Tag Archives: Barack Obama

national news, political news

Why bother with a congressional has been?

The last time I commented on former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s blatherings, some of my lefty friends asked: Why pay her no never mind? She’s out of office, irrelevant, she doesn’t matter any longer.

Allow this brief explanation.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/michele-bachmann-the-rapture-is-coming-and-its-obamas-fault/ar-AAboZhG

I chose to comment on Bachmann blaming the coming Rapture on President Obama because — believe it or not — a lot of Americans actually take her seriously.

I am not one of them.

Bachmann served a few terms in the House of Representatives. She became a favorite of the TEA party wing of the Republican Party. She ran for president in 2012 and for one brief moment during the GOP primary, she actually rose to near the top tier of the class of clowns running for the party nomination. For the record, I do not include eventual nominee Mitt Romney in that gaggle of goofballs.

Bachmann then decided to step down from public office in 2014, but she hasn’t stepped down from public life or from the public’s attention.

She remains relevant in some people’s minds, although for the life of me I cannot understand why.

So, when she says, as she did the other day on a right-wing radio talk show, that the Rapture is imminent, some folks listen to her. “We in our lifetimes potentially could see Jesus Christ returning to earth and the rapture of the church,” Bachmann said. “We see the destruction, but this was a destruction that was foretold.”

She said more. “We are literally watching, month by month, the speed move up to a level we’ve never seen before with these events,” Bachmann said. “Barack Obama is intent. It is his number one goal to ensure that Iran has a nuclear weapon.”

Sigh.

I never know whether to laugh or laugh harder when Bachmann opens her mouth.

She is giving folks like me plenty of commentary grist.

That’s why she remains relevant.

local news, political news, State news

Texans will have a say in 2016 contest

It’s nice to be loved, isn’t it, Texas voters?

Bet on it. The large and likely cantankerous Republican presidential field is going to cozy up to Texans about a year from now when the state casts its primary vote for president of the United States.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/04/20/analysis-what-happens-when-texans-votes-matter/

It’ll be just like the old day. Hey, even the not-so-old days. Harken back to 2008, when Democratic U.S. Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were slugging it out for their party’s presidential nomination.

By the time the Texas primary rolled around, the Democratic nomination was far from sewn up. So, what happened? Voters turned out in record numbers.

There’s more. Even in heavily Republican Texas Panhandle counties — such as Randall County — the Democratic Party polling places were far busier than the GOP stations. A lot of Republicans crossed over to vote in the Democratic primary and it likely enabled Sen. Clinton to win most of the state’s Democratic delegates.

As Ross Ramsey noted in a Texas Tribune analysis: “The mix of candidates could make a difference, too. Candidates with Texas ties, like Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Rick Perry and Rand Paul, could draw their own home crowds if their candidacies are still alive early next year. And candidates from different factions could attract different herds of support.

“This sort of turnout boom does not happen often in Texas. The parties tend to settle their presidential nomination battles in places like New Hampshire, South Carolina and Iowa. By the time they get to Texas, they’ve already all but chosen their nominees.

“Voters like a fight, and you can see the evidence of that in turnout. When there’s a big race, more people vote.”

They’re going to get one, more than likely, on the Republican side in 2016.

And what about the Democrats? Barring some huge surprise — which is entirely possible — the Dems’ nomination looks like it already belongs to Hillary Clinton.

The Republican field looks as though it’s going to be huge and it’s going to take some time to cull the losers from the field. Thus, when Texas gets its turn to vote, we’ll be in the mix.

Can you feel the love?

 

national news, political news, Uncategorized

President, Congress head for rocky stretch run

There ought to be little doubt left that President Barack Obama’s final laps at the White House are going to be full of bitter quarrels with another “co-equal branch of government,” the U.S. Congress.

