Monthly Archives: February 2015

State news

Lt. Gov. Patrick: Keep troops on the border

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants to keep state National Guard troops on the state’s southern border.

Here’s the question: Is the state’s No. 2 elected official getting ahead of its No. 1 official, the governor, who’s actually in command of the Texas National Guard?

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20150210-lt.-gov.-dan-patrick-wants-to-keep-national-guard-on-texas-border.ece

Former Gov. Rick Perry dispatched the National Guard to the border a year ago in a move seen by many as little more than a grandstanding act designed to make himself look tough in the face of that mass migration of children into Texas, who were fleeing political and economic repression in Central America.

You’ll recall, perhaps, that Gov. Perry sent the troops there with no clear mission — or even any authority — to make arrests.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/07/23/troops-to-the-border/

There’s a new regime at the top in Austin, with Perry now out office and Abbott occupying the governor’s seat, and with Patrick having defeated Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the GOP primary this past spring.

It’s interesting to me that, according to the Dallas Morning News, House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, has taken a cautious approach to Patrick’s call for keeping the troops on patrol along the border. “I appreciate Gov. Patrick’s remarks,” Straus said. “But Gov. Abbott is the commander in chief and he will decide whether to extend the National Guard’s deployment.” The Morning News reports that Abbott had no comment on Patrick’s statements.

All of this has me curious as well. Is the lieutenant governor’s stay-tough approach to border enforcement a symbolic shot across Abbott’s bow to ensure that the Big Man — Abbott — is equally stern in his approach to border enforcement?

Some folks seem to believe Patrick has his eyes set on another political prize in 2018, the one currently possessed by Greg Abbott.

I’m just wondering.

 

national news

Governor in serious ethical trouble

The state of my birth is now the subject of a serious political scandal that is getting stranger by the day, if not the hour.

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s fiancĂ©e, Cylvia Hayes, has been accused of using her position as “first lady” of the state for personal gain. It involves her lobbying activities and whether she presented herself as a representative of the state her significant other — Kitzhaber — governs.

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/02/john_kitzhaber_cylvia_hayes_et_1.html#incart_m-rpt-1

The attached link spells out the trouble quite clearly.

The alleged profiteering reportedly has amounted to a lot of dough that’s gone to Hayes and, presumably, to Kitzhaber as well. The result has produced a firestorm in Oregon.

My hometown newspaper, The Oregonian, has called for the governor’s resignation. Kitzhaber so far hasn’t budged. As for Hayes, well, only the two of them know what they’re saying to each other in private.

But here’s the latest: Kitzhaber and Hayes have filed a response to the Oregon Ethics Commission complaint that borders on the laughable.

They contend that Hayes’s role as “first lady” isn’t an official government title, that she doesn’t run any agency so, therefore, she somehow is exempt from the allegations of conflict of interest that have peppered her. “The title ‘First Lady’ does not refer to an official office within Oregon state government or an officer of Oregon state government,” they wrote. “Ms. Hayes is not a public official.”

But as The Oregonian reported: “As for whether she was a public official, she subbed in for the governor at public events. She orchestrated meetings with senior state officials. She served as the governor’s unpaid adviser on energy and economic policies — by the governor’s reckoning, contributing thousands of hours.”

Doesn’t that make her a de facto state official? By my definition of the term “de facto,” that’s virtually the same thing as getting paid for her work on behalf of the state.

This drama has some distance to go before it plays out. My hunch is that it won’t end well for the governor and his first lady.

 

national news

Williams gone for 6 months, maybe forever

That didn’t take long.

I was hoping to cool my jets for a time while NBC News decided how to handle Brian Williams’ “misremembering” tale of woe. But today, the network news division decided to suspend Williams for six months without pay for violating the No. 1 cardinal rule of journalism — which is to tell the truth.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/nbc-news-suspends-brian-williams-for-false-iraq-helicopter-story/ar-AA9eu7i

It does not appear that this will end well for Williams’ once-stellar journalism career. He got caught fabricating a story about getting shot down in Iraq in 2003; he has been saying for years that his helicopter was hit by enemy rockets when, in fact, it wasn’t.

Then came questions about his reporting on Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — and then some head-scratching regarding his reports about flying over rocket fire in Israel in 2007.

When does it end?

NBC made the right call here. Williams’ credibility is, shall we say, blown to smithereens. His presence now at the NBC Nightly News anchor desk calls attention not to the news he would delivering, but to the man who would deliver it — and not in a positive manner.

