Tag Archives: Barack Obama

national news, political news

Networks create GOP debate monster

Barack Obama is touring East Africa at the moment, seeking to build some common ground and alliances in the war against terrorism.

Meanwhile, back home, the thundering herd of Republicans are trying to outshout each other while seeking one of 10 spot on a debate stage in Cleveland, Ohio.

The president calls the GOP’s “ad hominem attacks” on U.S. foreign policy “ridiculous” and “sad.”

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-chides-2016-candidates-ridiculous-sad-remarks-115421880–election.html#

I believe, Mr. President, what we’re seeing here is the result of a Fox- and CNN-inspired creation: The candidates are trying to one-up each other, seeking to boost their poll numbers among GOP primary voters so they can be seen and heard among the “top tier” candidates participating in the first two Republican primary debates.

Mike Huckabee said the president’s deal that seeks an end to Iran’s nuclear program will walk “Israelis to the oven,” an obvious reference to the Holocaust. Do you think the former Arkansas governor is trying to make some noise here, trying to become eligible to take part in the Fox-sponsored debate that will take place in a few days?

All the GOP contenders, of course, are trying to derail the current frontrunner — Donald Trump — who’s said so many outrageous things in so many equally outrageous contexts.

Fox said the top 10 candidates’ poll numbers will determine who stands on the debate stage. CNN, which hosts the second debate, is following more or less than same script.

The networks are going to determine who gets heard on national TV.

To get there, the networks are laying the groundwork for candidates to make outrageous statements designed to boost poll ratings, appealing to “the base” of their party.

The GOP campaign has devolved into name-calling, again in the interest of boosting poll numbers.

Oh, my. It’s just the beginning.

 

national news, political news

Where have you gone, Capitol Hill collegiality?

A Facebook exchange with a friend today brought to mind a missing ingredient in today’s political recipe.

Collegiality is gone. Maybe forever, for all I know … although I hope it makes a comeback.

The exchange was precipitated by a blog I posted about President Reagan’s 11th commandment, which the late president decreed should prohibit Republicans from speaking ill of other Republicans.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2015/07/23/what-happened-to-the-gippers-11th-commandment/

My friend responded by saying the blog post reminded him of why he still missed The Gipper. He added that Reagan and the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill, the tough Boston Democrat, liked each other’s company, even though they agreed on virtually nothing.

This all brings to mind some other unusual political friendships on Capitol Hill: RepublicanĀ Orrin Hatch and Democrat Ted Kennedy; Republican Bob Dole and Democrat Daniel Inouye; Republican Barry Goldwater and Democrat George McGovern; Republican Everett Dirksen and Democrat Lyndon Johnson. (Indeed, the Dirksen-Johnson friendship carried over into LBJ’s presidency.)

Two of those friendships — Dole and Inouye, and Goldwater and McGovern — were forged by common experiences during World War II. Dole and Inouye suffered grievous injury fighting in Europe and spent time in rehab together, where they formed a friendship that would last a lifetime; Goldwater and McGovern both flew combat missions as Army Air Corps pilots and they carried that common bond with them into the Senate.

These are the kinds of relationships we don’t see these days.

What we see instead is a continuation of what then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich once admonished of his Republican troops in the House of Representatives. It was to treat Democrats as the “enemy of normal Americans.”

The enemy? Yes, that was the word he used.

The parties today seem to have carried that outlook well into the 21st century.

It’s shameful in the extreme and it has resulted in the kind of gridlock that stalls the progress of worthwhile legislation. Democrats sought to throw roadblocks in front of Republican President George W. Bush and we’ve seen the payback in the form of even more intense opposition from congressional Republicans who seek to block everything that Democratic President Barack Obama pushes forward.

Each side is pulled away from the center by extremists. “Compromise” has become a four-letter word. Both sides ignore the basis of how legislation is conceived, created and completed.

Remember when Sen. Mitch McConnell declared in 2009Ā his “main goal” would be to make Barack Obama a “one-term president”?

There you have it. The Age of Collegiality has given way to the Age of Confrontation.

And they call this “good government.” Give me a break.

military news, national news

Thank you, Mr. President, for honoring those victims

President Obama heard the critics and he responded.

Today, the president ordered the White House flag, along with flags flying over all other federal buildings, to be lowered to half-staff in honor of the five men slain in Chattanooga, Tenn. The five men — four Marines and a sailor — were killed by a gunman who then was shot to death by police.

Many had criticized the president for not lowering the flags immediately. His reasons for the delay aren’t clear, but now that he’s acted, I’m glad that he did. Yes, I was one of the critics who said the White House flag needed to be lowered.

Obama lowers White House flag

U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, who happens to be my congressman, urged the president to “do the right thing” and lower the flag.

