Monthly Archives: March 2016

national news, political news, State news

‘Rampant’ voter fraud in Texas? Not even close

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott describes the instances of voter fraud in this state as “rampant.”

The state, he said, has sought to curb the epidemic of voter fraud by requiring voters to produce photo ID — driver’s licenses, passports, etc. — when they go to the polling place.

The Texas Tribune’s Ross Ramsey, though, has shot down the governor’s assertion with an interesting analysis of Abbott’s challenge to a President Obama’s critique of Texas’ historically poor voter turnout.

The evidence of fraud is “scant,” according to Ramsey.

Here’s part of what Ramsey writes: “A study done by News21, an investigative journalism project at Arizona State University, looked at open records from Texas and other states for the years 2000-2011 and found 104 cases of voter fraud had been alleged in Texas over that decade.

“Chew on this: If you only count the Texans who voted in November general elections — skipping Democratic and Republican primaries and also special and constitutional elections — 35.8 million people voted during the period covered by the ASU study.

“They found 104 cases of voter fraud among 35.8 million votes cast. That’s fewer than three glitches per 1 million votes.”

Does that fit the description of “rampant” voter fraud?

Not exactly.

Obama made the point at a fundraiser the other evening that Texas remains one of the nation’s poorest-turnout states. I am not going to blame the voter ID push for driving down the turnout. Suffice to say, though, that Texas can — and should — do more to promote greater turnout.

I’ve lived in Texas for 32 years. I have been watching, reporting and commenting on the political process here for that entire time. I have no recollection ever of the state — from the governor’s office on down — launching a concerted effort to drive up voter participation.

There has seemed over all that time to be a sense of complacency, that the state puts little emphasis on greater turnout.

“The folks who are governing the good state of Texas aren’t interested in having more people participate,” the president told The Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith at South by Southwest Interactive.

Abbott’s response? He trotted out the allegation of “rampant” voter fraud. The numbers don’t add up.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Garland gets nod; let’s act on it, senators

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I’ve written already about why I believe President Obama deserves to have his Supreme Court appointment considered by the U.S. Senate.

It’s his prerogative to appoint someone; it’s the Senate’s prerogative to approve or reject it. The Constitution lays it out there. I understand the idea of “advise and consent.”

If senators object, then they should say so on the record. The idea of obstructing a nomination by refusing to consider it is offensive on its face … at least in my view.

The president today nominated D.C. Circuit Court chief judge Merrick Garland to the high court, replacing the late Antonin Scalia.

The politics of this fight overshadows everything else. It overshadows Garland’s impeccable credentials, his immense standing among legal scholars, his compelling personal story.

Scalia was the court’s leading conservative voice. He was an ideologue. Garland is a moderate. He’s known to be a non-ideologue, but according to conservatives, well, that makes him a flaming liberal.

The court’s balance would shift with Garland joining the court.

And that’s why the Senate Republican leadership is vowing to block the nomination by refusing even to consider it. The GOP won’t even allow a hearing. Hell, GOP senators say they won’t even meet with Garland.

The Republican leadership that says it wants the next president to make the appointment.

What happens, though, if the next president happens to be, oh, Hillary Rodham Clinton? Are they then willing to put this selection in the hands of a president who could appoint a true-life flaming liberal? Or should they give Merrick Garland the hearing he deserves and cut their losses?

Garland’s intelligence and legal knowledge are beyond reproach. Even Republicans said as much when they approved his nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court. If he’s as smart and scholarly now as he was then, it makes sense — or so it seems — that he’d be a fitting choice for the Supreme Court.

The fight has been joined.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the people should have a say in filling this court seat. Mr. Leader, the people have spoken on it — by re-electing Barack Obama as president of the United States.

 

local news

Let’s get busy with city manager search

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Amarillo interim City Manager Terry Childers has made it official.

He doesn’t want the permanent job. He doesn’t want to be considered for it. He wants to go home when the city finds a permanent replacement. Mayor Paul Harpole made the announcement Tuesday.

So, let’s get busy, gentlemen of the Amarillo City Council.

The city charter empowers the council to make precisely one hiring decision. This is it.

It hires the city’s chief executive officer and entrusts that individual to manage a payroll of several thousand individuals and oversee a budget of something in the neighborhood of $200 million a year.

Someone mishandled the appointment of Childers. The headhunting firm the council hired, Strategic Government Resources, failed to provide a large pile of documentation supporting its recommendation that the city hire Childers as the interim manager.

The city has decided to retain SGR to look for the permanent manager.

OK. So can the firm get it right this time?

Childers’ rocky start as the interim doesn’t mean he should be pushed out the door quickly. The city has time to consider who it wants to run the government machinery. It should be thorough, but shouldn’t dawdle.

Granted, Amarillo’s city government staff has virtually zero institutional knowledge in conducting a national search for a city manager. The last three managers all came from within the staff. This time it appears that the next manager will be someone who wants to come to Amarillo and oversee a city in transition.

And that transition is huge: downtown is undergoing a major makeover, street and highway construction is disrupting traffic flow, the city is embarking on a plan to revive neighborhoods.

It falls, then, on the council to make the most critical single decision it will make in deciding which individual is the best fit for the city.

This decision is big, fellows. Let’s get it right.

local news

Another blemish surfaces in the city manager saga

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Let’s see, how are we supposed to sort this out?

Amarillo hired a search firm to help locate an interim city manager after Jarrett Atkinson resigned his post this past year. It contracted with the firm, Strategic Government Resources, to provide detailed documentation of all the candidates it would present to City Hall for consideration.

Now we hear that the SGR didn’t do that with the man selected as the interim manager, Terry Childers.

We have learned that the city doesn’t even have a resume for Childers on file.

The city apparently relied on an oral report from the headhunter.

So, based on that report, it hired Childers, who — it turned out — managed to flub a 911 call to the Amarillo emergency call center when he misplaced a briefcase at a local hotel. He called the dispatch center and bullied the dispatcher while she followed the protocol she was instructed to follow.

Now the city has embarked on a search for a permanent city manager. Is it going to retain SGR to scour the nation for the right person?

According to City Councilman Brian Eades — who’s leaving the council this summer — his confidence in SGR has been “undermined in a way.”

Do you think?

The way I see it, when the city signs a contract with a headhunter that requires it to provide the requisite documentation on candidates who want to become the city’s chief executive officer — the individual who oversees a $200 million annual budget — the search had damn well better do what it pledges to do.

It seems that SGR dropped the ball in the city’s search for an interim manager.

Mayor Paul Harpole said the search for the permanent city manager will be different.

It had better.

 

national news, political news

Good news, bad news in GOP primary fight

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The good news for me tonight occurred in Ohio, where my favorite Republican presidential candidate, Gov. John Kasich, scored a home-state victory in the GOP primary.

The bad news is that my second-favorite Republican candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio, dropped out of the race because he couldn’t win his home state of Florida.

I’m sad to suggest that the bad news outweighs the good news.

Why? Because I don’t know where Kasich goes from here.

He doesn’t appear ready to win more state primaries as the field of three GOP contenders marches on down the primary trail. Sure, he’s going to proclaim a huge victory tonight.

Donald J. Trump, though, won most of the rest of the state battles. His delegate lead has grown a bit over the other scary GOP candidate, Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

At least, though, the remaining grown-up, the guy with an actual record of accomplishment in government, the fellow who speaks of compassion and constructive outlooks, the guy who said business owners should “pray” for customers with whom they might have spiritual difference is still in the race.

If only I could look a lot farther down the GOP campaign road to see him staying in the hunt for the presidency.

I can’t.

As for Rubio, well, he had emerged as my clear second pick among the Republicans. Yes, despite his childish counterattack against Trump in that debate, I believe young Marco — hey, he’s about the age of my older son, so I feel free to refer to him by his first name — came back strong in the Miami event with Trump, Cruz and Kasich.

It was for naught. He got smoked tonight in his home state by a charlatan masquerading as a serious candidate for the nation’s most glorious office.

So now we’re down to three candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. As I see it, we’ve got one adult left in the hunt competing against a know-nothing narcissist (Trump) and a fire-breathing demagogue (Cruz).

If only the adult had a chance to compete in this crazy, wacked-out GOP primary campaign season.

 

national news, political news

Trump saw it on Internet, which makes it true?

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Ezra Klein has hit on a matter that ought to send chills up the spines of even the most ardent of Donald J. Trump’s supporters.

Writing on Vox.com, the bright young journalist/researcher writes about something Trump said this past Sunday on “Meet the Press.”

Trump said the guy who rushed the stage in Dayton, Ohio, where he was speaking was a follower of the Islamic State. How did he know that? He saw something on the Internet, Trump said, which meant it just had to be true.

Is Trump too gullible to be president? That’s the question Klein seeks to answer. He seems to believe Trump’s gullibility disqualifies him categorically for the presidency.

As if he hasn’t disqualified himself already with all the countless earlier idiotic pronouncements he’s made.

The Internet is a valuable source for information. It’s also a source for nonsense.

For more years than I care to remember — perhaps ever since the Internet came on the scene — I’ve adhered to a certain policy: It is to believe the tiniest fraction of 1 percent of anything I read on the Internet. You cannot take seemingly anything at face value if you read it “on the Internet.”

I actually have spoken with people who submitted letters and essays to the newspaper where I worked with information that looked patently absurd, but who swore to me that it was true “because I saw it on the Internet.”

Trump’s assertion on national television Sunday morning that the stage rusher was an ISIS supporter based on Internet chatter demonstrates way beyond the shadow of any doubt of Trump’s unfitness for the office he is seeking.

The guy who rushed the stage? He’s an Italian-American named Thomas DiMassimo, a Christian … who denied immediately any ISIS allegiance. He said he was was just trying to make a scene.

Mission accomplished, dude.

 

local news

Hallmark takes himself out of WT running? Not so fast

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Rats!

I just read in the paper this morning that James Hallmark, recently selected by the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents to be West Texas A&M’s interim president is a member of the search committee looking for a permanent WT president.

The search team will seek to replace J. Patrick O’Brien who announced his retirement effective at the end of the current academic year, which is when Hallmark takes over the helm on an interim basis.

Thus, the story said, Hallmark won’t be a candidate for the permanent post.

That would seem to shoot down a theory I posted yesterday that regents had found their WT head man when they selected Hallmark as the interim. It means Hallmark will return to WT — where he served previously as provost/vice president for academic affairs before becoming vice chancellor for the A&M System.

See earlier post here.

But let’s hold on a moment.

I’ll take you back now about 16 years to the time when a certain Texas governor was about to sew up the Republican nomination for president of the United States.

George W. Bush called on his good friend — Dallas businessman Dick Cheney, the former defense secretary in Bush 41’s administration — to look for a vice presidential running mate.

Cheney and his search team looked high and low — supposedly — for the right candidate to run with W in the fall campaign against Vice President Albert Gore Jr.

Then, by golly something weird happened.

Gov. Bush chose Cheney! They went on to win the election and, as they say, the rest is, uhh, history.

So, you see, recent precedent has been set right here in Texas.

Is Hallmark, a man perfectly suited to lead the WT campus, really and truly out of the picture as the permanent president of the Canyon school?

I’m not taking that bait … just yet.

 

national news, political news

Please, no conspiracy theories about rally violence

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Donald J. Trump says Bernie Sanders has planted protesters at rallies to stir things up and provoke violence.

Sanders denies it categorically.

Now a Florida congressman — a Trump supporter — says Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign is guilty of prodding the Trumpsters into striking back at the protesters.

No word yet from the Clinton campaign; I’m quite sure there’ll be a categorical denial there, too.

Conspiracy theories have this way of never dying. JFK assassination? Area 51 cover-up? 9/11?

It might be that long after this campaign has ended, we’ll hear conspiracy theories kicked around about who started the violence at the Trump rallies as the candidate stumps for the Republican Party presidential nomination.

Here’s my theory.

Trump started it by inflaming his crowds from the podium.

Punch people in the face? Beat the “crap” out of someone? Offer to pay legal fees for those charged with crimes?

The candidate is inciting the violence and that — all by itself — is what gives this story its staying power.

I get that violence has occurred over many decades. The 1968 Democratic National Convention provoked a full-scale series of street riots in Chicago. Police vs. Protesters turned into the stuff of hideous, actual “reality TV” for those of us who watched it unfold.

It spilled onto the convention floor. Security personnel beat up delegates and media reporters.

Do you recall hearing pols exhorting protesters from the stage? Neither do I.

Yes, this campaign is vastly different.

It has brought the level of political campaigning to a level not seen by anyone, near as I can tell.

It’s also prompted the goofballs among us to suggest that it’s all being orchestrated by mysterious evil political opponents.

It’s not so complicated. The violence is a result of a candidate fomenting the anger expressed by those who support his bid for the presidency, which has dared those who oppose him to respond with protests.

Why in the name of sanity — and decency — can’t Donald J. Trump start delivering a positive message of change?

I hope it isn’t too late.

 

media news

Social media: curse and a blessing

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Social media drive me nuts.

I’m having fun with some of it. Other media sometimes confuse me. I use several media platforms to promote this blog. I am not entirely sure how well they’re serving my self-interest.

I have used one of my favorite social media outlets — Facebook — perhaps more than any other. I use it for a couple of purposes: to keep up with friends, family members and acquaintances and to distribute musings from this blog.

There’s a third purpose, too, I suppose: to offer some goofy musings on occasions.

It’s the third purpose that makes me wonder whether Facebook somehow is addictive. I’m thinking it is.

One of those musings was to declare my consideration of creating a Last Word Contest.

Here’s how it might go … if I were to proceed with launching it.

I would post a blog item that generates comments from my social media network. Do I then intend to answer every one of them? Do I seek to wear those blog readers down? Do I have the patience, the intestinal fortitude to stay the course?

Most importantly: Do I have the time?

I guess I would have to say I have none of the above.

It’s the time that breaks the deal for me.

I’ve got a large number of social media contacts along the networks to which I belong. I’m guessing it’s something north of 1,000 folks. A lot of them love to spend large amounts of time responding to this or that comment.

I’d spend that kind of time, too, I suppose if something really hit my hot button. The older I get the more it takes to fire me up. I mean really get me riled up.

I’m likely to decide ultimately against entering a rhetorical shooting match with anyone out there in social media land. Don’t take it to the bank just yet.

I might change my mind, which everyone is able to do.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep firing blog entries out there via social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr. I might look for some others.

I encourage everyone to comment on the entries. I don’t mind criticism as long as it deals with the substance of whatever I say; the personal stuff is another matter. I’ve even owned up to an error in judgment on occasion and stated my error publicly, on this blog!

Back in the day when I worked for daily newspapers I’d get into arguments with individuals who would question my love of country or even my faith when they took me to task for something I wrote.

Don’t go there, OK?

Indeed, that might be another reason to forgo the Last Word Contest. Some folks just can’t help themselves.

 

local news

Welcome back, James Hallmark

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If I were a betting man — and I’m not; heck, I don’t even play the lottery — I would wager that Texas A&M University System has just installed the next president of its campus in Canyon.

Here’s how it goes.

The A&M University System Board of Regents has named James Hallmark as the interim president of West Texas A&M University, effective upon the upcoming retirement of Pat O’Brien.

Interesting, yes? Sure it is.

Why? Because Hallmark just recently — I think it was a year or two ago — moved from the Panhandle to take an administrative post at the A&M “mother ship” campus in College Station.

Hallmark had served as provost and vice president for academic affairs at WT before he left for College Station to assume a vice chancellor post at A&M.

Now he’s coming back to become the “interim” head man at WT.

My strong hunch is that the regents might go through some kind of perfunctory search for a permanent president. It just looks for all the world, though, that they’ve found their man.

Is it a good thing? That depends. I don’t know Hallmark well, but I do know of his reputation, which my understanding is that it’s quite stellar.

My preference would be for regents to conduct a real national search to find a WT president and if Hallmark is one of the applicants and he competes with others, then he — and the school — are strengthened if he demonstrates an ability to lead the campus.

Then the system regents can ratify their decision to send them back to WT to take the reins of a growing university.