It didn’t need to come to this. But it has.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/barack-obama-delaying-loretta-lynch-vote-embarrassing-gop-117081.html?hp=b1_r1

The president took particular umbrage the other day at the Senate’s inexcusable delays in confirming Loretta Lynch to become the next attorney general.

“Nobody can describe a reason for it beyond political gamesmanship in the Senate,” Obama said during a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. “I have to say that there are times where the dysfunction in the Senate just goes too far. This is an example of it.”

As Politico reports, part of the reason for this dysfunction appears to be that the previous Congress opted out of deciding Lynch’s nomination, preferring to hand the job over to the current Congress. I’ll admit to supporting that view, given that the 113th Congress was leaving office. I put some measure of faith in the 114th Congress being able to do right by Lynch, the president and the cause of ensuring that we have a fully functioning Justice Department.

I guess I should have known better. My bad.

The delay now has nothing to do with her qualifications, which are superlative. It has everything to do with side issues that Senate Republicans have concocted as a pretext.

And the president calls it an “embarrassment.” Do you think? I do.

And get this, also from Politico: “Lynch was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 26, so her nomination has lingered on the Senate floor for 50 days. That is longer than the previous seven attorneys general had to wait from committee approval to floor confirmation vote — combined.”

No wonder the president is angry.

It’s not going to get any better, Mr. President. Bet on a rough ride until the end of your presidency.

 

business news, national news, political news

Estate tax is worth keeping on the books

Time for a confession, which some of you might already have suspected.

I used to write editorials for daily newspapers that ran counter to my own beliefs and principles. Why? Well, as a former colleague once told me: If you take the man’s money, you play by the man’s rules.

So, there you have it. I was getting paid to write editorials for newspapers that had different slants than mine, so I wrote the words, gritted my teeth on occasion — and then accepted the paycheck.

One issue with which I had a disagreement with our newspaper’s editorial policy was the estate tax, or “death tax,” as some have called it. My bosses wanted it repealed. My former publisher at the Amarillo Globe-News (not the guy who runs the place now, but his predecessor) was adamant that we repeal the estate tax. Why punish heirs to estates, he argued, when the person who built the wealth wants to be able to hand it down to his or her heirs?

I’m sure my ex-boss is happy with the U.S. House of Representatives voting this week to repeal the estate tax.

I am not.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/04/17/why-are-republicans-pushing-estate-tax-repeal-its-their-nature/

As Paul Waldman writes in the Washington Post: “Republicans say that they aren’t really trying to help wealthy heirs; instead, this is motivated by their deep concern for the fate of family farms and small businesses. But today, the first $5.43 million of any estate is exempt from taxes. That’s the single most important fact to understand about this tax.”

Did you get that? Nearly $5.5 million of any estate is tax exempt!

My congressman, Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, Texas, has been at the forefront of the estate tax repeal effort since joining Congress in 1995. He’s got a dog in that hunt. His family owns a lot of ranch land in Donley County and he doesn’t want any of it taxed when the day comes to hand it over to his heirs. I understand Thornberry’s interest in repealing the estate tax.

Here’s a bit more from Waldman: “According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, ‘In 2013, the most recent year for which final numbers are available, there were 2.6 million deaths in the United States, and 4,700 estate tax returns reporting some tax liability were filed. Thus, taxable estate tax returns represented approximately one-fifth of one percent of deaths in 2013.’”

One-fifth of one percent!

Is that enough of a tax to call for its outright repeal? If yes, then who benefits from it? I reckon it’s the extremely wealthy who have estates valued at far more than $5.43 million, which already is exempt from taxes. Remember?

What will be the fate of this repeal effort? If the Senate approves it as well, President Obama will veto it.

 

medical news

ACA is working, if uninsured rate is an indicator

One way to measure the success of the Affordable Care Act comes from a new survey by the Gallup organization.

The number of uninsured Americans has declined to 11.9 percent.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/182348/uninsured-rate-dips-first-quarter.aspx

That’s down from 18 percent in the first quarter of 2013, when the ACA took full effect.

