Monthly Archives: June 2014

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Turnabout not always fair play, says GOP

Thad Cochran’s stunning reversal of fortune in Mississippi makes me laugh.

OK, so I’m just snickering under my breath. But it does create some interesting water-cooler talk among Republican Party political strategists.

Cochran, R-Miss., was supposed to lose the Mississippi GOP runoff to tea party darling Chris McDaniel on Tuesday. Instead, he won. How? Apparently by enlisting the support of African-American Democrats to vote in the Republican primary.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-cochrans-strategy-to-draw-black-democrats-to-polls-appears-to-have-worked/2014/06/25/74d72932-fc8a-11e3-8176-f2c941cf35f1_story.html

That strategy didn’t go down well with hard-core Republicans. McDaniel himself said that Cochran owed his victory to “liberal Democrats” who were afraid to face a true conservative — such as McDaniel.

It well might be that the Democrats who crossed over to back Cochran will rue the day they did so, as the incumbent six-term senator will be a heavy favorite to win a seventh term this November.

There’s a certain richness in the irony of the GOP’s complaints about Cochran’s winning formula.

Some Republican leaders — and I’ll include the GOP’s blowhard in chief, Rush Limbaugh, in this category — at one time encouraged Republicans to cross over to vote for Democrats in an effort to serve as spoiler in hotly contested Democratic primaries. That clearly was the case in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign between U.S. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. The 2008 Texas primary, for example, became notable because of the huge interest in the Democratic ballot, particularly in areas such as the Panhandle, where Democrats are nearly extinct.

Limbaugh and others were exhorting Republicans to vote for Clinton, hoping the party would nominate her in the belief she’d be easier to beat in the fall than Obama.

It didn’t work out that way, of course.

Now, though, they’re yammering about a reversal of that strategy — because, apparently, it worked.

Cry me a river.

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Show us your warrant

What’s this? The Supreme Court of the United States has voted unanimously on a ruling that makes sense for Americans? Did hell freeze over or what?

The court ruled 9-to-zip that police need warrants to search people’s cell phones. They can’t just grab them and start poring through text messages, missed calls, voice mails and the other stuff that piles up in people’s cell phones.

What’s more, the ruling has implications to go far beyond the devices people pack on their hips, in their pockets or their purses. It could involve other “smart” devices such as I-pads and laptops.

As the New York Times reported: “Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the court, was keenly alert to the central role that cellphones play in contemporary life. They are, he said, ‘such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy.’”

Privacy advocates are happy. Heck, I’m happy about it, even though my own phone doesn’t have much in the way secret messages stashed on it.

A back story, here, is the unanimity aspect of the ruling. The court usually splits 5-4 or 6-3 — along liberal-conservative lines. This time all nine of ’em were on the same page.

The Digital Age keeps adding wrinkles that few of us ever imagined when this technology first became available. Even though we can access information much more readily these days, certain principles of privacy and constitutional protection must prevail.

The highest court in America has realized that truth.

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One less sticker on the windshield

This conversation occurred this morning as I was working at one of my part-time jobs.

Customer: I heard today that the state is no longer to require inspections for our vehicles.

Me: I don’t think that’s right.

Customer: Did I hear it incorrectly?

Me: As I understand it, the state will keep inspecting vehicles, but just won’t put a sticker on the windshield.

Customer: I hope that’s right. I consider myself to be a libertarian, but I think it makes sense to inspect your car to make sure it’s safe and you don’t endanger other motorists on public roads and highways.

Me: I hear ya, man.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/25862230/texas-to-no-longer-require-auto-inspection-sticker

So it went this morning. The state is going to inspect our vehicles and we are required to have it done 90 days before our motor vehicle registration is due. Here’s how News Channel 10’s website reports the issue: “The Houston Chronicle reports an owner must complete the inspection – which includes state vehicle safety and emissions tests — within 90 days of when the registration expires.

“Drivers will eventually have to show proof of a valid inspection to renew their vehicle registration. Officials say Texas will save about $2 million with the change, primarily in oversight and sticker costs.”

I’m a bit confused as to what this is supposed to accomplish. I understand that the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles is going to save about $2 million annually, which I guess covers the cost of printing the inspection stickers we’ve been putting on our windshields right next to the motor vehicle registration sticker.

I’m not too concerned about the so-called hassle factor some folks think will occur. We’ll get used to it in quick order, just like we got used to the registration sticker on the windshield nearly two decades ago.

If it saves the state a few million bucks, I’m all for it.

I also am all for the state trying to ensure that our vehicles’ wheels won’t fly off when we’re driving down the freeway — at 80 or 85 mph.

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Tea party winning as it's losing

It’s time to give credit where it most definitely is due to the tea party wing of the once-Grand Old Republican Party.

Even when it loses it wins.

Take the race for U.S. senator in Mississippi this week. Sen. Thad Cochran beat back a stout challenge from tea party Republican Chris McDaniel. But did Cochran campaign in the GOP runoff on his ability to work with Democrats, or on his ability to funnel lots of money to his home state? Oh no. He campaigned on his conservative record — which he has established — and by telling Mississippians that he’s as conservative as they are.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/weakened-tea-party-takes-more-punches-n140851

I am no longer paying much never-mind to these predictions of the tea party’s death, resurrection and death yet again. The tea party wing of the GOP has won the debate.

