Monthly Archives: April 2015

legal news

Gay marriage to get big test

The U.S. Supreme Court is going to decide soon whether Americans have a constitutional right to marry someone of the same sex.

My guess is that if the conservative court majority is as “strict constructionist” as its members claim to be, the issue could be a slam dunk.

They’ll declare a ban on same-sex marriage to be in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

State courts and lower federal courts have been striking down state bans left and right. Texas’s own ban is among those that the courts have ruled violated someone’s constitutional rights.

The issue, as I see it, rests within the 14th Amendment, which guarantees Americans the right to “equal protection” under the law. It doesn’t specify that citizens need to be of a certain sexual orientation.

State bans have flouted, in my view, that constitutional guarantee. That is why the federal courts have stepped in.

So, the highest court in the land is set to decide this issue.

I remain perplexed by the notion of calling same-sex unions “marriage.” But that’s just me. I do not question the constitutionality of same-sex marriage.

Neither should the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

national news, political news

Lynch gets key GOP ally

Politics occasionally produces peculiar alliances that develop at key moments.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked Attorney General-designate Loretta Lynch’s confirmation vote over an unrelated bill dealing with human trafficking. Then the Senate approved the trafficking bill. What did McConnell do then? He rounded up enough votes to get Lynch confirmed.

McConnell whipped for Lynch, avoiding nuclear fallout

His work to end a filibuster that had stopped Lynch’s confirmation apparently has angered the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz and other members of the Senate’s TEA party caucus.

My reaction? Live with it.

This seeming reversal gets to a key element of McConnell’s leadership. He can be a fierce partisan when the opportunity presents itself, but he knows how the Senate is supposed to work and he knows how to deal with the “other side,” namely Democrats, when that opportunity presents itself.

Compromise, therefore, isn’t a bad thing when a failure to compromise gums up the legislative works — as it did while Loretta Lynch waited an interminable length of time to be confirmed as the nation’s next attorney general.

So, now let’s move on to the next congressional crisis.

 

International news, national news

Drone takes out ex-American

Adam Pearlman was born to Jewish parents and raised on a California goat farm.

Then he changed his religion. He became a Muslim. Then he changed his name, to Adam Gadahn.

After all that, he joined a terrorist cult.

And in January, he was killed by an American drone strike. It apparently wasn’t planned, but he’s dead nonetheless. Americans — other than his family — shouldn’t be shedding a tear over this man’s death.

Count me as one American who scores his death as a victory in our war against international terrorism.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/al-qaeda-adam-gadahn-isis-rebirth-americans-recruited-to-isil-117285.html?hp=t1_r#.VTmsfFJ0yt8

Gadahn was killed in a drone strike that reportedly also killed two hostages, and American and an Italian. For those two men’s deaths, President Obama rightly apologized “on behalf of the U.S. government.”

Gadahn, though, is a different matter. As some Texans might say, “He needed killin’.”

And yet, civil libertarians — and I count myself as one of them — keep arguing that the United States shouldn’t kill Americans without giving them due process.

I am prepared to argue that these terrorists no longer qualify as deserving equal protection under the laws of the land. They forgo those protections the moment they take up arms with an enemy forces hell bent on killing Americans or any other innocent victims.

Gadahn had forsaken his rights as a citizen when he decided to join al-Qaeda. He had turned his back on his country by becoming a spokesman for the late Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization, the monsters who plotted the 9/11 attacks and, thus, fired the first shot in what’s become known as the “global war on terrorism.”

Yes, we should mourn the deaths of innocent victims. I join those in grieving for the loss of the American and Italian hostages who were held captive by al-Qaeda.

But for the man formerly known as Adam Pearlman? I won’t grieve for a single moment.

 

State news

Texas power honeymoon is over

Is the honeymoon over among the Big Three of Texas’s state government?

Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus sat down this week for some breakfast. It reportedly didn’t go too well.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/big-three-breakfast-blows

Patrick purportedly complained that Abbott and Straus were “picking on me” and said he wanted it to stop.

Abbott, Straus and Patrick all issued statements later, with the governor saying he had a “strong working relationship” with the lieutenant governor.

I daresay this might be a precursor of things to come in Austin, with Patrick marching to his own cadence as he runs the state Senate. Meanwhile, Abbott and Straus might be more inclined to operate on a mainstream conservative level.

R.G. Ratliffe, writing for Texas Monthly, reports that Patrick and Straus argued over Patrick’s assertion that the House isn’t moving quickly enough on Senate-passed legislation. Patrick declared a “new day” in Austin when he was inaugurated, got the Senate to pass some tough legislation — open-carry of firearms, tax cuts and moving the Public Integrity Unit to the control of the Department of Public Safety. The Man of the House, Straus, has let the legislation simmer far longer than Patrick wants.

Patrick, being the take-charge guy he is, now is trying to pressure Abbott to act on his behalf. Abbott apparently isn’t having any of it.

Thus, the three of them are at each other’s throats.

I believe some Texas pundits might have foreseen this kind of friction when Abbott and Patrick were campaigning for their respective offices.

Patrick is a tiger. Abbott is more, um, reserved. Straus? He’s more like Abbott than Patrick.

Might there be a feud building between Patrick and Abbott — that might lead to a primary challenge for governor, say, in 2018?

Let’s all stay tuned, shall we?

 

local news, State news

'Home rule' on red-light cameras? Apparently not

You live in a Texas city and your elected officials — the folks who represent you and your neighbors — have decided to install cameras at dangerous intersections to deter motorists from running red lights.

Your city has the authority to do such a thing under Texas law. Not as it relates to red-light cameras.

The Texas Senate has sent to the House a bill that would ban cities from deploying the cameras, as Amarillo and dozens of other cities have done.

Well, there goes home rule.

Sen. Bob Hall has declared the cameras to be a failure across the state.

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article19246596.html

The bill would allow the cameras on toll roads. Therefore, given that there isn’t a toll road within hundreds of miles of the Panhandle, we won’t have the cameras.

I believe it is a mistake for the Legislature to seek to read the minds of mayors, council members, city managers and traffic engineers on this issue.

Are the cameras popular among Amarillo motorists? No. It’s because they catch them doing something they aren’t supposed to do, which is try to sneak past street signals that have turned red or, in some drastic cases, race through the lights from a dead stop.

Then again, I remain unconvinced that most motorists detest the cameras enough to merit their removal. Some of them do and they have protested loudly.

Their voices have been heard — way down yonder in Austin.

national news

Goodness lives in the 'next generation'

The next time you hear someone complain about “kids today,” remind them of the young man shown in the video attached to this blog.

He’s an Oklahoma youngster who sought to write a wrong committed by one of his parents.

The young man sought out an elderly woman and offered what only can be called an apology to end all apologies.

Your heart will soar when you see this.

Trust me. It will.

Sports news

Rose's ban from baseball should stick

Being a hard-ass isn’t really my style, but there’s something about Pete Rose that chaps me royally.

The former great baseball player has been banned from baseball for life because he bet on the game. That’s the rule: You bet on baseball, you face a lifetime ban. It’s in the rule book, which I’m certain Rose knew when he broke the rule.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/04/23/rob-manfred-pete-rose-all-star-game/

Now we hear that Major League Baseball, which will have its all-star game this summer in Cincinnati, will allow Rose to play some role in the game ceremonies.

I’ll stipulate a few things: First, I know that Rose had a Hall of Fame career. Second, I also know that he’s applied for reinstatement and Hall of Fame eligibility. Third, I also know that the Hall of Fame is full of racists, drunks, womanizers, adulterers and overall reprobates. Fourth, I also know that no one in the Hall of Fame was caught betting on baseball.

Pete Rose deserves reinstatement on one condition. MLB needs to reinstate Shoeless Joe Jackson, who in 1919 was caught betting on baseball in the infamous Black Sox Scandal in which Jackson and other Chicago White Sox players were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series. Indeed, the no-betting rule was installed because of Shoeless Joe’s actions.

If Major League Baseball sees fit to reinstate the late, great Joe Jackson, then it ought to follow suit with Pete Rose.

First things first, Commissioner Rob Manfred.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Lynch finally confirmed as AG

The vote was 56-43.

The only reason the full U.S. Senate didn’t vote on this key appointment was that Republican Ted Cruz of Texas didn’t cast a vote. He didn’t like the nominee being considered for attorney general.