What happens now is anyone’s guess. Williams will be off the air for at least six months. I suspect it won’t take him that long to decide that perhaps his time in the anchor’s chair is over.

For the short term, the network and the anchorman will have time to work out a separation agreement and a way to announce his departure that seeks to save a little bit of face — for both parties.

There will be plenty of discussion over how this controversy was allowed to explode and how Williams got away for as long as he did telling a story so many people knew was wrong.

A part of me is sad to witness the implosion of a man’s career.

Another part of me, though, is glad someone is being held accountable for breaching a serious trust between the media and those who expect truth in the information they deliver.

 

International news

Kayla Mueller: another ISIL victim

It now appears that Kayla Jean Mueller has died as a result of an air strike by Jordan air force fighter jets.

The Prescott, Ariz., aid worker died while being held captive by Islamic State terrorists, which in my mind makes her a victim of the monsters who kept her in bondage.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kayla-jean-mueller-american-isis-hostage-is-dead-family-confirms/

Mueller’s family confirmed the young woman’s death in a statement released today.

The fight must go on.

Mueller’s death now becomes another rallying cry for the good guys seeking to destroy ISIL and end its campaign of brutality against the world.

She was doing good work, trying to lend aid and comfort to those who were suffering in Syria. ISIL captured her and no doubt subjected her to unspeakable horror.

The Jordanians — enraged at the ghastly immolation death of that young fighter pilot — have stepped up their air strikes against ISIL targets, becoming more fully involved in the U.S.-led air campaign against ISIL in Syria and Iraq. We should welcome Jordan’s participation in this effort.

Yes, it comes at a terrible cost. The fight must continue. “No matter how long it takes,” President Obama said, “the United States will find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible for Kayla’s captivity and death.”

Kayla Mueller’s tragic end is on the hands of the terrorists.

 

national news

Anchor's problems mounting

It’s beginning to look as though the reporting of a controversy — more than the actual controversy — well might doom the career of a once-trusted broadcast network journalist.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has stepped away from the cameras for an unspecified period of time, while the chatter continues about the circumstances of his made-up story about getting shot down — allegedly — in Iraq in 2003. His helicopter wasn’t hit by rocket fire, as he has reported for a dozen years and the network is launching an investigation into the circumstances of Williams’ “misremembering” the events of that day.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/debate-brews-over-whether-williams-can-survive-controversy/ar-AA9bgGx

Other questions about other stories have emerged.

And now we have media experts speculating aloud about whether Williams should lose his job, whether he should stay, and whether he’s lost the trust of viewers who depend on their TV journalists to tell the truth all the time.

According to The Associated Press: “The real difficulty for a news organization, or a reporter, is that once you’ve made one misstep, it’s really hard to earn (trust) back,” said David Westin, former ABC News president. “You can. But it takes a lot of time. It takes a long period of time with proven performances. It takes a long time of getting it right.”

Here’s the issue, as I see it: All the intense publicity and scrutiny and all the questions that have risen from this matter have damaged Williams’ reputation, perhaps beyond repair. Suppose he emerges from the examination squeaky clean. How does he recover from the millions of snarky comments, the late-night comics’ jokes and not mention the photo-shopped videos that have gone viral showing him landing on the moon, storming ashore at Normandy or planting the flag atop the hill on Iwo Jima?

The nation has made him a laughingstock — and not necessarily because of what has been alleged in the beginning, but because of the reaction to it.

Williams may have become as much a victim of social media as he has of the wounds his ego have inflicted on his career.

 

national news, Uncategorized

Look what they found in moon walker's closet!

Neil Armstrong: smuggler.

It has a fascinating ring to it. Who would have thought the nation’s premier space hero, daredevil test pilot, the first man to ever walk on the moon would have squirreled away some artifacts from humankind’s most daring adventure?

The First Man on the Moon died in 2012, and his widow, Carol, has uncovered a trove of goodies she discovered in his closet.

http://www.cnet.com/news/forgotten-apollo-moon-artifacts-found-in-neil-armstrongs-closet/

I think it’s quite cool that he managed to sneak this stuff past his NASA bosses.

The artifacts were supposed to have crashed into the moon, along with the Apollo 11 lunar lander, which Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left behind in lunar orbit in July 1969 when they hooked up with Michael Collins in the command module. Armstrong, though, brought the items home with him.

