Monthly Archives: August 2014

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R.I.P., James Brady

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The New York Times article attached to this blog post commemorates James Brady for what he was: an advocate for gun control and a friend of those who sought to curb the gun violence that struck him down.

He was all of that.

Brady, who died Monday at age 73, was grievously wounded in the March 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan. He was hit in the head by a bullet fired by John Hinckley, suffering paralysis, speech loss and short-term memory loss.

As the president’s press secretary, he was standing just a few feet from the president when Hinckley opened fire.

But what likely won’t be told in the days in the ahead about James Brady was that in the brief time he served as press spokesman for the White House — Reagan had taken office just three months prior to being wounded in the shooting — is that Brady had enormous respect among the men and women who covered the president.

Brady was known as a straight-arrow. He understood his “clientele,” the hard-core press hounds who could sniff out BS when it presented itself. He didn’t get them any baloney. From what I’ve heard over the years from those who covered the White House, the folks in the press room really took an instant liking to Brady.

Compare that with the testiness in White House-press relations that has emerged before and since Brady’s brief stint at the press room microphone.

His real legacy, certainly, will be that of a passionate advocate for gun control. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his view, James Brady came by it honestly. He took a bullet in the brain and paid a terrible price while serving the nation.

His national service, while too short, was stellar.

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First impressions count for motorists

BOISE, Idaho — First impressions count for motorists tooling through a city.

We blazed through Idaho’s capital city in our Prius and noticed something I wish our highway builders in Amarillo would grasp. The city of Boise and the Idaho transportation department have done a marvelous job of dressing up highway interchanges.

Do you hear me, Texas Department of Transportation? Your colleagues in Idaho have done something you seem unable to do.

Interstate 84, the main east-west thoroughfare through Boise is decked out in native Idaho wildflowers. I cannot identify them for you. I’ll just say they are gorgeous. The arrangements on the interchanges are attractive. They leave motorists just passing through — such as my wife and me — with good thoughts.

The Interstate 40/27 interchange in Amarillo is a mess. There’s no other way to describe it. The only thing TxDOT did correctly with the highway was to paint the concrete in colors that approximate the hues seen in Palo Duro and Caprock canyons. So there you have it.

Nothing else is appealing to the motorist roaring through Amarillo. Nothing. Zero.

My question to TxDOT once again is this: Why can’t you do something to make the interchanges more eye-friendly to the thousands of motorists whose only view of Amarillo will from an automobile roaring through town at 65 mph?

Call your brethren in Boise to see how it’s done.

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Let's hear the rebel yell!

A story that has gotten past a lot of folks, including me, involves a license plate emblem.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Texans should be able to display a Confederate flag on their vehicle plates.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/confederate-license-plate-0

I happen to agree with the ideas posted on the link attached to this post. The blogger Paul Burka notes that the Confederacy symbolizes a “terrible episode from America’s past.”

My many Texans friends who are proud of their Confederate heritage have taken issue with those of us who dislike what the Stars and Bars stands for. They have told me the flag represents pride for their state, that it’s just about “states’ rights” and all that stuff.

Burka’s view is that it stands for denigration of human beings held in slavery as well. Yes it does.

It also symbolizes a group of states that sought to dismember the Union. The states went to war against the federal government. They fired those cannon balls at Fort Sumter, S.C. in 1861 and committed a heinous act of treason against the United States of America.

All this reminds me of the bumper stickers one sees on Texas motor vehicles that proclaim the desire to secede once again. My favorite remains the one on the back of my neighbor’s pickup, which has “SECEDE” right next to a U.S. Army unit patch … which tells me he’s a self-proclaimed “proud American” who wants Texas to withdraw from the very country for which he proclaims his love.

Ridiculous.

These pro-secession goofballs just don’t get it.

Yes, it’s disappointing, indeed, that the state will be able to issue these license plates.

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Go for it, Mr. President

Congress had a chance to act on the border crisis in Texas and other states bordering Mexico.

It didn’t.

Now it appears President Obama is going — get ready for it — to take executive action to at least put an immediate, if temporary, fix on the crisis.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/08/texas-businessmen-obama-executive-action-on-immigration-appears-imminent/

Holy cow! Will the Congress sue him over that one, too?

I rather doubt it. Indeed, the speaker of the House of Representatives — which did pass a version of a bill to deal with the problem — has invited the president to use his power to act.

He surely should, given that Congress choked on the issue.

I’m no longer going to refer to this as an “immigration” crisis. It clearly is a “refugee” matter, given that the young people who have flooded to the country are fleeing repression, corruption, enslavement, even death. Those individuals are refugees by anyone’s definition.

