Tag Archives: US Senate

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Tax returns, Mr. President … give ’em up

Gosh, I hate talking about Donald John Trump’s tax returns.

Just kidding. No, I don’t.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., says tax-filing time is a good time to see what — if anything — the president is hiding from the American people he governs.

I agree with the Bay State’s senior senator.

We’ve waited long enough to see what precisely is in those returns. Trump has balked long enough at doing what other presidential candidates for 40 years have done, which is to release their complete returns for public inspection.

Trump keeps telling us he can’t release his returns because he’s being audited. The Internal Revenue Service says, in effect, that the president is engaging in a dodge; an audit doesn’t prohibit the returns’ release.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has said that any hope of enacting tax reform depends on the president releasing those returns. Sure, that’s hardball politicking. Inquiring minds want to know, especially the minds of those of us who didn’t vote for Trump in 2016.

Time to come clean

I mean, he’s still the president of all Americans. We’re all required to file our taxes. Here in Amarillo, candidates for public office are required to provide full financial disclosure.

The president of the United States of America is not above the law. In this case, even though releasing the returns isn’t a legal requirement, it has been a longstanding custom that’s been accepted as standard operating procedure for all candidates for the presidency.

Sure, many Americans don’t seem to think these returns matter. Others of us, though, think quite the opposite.

Many of us are waiting, Mr. President. Please show us, sir, that you aren’t hiding something.

business news, national news

No legislative remedy needed for United Airlines mistake

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It took no time at all for a member of the U.S. Senate to weigh in with a legislative solution to an incident that has outraged millions of Americans.

Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., has announced plans to introduce a bill that would make it illegal for a commercial airline to remove a ticketed passenger from an airplane.

I detest these kind of legislative responses to vast public outrage.

You know the story. United Airlines the other day tried to evict a passenger after seeking volunteers to vacate the flight to make room for four UAL employees who needed to fly from Chicago to Louisville. The airline picked names of passengers at random. One of the passengers refused. So the airline called in security officials, who then manhandled the passenger badly, pulling him off the plane after knocking out a couple of his teeth and breaking his nose.

The passenger, a physician who said he needed to see patients the next day — and just couldn’t surrender his seat on the flight — has vowed to sue the airline for damages.

UAL suffers terrible PR damage

Now we hear a member of the Senate weighing in.

Congress does this kind of thing on occasion, as do state legislatures. Public outcry emerges from an event, prompting lawmakers to propose state or national laws to make something illegal.

The way I see it, Congress need not act on this matter. Why? Well, United Airlines has gotten the message from the rage the public already has expressed over this incident. Moreover, I am quite certain executives at other airlines have heard it, too, prompting them to rethink their own passenger-removal policies.

I believe in good government and I am not one to dismiss the need for government to act when the cause merits it. I just don’t think this particular matter requires congressional action.

United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz already has made a mess of his own response. He said initially that airline personnel acted according to policy; then he apologized to the man who got roughed up; then UAL announced air fare refunds for every passenger on that Chicago-Louisville flight.

United Airlines is now reviewing its policy. That’s good enough for me.

My strong hunch is that UAL won’t allow this kind of embarrassment ever to recur on one of its aircraft. I also would be willing to bet real American money that the other air carriers will follow suit.

national news, political news

Senate sees the end of collegiality

There once was a time when the U.S. Senate could be a place where senators disagreed but remained friends.

I believe those days are over. They perhaps have been gone for a lot longer than I realize. The confirmation battle over Judge Neil Gorsuch closes the deal.

Say goodbye to Senate collegiality.

Battle changes the dynamic

Gorsuch’s confirmation came on a fairly narrow vote. All Republicans voted to seat him on the U.S. Supreme Court; all but three Democrats voted against his confirmation.

Some of us — including yours truly — used to believe the federal judiciary somehow was insulated from partisan politics. Not true. Maybe it’s never been true.

Senate Republicans tossed the filibuster rule into the crapper to get Gorsuch confirmed. The Senate used to require 60 votes to quell a filibuster. Democrats launched a filibuster to block Gorsuch’s confirmation; Republicans answered by invoking the so-called “nuclear option” and changing the rule to allow only a simple majority to end a filibuster.

