Monthly Archives: November 2014

International news

The Wall came tumblin' down

Walls were meant to be broken, scaled, breached.

Thus, when the Berlin Wall came crashing down a quarter-century ago today, it signaled an inevitable result.

The communists who ruled East Germany at the time built the wall in 1961 to keep people in, not necessarily to keep people out. Their strategy never really worked. People fought to break through the wall to find freedom in West Berlin, which still was surrounded by the rest of the communist country. Still, the people fled, often dying in the effort.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/ng-interactive/2014/nov/03/the-berlin-wall-in-the-cold-war-and-now-interactive

The Wall is history now. It came down. Berlin would be united. Germany would unite as well.

The Soviet Union? It hung on for two more years before it, too, disintegrated into oblivion.

One element about all of that stands out for me as I look back at that tumultuous time.

The president of the United States at the time didn’t do a touchdown dance. He didn’t crow aloud about how great we are and how evil the communists were. George H.W. Bush wasn’t one to spike the ball, as it were, in a moment of supreme triumph.

His immediate predecessor, Ronald Reagan — whom Bush served as vice president for eight years — didn’t do any shouting from the rooftop either. Both men, to their credit, chose to let the events play out, to allow the people to celebrate their freedom and for the world to draw its own conclusions about what was occurring in a great European city.

It’s helpful, though, to recall the abject failure of the wall. It symbolized only the tyranny of those who erected it and served to remind those who sought freedom of their own desire to breach the wall.

They succeeded. Good for them. Good for the rest of the world as well.

political news, State news

GOP 'ground game' catches Democrats

Give credit where it most certainly is due.

The Texas Republican Party has developed what’s called a “ground game” that in this state more than rivals the Democratic efforts at getting voters to turn out.

The ground game has been credited with giving Greg Abbott an astounding victory in his campaign for governor over Wendy Davis.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/11/07/abbott-had-sophisticated-turnout-machine/

Are you understanding all of this, Texas Democrats?

As the Texas Tribune reports: “The Abbott campaign’s stealthy ground game started with a huge paid field operation, spread out across Texas and costing $5 million to $6 million. The team, aimed largely at identifying and motivating voters who infrequently participate in state elections, was almost 10 times larger than the one Gov. Rick Perry put together in his 2010 re-election campaign.”

That’s what all the money Abbott raised was able to buy him. He managed to put a lot of players on the field all across the state and worked them hard to turn out the vote in places where Democrats used to stand tall.

The Tribune piece attached to this post lays out it quite clearly. Texas Republicans have gotten the message delivered by national Democrats, particularly those who helped elect Barack Obama president twice. The president’s ground game, and his campaign’s masterful use of social media to put his message forward has paid huge dividends.

My sense now is that the 2016 campaign — which now is more or less officially under way — is going to be a lot more competitive than some of us figured it might have been.

National Republican campaign strategists can look to Texas to see how this game is played and how it is won.

It matters a lot, because as the saying goes: Texas is “like a whole other country.”

military news

SEAL shooter seeks glory

Robert O’Neill says it “doesn’t matter” if he’s the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden.

So, why is he talking about it?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/07/us/bin-laden-shooter-interview/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

I must confess to a certain disgust in recent months over the discussion about who among the commando team actually put a bullet into the world’s most wanted terrorist. The SEALs — along with other special ops units, such as the Green Berets and the Delta Force — have a code that says members guard against revealing who does what to whom.

That code has been broken, it seems, by SEAL team members who now are taking public credit for their actions in the May 2011 raid that resulted in bin Laden’s death.

The one thing that O’Neill said in a CNN interview that doesn’t disgust me is his assertion that “He (bin Laden) died afraid, and he knew we were there to kill him. And that’s closure.” Do you think?

Some heavily armed men break into your compound, point high-powered assault rifles at your head. Yeah, anyone — even a monster like bin Laden — would be “afraid.”

