Monthly Archives: June 2016

education news, national news, political news, State news

Two young scholars become immediate symbols

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Welcome to the world of political discourse, Larissa Martinez and Mayte Lara.

These two young women are accomplished scholars. Larissa finished first in her Boyd High School class in McKinney, Texas; Mayte was valedictorian of her Crocket High School class down yonder, in Austin.

What sets these two scholars apart? They are the daughters of parents who sneaked into the United States illegally.

Larissa revealed her undocumented status during her valedictory speech to fellow graduating seniors in McKinney. Mayte disclosed her status in a tweet message and has received a lot of angry — often hateful — responses over the social media network.

They also typify what is so profoundly wrong with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump’s impractical — and inhumane — proposal to round up all illegal immigrants for immediate deportation back to their home countries.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/10/brief-june-10-2016/?mc_cid=b15f8d77df&mc_eid=c01508274f

These two young women are precisely the opposite of the generalization that Trump laid on those who enter this country illegally. You’ll recall when he said the “Mexican government is sending” hardened criminals across the border into the United States, while offering the tepid “I’m sure there are some good people, too” who are coming here illegally.

His solution is to “build a wall” and send out an undetermined number of federal agents to round up every undocumented immigrant they can find.

What about the achievers among them? What about the children who came here as, say, infants or toddlers and who grew up as Americans?

What about the scholars such as Larissa and Mayte?

I won’t fall into the trap of over-generalization and suggest that every single child of an illegal immigrant is as accomplished as these two young women. Yes, illegal immigrants have committed some horrible crimes — as have immigrants who’ve entered here legally and Americans who were born and reared within our sovereign borders.

What does the future hold for these two individuals?

Larissa is going to attend Yale University, while Mayte will stay closer to home and attend the University of Texas.

I suspect great things await them — as long as they’re allowed to continue to pursue their American dream.

As the Texas Tribune has noted, Trump will be in North Texas next week for a series of fundraising events. Larissa would like to meet with the candidate. “Yes, I would love to talk to him,” she told WFAA-TV. “I think he even needs to know we are people too.”

 

 

national news, political news

Unity usually wins these elections

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It’s almost a lead-pipe cinch that the political party that’s unified going into a presidential election is the one that wins.

The two major parties now have presumptive nominees for the presidency.

Donald J. Trump reached that milestone first in the Republican Party primary. It’s been, shall we say, a rocky ride ever since. Republicans in Congress are offering all kinds of qualifiers in suggesting that they’ll vote for Trump, but they cannot yet “endorse” him.

Hillary Rodham Clinton then clinched the Democratic Party nomination. The chatter all across the nation has been that the party is now ready to rally behind her. Bernie Sanders says he’ll keep fighting, but bet on this: He won’t take the fight all the way to the finish line. Not only that, the president of the United States today endorsed Clinton, as did progressive champion U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Ladies and gents, we have a serious fight on our hands.

We keep hearing things about the disarray within the Trump campaign team. Clinton delivered that blistering foreign policy critique of Trump the other day, but Trump didn’t respond in any significant way.

Today, Warren delivered an equally ferocious attack on Trump’s fitness for the job. The GOP candidate’s response once again was muted.

It’s a political truism that unity wins elections. Republicans and Democrats both have learned that lesson the hard way. Democrats in 1968 and again in 1972 were split between hawks and doves; Republicans united behind their ticket and won both times, with the 1972 election being a 49-state blowout. Republicans in 1976 found themselves split at their convention, while Democrats rallied behind Jimmy Carter; Democrats won that campaign.

We’ve still got 150-some days before the 2016 election. The dynamics might change. Then again, the unified party — the Democrats — might ratchet up the pressure beyond Republicans’ ability to withstand it.

I’m betting, though, that everyone’s other prediction about this campaign will stand.

It’s going to be negative … in the extreme.

national news, political news

Obama endorses ‘most qualified’ candidate for POTUS

barack-obama-and-hillary-clinton-2012

I admire President Barack Obama.

His two terms as president of the United States will be judged ultimately as a success, no matter what his critics keep harping at today with statements of his alleged “failed presidency.”

Thus, I accept his endorsement today of Hillary Rodham Clinton as a potentially decisive event in the upcoming election.

He called his fellow Democrat Clinton the “most qualified” person ever to seek the presidency.

Right there, Mr. President, I will beg to differ.