Democrats are angry that Donald J. Trump got elected president in the first place. Their anger metastasized with Trump’s appointment of Gorsuch after Republicans blocked Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to succeed the late Antonin Scalia.

I’m not at all confident that either side is going to find a way toward some common ground — on anything!

I recall a story that former Republican U.S. Rep. Larry Combest once told me about his former boss, the late U.S. Sen. John Tower; Combest served on Tower’s staff.

Tower, a Texas Republican, was a fierce partisan. One day, as Combest recalled it, he and another equally ferocious partisan debater, the late Democrat Hubert Humphrey, were arguing on the Senate floor about some legislation. They were gesturing and shouting and saying some angry things while arguing their points, Combest remembered.

After a lengthy floor debate, the presiding officer gaveled the session closed, Combest said, and Sens. Tower and Humphrey walked toward the middle of the floor, shook hands — and walked out the door with their arms around each other.

My gut tells me those moments are long gone.

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End of judicial filibuster? A mixed blessing

I’ve long had a terrible conflict of emotions as it regards the filibuster, a tactic employed in the U.S. Senate designed to stall the progress of legislation … and appointments.

The Senate this week did away with its 60-vote rule to end filibusters. The rule change allowed the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But it’s the filibuster itself that gives me pause.

My own political bias clouds my view of what the Senate did as it regarded Gorsuch’s nomination. Given that the Republican-controlled Senate blocked an earlier high court nomination because a Democratic president had put a name forward to succeed the late Antonin Scalia, I saw some justification in what Senate Democrats sought to do with Gorsuch’s nomination.

But is the filibuster really an essential element of governance? I’ve long questioned it. A filibuster occurs when senators object to an issue before the body. They can filibuster in a number of ways, but the classic method is to hold the floor for hours, days, weeks — however long it takes — to talk about anything under the sun.

The Senate has had some champion filibusterers. I think of the late Wayne Morse from my home state of Oregon and the late Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Those fellows could bluster seemingly forever on anything in order to talk a bill to death.

We operate our government on the principle of “majority rule.” The word “majority” doesn’t imply “super majority,” which is what the former Senate filibuster rule required. Majority means one vote greater than half. The Senate comprises 100 members; therefore, 51 votes constitute a majority. Shouldn’t that be enough to settle a policy argument on the floor of the Senate?

We elect presidents with a simple majority of the Electoral College. All it takes is 270 electoral votes, out of 538 total, to elect a president. Is there a more important electoral decision to be made than that? We don’t require in the U.S. Constitution a super-majority of electoral votes to choose a president. So, why do senators insist on filibustering and then require 60 votes to end it.

The filibuster seems to be an obstructionist’s tool. As one who believes in “good government,” this activity appears to me to work against that principle.

legal news

‘Shining moment’ carries baggage for McConnell

The Hill posted a story online with the headline “McConnell’s shining moment.”

The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, is shining because the body he runs has confirmed Neil Gorsuch to a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Pardon my anger, but the leader isn’t shining. He stands as a scoundrel, a thief who stole the seat from another judge who should have been confirmed in 2016.

McConnell is boasting that the most “consequential” decision he has made was his decision to block Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, from testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The consequence would be to block a vote on the Senate floor.

Hours after Justice Antonin Scalia died in early 2016, McConnell made clear his intention to prevent President Obama from filling the spot on the court. Some have praised McConnell for blocking the president. I choose to condemn him.

Politics takes over

Gorsuch’s confirmation today was totally expected. The Senate voted 55-44 to approve his confirmation. He earned his court seat on the basis of a rule change that McConnell orchestrated in which the Senate abandoned its 60-vote rule to end a filibuster. I get that the majority leader was within his rights to change the rule.

What happened in 2016, though, is the much more egregious transgression. McConnell played raw politics with Obama’s nominee. The U.S. Constitution gives the president the power to fill federal judgeships. Barack Obama fulfilled his duty. The Senate also has the right to reject a nominee.

The Senate, though, should have heard from Garland. It should have weighed this man’s credentials. It should have considered his qualifications. It should have received a recommendation from the Judiciary Committee.

