Monthly Archives: November 2013

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JFK murder myth will live forever

Myths never die.

They live forever. And ever.

Thus, the myth that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of some grand conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy will be with us as long as human beings populate the planet.

The nation is commemorating this coming week the 50th anniversary of the 35th president’s shocking death in Dallas. To no one’s surprise, much of the discussion will center on conspiracy theories.

Was there a second, or third gunman in Dealey Plaza that day? How did one bullet go through the president’s neck and hit Texas Gov. John Connally in the back? What about those “other gunshots” witnesses said they heard? Why did the president’s head snap backward if the shots came from behind his car?

Recent polls suggest fewer Americans today believe in these conspiracy theories than before. Still, most Americans still seem to buy into some of them … maybe all of them.

I’m not one of them.

This perhaps sounds naïve to the hard-core conspiracy crowd that keeps this myth alive, but I’ve accepted the Warren Commission report that it could find “no evidence” of a conspiracy.

Oswald was a loner and a loser who all by himself managed to fire three shots from an elevated window at a slow-moving limousine. Two of those shots hit the president, the final one being the fatal shot.

He had served in the Marine Corps and had scored reasonably well in marksmanship tests. He wasn’t a keen sharpshooter, but he was competent enough to have committed this crime.

That’s what I always have believed — and it’s what I will believe for the rest of my life.

The JFK murder conspiracy myth will outlive everyone.

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We’re heading for an Army of robots

This story freaks me out.

A military expert predicts that by the next decade, robots will outnumber U.S. Army personnel 10 to one.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/us-army-robots-will-outnumber-human-soldiers-10-to-1-by-1465669535/@jesusdiaz

The idea is to have robots on either side of human soldiers scanning for mines, enemy personnel, movement “out there” that could put our soldiers at risk.

Welcome to the future of warfare.

My own desire would be a world with no war. The odds of that occurring are, well, worse than zero. Since the beginning of time, human beings have been at war with each other. I see nothing on the horizon — or beyond the horizon if I get way up on my tippy toes — to suggest that trend will cease to exist.

Scott Hartley, co-founder of 5-D Robotics, took part in a live-fire exercise at Fort Benning, Ga., recently. He talked of how the Army is advancing so rapidly that it will have more machines on the battlefield than human beings.

The story is freaky on at least one key level.

As the writer of the blog attached to this post notes, machines lack human emotion. Therefore, the idea of inflicting death and pain on others may require less emotional investment, which can help preclude the decision to go to war in the first place.

Jesus Diaz, who wrote the blog, notes: “It’s true that military robots — both weaponized or support units — will protect soldiers. But they will also make war even more horrible by taking away the human life loss component. If we can send platoons made of robots to war, people will not fear death in wars. There will be no dead bodies getting home in flag-covered coffins. Like aerial drones, this will inevitably trivialize wars.”

War is not a trivial exercise. At least not yet.

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Sen. Cornyn touts GOP ‘family’

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has launched his re-election campaign with a pledge to seek unity within the Republican Party “family.”

Good luck with that one, senator.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/15/cornyn-touts-big-tent-gop-perry/

Cornyn’s bid for another term in the Senate is likely to succeed next fall. It well might occur with some bumps and bruises along the way.

He spoke at a campaign rally this week of his disagreement with fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz over Cruz’s effort to derail the Affordable Care Act; that effort, which included the fake filibuster on the Senate floor, helped produce the 16-day partial government shutdown.

“We had a minor disagreement in the family” over the government shutdown debate, Cornyn said. But, by golly, he intends to work to ensure that Texas doesn’t elect a “Nancy Pelosi clone” as governor, meaning Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis.

Cornyn and other Republicans, though, keep talking about the so-called “big tent” philosophy they say describes the Republican Party. The big tent, they say, has produced the disagreements within the party. The tea party wing of the GOP, however, hardly seems inclusive of folks Republicans will need to win national elections in the future. I refer, of course, to immigrants, racial minorities, gays, pro-choice women and those who rely on government assistance to help them put food on their tables and clothes on their children’s backs.

Having said all these negative things about Cornyn’s party, allow me to say that I happen to like the senator. I’ve met with him many times over many years, dating back to when he ran for the Texas Supreme Court, state attorney general and then during his time as U.S. senator. We always got along well.

I fear, though, that he’s going to tack too far to the right to protect his flank against those might attack him from the extreme fringes of his party. They’re out there, waiting for the chance to draw blood.

All this unity talk, therefore, is just that. Talk.