They should be treated as refugees, not criminals, which is how many in Congress and around the country continue to view them.

What’s the president going to do — reportedly — to solve this issue by himself?

Obama met with some Texas business executives to discuss the problem, according to the San Antonio Express-News. They indicate that the president is looking at all legal options available to him. “The businessmen said they voiced their support for expanding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which pushes back deportations of young immigrants who aren’t legally in the country,” the Express-News reported on its blog.

So, does the president take action where the legislative branch has failed so far? Absolutely. Will the House of Reps take issue on this action, should it come, by adding it to its list of gripes against the president?

Pardon me while I laugh.

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Bush the Elder under the scope

I’ve been saying for years that in my humble view, George H.W. Bush arguably was the most qualified man ever to serve as president of the United States.

The man’s resume is astounding: naval aviator in World War II who was shot down and rescued from the Pacific Ocean; business executive; member of Congress from Texas; envoy to China; director of the CIA; United Nationals ambassador; chairman of the Republican National Committee; two terms as vice president of the United States.

President Bush served a single term in the White House. He lost re-election largely because conservatives turned on him because he felt it necessary to renege on his “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge made at the 1998 GOP convention in New Orleans.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/george-w-bush-book-109621.html?hp=t1

Now come a flurry of books on the 41st president. One of them is by his very own son, the 43rd president, George W. Bush. Another one, by journalist Jon Meacham, is in the works.

We shouldn’t expect W’s book to be an objective analysis. He’s writing about his father and as such he looks at Poppy with understandably affectionate eyes.

It’s worth reading, though, according to early reviews because George W. examines the complicated — but intensely loving — relationship between father and son.

President Bush 41 didn’t write a presidential memoir. He did publish a collection of letters and diary entries that tell the world a great deal about him. Some of which is his modesty and shyness.

That’s OK. Those of us who’ve followed his career know what he was able to accomplish in his long and distinguished life.

As the link attached to this blog notes, though, W’s book about his beloved father well might complicate the Republican presidential campaign lineup for 2016, correct, Jeb Bush? As Politico reports: “The timing of the book won’t be ideal for another Bush: former Florida Gov. Bush, who will have to decide around the release date whether to try to become the third Bush president. He’d be competing for attention with his brother’s book about his dad, and the whole setup might spark yet another round of speculation about the brothers’ rivalries.”

Whatever. I’m glad to see a good man honored by his son’s loving memory.

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Hey, Congress … slackers!

A friend reminds me of one more laughable element related to Congress bailing without approving a refugee-crisis-repair bill.

It is that Republican critics of President Obama have been so very fond of blasting him for “all the vacations” he takes while crises are erupting.

They fail, of course, to acknowledge that the president never is off the clock. He’s away from the Oval Office or a week or two, then he’s back — with the goal of tending to business. That has been the case dating back for many decades, involving presidents of both political parties.

So, what about Congress?

Well, those fine ladies and gents are going to campaign for re-election, which means they’ll be out raising money; some of them are known to jet off to faraway places for what they call “fact finding missions.” Some of those “trouble spots” involve a variety of choice beachfront condos, mountaintop vistas, lots of exotic meals.

You get my drift here, yes?

This will be my final point on this subject before I move on, but I’ll just say once more with feeling.

The border crisis involving the young people fleeing their home countries for safety in the United States was billed as a national crisis. If it’s a national crisis, then why didn’t the House and Senate stay in session until dealing with it?

I guess they had more important things to do.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/house-gop-pass-border-bill-109662.html?hp=l1

One final bit of advice: Next time the president of the United States takes some time away from the office, I want his critics in Congress — and in the conservative media — to keep their collective traps shut.

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Split the power in Texas government

An acquaintance asked me the other day about my thoughts regarding the upcoming election for Texas governor.

“Does Wendy Davis have a chance?” he asked. I had to think about it for a moment. “Well, she has a chance, but not much of one,” I answered. The Democratic nominee for governor is likely to lose to Republican nominee Greg Abbott — if the election were held today.

My concern about Davis is that she doesn’t yet have a message that resonates with voters. For that matter, Abbott hasn’t yet found a theme, either, other than he’s a Republican running in a heavily Republican state.

Then the talk turned to the lieutenant governor’s campaign between Republican Dan Patrick and Democrat Leticia Van de Putte. “That race,” I suggested, “presents the Democrats a better chance.” Why? my acquaintance asked. “Because Patrick is more likely to self-destruct than Abbott,” I replied.

