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President takes wing

This speech is about a month old, but I just caught up with it … and am astounded by its ignorance.

U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., went on the floor of the House in mid-July to gripe about all the trips President Obama has taken aboard the jet called Air Force One.

http://thehill.com/video/house/311969-gop-lawmaker-obamas-using-air-force-one-as-personal-toy

Coble yapped about the cost per each flight and accused the first family of using the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet as its “personal toy.” He was warned against using improper references to the president by the presiding officer.

If the president of the United States feels a need to fly Air Force One somewhere on behalf of the country he governs, then why is that such a huge deal to a back-bench member of Congress whose name few Americans even recognize? Coble’s complaints center on the cost of using the aircraft during difficult economic times. He says its use runs up the deficit and the debt, which the nation cannot afford.

The aircraft also supplies the president with all the communications he needs while he’s en route to his destination. The way I see it, those amenities are quite necessary for him to do his job. You know, things like telecommunications he can use while speaking with military and domestic policy advisers, phone hookups so he can be briefed on crises as they erupt. These are fairly essential items, don’t you think?

I’m not going to begrudge any president the right to use an airplane that enables him to be on call every minute of every day he occupies the most powerful office on the planet.

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Area 51 report will feed frenzy

Is it true that some folks believe the declassification of information relating to Area 51 is actually going quell the intrigue?

You must be joking.

http://www.nbcnews.com/entertainment/area-51-report-wont-stop-hollywood-those-who-want-believe-6C10936776

It’s going to heighten it. It will foster more theories — all of them bogus — about what happened out there.

Area 51 long has been the subject of myth-making from those who think that in the late 1940s creatures from somewhere “out there” crashed to Earth. Go to Roswell, N.M., and experience the carnival atmosphere downtown with all the UFO gift shops.

I’ve never really gotten into the Area 51 stuff. I’ve read all the nonsense and the fun-loving jokes about whether extraterrestrials came a’callin’ at Area 51. I’ve never given it a serious thought … not for a single second.

Then again, I tend to dismiss most conspiracies. President Kennedy’s murder? A lone gunman, a loser, a rogue Marxist pulled the trigger that day in Dallas. Robert Kennedy’s assassination? A single Jordanian-American angry over RFK’s pro-Israel stance did the deed in that Los Angeles hotel kitchen. 9/11? That was what it was: a brilliantly conceived and executed terrorist attack by terrorists.

The CIA’s declassification of these Area 51 documents won’t put a damper on anything. Hate to say it, but we have too many Americans with too much time on their hands who’ll concoct even crazier schemes about Area 51 than we’ve heard already.

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Davis a go for Texas governor?

The Texas political media are full of smart folks who know the ins and outs of the state’s raucous political world.

One of the smarter guys, Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News, thinks state Sen. Wendy Davis is likely to run for Texas governor in 2014.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/08/wendy-davis-all-signals-point-to-a-go-for-governor-of-texas.html/

I hope he’s right, if only because the Republicans Party establishment needs a serious challenge from the “other” major party.

Davis, the Fort Worth Democrat, who made such a splash with her spectacular legislative special session filibuster against an anti-abortion bill — which eventually became law during the second special session — is trying to decide whether to run for the state’s top job next year. The winds are hitting her square in the face, as Texas remains a heavily Republican state.

But man, she is charismatic and would enliven the contest like no other Democrat.

Republicans have their own gubernatorial fight brewing between state Attorney General Greg Abbott and Dallas lawyer/businessman and former state GOP chairman Tom Pauken. Abbott has to be considered the odds-on favorite in that primary — and in next fall’s general election.

Davis, though, would be an attention-getter were she to be nominated by Texas Democrats (duh!).

The state needs a white-hot campaign at the top of its political ballot. Wendy Davis would ignite it, no matter who she would face.

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RNC marginalizes itself with boycott vote

The Republican National Committee has just voted to marginalize its standing with the broad swath of Americans who will have a say in electing the next president of the United States.

The RNC voted to exclude CNN and NBC News from any 2016 presidential primary debates.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/08/16/rnc-to-consider-excluding-cnn-nbc-from-2016-presidential-debates/

I’m a bit unsure as to how that will work. I suppose if either CNN and NBC proposes to host a debate, none of the candidates will show up. Perhaps the RNC will set up a debate and invite the other networks — CBS, ABC and Fox — to take part.

Whatever the case, the RNC has failed to grasp the difference between news and entertainment.

At issue are a couple of proposed projects involving Hillary Rodham Clinton, a possible Democratic candidate for president in 2016. CNN is planning to air a film on the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state; NBC is hoping to produce a four-part miniseries on HRC. The GOP says the networks are trying to influence voters by portraying Clinton allegedly in a positive light.