It has dragged normally thoughtful conservatives into the rage pit right along with them. U.S. House Speaker John Boehner is as “establishment Republican” as they come. Now, though, he’s suing President Obama because the president has taken some executive action that has angered the tea party wing of the GOP. That means Boehner is mad, too.

Here in Texas, tea party Republican state Sen. Dan Patrick yanked Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst so far to the right that Dewhurst never got his legs under him or found his voice. He looked and sounded awkward trying to be as out there as Patrick, who’s smooth, articulate and glib. Patrick beat Dewhurst in the Texas GOP runoff.

Across the state, Republicans are sounding more alike all the time — meaning they’ve adopted the do-nothing mantra so popular among tea party officeholders in Washington.

There once was a Republican Party with pols who could work well with Democrats. Two come to mind immediately: the late U.S. Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois and former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas. There’ve been others, but those two men stand out in my own mind. Dirksen was pals with President Lyndon Johnson and helped LBJ enact civil rights and voting rights legislation in the mid-1960s. Dole was a dear friend of the late Democratic U.S. Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota. It helped that the two men both were World War II heroes and had a shared bond of military service. They also worked hand-in-hand on anti-hunger legislation.

Dole and Dirksen would be laughed out of the Senate chamber today.

The tea party’s strength can be seen in the debate that’s raging within the Republican Party — if you want to call it that when virtually all Republicans now are singing off the tea party song sheet.

The tea party, therefore, is winning, even when it’s losing.

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Litigious speaker going to court

Politicians and everyday Americans have griped for decades about the lawsuit-happy society we live in these days.

Well, this one just might take the cake.

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner says he is going to sue President Obama because of the president’s penchant for issuing executive orders. He calls the president’s actions unconstitutional, unlawful and, by golly, he plans to take the commander in chief to court.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/25/boehners-attack-on-obamas-executive-orders-ignores-presidential-history/

But …

Is the 44th president the most executive-order-happy person ever to occupy the White House? Not by a long shot.

To date, Obama has issued 168 such orders. President George W. Bush issued 291 during his two terms; President Clinton logged 364; President Eisenhower signed 484; President Truman put his name on 907.

The all-time champ? None other than President Franklin Roosevelt, who signed 3,572 executive orders. Let’s give FDR a pass, though, given that he served three full terms and a fraction of a fourth before he died in office in April 1945.

Barack Obama has signed fewer such executive orders than any president in the past century.

Boehner, though, says he’s had enough of this executive authority business from the constitutional law professor-turned-president of the United States.

At the start of the year, Obama did declare his intention to bypass Congress to get some things done. The Constitution does give him the authority to do these things, after all. It’s just that he’s stepped on Republican goes on issues such as benefits for same-sex couples employed by the federal government and raising the minimum wage for federal contract employees.

This grandstanding by Boehner is meant to relieve pressure he’s getting from the right wing of his party.

So please, Mr. Speaker, don’t gripe in public about frivolous lawsuits. You’ve just announced your intention to file one yourself.

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Sure-fire winner gets derailed

Hey. What the heck happened in Dixie last night?

U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi was supposed to get his head handed to him by that tea party upstart Chris McDaniel in the Republican runoff. It didn’t happen. Cochran was renominated for his billionth term in the Senate.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/210473-cochran-topples-tea-party-in-mississippi

It turns out the conservative senator who the tea party said wasn’t conservative enough turned to some unlikely allies in pulling out this comeback win: African-American voters, for crying out loud.

He also got some help by a turnout that exceeded the primary turnout in raw numbers, a feat as rare as, say, African-Americans voting for a Southern Republican these days.

McDaniel scared the bejabbers out of a lot of Mississippians, apparently. Cochran’s team targeted some racially charged comments McDaniel made as a radio talk-show host. McDaniel fired back with criticism of Cochran’s penchant for piling on pork-barrel money for projects he funneled back to his home state.

Then there was this, as reported by The Hill: “McDaniel stumbled over a scandal concerning the arrest of four men, some clear supporters of his bid, for allegedly sneaking into a nursing home to take photos of Cochran’s wife for use in an apparent political attack on the senator.”

It was a nasty, bizarre and totally weird runoff campaign.

Out here in Texas, though, we don’t have a particular hound in that fight.

I’ve got mixed feelings about it all, to be blunt. I am not a huge Thad Cochran fan, but the alternative — McDaniel — was much worse, in my humble view. I guess I’m glad Cochran won. The man has shown the ability to work with Democrats in the Senate, a skill McDaniel would have needed to learn from scratch.

All in all, a bizarre ending to a bizarre campaign.

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Potter County joins downtown game

Potter County is in the game to rehabilitate downtown Amarillo.

And why not? The downtown district sits entirely within Potter County. The county will derive direct benefit from whatever accrues from downtown’s revival — assuming, of course, that it ever gets going.