Will the fiery GOP candidate for lieutenant governor implode? Beats me.

But the effect of two-party control of the top of the state government would do the state well. It might produce some pretty good governance, as it did during the time when Republican George W. Bush was governor and Democrat Bob Bullock served as lieutenant governor.

Democrats still controlled the Legislature and Bush developed good working relationships with Bullock and House Speaker Pete Laney of Hale Center. There was no running over the other party the way we’ve seen in recent years — and when Democrats held all the power in the state prior to the state’s shift to GOP control.

I’m intrigued by the notion of a Democrat presiding over the Senate and a Republican serving as governor, although a Lt. Gov. Van de Putte would have limited influence over a body that is likely to comprise mostly Republicans after the November election.

Well, I guess we can look at the election in a certain way: A week is a lifetime in politics and since we’re still about three months away from the next election, anything can happen.

In Texas, “anything” has been known to occur.

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Congress quits on border crisis

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This is just about perfect.

Congress yaps at President Obama to do something about the refugee crisis on our southern border. The president responds with a hefty emergency spending request. Congress then says it’s too much. Then both chambers fight among themselves. The House of Representatives approves a much smaller plan, while the Senate croaks.

Then the Congress goes home for the rest of the summer.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/house-gop-pass-border-bill-109662.html?hp=t1

OK, so what’s Barack Obama going to do now? Will he — heaven forbid! — invoke some executive authority to get something done?

This is an utterly ridiculous state of affairs.

The border is choked with refugees, mostly youngsters, fleeing repression in Central America. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has called out the National Guard. For what purpose remains a mystery, given that the guardsmen cannot arrest anyone. Members of Congress, chiefly Republicans, accuse the president of allowing the crisis to build. They demand action. Then the president acts and Congress fails to follow through.

Now they’re heading home, or perhaps on some “factfinding” junkets to exotic locations. They’ll schmooze with supporters at faux “town hall meetings,” hearing from the home folks about what a rotten job the president is doing. Or if they represent voters who support the president, they’ll get a snootful about what a rotten bunch the Republicans have become.

Meanwhile, that so-called crisis our border goes unattended.

This isn’t how representative democracy is supposed to work.

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As for impeachment …

Now that so many pundits and politicians are talking about impeachment these days in Washington, D.C., I believe I’ll share an important date that’s about to pass.

On Aug. 9, many Americans will commemorate — some will cheer it, others will mourn it — the resignation of the 37th president of the United States, Richard M. Nixon.

You see, Nixon resigned because he was certain to be impeached for some serious “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment; the full House was certain to ratify them; the Senate then seemed certain to convict the president.

It then fell to at least one key friend of the president, Sen. Barry Goldwater, to give him the straight scoop: You don’t have enough support in the Senate to save you from conviction, Mr. President.

He quit on Aug. 9, 1974 and saved the nation the trauma of a certain conviction.

What did he do — allegedly? Well, he ordered the FBI to stonewall efforts to find the truth about who was responsible for the burglary of the Democratic National HQ office at the Watergate office complex.

That’s the real deal, folks. That’s the kind of behavior that gets presidents impeached.

The talk today? Well, it’s not even clear what in the world critics of the 44th president, Barack Obama, have in mind. They keep yammering about overuse of executive authority, even though this president has used it far less than his predecessors over the past century.

If this ridiculous discussion continues in the months to come, let’s keep in mind what happened four decades ago. A president abused his power in a serious way and had the good sense to quit his office before the U.S. Senate ran him out of town.

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Is Obama wrong about Congress's incompetence?

President Obama’s critics hammer him constantly because of his expressed frustration over the do-nothing Congress.

Is he wrong about his “friends” on Capitol Hill? Far from it. Consider this week’s follies.

* The House of Representatives shelved plans to vote on a $659 million bill that would address the border crisis involving all those young refugees fleeing into the United States illegally.

* Then the Senate failed to muster enough votes on a larger, $2.7 billion, package to tackle those very problems.

* Then the House leadership postponed that body’s five-week summer recess, citing the logjam over this refugee issue.

All of this seems to be forcing the president to take, um, executive action to get something done about a problem that supposedly has risen to the level of “national emergency.”

Except he can’t do that, because the Republican-controlled House has just voted on party lines to sue the president over his alleged overuse of executive authority.

Obama has been poking fun at Congress because it cannot work with the White House, among its own members, with members of the other party, or get anything done on behalf of the people who sent them there.

And they’re just itching to get out of town for the rest of the summer.

Ridiculous.