Monthly Archives: January 2014

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NFL Pro Bowl a joke? Well … duh!

When a professional football coaching icon tells you your all-star game is no longer worth playing, let alone watching, perhaps you ought to pay careful attention.

John Madden, the Hall of Famer who coached the Oakland Raiders into their glory years, says the NFL Pro Bowl has become a mockery. He hates it. He detests the new draft system that allows Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders to pick the teams.

http://msn.foxsports.com/buzzer/story/john-madden-rips-the-pro-bowl-012214

He’s right.

While he’s at it, he ought to level a barrage at the National Basketball Association for its all-star dunk contest and the National Hockey League for its all-star games that produce 15-12 scores.

The only all-star game worth a damn in my view is the Major League Baseball game in which the winning league — National or American — wins home-field advantage for the World Series.

The NBA all-star game features zero defense. Same for the NHL, where defensemen don’t hit anyone.

Back to the NFL. Football is a collision sport. How in players in good conscience actually seek to hit each other the way they would during the regular season? They risk serious injury. So they go through the motions and produce a game that features tepid blocking and tackling and lots of touchdowns.

These all-star games bore me to sleep.

Coach Madden is right to call out the NFL on this one.

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Potter-Randall merger: Is it remotely possible?

Nancy Tanner is running for Potter County judge.

I’m seeing an increasing number of her lawn signs cropping up on yards — in Randall County.

The appearance of these signs begs a question I’ve been kicking around in my noggin for the nearly two decades I’ve lived in Amarillo: Why don’t the counties merge?

Here’s a bit of background for readers of this blog who live far away.

* Amarillo straddles the line dividing Potter and Randall counties. It serves as the Potter County seat; the Randall County seat is about 12 miles south on Interstate 27 in Canyon. The city’s population is now very close to 200,000 residents. Roughly 60 percent of whom live in Potter County, the rest in Randall County.

* Randall County’s main courthouse complex is in Canyon, but the bulk of its business is done at its annex in south Amarillo, which collects about 80 percent of all the revenue for the county and adjudicates a similar percentage of all the small-claims crimes decided by the justice of the peace.

* Amarillo, indeed, comprises about 85 percent of Randall County’s population and generates about 80 percent of the county’s property tax revenue.

* The Randall County jail sits on the southern edge of Amarillo, next to the Youth Center of the High Plains.

All that said, the Potter County judge race featuring five candidates running for the Republican nomination is of interest to Randall County residents because many of them work in Potter County. As for Tanner’s yard signs showing up in a county where residents cannot vote for her, that’s just good politics on her party. They put her name out there and give her more of a ubiquitous presence. I’m quite sure the other candidates — those with the money to spend — will do the same thing eventually.

Back to the question of a merger. It’s always made sense to me to meld the counties into one, given their common interests and the fact that Amarillo sits atop the line dividing them.

It’s an immensely complicated process politically. How would one merge the county governments? Who gets to keep their job? Who would lose theirs? How do you settle the obvious turf fights? How do you accomplish this thing legally? Would Canyon residents want to lose their status as the county seat? Lastly, what would you call this new county and how do we settle on a name?

It would require at minimum a constitutional amendment election, meaning that all Texans would have to vote to allow the counties to merge in a statewide referendum. We’ve amended the Texas Constitution for far less consequential things than this, so this is a natural.

I know this topic has been nibbled at for many years. Nothing ever happens for obvious reasons. Merging the counties would step on too many political toes and there would be too many battles to fight. No one seems to have the stomach for fighting them.

I get all that.

Lawn signs, though, for candidates running for office in a neighboring county seem to make as much sense as having two counties of nearly identical size sharing a single significant city.

Which is to say it makes little or no sense at all.

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Weather changes part of life in Panhandle

We have a saying in the Texas Panhandle: If you don’t like the weather, wait 20 minutes; it’ll change.

I hear now that the forecast for Thursday is supposed to be in the teens with biting northerly wind. It will return to a “balmy” 50 degrees or so with winds shifting in the other direction.

The weather today was actually quite pleasant. The temp hit 50-something with light winds.

I’ve learned over 19 years of living here to expect the unexpected. Nothing surprises me. Cold today, warm tomorrow, cold the day after that.

Actually, I got my baptism to ever-changing Texas weather along the Gulf Coast, where the temperature doesn’t change much — especially during the summer — but where rain arrives suddenly, and in torrents to boot!

Many times during our stay in Beaumont from 1984 until 1995 we would watch storm clouds boil up out of nowhere during the heat of the summer, drop about 6 inches of rain in about an hour, maybe two, then the sky would clear, the sun would return, steam would rise from the ground, the mosquitos would descend on human victims by the millions and the temperature would climb back to its customary 90-plus degrees.

Then the cycle would repeat itself the next day. And the day after that.

Here, the temps change dramatically, particularly during the winter.

