All posts by kanelis2012

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Speaker Boehner's future starting to get cloudy

This isn’t exactly a scoop, but I’m hearing some rumblings from folks in the know on Capitol Hill that the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives has had it up to here with the tea party wing of his Republican Party caucus.

Indeed, John Boehner, R-Ohio, has called them out already over their insistence that the government default on its debt obligations if they don’t get spending cuts to offset increases in the national debt.

I’ve long thought of Boehner as a good-government Republican who’s been whipsawed by the tea party cabal within his GOP caucus. He’s been hamstrung by threats of open rebellion among some of those clowns. Back home in his Ohio congressional district, he hears murmurs of candidates challenging him from the right as he runs for re-election.

How much fun can this be? Not much if you’ve worked hard to be second in line — behind the vice president — in the presidential succession queue.

Boehner has been in the House a long time. He’s been a loyal Republican linked more to the “establishment wing” than to the tea party insurgent wing.

What might the future hold for Boehner?

A source close to the speaker has intimated that Boehner is fed up. He well might pack it in after the next Congress convenes in January 2015. It’s looking as though the GOP will strengthen its majority in the House and might even take over the Senate from the Democrats. The question well might be: What will the new House majority look like? Some of the tea leaves are suggesting that Republican ranks will swell with more tea party types, giving Boehner even more grief than he’s experienced already.

Thus, this source indicates, he well might just resign and let the House choose the next pigeon, er, speaker to run the place. Boehner then might go back home, or he might stay in D.C. and become, oh, a lobbyist.

I’ve also learned that this scenario has been discussed openly within the halls of Congress.

Yes, the atmosphere in Washington is toxic. Speaker Boehner’s immediate future plans just might tell us all something quite telling about how poisonous it’s become in the nation’s capital.

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Time to roll out the fifth wheel

This is another in a series of occasional blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

It’s been some time since we’ve slept in our recreational vehicle.

Our fifth wheel is getting more broken in and my wife and I have gotten pretty good at setting it up, hitching it up, hauling it down the road, setting up camp and then de-camping when it’s time to go home.

We’ve made a decision on our next destination. It’s in-state: We’ll be taking it to the Davis Mountains region of far southwest Texas. I’ve long had this fascination with Lake Balmorhea State Park. So, that’s where we’ll be heading with our fifth wheel.

Each trip we’ve taken has been longer than the previous one. Our most recent trip was to Allen to see our son, daughter-in-law and our new granddaughter — who just turned 1 on March 6. Prior to that we went to Albuquerque; our maiden trip was just across town to an RV park here in Amarillo, where we got acquainted with our new vehicle.

The Davis Mountains trip will be the most challenging for us. We’ll likely be on the road for most of the day we’ll drive there. The state park, though, is fully equipped: sewer, water, electricity, cable TV, Internet … all the creature comforts of home.

We’ll be traveling to a part of the state we’ve only seen briefly on an earlier drive through the region. It’s an exciting thing for us to be able to explore a new place, though, and we plan to do so once we arrive.

A good friend described the Davis Mountains region as looking like “the dark side of the moon,” not that my pal ever has seen the moon’s dark side. I’ll take him at his word, though, that the landscape there is as spectacular as he describes it.

These short trips are in preparation for our master travel plan once I retire fully from the part-time jobs I’m working now that I’m in semi-retirement mode. Plan A will involve us taking our fifth wheel out for weeks — maybe months — on end, exploring North America from coast to coast, from top to bottom.

It’s an exciting time for us. Our fifth wheel has been shut in long enough. Spring is arriving soon. The time has come for us to hit the road.

I’ll have more later.

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What the … ? Red-light cams in hospital zone?

Allow me this prediction: The day the Amarillo City Council authorizes installation of red-light cameras on Coulter Street, smack in the middle of the city’s medical complex, is the day a recall petition will be launched to kick every one of them out of office.

I might even gather signatures myself to put it on the ballot.

Some leaders in Tamarac, Fla., though, apparently think it’s all right to bust red-light runners in emergency zones.

http://watchdog.org/132348/red-light-camera-hospital-emergency/

The idea at the Tamarac hospital zone is to catch those who run red-lights. The cameras take pictures of license plates, police track down the registered owner of the vehicle and the cops issue a citation. That’s how it’s done in Amarillo and in virtually all cities that have deployed these devices.

