national news, political news, State news

Rick Perry: Governors make better presidents

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Rick Perry actually makes sense when he extols the virtues of governors seeking the presidency of the United States.

That doesn’t mean in the least that I intend — at this moment — to vote for him if lightning strikes and the Republican Party nominates him in 2016. I’m going to keep an open mind, though, as the campaign progresses. Honest. I will.

But in his campaign rollout speech in that sweltering hangar in Addison, Perry said that governors are those with actual executive experience.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/06/05/perry-stakes-defining-contrast-on-executive-experi/

He ought to know. Perry served as Texas governor for 14 years — even though it seemed much longer, at least in my eyes. He made a lot of executive decisions during his time as governor. Some of them were good decisions, even though I need some time to think of them.

He goofed on a few as well, such as the one he made requiring junior high school girls to be vaccinated for sexually transmitted diseases. The Legislature overrode that order in 2011, which of course is an action that Perry never mentions while campaigning for president.

Back to the point.

Perry’s assertion that governors make better presidents seems to have some merit. He said, according to the Texas Tribune: “The question of every candidate will be this one: When have you led?” Perry added, posing the same query that is a regular part of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz‘s 2016 stump speech. “Leadership is not a speech on the Senate floor. It’s not what you say; it’s what you do. And we will not find the kind of leadership needed to revitalize the country by looking to the political class in Washington.”

My only question, though, is this: Does he include former Govs. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton among those who did well as president?

I’ll answer my own query: Probably not.

local news

City suffers PR schizophrenia

Amarillo’s latest embarrassment — those “estimated” water use bills — might be cause to rethink a view that the city is well-run.

It’s one of those “on one hand this, but on the other hand that” kind of assessments.

On the one hand, you have a city with a superb bond rating. It has relatively low debt. It asks residents to pay a mere pittance in property tax to fund municipal government. It has a fine park system. Its police department is a mostly progressive operation that runs well most of the time. Firefighters answer the bell quickly.

On the other hand, there’s a series of misfires that makes me wonder: Can’t they shoot straight down there? The city hired a traffic engineer who, it turned out, had been fired from his previous job because of serious malfeasance. The police department didn’t alert residents that a rapist was on the loose for several days. The city animal control department had to be reformed, renamed and reorganized after it was revealed that animals were being euthanized in a less-than-humane manner.

Now we have perhaps the most ridiculous development of all: The city “estimated” water bills without reading residents’ meters, in some instances assessing bills about six times the normal amount usually billed monthly. The city had fired eight of its 11 water meter-readers — on the same day.

Does the juxtaposition — the good financial performance measured against these mistakes — make sense?

Well, if you think about it, one really doesn’t have anything to do with the other. The city still is in solid fiscal shape. Its financial house is in order; the city provides essential services to the residents who pay for them. All that good news, though, gets overtaken by the nonsense that bubbles up from time to time.

Overlaid across all of this is the city’s effort to revamp its downtown district.

I remain committed to the concept that’s been presented. I still believe it’ll work. The ballpark, the hotel, the parking garage all make sense when you consider the sequence of what the city is planning. The financing of this project also makes sense — and it means next to zero impact on residential property taxpayers.

The competence issue — and the lingering doubts arising from these series of hiccups, such as the latest one involving the weird water billing SNAFU — is darkening my optimism.

It hasn’t been snuffed out. But, man, the doubts are building.

 

 

 

national news, political news

Caitlyn Jenner still a Republican

The woman formerly known as Bruce Jenner once declared himself to be a Republican.

Now that Bruce has become Caitlyn Jenner, at least one Republican presidential contender said Caitlyn is “welcome in my Republican Party.”

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has rolled out the welcome mat for Caitlyn Jenner, declaring that the GOP is a big tent party after all.

Lindsey Graham: Caitlyn Jenner Is “Welcome” in My Republican Party

I’m totally fine with Sen. Graham’s statement. He’s right, of course. A political party should be a place where people judge others’ most intensely intimate personal decisions. I struggle to think of a decision that is more intimate than changing one’s gender, which is what Jenner has done.

Graham said Jenner is welcome in “my” party. The question among some of us watching this campaign unfold is whether the party really belongs to those such as Graham, who’s known to be a more inclusive sort of politician.

It’s the “base” of the GOP that’s calling the shots. Something tells me the party base isn’t quite so welcoming to Caitlyn Jenner.

 

International news, military news

No ‘complete strategy’ against Islamic State?

President Barack Obama landed in Germany and then dropped this startling admission on the laps of the worldwide media.

“We don’t yet have a complete strategy,” the president said in describing the U.S.-led effort to fight the Islamic State.

I make no apologies for my support of President Obama, but this one floors me.

Nine months into the campaign to defeat ISIL, the president today acknowledged that he’s been winging it.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/244272-obama-we-dont-yet-have-a-compete-strategy-against-isis

My advice to the president — are you paying attention, young man? — is that you need to finish working on that strategy in a serious hurry.

I don’t believe you need to mobilize The Big Red One, or the Screaming Eagles, or a Marine division to — pardon that hideous euphemism — put “boots on the ground.”

But there needs to be a “complete strategy” to fight these monstrous terrorists.

The president is in Germany attending the G-7 summit and has pledged to speed up training and arming of Iraqi forces, which have been all but cowering in the face of ISIL advances on major cities and military installations. Yes, the Iraqi military has made some gains in recent days, but they keep getting pushed back.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently said the Iraqis lack the “will to fight” ISIL. They’d better find the will if they intend to defend their own country.

As for the complete strategy that the president said is coming, time is not our friend.

Let’s get busy.

 

national news, political news

The Donald calls this man a ‘clown’?

Words fail me.

Donald Trump has called out one of the smartest commentators/pundits on television, calling him a “clown.”

Dr. Charles Krauthammer was the target of The Donald’s vitriol. Why? Because the commentator had the bad taste to point out that Trump’s poll standing is in the toilet (although he didn’t use that term; it’s mine).

Trump hits back at ‘dummy’ Fox News pundit

Trump called Krauthammer a “dummy” and maybe a few other unprintable words as well.

The Donald is talking about running for the Republican presidential nomination next year. I don’t think he’s seriously considering such a thing.

Krauthammer is one of Fox News’s go-to guys on the political commentary desk. Do I agree with Krauthammer? Hardly ever. But, man, the guy’s smart.

I should remind you here that Krauthammer once was a medical doctor. He worked as a psychiatrist. I don’t believe “clowns” and “dummies” get medical degrees from reputable universities, as Dr. Krauthammer did.

The real clown here is Donald Trump, a self-absorbed egomaniac with absolutely no sense of self-awareness.

He’s a smart businessman — I reckon. But business smarts do not translate to political smarts — which The Donald demonstrates every time he opens his trap.

 

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.

 

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