The most qualified individual ever to seek — and hold — the office is a Republican … in my humble view.

That would be George H.W. Bush, the 41st president.

I’ve taken note before about President Bush’s sparkling pre-presidency credentials: Navy combat aviator during World War II; successful businessman; member of Congress; special envoy to China; CIA director; Republican Party chairman; U.N. ambassador; vice president of the United States.

I don’t want to quibble too much with the president over this. Indeed, Hillary Clinton is supremely qualified to be president and commander in chief. Her resume includes first lady of the United States, U.S. senator and secretary of state.

“Most qualified,” though, is a stretch. Her record is stellar, but not as stellar as the one compiled by President Bush.

Partisan politics being what it is, though, a Democratic president isn’t going to offer credit to someone from the other party while endorsing a member of his own party to become the next president.

The credit that extends across the aisle is left to be handed out by those of us out here in the proverbial peanut gallery.

Thus, I am doing so here.

business news, local news

Mayor creates a scene where none was needed

mayor and nair

I know that politicians hate hypotheticals … at least that’s what they say.

Here’s one anyway.

You’re a business owner looking for a place to relocate your business. You hear that Amarillo is a business-friendly city with an economic development agency that parcels out sales-tax revenue to new businesses looking to expand local payrolls.

You think: Hey, that sounds like a good place to live and work.

Then  you hear about the City Council’s current state of dysfunction. You understand that three new council members joined the panel in the spring of 2015. Two incumbents got ousted; a third council member didn’t run for election. The three new guys have butted heads with the two holdovers publicly.

One of the council holdovers then announces he is leaving the city this summer. The council puts out a call for applicants. They get 14 of them; the council winnows them down to five finalists. Then word hits the street one of the finalists has put out some unflattering and insulting social media commentary. The council is getting pressure to rethink whether to interview this individual.

And on top of all that, the mayor storms out of an executive session, declaring to the public that he doesn’t “trust the process.”

Is this still the place where you want to relocate your business?

Maybe … then again, maybe not.

I mention this because of Mayor Paul Harpole’s demonstration of petulance this week. He knows how much I respect him and that I generally support his agenda for the city. He’s a good man with a solid personal history; I consider him a “brother,” given his Vietnam War experience.

Harpole is a passionate advocate for Amarillo and if you’ve ever listened to his speech about downtown redevelopment efforts, you might be inclined stand and cheer.

I just wish he hadn’t made such a show of the executive session episode, which well might have telegraphed to business owners just like my hypothetical example that Amarillo’s municipal government is in a state of serious dysfunction.

Amarillo doesn’t have a “strong mayor” form of government. The mayor casts one vote that carries precisely the same weight as the other four City Council members. The mayor, though, does preside over meetings of the governing council and is in a position to exert his “bully pulpit” authority over the rest of the body.

I haven’t discussed the events leading up to this spate of pique with the mayor. They did occur in private session, so he’s not obligated to say what happened when the council was meeting in secret.

Perhaps he thought he was making an appropriate political statement by leaving the session in the hands of his colleagues.

He also well might have made another kind of statement about the quality of leadership that exists at City Hall.

I fear the mayor has inflamed an already inflammatory environment.

national news, political news

Anti-Trump movement gains more ‘talk’

Donald Trump speaks during the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee April 10, 2015. REUTERS/Harrison McClary - RTR4WVBQ

It’s all talk at the moment.

That talk, though, is getting a bit louder … apparently.

Some Republican kingmakers are floating the idea that the GOP is going to seek a replacement nominee to push Donald J. Trump aside at the party’s presidential nominating convention this summer.

They’re scared that Trump leading the Republican ticket this fall is going to steer the party into a meat-grinder in the form of Democratic Party nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/talk-grows-replacing-trump-convention-000000790.html

What I’m not hearing or seeing is precisely how this coup would occur in Cleveland.

Honestly — and it pains me to say this about Trump — the party needs to swallow hard and accept that Trump is its nominee. He’s the guy who won more votes than anyone else. He won them fairly and squarely. He has enough delegates now to secure the nomination on the first ballot.

I don’t know where the anti-Trump forces think they’re going to collect enough convention delegate votes to overturn the primary election process.

If the nominee keeps enraging constituent groups with continued insults, then the GOP is doomed to be handed its head at the ballot box this November.

