Monthly Archives: May 2015

business news, national news, political news

Welcome aboard, Carly Fiorina

The Republican Party’s presidential field has grown by one — or maybe it’s two — candidate.

Carly Fiorina is running for president next year. She is citing her business experience as the reason for electing her.

She knows the ins and outs of the economy, she says.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republican-former-ceo-fiorina-enters-white-house-race/ar-BBj9cdO

I’m your woman, Fiorina notes.

Is she? Well, she served as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, the giant techno-firm. Then the company got into some financial trouble. It merged with Compaq and the HP board decided Fiorina was leading the company in the wrong direction, or something like that.

She was forced to resign.

Fiorina, though, portrays her tenure at HP as a success, although it’s a bit of a reach to come to that conclusion. The company jettisoned a lot of jobs. Still, the says the company’s stock value grew during her time in the HP driver’s seat.

Her political career? She was a key adviser to Sen. John McCain in 2008 during the GOP nominee’s losing bid for the presidency. Fiorina then ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010 … and lost that race too.

Oh, but she says she’s not a “professional politician.” Actually, she is, by virtue of her running now for elective office for the second time in five years. Hey, I’m not quibbling, just stating what I understand to be the definition of the term “politician.”

Fiorina’s personal story is gripping. She’s a cancer survivor and she has endured the tragedy of losing a stepdaughter to drug abuse. Those events surely have steeled her for the tough campaign that awaits.

I heard this morning that Ben Carson is about to join the Republican field, so he’s going to take a bit of the attention away from Fiorina, whose poll numbers are pretty low as it is.

I’m now going to wait for her Republican debate opponents to ask her to explain how her checkered business record commends her for the job of running a multitrillion-dollar enterprise called The Federal Government.

 

State news

Drug-test elected officials? No, but the idea still intrigues

State Sen. Eddie Lucio has this goofy notion that Texas ought to require all elected officials submit to mandatory drug testing.

The Brownsville Democrat has inserted it into an amendment, which means the Senate could consider it before adjourning in a few weeks.

Dallas Morning News blogger/editorial writer Rodger Jones is adamantly opposed to the idea.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/should-every-elected-official-across-texas-be-drug-tested.html/

I guess I share his opposition — to a degree.

But the idea of drug testing elected officials has a certain element of poetic irony to it, if you think about it for a moment.

City council members, school board trustees, college regents, state legislators, county department heads and statewide officeholders all have the authority to require testing of regular Texans. You know, folks like you and me.

Why not, then, require them to do the same thing? Why not subject the leaders who make these policy decisions to the very same hassles they place on the rest of us?

Jones writes: “… government gets horribly Big Brother-ish in presuming to extract samples from one’s body and laying out test results for all to see. Elected officials are private citizens first, public servants second. There should be a zone of privacy for them, just as there should be a zone for welfare recipients. Government should not stick its nose into our private affairs.”

Private citizens first, public servants second? By my way of thinking, elected officials take on a sort of co-equal standing. They are both private citizens and public servants equally, again in my view. How does one particular standing trump the other?

So, if they’re public servants and they hand out policy decisions that affect the lives of actual full-time private citizens, why is it unfair to require them to do the same thing they demand of others?

Jones is spot on about one point, though, in his opposition to Lucio’s idea. It’s impractical. It would create many thousands of urine samples and require government to test them for drugs.

It’s too expensive.

Still, a part of me wishes we could do such a thing.

 

local news, national news, political news, State news

Libraries make the to-do list

2 Comments

I made a declaration today while driving home from church.

The next time we’re in Dallas, I told my wife, I want to visit the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

For that matter, the next time we get to College Station, I want to see the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library.

What’s more, I now intend to see all the presidential libraries before I check out — even those that aren’t yet built.

Some folks want to see all the national parks (I’m one of them, too), or visit all 50 states (I’ve set foot in 47 of ’em), or ride every roller coaster in the country (I’ll pass on that one, thank you very much).

Presidential libraries offer up a fascinating view of history — from the perspective of the individual whose history is being examined.

I did a quick count of the libraries I’ve already seen: The Lyndon Johnson library in Austin, the Herbert Hoover library in West Branch, Iowa, the (Jimmy) Carter Center in Atlanta. That’s it.

Without question, of the three presidential libraries I’ve visited, the most compelling one was — get ready for this — the Hoover library. Why?

