Monthly Archives: November 2014

national news

Immigration reform = family values

2 Comments

Remember the early 1990s when “family values” became a mantra for politicians seeking to return to the core values of our nation?

Vice President Dan Quayle once chided the TV character “Murphy Brown” for having a child out of wedlock. The debate was joined.

Two decades later, the term “family values” has taken a new turn. It became part of President Barack Obama’s pitch to fix a broken immigration system.

The president’s pitch is nearly perfect.

Obama went on national TV today to tell the nation he would sign an executive order that keeps families together. Mom and Dad may have entered the nation illegally, but brought their children along when they were small — or perhaps bore their children in this country, an act that gave the kids instant U.S. citizenship.

The president’s order defers the deportation of some 5 million illegal immigrants. His aim, among other things, is to keep families together. Obama told the nation that it’s impractical to deport all those who came here illegally. Must we deport their children? And what about those children who are citizens simply by virtue of their birth in the United States of America?

This won’t deter Republicans from challenging the president. The new Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner are vowing unspecified actions to fight the president’s action.

Well, let’s have that fight and let’s allow the public to decide whether it’s right to separate families, or to uproot entire families after they’ve found a better life in the Land of Opportunity.

 

International news, national news

Now it's Congress's turn to act on immigration

President Obama has made his speech. He’s done what the law allows him to do. He has issued an executive order that starts to move immigration reform forward.

Now he has challenged Congress to enact a bill that would apply permanent solutions to the nation’s immigration problem.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/20/politics/obama-immigration-speech/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Instead of hyperventilating and tossing out “lawless” accusations against the Obama administration, perhaps the GOP-led Congress — both the Senate and the House of Representatives — can do what it hasn’t yet done. Fix the immigration problem that has brought us to this point.

Obama has delayed the deportation of 5 million undocumented immigrants. He has ordered border security officials to prioritize the arrest of gang members, suspected terrorists and common criminals — and then deport them post haste.

A good number of the rest of the illegal immigrant population? They can “come out of the shadows,” as the president said.

Constitutional scholars have been saying for a good period of time that Obama stands on solid legal footing in doing what he did this evening. Politicians have been saying something else, that the president is “overstepping his authority,” that he’s creating a “monarchy,” that now calls himself “Emperor Obama.”

Well, what the 44th president of the U.S. did was no more dramatic than what many of his predecessors dating back to Dwight Eisenhower have done. The drama has come from the furious opposition on the Republican side of chasm.

Do I wish he would have waited for the new Congress to take its seat? Yes. He didn’t listen to me.

But the president did what the law allows him to do.

So now the ball has been batted back to Congress. Pass a bill and send it to the White House.

 

environmental news, International news

Here come the 'snow trolls'

Yes, this story was inevitable, given the brutal cold snap that has smacked much of the country.

A leftish media watchdog group refers to them as “snow trolls,” the folks who think that since it’s cold outside that global warming/climate change is a liberal plot.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/07/cold-winter-weather-bring-on-the-snow-trolls/197464

My answer always to those who think like that simply is this: Look at the big picture, the longer term.

Some noted publications have noted, for example, that the Texas Panhandle will be wetter and colder than normal this winter. I’ll cite the Farmer’s Almanac as one such source. Its accuracy is about as reliable as most weather forecasters, which likely isn’t very reliable.

But it got cold around here the past few days and in this part of the world, which is full of climate-change deniers, it provides plenty of grist for the so-called “snow trolls” to suggest the liberal plot conspiracy is at work regarding climate change.

Lake Erie is producing mountains of lake-effect snow in upstate New York. The Buffalo Bills are supposed to play host to a professional football game Sunday, but it looks dicey.

I know that the debate is ongoing. I also know that folks produce all kinds of scientific evidence that the planet is actually cooling off. There also is other evidence that suggests the opposite is happening. Year over year temperatures are increasing.

Those polar ice caps? They really are shrinking.

But as the comedian Stephen Colbert joked, the “snow trolls” sound like the guy who says “hunger is cured because I ate tonight.”

 

national news, political news

TV networks miss a chance to engage viewers

This post will be brief, so I’ll get right to the point.

