Monthly Archives: July 2013

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What? Cruz, Cornyn and Obama on same side?

I believe hell has just frozen over.

U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, two stalwart Texas Republicans, have locked arms with the Democratic president of the United States, Barack Obama, in support of a student loan bill that rolls back a plan to double interest rates for students who have to pay back their college loans.

I’m pinching myself. I’m still here, yes?

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/07/cornyn-cruz-side-with-obama-on-bipartisan-student-loan-deal/

The bill sailed through the Senate with an 81-18 vote. Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee was the lone GOP vote against it; Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri did not vote.

And get a load of this: The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to approve the legislation in about a month, enabling the president to sign quickly into law.

The bill essentially ties student loan interest rates to the market, which effectively kills the plan that would have doubled the interest rates students would be charged. The effect of that would have a serious impact on non-scholarship students’ ability to pay for college.

We all want our young people to get as much education as possible, yes?

As the San Antonio Express-News reported, the bill would have an impact on approximately 650,000 Texas college students.

I’m glad — no, delighted — to see this demonstration of bipartisanship, especially when it involves two fire-breathing Republican senators from Texas.

I do not, though, expect it continue. Politics is politics, you know, and that means the two sides are going to look for reasons to sink their teeth into each other’s throat. 

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MLB needs to drop hammer some more

There once was a time when I was addicted to big-league baseball.

I’d wake every morning from April through September, get the morning paper and scan the box scores for my favorite players. My actual favorite was Mickey Mantle. I’d look to see how Mick did the night before. I’d grimace if he went 0-for-4; I was joyous when he had a good night at the plate.

Those days are gone. Free agency took care of much of it for me, as players moved from team to team when their contracts were up.

Now comes the Age of Cheating, the use of performance enhancing drugs. Barry Bonds will never be the home run king. In my book, that honor belongs — still — to Henry Aaron.

When Major League Baseball suspended 2011 National League MVP Ryan Braun for the rest of the season, I was delighted to see the league taking action — finally — against the cheaters. This suspension likely will preclude Braun’s induction into the Hall of Fame.

More suspensions need to follow. I heard today that Alex Rodriguez might face a lifetime ban in the case that ensnared Braun. That’s all right, too.

MLB needs to set an example. It needs to make an example of these players who have cheated their way into the record books.

I am shedding no tears today over this development. Keep dropping the hammer.

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Video of shrinking lake is mind-blowing

Lake Meredith used to be a substantial body of water.

It now needs to be renamed to, say, Puddle Meredith.

http://amarillo.com/news/texas-news/2013-07-24/drought-keeping-lake-levels-down-time-lapse-video-lake-meredith-decline

The time-lapse video of the lake shows what the punishing drought has done to this once-magnificent body of water about an hour’s drive north of Amarillo.

The feds opened Sanford Dam in 1965 along the Canadian River. It filled up with river water, reaching a maximum depth of 103 feet in the early 1970s. It’s been downhill, so to speak, ever since.

The water levels got so low in 2011 that the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority stopped pumping water from the lake and shipping it to cities served by CRMWA. Marinas have closed. The lake level now stands — last I saw it — at around 27 feet.

The Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, which was created as a place for people to take their boats for a little water-related recreation now is a place for folks to camp, hike and do other things on dry land. I reckon some folks can still take their boats onto the water, what’s left of it.

I’m still waiting for an answer to this question: Did anyone foresee this immense water depletion occurring when they built the dam in the first place?

And was it all a wasted effort?

Amazing. Simply amazing.

 

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GOP future growth requires immigration reform

I disagree more with Sen. John McCain than I agree with him.

But he’s right to declare that the Republican Party is doomed if the House of Representatives kills immigration reform.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/07/john-mccain-predicts-terrible-consequences-for-gop-if-house-kills-immigration-reform/

McCain, R-Ariz., represents a border state and has a keen knowledge of the need to reform our immigration system. He voted to approve the Senate bill that passed 68-32 in a rare show of bipartisanship earlier this year. It’s gone to the House of Reps, where Speaker John Boehner has said it will need a majority of Republican House members to support it before it even goes to a vote of the full chamber.

