Tag Archives: President Obama

Uncategorized

Park closure blowback going to get serious

The National Park Service has closed its operations while the government shuts down much of its operations.

And we all know what that mean for tourists who spend time and money getting to these places of interest.

While waiting this morning at the VA hospital eye clinic to have my pupils dilated, I caught an item on the Fox News Channel that highlighted the plight. A group of World War II veterans was turned away initially from the World War II Memorial on the D.C. Mall, but then the vets essentially marched through the yellow police tape to pay their respects at the memorial built in their honor and in the memory of those who fell during that great conflict.

They had gone to Washington on one of those Honor Flights, which fly veterans to the nation’s capital to tour these sites. America Supports You-Texas — once run by Amarillo resident Jack Barnes — has been a huge participant in these events, for example.

Well, Fox News talking heads sought to lay the blame for the park closure on Senate Democrats and President Obama, ignoring one key element in this discussion — which is House Republicans’ fetish that seeks to get rid of a standing law, the Affordable Care Act.

Aside from who’s to blame for this, the impact of the park closures is real. It is a true-blue shame that veterans who have flown from across the country to visit this particular memorial were told they couldn’t pay their respects.

I suspect there will be plenty more outrage expressed at all sides in this tumultuous debate. They’d better get ready for some serious blowback.

Uncategorized

Rand Paul making sense? Wow!

Someone pinch me. Throw some cold water on my face. Give me a slap. Pass the smelling salts.

I think I just read something regarding Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., that actually made sense. Paul, the tea party golden boy and possible 2016 GOP presidential candidate, said a government shutdown to defund the Affordable Care Act is a bad idea.

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/317531-rand-paul-i-dont-think-shutting-down-the-government-is-a-good-idea

He told his pals at Fox News Sunday as much this morning.

I think I’ve just entered a parallel universe.

Paul, of course, is right about the shutdown. His views on “Obamacare” need work. He’s swallowed the argument that the Affordable Care Act is some sort of evil deed perpetrated by the federal government, even though data are showing that its initial impact on the nation actually is proving to be a net positive.

The shutdown notion being pushed by his tea party brethren, though, is what deserves attention. The idea of shutting down the government — and punishing tens of millions of Americans who depend on government to help them get through the day — is an outrageous overreach by zealous partisans who have no clue about what it all means.

I’m glad to see Sen. Paul understand the consequences of what these goofballs are proposing. At least on this issue he is joining the shrinking ranks of sensible Republicans who don’t see the government as their mortal enemy.

Uncategorized

Airline merger equals campaign issue

If I understand Tom Pauken correctly, the fact that the state’s attorney general actually supports the federal government’s decision to fight a proposed airline merger makes the AG’s position a non-starter.

Why? Because the AG has been fighting the feds for years and the state simply cannot possibly be on the same side as the enemy — no matter the merits of the case.

Ah … Texas politics. Nothing like it.

Pauken is running for the Republican nomination for Texas governor against AG Greg Abbott, who says he fears a proposed merger between American Airlines and US Airways would result in fare increases and reduced service to rural areas.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/08/15/pauken-attacks-abbott-opposing-airline-merger/

The feds say the same thing about the proposed merger. Thus, Abbott and the U.S. Justice Department are on the same page on this very specific issue. Abbott and/or his staff of lawyers presumably have analyzed the specifics of the case and determined that, by golly, maybe the feds have a point.

Isn’t that what lawyers do? Pauken, himself a lawyer as well as a former Texas Republican Party chairman, ought to understand that principle.

Instead, he seems to be suggesting that Abbott — who is fighting on behalf those who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act — simply must remain opposed to President Obama, Eric Holder and the federal government because they’re just so darn unpopular in Texas.

This is where every single policy statement becomes a campaign issue.

Ain’t Texas politics grand?

Uncategorized

Osprey takes off with new assignment

That big aircraft assembly plant next to Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport has a new gig.

The MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft being assembled out there is now being assigned to carry key White House personnel as part of the Marine Corps presidential security detail.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/ospreys-get-a-big-presidential-lift-95478.html?hp=l8

Maybe one day, the cutting-edge birds will be hauling the president himself (or herself) to and from the White House.

The Osprey has come a long way from its formative years when Bell Helicopter returned to Amarillo in 1999 thanks to a grant awarded by the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation. The plane, which lifts off like a helicopter and then flies like a conventional fixed-wing aircraft, has had its fits and starts — and its share of tragedy. It has crashed with Marines aboard, killing 19 of them once on a training mission in Arizona. The Marine Corps and Bell engineers fixed what was wrong with the bird and put it back into the air.

Mechanical difficulties have grounded the Osprey on other occasions. The Pentagon stayed with it, lobbying Congress to keep funding the program.

It’s been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, where it has ferried troops and supplies to and from the battlefield.

