Howard Kurtz is joining the Fox News Channel as its latest on-air star after working for several years at CNN, the flagship news network of the hated “mainstream media” that Fox news hounds love to bash.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/howard-kurtz-leaves-cnn-for-fox-93109.html?hp=r14

This is an interesting development.

Kurtz wrote for years as media critic for the Washington Post, also while serving as host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” which covered media issues for the news network.

I’ll actually watch Fox when Kurtz joins the network and I’ll listen for any hint that Kurtz joins the pack of “mainstream media” bashers who routinely stick it in the eye of Fox’s more “liberal” competitors.

As Politico reports, Kurtz wasn’t a member of the anti-Fox pack of journalists that have blasted Fox for the rightward slant in its news coverage. He would ding Fox occasionally, but he also took shots at the other networks and media organizations. I’ve always found Kurtz to be a fair critic.

Now he’ll become a part of network that keeps touting its “fair and balanced” approach to reporting, which actually is a ruse. The network isn’t fair or balanced, so I just wish it would stop making the false claim. And no, it’s no more unbalanced than, say, MSNBC, which tilts leftward in its reporting and commentary. The difference is that MSNBC makes no claims of fairness and “balance.”

I’m anxious to see what kind of conversion Kurtz makes when he joins Fox. I hope he stays true to his record as an equal-opportunity critic.

A group aiming to turn Texas into a “battleground state” in future presidential elections is planning a fundraiser next month.

Good luck with that, folks.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/battleground-texas-plans-dc-fundraiser-93132.html?hp=l6

Battleground Texas believes the Lone Star State’s changing demographic makeup is going to turn the state from a reliably Republican stronghold into a more competitive state with the influx of Latino voters who normally vote Democratic.

My advice the Battleground Texas brass? Be patient … be very patient.

The upcoming 2014 midterm election suggests – to me, at least – that the Texas Democratic Party has yet to find its footing.

All the pre-election attention so far has been on the Republican side of the aisle. Imagine that. The most recent Democrat to win a statewide office in Texas was John Sharp, who was re-elected state comptroller in … 1994! It’s been all Republican all the time ever since.

The 2014 circumstance doesn’t look any brighter.

Battleground Texas does tout some shining lights among its ranks. San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro perhaps shines the most brightly at the moment. His Honor gave the keynote address at the 2012 Democratic National Convention and hit it out of the park with his stirring story of growing up poor and, along with his identical twin brother, Joaquin – who’s now serving in Congress – obtaining a college education and a law degree.

The Castro brothers are young. They have time to build the coalitions they seek. Many old-line Texas Democrats who are a bit longer in the tooth may not live long enough to see the transformation take place.

I’m hoping to see it happen, if only to witness Texas take its place among those states – such as Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania – where presidential candidates every four years fight tooth and nail for votes.

I’ve always maintained that one-party rule – be it Democratic or Republican – breeds arrogance. In Texas, Republicans have run roughshod over the system just as Democrats used to do when they ran the place.

Good luck, Battleground Texas. Just remember to be patient.

News out of my hometown of Portland, Ore. punched me in the gut.

The Oregonian, once considered one of the nation’s great newspapers, is going to publish three print editions a week. It’s going to lay off scores of newsroom staffers, move from its iconic downtown building and promote its digital presence to the hilt.

Some folks call it “progress.” I call it pitiful.

http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-30341-oregonian_publisher_says_paper_is_reducing_home_de.html

I almost don’t know where to begin sorting this out.

Advance Publications owns the Oregonian. Advance has done similar things to newspapers it owns across the nation. The most notable scaling back occurred in New Orleans, where the Times-Picayune – another great publication – went to a thrice-weekly print cycle, only to return to a seven-day cycle when it realized its readers and advertisers were abandoning the Picayune in favor of the Baton Rouge Advocate.

The Oregonian experienced a tremendous resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s. A new executive editor took over a newsroom that had gotten flabby. She retooled beats, reorganized the operation from stem to stern. The result was Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism that the paper hadn’t seen since the 1950s.

What’s more, the paper was a cash cow for Newhouse Corp., which owned the paper. Then the bottom fell out of the newspaper business around, oh, 2006, thanks largely to the Internet. Newspapers didn’t know how to handle the new wave of information transmission. I’m guessing the Oregonian is like a lot of big media companies that struggled to find its way.

The three-day print edition idea is going to upset a lot of folks who once considered the Oregonian to be the premier news source in Oregon and a good chunk of Washington state.