I’m not sure whether this announcement and the president’s stated tribute to the young men will assuage the criticism of those such as Thornberry, who’s been a constant critic of Obama, but we all should now take heed of the act and honor these men’s memories and their dedication to the country they loved.

national news

Lower the flag, Mr. President

Readers of this blog know that I tilt left, and that I generally support the policies put forth by the Obama administration.

However, the president hasĀ made a mistakeĀ — so far, at least — by not ordering a simple act of tribute to five brave men.

These are the individuals who were killed in the massacre in Chattanooga, Tenn. Four of them were Marines, one was a sailor.

A gunman shot them to death. All five were on active duty. All of them essentially died in service to their country.

The White House flag should be lowered to half-staff to honor their memory. And unlike the situation in South Carolina, where that state’s legislature had to approve a bill to remove the rebel flag from the statehouse grounds, the president of the United States — the commander in chief — sole authority to act.

President Obama has erred by not ordering the White House flag to fly at half-staff.

http://m.snopes.com/2015/07/19/chattanooga-flags-half-staff/

legal news

Prison is far from ‘normal’

“We have a tendency ā€¦ to think itā€™s normal that so many of our young people end up in our criminal justice system. Itā€™s not normal. Itā€™s not what happens in other counties. What is normal is teenagers doing stupid things. Whatā€™s normal is young people making mistakes.”

— President Obama

Doesn’t it strike you as odd that of all the men who’ve served as president of the United States, that it took the current individual — Barack Obama — to become the first one to visit a federal penitentiary?

I find it odd. It’s a long overdue examination by the head of state and government of a key component of the federal judiciary system.

President Obama went to the federal lockup in El Reno, Okla., and told corrections something they no doubt knew but rarely spoke about out loud, in public. It was that many of the non-violent criminals are no different from other young offenders who’ve made mistakes.

Lord knows I made my share when I was much younger and much less aware of the consequences one faces for making mistakes.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/president-obama-meets-non-violent-inmates-oklahoma?cid=sm_fb_msnbc

Obama talked about the explosion in the prison population. It happened in Texas, to be sure, partly because a federal judge — William Wayne Justice — ruled that overcrowding in the Texas prison system created an unconstitutional form of punishment for inmates. He ordered the state to fix the problem, so the state went on a prison-building binge — including the two units in Amarillo — to help relieve the crowding issue.

Federal drug laws became the focus of Obama’s visit to the El Reno lockup. The sentencing guidelines put non-violent offenders into prison, often serving life sentences. He recently commuted the sentences of 46 non-violent offenders and went to Oklahoma to talk up the need to rethink these sentencing guidelines.

That it took so long, though, for a sitting president to step inside one of these prisons is mind-boggling in the extreme.

Is it “normal” for teenagers who make mistakes to pay for them by spending the rest of their life behind bars?

The president said “no.”

I happen to agree with him.

International news, national news

Better take a hard look at border security, eh?

Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez is accused of killing Kate Steinle in a horrific act of random violence.

It happened in San Francisco, a “sanctuary city.”

Lopez-Sanchez was in this country illegally. What’s worse — and a lot worse, at that — is that he’d been deported four times, sent back to Mexico. His fifth illegal re-entry resulted in Steinle’s shooting death.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/07/15/immigration-sanctuary-shooting-steinle-lopez-sanchez-editorials-debates/30100967/

This case has resonated on several levels, each of which is worthy of comment.

First, there must be some head-knocking occurring at Immigration and Naturalization Service, Border Patrol and Homeland Security offices. How in the world does someone keep getting into this country after getting caught and deported multiple times?

Second, it is time to re-examine this whole concept of “sanctuary city,” which is aimed at giving immigrants a way to avoid being captured by federal immigration authorities. As USA Today said in an editorial: “San Francisco is one of nearly 300 cities and counties across the country with sanctuary laws or policies aimed at separating federal immigration enforcement from local policing, in order to build trust between immigrant communities and local police. The reasoning goes like this: If immigrants, including millions of undocumented ones, see local police officers as a tool for deportation, they will not report crimes or come forward as witnesses, even when they are victims, and public safely will suffer.”

That reasoning did not work in this tragic case.

Third, President Barack Obama has been oddly silent about Steinle’s death. Why is that, Mr. President? Your critics make a valid point that you should be leading the nation in mourning the death of a young woman whose life was taken by someone who shouldn’t have been here in the first place.

Am I going to join the Donald Trump amen chorus in implying thatĀ most illegal immigrants are here to commit the kind of act that Lopez-Sanchez is accused of committing? Not on your life.

But the system failed us badly. A young woman’s family is grieving. A nation needs answers.

media news

Of course the question was intended to offend

Major Garrett, CBS News’s chief White House correspondent, and I have something in common.

We both worked for the same person, although at different times.

How’s that for name-dropping?

Garrett went to work for the Amarillo Globe-News back in the old days. The then-editor of the paper, Garet von Netzer, hired him; von Netzer later would become publisher of the paper and then he hired yours truly, although long after Garrett had moved on.

