All posts by kanelis2012

State news

Now it’s a McKinney, Texas, cop under fire

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Oh, brother. Here we go … again.

A McKinney police officer has been suspended after he roughed up some unarmed juveniles at a swim party in the suburban community north of Dallas.

It’s been caught on video. It’s made the rounds. Gone viral, in fact.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Officer-suspended-after-video-shows-violent-6312510.php

The video shows the officer detaining kids at the swim party. At one point, he forces — and this is quite interesting — a bikini-clad girl to the ground; when the girl gets up, the officer pulls his service revolver out of its holster, then puts the gun away after several seconds.

Yep, it’s fair to wonder out loud: Did the officer actually think the girl was packing heat wearing, um, a bikini? He ended up putting his knees on the girl’s back, restraining her while waiting for backup to arrive.

Here’s where I ought to mention that the officer is white, almost all the kids are black.

One of the girls involved in the disturbance is heard to yell at the officer that he “isn’t going to be a cop no more.” There were other terrible things said in the melee, including an apparently racist rant from an adult bystander.

The resolution of this incident has all the earmarks of another ugly chapter being written.

International news

Marking the end of a life-changing journey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLgdb6r0MQ4

Sixty-five years of living has brought me many blessings … and the occasional curse.

I want to mark one of those blessings with this blog post.

Six years ago today, I bid so long to four young people with whom I’d spent four marvelous weeks in the Holy Land. We were there as part of a Rotary International Group Study Exchange. I am a member of Rotary and I had the high honor of accompanying these four individuals to Israel.

The link I’ve attached to this blog gives you a slight hint of what we experienced. We went to many of the locations noted on the video.

But this post really isn’t about that. It’s more about them, my dear friends, who traveled with me the entire length and breadth of one of the world’s most fascinating countries.

Aida, Fernando, Shirley and Katt all hail from West Texas. One of them has moved to Dallas, but we stay in touch. We all do. They’ve become four of my best friends.

The GSE is designed to acquaint young professionals with colleagues abroad. It’s also designed to recruit young Rotary members, to keep the service organization alive and vibrant.

Our journey began at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport on May 9, 2009. It ended on June 7, 2009 when we bid adieu to three of our team members at David Ben-Gurion International Airport. One of them stayed behind in Tel Aviv.

We’d laughed and cried together. We enjoyed sumptuous food. Prayed together on the Mount of Olives. We stayed in Israeli hosts’ homes, met their families and were treated to sights and sounds the usual tourist doesn’t get to see.

We peered into Gaza, stood on the Golan Heights, and swam in the Red Sea, the Dead Sea and the “Med” Sea.

We walked where Jesus walked in Jerusalem and where he preached near Galilee. We toured churches, synagogues and mosques.

I cannot possibly list all of what we saw, heard and felt.

We made new friends with members of another GSE team from The Netherlands that traveled through Israel with us. I’m still in touch with a couple of that team’s members.

It was one of those life experiences that you just cannot quantify. You can’t put a price on what one learns on a journey such as that.

I was delighted to have taken that journey with those four young people.

My time in Israel didn’t end at Ben-Gurion airport. I stayed on another week with my wife, who’d flown over to join me. We acted like typical tourists, staying at a B&B in Jerusalem. I got to show her some of what I’d experienced.

Would we return to Israel? In a heartbeat.

 

 

national news, political news

Imagine LBJ and HHH hugging like that

BarackandJoe

Take a good look at this picture. It shows two grown men, both of whom occupy the two highest public offices in the most powerful nation on Earth, embracing in a time of profound grief.

What’s not been commented on much in the media is what happened shortly after this picture was snapped. Vice President Joe Biden kissed President Barack Obama on the cheek; the president then returned the gesture by kissing the vice president on his cheek.

The event, of course, was at the funeral of the vice president’s son, Beau, who died this past week of brain cancer.

The president offered a touching eulogy while honoring the memory of his friend’s son.

Let’s set politics aside for a moment and look briefly at what this picture symbolizes.

As the link below notes, it symbolizes the extraordinarily close relationship these two men have for each other.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/in-sorrow-obama-and-biden-put-personal-bond-on-public-display/ar-BBkNdEb

It hasn’t always been that way between presidents and vice presidents. Try to imagine Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew embracing like that. Or Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey. Or John Kennedy and LBJ, for that matter. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush? Hah!

Actually, I could see Bill Clinton hugging Al Gore, and George W. Bush doing the same for Dick Cheney — although a part of me wonders whether Cheney would return the embrace.

Historians have written how LBJ would summon the vice president for a meeting — while the president was sitting on the commode!

Obama and Biden, as the article notes, came from vastly different backgrounds. They competed against each other for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Biden dropped out and then Obama picked him as his running mate — and has given him substantial responsibility during the nearly two terms the men have served together.

Let’s be clear: The picture on this blog post doesn’t tell the whole story. Perhaps they’ve had their differences in private. The vice president is known — at times — to

let his mouth engage prematurely, sometimes to the chagrin of the president.

However, when you’re the president of the United States and you pick someone to serve as the No. 2 individual in your administration, you want to forge a relationship that’s built on mutual respect.

It doesn’t hurt if there’s actual affection involved as well.

 

 

 

 

 

State news, Uncategorized

Another PR bombshell falls on City Hall

It’s becoming almost like a trivia game down at Seventh Avenue and Buchanan Street in downtown Amarillo.

Which public-relations nightmare has caused the most sleepless nights for senior city administrators and council members?

Is it the revelation that the police department withheld from the public that a rapist was running loose?

How about the tempest over the way animal control officers were disposing of unwanted or abandoned pets?

What about the hiring of a traffic engineer who, it turns, out had been under investigation for alleged misdeeds at his prior place of employment?

Let’s add the latest SNAFU to the list. It involves water bills sent the other day to about 12,000 residential customers in southwest Amarillo that, to be charitable, didn’t accurately reflect actual water usage. Utility customers who normally pay about $55 per month for water and sewer use received bills, in some cases, of more than $300.

In the interest of full disclosure, my water bill was not among those affected by the serious misfire.

The city fired eight of its 11 water meter readers on the same day, creating a situation that made it impossible for utility employees to read all the meters, forcing the city to “estimate” water use; residents became furious with the size of their water bills.

This is the best part: The week the water bills went out, the phones went on the fritz at City Hall, meaning residents couldn’t call in to register their concerns or ask questions about their sky-high water bills. Some residents are quoted in the media as believing the phone mess-up was not a coincidence. How does the city persuade an irate constituent that it was?

Wow! I almost don’t know what to say about this.

And on top of all that, we hear from the city’s official spokeswoman, who said: “You know, sometimes when you’ve got someone on the other line going, ‘I need answers!’ you’re just going to make up an answer.”

Holy crap! That is precisely the kind of thing you might think to yourself, or whisper to your colleagues, but you damn sure don’t say such a thing out loud … to the public.

To paraphrase the famed astronaut Jim Lovell: Amarillo, we’ve got a problem.

 

national news, political news

Sex takes center stage in Hastert drama

Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News — no fan of conservatives, to be sure — has identified, I think, the reason that sex has become the No. 1 media issue in the Dennis Hastert controversy/scandal.

Hastert, the former speaker of the U.S. House, has been indicted on a felony charge of making illegal hush money payments to someone.

It’s the reason for the hush money that’s become the focus here, not the charges spelled out in the indictment, according to Carlson.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-04/hastert-joins-crowded-ranks-of-fallen-moralists

Hastert allegedly sexually abused at least one young man when he was a teacher and coach in Yorkville, Ill. There could be more, the late victim’s sister alleges.

Why the keen interest?

It’s the context of how Hastert became speaker of the House.

He succeeded a serial adulterer, Newt Gingrich, who had to quit his position after admitting to an affair with a staffer — all while he was ranting, raving and railing against President Clinton’s indiscretions with a White House intern.

Then came Bob Livingston, another Republican from Louisiana. Livingston was supposed to succeed Gingrich as speaker. Oops! He, too, fooled around with women other than his wife. Multiple times. One of his paramours was a lobbyist. He was out.

The House then looked for a Boy Scout, a man whose reputation was beyond reproach. Poof! There was Hastert. Hey, he’s as clean as they get.

Except that he wasn’t.

Hastert didn’t make a big show of his reputedly upstanding past. He didn’t prance around proclaiming himself to be without sin. He allowed others to say it.

Carlson, though, does say that Hastert proved to be as duplicitous about morality as Gingrich and others in Congress: (H)e followed in the hypocritical footsteps of his predecessors, devoting much energy to shaming others about their sexual behavior. He advanced the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act through the House and proposed a constitutional amendment to annul same-sex unions in states that allowed them.”

Therein, throughout all of this, likely lies the reason for the fixation on the sex and not the money.

 

political news

Bipartisan show of respect? Not … really

It’s fair to ask this question now that Beau Biden, the son of the vice president of the United States, has been eulogized and laid to rest.

Why weren’t more Republican political leaders present at the Wilmington, Del., funeral of the son of a prominent Democratic politician?

I was struck by the news coverage this morning of the service, and by the link attached to this blog, by the virtual absence of any prominent D.C. Republican at Beau Biden’s funeral.

Beau Biden funeral draws political heavyweights

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, was the only one mentioned. That’s it. He and the vice president are good friends, going back to their service together in the Senate. Indeed, the vice president served 36 years in the Senate and is known to have many GOP friends in both congressional chambers.

Where were they?

Hey, I’m just asking. These kinds of events almost always bring political foes together.

Almost always …

Now that I think of it, you know what would have been incredibly touching? I would have loved to have seen U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who made the crass and ill-timed joke about the vice president — only to apologize later for it — showing up to pay his respects in person.

 

legal news, national news, political news

McConnell may not block judge picks after all

I’m not going to be so terribly presumptuous to assume that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell read High Plains Blogger recently and may be reacting to its — I mean my — assertion that gridlock regarding judicial appointments is bad for the nation.