In Tamarac, however, the cameras are nabbing motorists rushing to the hospital to seek medical attention.

How fair is that? Not at all, if you ask me.

One guy ran a red light as he was rushing to the hospital. He got caught, went to court to appeal the fine and was told his medical emergency was not sufficient to warrant his running the light. The judge also slapped an additional penalty.

When I saw this story, I couldn’t believe it. I thought the source, Watchdog.org, was one of those farcical websites that pokes fun at public policy with fake news reports. Turns out the site is legit, and the story appears legit as well.

Amazing stuff.

Don’t even think about doing something like this, Amarillo City Hall.

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Flight 370, where are you?

The ongoing search for a missing Boeing 777 has become just about the strangest story I’ve ever heard.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/14/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

A jetliner takes off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. It flies less than an hour then radio and radar contact is lost. The assumption is that the plane crashed into the Gulf of Thailand. The search begins for wreckage. None is found. Not only that, no one can account for why the plane lost contact. There was no may-day signal sent out.

Now it seems that everyone on the planet has theories about what happened to Malaysia Air Flight 370 and the 239 people on board.

My goodness, this story is giving me a serious headache.

The loved ones of those aboard need closure but authorities are now more confused than ever about the fate of the plane.

* If it plunged into the ocean at 500 mph, it would have broken up and something would have floated to the surface. Those “flotation devices” the passengers sit on would be seen.

* If it crashed on land satellites could have seen the wreckage from space. Lord knows Earth orbit has enough surveillance craft circling the globe.

* If someone deliberately turned off the transponder tracking signal, then for whom is that individual working?

* If someone hijacked the airplane and landed it in, say, Pakistan or Afghanistan, how does someone keep secret the presence of a massive transcontinental jetliner?

* Doesn’t someone almost always take “credit” for hijacking an airplane?

The hijacking theory is starting to get some traction from “experts” who claim to know such things. Of all the theories out there, the hijacking seems the least plausible. “They could have landed it in the middle of nowhere,” a colleague told me this morning. My response was that there really is no such thing these days as the “middle of nowhere.” Technology enables the entire planet to be seen by someone.

The U.S. Navy has joined the search, along with ships from India, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. Air crews from the United States and China are looking over many tens of thousands of square miles of territory — over land and water alike.

This mystery is deepening and is getting downright scary.

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Judges aren't elected for a good reason

Politics has no place on judicial bench.

That is why folks on the far right are so wrong to lambaste “unelected judges” for ruling as they do, particularly when their rulings go against the right wing’s tightly held agenda.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/unelected-judges

Paul Burka makes an important point in his blog about Sen. Ted Cruz’s criticism of a federal judge’s ruling that threw out Texas’s ban on gay marriage as being unconstitutional. Cruz used the right wing canard about unelected judges being accountable to no one.

That’s the way the U.S. Constitution was written by the founders. It’s strange to hear so-called “strict constructionists” argue against that very provision. Voters elect presidents, who then have the power to appoint judges to the federal bench. If you dislike the philosophies of the judges, then voters’ only option is to elect presidents who will appoint judges more to your liking.

As a counterpoint to the federal system, look at how many states select their judges. Texas’s system, I should add, is no great shakes. We elect our judges on partisan ballots; they run under political parties’ banners. Do you think their decisions are influenced by partisan pressure? In Texas, judges are every bit the politician that define county commissioners, legislators and the governor.

I rather prefer the federal model in which presidents appoint judges, who then are tasked with interpreting the U.S. Constitution. They get it right and they get it wrong. If they make the correct decisions, then so much the better. If they go the wrong way, well, we have Congress and the president to work together to fix the law.

My strong preference — to the extent that it is possible — to keep politics off the federal bench.

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Obama kills it on 'Between Two Ferns'

A few conservatives, not all of them, need to find a sense of humor.

