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GOP fails to heed the message

Two new polls should turn congressional Republicans downright apoplectic.

The Associated Press/GFK poll puts congressional approval at 5 percent. That’s bad enough. Now comes a new Gallup Poll that says 28 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP, a record low for the Gallup organization.

http://news.msn.com/us/poll-republicans-get-the-blame-in-shutdown

To be sure, Democrats aren’t faring much better. Public opinion surveys are blaming Congress — not the White House or the president — for the government mess that now threatens to blow the economy to smithereens.

And by Congress, I mean members of both parties.

However, since Republicans control the budget-writing arm of the legislative branch — the House of Representatives — they are going to get bulk of the blame if the parties fail to agree on a way to reopen parts of the government and increase the nation’s debt ceiling.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/10/republican-approval-rating-falls-to-lowest-point-in-gallup-poll-history/

Some of us keep harping on the obvious: The GOP strategy, which has been all but abandoned, of trying to link defunding of the Affordable Care Act to approving a new budget is a sure loser. Smart Republicans keep harping on that to the wild-eyed crazies comprising the tea party wing of their party.

Now they’re messing with the debt limit, even suggesting that defaulting on our nation’s financial obligations isn’t that big of a deal.

I do believe it is a very big deal.

Failure to resolve this matter is going to wipe out what’s left of the GOP’s paltry support.

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Where have privacy and etiquette gone?

I consider myself to be a fairly modern man.

However, I do find some aspects of modern culture more than a bit off-putting. I’ll give you an example of something I witnessed this morning. Maybe you’ll agree. If you disagree, well, too bad.

My weekday mornings usually start with a workout at the health club to which I belong. I am up before the sun rises over the Texas Panhandle Caprock and I head down the street, turn the corner and am at the gym in five minutes. I like to get my exercise in at that time of the morning because no one ever calls me; nothing gets in my way. I have no pressing business before the crack of dawn. I usually leave my cell phone at home.

I finished my workout this morning, was getting dressed in the locker room and I heard some young man blabbing on his cellphone — as he was sitting in the hot tub, presumably to relax or relieve tension or do something therapeutic. But he was chatting up a storm, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the locker room to hear.

It occurred to me at that moment that the young man had no sense of, shall we say, privacy. I cannot remember a single thing he said this morning on his cell phone, but it strikes that telecommunications technology has removed much of modern society’s sense of doing some things in private.

Having a personal telephone conversation used to be one of those things. No more. Now mundane, inane, profoundly meaningless conversations become everyone’s business — or at least the business of those who are within earshot in places, such as health club locker rooms, where one doesn’t necessarily need to hear these things.

You want more ranting? Here it comes.

This demonstration of the loss of privacy is just one aspect of cell phone technology that has coarsened society.

How many times have you walked into a restaurant and witnessed a table full of individuals in which everyone at the table is holding a device and texting someone who is not sitting at the table? No one is talking to each other. They’re all communicating with someone far, far away.

And I think at this point I’ll mention as an aside that many men no longer remove their hats when they sit down to eat. I always thought that was mandatory in polite society. Wasn’t it?

My wife and I recently spent some time at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., where we witnessed more than one young parent sending text messages on their devices while their kids were tugging on their clothes, trying to get their attention, seeking some assurance that their wait in line was about to end.

Ah, modern society is great. I’m trying to adjust to it. I’m getting a handle on a lot of what technology is throwing at me. I think I’ll cling to what I still consider “normal behavior.”

Yapping on a cell phone while sitting in a public locker room hot tub doesn’t qualify as normal.

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Immigrants’ tuition becomes key issue

I am appalled at the four major Republican candidates for Texas lieutenant governor.

First, state Sen. Dan Patrick runs an ad alleging he is the “only” candidate for that office who opposes in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. Not true, say the other three.

The incumbent lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst, says he’s never supported in-state tuition for these students; Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, who served in the Senate and voted for the issue in 2001, now says he opposes it; Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has called Patrick a liar and says he never backed the issue.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/08/brief-texas-political-news-oct-8-2013/

These guys make me sick.

The only prominent Texas Republican who stands out on this issue is Gov. Rick Perry.

Perry and other immigration reformers have supported granting in-state tuition privileges to Texas high school graduates and college applicants who happened to have moved here as children of parents who came here illegally.