The major broadcast networks and a major cable network are blowing a chance to stay engaged in the immigration by declining to broadcast the president’s remarks tonight on the executive order he is about to issue.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/19/media/networks-and-obama-speech/index.html

ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox have said “no thanks” to carrying the speech live. CNN and PBS will carry it.

Given all the debate, discussion, finger-pointing, threats and lies told to and about all sides in this debate, I would have bet the proverbial farm that the networks would carry it live. It’s kind of a big deal, given what congressional Republicans have threatened to do when the president signs the order.

Silly me. The broadcast networks have dramas and comedies to show.

 

political news, State news

Cruz overstates his case once more

Ted Cruz just cracks me up.

Except that I’m not laughing.

He’s written an essay in which he accuses the president of the United States of acting like a monarch. Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order that tweaks federal immigration policy. He’s going around Congress, which includes the freshman Republican senator from Texas. Yes, Ted Cruz.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/president-obama-is-not-a-monarch-113028.html?hp=c4_3#.VG35X1J0yt9

What the senator and his fellow critics of the president keep ignoring is that previous presidents, including some notable Republicans, have done precisely the same thing that’s about to occur with this president. Where was the congressional outrage then? Well, there wasn’t any.

The link attached to this blog post also notes that Texas may sue the president over his executive order. That’s kind of strange, too, given that I’ve read reports in recent days about how Texas is going to benefit tremendously when the president defers deportation of millions of illegal immigrants. Many thousands of them live and work in Texas and they would be able, under the order, to come out of the shadows and work openly, pay taxes and perhaps start working their way toward legal residency status, if not outright citizenship.

That doesn’t stop loudmouths like the Texas Cruz Missile from overstating his case, which he does with annoying frequency.

 

national news, political news

So long, D.C. bipartisanship

Perhaps you’ve noticed during the time I’ve been writing this blog that I’ve called for more bipartisanship in Washington, D.C., and in Austin.

Well, my desire to see both parties working together for a change hasn’t changed, other than it might have been intensified. I was hopeful for a more bipartisan atmosphere in Washington after the mid-term election. The president said he wanted it. The new Republican majority leader said the same thing.

We can kiss it goodbye.

President Obama is going to issue an executive order today that will enrage his Republican “friends.” It will tinker a bit with immigration policy, deferring deportation for millions of illegal immigrants, as well as strengthen border security.

I think it’s a good plan, but the incorrect strategy. I wish he would wait. And no, the president is not plowing new ground with this action. He’s doing the same kind of thing on immigration that Republican presidents dating back to Gerald Ford have done.

Still, Obama is going to stick it right back in the eyes of Republican leaders in Congress. He said he’s “waited long enough” for Congress to act. Some in D.C. are talking about impeachment, which is a ridiculous notion on its face.

But the era of even pretending to want bipartisanship in Washington appears to be over.

It’s unclear what the outcome will be for the remainder of Barack Obama’s term as president. A friend of mine, an Australian journalist with a keen interest in American politics, mentioned to me in a recent email that he predicts a miserable and torturous slog toward the end of the Obama presidency. He believes — as I do — that Republicans are feeling emboldened now that they’ve taken control of the Senate and strengthened their grip on the House.

And the president’s response to that bold new opposition? Why, he’s digging in his heels and daring them to fight.

It need not end this way — but it surely will.

 

national news, political news

GOP adults start to tamp down 'I-word' talk

Yes, the Republican Party has some actual grownups in its midst.

Some of them are beginning to speak up against the rough talk of the kids within the party about impeaching President Obama if — and when — he issues that executive order on immigration.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/republicans-immigration-impeachment-113027.html?hp=c1_3

Frankly, I don’t quite know how to respond to that tamping down of a possible rebellion.

The president is expected Thursday to issue an order that delays deportation of about 5 million illegal immigrants. Congressional GOP leaders have threatened all kinds of mayhem if/when he goes through with it. Some of those threats include impeachment — which is about as stupid an idea as anything I’ve heard in years.

One of the grownups, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said this: “Impeachment and shutting the entire government down takes the focus away from him to us, There are some people in the conferences that will have their 15 minutes of fame over this. But the rest of us want a Republican Party that can compete across the board in 2016.”