Some of them are criticizing President Obama — no surprise there — for appearing on a mock talk show with a comedian, Zach Galifianakis. “Between Two Ferns” aired recently on the Internet and it showed the president of the United States engaging in a bit of repartee one doesn’t usually see involving the commander in chief and the Leader of the Free World.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/18e820ec3f/between-two-ferns-with-zach-galifianakis-president-barack-obama

He took to this forum to sell the Affordable Care Act to young Americans who so far have been reluctant to sign up for the exchanges offered by the law.

Conservatives, though, have tweeted some messages about how FDR, Reagan, Ike, Truman or JFK never would do such a thing. This kind of stunt is beneath the office of the presidency, they say.

You know what? I could see The Gipper or JFK doing it. Maybe not Truman, Ike or FDR. President Reagan surely had a flair for the dramatic, given his movie career before he entered politics in the mid-1960s. And President Kennedy, you’ll recall, made presidential press conferences something of an art form during his 1,000 or so days in the White House.

I’m reminded of what the late great East Texas congressman, Charles Wilson, once said about those who criticized his well-known reputation as a lady’s man. He said his constituents were actually envious of his lifestyle. “They don’t want their congressman,” Wilson once was quoted as saying, “acting like a constipated hound dog.”

I see nothing wrong at all with my president showing a bit of his human — and humorous — side while discussing a serious national policy issue.

Lighten up out there.

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Spring is springing forth

The long, cold winter is about to end. Spring’s official arrival isn’t set for another week.

However, I need to share what I just witnessed on a walk through the neighborhood with my bride.

I witnessed the first signs of spring. They’re showing up in people’s lawns, on the trees that are beginning to bud, if ever so imperceptibly. I’m hearing more lawnmowers roaring. I’m seeing more people out walking — just like my wife and me — with their children in strollers or their puppies on leashes.

This truly is my favorite season of the year.

Other people tell me they love autumn the most. The summer gives way to the cooling breezes, the leaves turn colors and then they fall off the trees. That’s all fine.

The leaves also die. The trees grow dormant. The grass loses its luster and it, too, goes to sleep for the winter.

Me? I am a revival sort of fellow. I like the season where Mama Nature wakes everything up.

We’ve lived on the High Plains of Texas for slightly more than 19 years now and we’ve watched these cycles play out with each passing year. This year — or maybe it’s just my imagination — it seems the Texas Tundra became barren more quickly than in many previous years. I recall around early November driving past McDonald Lake at the corner of John Stiff Memorial Park just north of our home and noticing that the grass around the lake had gone from green to brown virtually overnight.

Then I noticed everyone’s yards had done the same thing.

The cold set in. It didn’t let up. We didn’t set any low-temperature records this year, but it surely seems as though the winter clamped its grip on us early and kept it there for what seemed like forever.

Snowfall? The National Weather Service said we’ve gotten 12 inches or so this winter, down a couple of inches from normal.

It’s been dry. And cold. For a long time.

It is now giving way to that time of renewal. I saw it this afternoon on a lovely walk through the ‘hood. I’m hoping, though, we avoid one of those late-season blue northers.

I am officially ready for spring. Bring it — and some drenching rain too.

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Time to lift Cuba sanctions

highplainsblogger_wordpressTime has this way of changing public attitudes as the old ways give way to new ideas.

Witness what’s happening in the Cuban-American community — particularly in southern Florida — as it relates to this country’s non-relationship with Cuba.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/exiles-america-soften-stance-cuba-ties-n44121

Cuban expatriates, or their direct descendants, are softening their hardline view that the United States must continue to strangle Cuba. I keep asking: To what end?

Fidel Castro overthrew a dictator in 1959. He pledged to “reform” the country. By many accounts, he made it worse. He fomented revolution less than 100 miles from the Florida shoreline. By 1961, the United States closed its embassy in Havana and clamped strict economic sanctions on the island nation.

Then, in October 1962, came the missile crisis that nearly brought the United States to war with the Soviet Union because of those missiles being installed in Cuba.

The bad guys blinked. The missiles went away. So did the Soviet Union, eventually. Fidel Castro has left office, although his brother, Raul, isn’t any better.

But why do we keep seeking to punish a nation that poses no threat to us?

Some Cuban-Americans think the time has come to restore a relationship with Cuba.

