U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is leaving the federal government to become president of the University of California-Berkeley.

On this occasion, I want to congratulate her – and thank her – for the job she’s done so far in helping secure our nation. I’m probably one of the few Americans who’ll speak out, given the sour mood of so many of us about so many issues – homeland security being one of them.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/07/12/department-homeland-security-secretary-bows-out/

Napolitano might be occupying one of more thankless jobs in government. Her immediate predecessor, Michael Chertoff – who held the job during the Bush administration – also deserves praise, along with the first Homeland Security secretary, Tom Ridge, who ran the agency immediately after its creation following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

Have these individuals performed flawlessly? Of course not. However, I am growing weary of the continual carping about border security – particularly from those with a political axe to grind – when evidence suggests that we’re actually doing a better job than we were prior to, say, the 9/11 terror attacks.

Deportations of illegal immigrants is up, as are arrests along our southern border. Still, politicians such as Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas (see the attached link) keep yammering about the need to do more.

It’s interesting to me that among those who are happy to see Napolitano leave are those associated with immigration reform groups who decry what they call the “militarization” of our southern border.

So, which is it? Has the Homeland Security Department been too tough on illegal immigration or not tough enough?

Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, took over a job she knew would produce few allies for her or for the administration she served.

I am one American who salutes her service.

The editor of the Baptist Standard has posed a valid question: If the Texas Legislature is going to approve a bill that bans abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy, is the state going to be prepared for the arrival of a lot of babies?

http://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorial/15273-editorial-get-ready-for-all-those-babies

The Legislature is meeting in its second special session in a month to consider some bills that it left undone. One of them is that anti-abortion bill that Senate Democrats, led by Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, filibustered to a temporary demise in June.

It’s back. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the main man of the Senate, vows to push the bill onto the books. More demonstrations are planned. It’s unlikely that the bill will die again.

Baptist Standard editor Marv Knox’s essay does wonder whether the state is going to be prepared to spend the money it needs to care for these children.

He writes this: “Texas is among the nation’s leaders in child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy. We’re also among the nation’s lowest-spending states on child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy. Some people attribute these maladies to dependence on government, the product of a so-called welfare state. If that were true, then their incidence would be higher in states that spend the most on child welfare, anti-poverty programs and education, not the least-spending small-government states, like Texas.”

And then he writes this:

“Ironically, conservative states composed of higher percentages of Bible-believing Christians—from Texas across the South—suffer the blights of child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy much more promiscuously than their more secular counterparts. Those are the states many Texans and Southerners call ‘pagan’ and ‘dark.’

“This disparity is an affront to the name of Jesus.”

Interesting, don’t you think?

Better get ready, Texas.

Oh, how I wish this story would come to pass: Sarah Palin campaigning for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Alas, I fear it’s only the passing fancy of the hard-core right wing of the Republican Party.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/sarah-palin-senate-run-alaska-mark-begich-93962.html?hp=r5

As one who is not a member of that wing, I too wish for such a campaign, if only to reveal perhaps once and for all how utterly unqualified Palin is to seek — let alone occupy — a high public office.

The rumor mill already is churning out grist that she might seek to run against Alaska Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Begich in 2014. Oh, let me count the ways this could end up badly for the former half-term governor of Alaska.

Begich already is saying Palin “quit” on her state by resigning the governor’s office the year after she and John McCain lost their White House bid in 2008 to Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Since then, Palin has become a star “contributor” on the Fox News Channel. She left Fox for a time but then returned, where she faces zero serious questions. She rails against the “lamestream” media, which is anyone who doesn’t work for Fox or any other right-wing media outlet.

Were she to run for the Senate, she’d have to answer probing questions from those “lamestream” media types who would ask her such things as, well: “Why, governor, should voters trust you to serve out your term when you’ve already quit one high office just two years into your first term?”

Begich already is questioning whether Palin actually lives in Alaska. I won’t weigh into that mess, given that I live a long way from the Land of the Midnight Sun. But rest assured that Begich would seek answers to a question — her residence — that will cause her as much discomfort as the questions that surfaced about her record as governor.

And I haven’t even mentioned the reality-TV shenanigans she and members of her family have engaged in.

Sadly, Palin won’t run for the Senate. She won’t give up her lucrative Fox gig. She won’t hold up to the scrutiny that all candidates for the U.S. Senate should face.

It would be intriguing, though, to see her try.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is threatening to drop the “nuclear option” on a rule governing Senate filibusters.

