The breadth and depth of the hatred that President Obama’s political foes have for him simply takes my breath away.

U.S. Rep. Tom Marino, R-Fla., is the latest congressional right-winger to launch a loony attack on the president. He wants Congress to explore filing criminal charges against Obama for delaying the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which I thought would have pleased ACA critics.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/12/tom-marino-obama-_n_3588114.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037

To borrow a phrase from the late John Belushi: But no–o-o-o-o-o!

Marino thinks Obama broke the law and wants to look for something — anything to hang around the president’s neck.

He’s also saving some of his ammo for Attorney General Eric Holder, who he says should be prosecuted for not following the law.

Obama delayed the ACA’s employer mandate provision to give some “transition relief” to companies. When he announced the delay, I thought it might quell some of the anger from those on the right who think the mandate is some nefarious form of “socialized medicine.” It didn’t.

Marino thinks the president skirted the law and, by golly, he needs to face the music.

This nonsense is beginning to drive me just a bit batty. While he’s at it, Marino ought to see about prosecuting Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts — a G.W. Bush appointee — for casting the key court vote in 2012 that determined that “Obamacare” is in fact legal.

This day almost got past me without my noticing it.

Today would have been Gerald Ford’s 100th birthday.

The 38th president of the United States came into this world on July 14, 1913 as Leslie King Jr. His parent divorced when he was a baby, his mother remarried and her new husband adopted the youngster, giving him the name of Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr.

Ford went on to do some marvelous things: a standout football career at the University of Michigan, obtaining a law degree from Yale, service in the U.S. Navy during World War II, service in the U.S. House of Representatives, service on the Warren Commission examining the assassination of President Kennedy, selection as vice president of the United States and, finally, his elevation to the presidency in 1974.

The attached link notes his early stance for civil rights for black Americans.

http://www.npr.org/2013/07/14/201946977/the-civil-rights-stand-of-a-young-gerald-ford?ft=1&f=1014

The link also takes note of his pardon in September 1974, one month after becoming president, of his predecessor, Richard M. Nixon, for crimes he committed or may have committed against the United States.

The pardon arguably cost Ford election to the presidency in 1976, but it turned out to be the right thing to do.

Indeed, none other than the late Sen. Ted Kennedy — one of the president’s harshest critics of the pardon at the time he issued it — took note of the courage that Ford demonstrated in pardoning Nixon. In 2001, the John F. Kennedy Library awarded Ford its Profile in Courage Award, acknowledging for all time the courage the president demonstrated in seeking to end the divisiveness of the Watergate era. Sen. Kennedy admitted at that ceremony that he was wrong in 1974 to criticize the president for issuing the pardon.

Gerald Ford said simply after taking the presidential oath of office on Aug. 9, 1974 that “the Constitution works.” He was so correct.

It worked at that instant in large measure because a good man took the reins of power at precisely the right moment.

I’ll admit it: When the Internal Revenue Service tempest involving the agency’s vetting of conservative non-profits’ activities came to light, I thought it had the potential of becoming a very big deal.

Turns out it wasn’t.

Indeed, it’s now turning out that congressional Republicans who keep trying to make more of it than it deserves are embarrassing themselves.

I refer now to the attached link.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/07/12/ny-times-egan-rep-issas-failed-investigations-a/194848

U.S. House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., should be the most embarrassed member of Congress of all. He isn’t. Issa keeps plugging away, looking for scandal where none exists.

It is now becoming clear that the IRS operatives who were examining conservative groups were giving equally rough treatment to liberal groups. What’s more, they did all this without any apparent instruction from Washington, D.C., let alone from the White House … or from the Oval Office, where Issa and his cronies had hoped beyond hope they could find the proverbial smoking gun.

I suppose the same can be said of the Benghazi controversy, which Issa and others keep insisting involved some kind of massive coverup by the State Department over details of the Sept. 11, 2012 firefight at the U.S. consulate in Libya that resulted in the deaths of four American diplomats. We now have learned that Republican staffers on Issa’s committee doctored emails to make then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton look bad.

This is part of the Washington culture that infuriates so many Americans, such as myself.

Keep digging, probing, searching, scouring everywhere to find something you can hang on your foes. That’s the modus operandi of those who run the House of Representatives. It stinks to high heaven.

Well, I had a pretty good night’s sleep, awoke this morning and got ready for church.

I also began sorting through the news that broke last night that a Sanford, Fla., jury acquitted George Zimmerman of second-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. I thought sleeping on it overnight would clear my head.

Instead, I woke up this morning more confused than I was last night.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/07/shocking-verdict-in-zimmerman-trial.html/

The case gripped much of the nation, if not the world. Trial testimony revealed that Zimmerman stalked the youngster, who he suspected — apparently — of being up to no good. Zimmerman was carrying a gun; Martin was unarmed. They got into a tussle. Zimmerman then shot Trayvon. Dead.

