Uncategorized

Whatever became of graffiti war?

Paul Harpole became Amarillo’s mayor in 2011 pledging, among other things, to rid the city of graffiti.

He made something of a splash early in his first term as mayor, taking inventories of buildings that had been “tagged” by individuals and/or groups. There was some public discussion about a local lawyer’s property being used — with his permission — as a place where young people could spray-paint their symbols.

Then? I believe the public discussion has fallen mostly silent.

I’ve heard nary a sound from the mayor, from City Hall administrators, from other members of the City Council, from the cops, prosecutors, property owners, nothing.

Is the graffiti problem as bad as it was when Harpole became mayor? Is it worse? Has it gotten so much better that Harpole has declared victory?

Beats me.

The mayor took me on a tour of problem areas around the city. One area is right next to the Plemon-Eakle Historic Neighborhood, which isn’t too far from the tony Wolflin area where many of the city’s old-money elite residents live. He talked about how the city deals with this form of vandalism, how it must get the property owner to clean the mess. He mentioned how complex this process can get at times.

I’ll acknowledge that I don’t frequent very often some of the tougher neighborhoods in town where this kind of activity goes on. Thus, I’m no expert on graffiti. I did attend a day-long seminar recently at Amarillo College’s West Campus that dealt with gang issues in Amarillo. The police officer who led the discussion, Cpl. Steve Powers, displayed plenty of graffiti to those in the audience showing the various identifying marks of gangs that operate around town.

I’m curious as to whether I’ve missed something about the mayor’s war on graffiti.

Did he win? Has he given up?

Uncategorized

Here comes Bush 3.0

George Prescott Bush likely is going to become the next Texas land commissioner.

He’s setting the stage for yet another Bush to stand tall over the Texas political landscape, now that he’s won the Republican Party primary for the statewide office.

Oh, boy.

http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/politics/story.aspx?id=1014927#.UxxUOFKYat8

Bush — who’s known as “P” — has never held elected office. He’s a fairly recent resident of Texas, where he’s been practicing law. On paper, P’s political resume looks pretty thin.

Except that he’s got some pretty good Texas political blood running through his veins. His grandpa is George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States; his uncle is George W. Bush, the 43rd president. That makes him a third-generation Bush — and a Texan to boot — who’s entering the political arena.

I should add that he’s got another key element working in his favor. His mother is Columba, born in Mexico and married to Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor. P speaks Spanish fluently and figures to employ his bilingual skills quite nicely as he tours the state in the next several months in search of votes.

I am not going to poke fun at P for seeking to follow the trail blazed by grandpa, Uncle W and Dad. The landscape is full of political dynasties. Does the name “Kennedy” mean anything? How about Cuomo? The Rockefellers have done pretty well, too. “Udall” remains a pretty strong brand in the Southwest and Mountain West.

All of this dynasty talk does bring to mind, though, the shutting out of other candidates who otherwise might have at least as much to offer the votes as someone named Bush, or Kennedy, or Cuomo.

These are like the sons and daughters of famous actors who end up with starring roles even though they might not possess the talent of their famous forebears. Or the sons of famous athletes who take roster spots on teams that should go to other, more talented players; Mickey Mantle Jr. and Pete Rose Jr. are two notable sports failures who come to mind immediately.

If P succeeds as land commissioner — and I hope he does — then he’ll have shown that he’s more than just a famous name.

Uncategorized

No surprise: Paul wins CPAC straw poll

And the winner is …

Rand Paul, senator from Kentucky, and now a presumed Republican candidate for president of the United States.

What did the senator win? The straw poll taken at the Conservative Action Political Conference meeting in Maryland.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/03/08/rand_paul_wins_cpac_straw_poll_121856.html

He finished far ahead of the second-place candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Dr. Ben Carson, a noted neurosurgeon finished third, with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie finishing fourth. Cruz pulled 11 percent of the vote, 20 percentage points behind Paul.

So, there you have it. Sen. Paul is now the presumptive frontrunner for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.