It does get cold in Amarillo. As in biting, face-numbing cold. Our older son moved here after graduating from Sam Houston State University in December 1995. We went to his commencement, loaded up a rented truck with his gear and drove from Huntsville to Amarillo. It was 80 degrees when we left Huntsville; it was about 10 degrees when we arrived in Amarillo.

I recall him telling me a day or two after arriving here that he couldn’t “feel my face.”

Poor guy.

It changes rapidly. We’ve all learned that reality and have become as accustomed the rapid change here as we got used to the incessant heat and humidity on the Gulf Coast.

Besides, what in the world can we do about it? Not a single thing.

We’ve learned to just roll with it — and wait 20 minutes.

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Let’s take care when talking about hardship

My sincere hope for the budding Texas campaign for governor is that the major parties’ presumptive nominees put to rest questions about personal histories.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Wendy Davis is having to answer questions about some fuzziness in her story, about the timing of her failed marriages. Her campaign is now going on the attack, accusing Republican foes of sexism by criticizing the success of a female candidate.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2014/01/21/264579414/critics-seize-on-blurry-details-in-wendy-davis-story

This counter-attack launched against presumptive Republican nominee Greg Abbott can go too far.

Abbott is the state’s attorney general, a former trial court judge and a former state Supreme Court justice. He, too, has endured some hardship in his life.

Back when he was in his mid-20s, Abbott took a break from preparing for his bar exam and went jogging. A tree fell on him, breaking his back — and confining him to a wheelchair, where he’s been ever since.

Abbott also has had to overcome considerable difficulty to achieve the heights he has reached.

With that in mind, the Davis campaign will need to be careful about how it portrays the criticisms against her and how it characterizes the attorney general’s life story.

It’s one key reason why Davis needs to set the record straight once and for all and do it early so we can focus instead on the issues that ought to decide this first campaign — since 2002 — for Texas governor that does not include Rick Perry.

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There goes a one-time GOP ’16 hopeful

It was kind of an open secret that Bob McDonnell wanted to run for president in 2016.

Maybe he still does. However, the news out of Virginia — where he served a single term as governor — is pretty bad. Seems the former Republican governor has been indicted, along with his wife, for illegally accepting lavish campaign gifts from donors.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/196019-former-va-gov-bob-mcdonnell-and-wife-charged-with-federal

A federal grand jury has indicted the McDonnells on 14 counts of receiving illegal gifts from Jonnie R. Williams Sr.

Ex-Gov. McDonnell issued a statement today declaring the gifts were legal, yet he still apologized to the residents of Virginia for exercising poor judgment.

The indictment says McDonnell allegedly did favors for Williams in return for the gifts, which of course he has denied.

I won’t comment on the merits of the case, given that I don’t know much about the matter in question.

I think it’s relatively safe to conclude, though, that Bob McDonnell’s presidential aspirations have been tossed into the trash can … no matter how this case turns out. That’s how these things usually play out.

Remember when John Edwards was thought to be the Democrats’ golden boy? That didn’t work out too well, either. These kinds of investigations have an amazing shelf life, as the former Virginia governor is likely to learn.

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Wendy Davis struggles to reclaim authenticity

Authenticity.

Politicians of both major stripes, Democrat and Republican, rely on it to sell themselves to voters who have grown weary of shills and slick presentations. Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis, a candidate for Texas governor, had portrayed her own brand of authenticity as a divorced single mom.

Oops. Turns out she wasn’t quite as authentic as she has let on.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/20/report-wendy-davis-life-story-more-complicated-than-compelling-narrative/?hpt=hp_t3

She’s left out some details of her marriage and her divorce. She said was divorced at 19, when she really was 21 when her marriage officially ended. She also hasn’t told Texans that her former husband had custody of her children for a time.

Details to follow? They should.

Texas Democrats have been all a-flutter over Davis’s gubernatorial candidacy, believing she presents the Democratic Party with its first honest shot at winning back the governor’s office that’s been in Republican hands since George W. Bush beat Ann Richards in 1994.

Will she make good on her pledge to talk with more precision about her life? She needs to get in front of this story, although it’s looking like the story itself may lap her quickly.

Davis has built a successful law career while struggling with some domestic issues. She also has become a political superstar while telling that story. Now we hear she’s only told part of it. Voters will demand to know all the nitty-gritty of that life story, which they figure is their business, given that Davis wants to become governor of a large and prosperous state.

Sen. Davis needs to set the record completely straight. Election Day, Nov. 4, will be here before she knows it.

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Political foes can become friends

These kinds of stories give me hope that all may not be lost in U.S. politics.

Former first lady Barbara Bush says she “loves Bill Clinton.” She might not agree with him politically, but she is truly fond of the 42nd president of the United States, who in 1992 defeated the 41st president — Barbara’s husband, George.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/195946-barbara-bush-i-love-bill-clinton

Democrat President Harry Truman detested his successor, Republican Dwight Eisenhower. They reportedly grew closer as the nation mourned the assassination of Ike’s successor, John F. Kennedy.