Well, no one knows yet how the networks are going to portray her. Nor has anyone grasped publicly the difference — in NBC’s case — the difference between the news operation and the network’s entertainment division. NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd has tried to explain that the entertainment is independent from news and neither has any say in what the other does.

That doesn’t matter, according to the RNC. I suppose the GOP would be just fine with all of this if the networks were planning to broadcast hatchet jobs on Hillary. A “fair and balanced” portrayal of a major American public figure, though, isn’t good enough.

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Airline merger equals campaign issue

If I understand Tom Pauken correctly, the fact that the state’s attorney general actually supports the federal government’s decision to fight a proposed airline merger makes the AG’s position a non-starter.

Why? Because the AG has been fighting the feds for years and the state simply cannot possibly be on the same side as the enemy — no matter the merits of the case.

Ah … Texas politics. Nothing like it.

Pauken is running for the Republican nomination for Texas governor against AG Greg Abbott, who says he fears a proposed merger between American Airlines and US Airways would result in fare increases and reduced service to rural areas.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/08/15/pauken-attacks-abbott-opposing-airline-merger/

The feds say the same thing about the proposed merger. Thus, Abbott and the U.S. Justice Department are on the same page on this very specific issue. Abbott and/or his staff of lawyers presumably have analyzed the specifics of the case and determined that, by golly, maybe the feds have a point.

Isn’t that what lawyers do? Pauken, himself a lawyer as well as a former Texas Republican Party chairman, ought to understand that principle.

Instead, he seems to be suggesting that Abbott — who is fighting on behalf those who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act — simply must remain opposed to President Obama, Eric Holder and the federal government because they’re just so darn unpopular in Texas.

This is where every single policy statement becomes a campaign issue.

Ain’t Texas politics grand?

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Why not visit Panhandle, Sen. Cruz?

It just occurred to me today, after commenting on Sen. Ted Cruz’s schedule of town hall meetings, that he’s not coming to the core of his support in Texas.

I’m talking about the Panhandle.

Cruz’s itinerary will keep him down state during his meet-and-greet tour. He’ll be talking to politically friendly audiences.

If that’s going to be his modus operandi during the congressional break, then he needs to come to where his support is really — as in really, really — strong. The Panhandle is known to be a hotbed of tea party support for any statewide candidate. Cruz has taken the next important step and actually won a statewide office.

As the junior Republican U.S. senator, he’s made a big name for himself talking tough about shutting down the government and questioning the commitment of real-life Vietnam War heroes, such as Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, to our national defense. I feel compelled to insert at this point that Cruz has never worn his country’s uniform, let alone in battle — as Kerry and Hagel have done.

So, what say you, Sen. Cruz? Can’t you find some time in your busy schedule to drop in on, say, Amarillo, for some flesh-pressing with those who just think you’re the bee’s knees?

If you come this way, I might even find time to attend your session and when you open the floor up to questions, I might even challenge you to explain why you believe shutting down the federal government is good for the country.

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Barbara Bush the Younger ‘endorses’ HRC

Well, that’s a shocker.

Barbara Bush, one of former President George W. Bush’s twin daughters, has declared that former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is “unbelievably qualified” to be president of the United States.

Who knew the Bush family had a closet Democrat in its midst?

http://www.today.com/news/bush-daughter-hillary-clinton-should-run-president-6C10928933

Barbara, 31, hopes Clinton runs for the White House in 2016. She did stop short of saying HRC would get her vote were she to take the plunge.

It’s interesting in the extreme, though, to hear the daughter of such a prominent Republican make a glowing statement about a prominent Democrat. That sets up the potential for an interesting tussle within the GOP, which already is turning on itself over disagreements on immigration reform, spending cuts, and a possible government shutdown as it relates to the future of “Obamacare.”

George W. Bush has stayed out of the fray. Good move, Mr. President. Now one of his daughters seems to be taking baby steps back into it with her comments about a possible Democratic presidential candidate who, without doubt, is one of the sworn enemies of the tea party movement within the GOP.

How will the tea party wing react to this virtual endorsement? Will it scold the former president for not “counseling” his daughter sufficiently enough? Might the tea party folks declare unofficial war on the Bush family for being so, so, so “establishment” in its Republican orthodoxy?

The big question might be, how will Democrats handle these glowing words if their party nominates Clinton to be their party’s standard-bearer in the summer of 2016?

My guess: very carefully.

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Partisanship enters debate over crime

I got into an interesting rhetorical tug-of-war with a friend of mine this week.