I know what you’re thinking. This is a straw poll. It matters not one bit. It was taken among members of the most fervent wing of the Republican Party. What about the rest of the party faithful?

Well, allow me to let you in on what I believe is a reality in modern GOP politics: CPAC represents the party these days. The middle ground in the GOP is shrinking faster than Lake Meredith in the summer. The CPAC crowd is calling the shots, or so it appears.

I normally wouldn’t give Paul’s “victory” in this straw poll much credence, except that the political landscape is changing before our eyes. Paul’s form of libertarian-strain conservatism seems to play well with the CPAC wing of the party. Rest assured, when the time comes for Paul to make up his mind about running — and I’m betting he’ll do it — he will look back at the CPAC straw poll as some sort of vindication for the message he’s been delivering.

He’s in step with most Republicans in wanting to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. He’s opposing almost all of President Obama’s domestic and foreign policy agenda. He thinks the Benghazi and the IRS stories still have legs.

He fits right in with this version of modern Republicanism.

Uncategorized

Try crossing this ‘red line’

It appears another nation has drawn a “red line” across which no one should dare cross.

President Obama drew one involving the use of chemical weapons by Syria; he threatened to respond militarily when the Syrians crossed the line, asked Congress for permission to act and then watched as the Russians intervened to work out a diplomatic solution.

Now come the Chinese regarding their neighbor North Korea. China’s foreign minister, Wang Wi, declared that the People’s Republic has drawn a red line as it regards war on the Korean peninsula.

http://news.msn.com/world/china-draws-red-line-on-north-korea-says-wont-allow-war-on-peninsula

The PRC will have none of it, Wang said.

What does it mean? Well, some observers — such as Secretary of State John Kerry — see it as a possible shot across North Korea’s bow, a warning to take down its nuclear weapons program.

If the PRC is as close to the loons in North Korea as it is believed, then the Chinese know that North Korean dictator/madman/lunatic Kim Jong Un is capable of just about any foolish act. That just might include striking South Korea militarily, crossing the red line that the North Koreans’ allies in Beijing said they must not cross.

The world knows that North Korea set such a precedent in 1950 when it invaded the south and started the Korean War, an intense and bloody conflict that killed more than 40,000 Americans in just three years. And oh yes: China sent in its troops, too, to aid the North Koreans.

Still, I am inclined to believe Wang Yi when he draws such a line.

Another war in Korea will have far more serious consequences for the entire world. If Kim Jong Un ignores the warning from the PRC, then he is crazier than the world thinks he is — and that’s really saying something.

Uncategorized

Irony taints Obama critics

There’s a certain irony attached to the criticism that keeps pouring in from the right regarding President Obama’s handling of the Ukraine-Russia crisis.

They gripe that the president is feckless and ineffective in his handling of the crisis that has seen Russian troops roll into Crimea after Ukraine ousted its pro-Russia president.

The irony? It is that the criticism itself undermines the president/commander in chief as he seeks to work out some kind of response in conjunction with our allies.

Putin dismisses warnings from Obama

Didn’t we hear similar concerns about the left’s continual carping during President Bush’s two terms? Russia sent troops into Georgia in the final full year of Bush’s presidency, which caused a lot of hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing. The left was wrong to undermine President Bush’s efforts — and the right is wrong to do the very same thing to President Obama.

It was the great Republican U.S. senator from Michigan, Arthur Vandenberg, who coined the axiom about politics “ending at the water’s edge.” He meant that partisan critics of presidents ought to hold their fire when the president is acting in his role as head of state during an international crisis.

This is precisely what Barack Obama is trying to do now as he works with our allies to find some kind of diplomatic solution to Russia’s meddling in what should be a solely internal matter to be decided by Ukraine.

The carping from the right is emboldening Russian president/strongman Vladimir Putin and it isn’t helping end the crisis.

Uncategorized

Issa misuses immense power

My reading of the controversy over U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa’s recent behavior at a key House committee meeting is fairly straightforward.