Now, according to Politico, the Osprey has been used to fly White House support staff and equipment to Martha’s Vineyard, where President Obama has been vacationing with his family.

Any kind of state-of-the-art aircraft is going to have trouble. That’s been the history of U.S. aviation. The Osprey in that context is no different from other aircraft.

The bird that’s being built in Amarillo is earning its wings with an important new mission.

Well done, Bell.

Uncategorized

Chambliss makes sense on shutdown

Saxby Chambliss isn’t my kind of U.S. senator, but he’s trying to talk some sense into the rogue wing of his Republican Party.

His message today on Meet the Press: Shutting the government down to defund Obamacare would hurt the Republican Party and would hurt the American people.

http://thehill.com/video/sunday-shows/315421-chambliss-government-shutdown-would-play-into-obamas-hands

It’s not that care what happens to the GOP. I don’t. My only concern about Chambliss’s remarks is that he didn’t hold the harm to the public up as the far greater concern. His remarks, as I heard them, seemed to place those consequences on equal footing.

He mentioned Texas’s very own bomb-throwing senator, Republican Ted Cruz, one of the leaders of the shutdown movement. Chambliss said he admires Cruz’s “passion” for tea party causes and shares his desire to defund the Affordable Care Act. Shutting the government down, though, is the wrong course to take, Chambliss said.

I guess the skulls of Cruz and other tea party lawmakers are so thick they just cannot be told how much damage this proposed shutdown would cause them — and the country — if it comes to pass. Republicans tried that once before, in the late 1990s, and it cost them dearly.

Uncategorized

Cruz heads for trouble within GOP?

Ted Cruz might turn into my favorite U.S. senator, not because I agree with him on policy — because I disagree with virtually every policy statement that comes out of his mouth — but because he’s providing such tremendous back-story theater on Capitol Hill.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/08/ted-cruz-declines-to-endorse-mitch-mcconnell-for-renomination-over-tea-party-foe/

As the link here notes, Cruz did not endorse Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who’s facing a tea party challenger in next year’s GOP primary. Cruz himself is a tea party darling.

I’m wondering: What if McConnell wins re-election next year in Kentucky and returns to run the Republican caucus in 2015? What’s he got up his sleeve for Cruz, the guy who so far has shunned him and talked out loud about how the establishment Republicans might need to get their clocks cleaned by the insurgent wing of the party.

I see some back-bench committee assignments awaiting the junior senator from Texas. But not to fear for Ted Cruz. He’ll find a way to have his voice heard above the din. He’s gotten pretty good at it so far in his brief time in the Senate.

He did manage to knock Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst off in the Texas GOP primary last spring before plowing over Democrat Paul Sadler in the general election. He sees his monstrous primary upset as his mandate to act unruly in the clubby Senate environment.

The link attached here also notes that Sen. John Cornyn of Texas faces re-election next year and there are rumblings he, too, might face a tea party challenge from within the Republican Party.

I’ll be waiting to see whether Cruz endorses his pal Cornyn.  

Uncategorized

Foes ignore Obama successes

The link attached to the blog attacks Fox News Channel for virtually ignoring some positive economic news.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/08/01/fox-doesnt-have-time-for-landmark-low-in-unempl/195174

I get that FNC – particularly the hosts of the “Fox and Friends” morning talk show – often ignore good economic news when it speaks to the success of President Obama’s economic policy.

However, such reaction is not really unique to this president and his foes. Other media outlets have done so over many decades of reporting. Left-leaning MSNBC wasn’t too keen on reporting successes during the George W. Bush administration – although looking back on it now it’s difficult to recall any specifics.

And Fox’s ignoring of this data mirrors Obama’s political foes on the right who’ve done the same thing. Any tick in the wrong direction and those critics are all over the president with loud and forceful critiques. Any movement in the right direction you get … well, silence. Yes, it cuts both ways.

What makes the Media Matters tattling on Fox so troublesome, though, is that the network calls itself “fair and balanced.” I keep scratching my head over that self-description. It’s neither fair or balanced. Is MSNBC fair and balanced? Well, no, but that network doesn’t trumpet itself so loudly as possessing either characteristic. To be sure, Media Matters is clearly a left-leaning watchdog organization.

CNN is another whipping child for political conservatives. CNN’s “sin,” according to the mainstream conservative media, is that the network doesn’t shill for the right wing the way Fox does. Instead, it reports the news with, shall we say, fairness and balance. It also offers a wide range of ideological punditry – with the likes of Newt Gingrich and Rich Lowry on the right and Paul Begala and Donna Brazile on the left.

My only advice to Fox and its supporters is this: The network should stop using the false “fair and balanced” public relations ploy. Using such language to describe itself only exposes FNC to critics who can see through the network’s thinly veiled ideology.