According to NBCnews.com: “’Cuba is a completely different country than what we left in the fifties. Folks here have no clue. They continue to see Cuba from Miami or New York or wherever they are located. You have to spend time there and talk to the Cuban people. The hard line position is dying and it will disappear,’” says Zamora, who was once an active member of the Cuban American National Foundation, an organization that has been a leading voice of Cuban exiles against relations with Cuba.”

That feeling isn’t unanimous, obviously. Florida state Sen. Anitere Flores, who was born in Miami, says Cuba is a sponsor of terrorism. My response? So what? So are Yemen are Saudi Arabia. We have diplomatic missions there, as we do in the People’s Republic of China, Venezuela — and, oh yes, in Moscow, the capital of a country that is provoking the United States hourly with its aggression in neighboring Ukraine.

The Cuban trade embargo is a vestige of a Cold War that no longer exists. It’s time for it to go. If more and more Cuban-Americans who comprise a huge political powerhouse in south Florida have come to that conclusion, why can’t the White House follow their lead?

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What in the world happened to that jetliner?

You know, I always had thought that the Age of Instant Communication and Surveillance meant that no one could disappear off the face of the planet without a trace.

I must have been delusional.

Witness the search for Malaysian Air Flight 370, which did exactly that about a week ago.

http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/story.aspx?id=1017979#.UyHEjVJOWt8

The plane took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, en route to Beijing. Then it vanished.

The family and friends of 239 passengers and crew are grief-stricken. Everyone’s heart is broken for them and one only wishes for closure, for some clue as to the fate of those people.

How, though, does a plane vanish like that? What am I missing?

The Malaysians are now being forced to defend their search for the Boeing 777, which is a mighty big airship. The world is getting mixed messages daily, if not hourly, on what authorities know what happened to the bird.

Did the flight crew reverse direction? Did the crew take the ship sharply west over the Indian Ocean? Did the ship crash on land? Did it plunge into the Gulf of Thailand or into the South China Sea?

And how is it that with all the global positioning system technology — and the radar — available to track these aircraft in flight that this plane has managed to disappear without a trace?

I hear now that people are calling cell phones numbers of the passengers on board — and that the phones are ringing. What? How does that happen? Isn’t there technology that tracks cell phone locations?

This tragic story might develop into the greatest aviation mystery since, oh, Amelia Earhart’s disappearance — in 1937.

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Tide is turning seriously against Democrats

Democrats beware.

A congressional election on the Gulf Coast of Florida has just spelled impending disaster for your party this coming November.

Republican David Jolly has just defeated Democrat Alex Sink for the seat vacated by the death of longtime Republican U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young. Democrats thought the special election could provide a breakthrough in a traditionally strong GOP district. They were mistaken.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/local/adam-c-smith-column-david-jolly-victory-spells-trouble-for-democrats/2169745

Jolly won, although by a narrow margin.

He managed to make the Affordable Care Act the issue. He nationalized a local contest. Sink was sunk by her support of the ACA, which Republicans have demonized successfully — and wrongly, in my view — as some kind of evil government intrusion.

How will this play out in all 435 congressional districts? Not well if you’re a Democratic candidate, or so it appears at this moment.

Democratic candidates are spooked, or at least they should be spooked, by the prospect of running for Congress with public disapproval of the ACA so high. Tampa Bay Times political columnist Adam Smith put it this way: “Don’t be surprised to see vulnerable Democrats across the country start distancing themselves from health care reform in a way that Sink did not.”

None of this discussion, of course, matters for the 13th Congressional District of Texas, one of the most reliably Republican districts in the House of Representatives. Incumbent Mac Thornberry of Clarendon faces a Democrat this fall, someone named Mike Minter; Thornberry will cruise to re-election.

The contested races involving potentially vulnerable Democrats do pose a problem. Democrats have all but given up the idea of regaining control of the House and they are in serious danger of losing control of the Senate.

What happens if the GOP gains control of both congressional chambers? Well, gridlock will tighten. Dysfunction will intensify. Tempers will flare. Relations between the White House and Capitol Hill will go from bad to worse to abysmal.

Government will not work.

When the new Congress takes over in January 2015 we just might be longing for the “good old days” that are about to pass into history.