It wasn’t their fault that their parents entered the state without legal documentation. They merely grew up and came of age as Texans. They attended high school, they graduated and applied for entrance into a Texas college or university. They have been accepted and plan to continue their lives as productive residents of the only place they’ve known as home.

Why punish these young people because of something their parents did?

Yet, we hear now from the four GOP candidates for Texas lieutenant governor that none of them supports this compassionate measure. They’re trying to out-menace each other at the expense of young Texans seeking to make good lives for themselves.

Disgraceful.

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Bring ‘CR’ to a vote … and reopen government if it passes

President Obama laid it out there for all to see and hear.

If the speaker of the House of Representatives is right, that a continuing resolution to fund the government lacks the votes in the House, then put the issue to a vote to decide this matter. Period.

Speaker John Boehner keeps insisting the continuing resolution doesn’t have enough support to pass. With that, we’re supposed to take his word for it. Never mind that some independent analysts have suggested at least 22 Republican House members would vote “yes” on a CR, putting the issue over the top assuming all Democratic lawmakers would vote for it.

The president held a news conference today and spelled out as plainly as possible: Put the issue to a vote and let’s find out who’s right.

It cannot be that hard for the speaker to bring the matter up for a vote of the full House. He is the speaker, the Man of the House, the guy with the gavel. Do it, Mr. Speaker.

Then he and the rest of his gang can get back to an even more serious matter: raising the debt ceiling to enable the U.S. government to keep paying its bills.

Obama used some strong language today in excoriating what he called a “radical” bunch of GOP lawmakers. He accused them of extorting the government to get their way.

We’ll raise the debt ceiling, but only if we get everything we want. That’s how Obama framed their argument. Is that wrong? Isn’t that what they’re demanding? Has he misrepresented their argument? I think not on all counts.

If they don’t get what they want, the nation defaults on its obligations, it refuses to spend money already appropriated by Congress, its credit rating gets downgraded — again — and the markets are going to react very badly, taking a lot of retirement account balances into the crapper.

First things first. Vote on the continuing resolution to determine who’s got the votes. If it passes — which I’m betting it would — the government can get back to functioning fully.

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Bring on the red-light cameras

Amarillo city officials are about to expand the use of those pesky red-light cameras in use to catch those who ignore the command to stop at red lights.

Go for it, City Hall.

I’ve been all for the cameras since their initial deployment about six years ago. Too many motorists these days seem to believe the red light hanging from the power lines over the intersection is a suggestion, or a request, to stop their vehicle. No, it’s an order. Where I come from, lawful orders are meant to be followed.

The city will impose a grace period that will last until Nov. 1. After that date, the city gets serious with the new cameras.

I’ve long thought that public knowledge of the red-light cameras has enhanced motorists’ awareness. If a motorist knows — or believes — an intersection is being patrolled by an electronic device, he or she is likely to be more obedient when the red light glows at them from above.

No, the cameras aren’t the perfect solution. Indeed, the city is deploying the new devices because of continued law-breaking by motorists. The city has used the revenue generated to help pay for the additional cameras as well as enhance other areas of traffic management — which state law requires of cities that use these cameras.

Past city commissions have shown a tendency toward passivity at times when issues like this arise. The current commission has taken on the challenge, just as those who sat on the commission immediately prior to them.

One bit of good news comes from City Traffic Engineer Jerry Bird, who says recidivism is low, meaning that those who get cited by the city aren’t repeating. Fine. Keep them deployed.

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Flooding produces some benefit

I truly do not wish bad things to happen to my fellow Americans in nearby states.

However, I noticed something the other morning on a local TV news broadcast that suggests that the Texas Panhandle has received some benefit from the misery inflicted on our neighbors northwest of us in Colorado.

The deluge that destroyed so much property and took those lives north of Boulder a few weeks ago has produced a dramatic rise in the levels of Lake Meredith, about 50 miles north of Amarillo. KAMR-TV, the local NBC affiliate, runs a weather crawl when it broadcasts local news in the morning. Until the flooding inundated Colorado, the Lake Meredith water level as shown on the crawl had bottomed out at something just below 27 feet.

Monday morning, the lake level registered on the crawl put the water at 33-plus feet. That’s a nearly 7-foot increase in the water at Lake Meredith.

OK, it’s not much of an increase, given the lake’s historic high of 100-plus feet in the early 1970s.

It’s a start — perhaps — to a change in fortune at the manmade reservoir.

The water has rushed down the Front Range of the Rockies, onto the High Plains, into the Canadian River, which feeds Lake Meredith. Perhaps even better news would be that whatever water hasn’t flowed into the lake has seeped into the Ogallala Aquifer, which also has been depleted over many years.

I just wish now that the Almighty would grant us some more moisture — without inflicting such pain upstream.

I think I’ll pray some more.

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Patrick tells only part of in-state tuition story

State Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston has launched his first TV ad touting his candidacy for Texas lieutenant governor.

Wouldn’t you know it, he distorts a critical issue in this still-developing campaign. He said he is the “only candidate to oppose in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.”

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2013/10/patrick-launches-border-security-tv-ad/

Good for him.

Except to say in-state tuition applies to all “illegal immigrants” ignores a key provision that’s been supported by the likes of former Gov. George W. Bush, current Gov. Rick Perry and other reasonable Republicans. The provision applies to those immigrants who came to Texas as children, those who were brought here by their parents, those who have grown up as Texans.

Back in late 2011, when Perry was running for the GOP presidential nomination, he got in trouble with the far right of his party when he spoke out in favor of granting in-state tuition to those immigrants. He stood firm against the criticism, to his great credit.

I see nothing wrong with granting those Texans who came here as children and who qualify academically for entrance into our many fine public colleges and universities the same tuition rates as granted to other Texans.

They have grown up as Texans and Americans. Give them the education they deserve at a price they can afford.

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Justice takes reader on wild ride

Just as I was thinking I had read all I needed to read about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s view of the foul political climate in Washington, D.C., I happened across the interview he gave to New York Magazine.

It’s strange, to say the least.

http://nymag.com/news/features/antonin-scalia-2013-10/

I’m beginning to have some doubts about the justice, who’s been known to say some odd things from the bench and in his written opinions.

I’ve seen him interviewed before, such as on C-SPAN. He comes off as an engaging fellow. He’s not particularly stuffy and can dish out the sarcasm when the need arises. One interviewer asked him once about his opinion of a lower-court judge’s ruling that criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling on a particular subject. Scalia’s answer went something like this: “Just to be clear, our court reviews rulings handed down by his court … and not the other way around. Is that correct?”

Well, the interview is attached to this blog post. It’s lengthy. You’ll need some time to slog through it all. I won’t categorize his views as crazy. Just strange for someone who holds a lifetime job interpreting the U.S. Constitution.

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Who you calling ‘diverse’?

I have to agree with George Will on this one: Liberals dislike diversity in thought and conservatives now appear to be embracing it.

Will, one of the more noted conservative commentators and columnists in America, made the assertion on the Fox News Channel Sunday.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/10/06/george_will_liberals_dont_want_diversity_in_thought_and_thats_what_the_republicans_now_have.html

It’s an interesting twist.

Republicans are eating their young, as the late GOP state Sen. Teel Bivins of Amarillo used to say.

The party is waging war within itself, which Will says is not knew among the Grand Old Party. He cited the 1912 Teddy Roosevelt-William Howard Taft fight and the 1964 feud between the Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller wings of the party. He didn’t mention the 1968 and 1972 fights among Democrats.

But Will’s point about the Republican battle is that it’s becoming the more interesting party these days, as Democrats seem to be singing off the same page.

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Justice Scalia knows ‘nasty’

When Antonin Scalia says the tone in Washington has gotten “nasty,” you know it’s bad.

As in really, really bad.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/326835-scalia-bemoans-the-nasty-time-in-washington

The U.S. Supreme Court justice, who’s been on the high court bench since 1986, has carved out a reputation for being one of the court’s surliest members. Decorum during oral arguments at times goes out the window when Justice Scalia gets going. As for the opinions he writes — whether for the majority or in dissent — Scalia unsheathes the poison pen on occasion.

“It’s a nasty time,” Scalia told The Hill, a newspaper covering Capitol Hill. “It’s a nasty time. When I was first in Washington, and even in my early years on this Court, I used to go to a lot of dinner parties at which there were people from both sides. Democrats, Republicans.”

Yes, it’s gotten nasty. Democrats are saying it, as are Republicans. They say they liked it better when everyone got along once they were off the clock. The old-timers in Washington remember a more collegial time.

It’s just interesting to me to hear Justice Scalia now call attention to the poisonous climate in Washington.

He spoke as the court begins its new term. I’ll be anxious to see what this new term brings from the outspoken and occasionally cantankerous justice. Maybe he’ll tone it down a bit himself.

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