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Lawsuit may muck up downtown plan

Just when you thought Amarillo was set to take a major step toward downtown revival, something gets in the way … maybe.

The Amarillo Economic Development Corporation announced plans to file a lawsuit to recover $1.6 million from the company that built the CenterPort Business Park in east Amarillo. Yes, it’s some distance from downtown.

But hold on.

The CenterPort site is now vacant. Another business lured here by AEDC gave up on its wind-turbine construction project and left. The city wants to relocate the Coca-Cola distribution center, which is currently downtown, to the CenterPort site. Except that it’s structurally unsound. The foundation is a mess, according to AEDC. It needs to rebuilt.

The firm that built the place, Commercial Industrial Builders, muffed the job. AEDC wants the company to pay back the money that AEDC says it will have to spend to fix the site.

What does this mean for downtown’s revival? Well, the Coca-Cola site is supposed to become home to a multipurpose entertainment venue to be built, along with a downtown hotel and a huge parking garage. The legal action just might gum up those works if CIB fights hard to keep from paying the money AEDC wants.

AEDC President and CEO Buzz David said the agency sought to resolve the dispute without going to court. The efforts so far have failed. Perhaps the threat of a lawsuit might spur CIB to pony up the cash so that AEDC can fix what it says is wrong with the building.

If the threat doesn’t work, I’m afraid we’re in for a lengthy delay on downtown’s move forward.

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LBJ would have none of this

Barack Obama’s difficulty in calming the fears of fellow Democrats reminds me of something I heard from a prominent Texas Panhandle educator.

He declared that President Obama is no President Lyndon Johnson, the stalwart Texan who rose from Senate majority leader to the vice presidency and then to the presidency amid a stark national tragedy.

Obama cannot seem to find it within him, my friend said, to develop the kind of relationships he needs with lawmakers in his own Democratic Party, let alone with those on the other side.

Obama fails to calm jittery Dems

I’m trying to imagine President Johnson being bullied by Congress. I cannot frame that image in my mind.

Johnson had this way of getting in the faces — quite literally — of senators and House members. He would threaten them, cajole them, put the squeeze on them by embracing them in a massive embrace. The threats would come in the form of promises to cut off funding for pet projects if they didn’t see things his way. The cajoling would arrive in the form of promises to do right by them if they lined up behind his legislative agenda.

President Obama’s health care plan is in trouble with Republicans and Democrats. Republicans dislike the Affordable Care Act because, well, I guess it’s because Barack Obama pitched it, sold it and got it enacted into law. Democrats are running from it because they fear for their political lives with the 2014 mid-term elections coming up.

The president is quite good at selling the big idea. He’s quite bad at bringing others along.

Ol’ Lyndon is spinning in his Hill Country grave while one of his descendants struggles with getting Congress to follow his lead.

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Shall I take credit for gas price decline?

I am trying to decide whether to take credit for the decline in gasoline prices all across Amarillo.

My wife and I recently purchased a hybrid automobile, a Toyota Prius. It runs partially on gasoline and partially on electricity. It’s a nice little rig, a 2010 model with about 71,000 miles on it. A young sales rep at the auto dealership where I work told me the engine “won’t even get broken in until it hits 100,000 miles.” Good to know.

I filled up today. We went nearly two weeks since topping off the tank in the little bugger. The car consumed 3.6 gallons of gas during that time.

I’m not an economist, but I do understand a couple of basic principles. One of them is that when demand goes down, supply goes up. Another is that when suppliers have too much of something to sell, they tend to mark down the price to reduce their inventory.

President Obama touched on all of that Thursday when he toured a steel plant near Cleveland, Ohio. He talked about the decline in fossil fuel consumption and the decline in oil being imported into the United States, coupled with the increase in renewable energy and increases in fuel-efficient automobile production.

Do you see a pattern there? I do.

My wife and I believe we’re doing our part with the purchase of our hybrid car.

Look at the gasoline pump prices in Amarillo. I have read data that suggest the price could fall even farther, again as supplies increase because of reduced demand. My hope is that people don’t start driving a whole lot more as gasoline becomes more affordable.

OK. That settles it. I have decided to take some credit for the price decline.

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JFK a liberal? Not so sure about that

David Greenberg, writing for The New Republic, posits a theory that President John F. Kennedy was a true-blue liberal.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115522/jfk-was-unapologetic-liberal

Interesting, eh?

The president, who was shot to death 50 years ago next week, cut taxes. He stared down the Soviet Union by flexing the nation’s military might. He also, according to Greenberg, believed government could be a force for good, not evil. Kennedy preferred diplomacy over armed conflict, Greenberg asserts, making him more liberal than conservative.

I suppose that’s all true.

Greenberg’s piece, though, doesn’t touch on some other key issues that defines liberals and conservatives.

How about abortion? I don’t recall much discussion over the years since JFK’s death about how he viewed women’s reproductive rights. The president was a practicing Catholic, after all. Even though he made it clear during the 1960 presidential campaign that church doctrine wouldn’t inform his public policy, many politicians before and since JFK’s time have relied on their faith to decide some of these critical matters.

Prayer in school? Did the 35th president oppose school-mandated prayer, which the Supreme Court essentially struck down in 1963?

Environmental protection is another favorite issue for liberals. It wasn’t until 1970 — during the administration of Republican Richard Nixon — that the federal government created the Environmental Protection Agency.

Kennedy did seek to further the cause of civil rights, but he had to be persuaded to do so. His death in Dallas prevented him from enacting the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. That was left to President Lyndon Johnson, whose courage helped the Democratic Party “lose the South,” in the words of his good friend, Sen. Richard Russell, D-Ga.

My own view is that JFK was more of a centrist than a bleeding heart.

Given the extreme views that both parties have adopted in the past two decades, that isn’t such a bad thing.

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Obama: ‘That’s on us. That’s on me.’

A friend of mine posted something on Facebook yesterday that praised President Ronald Reagan’s taking responsibility for misleading the nation on the Iran-Contra scandal. “That’s how a leader” should do take the heat, the message said.

The implication, of course, is that President Barack Obama hasn’t taken personal responsibility for the mess-up involving the rollout of the Affordable Care Act and the ridiculous failure of the website healthcare.gov to handle applications for insurance.

Well, today the president said, “It’s on me,” meaning that he’s the man in charge and that he is responsible for the insurance policy cancellations that have scared the daylights out of Americans.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/obama-gives-people-extra-year-keep-health-insurance-2D11591250

Obama has instituted a plan to give Americans an extra year to shop for insurance while keeping their current insurance plans.

He vowed to take action to stop the cancellations. Today, he announced the plan. Will it work? Well, like everything associated with the ACA, that remains to be seen.

Will the government computer geeks be able to repair what ails the website? That, too, is an open question.

However, I swear I heard the president say today that he’s at fault for this mess. I believe that’s what a leader is supposed to do.

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Abbott takes aim at Texas ethics laws

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is trying to remove the term “Texas government ethics” from the list of ridiculous oxymorons.

Good for him.

The Texas Tribune reports that the leading Republican candidate for governor — and the unquestioned favorite to win the job in next year’s election — is proposing a sweeping set of ethics rules that just might make Texas legislators a bit nervous.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/14/abbott-proposes-far-reaching-ethics-reform/

It is about time someone stepped up.

Abbott’s proposal puts teeth in state ethics laws that are supposed to restrict legislators’ ability to pass laws affecting their private businesses. He would seek to give private citizens the right to sue lawmakers if they believe they have crossed ethical boundaries. “They are supposed to be working for you, not their own bank accounts,” Abbott said in a speech outlining his proposals, according to the Tribune.

The Tribune also reports that Abbott’s proposal takes dead aim at presumptive Democratic nominee state Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, whose own legal interests have been questioned as their propriety. Davis’s legal activities have involved principals connected with legislation.

Liberals have applauded Abbott’s proposal as far-reaching and virtually unprecedented. As the Tribune reported: “We haven’t seen a proposal like this in decades, if ever,” said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, a liberal watchdog group that has for years advocated for stricter ethics laws. “This takes giant steps toward eliminating conflicts of interest and improving the sometimes unethical behavior of members of state government.”

Does it go far enough? Probably not. I would like to see laws that seriously restrict legislators’ ability to go from making laws to becoming advocates for businesses affected by laws. I refer to their post-legislative lobbying efforts. Former Texas Democratic House Speaker Pete Laney of Hale Center went from legislator to lobbyist, as did former state Republican Rep. David Swinford of Dumas. Were they able to parlay their relationships into material benefit for their clients? Certainly. That’s not right, either.

It’ll be a challenge for whomever is elected governor next year to try to push any meaningful ethics reform through the Legislature, given lawmakers’ long-held resistance to approving such measures.

Abbott, though, has initiated a long-overdue discussion that should remain front and center of the upcoming campaign for governor.