html

The Malaysia Air flight took off March 8 from Kuala Lumpur, reportedly took a sharp turn to the west and then apparently headed south over the ocean. Flight crews and satellites have spotted debris that searchers think belongs to the jetliner.

Still, theories — legitimate and crackpot — are being bandied about regarding what happened to the jetliner. Searchers hope to obtain the vital information contained in the flight data recorder that lies at the bottom of the ocean. Once they collect that recorder, they’ll learn the truth about what happened to MH 370.

But today’s announcement carries a bit of mystery itself. The Malaysian government reportedly sent — get ready for this — text messages to family members informing them their loved ones are lost and presumed dead.

Text messages.

I’m trying to grasp why the government felt the need to inform these grieving individuals about this tragic outcome in such a seemingly heartless fashion. It’s likely they’ll have to explain that one to an inquiring worldwide community.

But the family members and loved ones now know what they’ve feared all along.

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Proof of citizenship to vote? Oh, please

My friend and former colleague Jon Talton calls it the Kookocracy that’s run amok in Arizona.

I think he’s on to something.

The Arizona — and now Kansas — kooks have been handed a court victory by a judge who says that, yep, it’s OK for those states to demand voters prove their citizenship if they intend to vote.

http://www.roguecolumnist.com/rogue_columnist/2014/03/keep-out-the-vote.html

I’ve been voting in every presidential election since 1972, starting in my home state of Oregon and — since 1984 — in Texas. Not one time has an election judge asked me to produce either a birth certificate or a passport to prove I’m a citizen of the U.S. of A. Never has any elections official looked sideways at me — at least none that I’ve ever noticed — and wondered whether I’m a red-blooded American male.

For the record, I am.

Now, though, the fight to make it more difficult for people to vote is heading down a curious path.

The courts — or shall I say those courts presided over by Republican-appointed federal judges — are notching up victories for the GOP-led effort to curb what they call an epidemic of voter fraud by illegal immigrants.

Of course, no such epidemic exists, except in the fanciful minds of those who want to suppress voter participation by those who might be inclined to vote for those nasty Democrats.

As Talton notes in his blog: “Real instances of serious voter fraud are almost nonexistent, and the few recent scandals have involved Republicans. On the other hand, minority and poor citizens are less likely to be able to produce a passport or birth certificate in order to exercise the franchise.”

I want to be clear about one thing. I join my fellow Americans in upholding the sanctity of the vote. We shouldn’t allow non-U.S. citizens to cast ballots in a rite that is reserved only for those who either swear allegiance to the Constitution or those who earned their citizenship by birthright.

These efforts to make it harder for people to vote, though, simply are un-American.

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Carter surprises on 'Meet the Press'

Former President Jimmy Carter amazes me.

He’s 89 years young. His voice is still strong. His mind is still sharp. He apparently can still pound a nail with a hammer while building houses for Habitat for Humanity. He also surprises folks with candid answers to difficult questions.

He did so twice today on a “Meet the Press” interview with NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/former-president-jimmy-carter-im-being-spied-on-nsa

First, he said he fears the National Security Agency is monitoring his e-mails. So, when he corresponds with foreign leaders, he does so the old-fashioned way: He writes notes with pen and paper and mails them via the Postal Service. He is concerned about people’s privacy being harmed by NSA snooping.

Frankly, I believe the former president — being who he is and the job he once held — might have reason to be concerned far more than, say, yours truly or almost any other of the 300 million American citizens.

The second thing he told Mitchell was surprising, and disappointing. Does President Obama consult with the 39th president on foreign policy matters? Mitchell asked. Carter said no.

He noted that other men who succeeded him as president — Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — all have sought his counsel over the years during difficult crises. Barack Obama hasn’t done so.

It’s disappointing to learn that about Obama. It’s not entirely surprising, given what some of his critics have said about his go-it-alone strategy in thinking through some stressful problems. Others in Washington have noted that President Obama doesn’t prefer to dicker and negotiate with legislators and that, too, is in keeping with what President Carter said in the interview broadcast Sunday.

The ex-presidents’ club is one of the most exclusive “organizations” in the world. So few of them are alive at any given time. In Barack Obama’s case, he’s got four of them with whom he can consult. Few men have made decisions as monumental as these men have made and their counsel should be welcome.

I have no knowledge, of course, about who the president calls when the going gets tough. It does sadden me to learn he hasn’t bothered to call one of them with a good bit of knowledge and life experience upon which to lean.

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What would Mitt have done?

Mitt Romney’s hindsight is as good as it gets.

It’s picture perfect. The former Republican presidential nominee can see the past. Can he see the future? Well, no better than the man who beat him in the 2012 presidential election.

Still, the former Massachusetts governor blames President Obama’s “naivete” for the escalating tensions in Ukraine precipitated by the surprising virtual annexation of Crimea by Russia.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/mitt-romney-blasts-president-obama-naivete-ukraine-crisis

Romney did tell the world during the most recent presidential campaign that he considered Russia to be this nation’s No. 1 geopolitical foe. I recall thinking at the time that Romney seemed to be selling short the international terror network with which this country has been at all-out war since 9/11.

Did he know in advance that Russia was going to interfere with Ukraine’s internal political squabble? Did he foresee Russian troops moving into Crimea, or did he envision Crimean residents of Russian descent voting to ally the region with Russia and pull out of Ukraine?

I think not.

But more than a year after making that seemingly absurd claim, Romney’s assertion now seems oddly prescient.

Still, it’s fair to ask: How would President Romney have handled the Russian incursion?

He says leaders are able to foresee the future better than Barack Obama foresaw it. I guess he would have been more proactive in working our European allies to head off any Russian threat. That would have worked … how? What would have the Euros been able to do?

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a bully’s bully. My own sense is that he wouldn’t be dissuaded from acting no matter what NATO or the European Union threatened to do. The Russians faced another U.S. president in 2008, George W. Bush, when they invaded Georgia. W’s reputation was that of a no-nonsense guy who was unafraid to use force, right? Well, President Bush’s rep didn’t forestall military action by the Russians, either.

The sanctions that the United States and others have imposed on Russia’s key leaders are beginning to bite. They’re going to hurt. Will they force the Russians to back out? Probably not. Short of going to war with the Russians, I’m thinking the president of the United States is handling it about it right.

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City pays Nugent to stay away

The Ted Nugent journey into Texas politics has taken another bizarre turn.

Longview, Texas officials had invited the Motor City Madman to appear at its second annual Fourth of July event. Then they disinvited Nugent and paid him 16 grand to stay away.

Good call, Longview City Hall.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/21/ted-nugent-appearance-canceled_n_5009248.html

Nugent wasn’t “the right feel” for the city’s patriotic celebration, event planners decided. Do you think?

Nugent’s reputation of late has been that of a runaway freight train. He’s out of control. Hand the guy a microphone and he’s likely to spew forth anything that pops into his skull — such as when he referred to the president of the United States as a “subhuman mongrel.” Nugent has signed on as an ally of Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott and has spoken on Abbott’s behalf at campaign appearances already around the state.

I’m guessing Longview officials didn’t want to risk Nugent saying something similar again, on their watch, as the city sought to honor the nation’s birthday in East Texas.

Why pay the guy $16,000 to stay away? I guess the city figured to make good on half the fee it promised him by inviting him in the first place.

I see it as a pretty good investment in protecting the city’s reputation from someone who gets far more attention from the national media than he deserves.

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Houston leads way … in recycling

Recycling hasn’t yet reached way-of-life status in Texas.

Too bad. It should, given all the material we waste every hour each day. It costs lots of money to make containers from scratch; it costs a lot of trees to make all that paper that ends up in the trash bin.

Enter, Texas’s largest city, Houston, which is considering a plan to increase dramatically its recycling program.

Houston, we may have a solution.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/03/21/houstons-bold-controversial-recycling-plan/

Houston might start doing away with the program that requires residents and business owners to separate their recyclable material. The idea is to just toss all the recyclable stuff into a single bin and let the city pick it up and sort it out. The plan is going to cost millions of dollars to implement, according to the Texas Tribune. It also carries some risk to the employees hired to sort the material, some of which might contain hazardous material, such as chemical-based liquids.

Houston was awarded a $1 million grant from a foundation created by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. That was the prize for the city’s bold new recycling plan. Some environmentalists are concerned, according to the Tribune, that a non-sorting program might discourage residents from considering what they’re tossing aside.

Houston’s population of more than 2.2 million residents hasn’t yet gotten the recycling bug. Only a small percentage of residents recycle there. The idea under consideration is intended to boost that number significantly. Austin — one of the few hotbeds of environmental awareness in Texas — only registers a 24 percent recycling rate among its 800,000 residents, the Tribune reports.

What about Amarillo? Pardon me for laughing, but we aren’t in the game. The city used to have Dumpsters stationed around town for folks to toss paper. The city gave up on that program because officials had grown tired of people tossing non-recyclable trash into the containers. It wasn’t worth their time or trouble to maintain the program. So, the Dumpsters were removed.

Beaumont, where I used to live, had a pretty good curbside recycling program years ago. Residents would put plastic and aluminum containers into a bin, along with newsprint. The recycling truck would pick it up outside of your home and send it off to be recycled. The program didn’t last, but it was worth the proverbial college try.

I’m hopeful Houston can pull this new no-sort program off.

It might be quite an irony that a city with no zoning laws and some of the worst air quality in the Western Hemisphere could develop a solid waste recycling program that saves energy, trees and creates a little bit of efficiency in an otherwise wasteful world.

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Sen. Paul does the seemingly impossible

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul has made two fascinating public appearances of late.

The Kentucky Republican — and tea party favorite — spoke to thundering applause at the Conservative Political Action Conference gathering. CPAC is where conservatives go for anointment by the Republican Party’s most faithful, the true believers, the hardest of the hard core right wing.

Then, just this week, the senator showed on the other coast, the Left Coast, and addressed a crowd of University of California-Berkeley students. Now this is where the lefties hang out to get their blessing from the progressive/liberal/lefty crowd. It’s also a place that usually doesn’t welcome those from the other side. But there was Sen. Paul, giving the Berkeley faithful a snootful of libertarian dogma.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2014/0322/Rand-Paul-most-intriguing-man-in-the-GOP.-Really-video

What gives here?

Is he actually the most “intriguing man in the GOP,” as Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus has posited? He might be.

The CPAC meeting was a no-brainer for Paul, who’s considered to be a virtual shoo-in as a candidate for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. He won the CPAC straw poll, beating the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

The Berkeley event, though, raised my eyebrows. Too many colleges and universities — those bastions of progressive thought and supposed tolerance for all points of view — have rolled out the unwelcome mat to conservatives. Rand Paul appears to be the exception, though, given his libertarian views on things such as drug decriminalization and his pacifist view of war.

He’s a conservative, though. Frankly, I was glad to see him speak at Berkeley if only to know that at least one progressive institution in this particular instance was being true to the credo of openness and tolerance of differing points of view.

Now, let’s see if Hillary Clinton shows up at a right-wing-leaning school such as, say, Liberty University.

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Booker, Cruz talk; who listens?

U.S. Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Ted Cruz of Texas recently had what was described as a three-hour private lunch.

It struck me when I heard this about two of the Senate’s more garrulous members: Who listens when the two of them get together?

Booker, a Democrat, and Cruz, a Republican, both are known to be two of the least camera-shy members of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body. They both seem to love the sound of their own voices, particularly when they’re positioned in front of a microphone. So when Booker said he and his fellow junior member of that august body met, I was intrigued by the idea of the two of them sitting down to hear each other out.

In a larger sense, though, the meeting was good for an important reason. It apparently was Booker’s idea. He said he intends to share private meals with every one of the Senate’s Republican members. Why? He wants to search for common ground with them. He wants to restore some level of collegiality to a body that’s been missing it since, oh, about the time Barack Hussein Obama became president of the United States of America.

I won’t get into who’s to blame for this lack of collegiality. It disappeared between Republicans and Democrats within the Senate. It surely vanished between the Senate and the White House, particularly among the GOP senators and the White House.

I hope Booker goes through with his pledge to meet with all of his Republican colleagues. If he can restore some decency among them, so much the better for Senate and for the cause of good government.

As for meeting with Cruz, I have to salute both men presumably for keeping their big mouths shut long enough to hear what the other guy had to say.

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'Cruz Missile' for president?

Shall I weep uncontrollably or jump for joy at this bit of political news?

A former staffer for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas may be planning a Draft Cruz for President within the Republican Party.

Why weep? I suppose I would weep for a once-great political party if it actually committed the foolish act of nominating someone so, um, polarizing. Why be joyful? A Cruz candidacy and a thumping by the Democratic Party nominee in November 2016 likely would spell the welcome end of the movement this media hog is leading within the Republican Party.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2014/03/ted-cruz-may-be-drafted-for-president/

Raz Shafter, a former regional director for Cruz, is heading up a political action committee that — under federal election law — will be able to raise unlimited amounts of money to promote Cruz’s possible presidential bid.

Cruz has been circumspect about this notion, which is a bit ironic given that he’s hardly exhibited any form of rhetorical reticence since joining the Senate in January 2013. He’s been blathering incessantly about the so-called evils of the Affordable Care Act, debt increases, Barack Obama’s presidency itself and wondering whether Vietnam War combat veterans John Kerry and Chuck Hagel had enough appreciation for U.S. military commitments.

I guess my first reaction to this draft Cruz movement — whether I should weep — is a bit premature.

Maybe I ought to start my happy dance at the idea that Republicans actually might nominate the Texas Cruz Missile.

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