They include a camera used to take pictures on the moon as well as some gizmos and gadgets that had been stuffed into a bag and placed in Armstrong’s closet.

Hey, these items aren’t secret weapons, nor do they require some kind of top-secret clearance to handle.

I can recall coming home from the Army in 1970 with some items I was supposed to turn into the quartermaster’s office as I was transitioning back to civilian life. I still have my trusty entrenching tool, issued to me in 1968 and, by golly, I still use it around the yard. I can’t recall how I got it past the supply sergeant back then.

Whatever.

Mrs. Armstrong’s discovery has been turned over to the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum, where I’m sure it’ll be put on proper display.

It’s a pretty cool discovery.

national news

Yes, there's intelligent discussion out there

Public television, as well as public radio, get vilified by those who object to a so-called “liberal bias” in both media.

I don’t see it. Then again, perhaps my own bias clouds my vision.

A recent discussion by two noted pundits — one liberal and one conservative — points out, though, that common ground can exist and that two ideological foes can actually agree.

David Brooks, the conservative, writes a column for The New York Times; Mark Shields, the liberal, writes a syndicated column distributed by newspapers around the country.

They took up the issue of President Obama’s speech this past week at the National Prayer Breakfast. Speaking on the PBS NewsHour on Friday, I was struck by Brooks’s comments in particular.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/shields-brooks-politics-vaccination-using-religion-justify-evil-acts/

The president said Christians shouldn’t be too quick to cast stones at Islamic terrorists because Christianity has been used by radicals to do bad things “in the name of Christ.” Obama cited the Crusades and the Inquisition as examples.

Obama’s remarks have drawn considerable fire from the right. Brooks, however, takes a different view:

“I think, if the president had come as an atheist to attack religion and to attack Christianity, the Republicans would have a point. That’s not what a president should be doing.

“But that’s not how he came. He has used that prayer breakfast year after year to talk about his own faith, his own faith journey, his own struggles. He’s used it — he has come as a Christian. And the things he said were things — I have never met a Christian who disagreed with what he issued, that the religion has been perverted, that we have to walk humbly before the face of the lord, that God’s purposes are mysterious to us.

“This is not like some tangential, weird belief. This is at the core of every Christian’s faith and every Jew’s faith. And so what he said was utterly normal and admirable and a recognition of historical fact and an urge towards some humility. And so I thought the protests were manufactured and falsely manufactured.”

This kind of view illustrates, in my opinion, what makes public television so valuable. You do not hear the screamers — on the left or the right — trying to outshout the other side. Oh sure, you have the McLaughlin Group, but even those discussions are mild compared to what one hears on MSNBC or Fox.

As for Brooks and Shields, these two men are known for their agreeable disagreements.

I’ll take that level of civility over the scream fests any day of the week.

 

medical news, military news, national news

Vets get long-needed help from government

It can be stated clearly: Tom Coburn’s greatest public service accomplishment occurred the day he retired from the U.S. Senate.

The Oklahoma Republican — for reasons that remain a mystery to many observers — continually blocked legislation aimed at helping returning veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder that tragically led to suicide.

Coburn is gone from the Senate. So, what did his former colleagues do? They approved a bill — in a 99-0 vote! — that seeks to improve suicide prevention efforts at the Department of Veterans Affairs. It was a stunning display of bipartisan cooperation on an issue that clearly should transcend partisan differences.

As the New York Times noted in an editorial: “The bill calls for regular independent evaluations of the V.A.’s suicide prevention and mental health programs to ensure the most effective approaches are used in its hospitals and clinics. Other provisions include a pilot program to match returning veterans with colleagues whom they can confide in about mental health concerns, and a website to make it easier for veterans and their families to find help. Another provision would help psychiatrists who work for the V.A. repay medical school debt, which could ease the chronic shortage of mental health professionals.”

And yet … Sen. Coburn — using the Senate’s procedural trickery that allows a single senator to block legislation at will — kept this legislation from getting a vote on the floor of the upper congressional chamber.

What’s more, Tom Coburn’s other profession — besides blocking legislation in the Senate — is as a physician. It’s astonishing, therefore, that he would take such an obstructionist view on this issue.

The Senate has turned an important corner and America’s veterans are better served as a result.

 

national news

Did the work horse become a show horse?

I can’t help myself.

Whenever I see pictures of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams covering the Big Story — in the flak jacket, or the hip waders — I keep thinking of terms other than “journalist.”