And it should have cast an up-down vote on whether to confirm the president’s nominee.

Thanks to the majority leader’s obstruction, none of that was allowed to occur.

And to think that Mitch McConnell has the stones to accuse Democrats of playing politics with Supreme Court picks.  This man, McConnell, has set the standard for politicizing the highest court in America.

Gorsuch’s confirmation isn’t a “shining moment.” It is permanently soiled by political poison.

political news, State news

U.S. Sen. O’Rourke? Let’s wait and see about that one

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Beto O’Rourke wants to succeed Ted Cruz in the U.S. Senate.

To be honest, few things political would make me happier than to see the Cruz Missile brought back to Earth by a loss to a up-and-comer such as O’Rourke.

Will it happen?

I refer you to “Gov.” Wendy Davis, the former Democratic state senator who once was thought to have an actual chance at defeating Greg Abbott in the race for Texas governor in 2014. She lost by more than 20 percentage points.

O’Rourke represents an El Paso congressional district. He’s seen as one of the next generation of Texas Democratic stars, along with, oh, Julian and Joaquin Castro, the twins from San Antonio; Julian served as San Antonio mayor and then went to work in Barack Obama’s Cabinet as housing secretary. Joaquin serves in the House along with O’Rourke.

Cruz became a serious pain in the patoot almost immediately after being elected to the Senate in 2012. He took no time at all before inheriting the role once occupied by another Texas U.S. senator, fellow Republican Phil Gramm, of whom it used to be said that “The most dangerous place in American was between Gramm and a TV camera.” Cruz loves the limelight and he hogged it relentlessly almost from the moment he took office.

Sen. Cruz repulses me, as if that’s not already clear. Cruz once actually questioned the commitment of two Vietnam War combat veterans — Democratic Sen. John Kerry and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel — to the nation’s military strength; Cruz never wore a military uniform.

But is he vulnerable to a challenge from Beto O’Rourke? There’s no need to count the ways why I don’t think O’Rourke is going to beat him. There’s really only a single factor to consider: O’Rourke is a Democrat and Cruz is a Republican and as near as I can tell, a semi-trained monkey can get elected to damn near any office in Texas — as long as he runs as a Republican.

I say this understanding that a year from now a lot of factors can change. Will any of them turn O’Rourke from prohibitive underdog to overwhelming favorite?

Texas remains a deeply red state and is likely to remain so for, oh, the foreseeable future — if not beyond.

My most realistic hope is that Rep. O’Rourke —  if he wins his party’s U.S. Senate primary next year — makes this enough of a contest to force Sen. Cruz to think of Texans’ needs before he thinks of his own political interests.

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Senate readies for ‘nuclear’ attack on rules

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All this hubbub over whether to deploy the “nuclear option” to get a Supreme Court justice confirmed has my head spinning.

My emotions are terribly mixed.

Here is where we stand:

* The U.S. Senate Committee has recommended that Neil Gorsuch be confirmed to the Supreme Court; the panel voted along partisan lines. Republicans voted “yes,” Democrats voted “no.”

* Democrats are set to filibuster the Gorsuch nomination as payback to their Republican “friends” for blocking an earlier appointment, again on partisan grounds.

* Senate rules require Supreme Court nominees to garner at least 60 votes. Republicans at this moment don’t have enough votes to reach the 60-vote threshold — and break a Democratic filibuster.

* Republicans, thus, are pondering whether to “go nuclear” and change the rules to allow only a simple majority to approve a high court nominee.

Ohhhh, what to do?

We’ve already stipulated that Democratic senators don’t want Gorsuch seated if only because of the steamroll job GOP senators did on Merrick Garland, whom Barack Obama nominated to the court to succeed the late Antonin Scalia.

Why the emotional conflict?

I happen to believe in presidential prerogative. I believe the president’s selection deserves greater consideration than the Senate’s constitutional right to reject an appointment, particularly if the appointee is “well qualified,” as the American Bar Association has determined about Gorsuch.

But my belief in presidential prerogative is tempered a good bit by the outrage I share with Democratic senators over the way Republican senators stonewalled Garland’s nomination, how they played politics by saying the next appointment belonged to “the next president.”