Uncategorized

Cruz taunts fellow GOP senators

The junior Republican senator from Texas is proving a point I made the other day about the intraparty battle brewing over whether the shut the government down by cutting off money for the Affordable Care Act.

Ted Cruz asks, “What’s the alternative”?” to shutting ‘er down.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-on-the-potomac/2013/07/trash-talk-politico-describes-team-cruz-attacks-on-fellow-republicans-as-taunting/

The Lone Star State firebrand – who’s been on the job less than eight months – wasn’t around to witness what happened when the Republicans got their heads handed to them over this very thing. The alternative, Sen. Cruz, is to work with Democrats and “establishment Republicans” to keep the government functioning.

Cruz also wasn’t in the Senate when that body – along with the House of Representatives – approved Obamacare. The Supreme Court then handed the Obama administration a clear victory when it ruled – albeit narrowly – that the law is in fact constitutional.

Thus, we have a standing law.

Congressional Republicans, though, keep trying to overturn what’s been done legally.

And this fight between the two wings of the GOP – the tea party wing and the establishment wing – is proving to be worth the price of entertainment all by itself.

Keep “taunting” those older, more experienced hands, Sen. Cruz.

Uncategorized

Kennedy is qualified to be envoy

The chattering class is yammering over whether Caroline Kennedy is qualified to become the next U.S. ambassador to Japan.

She’s never held elected office, or run a big public agency, or managed a political campaign, or been schooled in the details of U.S. diplomacy. That’s what they’re saying.

I’ll reiterate yet again that Kennedy is qualified by virtue of the criteria presidents of both parties set for these high-profile ambassadorial assignments. She’s a big supporter of the man who occupies the White House and that’s good enough.

Allow me this comparison: Teel Bivins’s appointment to be U.S. ambassador to Sweden.

What qualified the late Amarillo state senator? Well, he was a big fundraiser for President George W. Bush. He campaigned diligently for the then-Texas governor when he was running for president in 2000. Bivins held exactly one elected office, that of state senator, before being tapped in 2003 to present his credentials to the Swedish government in Stockholm.

By all accounts, Bivins did a fine job representing U.S. interests in the Baltic region of Europe. How did he do that? He was surrounded by a competent staff of career foreign service officers who taught everything he needed to know about Sweden, not to mention about diplomatic protocol.

I’ll concede that Sweden isn’t nearly the economic powerhouse that Japan has become. Still, Sweden is no Third World backwater. It has a vibrant automobile industry and it manufactures fighter jets that are sold to many nations around the world. It is one of he world’s most socialized countries. It taxes its citizens heavily to pay for things like medical care.

That was the environment into which Teel Bivins, a staunch conservative Texas Republican lawmaker was thrown.

He did just fine.

Kennedy has access to even more expertise than Bivins ever had. She’s a well-educated lawyer who comes from the nation’s premier political families. She could be a quick study on the complexities of Japan’s economy, its geopolitical importance and its key role in keeping the peace in east Asia.

I don’t doubt for a minute that she’s qualified.

Uncategorized

What is to know about Japan?

Caroline Kennedy’s appointment as the next U.S. ambassador to Japan has raised some interesting – but altogether pointless – questions about her qualifications.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/world/asia/caroline-kennedy-picked-to-be-ambassador-to-japan.html?_r=1&

Some observers are wondering aloud about just what the late President Kennedy’s daughter knows about Japan. Still others have responded rhetorically by wondering what most ambassadors know about these plum assignments when they come from the president. What did former Vice President and U.S. Sen. Walter Mondale know about Japan when he became ambassador? How about former Sen. Howard Baker, or former Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield? Was the former U.S. House Speaker Tom Foley a Japan expert when he took the job? Hardly.

These prime ambassadorial appointments are political in nature. They generally go to big fundraisers, political heavy hitters – such as Mondale, Foley Baker or Mansfield – or individuals who’ve worked hard to elect the president.

If we’re going to ask about Caroline Kennedy’s knowledge of the intricacies of Japanese culture, we could ask the same thing about the late Teel Bivins, the Amarillo state senator who served for a time as U.S. ambassador to Sweden. What did the Republican senator know about that country when he took the post offered by President George W. Bush? My guess is “not much.” But Bivins was a smart man, well-educated and could bone up quickly on almost any challenge presented to him.

We can’t ask him now, given that Bivins is no longer with us. But he got that appointment because he raised a lot of money for Bush and worked hard in contested states to get him elected in 2000.

Ambassadors – particularly those who are posted in important countries – are meant to be the face and voice of the U.S. government. The embassies where they work are staffed by many career foreign service officers who’ve made it their mission to learn about the countries where they serve. These foreign service officers, if they’re faithful to the ambassador and to our government, will make the ambassador look good.

Caroline Kennedy is a fine choice to be our next ambassador to Japan. She is just as qualified as any of the individuals who’ve taken that post.