International news

Did the president really lie about bin Laden raid?

Are we now going to believe more than four years after the fact that President Obama lied to us about the details of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden?

Famed journalist Seymour Hersh says “yes.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/report-obama-lied-about-bin-laden-raid/ar-BBjyIEa

Pardon me, sir. I think I’ll stick with what was reported at the time of the raid.

Hersh asserts — citing a single unnamed source — that Obama didn’t tell the truth about what happened the night of May 2, 2011 when Navy SEALs killed bin Laden, hauled his body out of Pakistan, deposited it aboard the USS Carl Vinson, where sailors then “buried” bin Laden’s remains at sea.

The Pakistanis had a much greater role in the raid than the president said at the time, according to Hersh; the White House wanted to announce a drone strike took out bin Laden, Hersh writes; Obama had no way to explain to Americans what happened had the raid failed, Hersh asserts.

Of all the purported inconsistencies, the one I find least believable is the one about what the Pakistanis knew and how much they assisted in killing bin Laden.

If you’re a Pakistani intelligence official, or a leader of the Pakistani government, you would want the world to know you had a hand in taking out the world’s No. 1 terrorist. The White House said at the time that the SEALs killed bin Laden without Pakistan knowing about it. I continue to believe the SEAL team performed the act as it was announced by the president that evening.

And it takes four years to dig out the so-called “truth” about this raid?

I remain skeptical of these latest revelations.

Here’s the link to the report: Take a look.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

 

local news

Yes, I am 'living the dream' … honest

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

You hear it all the time.

“Hey, how ya doin’?”

“Just living the dream, man. Just living the dream.”

You both laugh. It’s kind of a self-deprecating expression — usually — meant to make good-natured fun of one’s lot in life.

I don’t say that to folks because I don’t want anyone to confuse what I mean with what I say. Which is to say that were I to declare I’m “living the dream,” I really and truly mean it.

I’m happy to make the declaration here. Please know that in all sincerity, life is good.

I now am working four — count ’em, four — part-time jobs. They all activities that give me great pleasure.

Three of them involve journalism: blogging for Panhandle PBS (panhandlepbs.org), the Amarillo College-affiliated public TV station; writing news stories for NewsChannel10.com, which is the website for Amarillo’s local CBS-TV affiliate, NewsChannel 10; and helping a friend publish a weekly newspaper, the Quay County Sun, based in Tucumcari, N.M.

My wife reminds me that I am getting paid “to have fun.”

The fourth job is as a concierge for Street Toyota here in Amarillo. My task there? To chat with service customers and to make their experience at Street more enjoyable. That’s what they asked of me when they hired me. I thought, “Heck yeah, I can do that!”

I’ve heard others say as they enter semi-retirement that they “busier’n ever.” I get it. My wife and I are taking time as well to enjoy our life, to travel a bit here and there and to get ready for the day when we can move into full retirement.

My daily grind in print journalism ended more than two years ago. It was a stunning development. I’ve recovered nicely, I’m happy to report.

You won’t hear me say I’m “living the dream.” I don’t want you to think I’m making fun of my lot in life.

The dream is quite real.

 

national news, political news

Welcome to politics, Dr. Carson

Ben Carson is a famed neurosurgeon.

He gave up that profession and now he’s taking on another one: politician.

He’s going to learn that politicians have to be as careful with their words as surgeons have to be with their scalpels. You say the wrong thing, you’re potentially finished as a candidate.

Carson is running for the Republican presidential nomination. This morning he showed up on “Fox News Sunday” and got grilled by host Chris Wallace for some things he said about the Obama administration.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/10/chris-wallace-ben-carson-fox-news-sunday_n_7252994.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

When a GOP candidate gets hammered by a Fox News host, well, the planet might be on the verge of spinning off its axis.

Wallace challenged Dr. Carson’s comparison of the Obama administration with the Nazi Third Reich.

Does he really mean that? Wallace asked.

Carson said during Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror, people didn’t challenge him. Wallace asserted immediately that people are challenging President Obama all the time.

How about ending any Hitler references? It is ridiculous and insulting in the extreme to equate modern political activity with anything that was done during the Third Reich’s dozen years of existence.

I happen to admire Dr. Carson’s work and the brilliance he exudes when talking about medical procedures and his hopes for cures to deadly brain diseases and disorders. That work is a long, long way from the political rough-and-tumble he’s entering.

Careless and overblown statements do have a way of lingering and biting the speaker of those words where he doesn’t want to be bitten.

environmental news

Christie on climate change: It’s real

What gives with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie? Doesn’t he want to be the Republican nominee for president in 2016?

