This just in: Police in Irving have nabbed Joshua Duane Barnes, the guy who escaped this past weekend from state prison authorities’ custody in Galveston. This was his third escape in about a year from law enforcement’s supposedly firm grip; his two earlier attempts occurred in Amarillo.

Authorities say Barnes will be sent to a maximum-security prison.

Maybe now he’ll be put on the shortest leash possible.

Meanwhile, Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials have some explaining to do.

Taking a public relations hit never is easy. But the Texas Department of Criminal Justice could take a lesson from Randall County Sheriff Joel Richardson on how to handle a highly public embarrassment.

Joshua Barnes is on the lam after escaping this week from a prison hospital in Galveston. It’s the third time he’s wiggled free from authorities’ grasp; the first two times occurred in Potter County. You’d think the state would keep an extra careful eye on this guy, given his history of escape. Barnes is serving time in TDCJ on a variety of felony convictions.

Back to Richardson.

Mark Edward Hanson escaped in late 2005 from the Randall County jail. He pried, pounded and kicked his way out of a cell, got to the roof of the jail, tossed a blanket over a barbed-wire fence and climbed over the fence; he hitched a ride into Amarillo with a couple of guys. Police arrested the guy a few hours later.

What was Richardson’s response? He took the blame fully. The sheriff said it was no one’s fault but his own. He manned up. Richardson said the inmate should have been put in a hardened cell — with solid cement walls and ceiling. He already had a violent criminal record and had attacked two corrections officers already. “If anyone is to blame, it’s me,” Richardson said at the time.

I’m not hearing that kind of accountability — so far — from TDCJ in connection with Barnes’ latest escape.

And, yes, this story has gone national. A lot of Americans are asking: How did this happen — again?

Defenders of President Obama are taking an interesting course as they seek to single out the motives of the president’s critics.

They suggest that the anti-Obama crowd is questioning his “legitimacy” as president.

We’ve been down this road before in recent political history, more or less.

Those who gnashed their teeth at George W. Bush’s election in 2000 questioned whether Dubya’s presidency was legit. He eventually was seated after a 5-4 vote by the U.S. Supreme Court to end the recount of ballots in Florida. Thus, Bush was elected by a single vote — on the high court. And that single vote came from a justice appointed by a Republican president, belonging to the same party as Bush.

Then we have the two elections of Bill Clinton. In 1992, Clinton was elected with 43 percent of the vote. In 1996, he was re-elected with a 49-percent plurality. “He wasn’t elected by a majority!” came the cries of the Clinton-haters. Those folks forgot, apparently, that Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 with a similar 43-percent plurality, but one didn’t hear those who opposed Nixon bring up his failure to obtain a majority. Nixon and Clinton were denied majorities by the presence of strong third-party candidates.

But here’s the deal. The U.S. Constitution doesn’t require a president to be elected by a majority. A simple plurality gets the job done, just as it does in Texas. Gov. Rick Perry won re-election in 2006, you’ll recall, with just 39 percent of the total vote. And Bush’s first election in 2000 was done in accordance with constitutional provisions.

President Obama’s popular vote margin of victory was significantly greater in 2008 than President Bush’s was in 2004 — and his Electoral College margin (365-173) was close to the totals run up by Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996.

Obama’s presidency is legit, all right. So, let’s stop this talk of whether the president belongs in office. He does.

Joshua Duane Barnes must be channeling Harry Houdini.

But I’m guessing that the great escape artist, Houdini, had nothing on this other dude, Barnes.

Joshua Barnes escaped corrections authorities — for the third time — over the weekend. He had wiggled his way out of Potter County’s grasp before being sent to the state corrections system on a variety of felony convictions in both Potter and Randall counties.

Barnes was being treated in a Galveston prison hospital for injuries suffered in a fight at the Ferguson Unit north of Huntsville. Texas corrections officials say he apparently broke through the drywall in his hospital room, got through a window and used a couple of sheets to lower himself to a roof. Then he was gone.

Potter County sheriff’s authorities say they’ve gotten word of Barnes’ escape.

Police urge the rest of us to look for someone wearing hospital garb — and sporting shiners under both eyes as well as other facial injuries. You’d think he wouldn’t be that hard to spot.

Then again …

It’s pretty much understood that Jerry Jones isn’t your typical professional sports team owner.

It’s maddening to listen to a loony despot pop off, issuing statements of the most outrageous nature.

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has done it … again. He told an NBC interviewer that the Holocaust is a fraud, a hoax, a lie perpetrated by Israelis who use it as a pretext to occupy Palestinian territory.

He called the most documented event in human history a fantasy.

Just how offensive can this man get?

I had the high honor of touring Israel during most of May and a good bit of June this year. I listened to countless tales of the misery inflicted by the Nazi murderers in Europe who exterminated 6 million Jews prior to and during World War II. Israel’s very existence as a state is due largely as a result of that horror. And yet, the Iranian lunatic — who’s never been to Israel — says the Holocaust never happened?

Those piles of corpses discovered by American, British, Canadian and Russian forces fighting their way to Berlin were a figment of someone’s imagination?

And to think that this madman just might acquire nuclear weapons.

My goodness.

http://isurvived.org/Pictures_iSurvived-4/corpses-HOLOCAUST.GIF

If you’re interested, click on the above link. Viewer discretion is advised.

Maybe I’m not paying much attention, but I rather doubt it. Amarillo’s civic leadership needs to get the word out to our community’s young mothers about the Baby Moses law.

It’s a 10-year-old statute that allows people to drop their children off at emergency providers within 60 days of the child’s birth. There will be no questions asked. There will be no charges filed. It’s meant to save the lives of children whose parents cannot — or will not — care for them.

Perhaps a greater awareness of the law might have prevented the death of an hours-old infant the other day in Amarillo. I say “perhaps” only because a 15-year-old girl is accused of a crime for which she has not been convicted. Potter County authorities accuse her of killing her baby hours after the baby’s birth. The baby died of asphyxiation.

Lots of investigation will ensue. One avenue might be whether the community is sufficiently aware of the Baby Moses law. I’m thinking Amarillo is in dire need of a major PR campaign to educate the public — now.

Can there be anything of less use than forcing a member of Congress to apologize to the House, even though he’s already apologized to the man at whom he directed an idiotic shout?

House Democrats on Tuesday introduced a resolution rebuking the actions of Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina for shouting out “You lie!” to President Obama during the president’s address to a joint session of Congress this past week.

Wilson apologized immediately for his comments to the president — who accepted it. That’s not good enough for the House leadership, whose members contend that Wilson embarrassed the House as well as the president.

So, they want to make him pay, by golly, for his outburst. With what? A public dressing-down? Wilson is loving the attention, which he never got before he shot off his mouth this past week.

This is a waste of time. Wilson’s remarks spoke for themselves. The setting required maximum dignity, which Wilson didn’t exhibit. He behaved boorishly. That ought to stand as a testament to this guy’s lack of class.

The House leadership can’t do anything more to this clown.

Meanwhile, members of both houses of Congress have many more productive matters at hand. Do the words “health care” mean anything to these people?

How does an obscure, back-bench member of Congress make an instant name for himself?