Then it well could be time for the Republican Party to begin a long-term restructuring aimed at returning it to the mainstream of political debate. They did it after the 1964 debacle with Barry Goldwater’s crushing defeat at the hands of Lyndon Johnson. Democrats did as well after George McGovern got steamrolled in 1972 as Richard Nixon cruised to re-election.

Trump has won his party’s nomination on the up and up.

Let him now lead the party to whatever fate awaits it.

 

local news

High-tech gadgets can truly astound

Touchscreen smartphone with Earth globe

I’ve just treated myself to one of the joys of high-tech gadgetry.

It took me years to purchase a cell phone. I declared my intention to be the last man on Earth to own one of them; I declared victory in that pursuit some years ago and bought one.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I — at the relentless insistence of one of our sons — upgraded our phones. We now have “smart phones” that enable us to do a lot of things. We navigate with them; we play games on them; we receive instant communication on them; we are able to receive text message and text in return.

Frankly, I use only a tiny fraction of the apps available on this fancy gadget of mine.

But here’s the thing that knocks me out: We have this device in our Prius called a Bluetooth that pipes these text messages through our radio speaker; we also have one in our big ol’ Dodge pickup.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Bluetooth has been around for some time. Just indulge me for a moment.

My wife and I were driving our Prius. My smart phone chirped at me. I’d gotten a text message from a young man with whom I work. The voice then came through the speaker and said, “Read it or ignore.” I replied “read.” The voice told me what the text message said. The voice then said “reply, ignore or hang up.” I said “reply.” I then offered my young friend a one-word response to the question he had posed in the text message.

Then I instructed the voice to hang up.

I did all this while driving our little hybrid vehicle. I never touched my phone. I didn’t fumble-finger my way through the keypad trying to send a text message while driving — not that I’d ever do it anyway, you know?

Believe me, I try like the dickens to be a 21st-century American. I’m getting there little by little.

Are you impressed?

Me, too.

local news, national news, political news, State news

Come back, Republican Party

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I share Barack Obama’s concern for the Republican Party.

Yes, the president of the United States — the nation’s leading Democrat, at least until January — is concerned that the GOP is fading away, it is morphing into something that cannot join in the act of governing.

That’s what he told late-night comic Jimmy Fallon in an interview to be broadcast tonight.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/282812-obama-im-worried-about-the-republican-party

Spoiler alert: The interview is a scream.

Obama said his party is delighted at the prospect of facing Donald J. Trump in this year’s presidential election. Trump’s fellow Republicans, though, aren’t so thrilled.

The president said the Republican presidential nominee should be someone who can do the job, understands the issues at hand, and “ultimately can still move the country forward.”

Does that sound like Donald Trump?

I’ve seen dominant political parties here in Texas. Both of them — Democrats and Republicans — have at times abused their dominance over the other side.

I came to Texas in the spring of 1984 and settled in the Golden Triangle region, which at the time remained a strong “yellow dog Democrat” stronghold. Local Republicans felt disrespected and dismissed by Democrats who held tightly onto virtually every office in three counties — Jefferson, Orange and Hardin.

The political landscape has shifted dramatically in Texas. Republicans now are the top dogs. They have clamped vise grips on every statewide office in Texas.

I moved to the Panhandle in January 1995 — and into the heart of GOP Country.

The Democratic Party virtually doesn’t even exist here, no matter what the few of them around the Panhandle would say.

Has it been good to have one party so dominant? No.

The president’s point, though, is that the national GOP has become something unrecognizable from the party that used to take pride in being able to govern.

As the president told Fallon: “But what’s happened in that party culminating in this current nomination, I think is not actually good for the country as a whole. It’s not something Democrats should wish for. And my hope is, is that maybe once you get through this cycle, there’s some corrective action and they get back to being a center-right party. And Democratic Party being a center-left party. And we start figuring how to work together.”

Work together. I believe that’s how government works best.

 

national news, political news

Political tradition may be in jeopardy

The American political system produces many memorable traditions.

One of them involves an event in which the candidates for president of the United States gather in New York to honor a memorial fund established in memory of the late New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith.

The candidates poke fun at each other, and at themselves.

These two clips are from the 2012 event featuring President Obama, the Democratic nominee, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president.

It is absolutely hilarious! As is the 2008 event with U.S. Sens. Obama and John McCain.