GOP President Gerald Ford and Democrat Jimmy Carter waged a fierce campaign in 1976. Carter won, but the new president and his immediate predecessor forged a warm friendship that lasted until Ford’s death.

Carter never developed that kind of relationship with Ronald Reagan, who beat him in 1980, nor did Reagan form a bond with Walter Mondale, whom he clobbered four years later in a landslide re-election.

George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton’s friendship seems to be real. Mrs. Bush talks about her husband becoming the father Clinton never had. She says President Clinton visits the Bushes annually. “We don’t talk politics,” Mrs. Bush says.

You hear about these kind of inter-party friendships from time to time. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, had a warm friendship with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. Talk about coming from differing ideologies, parties, lifestyles, cultures … you name it. Yet they were big-time pals.

One of President Barack Obama’s closest friends in the Senate today is Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. You can list all the differences there, too, and wonder how these men — and their wives — have become so close.

Too little of this kind of camaraderie exists today, with partisans on either side viewing the other guy as the enemy, rather than just a political adversary.

Take a lesson, folks? Given the nastiness of the campaign her husband waged against Bill Clinton, there’s reason to believe you can make nice with your foes.

One word of advice, however: Don’t ask the 41st president his feelings about H. Ross Perot, the third man in that 1992 campaign. His feelings for the Texas billionaire aren’t nearly so magnanimous.

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Palin cheapens MLK memory with blast at Obama

It strikes me that some commemorations deserve dignity and decorum.

Honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ought to be one of those occasions … isn’t that right former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin?

The former half-term governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, took a swipe today at President Obama ostensibly while honoring the memory of the slain civil-rights icon.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/20/palin-slams-obama-in-mlk-post/?hpt=hp_t2

“Mr. President, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and all who commit to ending any racial divide, no more playing the race card,” she said in a Facebook post.

She didn’t offer a specific example of how the president was “playing the race card.” Some have suggested that Obama’s remarks in a New Yorker magazine interview provided the grist for Palin’s attack.

Obama told The New Yorker that some Americans just don’t like him merely because he’s black. Umm, I think he’s correct on that one. Denying as much is to ignore the reality that race still does matter in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans.

My larger point, though, is that Dr. King’s memory deserves to be honored only on its merits — and not used as a cheap political weapon by someone who doesn’t deserve the national political attention she continues to get.

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What if feds had done nothing in ’09?

Many of my friends on the right — and the far right — have taken great pains to blast the smithereens out of President Obama’s economic policies.

Namely, their target has been the increase in the national debt, which now stands at $17 trillion. What has run up the debt? It’s been that federal stimulus package the Obama administration pushed forward while the nation’s economy was in free fall.

You remember those days, right? The economy was shedding 700,000 jobs a month; banks were failing; the real estate market was collapsing; the stock market was flushing itself down the toilet.

Barack Obama’s response was a costly one. The Federal Reserve Board reduced interest rates to near zero, making it easier for borrowers to pay back loans, while making it tough on lenders who are in the business of making money on what they loan.

My pals on the right and their Republican pals in Congress keep harping on the difficulties the Obama administration has endured trying to restore the economy.

I keep circling back to this question, which Sen. John McCain in 2008 and former Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012 both ignored as they ran for president against Barack Obama: What would have happened had the feds done nothing, had the government not instituted its stimulus package to shore up an economy that was on the verge of collapse?

I’ll add this follow-up: Why do they dismiss the clear evidence that the economy is in recovery at this moment? Is it back completely? Probably not.

* The job losses have stopped and have been replaced by job gains. Yes, the December job growth was disappointing. But we’ve gained back all the jobs lost during the final years of the Bush administration and the first year of the Obama administration.

* The annual budget deficit, which once topped $1.1 trillion has been cut in half — and is declining. Will we balance the budget by the time Obama leaves office? Probably not but it’s trending in the right direction.

* The jobless rate is at 6.7 percent, down from nearly 10 percent. Has it declined because every unemployed American has found work? No. Many of them have quit looking for jobs but the signs are indicating that opportunities are opening up on the job market.

* The stock market is setting records, which ought to please Wall Street investors — not to mention those of us with retirement accounts that depend on a healthy market.

I’m not naïve. I know there are myriad problems out there. The world is a restive place. Conflicts are erupting all over the planet. The United States is involved actively in a war that it is trying to wind down; we’ve already ended our involvement in another war. We’re killing terrorists almost daily, but the dead ones are being replaced almost immediately by recruits dedicated to waging war against the Great Satan. This war on terror won’t end anytime soon, folks.

Economically, though, I am feeling better about my future than I was, oh, about six years ago.

What’s more, I hate to think how I’d view our future if the government had kept its hands off the economic rudder.