The code that O’Neill has broken states that special operations forces must not seek personal attention for the participation in team efforts. Yet here he is, telling the world he’s the shooter — and then saying “it doesn’t matter.”

The fact that he keeps talking about tells me something quite different.

Yes it does matter. If it didn’t, this former commando never would have brought it up.

national news, political news

Lynch deserves confirmation

Allow me to state once again my strong support of presidential prerogative in key appointments.

The current president, Barack Obama, has just nominated Loretta Lynch to become the nation’s next attorney general. The U.S. Senate will vote to confirm or reject the appointment. I join Republicans in wanting the next Senate, the one controlled by the GOP, to have a say in this vote.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/loretta-lynch-eric-holder-attorney-general-white-house-112705.html?ml=la

But I always shudder at the prospect of trumped-up reasons by the loyal opposition coming to the fore during these hearings.

They crop up from both sides of the aisle.

The Constitution gives the president the authority to nominate Cabinet officers. It also gives the Senate the power to “advise and consent” to the appointments. I get all of that. I understand fully the “co-equal” aspect of government, which empowers the legislative branch with as much power as the executive.

Now that I’ve laid down those cards, I want to declare that the president is elected by the entire nation. Yes, the Senate — as a body — is elected by the same voter base. But it’s the president’s call on who he wants to serve on the Cabinet.

This president has chosen a highly qualified individual. Lynch is seen by both Democrats and Republicans as a workhorse. She’s fair and dogged in her pursuit of justice.

Now we’re getting some rumblings from the far right wing of the Republican Party that at least two senators want Lynch to state whether she believes a potential executive order from the president on immigration is legal. Well, the president has made no such order, so the demand to know such a thing deals with an extreme hypothetical scenario.

I’ve never backed away from this prerogative issue. I stood behind President George H.W. Bush when he nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court for precisely the same reason I back the current president. He’s elected by Americans who were told what kind of individual would receive these appointments. Thomas was qualified to serve on the High Court when the president selected him, although the American Bar Association’s recommendation was less than sparkling. Still, he was qualified.

I have stood behind President George W. Bush’s appointments of Samuel Alito and John Roberts for all those reasons.

My belief in the Lynch appointment falls in line what I perceive as the president’s prerogative as the chief executive of the federal government.

My sincere hope is that the Senate gives Lynch a thorough but fair hearing.

national news, political news

Lynch for AG; let the new Senate decide

Loretta Lynch by all rights should be sworn in as the nation’s next attorney general.

President Obama made the announcement today nominating the New York U.S. attorney to the post.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/08/politics/attorney-general-nominee-loretta-lynch/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Of course, there are a couple of wrinkles attached to it. One of them is worth supporting, the other is utter nonsense.

Lynch would replace Eric Holder as AG. She’s already drawn the support of one key Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who says Lynch is “qualified.” Well, of course, she’s qualified. She’s been approved overwhelmingly twice by the Senate to U.S. attorney posts and there appears to be little reason to oppose her now as the nation’s next top lawyer.

Here come the wrinkles.

Republicans are insisting the new Senate, which will be run by the GOP, needs to confirm Lynch. That’s the correct call. Lame-duck Democrats who either are retiring or who lost their seats in the mid-term election need not vote on this appointment. Let’s have the new Senate make this call and let us also hope that Republicans who run the upper chamber will give Lynch a “fair hearing,” which the new majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has vowed.

The second wrinkle amounts to a litmus test.

It comes from two tea party Republican senators, Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, who want Lynch to declare right now whether she believes any potential presidential executive action on immigration is “legal and constitutional.” If she doesn’t tip her hand, does that mean Cruz and Lee will oppose her outright? If she believes the president would be acting legally and constitutionally, does that doom her appointment?

These two men appear to be seeking the “right” answer to the question, which is a litmus test by any definition.

How about examining the scope and breadth of this lawyer’s distinguished career?

By my reckoning, she’s earned her spurs and should be confirmed.

local news, political news

Voting for the party, not the candidate

2 Comments

We’ve all said at one time or another: I vote for the candidate, not the party.

This item in today’s Daily Oklahoman caught my eye. It’s on the editorial page and, of course, it gigs Democratic-leaning voters for making some, um, strange polling-place choices on Election Day. I get it, given the paper’s conservative tilt editorially. No problem with that.

http://newsok.com/scissortales-an-unusual-distinction-for-oklahoma-governor/article/5364590

An editorial brief in the Oklahoman refers to a Democratic candidate for Congress who received 35,006 votes on Tuesday — even though he died in a car accident several days before the election. Then it refers to a Cleveland County commissioner candidate, another Democrat, who received 38 percent of the vote despite having been arrested three times for drunken driving.

The paper wonders whether party label mattered over candidate qualifications.

Good point.

But here’s another example of the point the Oklahoman was making.

Over here, in Potter County, a Republican candidate for justice of peace actually defeated a long-time Democratic incumbent even though the GOP challenger had been arrested multiple times in recent years on felony charges involving domestic disputes.

Does party affiliation matter more in this instance than a candidate’s actual qualifications?

I will say, with considerable emphasis, “yes.”

local news, State news

Self-proclaimed scribe passes from the scene

A friend from my former stomping grounds on the Texas Gulf Coast has given me some sad news.

Dr. Gary C. Baine has just died. OK, I’m sad mostly because of the loss his family has suffered. One of his in-laws is a friend of mine and I pray she finds comfort.

Gary Baine helped me hone my understanding of what one can refer to as “editor’s prerogative.” Baine was a fairly regular writer of letters to the editor of the paper where I worked for nearly 11 years. I edited the editorial page of the Beaumont Enterprise and part of my job was to manage the flow of letters that would appear on the pages of that paper.

And yes, Baine was one of our contributors.

He wasn’t just was any old, garden-variety, run-of-the-mill letter writer. Baine, a dentist in Beaumont, was very, very proud of the submissions he would send in.

How proud was he? I’ll tell you.

He was so proud that he would take me to task for having the utter gall to actually edit his letters. He thought his text was sacrosanct, not to be touched by another human’s hands. Why, how dare I actually do the job that my title implied — as an editor — and seek to sharpen his submissions, to correct them for grammar and occasionally for clarity?

That’s what I did for, oh, more than three decades. And by the time my path crossed with Baine’s, I’d been at it for a decade-plus. I thought I was pretty good at it making people’s letters read better than the original submissions. So I edited Baine’s submissions, using precisely the same techniques I would use on other letter writers’ manuscripts.

That didn’t suit Baine in the slightest. We would argue. I would seek to tell him about how the greatest writers in the nation are subject to editing by their editors. I tried to tell him that when reporters turn their stories over to editors, they in effect surrender ownership of their copy; it becomes the editor’s “property.”

The same policy holds true for those who submit unsolicited text to the newspaper. You turn it in, the editorial assumes responsibility for it and then can edit it — or not edit it. It’s the editor’s call exclusively.

None of those explanations ever quite passed Baine’s view of how the world should be run.

We had our differences, but we remained cordial — which I suppose might suggest that deep down he didn’t take himself as seriously as his reaction to my editing style indicated.

Dr. Baine did sharpen my understanding of my craft. For that, I am grateful beyond measure.

May he now rest in peace.

local news

Puppy Tales, Part 9

Update: I’ve been scolded, gently, by my daughter-in-law and now my son. They’ve reminded me that Toby the Dog’s actual “first road trip” was to their house in Allen about, oh, two months ago.

Mea culpa: My memory isn’t too good some times. Perhaps it was the hotel stay and the brief moment of anxiety that the dog exhibited that blocked my memory of the earlier trip.

I stand corrected.

***

You may choose to believe this or not. It doesn’t matter to me. A few followers of this blog have asked me about Toby the Dog.

I now have some news to report. It’s no biggie.

Toby has just completed his first road trip. He did beautifully.

He’s about seven, maybe eight months old. The only vehicle travel he’d done was around Amarillo. Well, we just returned from a quick overnighter to Oklahoma City.