He’s traipsing through New Hampshire saying some things that are sure to fire up the GOP base against a potential Christie presidential candidacy.

He’s saying, well, that climate change cannot be denied and, what’s more, that human beings are a contributing factor to the world’s changing climate.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/241495-chris-christie-global-warming-is-real

The planet is heating up, Christie says, and we need to get busy trying to minimize the impact that human activity has on this phenomenon.

Look, his own state was hammered in October 2012 by Superstorm/Hurricane Sandy, which weather experts said was such an anomaly that they blamed climate change on that event when it happened. It wiped out coastal communities in New York and New Jersey.

Christie has changed his tune on climate change. He once opposed regional efforts to cut greenhouse gases. Then he vowed to eliminate coal-fired power plants from his state.

Yes, this climate change issue has sparked vigorous debate. Those who deny it’s happening — including influential U.S. senators, such as Republican Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma — push back by saying that science hasn’t  yet concluded that human beings are a factor in climate change … if it’s actually occurring.

Others, though, say science is on their side, that temperatures are rising, ice caps are melting, weather patterns are changing and that human beings play a significant role — through deforestation and carbon emissions — in creating those changes.

Now we can welcome a potential leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

Thanks, Gov. Christie, for changing your mind.

 

International news, national news, political news

Techno-terrorists elevate threat to U.S., world

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson issues a stern warning.

International terrorists have become cyber-savvy and are posing a uniquely new threat to the world.

Are we on guard against these guys? And what in the world do we do to stop them?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-security-chief-warns-of-new-phase-in-terror-threat/ar-BBjy1fG

“We’re very definitely in a new environment, because of ISIL’s (IS’s) effective use of social media, the Internet, which has the ability to reach into the homeland and possibly inspire others,” Johnson said in a TV interview this morning.

The Islamic State reportedly is recruiting heavily through the Internet. It’s also posing serious threats to cyber infrastructure.

It’s no longer just madmen with bombs strapped their chests who pose threats to human life. This global war has turned into a battle of wits.

This new threat brings to mind something that congressional leaders sought to bring to national attention. I keep waiting to hear from the Texas Panhandle’s congressman, Republican Mac Thornberry, on how we’re defending ourselves against cyber warriors.

House Speaker John Boehner tasked Thornberry some years ago to lead a congressional committee that would devise strategies to fight Internet hackers and other enemies who would seek to do serious damage to our cyber infrastructure.

When these discussions bring the news to the front pages and gobble up air times on our news networks, I always seem to miss hearing from Rep. Thornberry, who I understand to be an expert on these issues.

I trust he’s working behind the scenes. He’s also become chairman of the House Armed Services panel, which is a huge responsibility all by itself.

Still, our Homeland Security secretary no doubt can use all the help he can muster in protecting “the homeland” against cyber attacks.

Let’s hope this fight transcends the political differences that seem to divide the White House and Capitol Hill … even when it involves national security.

 

local news

Here's how views can evolve

A Facebook friend dug up this column I wrote back in 1998.

http://amarillo.com/stories/112998/opi_history.shtml#.VU_p91J0yt-

I offer it here to illustrate the distance my views have traveled on the issue of single-member districts. It speaks to the election in the late 1980s of two African-Americans to countywide offices in Potter County. It also tells how a Latino was elected to a state district judgeship, also in Potter County.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/12/22/re-thinking-single-member-districts/

The county’s voting plan was — and is — strictly at-large.

I wrote in favor of that plan.

Perhaps history can repeat itself in a couple of years at the next Amarillo municipal election, or perhaps next year when Potter and Randall counties go to the polls. The city is about to welcome its first African-American city councilman, Elisha Demerson, who was elected Saturday.

If voters are truly ready to judge candidates solely on their ideas, then my political evolution could take another turn.

 

national news, political news

Intraparty squabble good for political soul

1 Comment

President Obama says Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., “is wrong” to oppose him on a free trade proposal with a dozen Asian countries.

OK. So, the Democrats are now squabbling.

Meanwhile, Republican candidates for president are taking pot shots at each other over a wide range of issues, with tax policy and immigration leading the way.

There. Now the Republicans are fighting.

Is this bad? Do these intraparty squabbles harm our form of government?

Not in the least.

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/why-obama-is-happy-to-fight-elizabeth-warren-on-118537612596.html

So far it’s been mostly a GOP fight. Democrats have been fairly quiet in assessing each other.

Until now.

Warren has emerged as the far left’s champion — oh, maybe co-champ, along with independent socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ‘s running for president as a Democrat. A lot of lefties want Warren to run. She’s said everything but the categorical refusal to run for president in 2016. She keeps couching her intentions in the present tense — “I am not running” or “I have no interest” in running. None of those responses eliminates the possibility of her changing her mind.