It involved the sentencing of former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to 30 months in federal prison; Jackson’s wife got a one-year sentence in Club Fed. Jesse Jackson’s crime involved the theft of $750,000 from his campaign treasure chest.

My friend, a businessman in Amarillo — and a dedicated Republican — wanted to know if Democrats were still “proud” of their party now that one of their own had been sent up the proverbial river for committing a crime. I responded that the Republican Party has had its share of crooks; I cited former President Richard Nixon and former Vice President Spiro Agnew as examples. We went back and forth after that, but didn’t really settle anything.

He’s still an ardent Republican and I’m still an equally ardent Democrat. I believe we’re still friends; I’ll likely find out next time I visit his business establishment.

But the exchange brought to mind the cheapening of what’s happened to Jackson and other political leaders of either stripe — Democrat or Republican. It pains me when partisans try to hang the “all Democrats/Republicans are crooks” label on either party when someone gets convicted and sentenced for committing a crime.

I don’t give a damn about Jackson’s party affiliation, any more than I gave a damn that Nixon and Agnew were Republicans. Jackson was tried and convicted by the federal court. Nixon was nearly impeached by the House of Representatives and he quit to avoid a certain impeachment and conviction by the Senate; Agnew resigned after being indicted by the feds for taking bribes.

The system in all those cases worked irrespective of the political labels any of the principals wore at the time, and it usually works whenever any high-profile politician gets in trouble.

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Talk to all Texans, Sen. Cruz

Something struck me as I looked at U.S. Sen. Ted Cruzā€™s planned series of town hall meetings across Texas.

Heā€™s going to be speaking to groups friendly to his point of view.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/08/15/ted-cruz-staging-events-across-texas/

Local Republican womenā€™s groups are hosting him; same for local tea party organizations; an event in Dallas will be put on by the Heritage Foundation; heā€™ll be talking to a chamber of commerce audience too.

Thatā€™s all fine and good. Iā€™m curious, though, as to whether the Republican junior senator from Texas is going to engage individuals in actual debate and discussion over differences they might have in public policy.

Iā€™m going on out a limb here, but Iā€™m quite sure liberal Democratic senators in, say, California or New York donā€™t spend much time talking to conservative audiences. So the query is posed to them as well.

Cruz was elected by a majority of Texans in 2012 to represent the entire state. I get that Texas leans hard right in its political view. All its statewide elected officials are Republicans; thereā€™s not a Democrat to be found ā€¦ or none on the horizon with a prayer of winning a statewide election. But not every Texan adheres to that world view. A few of us out here lean the other way and do not like the notion, for example, of shutting down the government in order to defund the Affordable Care Act ā€“ which Cruz is pushing.

Sen. Cruz also is thought to be considering a run for the presidency in 2016, a notion that was noticed by Tanene Allison, spokeswoman for the Texas Democratic Party. ā€œHeā€™s not talking about the issues that matter most to Texans,ā€ Allison told the Texas Tribune. ā€œA movement to try to shut down the government is not on the top of the list of what most Texans want at the moment.ā€

A more productive town hall series would be to include constituents who arenā€™t particularly friendly to the fiery conservative. Maybe someone with a different point of view will sneak into one or more of these meetings and actually challenge him. Letā€™s hope so.

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Feds block airline merger

The federal governmentā€™s intervention in the proposed merger between American Airlines and US Airways leaves me a bit puzzled.

The link attached to this blog notes that the feds want to prevent further escalation of air fares, which they believe will occur with this merger; but previous mergers have had precisely that effect already.

http://news.yahoo.com/airline-mergers-already-led-higher-fares-040223675.html

Amarillo is served by American Airlines, which flies several times a day to and from Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The city has skin in Americanā€™s future here, given that we once subsidized ā€“ through economic development money collected from sales tax revenue ā€“ jet service between AMA and DFW.

On one hand, I applaud the government for looking out for the flying public. On other hand, the feds seem a bit tardy in joining this fight, given the direction air fares already have gone during the past decade.

My wife and I have made something of a pact between us already that from here on, virtually all our future travel throughout North America will be aboard our shiny new travel vehicle. We plan to spend extensive time on the road from this day forward.

But we do have some overseas destinations on our agenda. Weā€™ll make that decision when the time is right.

But the airlines that serve AMA need not look to us to spend much time sitting in cramped seats, with our knees tucked up under our chins ā€“ all the while having to pay extra for a bag of peanuts.

I reckon weā€™re not alone in our view of air travel these days. I also am presuming that the marketplace will determine whether we continue to pay through the nose for air travel.

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