Having laid down that useless predicate, let me now say that Major Garrett asked a patently offensive question of President Obama, to which the president responded appropriately.

The question involved four Americans held captive in Iran and Garrett wondered how the president could be “content” that they’re still being held on trumped-up charges while he is “celebrating” the nuclear deal worked out with the Islamic Republic.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/obama-major-garrett-shuts-down-press-conference-120156.html?hp=b2_r1

Obama took offense at the tone of the question. He scolded Garrett, saying he “should know better” than to ask a question that contained “nonsense.”

The president said he isn’t “content” over the Americans’ continued captivity and said he and his team are “working diligently” to secure freedom for the individuals.

What irks me about the question and its aftermath is how Major Garrett insisted it wasn’t intended to ruffle the president. He didn’t apologize and he said it was not asked to call attention to himself.

May I be blunt? That’s pure baloney.

That’s how it goes among the White House press corps. It’s always about getting in a question intended to call attention to the inquiry and to the person making it. Such gamesmanship has been going on for, oh, since the beginning of these televised events dating back to the days when President Kennedy introduced them to the public and turned them into some form of entertainment.

CBS’s Dan Rather famously sought to get under President Nixon’s skin during the Watergate scandal; ABC’s Sam Donaldson did the same thing to President Reagan over the course of many years; Fox’s Ed Henry does the same thing today with President Obama.

Well, now Henry and others have company in the “gotcha” hall of fame.

Major Garrett asked an appropriate question. He just insertedĀ a certain word — “content” — that framed it in a way that got Barack Obama’s dander up.

I would bet that was his intent all along.

 

International news

Diplomacy ought to trump war every time

2 Comments

Barack Obama could have invoked the late, great Winston Churchill at his press conference today.

Churchill once said it is better to “jaw, jaw, jaw than to war, war, war.”

So it is with President Obama’s defense of the deal struck with Iran that seeks to end Iran’s quest to acquire nuclear weapons.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/obama-iran-deal-defends-press-conference-120154.html?hp=lc1_4

I remain more or less undecided on the merits of the deal, but the president has posed a fascinating challenge to his critics.

Is it better to take military action to remove Iran’s nuclear capability, or is it better to use diplomacy to rid them of their nuclear ambitions?

Critics, Obama said, haven’t offered a credible alternative to the deal that struck by Secretary of State John Kerry and his team of international partners. They blast the 159-page deal with words like “appeasement,” “disaster,” and “historic mistake.”

So, what do they suggest? Do we send in squadrons of fighter-bombers to blast the nuclear plants into oblivion?Ā Let the Israelis do it? Do we risk all-out war?

The great Winston Churchill had it right: It’s better to talk than to drop bombs.

Always.

national news

Iran, nukes … and Bill Cosby

Well, that about covers it.

President Obama’s press conference today was meant to explain the details of the recently completed negotiation to stop Iran from producing a nuclear weapon.

Then the question turned to Bill Cosby and whether the president could revoke the comedic icon’s Presidential Medal of Freedom on the basis of the rape charges that have been leveled against him by several women.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/asked-about-cosby-obama-says-civilized-nations-cannot-tolerate-rape/ar-AAd1eHQ

Obama’s answer was deft and on point.

There’s no precedent for revoking such a medal and there’s no mechanism now to do it, he said.

Cosby received the medal in 2002 from President George W. Bush. The world didn’t know what it knows now of what Cosby allegedly has done. It’s been reported recently that court documents show that he admitted to giving Quaaludes to women and then had sex with them.

It’s all quite disgusting.

Obama then ventured his own view on what he considers to be rape. “I’ll say this: if you give a woman, or a man for that matter, without his or her knowledge a drug and then have sex with that person without consent, that’s rape,” the president said.

OK. By my understanding of what is known, I believe Bill Cosby has admitted to being a rapist.

Should the White House revoke his Medal of Freedom?

Leave the issue alone — and let Bill Cosby try to fend off the lawsuits that are going to bury him.

International news

Who sold arms to Iran?

This video is quite instructive.

President Reagan went on the air in March 1987 to explain why he sold arms to Iran in exchange for money that he would use to seek to topple the Marxist government in Nicaragua.

The late president today remains a conservative icon to those who revere the policies he instituted during his two terms in office.

Those admirersĀ are going ballistic — no pun intended — over a nuclear deal brokered by another president, Barack Obama, that seeks to disarm Iran and intends to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal. Why, they just cannot fathom how we could negotiate with those who would refer to the United States as the Great Satan and who would sponsor terrorist activities around the globe.

What, then, was President Reagan doing when he sold weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran less than a decade after the radicals seized our embassy in Tehran, held our citizens hostage for 444 days and threatened to blow up the Middle East during that entire time?

Have those folks forgotten all that?

Watch the video. President Reagan said his “heart” told him he wasn’t doing what the facts proved he was doing. He was selling arms to an enemy state.