I’ll be the first — OK, maybe not the first — to concede that the ACA rollout went badly, with all the hiccups and meltdowns associated with healthcare.gov.

But the whole premise of the Affordable Care Act was to provide health insurance to Americans who didn’t have it and who — without insurance — faced the prospect of losing all their possessions if they were stricken with a catastrophic illness. Indeed, the very definition of “catastrophic” should be enough to frighten every uninsured American.

The decline in the uninsured was felt most dramatically among lower-income Americans, according to the Gallup survey. Those individuals, too, were among President Obama’s target demographic.

So, let’s take a deep breath before we start piling on the ACA, attaching ridiculous pejorative descriptions to it.

The results keep coming in: The Affordable Care Act is doing its job.

 

political news, religious news

What does Bachmann know about End Times?

Michelle Bachmann must know something none of the rest of us ever imagined knowing.

The former Republican congresswoman from Minnesota seems to know that the End Times are here. They’re about to arrive. The world is about to end.

Who’s responsible for this? You get one chance at this one: Yep, it’s Barack Obama.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bachmann-end-times-are-here-thanks-Obama

I’m no religious scholar, but here’s my understanding of what my Bible says about the End Times.

Put quite simply, the End Times will come without anyone knowing it’s coming. It’s just going to happen. We won’t know the end has arrived until, well, it arrives.

She told a conservative radio host that the president is lying about Islam and about the war we are fighting against Islamic extremists. Then she added that the End Times are coming as a result of the president’s deception. Bachmann said she is excited about the possibility, she said. “The good news that I want to transition to is that, remember the prophets said in the Old Testament, they longed to look into the days that we live in, they long to be a part of these days. That’s why these are not fearful times, these are the most exciting days in history.”

My interpretation of Scripture suggests the End Times is a metaphor for each of our lives. If we believe in Jesus, then we’ll go to heaven to be with him when the end arrives. And I don’t believe you can predict when that moment arrives.

Then again, some politicians — such as Michelle Bachmann — seem to think they know everything.

national news, political news

Rubio looks forward … except for Cuba

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign launch Monday contained a lot of soaring rhetoric about the need to look forward.

The Florida Republican sounded the right notes, spoke the right words and paid tribute to his own life story, which is an interesting and compelling one.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/marco-rubio-2016-presidential-bid-116914.html?hp=t1_r

“While our people and economy are pushing the boundaries of the 21st century, too many of our leaders and their ideas are stuck in the 20th century,” Rubio said. “We must change the decisions we are making by changing the people who are making them.”

Agreed, Sen. Rubio.

However, why are you locked into a 20th-century view of our nation’s relationship with Cuba?

President Obama is trying to breathe life into a bilateral relationship with the island nation that sits just a few miles off the Florida coast. For decades, dating back to the late 1950s, U.S. politicians have trembled in fear — or so it seems — at the prospect that Cuba would become a launching pad for Soviet missiles. Then the Soviet Union vaporized into thin air in 1991. Cuba’s Marxist regime continued on, repressing its people.

The United States maintained its economic embargo against Cuba.

Now the 44th president of the United States is taking a 21st-century view of U.S.-Cuba relations — but Sen. Rubio will have none of it. Rubio, whose parents emigrated from Cuba, said it doesn’t make sense. He calls Cuba an agent of terror.

I’m all ears as it regards Sen. Rubio’s desire to look forward. I am anxious to hear the rest of his message as the 2016 White House campaign gets ramped up.

Let’s start, though, with refining the senator’s view of Cuba.

 

medical news, national news, political news

Obamacare lawsuit: Where does it stand?

Hey, it just occurs to me. There’s a lawsuit pending against the Affordable Care Act.

You remember that, yes? House Speaker John Boehner filed a lawsuit against the ACA, contending that President Obama didn’t have the authority to tinker with it through executive authority.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/obamacare-lawsuit/

He filed the suit after a lot of huffing and puffing about it.