He should carry out his threat if his “friends” on the other side, Republican senators, continue to deny President Obama the chance to fill his team with folks who share his world view.

http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/30141958-78/democrats-filibuster-republicans-senate-president.html.csp

The filibuster is a legitimate tool that minority members – in this case, Republicans – use to their advantage. It can be used to stop nominees who aren’t qualified or who have political baggage that senators deem unacceptable. It’s been abused by both sides over many decades.

But as the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard editorial notes, Republicans have elevated the abuse in recent times to “an art form.”

Reid is considering whether to toss out the 60-vote rule to end filibusters and rely instead on a simple majority, 51 senators, to break it. Democrats – and their “independent” colleagues – have 55 votes in the Senate. The rule change would apply only to non-judicial appointments. As it stands now, the Obama administration has several key appointments awaiting confirmation votes simply because Republicans have launched filibusters to prevent those votes from occurring.

Reid says he’s serious. He won’t get any help, of course, from Texas’s two Republican senators – John Cornyn and Ted Cruz – both of whom have been near the head of the pack in leading these filibusters against virtually all of President Obama’s appointees.

I’ve long thought much of presidential prerogative. The president is the one elected leader selected by a majority vote of all Americans. Thus, that individual is entitled to be surrounded by like-minded individuals to help guide and shape U.S. political and governmental policy. Denying the president even an up-or-down vote by invoking dubious and often phony concerns is an abuse of the system.

It has to stop.

Go for it, Mr. Majority Leader.

Pakistan is reportedly looking inward into how it might have contributed to one of the worst intelligence failures in modern history.

It’s about time.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/09/19378780-in-aftermath-of-scathing-bin-laden-report-pakistan-asks-itself-hard-questions?lite

The probe looks into how Pakistan let Osama bin Laden hide in virtual plain sight for so long until May 2, 2011, when a U.S. Navy SEAL team launched a raid deep into Pakistan that killed bin Laden.

The 336-page report wonders whether Pakistani officials might have looked the other way when suspicions arose as to whether bin Laden was living in a highly fortified compound not far from an elite military academy. It’s been noted that bin Laden might have worn a cowboy hat to avoid detection by anyone peering into the compound.

Oh, please.

Many of us on the outside — yours truly included — have wondered since the raid was announced by President Obama to a cheering U.S. public whether the Pakistani government had knowledge of bin Laden’s presence. I still have trouble believing bin Laden — the world’s most wanted terrorist — could have escaped the Pakistani intelligence network, which is reputed to be a top-notch outfit.

That might explain what U.S. spooks knew when they laid the proposal for the raid on the commander in chief’s desk.

Pakistan is right to ask itself some tough questions about what its intelligence officials knew and when they knew it. My hunch is that they knew plenty all along, but kept the information quiet.

A big part of me kind of likes the message that one-time Texas Republican firebrand Tom Pauken is delivering to the GOP faithful.

Pauken is running for Texas governor. His only opponent so far is Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who’s been declared the prohibitive Republican favorite to succeed Rick Perry in January 2015. Perry announced he won’t run for re-election and will “pursue other interests,” such as possibly running for president of the United States in 2016.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/07/09/pauken-kicks-campaign-governor-capitol/

Pauken says there should be no assumption that Abbott will be anointed governor simply because he holds a statewide elected office. Pauken declares in effect that Abbott is part of whatever problems that plague Texas government.

Pauken plans to launch a fight for the soul of the Republican Party and wants to return it to what he calls “true conservatism,” the kind preached by the late Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Why am I pulling for Pauken?

Most of it is personal. I’ve known Tom for more than 25 years. I’ve visited him at his Dallas office. We’ve shared a few meals together over the years in Beaumont and here in Amarillo. We’ve had a long-standing friendly relationship and he understands we have differing world views. He’s a conservative; I, on the other hand, tilt to the left of center.

But I like the guy. He dislikes the “neocons” who populated President George W. Bush’s inner circle and advised him — badly, in Pauken’s view — about going to war in Iraq. He won’t say it publicly, but much of his criticism of them seems to stem from their lack of military service and a lack of understanding about the consequences of war, such as the casualties it produces and the misery it brings to those who are harmed and their family members.

Pauken served as an Army intelligence officer in Vietnam and has seen war up close. He knows of which he speaks.

He holds a special disregard for Karl (Bush’s Brain) Rove and believes that G.W. Bush was ill-equipped to serve as president.