Frankly, I don’t really give a damn about the Republican Party’s future as it relates to immigration reform. I do care that we fix the system that has put 11 million or so U.S. residents in hiding. The Senate bill would give those folks a “path to citizenship”; it also strengthens border security by completing construction of a hundreds-mile-long fence and hiring of many more border patrol agents.

It contains elements that conservatives and liberals both like.

Whether it helps the Republicans’ future is of little interest to me. The GOP has taken it on the chin from Latino voters who keep voting Democratic because, frankly, Republican lawmakers keep saying strange things — such as calling for the deportation of those 11 million residents who are here illegally.

Never mind all of those who have made positive contributions to our society, or those whose children have become de facto Americans by virtue of growing up in the only country they’ve ever known as “home.”

Republicans need to listen to McCain. This GOP elder statesman knows a good bit about the compelling need to reform the immigration system.

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Let the NYC voters decide your fate, Mr. Weiner

Dear Anthony Weiner,

Don’t exit the New York mayoral race because you’ve been caught “sexting” someone after you quit your congressional seat after doing, um, the very same thing.

Yes, you had said you’d changed your ways. You had sought forgiveness from your lovely — and very smart — wife, Huma, who in turn had forgiven you for your naughty behavior.

So here’s the deal, Anthony: Let the voters have their say.

This new revelation about your handle “Carlos Danger” ought to become part of the dialogue among the candidates running for mayor. Why not let character become an issue? You are, after all, seeking to become mayor of arguably the most important city on the planet. The character of the city’s chief executive should be part of the debate.

In my view, NYC voters deserve better than you. But that is their call to make, not mine. I live out here in Flyover Country. However, I do care what New Yorkers think of their mayor.

Let them decide whether they want you to be their city’s public face and risk the possibility of become a laughingstock because they chose someone with your particular proclivity for naughtiness.

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Get some help, Mr. Weiner

Anthony Weiner has just held an extraordinary news conference in which he admits that some of the “sexting” messages he sent out came after he resigned his congressional seat in 2011.

But everything’s OK, said the New York City mayoral candidate, because he and his wife, Huma Abedin, have repaired their marriage and she’s forgiven him.

Well, forgive this, Mr. Weiner: The people of NYC should take a dim view of these latest revelations into your (lack of) character.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/23/weiner-comments-on-new-sexually-charged-messages/?hpt=hp_t1

This is a preposterous turn in the life of a once-promising Democratic lawmaker who now wants to run the nation’s largest city. It’s NYC’s standing as the financial capital of the universe that makes this story important in places far away from the Big Apple.

Weiner got in trouble two years ago when it was revealed he had sent lewd text messages and tweets that showed parts of his anatomy that should remain, um, private. He quit Congress after first denying that his body part on display and then admitting it. Now we learn that even after leaving office, he kept doing it.

Now he wants to New York voters to elect him mayor and take the reins of arguably the most important city in the world?

Good grief.

Is there no limit to this man’s gall?

 

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Disappointed, but not surprised by congressman

Mac Thornberry is a longtime Republican member of Congress from the Texas Panhandle who has long touted his kinship with the land. He comes from a long line of Donley County ranchers.

He’s also benefited from government farm subsidies — and that makes his vote to strip food stamp money from the latest farm bill all the more maddening.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/07/3-texas-republicans-under-fire-for-collecting-farm-subsidies-then-voting-against-nutrition-programs/

Thornberry is among a handful of Texas congressmen, all Republicans, who have come under fire for their votes against the nutrition programs all the while taking money from the government for their own farming and ranching operations.

This is a disappointing development in Thornberry’s lengthy career in Congress.

He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1994 pledging to trim the size of government, which was a key tenet of the Contract With America on which the Republican slate of Senate and House candidates ran that year. Thornberry campaigned aggressively against a Democratic incumbent, Bill Sarpalius, for what he called wasteful spending policies — among other things. 

Now he’s been caught in a bit of a box. He toes the party line on cutting certain government programs, but he’s been revealed to be taking money at the time he’s denying it for others.