My question today is this: Is this tradition in jeopardy in light of the obvious disdain that the current presumptive nominees — Republican Donald J. Trump and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton — have for each other?

I’m trying to imagine Trump shrugging off “good-natured” barbs being thrown at him by Clinton. I’m also having difficulty imagining Trump being able to muster up the kind of delivery it takes to sling a zinger at Clinton, who then would laugh out loud.

I’ve noted already what NBC News political director Chuck Todd has observed, that neither Clinton or Trump offered words of congratulations to each other the other night after they secured their respective parties’ nominations.

That omission speaks to what looks to a lot of us as a precursor to the kind of campaign no one wants to see.

One of the beauties of our political system — and the people who participate in it — is that they’ve always found time to put the daggers back in the scabbard long enough to speak with good humor to some common good.

Is that tradition in jeopardy this year?

 

national news, political news, State news

A vote is not an ‘endorsement’ … Hmmm

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Can we split this hair any more finely than this?

Put this another way: How can a vote for a candidate be seen anything other than endorsement?

U.S. Rep. Bill Flores is a Republican from Bryan, Texas, who says he’s going to vote for Donald J. Trump for president of the United States … but he isn’t going to “endorse” him.

While I scratch my head over that one, I’ll just ask out loud: Didn’t he just endorse the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee?

Flores is angry at Trump over the candidate’s suggestion that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel cannot preside over a case involving Trump University because of his Mexican heritage.

As the Texas Tribune reported: “I was incredibly angry to see Mr. Trump question a judge’s motives because of his ethnicity,” (Flores) added. “Like tens of millions of Americans, I will not vote for Hillary Clinton and desire to vote for a bold, conservative leader. Mr. Trump can be that leader, and we are ready to help him when he focuses on vision instead of inappropriate attacks.”

But … no endorsement, right?

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/08/texas-republican-congressman-refuses-endorse-donal/

The Republican Party political class is facing this difficulty across the nation. A lot of pols seem willing to acknowledge they’ll vote for Trump, but they won’t endorse him.

I guess that means they won’t stand on a campaign stage and hoist their presidential nominee’s hand in the air. They won’t introduce him to crowds with glowing praise.

Is it interesting to anyone — other than yours truly — that the Democrats don’t appear to have this problem with their presumed presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton? Are we hearing Democratic politicians say things that Rep. Flores is saying, that they’ll vote for Clinton but won’t endorse her?

Yes, I’ve seen the polls that suggest a lot of Democrats who currently support Bernie Sanders will defect to Trump if Clinton gets the party nomination.

We’ll see, though, whether that defection rate holds up as the general election campaign moves forward.

Meantime, I’ll be watching other Republican political leaders try to explain how a commitment to vote for Donald Trump isn’t an endorsement of his presidential candidacy.

national news, political news

Yep, here comes the negativity

1 Comment

clinton trump

NBC News anchor Lester Holt asked a straightforward question.

“Are you going to campaign insult for insult against Donald Trump?” Holt asked presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

“No,” she answered, “He can run a campaign on insults. We’re going to campaign on the issues.”

What, pretell, are those issues? She said she’s going to keep reminding voters that Trump is “temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief.”

Sigh.

There you have it. Clinton said she’s going to campaign “on the issues,” and then spoke candidly about her presumptive Republican opponent’s temperament.

Is that an “issue”? Yes.

The question now facing the Republican Party brass that is gritting its teeth over whether Trump is capable of keeping his cool is: How is he going to respond?

They fear — with good reason — that Trump is fully capable of flying off the rails. He’s shown that propensity all along the campaign trail so far.

Here’s a scenario that could repeat itself. Longtime observers of Texas politics will remember when this happened.

The year was 1990. Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ann Richards was campaigning against Republican nominee Clayton Williams.

The two of them shared a dais at an event late in the campaign. They each spoke to the crowd. Then as the event drew to a close, Richards walked over to Williams and extended her hand.

Williams refused to shake it. He called Richards a “liar.”

News photographers and TV cameras picked up the snub and reported all over Texas. How did the optics play? Not well … at all!

Williams’s refusal to “shake the hand of a lady” insulted a lot of Texans vicariously.

Richards defeated Williams to become the state’s governor.

Something tells me — if Clinton keeps talking “issues” relating to Trump’s temperamental fitness — that Donald Trump is fully capable of repeating Claytie’s mistake.