I once had a grand dream of working for my hometown paper. I actually did work for a time at the late Oregon Journal, the afternoon paper that Newhouse also owned. The Journal shared the same building as the Oregonian, but it had a separate newsroom staff that competed intently against the bigger morning paper. Newhouse eventually gave up on the Journal and closed it in the early 1980s. That was a sad day for everyone who loved newspapers.

The news out of Portland today, though, is downright tragic.

I will need more time to process this news. I might have more to say on it later. Right now, I’m going to sip on my beer at home here in Texas and wonder what the future holds for what we used to know as daily print journalism.

Gov. Rick Perry says he hasn’t yet decided whether to seek his zillionth term as Texas governor.

State Attorney General Greg Abbott says he hasn’t yet decided whether to run for Perry’s office.

I don’t believe either man. They’ve both decided. They’ve talked it over. They’re just waiting for the right time to spill the beans.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/06/20/speculation-mounts-decision-nears-perry/

Abbott’s already running for governor. He’s out raising money and trying to position himself as the heir apparent to the longest-serving governor in Texas history. Perry, meanwhile, hasn’t not been raising money and instead is touring the Northeast to talk about how business-friendly Texas is, especially to companies toiling in high-tax, high-regulation states such as New York and Connecticut. Those activities don’t sound like someone getting ready to run for re-election.

Perry’s time as governor has run out. He reportedly wants to run again – that’s right – for president of the United States. Apparently the humiliation he suffered during his first run in early 2012 wasn’t enough to dissuade him of his high ambition. So, by stepping away from the governor’s office in January 2015 he can spend time cobbling together a presidential campaign that he hopes will take him farther than the first one did.

The Texas Tribune reports, though, that the early reviews for Presidential Campaign No. 2 aren’t so hot. He flubbed a reference to Libya by calling it Lebanon when talking about the Benghazi fire fight that killed four U.S. diplomats in September 2012.

To borrow a word: Oops.

I am one of many Texans who has grown tired of Rick Perry. Actually, I was tired of him long ago … about the time he took office after G.W. Bush’s election as president.

Here’s hoping the tea leaves are giving us good news in the days ahead.

It’s been more than two weeks since I sent United Airlines a note complaining about a nightmarish travel experience.

I’m still waiting for a response.

http://www.johnkanelis.com/2013/06/travel-nightmare-continues.html

I don’t believe I’m making an unreasonable request. I want some kind of compensation for ground crew incompetence and mechanical failure that made me miss two connections to my vacation destination on June 6. The delays put me on the ground at my destination nearly 24 hours after my planned arrival. I’m seeking either a refund or a travel voucher. Is that too much to ask?

The most frustrating thing about this wait is the difficulty in being able to speak to a human being at the airline. These automated systems drive me crazy. Whenever I seek to speak to an “agent,” I keep getting asked more robo-questions, as if the system doesn’t hear me ask to speak to a living human being. After a particularly lengthy journey through the automated system recently, I finally did talk to an agent who – of course – had no specific information regarding my complaint.

The good news? She told me the email responses I received regarding my complaints means the airline’s “system” has them in its data base. She promised I’ll hear – eventually – from the airline.

I’ll keep you posted.

How quickly the tide can turn atop Capitol Hill.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., went to D.C. in early 2011 as one of the tea party’s golden boys. Now he’s one of the GOP wing’s chief targets. Why? Because the young man has the temerity to push for immigration reform that provides undocumented immigrants a “path to citizenship.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/306717-right-rips-rubio-as-gop-votes-slip-away

Rubio has this idea – along with several other senators of both major political parties – that giving hard-working people who happen to be in this country illegally a path to becoming citizens amounts to “amnesty” for breaking the law.

That’s a non-starter, according to the tea party wing of the Republican Party. Senators have brokered a deal to beef up border security and finish building a 700-mile wall along the southern border, which is seen as a sop to conservatives who dislike the notion of immigration reform in the first place.

I believe another key Senate Republican, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has it right. Graham – hardly a wild-eyed liberal – is on board with immigration reform. He said this week his party is condemning itself to a “demographic spiral” if it doesn’t agree to immigration reform. Indeed, with racial and ethnic minorities changing the face of America – and of its voting bloc – Republicans continue to be seen as the party of “old white men” who have no appreciation for the inexorable change that is taking place in front of their very eyes.

What in the world is happening to a once-great political party?

Houston’s Astrodome likely won’t be knocked to the ground, or blown to bits.