The Commissioners Court voted 3-2 Monday to approve a tax abatement for the Coca-Cola Distribution Center, which now paves the way for the center to vacate downtown for a new site at CenterPort Business Park. The county will forgo tens of thousands of dollars in annual tax revenue from Coke. It will gain — again, hoping for the best — much more in return as downtown kick starts its revival.

That revival is supposed to include a “multipurpose event venue,” or MPEV, a parking garage and a convention hotel.

It’s supposed to cost $113 million, which developers hope will come from private investors who’ll just be delighted to death to sink their money into these projects.

I truly hope it happens. I believe the downtown project has enormous potential for the city.

Just imagine Amarillo’s minor league baseball team, the Sox, playing home games in a shiny new venue other than that rat-hole facility next door to the Tri-State Fairgrounds.

Potter County’s continued foot-dragging, though, is problematic.

I applaud commissioners for seeking to perform due diligence on the project. The “no” votes came from commissioners Alphonso Vaughn and Mercy Murguia, both of whom have demonstrated a willingness to ask difficult questions of sometimes-recalcitrant principals.

The county, though, ought to stand arm-in-arm with the city on this matter. The city is taking the lead on the development, but the county also has skin in this game, given that downtown rests entirely within Potter County.

I’ll stand by my earlier blog post and wonder when they’re going to start construction on this project. I’m getting a tad impatient, as I’m sure many other observers have become anxious for the work to begin.

All in all, though, the county made the right call. Now, let’s fire up the bulldozers.

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Tip the server, not the 'pool'

The Big Texan Steak Ranch — arguably Amarillo’s most well-known eating establishment — has been hit with a settlement that requires it to pay $800,000 to employees for tip revenue allegedly misused by the restaurant.

I won’t comment on the settlement itself, as I haven’t kept abreast of it as the complaint has proceeded. It involves allegations that the restaurant used tip money pooled together for purposes other than paying the servers the revenue they earned for their good work. Big Texan management denies any wrongdoing.

At issue — at least for me — is this practice of tip-pooling. As a customer of many eating establishments around town, I really dislike the practice of putting my tip money into some pool, where servers get to split the tips evenly among themselves.

I’ve been known to ask a restaurant waiter or waitress about the establishment’s tipping policy: Do they get the money individually or does it go into a pool? Most of the time the answer is: We pocket our own tips individually. I’m totally fine with that.

I consider myself a fairly generous tipper when the service merits it. I — along with just about every living American — am well aware that these service employees work for a miserable wage. They earn the bulk of their income from the tips they collect. Thus, the tips incentivize them to do a good job for the customers they serve. Tip-pooling, on the other hand, is a disincentive for the bad servers to pick up their game.

Here’s hoping the Big Texan settles up with employees in a timely manner. The employees — particularly the good servers — deserve a little reward.

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MLK gets Gold Medal … finally

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, no doubt would be honored to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, which was given to them today in ceremonies on Capitol Hill.

Are there more deserving people than the Kings? I think not.

MLK receives Congressional Gold Medal

Why, though, did it take 46 years after Dr. King’s assassination to award him this medal?

Some things escape my sometimes-feeble ability to understand certain processes. It took a decade to honor Rev. and Mrs. King. Congressional leaders from both parties hailed them as the “first family of the civil rights movement.”

It astounds me nonetheless that an honor — the highest civilian award given by Congress — would take this long, more than four decades after that rifle shot in Memphis, Tenn., ended Martin Luther King Jr.’s life.

Mrs. King would live until 2006. She carried on much of her husband’s work, speaking out on racial injustice and seeking equality for all Americans.

I’m not going to keep carping about the delay. I’ll just add that MLK and Coretta Scott King were two of this country’s greatest citizens. Their work stands for all time and it speaks for itself.

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Iraq crisis produces huge scramble

It’s becoming harder to keep up with all the competing interests in the burgeoning crisis in Iraq.

Consider the complexity of it:

* The Sunnis want to take the government back from the Shiites. Saddam Hussein was a Sunni Muslim. The current Iraqi prime minister is a Shiite.

* The insurgents fighting the government, led by ISIS, are deemed to be more violent than al-Qaeda, which has disavowed any association with ISIS.

* Iran is an Islamic republic governed next door to Iraq by Shiites also, but the Iranians detest the United States, which is involved up to its eyeballs in trying to broker a political solution.

* U.S. officials now are considering asking Iran for help in negotiating a deal.

* ISIS also is involved in the Syrian civil war, with rebels seeking to overthrow the dictatorship run by Bashar al-Assad.

* President Obama has ruled out “ground troops” returning to Iraq, but is sending in about 300 “advisers” to assist the Iraqi military in its fight against ISIS.

* The Kurds in northern Iraq also want a say in a “unity government,” which could include Sunnis and Shiites.

I need to keep sitting down. My head is spinning.

How in the world does a regular human being navigate his or her way through this mess?

http://time.com/2916436/kerry-back-in-iraq-meets-kurdish-leader/