The chairman misbehaved … badly.

He needs to be called down for his treatment of a senior member of his committee. What’s more, he needs to be called down for the interminable hearings he keeps conducting on matters that do not rise to the level of importance he’s attaching to them.

I refer to the IRS and Benghazi controversies.

This week he shut down the microphone of Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland as Cummings was trying to speak publicly about the IRS matter involving the tax agency’s vetting of conservative political action groups’ tax-exempt status. Democrats call it a witch hunt; Republicans say the IRS might have acted on orders from the White House. Except that independent analyses have determined the White House wasn’t involved.

Issa chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. It doesn’t control much tax money. It isn’t by definition a “sexy” committee. Its role is to probe government functions and to ensure that government agencies are working efficiently.

This particular committee once operated under the name of Government Operations Committee, which was chaired for many years by my former congressman, the late Jack Brooks, a tough-as-nails Beaumont Democrat. Brooks was as partisan and mean as anyone I’ve ever known, but he didn’t send his committee on witch hunts looking scandals involving Republicans where none existed.

By my reckoning, Issa is misusing the immense power of his committee. He keeps calling IRS officials before his panel to ask them questions they’ve already answered, or have fallen back on their Fifth Amendment protections against possible self-incrimination. He’s spending a ton of public money on these investigations, about $14 million to date.

He’s also got his sights set on the Benghazi matter, the firefight that in September 2011 resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. Issa alleges that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton covered up what she knew and when she knew it. Government probes have determined there was fault in the way the State Department handled the crisis, but there is no evidence of a deliberate cover-up. Issa persists nonetheless.

The matter with Rep. Cummings is just one more example of the manner in which Issa is abusing the power of the gavel. He did apologize — more or less — to Cummings for cutting off his mic. Then he went on TV to portray Cummings’s outburst as a staged event.

Democrats sought a resolution to punish Issa. The GOP-controlled House, to no one’s surprise, shot it down.

There’s good news, though, in all of this. Issa’s term as chairman of this panel expires at the end of the year. I’m hoping he won’t do any more damage to the cause of “government reform” before he hands the gavel over to someone else.

Uncategorized

Perry needs to define ‘great’

There was Texas Gov. Rick Perry at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

He was bellowing, gesturing, pointing his fingers, hollerin’ some Texas slang — and saying something about how the United States “could become great again.”

Hmmm. How does the governor define great?

* We’re still the pre-eminent military power on the planet.

* We’re still the world’s No. 1 economy.

* We continue to rack up more Nobel prizes than any other country on Earth.

* We remain the No. 1 destination for immigrants looking to carve out a better life for themselves and their families.

* Our Constitution continues to be the model for newly created countries seeking to craft a framework for their own governments.

* The United States has recovered from the Great Recession while other developed nations continue to languish.

* We’re about to become the world’s No. 1 producer of oil.

* We’ve cut our oil imports to historic lows.

And the Texas governor rails about our country losing its greatness?

Are we perfect? No. Perfection is unattainable, but it’s always worth seeking.

Still, Gov. Perry needs to clean those new eyeglasses he’s wearing.

From my perch, I have concluded that we still are the greatest country on Earth.

Uncategorized

Texas’s Cruz missile misfires once again

You have to love that Ted Cruz.

He gets elected to the U.S. Senate and immediately makes a name for himself — while embarrassing many of the people he purports to represent.

The Texas Republican did it again today, speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference in which he denigrated the likes of Sens. Bob Dole and John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — all of whom ran for president but lost to Democratic opponents.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/cpac/mccain-dole-scorch-cruz-cpac-comments-n47126

It was Cruz’s criticism of Dole that drew the most intense response from McCain.

“All of us remember President Dole, and President McCain and President Romney,” Cruz told the CPAC crowd. “Those are good men, they’re all decent men but when you don’t stand and draw a clear distinction, when you don’t stand for principle Democrats celebrate.”

McCain has demanded that Cruz apologize to Sen. Dole, the 1996 GOP presidential nominee.