It likely will remain standing, but not in the form that some of us wanted for it.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Sports-Corp-promises-new-Dome-experience-4610316.php

The Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. says it wants to turn the Astrodome – the one-time Eighth Wonder of the World – into a convention center. It will strip out the seats and turn the Dome into a gigantic meeting place.

The new venue will create a new “Dome experience.” I frankly have enjoyed some of my own old Dome experience, although admittedly not too much of it over the years.

I once took my sons to a 5A high school football playoff game there. My wife and one of my sons went with me once to a Houston Oilers NFL game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Then my wife and I went to a Paul McCartney concert there, where we sang “Hey Jude” – along with many other songs – with Sir Paul and about 50,000 fans packed into the place.

I feared they would tear the place down. That likely won’t happen. The plans now call for $194 million to turn the Dome into a non-sports venue.

This news doesn’t excite me. It does give me some sense of relief that the grand structure will still stand, which is something of a victory for those of us who want to save the place.

Harris County commissioners will consider the proposal next week. I hope they approve it.

I’ve known for a long time that I’m getting old. Other than the obvious signs of aging, I’m discovering that the older I get the less worked up I become over things that used to rankle me terribly.

Take the issue of drones, the unmanned aerial vehicles used with great effectiveness against terrorists on battlefields overseas.

Now we learn that the FBI is using the UAVs in U.S. airspace. My gut reaction? So what?

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/06/19/fbi-acknowledges-using-drones-on-u-s-soil/

FBI Director Robert Mueller said that law enforcement is using the drones in a minimal way. They track suspected terrorists and drug dealers – which some folks consider to be one in the same.

I haven’t seen much of a problem using these aircraft ever since President Bush began deploying them not long after the 9/11 attacks. President Obama has continued using them – even accelerating their use – as the anti-terrorist war has continued.

The question came up during confirmation hearings for CIA Director John Brennan whether we’d use the drones to attack targets on U.S. soil. He said it wouldn’t happen. That’s a good thing, too.

Indeed, that is where I would draw the line and get rankled – as I would have when I was much younger. No one should endorse the notion of drones launching missile attacks against criminals in the United States. We should save these actions for the battlefield. These are weapons of war and they should be deployed in that manner only in a war zone.

Using them for surveillance purposes here? No problem.

Gov. Rick Perry’s job-recruitment journey has taken him to the northeastern United States where he’s appealing directly to businesses to relocate to Texas.

I’ve seen the latest ad and to be candid, it’s actually a pretty good piece of work.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/rick-perry-takes-aim-at-new-york-93030.html?hp=r3

I continue to be amazed at the in-your-face approach Perry is taking toward his fellow governors. The previous targeted states – California, Illinois and now, New York – all are governed by Democrats. Perry, who once was a Democrat, is now a card-carrying Republican who’s demonstrating time and again that he doesn’t care one bit about working with Democrats.

Still, he is a member of the National Governors Association, which still has a number of members from the “other” party. He goes to NGA meetings, hob-knobs – I presume – with other states’ governors. Maybe they swap stories about working with their legislatures or even brag about how good things are going in their particular state.

Does he cross the proverbial aisle at these meetings and talk shop with Democrats? My hunch is that he rubs shoulders only with Republicans, mainly because he’s managing to tick off Democrats with his job-poaching initiative.

Frankly, I cannot blame the governor for wanting to lure more business to Texas. Name a governor of any political stripe who doesn’t want to put more constituents to work and I’ll show you someone who’s not long for the office he or she holds.

But every business magazine published already has touted the Lone Star State’s business-friendly environment. It’s the worst-kept secret in the realm of national politics.

The governor might need some of those Democratic governors one day to help push some bipartisan idea forward – if any such notion ever pops into Perry’s noggin. I’m betting they won’t stand with him.

Canyon public school officials are pondering whether to allow the storage of guns and ammunition on the two high school campuses in the district.

http://www.connectamarillo.com/news/story.aspx?id=910828#.UcDtFkoo6t8

Guard this stuff very carefully, folks.

Canyon and Randall high schools would be the site of the munitions depots. Canyon Independent School District officials want to store the weapons there in case violence were to erupt at either campus. The only people with access to the cache would be Canyon and Amarillo police officers.

I share the concern expressed by Kathy Gilmore, a parent who lives in CISD. “I think they would have to really be careful about where they put them and only have certain people, only the officers that were licensed, to take take care of them if they were stored,” Gilmore said.

But what if someone, somehow, in some unexplainable fashion were to get hold of the keys? What if that someone did so with evil intent? What if tragedy were to erupt in the remote – but still possible – event of such a theft? What if … ?

I question the wisdom of this idea.