I look forward to listening to this vigorous debate between Pauken and Abbott. I’ve met the attorney general many times over the years but our relationship has been strictly professional. With Pauken, my regard for him kind of crosses that vague line separating personal and professional relationships.

Would I vote for Pauken were he to be nominated by the GOP next year? That remains to be seen.

But I’m pulling for him nonetheless.

What precisely did former President George W. Bush say about immigration reform?

Turns out not much at all.

The former president, speaking at a forum on immigration this week at his library-museum in Dallas called for a “positive” outcome in the debate but said he won’t get involved in policy specifics.

Too bad about that.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/310087-bush-calls-for-reform-but-says-he-wont-enter-immigration-debate

I was rather hoping President Bush would have something specific to add to the discussion, given that he spoke well about immigration while he served as Texas governor from 1995 until 2000 and later as president.

Bush has long thought to be on the side of true reformers, the folks who favored a “pathway to citizenship” for the 11 million individuals who are here illegally. That side of the debate already has won the first round with a decisive vote in the U.S. Senate to approve legislation that establishes that pathway while also shoring up border security.

The House of Representatives’ Republican leadership – the individuals who run that chamber – are threatening to stall it (imagine that) if they can’t get a majority of GOP members to sign on.

President Bush has been quite circumspect in his public comments since leaving the White House in January 2009. He’s refrained from criticizing his successor, Barack Obama, declaring that the president has a difficult enough job without being sniped at by those who served previously. I admire that about Bush.

However, the 43rd president has something of value to add to the specifics of the current immigration debate. I would hope he’d reconsider his reluctance to get involved and weigh in – constructively, of course.

Mike Hashimoto writes editorials for the Dallas Morning News and, thus, might be excused if he limited his recent blog post to the big-city media perspective.

He writes about how the big-city newspaper editorial boards aren’t exactly sobbing aloud over Gov. Rick Perry’s decision to go on down the road once his current term is up.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/07/texas-ed-boards-send-perry-off-about-the-way-youd-expect.html/

But here’s a flash: I’m guessing there isn’t an editorial board in the state — large, medium or small — that’s heartsick over Perry’s pending departure from Texas politics.

You see, I worked on one of those medium-sized papers during the 2010 election, the one in which Gov. Perry declared he didn’t have anything to say to any of the state’s newspaper editorial boards. Therefore, he wouldn’t seek their endorsement for re-election. Turns out he didn’t need them.

He didn’t get it from the Amarillo Globe-News. We endorsed former Houston Mayor Bill White in the 2010 general election, believing that White — a business-friendly Democrat with a lot of solid ideas on how to build the state’s economy — was better suited for the times. The reaction from our readers was, um, interesting to say the very least. You’d have thought we recommended Mao Tse-Tung for governor, based on the reactions from some of our more fervent Republican readers.

Our colleagues in Lubbock also went with White and I understand the South Plains reader reaction was as livid as it was up here on the Caprock.

Did the governor’s stiffing of editorial boards influence our decision to recommend Bill White? I don’t recall it. We did have plenty of questions to pose to Perry and it would have been mighty swell of him to stoop to talk to answer them for us. Mayor White was candid and forthright and I suppose those are the kind of qualities you would want in the chief executive of a state government as large as ours.

At least that’s what I remember our medium-sized editorial page hoping we could get in 2010 when all the ballots were counted.

So long, governor. Don’t let the door hit you in the backside.

Two Democratic congresswomen want to set aside space on the moon, of all places, for a national historical park.

Bad idea, ladies of the House.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/309829-dems-propose-historical-park-on-the-moon

Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas and Donna Edwards of Maryland think it’s OK to set the land aside and furnish it with memorabilia taken from all the moon missions that occurred from 1969 through 1972.

Allow me this brief historical recap.

The Apollo 11 mission, the first one to the moon, occurred in July 1969. There was a brief debate within NASA over who should command that mission. The task fell to Neil Armstrong partly because at the time he was a civilian test pilot and was not serving on active military duty.

The idea was intended to deny the Soviet Union any political ammo. We were involved in a race to the moon with the Soviets. We got there first and NASA didn’t want the Evil Empire to concoct some half-baked theory that a military man planting the Stars and Stripes would constitute some kind of goofy military conquest.

The moon missions were intended to promote at some level a sense of international peace and understanding.

The notion now of making a national park site out of one or more landing areas flies in the face of that mission. There is no compelling need to establish such a park on moon.