I keep thinking of terms like “show horse,” “entertainer,” “grandstander,” “show off.”

OK, I know it’s likely unfair at this point of the Williams “Chopper-gate” controversy to pass final judgment, but it’s beginning to look strange and weird as I gander at these pictures of Williams on the job, reporting the news to his faithful viewers. (See the link attached.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/09/questioning-the-ritz-carlton-gangs-that-brian-williams-said-terrorized-him-during-katrina/?tid=hp_mm

The link here, from the Washington Post, talks about another story emanating from Hurricane Katrina. It’s about gangs that reportedly terrorized the Ritz-Carlton Hotel where Williams was billeted during his coverage of the tragic storm.

This all began, of course, with the helicopter story that Williams now admits to “misremembering.” Others are saying he fabricated the story of being shot down in Iraq in 2003. The shoot-down didn’t happen. Williams wrapped his on-air apology in the flag, saying how he “bungled” an effort to pay tribute to the brave men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And the reports of other questionable stories keep coming forward, casting even more doubt on the credibility of a man whose employer, NBC News, had been promoting on air as a man who had earned viewers’ “trust.”

Surely I’m not the only viewer whose faith in a veteran broadcast journalist has been shaken.

Oh, how I want to be wrong, but I cannot help thinking this isn’t going to end well for Brian Williams’ career.

 

political news, State news

Texas turns 'crazy'

It’s one thing to be called “crazy” by a Florida congressman, who in a previous life was a federal judge who got impeached and then tossed out of office by the U.S. Senate.

Alcee Hastings’ description of Texas didn’t sit well with some Texans. One of them is fellow U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess of, yes, Texas, who demanded an apology from Hastings.

It kind of reminds me of a family that fights among its members and an outsider joins the fight. You dare not join that family squabble. Make no mistake, some Texans actually might agree with Rep. Hastings. Others, though, disagree — vehemently. But that’s best left for Texans to argue among themselves.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/02/08/inside-texas-politics-crazy-state/

Actually, our state has taken some strange turns over many years. I’ll concede that the current political climate here isn’t to my liking. I believe more than three decades living in Texas entitles me to chime in.

So, I will.

During our time in Texas, my family and I have watched the state turn from moderately Democratic to overwhelmingly Republican. Prior to our arrival in Texas in 1984, the state was much more heavily Democratic. Why, there once was a time when Democrats occupied every statewide office and all but one seat in the 31-member Texas Senate.

I’m betting Republicans around the country were calling us “crazy” in those days, too.

Now that we’ve turned all-GOP all the time, it’s Democrats who are hanging the crazy label on our politics and policy.

There some evidence that we’ve gone a little but loony in the Lone Star State. Texans keep electing some, um, interesting politicians to high office.

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert of Tyler just won’t accept that the president of the United States is constitutionally qualified to hold his office; our most recent former governor, Rick Perry, once came very close to suggesting that Texas might secede from the Union if the federal government didn’t stop taxing us so much; we have elected an attorney general, Ken Paxton, who’s been scolded by the state for soliciting clients improperly; our Legislature is likely to enact a law that allows folks to carry weapons in the open and it might approve a bill that gives folks permission to carry weapons onto college campuses; Texas still allows for partisan election of judges, which always results in superior candidates losing simply because they are affiliated with the “wrong” political party.

That’s just for starters.

One-party domination breeds craziness born of arrogance. Democrats wielded great influence in this state almost since its joining the Union in 1845 until the late 1970s. Our state Supreme Court — comprising all Democrats — became so friendly to the plaintiff’s bar that it became the subject of a “60 Minutes” probe into whether the justices were on the take. Then the state became a two-party battleground. For the past two decades, Texas has been a Republican playground.

And just as Democrats produced their own brand of craziness in the old days, Republicans have earned the right to be called crazy.

I’d rather we reserve the name-calling, though, for those of us who live with the craziness.

So, Rep. Hastings? Butt out!

***

OK, having said all that, here’s a link written by a columnist in Roanoke, Va. It was sent to me by a dear friend who lives there, but who grew up in West Texas. He knows Texas better than most folks I know.

Enjoy this bit of crazy talk.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/columns_and_blogs/columns/dan_casey/casey-happy-th-birthday-texas-tavern/article_c1c4c1ed-bbe7-5c60-96e0-17a05dcaee8d.html