I’m still trying to process this one. How did the gun go off? Did it shoot itself? Did the boy grab the gun and shoot himself by accident? No, it’s pretty clear Zimmerman pulled the trigger.

My question today is how does one avoid conviction at least for a manslaughter charge, which the jury was empowered to consider along with the murder charge?

I was raised to have faith in our system of laws. I almost always hold true to that faith. Moreover, I will accept the jurors’ decision only insofar as they heard all the evidence, watched the body language, combed through copious notes and argued among themselves for 16 hours. I did none of that.

However, I still am left to scratch my head and wonder: Is it at all possible — just the slightest possibility — that this jury got it wrong?

George Zimmerman’s acquittal of a murder charge in connection with the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, 17, leaves me virtually speechless.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/13/justice/zimmerman-trial/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

OK, I wasn’t in the jury room. I didn’t hear all the evidence. I even have acknowledged a bit of trial-coverage fatigue, which means I didn’t watch every moment it was shown on cable news networks.

But I had formed an opinion quite some time back on what I thought ought to happen, which is that Zimmerman would be found guilty of at least manslaughter. The six-woman jury saw it differently. I respect the jury’s decision, even if I disagree with it.

That’s how the system works.

Time will enable us to sort out how the jury came to its conclusion. It appears in the immediate aftermath that the defense team cast enough reasonable doubt on the facts of the case to make it impossible to convict Zimmerman “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Sound familiar? It should. It smacks of the same reasoning that resulted in O.J. Simpson’s acquittal of murder in 1995.

OH, my.

I’m just hoping now for calm.

Norm Ornstein kind of reminds me of what a friend of mine once said of the late poet Rod McKuen, who he called “the most understood poet in America.”

Ornstein is so sought after by media types – print, broadcast and cable – that he’s taking on a sort of ubiquitous quality. Everywhere you look, there he is.

Still, Ornstein offers a bit of wisdom in describing the state of play in today’s political debate. It’s no longer Republican vs. Democrat. It has become a five-way battle royale within the Republican Party.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/theres-no-republican-party-there-are-5-of-them/277702/

The conservatives are dueling with the so-called “establishment wing” of the GOP. I’m frankly rooting for the establishment guys to win the day, if only to restore some semblance of good government that results when the parties reach across the aisle to work with each other.

This drama is playing out among state congressional delegations. Take Texas, for example. The tea party wing has helped elect Republican Ted Cruz to the U.S. Senate. Cruz’s presence in the Senate has pulled colleague John Cornyn, another Republican, to the right – although Cornyn was headed there all by himself.

The recent debate over abortion in the Texas Legislature has produced a challenge to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, once thought to be an establishment guy. The most recent electoral challenge comes from state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, who wants to run against him in next year’s GOP primary. Patrick wants to restore what he calls “authentic conservative leadership.” Dewhurst, too, is being pulled to the right by this challenge, along with the challenge already mounted by two other Republicans, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples.

The do-nothing guys within the GOP are winning the argument now. They’re managing to block everyone’s agenda. They have none of their own, except to cut spending, reduce dramatically government’s role in people’s lives, while sticking it in the ear of those who oppose them.

I believe sanity will win the argument at the end. Good government types – such as yours truly – believe lawmakers at any level of government can keep doing good by the people if they learn to work with everyone with a seat at the table of power.

That includes one’s foes.

As the old football announcer and true-blue Texan Don Meredith used to say, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”

Well, not exactly, as it concerns the fight for abortion rights in Texas.

The state Senate approved the bill that bans abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy. It’s headed now for Gov. Rick Perry’s desk. He’ll sign it and will declare victory for the sanctity of life.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/07/13/texas-abortion-regulations-debate-nears-climax/

The debate this week, while not as chaotic as the first special session’s filibuster, did produce the usual demagoguery, from the right wing. State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, declared that those who voted for the bill were “closer to God” than those who voted against. He drew a sharp rebuke from state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who told him not to question legislators’ faith in such a manner.

The most troubling aspect of this entire debacle has been the time-worn allegation that those who favor a woman’s right to choose an abortion are themselves pro-abortion. That simply isn’t the case and those who say such things should be ashamed of themselves.

The issue, as I see it, is whether government should make decisions that should be reserved only for a pregnant woman to make, in consultation with her clergy, her family and her own conscience.

The abortion-restriction bill produce more children for Texas. Are we ready now to care for those children born to mothers who cannot care for them? The state already has slashed spending for women’s health care. Will it now keep cutting money for child care?