Still, I am heartened to hear that despite what McConnell told a radio talk show host, he really and truly doesn’t have plans to block all future circuit court and Supreme Court appointments during the remainder of President Obama’s administration.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/244196-mcconnell-backs-away-from-judicial-shutdown-talk

The president has a number of circuit judge appointments pending in the Senate, which must approve them before the judges take their lifetime seats. A McConnell spokesman said the majority leader really didn’t say all those appointments were toast. They’d get a hearing and a vote, he said.

I’ve noted already that presidents deserve to select judicial appointees to their liking. That’s a consequence of national elections and Barack Obama has won two of them, in a row.

There’s still no word yet on what the Senate would do about a Supreme Court vacancy should one occur. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is said to be in poor health, but she says she isn’t retiring. She’s one of the liberals on the court. Her departure and a replacement wouldn’t shift the balance of power, at least theoretically.

If a conservative justice were to leave the court, well, that’s another matter.

In the meantime, the threat of locking down all future Obama appointments appears now to be lessening.

I’m left to wonder: Did the majority leader actually see my blog?

Nah. Couldn’t be … but it’s fun to wonder.

 

Sports news

How odd? I don’t like horse-racing, but am thrilled today

Someone has to explain this one.

I’m not at all nuts about watching horses running around a track with a mini-man perched on the saddle.

However, I do excited when a horse wins the first two legs of the Triple Crown. And then I get really excited when the same horse wins the third one.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/horseracingspecial/american-pharoah-becomes-1st-triple-crown-winner-in-37-years/ar-BBkMGCO

That was my state of mind this evening as I watched American Pharoah win the Triple Crown, becoming the first horse since 1978 (Affirmed) to accomplish the feat. It’s the longest stretch between Triple Crown winners in Triple Crown history.

Secretariat remains the gold standard for horse-racing excellence. What’s more, Secretariat won the 1973 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths. Jockey Ron Turcotte ever laid a land on his steed. In fact, he was unaware of the distance between his mount and the next one until they turned down the stretch and Turcotte said he couldn’t hear any other horse sounds: hooves pounding or horses snorting.

This one was good. American Pharoah led from the gate and took it all the way home.

However, consider this: It comes from someone commenting on a friend’s Facebook post about which horse is the best in history. This fellow said Secretariat’s winning time in the Belmont Stakes would have put him 15 lengths ahead of American Pharoah.

Still, the newest Triple Crown winner joins some heady company.

Well done.

 

national news

Have they no decency?

I just heard that the fanatics from Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist “Church” are planning to protest at the funeral of the late Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Biden and the Delaware attorney general who died this past week of brain cancer.

Words long ago failed me in describing my disgust at this “church,” known for its virulently anti-gay, anti-Jewish and anti-politician stance.

I’m left now to recall the words of Joseph Welch, the one-time lead counsel at the Army-McCarthy Senate hearings of the 1950s. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., was on the hunt for communists. He thought he found one working for Welch’s law firm.

Welch had heard enough from McCarthy and said: “Have you no sense of decency?”

The same thing can be asked today of Westboro Baptist “Church.” Have they no decency?

I believe I know the answer.

 

national news, political news, State news

HRC sharpening her blades for campaign

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Hillary Rodham Clinton ventured into the belly of the Republican beast to, shall we say, beat the daylights out of Republicans for what she insists is a systematic effort to keep Americans from voting.

Good job, Senator/Mme. Secretary.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/06/hillary-clintons-political-cynicism-shows-even-when-shes-right.html/

Dallas Morning News blogger Jim Mitchell called her speech at a historically black university an exercise in “cynicism.” He also thinks Clinton is correct when she ticks off the ways GOP politicians who now are running — or are about to run — for president of the United States seek to disenfranchise voters.

She wants to enact an automatic voting law that affects any U.S. citizen who turns 18. She wants to expand the early-voting window to 20 days before an election. She made both points during her talk at Texas Southern University. However, as Mitchell noted in his blog, neither plan has a chance in hell of being enacted — at least not in the near future.

I particularly liked how Clinton went after former Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a law that a federal judge said discriminated against minority voters and how the then-governor applauded when the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.

Yes, her speech was aimed at African-American voters — which Mitchell cited as a symbol of her cynicism. What’s the problem? That’s part of her “base,” just as the TEA party constituents are a part of the GOP base. That’s what politicians do when they run for their party’s presidential nomination: they go for their respective bases.

Clinton also took aim at the bogus allegation of widespread voter fraud, which politicians in many states have contended is occurring. Sure, a tiny number of voters cast ballots illegally. Is it a widespread epidemic, as has been described by some observers? Not even close.

We’re heading for a raucous campaign. Ten GOP politicians have declared their intention to run for president, along with four Democrats. The number of Republicans is sure to grow, perhaps by at least double the number in the race at the moment; one or two more Democrats might emerge as well.

Let’s all hold on. We’re heading for a rough ride.