Gov. Rick Perry says he hasn’t yet decided whether to seek his zillionth term as Texas governor.

State Attorney General Greg Abbott says he hasn’t yet decided whether to run for Perry’s office.

I don’t believe either man. They’ve both decided. They’ve talked it over. They’re just waiting for the right time to spill the beans.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/06/20/speculation-mounts-decision-nears-perry/

Abbott’s already running for governor. He’s out raising money and trying to position himself as the heir apparent to the longest-serving governor in Texas history. Perry, meanwhile, hasn’t not been raising money and instead is touring the Northeast to talk about how business-friendly Texas is, especially to companies toiling in high-tax, high-regulation states such as New York and Connecticut. Those activities don’t sound like someone getting ready to run for re-election.

Perry’s time as governor has run out. He reportedly wants to run again – that’s right – for president of the United States. Apparently the humiliation he suffered during his first run in early 2012 wasn’t enough to dissuade him of his high ambition. So, by stepping away from the governor’s office in January 2015 he can spend time cobbling together a presidential campaign that he hopes will take him farther than the first one did.

The Texas Tribune reports, though, that the early reviews for Presidential Campaign No. 2 aren’t so hot. He flubbed a reference to Libya by calling it Lebanon when talking about the Benghazi fire fight that killed four U.S. diplomats in September 2012.

To borrow a word: Oops.

I am one of many Texans who has grown tired of Rick Perry. Actually, I was tired of him long ago … about the time he took office after G.W. Bush’s election as president.

Here’s hoping the tea leaves are giving us good news in the days ahead.

It’s been more than two weeks since I sent United Airlines a note complaining about a nightmarish travel experience.

I’m still waiting for a response.

http://www.johnkanelis.com/2013/06/travel-nightmare-continues.html

I don’t believe I’m making an unreasonable request. I want some kind of compensation for ground crew incompetence and mechanical failure that made me miss two connections to my vacation destination on June 6. The delays put me on the ground at my destination nearly 24 hours after my planned arrival. I’m seeking either a refund or a travel voucher. Is that too much to ask?

The most frustrating thing about this wait is the difficulty in being able to speak to a human being at the airline. These automated systems drive me crazy. Whenever I seek to speak to an “agent,” I keep getting asked more robo-questions, as if the system doesn’t hear me ask to speak to a living human being. After a particularly lengthy journey through the automated system recently, I finally did talk to an agent who – of course – had no specific information regarding my complaint.

The good news? She told me the email responses I received regarding my complaints means the airline’s “system” has them in its data base. She promised I’ll hear – eventually – from the airline.

I’ll keep you posted.

How quickly the tide can turn atop Capitol Hill.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., went to D.C. in early 2011 as one of the tea party’s golden boys. Now he’s one of the GOP wing’s chief targets. Why? Because the young man has the temerity to push for immigration reform that provides undocumented immigrants a “path to citizenship.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/306717-right-rips-rubio-as-gop-votes-slip-away

Rubio has this idea – along with several other senators of both major political parties – that giving hard-working people who happen to be in this country illegally a path to becoming citizens amounts to “amnesty” for breaking the law.

That’s a non-starter, according to the tea party wing of the Republican Party. Senators have brokered a deal to beef up border security and finish building a 700-mile wall along the southern border, which is seen as a sop to conservatives who dislike the notion of immigration reform in the first place.

I believe another key Senate Republican, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has it right. Graham – hardly a wild-eyed liberal – is on board with immigration reform. He said this week his party is condemning itself to a “demographic spiral” if it doesn’t agree to immigration reform. Indeed, with racial and ethnic minorities changing the face of America – and of its voting bloc – Republicans continue to be seen as the party of “old white men” who have no appreciation for the inexorable change that is taking place in front of their very eyes.

What in the world is happening to a once-great political party?

Houston’s Astrodome likely won’t be knocked to the ground, or blown to bits.

It likely will remain standing, but not in the form that some of us wanted for it.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Sports-Corp-promises-new-Dome-experience-4610316.php

The Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. says it wants to turn the Astrodome – the one-time Eighth Wonder of the World – into a convention center. It will strip out the seats and turn the Dome into a gigantic meeting place.

The new venue will create a new “Dome experience.” I frankly have enjoyed some of my own old Dome experience, although admittedly not too much of it over the years.

I once took my sons to a 5A high school football playoff game there. My wife and one of my sons went with me once to a Houston Oilers NFL game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Then my wife and I went to a Paul McCartney concert there, where we sang “Hey Jude” – along with many other songs – with Sir Paul and about 50,000 fans packed into the place.

I feared they would tear the place down. That likely won’t happen. The plans now call for $194 million to turn the Dome into a non-sports venue.

This news doesn’t excite me. It does give me some sense of relief that the grand structure will still stand, which is something of a victory for those of us who want to save the place.

Harris County commissioners will consider the proposal next week. I hope they approve it.

I’ve known for a long time that I’m getting old. Other than the obvious signs of aging, I’m discovering that the older I get the less worked up I become over things that used to rankle me terribly.

Take the issue of drones, the unmanned aerial vehicles used with great effectiveness against terrorists on battlefields overseas.

Now we learn that the FBI is using the UAVs in U.S. airspace. My gut reaction? So what?

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/19/fbi-acknowledges-using-drones-on-u-s-soil/

FBI Director Robert Mueller said that law enforcement is using the drones in a minimal way. They track suspected terrorists and drug dealers – which some folks consider to be one in the same.

I haven’t seen much of a problem using these aircraft ever since President Bush began deploying them not long after the 9/11 attacks. President Obama has continued using them – even accelerating their use – as the anti-terrorist war has continued.

The question came up during confirmation hearings for CIA Director John Brennan whether we’d use the drones to attack targets on U.S. soil. He said it wouldn’t happen. That’s a good thing, too.

Indeed, that is where I would draw the line and get rankled – as I would have when I was much younger. No one should endorse the notion of drones launching missile attacks against criminals in the United States. We should save these actions for the battlefield. These are weapons of war and they should be deployed in that manner only in a war zone.

Using them for surveillance purposes here? No problem.

Gov. Rick Perry’s job-recruitment journey has taken him to the northeastern United States where he’s appealing directly to businesses to relocate to Texas.

I’ve seen the latest ad and to be candid, it’s actually a pretty good piece of work.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/rick-perry-takes-aim-at-new-york-93030.html?hp=r3

I continue to be amazed at the in-your-face approach Perry is taking toward his fellow governors. The previous targeted states – California, Illinois and now, New York – all are governed by Democrats. Perry, who once was a Democrat, is now a card-carrying Republican who’s demonstrating time and again that he doesn’t care one bit about working with Democrats.

Still, he is a member of the National Governors Association, which still has a number of members from the “other” party. He goes to NGA meetings, hob-knobs – I presume – with other states’ governors. Maybe they swap stories about working with their legislatures or even brag about how good things are going in their particular state.

Does he cross the proverbial aisle at these meetings and talk shop with Democrats? My hunch is that he rubs shoulders only with Republicans, mainly because he’s managing to tick off Democrats with his job-poaching initiative.

Frankly, I cannot blame the governor for wanting to lure more business to Texas. Name a governor of any political stripe who doesn’t want to put more constituents to work and I’ll show you someone who’s not long for the office he or she holds.

But every business magazine published already has touted the Lone Star State’s business-friendly environment. It’s the worst-kept secret in the realm of national politics.

The governor might need some of those Democratic governors one day to help push some bipartisan idea forward – if any such notion ever pops into Perry’s noggin. I’m betting they won’t stand with him.

Canyon public school officials are pondering whether to allow the storage of guns and ammunition on the two high school campuses in the district.

http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/story.aspx?id=910828#.UcDtFkoo6t8

Guard this stuff very carefully, folks.

Canyon and Randall high schools would be the site of the munitions depots. Canyon Independent School District officials want to store the weapons there in case violence were to erupt at either campus. The only people with access to the cache would be Canyon and Amarillo police officers.

I share the concern expressed by Kathy Gilmore, a parent who lives in CISD. “I think they would have to really be careful about where they put them and only have certain people, only the officers that were licensed, to take take care of them if they were stored,” Gilmore said.

But what if someone, somehow, in some unexplainable fashion were to get hold of the keys? What if that someone did so with evil intent? What if tragedy were to erupt in the remote – but still possible – event of such a theft? What if … ?

I question the wisdom of this idea.

Ted Cruz wasn’t even supposed to be a member of the U.S. Senate when he began his campaign back in 2011. But there he is, the junior Republican senator from Texas.

A University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll has some rather strange news – depending, of course, on your point of view – regarding just how far Cruz has climbed up the political mountain. Cruz is the prohibitive favorite among Texas Republicans to become their party’s 2016 presidential nominee.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/06/17/uttt-poll-texans-favor-cruz-over-perry-president/

Yikes!

Cruz polls much better than another guy we’ve all heard of: Gov. Rick “Oops” Perry, the guy who tried and failed famously in his brief run for the GOP nomination in 2012.

Sen. Cruz ran in the Republican primary last year against Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the man with the deepest pockets in Texas politics and the odds-on favorite to succeed fellow Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who didn’t seek another term. Then Dewhurst ran into Cruz, who beat him in the Republican runoff and went on to win the general election handily against former Democratic state Rep. Paul Sadler of Henderson.

Since taking office those months ago, Cruz has taken on a role once performed by another loudmouthed Texan, former Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, of whom it was once said, “The most dangerous place in the world is the space between Phil Gramm and a television camera.” Cruz loves the limelight perhaps even more than Gramm did. He basks in it, saying strange things about Democrats and even some of his fellow Republicans. He lectures senior senators on the Constitution and in his goofy way demonstrates that he isn’t going to be stalled by such things as Senate decorum and protocol.

The Texas Tribune reported this about the poll: “’What you’re seeing here with the Cruz number is that he has become the pre-eminent rising conservative in Texas,’ said poll co-director Jim Henson, who runs the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. ‘What we’re witnessing in the numbers is Cruz running ahead and reaching back for the baton, and Rick Perry has the baton. The only question is whether Rick Perry is ready to hand it to him.’”

Cruz’s rise almost – please note I said “almost” – makes me hope that Gov. Perry refuses to hand it over.

Dick Cheney has thrown out the t-word to describe Edward Snowden, the man at the center of a controversy involving the leaking of classified National Security Agency information.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/edward-snowden-dick-cheney_n_3454632.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037

The former vice president made his remarks on Fox News Sunday, the news talk show that’s a favorite venue for Republican politicians to vent their anger.

Snowden “is a traitor,” Cheney said, alluding to the secrets the man has released that in Cheney’s view have put Americans at risk.

I am struck immediately by something about Cheney’s accusation. It simply is this: due process.

No one has accused Snowden officially of treason. No one has filed charges. If convicted of treason, a traitor faces the death penalty. It’s arguably the most serious crime imaginable short of murdering someone.

The Constitution — which Cheney has sworn to uphold and defend as a member of Congress, defense secretary and then vice president — lays out the requirement for every criminal defendant to be given the right of due process.

I have no earthly idea whether Edward Snowden is guilty of any crime, let alone treason. He well might be a traitor. However, doesn’t the Constitution provide a mechanism to prove such a thing beyond a reasonable doubt?

Dick Cheney has gotten way ahead of that process.

Today is a big day in the annals of American political history and no one is giving it any attention.

Well, almost no one.

Forty-one years ago today – on June 17, 1972 – a band of burglars broke into an office at the Watergate Hotel in Washington and pilfered some papers from the Democratic National Committee. What would transpire over the course of the next two years would rip the nation’s political structure apart. But as it turned out, we got through it and emerged in good shape on the other side.

Watergate has become part of our nation’s political jargon. It defines scandals. Part of that word – “gate” – has been used countless times since to label subsequent political scandals and even minor dust-ups. Watergate stands on its own.

The burglars got caught. The Washington Post, after some time had elapsed, began looking deeply into what actually happened, who ordered it, who sought to cover it up and who eventually was responsible. The trail led eventually into the Oval Office, which was occupied at the time by President Richard Nixon.

The president, the nation would learn in a stunning surprise about a year later during congressional hearings, tape-recorded conversations. One of those recordings would reveal that President Nixon ordered the cover-up.

Bad call, Mr. President.

It would not end well for Richard Nixon’s presidency. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment, setting the stage for the full House of Representatives to follow suit, which would have resulted in a Senate trial and – in my view – the likely conviction of the president. Nixon got ahead of the train and quit the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974.

A lot of individuals who dislike the current president, Barack Obama, now are saying the controversies that are nipping at his flanks rank right up there with Watergate. Some of my fellow travelers say, for example, that “no one died” from the Watergate scandal, unlike those who died in the Benghazi, Libya firefight this past September. That, they say, makes the Benghazi matter worse.

Tragic as the Benghazi consulate disaster was, it doesn’t yet rise to the kind of abuse of power revealed in the Watergate investigation. Back then a president ordered the CIA to get involved in stopping a criminal probe and worked diligently to keep the truth from the public. President Nixon clearly committed an “impeachable offense.”

But the good news is that we survived. Our nation healed, thanks in part to the decency that came to the White House when Gerald R. Ford took the oath as the nation’s 38th president.

I call attention to this date not so much to herald the misdeeds, but to salute the strength of the system of government that serves us.

As President Ford said when he addressed the nation after taking office, “The Constitution works.”