The term “hypocrite” keeps popping into my noggin.

 

 

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Boone has an energy plan

Boone Pickens is such a promoter.

He is especially enamored of natural gas, the rights to which he owns in abundance all across the United States, and that surely includes the Texas Panhandle, where he still lives part of the time.

http://www.pickensplan.com/boonecam/2013/07/22/high-gasoline-prices-and-the-need-for-natural-gas/

He says yet again that the recent spike in gasoline prices is caused by our nation’s habit of importing oil from overseas. He mentions specifically Venezuela and the Middle East. How does the nation bring down the price of gasoline? We need to invest in more natural gas development, the fossil fuel magnate says.

OK, he’s got a point. He trumpets the cleanliness of natural gas. Pickens says it’s plentiful. He’s indicated that natural gas reserves will outlast by a good bit the oil reserves that sit beneath the sand of, say, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

I’m willing to set aside Pickens’s vested interest in natural gas development. He stands to make a bundle — as if the gazillionaire needs more money — if we do more to develop gas reserves.

Pickens has been arguing for many years about the need to convert large-vehicle fleets — comprising long-haul trucks and buses — to natural gas. It does make sense.

People in very high places ought to take this fellow seriously. Boone Pickens does have some baggage. He’s been a controversial figure for many years. He’s made — and lost — many fortunes. But he knows the energy business better than most of us.

Yes, he’s got an enormous stake in natural gas development. That investment does not make his ideas on how to repair our nation’s energy policy any less worthwhile.

 

 

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Let’s debate, GOP contenders

Tom Pauken is pushing Greg Abbott hard for a debate — or a series of debates — leading up to next spring’s Texas Republican gubernatorial primary.

Abbott ought to take up the challenge.

http://blog.chron.com/texaspolitics/2013/07/pauken-presses-for-debate-with-abbott/

The Texas attorney general has been deemed the prohibitive favorite to win the GOP nomination next spring and with that, the election in the fall against whomever the Democratic Party nominates.

Pauken, a Dallas lawyer and the former chairman of the state Republican Party, is having none of it.

He calls Abbott the “$25 million man,” alluding to the massive war chest the AG has accumulated. Pauken said he believes Abbott thinks of himself as having some kind of “divine right of succession” to the governorship being vacated at the end of next year by Rick Perry.

Actually, Pauken is right to press for debates. I like the idea of two serious candidates for governor arguing in public over policy differences. They can be entertaining to be sure. More than that, they can be educational and informative.

Some critics lampooned the 2012 GOP presidential primary for having too many debates. I wasn’t among them. My only concern about that series of joint appearances became the carnival atmosphere that accompanied so many of them. The candidates would prance out onto debate stages to roaring crowds, waving at audience members like game-show contestants. It detracted from the serious nature of what was at stake.

Abbott and Pauken seem like studious men to me. They both know the issues. They both have positions — I reckon — on all of them.

So let’s hear them articulate their view of where Texas ought to go in the post-Rick Perry era.

 

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Bad idea to boycott Florida

A California assemblyman has proposed a patently bad idea in response to a controversial trial verdict.

Democrat Chris Holden wants Californians to “boycott Florida” because a Sanford jury acquitted George Zimmerman in the case involving the February 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-florida-boycott-california-legislature-trayv-20130721,0,1560540.story

Can there be a more bizarre reaction to something so fundamental as a jury doing its job?

Holden says Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law deserves to be targeted by a boycott. That’s an interesting point, given – as the Los Angeles Times editorial board has noted – Zimmerman didn’t invoke the law in his defense.

I’m one of those who believes the jury might have gotten it wrong in acquitting Zimmerman. But to launch a boycott pitting states against each other in what the LA Times calls “an economic war between the states” is an overreaction in the extreme.

I also am one of those who tends to respect a jury’s decision – no matter if I think it’s the wrong one – and seeks reasonable remedies. Punishing business owners by invoking a blanket boycott – regardless of a business owner’s personal views on the “Stand Your Ground” law – is profoundly unreasonable.

Let’s keep debating the issues surrounding the Zimmerman trial, but let’s do so without hysterics.