Since its filing, though, some data have suggested something that foes of the ACA — aka Obamacare — don’t want to hear.

It’s that Americans are signing up for it. The ACA is working. Actually working. More Americans have health insurance now who didn’t have it before it was enacted.

Boehner, though, didn’t want to hear those silly thing. He said the president overstepped his constitutional authority by “rewriting the law,” a duty reserved solely for Congress.

I maintain the idea that the lawsuit is intended to please the Republican Party base that hates the idea of government mandating health insurance, even though it’s been done at the state level. Massachusetts, under the administration of then-Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, did so — and it became the model for the federal law enacted by Congress.

Several millions of Americans have health insurance these days. The lawsuit is out there. Somewhere. Waiting to be adjudicated.

The most fascinating political trick of the upcoming presidential campaign, meanwhile, may occur among Republicans who will vow to get rid of the ACA if they are elected — and replace it with … what?

 

political news

HRC really is going to 'hit the road'

I do not intend to comment on every little thing Hillary Rodham Clinton does as she launches her second bid for the presidency of the United States, but this development is rather intriguing.

She’s driving — actually riding — in a van to Iowa.

No fancy jet. No limo. A van.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/hillary-clinton-2016-hits-the-road-116911.html?hp=t2_r

This might be a sign of her attempt to connect with everyday Americans, folks who perhaps really and truly understand what it means to be “dead broke,” or those who struggle meet monthly financial obligations.

Clinton’s announcement Sunday that she’s running for president has been seen as wildly different from when she declared her candidacy for the 2008 Democratic nomination.

It was the absence of the letter “I,” as in the first-person pronoun that so many politicians are prone to use. Commentators noted today that she didn’t even mention herself until about halfway through her remarks. Might that, too, be a sign of newfound humility? OK, it well might be stagecraft, calculated to make observers like yours truly take note.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is fraught with some unique characteristics. Perhaps the most unique — as some have noted — is that she’ll have to put distance between herself and not just one president, but two: the current president, Barack Obama, and the man to whom she’s been married for nearly 40 years, Bill Clinton.

President Obama is now heading into the final turn of his time in office and he’s seeking to build his legacy. Former President Clinton remains arguably the nation’s most recognizable and political force of nature. It’s that relationship and its proximity to the Hillary Clinton’s campaign that presents the most potential trouble.

Hillary Clinton will have to demonstrate she’s her own woman, with her own ideas, world view and that she cannot  be overshadowed by the Democrats’ Big Dog.

But hey, first things first.

She’s going to climb into that van and ride through the Midwest to Iowa. It’s time to connect with folks out here in Flyover Country.

 

national news, political news

Is HRC 'likable enough' to get elected?

A young U.S. senator, Barack Obama, uttered arguably one of the signature lines of the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primary campaign when he told fellow Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, “You’re likable enough, Hillary.”

I’m betting that Clinton didn’t appreciate the “compliment.”

Now, eight years later, she’s launching another bid for the presidency.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/04/12/clinton-campaigns-challenge-make-her-likeable/

And as the Wall Street Journal reports, her task is to make her “likable enough” to get elected president of the United States next year.

As the WSJ reported: “She needs to try to humanize herself, because in some ways she’s kind of become a cardboard cutout figure,” said Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University.

So, the campaign begins anew for the former first lady, senator and secretary of state.

Many in the media refer to her simply as “Hillary.” Just a mention of that name and you know to whom the reference is being made. Does the first-name familiarity make her likable? Hardly. I continue to believe she needs to translate likability into authenticity.

She remains a political powerhouse. The strength, though, doesn’t always connect with voters in a tangible manner. Clinton at times appears evasive, which hardly lends itself to likability.

I will be among millions of voters looking for signs that she’s capable of understanding the problems, worries and concerns of average American citizens. If she does, she’ll prove she’s for real, that she’s authentic.

And likable.