Another of them, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said this: “Nobody’s talking about the ‘I’ word like the White House and others. They would love for us to take the bait. We’re not going to take the bait.”

Actually, I should point out that some of the young Turks within the GOP caucus have said it, too, along with their friends in the conservative mainstream media, such as columnist/Fox News talking head Dr. Charles Krauthammer.

This is nonsense, but it does give Democrats and other friends of President Obama some ammo to shoot back at the GOP chuckleheads.

Therein lies the source of my mixed feelings.

 

 

 

 

 

local news, military news, political news

Thornberry to head armed forces panel

It’s official: Mac Thornberry is going to become the next chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee.

They’re cheering at three key locations in Thornberry’s sprawling 13th Congressional District in Texas: at the Bell/Textron and the Pantex operations in Amarillo and at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls.

Thornberry’s constituency includes those enormously important operations.

Here’s the question: Is the veteran Texas Panhandle congressman going to protect these operations from possible budget cuts at the expense of other equally important defense-related projects?

I pose the question because for the two decades Thornberry has served in Congress, he’s been ensconced comfortably and quietly on the back bench. He hasn’t made much noise about the work he does on behalf of those projects. He does so quietly and with little fanfare.

Now, though, he assumes a high-profile role as chairman of one the House’s most visible committees. He’s become the go-to guy on armed services issues. The pressure is going to be on the congressman to deliver the goods back home while listening with a fair and impartial ear to the needs of his colleagues’ districts elsewhere. There might even be colleagues on his committee who’ll be sure to push hard for spending in their districts. With limited money — relatively speaking — to go around, the House panel is going to have to husband its resources carefully.

How is Chairman Thornberry going to respond to those pressures with the eyes of the nation fixed on how he conducts himself and how he runs this congressional committee?

Good luck, Mr. Chairman.

 

national news

Sharpton owes how much to the IRS?

The New York Times — one of the conservative movement’s favorite targets — has done something that left-leaning activists might not have imagined.

The paper has reported on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s back tax bill, which according to the Times amounts to more than $4 million.

Four million bucks!

Wow! Let this one sink in for a moment.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/19/politics/al-sharpton-finance/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Sharpton is a noted MSNBC commentator. He also has become known as a civil-rights activist and a founder of the National Action Network, an organization dedicated to seeking justice on behalf of disadvantaged Americans.

Sharpton is an outspoken progressive firebrand who — and this is where the irony kicks in — regularly rails against wealthy tax cheats or those who use their wealth and standing to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Now comes this report that Sharpton himself has a serious issue with the Internal Revenue Service.

Sharpton has fought back. He says he has paid down the bill, that he doesn’t owe as much as the NYT says he does.

Let’s wait for this thing to play out.

My advice for MSNBC, though, would be to take Sharpton off the air while this matter gets sorted out. Any time he speaks out against wealthy tax cheats is going to produce nothing but laughter across the land.

 

entertainment news, national news

Et tu, Dr. Huxtable?

This cannot be happening to one of America’s most iconic entertainers.

Then again …

Bill Cosby has been accused by at least three women of sexual assault. His lawyer denies the allegations. Meanwhile, one television network, NBC, and an online entertainment provider, Netflix, have cancelled planned projects involving Cosby.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/nbc-scraps-cosby-television-project/ar-BBeHfAq

What in the name of all that is holy is going on here?

I believe we are seeing a case of the backlash hurting at least as much as the initial slap.

The allegations need to be proven and Cosby is entitled to the presumption of innocence. NBC and Netflix have been quick to distance themselves from the one-time Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, a character Cosby portrayed on the acclaimed series “The Cosby Show.”

In that show, Dr. Huxtable became the standard bearer for family men across the nation, rearing a boisterous family along with his equally successful wife, portrayed by Phylicia Rashad. More to the point, Cosby’s character became an important role model for African-American men, many of whom forsake their fatherly duties once they learn that a child is on his or her way.

I do hope these allegations lead to nowhere. However, hope by itself won’t make it so.

My fears are leading me to suspect something else might be about to transpire.