“He can say what he wants to about me, he can say anything he wants to about Mitt. Mitt can take it,” McCain said. “But when he throws Bob Dole in there, I wonder if he thinks that Bob Dole stood for principle on a hilltop in Italy when he was so gravely wounded and left part of his body there fighting for our country.”

Ouch!

Dole responded as well, noting that he was a strong supporter of President Ronald Reagan’s agenda and declared his voting record is as conservative as it gets. Dole also worked well with Democrats, including leading liberals such as the late Sen. George McGovern — another World War II hero with whom he had a lasting friendship.

This still-new senator has some work to do to understand that he needs to respect his elders. He just might need them in his corner if he intends to run for president himself in 2016.

I’m betting he is going to be marching to his own cadence.

Uncategorized

Congressional dust-up ends with apology

That was a brief tempest on Capitol Hill.

What figured to be a festering sore on Congress has ended with an apology from the chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee to the panel’s ranking minority member.

Now, let’s all get along, shall we?

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/200168-issa-apologizes-to-cummings-for-cutting-off-mic

Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., had the turned the microphone off while ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., had sought to “question” Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official who had taken the Fifth while refusing to answer questions relating to the IRS political action committee investigation controversy that just won’t go away. Seems that congressional Republicans continue to smell blood in the water and want to make hay whenever possible.

Whatever.

Issa disrespected Cummings by turning off the mic and then walking out of the hearing room while Cummings was expressing his anger at the way he was being treated.

The House of Representatives the next day rejected a resolution to condemn Issa for his boorishness.

Issa then called Cummings and apologized. Issa said, “As chairman, I should have been much more sensitive to the mood of what was going on, and I take responsibility.” Cummings accepted the apology. Both men said they want to move on.

One way to put this issue behind them — and us — is to stop the incessant questioning of officials when they know they won’t get any answers to a controversy that’s been covered to the nth degree. Issa still appears to be looking for any White House involvement in what’s been determined to have been an IRS field office decision to probe conservative PACs closely in their request for tax-exempt status. Let’s also note that the IRS has done the same thing to liberal PACs.

Cummings was angry at the badgering.

Issa was gentleman enough to apologize.

So, guys, let’s get on with the business of governing.

Uncategorized

Atheists picking senseless fight

One can find religious symbols virtually everywhere. The cloud that spreads sunlight from the heavens? How about spectacular sunrises or sunsets? Rock formations that resemble, say, the Star of David or perhaps an oversized Buddha?

Well, a group calling itself American Atheists has argued before a federal appeals court that a piece of I-beam in the shape of a crucifix that was taken from the World Trade Center wreckage in the wake of the 9/11 attacks should not be placed in a private museum.

Give … me … a … break.

http://www.today.com/news/world-trade-center-cross-fight-continues-athiest-group-appeals-ruling-2D79328902?ocid=msnhp&pos=4

There are religious symbols and then there are those things that transcend pure religion. The crucifix-shaped metal fits the latter description. As an appellate judge ruled earlier in allowing the article to be displayed, it “demonstrate(s) how those at Ground Zero coped with the devastation they witnessed.”

Thus, the symbol has become far more than some religious symbol, although I personally see nothing wrong with it symbolizing the faith of millions of Americans — and a billion or so people around the world.

American Atheists filed suit in July 2011 to prevent the display at the museum, which was built on land leased from the federal government.

The cross-shaped beam was discovered in the wreckage as crews sought to clear debris after terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and killed about 3,000 people, most of the Americans.

It’s become a symbol of strength, resolve and courage — all of which have been demonstrated amply by those who toiled in the rubble left by the terrorist attacks on that horrifying day.

American Atheists are entitled to express their opinion on the suitability of religious icons.

On this one, though, they’ve missed the mark by a mile.

Let’s hope the Second Court of Appeals sees this issue correctly.

The 9/11 National Museum is set to open in May. Here’s hoping the cross-shaped beam is on display in all its glory.

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience