Congressman Bobby Rush is letting political correctness get the better of him.

The Illinois Democrat wants the House of Representatives to stop using the term “illegal immigrants” when referring to those who come into this country, um, illegally. His new preferred tem is “undocumented foreign nationals.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/293835-dem-resolution-calls-on-house-members-to-stop-saying-illegal-immigrant

OK, let’s not split hairs here.

I happen to be all for many provisions that President Obama wants to enact: The Dream Act would in effect grant amnesty to those who were brought here illegally by their parents when they were too young to do anything about it. I also favor streamlining legalization procedures to enable those who are here illegally to obtain legal resident status. I do not want to round up the 11 million or so people who are here illegally and send them back to their country of origin.

But I also do not feel the need to mess with the language to define individuals who failed – for whatever reason – to enter this country through legal means.

Rep. Rush is engaging in some kind of meaningless semantic exercise. “undocumented foreign nationals” means the very same thing as “illegal immigrants.”

The folks who sneaked into this country broke the law. Thus, they have committed an illegal act. Give them a chance to make it right. But let’s not get caught up in playing silly word games.

Barry Smitherman knows how to say he’s sorry for his mistake.

I give him plenty of credit for it, too.

The chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission was man enough to stand up and say he is sorry for a message he posted on social media that included a noose. He intended to send a message of warning to the 16 Republican U.S. senators who voted to break a filibuster against gun-control legislation pending in the Senate.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/11/texas-top-oil-and-gas-regulator-retweets-noose-ima/

Smitherman, also a Republican, opposes legislation that would require universal background checks for those seeking to buy a firearm. But he chose some poor imagery, he said, in depicting his position.

There was none of that “If I offended anyone …” language in his apology. Nor was there any of that annoying passive-voice “mistakes were made” stuff in it. He stood up and said he is sorry. Period.

I had the pleasure of meeting Smitherman in early 2012 as he was running for election to the Railroad Commission. He comes across as an erudite fellow who knows a great deal about the oil and gas industry, which the Railroad Commission regulates in Texas.

It’s curious, however, that he would weigh in on an issue over which the RRC has zero purview. Perhaps he’s thinking about running for another public office down the road, eh?

Whatever. He erred in using the noose image and said he is sorry for doing so.

Apology accepted, Mr. Chairman.

I want to stipulate up front that I am not qualified to review films.

But having watched “42,” the film about the Jackie Robinson’s entry into Major League Baseball, I do intend to declare that the movie tells a compelling story in a tasteful way.

I was a bit apprehensive, believing that the story would be too Hollywoodized for my taste. I don’t believe that’s the case.

Robinson broke into the big leagues in 1947, becoming the first African-American ballplayer to suit up in an all-white sporting enterprise. He earned his spurs, becoming the National League’s Rookie of the Year with the Brooklyn Dodgers; Robinson was the NL’s Most Valuable Player in 1949.

The film tells the story of the intense hatred Robinson felt from fans and fellow players – opposing players and teammates. It also tells the story of strength, of character, of pride and of determination.

Chadwick Boseman portrays Jackie Robinson and bears even a vague resemblance to the late baseball icon. Harrison Ford portrays Branch Rickey, the Dodgers’ executive who opened the door for Robinson’s entry into the big leagues. 

I don’t want to single out elements of the film. As I said, I’m not a film critic.

But the film’s telling of an important American story – even with its ear-splitting use of the “n-word” – is worth seeing.

One of my fondest wishes – and I’ve got a few of them – is for all the morons who think they can text while driving a motor vehicle would see the message being flashed on those Amber Alert electronic signs next to Amarillo’s two stretches of interstate highway.

The message says: You talk, you text, you crash.

They’re flashing constantly to motorists as they whiz by along Interstates 40 and 27.

Amarillo has established a no-talking-while-driving ordinance. The Texas Legislature has been considering a statewide ban on texting while driving; I am not sure where that one stands at the moment.

I mention all this knowing full well too many motorists are ignoring the city’s prohibition against talking on handheld cellphones while they are driving, say, their Suburban Assault Vehicles through heavy traffic, often with kids in the back seat.

And, no, just seeing those signs isn’t going to stop the idiots from continuing that highly hazardous practice.

Idiots, by definition, pay no attention to these warnings – which is why they’re idiots.

Have I mentioned that they’re morons, too?

http://fastlane.dot.gov/2011/04/texas-launches-talk-text-crash-campaign-to-encourage-safer-driving.html

April is National Distracted While Driving Month and the signs, courtesy of the Texas Department of Transportation, will be flashing the message for the entire month.

If only they would do some good.

Sigh …

I’ve listened to a lot of commentary in recent days about Jackie Robinson, the man who broke baseball’s racial barrier in 1947 when he became the first African-American to suit up in the big leagues.

I believe it was the Boston Celtics basketball legend Bill Russell – the first black coach in the National Basketball Association – who said it best. Robinson, he said, probably wasn’t the best player in the Negro League when the big leagues were looking for a player to break that barrier. But he possessed the strength of character, the spine of steel and the resolve to withstand what everyone knew was coming: the hate-filled racial epithets that would be thrown at him.

And he stood up and stood tall in the face of it all.

I’m going to see the film “42” later today with my wife and one of my sons. I’m looking forward to seeing how Hollywood tells this compelling story. I pray the filmmakers tell the truth as I understand it, which is that Jackie Robinson was willing to pay a huge price for the chance to play against the best baseball players in the world. He didn’t pay that price stoically at all times. He was hurt emotionally many times along the way. But he tried his best to show the public face of strength.

Some years ago, MLB did something unprecedented. The league retired a number, 42. That was number Robinson wore on his Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. I’m aware that at least one player is wearing the number today, Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees, who’s going to retire at the end of this season. But the big leagues no longer will allow any team to issue that number to another player ever again.

I cannot think of a player who deserves that honor more than Jackie Robinson.

Robinson died in 1972 in his early 50s of diabetes-related complications. I so wish he could be here to soak up the respect and love he has engendered. Lord knows he didn’t get it in 1947.

I am willing to concede one point to the gun-rights crowd about background checks and whether they would have prevented the Sandy Hook school massacre in Newtown, Conn.

The National Rifle Association has been saying repeatedly that background checks wouldn’t have prevented the madman from killing 20 children, six educators, his own mother and then himself.

I can agree to that single point.

Adam Lanza’s weaponry came from his mother’s house. He took the guns from dear ol’ Mom and killed her with one of them before he set out to slaughter the rest of his victims. Mrs. Lanza had obtained the weapons legally. Why she owned a Bushmaster, though, remains a mystery.

But the point is that checking Adam Lanza’s background is irrelevant as it relates to this particular crime.

The NRA’s use of the Sandy Hook example to make its point about background checks, though, begs the bigger issue … which is that background checks can block known criminals from purchasing weapons they might want to use to harm other human beings.

I consider myself to be someone of reasonable intelligence, although I don’t profess to be an expert on anything, which I suppose shields me from having to explain myself too often.

Someone will have to explain something to me. How does checking the background of a law-abiding gun-buyer with no criminal or medical history to cause anyone concern violate that person’s Second Amendment right to own a firearm?

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/293461-house-gop-shows-little-appetite-for-senate-gun-control-measure

The Second Amendment to the Constitution lays it out there, admittedly in some clumsy language: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” I get what the Founders meant: Americans have the right to own firearms.

However, these days the debate has turned to a couple of key elements of the gun control debate in the wake of the Dec. 14, 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where 20 precious children and six educators died in a senseless massacre. One of the elements centers on the size of ammo clips; the other is on background checks.

Let’s focus on background checks for a moment. The National Rifle Association used to favor the checks. Now it opposes them. Ninety percent of Americans favor stricter gun control measures. The NRA opposes them. Background checks of those seeking to purchase a firearm, to my mind, seem to be the least intrusive measure under discussion.

If someone wants to buy a gun from a dealer, he or she submits to a criminal/medical background check. If it comes back clean, no problem. He or she buys the gun. But what if the background check reveals a criminal record that, say, involves a violent act? That individual might be deemed too big a risk to own a firearm, or one would think.

I suppose a major sticking point, which I haven’t heard discussed yet in the current debate, is the level of criminal history that disqualifies someone from purchasing a firearm. Would a serial embezzler or tax cheater be treated the same as someone who’s been convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon?

These questions need to be fleshed out.

But back to my point: A decent, law-abiding citizen with no criminal history is just as free to purchase a firearm while submitting to a criminal background check as he or she is at this very moment.

So, how does that infringe on his Second Amendment rights?

Michael Morton is going to become a hero to individuals who are tried unjustly for crimes they didn’t commit.

He’s also going to become a thorn in the side of overzealous prosecutors.

Just who is Michael Morton? He is a man whose name is on a piece of legislation approved by the Texas Senate that now requires prosecutors to hand over DNA evidence in criminal trials. And why is Morton’s name on this bill? Because in 1987 he was convicted wrongfully of murdering his wife. He spend a quarter-century in the Big House serving time for a crime he didn’t commit. The proof of his innocence arrived just recently when authorities examined DNA evidence from the investigation that proved what Morton had said all along: that he was innocent.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/11/senate-approves-michael-morton-act/

The bill was co-authored by Sens. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and Bob Duncan, R-Lubbock – two of the Senate’s brighter lights.

Senate Bill 1611 will require DNA evidence to be handed over to defense counsel. Current law requires it now only if a court orders it. Michael Morton deserved to have that evidence handy when he was being railroaded into the prison system. The district attorney in that 1987 case, Ken Anderson, is now a Williamson County district judge who says he did nothing wrong. He faces possible prosecution himself for the manner in which he prosecuted the case.

Texas long has had this reputation as being “tough on criminals.” I have no problem with that label. I do have a problem, though, with the notion of the state disallowing evidence that would exonerate innocent people.

The Michael Morton Act has helped reinvigorate the term “justice” in the Texas criminal justice system.

The Club for Growth, a conservative political watchdog group, is now taking aim at U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., because Walden had the temerity recently to criticize President Obama’s plans to overhaul the government’s “entitlement” programs.

They’re looking at finding a suitable GOP primary opponent to try to knock off their fellow conservative who’s been in Congress since 1999.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/293353-club-for-growth-targets-gop-campaign-chairman-for-primary

This is going to be fun to watch.

I know a little about Walden and about the Second Congressional District he represents in the U.S. House of Representatives. He serves folks in my home state of Oregon, where I was born, raised and where my journalism career began.

My favorite quote in the story, published by The Hill, comes from Club for Growth president Chris Chocola: “We always knew Greg Walden had a liberal record, but he really cemented it with his public opposition to even modest entitlement reform.”

Liberal record? Greg Walden?

Walden served from 1981 until 1987 as press secretary to then-U.S. Rep. Denny Smith, himself a Ronald Reagan revolutionary who knocked off Democratic House Ways and Means Chairman Al Ullman in one of 1980’s more stunning upsets. I was editor of a suburban daily newspaper just south of Portland at the time and I had plenty of interaction with Walden. He spoke eloquently in support of his boss’s conservative record.

Walden then was elected in his own right to the House in 1998 – long after I had left Oregon for Texas. And his district, the sprawling Second, is one of the most conservative districts in the country. It ranges far across the eastern two-thirds of Oregon, from the Cascade Range to the Idaho border. Its major constituency comprises people who work the land, wheat farmers and cattle ranchers who are just about as conservative as anyone in America. Indeed, there’s more than a tinge of John Bircherism out there on the high plateau.

I remember Walden as a capable press aide and a straight shooter. He has compiled a solidly conservative voting record in Congress, just as his former mentor, Smith, did.

OK, so he had some unkind things to say about Social Security reform. House Speaker John Boehner said he has “had some conversation” with Walden about the remarks. But now we have this right-wing fringe outfit seeking actually to oust one of its own because of those remarks?

This quest for ideological purity is utter nonsense.

All this debate over how to stop gun violence actually has produced reasonable discussion between those who think the country should enact more laws to control firearms and those who think existing laws are sufficient.

But one idea stands out as among the most bizarre to date: whether to allow school teachers to carry guns in the classroom. My own view? Absolutely not.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/opinions/editorials/article/EDITORIAL-Proposals-to-arm-teachers-correctly-4425164.php

As the editorial attached to this blog notes, teachers should be trained to teach children not trained to carry a firearm and open fire at the sign of trouble.

The Texas Senate is considering a bill to pay for teacher training in firearms use. It’s been scaled back to a shadow of its former self. It ought to disappear completely.

The violence that erupted most recently in Newtown, Conn., has stirred emotional debate across the country. Congress is considering whether to broaden background checks on anyone seeking to buy a firearm. That proposal is beginning to gain some momentum, with senators in both parties agreeing on the principle. As U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., a darling of the conservative wing of his Republican Party, said this week: He doesn’t consider background checks to be “gun control.” Good for him.

Let’s stick to reasonable, rational debate on reasonable, rational solutions. Requiring background checks on those wishing to buy a gun will have zero impact on law-abiding citizens’ ability to arm themselves; thus, the Second Amendment remains intact.

Letting school teachers pack heat on their hips isn’t reasonable or rational. It’s fraught with too much peril in the event violence were to erupt yet again in one of our schools.