Well, I knew about the Great Depression occurring on President Hoover’s watch. I knew that he lost re-election in a landslide to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932.

What I didn’t know when I visited the library with my wife and then-infant son in 1973 was that President Hoover was a tremendous humanitarian. He helped feed much of Europe after World War I. President Woodrow Wilson named him as head of the U.S. Food Administration after the United States entered the conflict in 1917.

The Hoover library, which isn’t a pretentious site, devotes a tremendous amount of space to explaining his humanitarian work and, quite naturally, doesn’t tell the visitor all that much about the Great Depression.

***

My interest in the George W. Bush library is rather personal. I didn’t vote for him in 2000 or 2004, or for Texas governor in 1994, for that matter. However, I have some personal affection for the 43rd president.

I was privileged to have three conversations with him, starting in 1988, when he and I rode an elevator together in New Orleans during the Republican National Convention that nominated his father to run for president. I said, “You’re George W. Bush, yes?” He nodded. He asked me my name. I told him and said I was the editorial page editor for the Beaumont Enterprise. “Oh, I’ve heard of you,” he said.

Sure thing, George. He hadn’t yet been elected to any public office, but he was a natural politician.

I met him seven years later, after moving to Amarillo. I was granted a 90-minute interview with him in the governor’s office at the State Capitol Building in Austin. The meeting was supposed to last 45 minutes. I found him to be charming, engaging, funny — and smart. He had been governor just a few months during the first half of 1995 and I found him to be a quick study on Texas government and public policy.

We met again three years later as he ran for re-election. He remembered our previous meeting in 1995 and we kind of caught up on some things we discussed in Austin.

It’s a safe bet I’ll get to his library on the Southern Methodist University campus. I might make the visit on our next trip to the Metroplex, which is certain to happen soon, thanks to the presence of our granddaughter, Emma.

I doubt I’ll see anything there that details the mistakes he made during his two presidential terms, such as the Iraq War and the economic free fall. Then again the LBJ library doesn’t deal too much with the intense criticism the president got over his Vietnam War policy, nor does the Carter Center tell you much about the “malaise” he implied gripped the nation during his four years in office.

But I do want to see W’s version of his presidential history and perhaps judge it against what I understand about it.

 

national news, political news

Let's define 'ideal GOP candidate'

The Daily Signal has put out an online survey asking folks who would be their “ideal” Republican presidential candidate in 2016.

It wasn’t until I looked carefully at the bottom of the survey form that I realized it is a sincere question.

Who Is Your Ideal GOP 2016 Presidential Nominee?

It gives poll takers a chance to subscribe to Heritage Foundation material. So, there you have it. The poll comes from one of the nation’s premier conservative think tanks. So, the poll is meant to be taken seriously by those who answer the question.

But regular readers of this blog know my own political leanings place me far from the Heritage Foundation. I lean left. So, when I saw the question, I thought it could be laced with trickery.

I’ll declare here (maybe I’ve done so already; I don’t remember) that I’ve voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1972. I wavered once, teetering between voting for President Ford or Gov. Jimmy Carter in 1976; I ended up voting for Carter and I’ve come close to regretting it in the years since.

I’ve gotten a bit more hardened in my presidential choices over time. I do split my ticket generously, however, and I’ve been proud of the many votes I’ve cast for Republican candidates.

Who would be my favorite GOP candidate in 2016 be? Oh, man. How do I answer that one?

Maybe it would be the most extreme candidate running. Who would that? Ted “The Cruz Missile” Cruz? Marco Rubio? Rand Paul? Mike Huckabee (who’s not really running — yet)?

The more extreme the right-wing candidate the better it appears that a centrist Democrat — such as, oh, Hillary Clinton — would win the election.

I’m acutely aware that the Heritage Foundation is now being run by former U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, one of the TEA party godfathers. I’m guessing DeMint personally might favor one of the extremists running for president.

So, think about this one: I agree — potentially — with the guy who runs the Heritage Foundation.

We might want the same candidate to run as the Republican nominee for president next year.

I suspect, though, that our reasons differ wildly.

 

State news

Not making nice in Legislature

Texas legislators are ripping a page out of the congressional playbook.

Some of ’em are treating others of ’em badly in public.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/pickett-tosses-stickland-out-committee

It’s not supposed to be like this, gentlemen.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, tossed Rep. Jonathon Strickland, R-Bedford, out of a committee hearing because Strickland falsely signed up witnesses for a hearing.

Then the House of Representatives removed evidence of the argument from the record.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/house-takes-its-dirty-laundry-internet

As R.G. Ratfcliffe notes in his Texas Monthly blog, Strickland might have committed a crime if he did as Pickett alleged he did.

But holy cow, man! How ’bout behaving like grownups in public.

You fellows do work for us — and some of us out here might not like what we’re seeing.

 

local news, political news

Candidates shell out big dough for a volunteer job

You’ve got to hand it to the 16 men and women running for five spots on the Amarillo City Council.

They’ve raised and spent a lot of money to obtain what, in effect, is a volunteer job.

Campaign filing reports released Friday show the candidates have raised more than $281,000 in campaign cash for the council. The tab is continuing to climb and the final campaign expense list won’t be released until after the May 9 election.

Think about this for a moment.

These individuals are running for a spot on the council that pays 10 bucks per meeting. The council meets once a week on the third floor of City Hall. So, it’s $40 for most months; $50 for those months that have five Tuesdays in them. They get reimbursed for expenses incurred while doing city business. If they travel, say, to a Texas Municipal League meeting, the city will pay them back for travel expenses.

A couple of dynamics have popped up in the waning days of the campaign.

One of them is the negative campaign being waged by Place 1 incumbent Ellen Robertson Green and challenger Elisha Demerson, a former Potter County commissioner and judge. Another has to be the relative silence in most of the other races, even though the candidates have raised what seems like a lot of cash to spend.

I’ve had friends who are closer to this race than I have been tell me they think some of the incumbents are in trouble. Other friends, though, are suggesting that the turnout will be low — which is typical, sadly — and that the incumbents will skate back into office.

I’m not going to handicap this contest. My reporting job for NewsChannel10.com kind of takes me out of the local political prognostication business.

I will add this observation, however. If the candidates are going to spend nearly 300 grand collectively for an office that basically pays them nothing, then I suspect a serious commitment to public service from all of them — incumbents and challengers alike.

That speaks well for Amarillo.

national news, political news

Stop making me laugh, Mr. Speaker

John Boehner might be the most unintentionally funny politician in Washington, D.C.

The speaker of the House of Representatives, for instance, told conservative journalists that Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Benghazi/e-mail kerfuffle just won’t go away.

Imagine that. They won’t vaporize. Become old news. They won’t be relegated to the back burner.

And why do you suppose that’s the case?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/boehner-on-hillary-emails-these-things-just-dont-go-away/article/2563850

It’s because Boehner and other Republicans won’t allow it.

That’s the short answer. Indeed, it’s the only answer I can figure at the moment.

The Benghazi matter will stay in the public eye for as long as Congress wants it to stay there. Boehner, according to the Washington Examiner, intends to keep the focus on Benghazi and the e-mails that have been called into question by the House Select Benghazi Committee chaired by Republican Trey Gowdy of South Carolina.

Boehner said this: “They deleted all the (former IRS director) Lois Lerner e-mails, but they keep finding them. You know, these things just don’t go away. So I don’t know where the server is, I don’t know what condition it’s in, I have no idea, but the American people deserve the facts. That’s all. Just tell us what the facts are.”

So, the hunt will go on. Benghazi will remain in front of voters. Boehner wants the truth, by golly, no matter what.

I don’t know whether to dismiss Boehner’s ridiculous assertions about why these matters won’t fade into oblivion or whether to enjoy watching these fishing expeditions. On one hand, the Benghazi tragedy — in which four Americans were killed in that September 2012 fire fight launched by terrorists at the U.S. consulate in Libya — has been settled. Members of Congress, though, keep looking for more … and then more after that. They seem intent on finding something — anything — that’s going to derail Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

That, I submit, is why the Benghazi e-mail tempest will keep going.

Correct, Mr. Speaker?

 

legal news, national news

Is race still a part of the Freddie Gray story?

Allow me this brief observation about the case involving the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore and the riots that have ensued since that tragedy.

Baltimore authorities have charged six Baltimore police officers with homicide in Gray’s death, which occurred when he suffered a severed spine while in police custody. Gray was black and his death touched off another storm of protests by African-Americans about the treatment they receive from the police.

Then the charges came forward.

It’s fair to point out something about the events that have developed since Gray’s death.

Three of the six officers charged with a felony are African-American; the other three are Anglo. The prosecutor is African-American.

This case should turn, as President Obama noted, on whether “justice” will be delivered. By my way of looking at the arrests of the officers and the charges they face, the officers’ racial composition suggests that race doesn’t have quite the sting in this case that it once did.

Yes, let’s allow justice to be done. Let’s also dial back the race-baiting.

local news, media news

Growing old is turning out OK … so far

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

The older I get the more I learn about myself.

One of things I am learning is how adaptable I have become. Actually, I’ve know about the adaptability for some time. My family and I moved from Oregon — where I grew up and spent most of my first 34 years on Earth — to Texas. I adapted just fine.

My journalism career brought tremendous change over the course of 37 years. In August 2012, when I started sensing my days were numbered at the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for more than 17 years, I fell back on my last line of defense in an effort to keep my job in the face of a reorganization scheme. I told my employer: “You’re asking me to make changes in the way I do things. Well, my craft today bears next to zero resemblance to what it was when I began, so the changes you’re asking me to make amount to a tiny fraction of the change I’ve already gone through.”

That pitch didn’t work. They assigned my duties to someone else and I walked away.

Adaptability: That’s my middle name, yes?

Well, I have found a whole new world of new things to which I can adapt.

I’m still writing. This blog is one outlet. I also am writing for Panhandle PBS — the Amarillo College-based public TV station formerly known as KACV-TV. I blog about public affairs programming: PBS documentaries, news specials, Panhandle PBS’s “Live Here” public affairs program. It’s a blast, man. I’ve taken on another writing assignment, for KFDA-NewsChannel 10. I write for the station’s website — newschannel10.com — and they use those news stories as the basis for weekly on-air broadcasts. That, too, is big-time hoot.

Now I’m taking on another task. Let’s call it “managing editor in absentia” for the Quay County Sun in Tucumcari, N.M. I’ve been asked to assist in producing the paper each week — from my home, using my laptop, cell phone and e-mail communication with a reporter who’ll produce the text. I’ve implored my friend, David Stevens — who works as executive editor  for the parent company that also publishes daily papers in Clovis and Portales, N.M. — to please keep looking aggressively for a permanent managing editor. He assures me he will.

But you see, what I’ve discovered is that there really is a market out there for old guys with (lots of) gray in their hair.

I still am looking forward to retirement, although it’s looking less likely that I’m a candidate for The Pasture any time soon.

My wife and I still have plans — eventually — to relocate closer to our granddaughter and her parents, who live just a bit north of Dallas. I hope to take much of my work with me, if it’s possible. The Internet Age has made that kind of transition available, even to old guys like me.

They have that saying about hindsight’s perfect vision. Our foresight remains quite fuzzy.

Neither my wife nor I ever could have imagined this stage of our life together turning out this way.

Hey, everyone needs some surprises in life.

Adaptability makes it easier to cope with them when they show up.

Sports news

Boxing has lost its allure

The question came to me today at work from my young friend Travis.

“Are you going to watch the fight?” he asked.

Nope. Not a chance. Zero.

Then I launched into a mini-tirade about the state of professional boxing today. In summary: It’s a joke, but a not-funny one.

“The fight” will be between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao for the world welterweight championship. Fight fans have been waiting for this one. It’s been called “The Fight of the Century.”

Yeah. Whatever.

My tirade to my young pal consisted of a walk through memory lane and about how pro boxing has developed multiple “champions of the world” in every weight class. Back when I used to watch boxing religiously, you had heavyweight, light-heavyweight, middleweight, welterweight, lightweight, featherweight, bantamweight and flyweight champs. These days you add “super” and “junior” to almost all those weight classes and the number of classifications is multiplied by a factor of 10 … or maybe 20. Hell, I don’t know.

Add to that the number of governing organizations that recognize these champions of the world. You have an alphabet-soup list of organizations claiming their piece of the world championship pie.

It’s a joke.

Back in the day, I told my friend, the heavyweight champion of the world was considered the “baddest man on Earth.” Yep. I refer to Muhammad Ali — who really was the baddest cat on the planet. And he was unafraid to proclaim it. Before him, well, the list is lengthy.

Boxing used to be fun. It is no longer of any interest to me.

Who’ll win “The Fight of the Century”? I don’t know … or care.