She disagrees with a free trade deal with Asian nations. The president stands by his insistence that freer trade with our Pacific partners is a good deal for the country.

So, let’s continue to debate this issue.

It strengths our political process to have these fights within our respective major parties.

It’s going to test the mettle of the parties’ nominees when they emerge from their party fracases.

And, yes, that includes you, too, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

 

Sports news

Reading Tom Brady's body language

My wife isn’t a football fan, per se.

She doesn’t care so much about the details of the game, or even the men who play it.

However, she’s an astute reader of body language. She’s told me this about New England all-Universe quarterback Tom Brady, who’s been accused of having general knowledge that someone deflated those footballs prior to the Patriots’ game with the Indianapolis Colts.

“He looks like someone who was spoiled by his mother and has gotten away with everything he’s ever done,” she said. Does that mean Mrs. Brady actually spoiled little Tommy, or that my wife has inside knowledge of such? No. She said only that he looks like the type. “All he has to do is smile,” she said.

That was her takeaway from Brady’s appearance the other day in which he refused to answer questions about the deflated football story that has a lot of NFL fans in a tizzy these days. He looked “too smug,” she said.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/05/09/reality-not-looking-good-for-tom-brady-and-patriots/IGT3myWkYdZagI4FCzkHKJ/story.html

The rumor mill is churning out stuff about the National Football League getting ready to suspend Brady for at least part of the next football season. Some reports say he might have to sit the entire season out if NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell decides to drop the hammer.

I don’t particularly care one way or the other whether Brady sits or plays. I don’t think there’s that much of a story there about what Brady knew about the balls’ air pressure and when he knew it. I mean, the Patriots clobbered the Colts that day.

However, if my wife’s intuition is correct — and she is the very definition of “woman’s intuition” — then the all-world QB is likely to receive the shock of his life when the NFL commissioner decides to punish him for breaking a simple rule.

 

 

local news, political news

Does election diminish need to rethink voting plan?

Elisha Demerson’s election to the Amarillo City Council made history.

It also might have taken a bit of the bite out of those who think the city should revamp its voting plan to create a single-member district for its council members.

I am continuing to consider that a change in the city’s voting plan is in order.

My long-standing support of the city’s at-large system continues to waver, even though Demerson’s election as an African-American candidate in the current system might augur against such a change.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/12/22/re-thinking-single-member-districts/

I’m not keen on creating four single-member districts, while electing the mayor at-large. If I were King of the World, I’d consider expanding the council by two places, giving it six council member and electing two of the six at-large while dividing the city into four wards.

Other cities have done something like with varying degrees of success.

Indeed, Demerson’s victory is a ringing triumph for those in Amarillo who’ve declared that it’s virtually impossible for a minority candidate to win an at-large contest. The city’s black population comprises less than 10 percent of the total.

But think also about this: While Demerson was defeating incumbent Ellen Green in Place 1, Lilia Escajeda — the council’s sole Hispanic member — lost her seat to challenger Randy Burkett.

Does her loss lessen the joy that minorities are feeling today over Demerson’s victory?

Hey, I’m just askin’.

 

local news

Demerson scores historic win

Say whatever you want about the tone, tenor and tenacity of the campaign between City Councilman-elect Elisha Demerson and the incumbent he defeated today, Ellen Robertson Green.

Demerson’s victory is historic in that an African-American has been elected to a citywide public office.

The city’s at-large voting plan has been a point of contention among civil rights groups, minority-oriented political action organizations and citizens interested in changing the plan to a single-member district voting plan.

They’ve contended the at-large plan puts minority candidates at a disadvantage. Amarillo’s black population is less than 10 percent, so it stands to reason — those activists contend — that black candidates fare poorly when they put their names up before a voting public that doesn’t “identify” with them.

The League of United Latin American Citizens sued the Amarillo school district in 1998 to create a single-member voting plan for the school system. LULAC and the school district then agreed on a cumulative voting compromise plan that later was adopted by Amarillo College’s Board of Regents.

Well, perhaps we can put that “minorities can’t win in Amarillo” rationale to bed.

Demerson scored a solid victory. The voting turnout still was pitiful. None of the City Council winners can claim an absolute majority supports their election. What they all got was a majority of a slim minority of voters’ support.

It’s true as well that Demerson had been elected already to a countywide office when he became Potter County judge in 1987. So, he’s no stranger to bucking stiff electoral odds.

He’s just blazed a new trail along Amarillo’s political path.

 

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