Perry heading for the exit?

September 4, 2015 kanelis2012

It isn’t supposed to end this way, but that’s where it’s headed.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the one-time TEA Party darling and conservative firebrand, is — shall we say — in a critical flameout.

The former U.S. Air Force pilot knows of what I speak. His campaign “engine” has stalled and he cannot get it to reignite.

I am not crying crocodile tears over this. Honestly, I was hoping he’d do better in this presidential campaign than he did in the previous one that was punctuated by the infamous “oops” moment.

Perry campaign on the ropes

Perry pulled the plug on his 2012 Republican presidential campaign, came back to Texas to finish his stint as the state’s governor; he rested up, cracked the books and studied the issues; then he returned to the campaign hoping to redeem himself.

Being that I prefer political redemption over condemnation in almost all cases, I was pulling for Perry to do better.

He’s not. He has run into the buzzsaw aka Donald Trump. The TEA Party faithful have turned to others, such as Trump, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina … oh, I could go on, but you get the point.

Perry has quit paying his campaign staff. He’ giving up on New Hampshire. Still, he calls the race a “marathon” and insists he’s in it for the duration.

Well, it now appears that the duration has arrived.

local news

MPEV: more than a ballpark

September 4, 2015 kanelis2012

This picture showed up on my Facebook news feed and it intrigued me because of what it represents.

It was taken in Lincoln, Neb. It depicts the kind of rally that could occur in a venue being considered for downtown Amarillo.

Another picture showed up as well. It came with some text about the upcoming Amarillo Chamber of Commerce barbecue, set for Sept. 10. It’ll take place along Polk Street in front of the chamber office. It’ll be choked with thousand of people. Advance Amarillo thinks the chamber event could be relocated to the proposed event venue planned for downtown.

Hmm. Interesting, yes?

Here’s another thought. The city’s annual Block Party, which feature food and music along several downtown blocks? Perhaps organizers could change the name of that event and move it as well into the MPEV.

At issue is the multipurpose event venue that is up for an advisory vote on Nov. 3. Amarillo residents will be asked whether they support the MPEV as it’s been presented. Yes means yes; no means no.

But I’m beginning to see some creative thought by those who see uses for the MPEV that go far beyond it being a ballpark venue for whatever minor-league baseball team decides to play ball at the $32 million site.

I keep hoping we can get beyond the visceral negativity that seems to be driving much of the municipal debate concerning the MPEV. Critics don’t believe the city’s residents are able or willing to attend events at the MPEV.

I keep scratching my head and keep wondering: Why are some of us so wiling to dismiss the possibilities without first examining what they might include?

Sports news

Deflategate comes to an end

September 4, 2015 kanelis2012

A young man with whom I am acquainted is a happy fellow.

Trevor is as die-hard a New England Patriots fan as anyone this side of Cape Cod. However, he lives way out here on the Texas Tundra, in Amarillo.

But by golly, he loves them Pats. He went to this year’s Super Bowl game in Arizona that the Patriots won in that remarkable fashion over the Seattle Seahawks.

I know he’s happy because a judge today tossed out a four-game suspension handed to Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who’d been accused of conspiring to deflate some footballs prior to the Patriots’ AFC championship game victory over the Indianapolis Colts. The Pats won the game by a zillion points, so the deflating of the balls — no matter who did it — never really mattered.

But Brady got pounded with that four-game suspension handed down by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Well, the suspension has been lifted. The NFL will appeal. My hunch is that the judge’s ruling will stand. Brady will take the first snap when the Patriots’ regular season begins.

Trevor will be made whole again.

I happen to agree with most Pats fans, that the four-game suspension was too severe. Brady perhaps needed some sanction. Fine him a lot of money; hey, he can afford it.

Four games? It was too much.

As for the appeal that Brady launched several months ago, consider this little item: He appealed his suspension to the league and the arbitrator was none other than the same man who administered the suspension in the first place, Roger Goodell!

Is that fair?

I think not.

So, let’s get on with the pro football season. As for the air pressure inside those footballs, don’t let the players anywhere near the balls until it’s time for them to take the field.

Brady suspension lifted

legal news, national news, political news, religious news

Clerk goes to jail for violating her oath

September 4, 2015 kanelis2012 2 Comments

The Kim Davis story is driving me batty.

She’s now in jail because she won’t perform the duties as county clerk that are required of her. She took an oath to perform them. Now she’s saying she cannot because her “conscience” won’t allow her to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

A judge found her in contempt of court and threw her into the slammer.

Mike Huckabee has entered the fray by declaring that Davis’s jailing proves that the government has criminalized Christianity. The former Arkansas governor and current Republican presidential candidate says Davis is within her rights to invoke her “religious liberty” by refusing to follow the mandate set down by the United States Supreme Court.

Huck is wrong.

Davis’s religious liberty is not being challenged here. She is free to pray as she wishes. She is free to attend whatever church she wants. She is not free to flout the oath of office she took that says she shall uphold state and federal law.

The federal law now includes a decision by the Supreme Court that says gay couples are entitled under the U.S. Constitution to be married. But then Huckabee dismisses that ruling, declaring on Davis’s behalf that, by golly, that decision merely comes from “nine unelected federal judges.”

Davis, as county clerk in Rowan County, Ky., is required to follow that law.

She hasn’t done so. She’s now in jail.

She needs to quit. Or … she needs to be removed from office.

Let’s put this story to bed. It’s gone on long enough.

national news

Emergencies often build lifetime friendships

September 3, 2015 kanelis2012

This picture speaks volumes to me, and I’m sure it does to others.

The young man is Michael Maroney, who in 2005 was serving as an Air Force pararescue jumper.

The little girl is LaShay Brown. She’s hugging Maroney’s neck because the jumper had just saved LaShay and her family from Hurricane Katrina’s savage onslaught in New Orleans.

A decade later, Maroney and LaShay have hooked up again. He found the girl who’s now a teenager living in Mississippi.

“I was a single father trying to raise two boys. I had just gotten back from Afghanistan, and New Orleans was under water,” Maroney, now 40, told The Washington Post. “When she hugged me, everything went away. There were no problems in that moment. That meant everything to me.”

Little girl hugs with joy

As it should.

These are the kinds of stories that have been told and retold in the decade since the Katrina disaster. President Obama went to New Orleans this past week to salute the city’s return. Former President Bush went there as well to pay his tribute to the strength of the residents who endured nature’s wrath.

Yes, we have talked in recent days about some of the failures of government at all levels to do right by those who suffered.

But an Air Force serviceman, Michael Maroney, did his part to deliver a little girl and her family from the storm. “I can’t wait to meet her to tell her how important she is,” Maroney told People magazine. “In my line of work, it doesn’t usually turn out happily. This hug, this moment, was like — everybody I’ve ever saved, that was the thank you.”

They have become friends for life.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

religious news

Ten Commandments, anyone?

September 3, 2015 kanelis2012

So …

I’m talking with a friend at work this afternoon. We’re chatting about the controversy over in Kentucky with that rogue county clerk, Kim Davis, who refuses to issue marriage licenses to gay couples because of her religious objection to same-sex marriage.

I mention to my friend that Davis — it turns out — has been thrice divorced and, get this, she gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband. The father of her twins, incidentally, is the man she would take later as husband No. 3.

“Well, let’s see,” my friend said, “I think she’s violated at least one of the Ten Commandments.” We both chuckled.

Then he noted, “I don’t think any of the Commandments says anything about homosexuality.”

Bingo!

International news

Senate saves Obama’s Iran deal

September 3, 2015 kanelis2012

With “approval” — if you want to call it that — of the Iran nuclear deal all but sewn up, it’s good to examine briefly how President Obama will be able to declare victory.

This is not what you’d call a smashing mandate. He will have won this fight on a split decision, a legislative technicality.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., today delivered the 34th Democratic vote in favor of the deal. What does that mean? It means that if the Republican-led Senate approves a resolution opposing the deal, Democrats now have enough votes to sustain a presidential veto when it comes; the Senate needs a two-thirds vote to override a veto but Mikulski’s endorsement of the deal prevents that from occurring.

But there’s more to this drama.

Senate Democrats now are seeking seven more votes to give them 41 votes in favor of the deal, which would enable them to filibuster the GOP resolution opposing it to death. It takes three-fifths of the body to stop a filibuster. If Democrats get to the magic number, then the resolution won’t get to President Obama’s Oval Office desk.

Game over.

This is a big deal for the president. It would have been far better for him to win outright approval of the deal, which — according to negotiators — “blocks all pathways” for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. That has been goal No. 1 all along. No one with a semblance of sanity want that rogue state to develop an atom bomb. The deal is designed to prevent it from happening.

Of course, Republicans oppose it. Maybe it’s just because they detest the Democratic president so much that they’ll seek to deny him any kind of diplomatic victory.

The alternative to this deal? That remains a mystery. As Sen. Michael Bennett, D-Colo., said, there’s no better deal out there. Bennett is officially in the “undecided” category of senators.

If a Plan B includes going to war with Iran to prevent it from obtaining a nuke, I’ll settle gladly for this diplomatic solution.

Don’t look for any payoff in the near future. The impact of this deal will become known long after Barack Obama leaves office.

Senate saves Iran deal

religious news

Kim Davis redefines hypocrisy

September 2, 2015 kanelis2012 2 Comments

Oh, my. I don’t know where to begin with this little item.

Rowan County (Ky.) Clerk Kim Davis remains on the job, even though she refuses to follow the oath she took to follow the laws of her state and nation. Those laws say that gay couples are entitled to be married.

That’s not God’s law, Davis says. So, she’s refusing to follow the law.

Davis’ marital history

Then there’s this: Davis is married to her fourth husband. She’s been divorced three times. That’s not as big a deal as this next tidbit, which is that she gave birth to twins five months after divorcing her first husband.

Five months. Do that math and recall your sex education teaching about human gestation.

I believe Scripture has plenty to say about sex outside of marriage, not to mention adultery. But, hey, who’s keeping track?

In another interesting twist, the twins were fathered by Davis’s third husband, but were adopted by her second husband. I mention that only because it, well, doesn’t exactly fall into the category of a “traditional family.”

Davis has brought all this scrutiny on herself by declaring her strong belief in God’s holy word.

However, she works for a secular government agency. She is drawing a paycheck financed by the public, many of whom, I’m quite certain, disagree with her refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

And no matter what the county clerk says, God’s word does not supersede the oath she took when she took public office. The oath requires her to follow the law of the land.

She’s refusing to do so. Davis needs to quit her job … immediately.

International news, national news, political news

One view of Trump … from Down Under

September 2, 2015 kanelis2012

I took the liberty the other day of reaching to the other side of the planet for an opinion on Donald Trump.

A fellow I met 15 years ago is a smart and savvy political observer and commentator. Peter Adams used to work as a broadcast journalist and he’s been an astute observer of American politics for many years. He lives in Adelaide, Australia with his wife and children. He remains keenly interested in happenings in this country and we have stayed in touch over the years.

So, I asked Peter: What’s the word on the street in a major city Down Under about Trump’s Republican nomination candidacy? He responded with this:

“Much of the TV coverage is devoted to his rather strident rhetoric, while the press/online coverage is already looking at why he won’t get the formal nomination.

“As indicated, we won’t switch on until the primaries next year … so in the meantime we’re enjoying Trump as some sort of political comic relief.

“The fact that he’s even dishing out on Fox News hosts means he adheres to the concept of equal opportunity … i.e. he’ll offend everyone!

“If the political process and media scrutiny don’t get him, satire will. Someone will rise to harpoon him much like Tina Fey did to Sarah Palin.

“A disaster was averted and the world got a bloody good laugh along the way.

” …Trump should be given every legitimate avenue the Republican Party allows to make it abundantly clear to its electoral colleges and the American people why he would be a domestic and foreign policy disaster and would reduce the US to an international laughingstock. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, they’ll eventually do the right thing … once every other option is exhausted. The Democrats will be licking their lips with delight at all of this. Hillary brings enough political baggage with her to fill a jumbo jet, but The Donald may well provide the lucky break that helps turn her career.

“But from there, I can only imagine the weapons-grade political conniving she’ll bring to the Oval Office.”

Strange, isn’t it, how the view from so far away looks so much — to my way of thinking, at least — like the view from right here?

national news, political news

Fiorina: GOP’s anti-Trump secret weapon

September 2, 2015 kanelis2012

Carly Fiorina has scored a huge political victory … possibly.

The result may produce a victory for the Republican Party establishment that cringes at the prospect of Donald J. Trump becoming the party’ 2016 presidential nominee.

CNN is playing host to the second GOP debate in two weeks. It re-did its ground rules for who will appear on the “first team” debate stage. It apparently gives Fiorina a legitimate shot at joining the other leading Republican presidential candidates. The change involves the polling strategy that CNN is using to determine which of the candidates deserve a shot at appearing in its top-tier debate.

This is a big deal on at least two levels.

First, Fiorina — who took part in the “happy hour debate” sponsored last month by Fox News — killed it in that encounter with six other second-tier candidates. For my money — and in the eyes of many observers — Fiorina outmaneuvered the other candidates and acquitted herself quite nicely in that encounter.

Fiorina wins big

Meanwhile, the Fox News main event, featuring Donald Trump and nine other challengers, provided an amazing sideshow that continues to this day, with Trump feuding with Fox and with the network’s anchor Megyn Kelly over the tone and nature of a question Kelly posed about Trump’s record of anti-women rhetoric.

Which brings me to the second level of Fiorina’s victory.

She is likely now to be on the same stage with Trump at the CNN joint appearance. I’m salivating at the notion of Fiorina possibly baiting Trump into saying something profoundly crass about women, or about Fiorina in particular — and seeing whether Fiorina blows him out of the water with her own quick wit and sharp tongue.

Do you think the Republican establishment is waiting with bated breath to see whether Trump finally implodes?

If he does, the party brass may have to thank Carly Fiorina for lighting the fuse.

High Plains Blogger

Monthly Archives: September 2015

Perry heading for the exit?

MPEV: more than a ballpark

Deflategate comes to an end

Clerk goes to jail for violating her oath

Emergencies often build lifetime friendships

Ten Commandments, anyone?

Senate saves Obama’s Iran deal

Kim Davis redefines hypocrisy

One view of Trump … from Down Under

Fiorina: GOP’s anti-Trump secret weapon

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