We left Friday afternoon and returned Saturday afternoon. We blazed east on Interstate 40, checked into our hotel room, then left for the evening to attend a gospel concert. He travels beautifully in the car. He sleeps most of the time and isn’t interested generally in sticking his head out of the window and having the wind blow in his face.

What did we do with the dog once we got to the hotel? We brought his kennel. We put him inside. He yapped, whined and whimpered when we left the room. We stopped briefly at the front desk and asked the check-in clerk: “OK, we’re leaving for a few hours and we left our dog inside our room, in his kennel. Is anyone checked into either of the adjoining rooms?” She said someone was in one of the rooms. “Will they hear the dog? He’s upset that we’re leaving.” She said if they complain, she’ll just tell them we’re out for the evening and that we’ll return … and that the dog will settle down.

My wife told the clerk that she thinks he’ll “settle down quickly once he realizes what’s going on.”

We left for the evening and returned about 10:30 p.m. We asked the clerk as we walked in, “Any problems, any complaints?” She said, “I didn’t hear a thing and no one said a word.”

Excellent!

So, there you have it.

Toby the Dog passed his first major test away from home.

We’ve advised him there’ll be many more trips like this coming up. We think he’ll be ready.

local news, political news, State news

Ban straight-ticket voting

I never have liked straight-ticket voting.

It’s an unintelligent way to vote, in my humble view. Yet, while working Election Day as an exit pollster at a polling station, I heard from a number of voters Tuesday that, by golly, that’s what they did. They just punched the old “Republican” or “Democratic” spot on the ballot, walked away and went about doing the rest of their day’s business.

Texas allows this way of voting, I suppose, to make it easier for folks to vote.

Here in this part of Texas, where the GOP rules even more supreme than it does in most of the rest of the state, it seems so many votes like to vote for the “party rather than the individual.” It’s true in remaining Democratic bastions around the state, such as in the Golden Triangle of Southeast Texas, where I worked for 11 years before traveling way up north.

I didn’t like it then. I don’t like it now.

It’s understandable that voters prefer candidates of one party over the other. If so, then why not force them to look down each race on the ballot and give them the chance to ponder their selection before actually making it?

As for me — and I know for a lot of other Texans — there’s plenty of ticket-splitting going on at the ballot box. Which brings me to another aspect of the Texas voting law. If you punch the straight-ticket slot on the ballot, then vote for a candidate of the other party down the line, the other-party vote still counts.

So, what’s the point of giving voters the straight-ticket option?

Let’s just dump the whole idea.

military news, national news

SEALs breaking the code

A truly disgusting development has been brewing since a group of commandos killed Osama bin Laden.

The once-inviolate code that Navy SEALs followed to protect their secrecy and to foster unit cohesion apparently is being broken by publicity-seeking members of that elite fighting force.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-navy-seals-told-to-stop-spilling-secrets/ar-BBcTkbM

They’re blabbing to the media about who fired the shots that killed the world’s most wanted terrorist. Fox News is planning to air a documentary that reveals — supposedly — the shooter who took out bin Laden.

Another former member of the SEAL team has written a book and, yes, there have been disputes over who did what to whom.

This is utterly ridiculous and is an inexcusable breach of faith with the country they serve.

SEAL commander Rear Admiral Brian Losey has issued a strong rebuke of the blabbermouths among his corps of warriors. He issued a letter to the troops in his command.

“‘A critical tenet of our Ethos is ‘I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions,'” Losey and the top enlisted sailor, Force Master Chief Michael Magaraci, wrote in the letter, obtained by AFP on Monday,” according to MSN. com.

MSN.com also reported: “The commander warned in the letter that ‘we will actively seek judicial consequence for members who wilfully violate the law’ by revealing classified information.”

The loose lips that have been flapping since the May 2011 mission that captivated the nation have brought dishonor to those who are revealing what the world really does not need to know.

Bin Laden is still dead. End of story.