Welcome to the U.S. Justice Department, Loretta Lynch.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/239878-senate-votes-to-confirm-lynch-as-attorney-general

A number of Republicans voted to confirm Lynch, whose nomination should have been decided weeks ago. It was bogged down by the Senate Republican leadership’s insistence that it deal first with a bill that had nothing to do with Lynch’s nomination.

But she’s in. That’s good. She’s qualified and she deserved long ago to get a vote by senators on her nomination.

But here’s a curious element to the vote. One of the “no” votes came from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who said this:  “The question for me from the start has been whether Ms. Lynch will make a clean break from (President Obama’s) policies and take the department in a new direction.”

So, the chairman wants the new attorney general to break away from the policies of the president who appointed her. When has that ever happened? When has a Cabinet official ever promised to go against the individual who selected him or her?

The bogeyman for Grassley and other Republicans was Obama’s executive order on immigration that delays deportation for an estimated 5 million undocumented immigrants. He wanted her to say she opposed the order. Good luck with that one, Mr. Chairman.

But what the heck. She waited longer than any other recent Cabinet appointment to get confirmed.

Let’s hope her new job will have been worth the wait.

 

International news

No 'mistakes were made' apology

President Obama has taken full responsibility for the deaths of two hostages that had been held by al-Qaeda terrorists.

For that he deserves credit.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/american-italian-hostages-killed-in-us-drone-strike/ar-AAbzkZA

A drone strike in January targeted some terrorist leaders. Two men, one American and one Italian, also died in the strike.

The American was Warren Weinstein, an aid worker; the Italian was Giovanni Lo Porto. They had been captured by terrorists and, sadly, became the unintended victims of a strike aimed at killing enemies of the United States. The strike did kill some al-Qaeda leaders, but the president today had to own up to the deaths of the hostages.

“I realize there are no words that can ever equal their loss,” said Obama, who spoke with Weinstein’s wife and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The deaths of the two men perhaps say more about the nature of their captives than about the intelligence capabilities that preceded the drone strike. Obama said the best intelligence gathered indicated the hostages weren’t present in the target area.

One of the al-Qaeda leaders killed in the strike were two Americans, Ahmed Farouq and Adam Gadahn, who were described as leaders for the terror network.

And that brings to mind another matter for which the United States should not apologize: the killing of Americans who align themselves with enemies of their country. Farouq and Gadahn reportedly were not specific targets of the drone strike — to which I would ask: So what if they were?

We’ve killed other Americans who’ve defected to terror organizations and the U.S. government need not apologize for those deaths, either. Those former Americans have all but renounced their citizenship by the mere act of joining these ghastly terrorist cults.

It’s been maddeningly common over the years to hear government officials hide behind that passive-voice “mistakes were made” admission of responsibility. The problem with that kind of delivery is that it absolves individuals or specific organizations of any blame — if it is warranted — for the act that occurred.

We did not hear that today, which is to the credit of a president who isn’t hiding behind rhetorical trickery.

 

national news

Secret Service fails ex-president

The hits just keep on coming at the Secret Service department.

Now this: It took the agency charged with protecting presidents and former presidents more than a year to repair a faulty alarm system at the Houston home of former President George H.W. Bush.

Let’s see. We’ve had agents frolicking with hookers in South America, a man busting through security at the White House, someone crashing a small helicopter on the White House lawn — and now reports of a failure to respond in a timely manner to concerns about an alarm system at the home of the 41st president of the United States.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/agents-took-13-months-to-fix-alarm-at-ex-president%e2%80%99s-home/ar-AAbxl7P

There’s more, too.

Vice President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware had its alarm system shut off indefinitely by the Secret Service because it, too, wasn’t working properly.

This is getting increasingly difficult to understand, let alone justify.

The Secret Service is charged with protecting the highest government officials in the land, namely the president and the vice president. It also protects former presidents and their families. The one notable recent exception to that was the late former President Richard Nixon, who resigned from office in August 1974 and who then hired private security officers to protect him in his family in his post-presidency years.

The rest of them, though, get — and deserve — protection from the Secret Service.

That the agency wouldn’t repair former President Bush’s home security immediately after its malfunction became known is unconscionable. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and new Secret Service director Joseph Clancy have declared security upgrades for those under the agency’s protection to be a top priority item.

Do you think?