I have no clue as to where this discussion goes from here. It’s been a rocky ride for longer than I can remember — and I can’t see it getting any smoother.

There must be something wrong with me.

First of all, I’m a TV news-and-commentary junkie. Perhaps I need an intervention in that regard … but we’ll save that discussion possibly for another day.

Second of all, because of my addiction to TV news and commentary, I keep running into segments on the George Zimmerman trial in Sanford, Fla., the one that’s been getting all that attention for the past couple of years.

Zimmerman is accused of shooting a 17-year-old boy, Trayvon Martin, during a confrontation in Sanford. The media picked up on it right away. Zimmerman is a Hispanic, Trayvon was a young African-American. Did Zimmerman “profile” Martin because of the color of his skin? Was the shooting racially motivated?

My African-American friends have been transfixed by the trial. One of my best friends here, the mother of a teenage son and daughter, told me that “as a woman of color, I am petrified for my son.”

I get that. I understand the fear that many folks have about profiling.

But the media’s coverage of this trial is beginning to look to me — as a white male with two grown sons — very like the coverage of two recent murder trials, involving Casey Anthony and Jody Arias. That coverage was non-stop, in my face (and your face, too), with analysts dissecting every single nuance, facial tic, telling us whether jurors were taking notes or were transfixed on the testimony being given to them.

The talking heads assemble these expert panels comprising prosecutors and defense lawyers. The defense counsels give high marks for Zimmerman’s team; the prosecutors give props to the state. Imagine that.

I understand the implications of this case and what could happen when the outcome arrives. There might be a violent reaction if, for instance, Zimmerman is acquitted of all charges. But I’ll give Trayvon Martin’s parents huge credit for pleading out loud for calm no matter what happens at the end of this ordeal.

I know this is just me venting right now. I’m more of a policy and politics kind of guy, which is why I’m hooked on TV news talk shows. These “sensational” trials just don’t do it for me.

I’ll try to examine the outcome and what it means when it arrives.

I am awaiting the end of this trial. I think I know how I’d decide if I were sitting in the jury box. But man, I’m tired of it.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is leaving the federal government to become president of the University of California-Berkeley.

On this occasion, I want to congratulate her – and thank her – for the job she’s done so far in helping secure our nation. I’m probably one of the few Americans who’ll speak out, given the sour mood of so many of us about so many issues – homeland security being one of them.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/07/12/department-homeland-security-secretary-bows-out/

Napolitano might be occupying one of more thankless jobs in government. Her immediate predecessor, Michael Chertoff – who held the job during the Bush administration – also deserves praise, along with the first Homeland Security secretary, Tom Ridge, who ran the agency immediately after its creation following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

Have these individuals performed flawlessly? Of course not. However, I am growing weary of the continual carping about border security – particularly from those with a political axe to grind – when evidence suggests that we’re actually doing a better job than we were prior to, say, the 9/11 terror attacks.

Deportations of illegal immigrants is up, as are arrests along our southern border. Still, politicians such as Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas (see the attached link) keep yammering about the need to do more.

It’s interesting to me that among those who are happy to see Napolitano leave are those associated with immigration reform groups who decry what they call the “militarization” of our southern border.

So, which is it? Has the Homeland Security Department been too tough on illegal immigration or not tough enough?

Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, took over a job she knew would produce few allies for her or for the administration she served.

I am one American who salutes her service.

The editor of the Baptist Standard has posed a valid question: If the Texas Legislature is going to approve a bill that bans abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy, is the state going to be prepared for the arrival of a lot of babies?

http://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorial/15273-editorial-get-ready-for-all-those-babies

The Legislature is meeting in its second special session in a month to consider some bills that it left undone. One of them is that anti-abortion bill that Senate Democrats, led by Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, filibustered to a temporary demise in June.

It’s back. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the main man of the Senate, vows to push the bill onto the books. More demonstrations are planned. It’s unlikely that the bill will die again.

Baptist Standard editor Marv Knox’s essay does wonder whether the state is going to be prepared to spend the money it needs to care for these children.

He writes this: “Texas is among the nation’s leaders in child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy. We’re also among the nation’s lowest-spending states on child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy. Some people attribute these maladies to dependence on government, the product of a so-called welfare state. If that were true, then their incidence would be higher in states that spend the most on child welfare, anti-poverty programs and education, not the least-spending small-government states, like Texas.”

And then he writes this:

“Ironically, conservative states composed of higher percentages of Bible-believing Christians—from Texas across the South—suffer the blights of child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy much more promiscuously than their more secular counterparts. Those are the states many Texans and Southerners call ‘pagan’ and ‘dark.’

“This disparity is an affront to the name of Jesus.”

Interesting, don’t you think?

Better get ready, Texas.