They were as wrong as they could be in denying President Obama the right to select someone, who I feel compelled to add is every bit as qualified to serve on the high court as Neil Gorsuch.

Should the Republican majority throw its weight around once again by engaging in that so-called “nuclear option” and change the rules to suit their own agenda?

Let me think for a moment about that one.

No. They shouldn’t!

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Trump vs. McCain: Keep your punches up …

Donald J. Trump started the feud with John McCain.

The president vs. the senator is now getting serious. I’ll stipulate that I’m rooting for the senator who once was his party ‘s presidential nominee.

This intraparty feud could get in the way of some serious policy matters.

The president fired the first shot in the feud when he told an interview that he didn’t consider the Arizona Republican U.S. senator to be a war hero. Trump said McCain is a hero only because “he was captured. I like people who aren’t captured. OK?”

I was among those who thought that comment would doom Trump’s budding presidential candidacy. Silly me. I was so wrong!

McCain ever since has been none too bashful about criticizing Trump. McCain’s foreign policy credentials are well known. He believes Trump is too friendly with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and has said so publicly.

The feud has taken a new turn. McCain has criticized a military mission that Trump ordered. Trump and his team have said McCain should apologize for impugning the memory of a Navy SEAL who died in the operation in Yemen.

From where I sit, I didn’t here McCain disparage the gallantry of the fallen commando. It would be unthinkable for the former Vietnam War prisoner to say such a thing.

But this war of words between the leading Republicans doesn’t bode well for the new president getting much through the GOP-led Congress. It’s not that McCain is terribly popular among his colleagues; the difficulty might lie in McCain’s well-chronicled service to the country, which is infinitely greater than any such service Trump ever performed before he was elected president.

The Hill reports: “Further fights between McCain and Trump seem almost certain. Neither likes to back down from a fight, and it is hard to believe that Trump’s criticisms of McCain haven’t got under his skin.”

I am quite certain as well that Trump’s famously thin skin is pretty chapped these days, too.

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Yes, Sen. Cruz, but the Democrats have evolved

Oh, how I hate it when someone I detest is correct … even if he doesn’t tell the whole story.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas delivered a historical truth this week while talking to the Fox News Channel. The Republican said that the Democratic Party is the party of the Ku Klux Klan. He said Democrats — not Republicans — have a history of racism and scorn of minority Americans.

Sure, Ted. I get that. Southern Democrats resisted the enactment of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts of the 1960s; prior to that, some Democrats bolted their mainstream party to form something called the “Dixiecrat Party,” and then ran the late Sen. Strom Thurmond for president in 1948; Thurmond would later leave the Democratic Party to become a Republican. What’s more, Democratic history of racial intolerance goes many years before that.

Indeed, President Lyndon Johnson faced fierce opposition from within his Democratic Party to enact the civil rights legislation. He enlisted political help from his Senate Republican friends to push them through to his signature.

But times and policies can change. They did with the Democratic Party. Democrats “evolved” over time.

It’s one thing to talk about historical perspective. It’s quite another to relate politics and policy in real time.

Cruz’s comments came after Senate Republicans shut down a speech by Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who was reading a letter by the late Coretta Scott King; Warren used the letter to state her opposition to Jeff Sessions becoming the next U.S. attorney general.

Sen. Cruz spoke correctly about Democrats’ sordid history. It’s understandable, too, that he would ignore how the Democratic Party has evolved into a more inclusive organization.

It’s also understandable that he would ignore how his own Grand Old Party has become, well, a bit less inclusive.

I think it’s fair to wonder what President Abraham Lincoln would think today of the political party that carries his name.

legal news

Who’s POTUS calling a ‘so-called judge’?

Donald J. Trump, meet your newest nemesis, U.S. District Judge James L. Robart.

The president has called Robart a “so-called judge” because he had the nerve to halt the president’s ban on refugees entering the United States from Muslim-majority countries.

If I might be so brazen, my inclination is to wonder aloud — given Trump’s love of Twitter as his primary attack medium — whether he could be labeled a “so-called president.”

Nah … I won’t go there.

There’s not a damn thing “so-called” about Robart, who was appointed to the federal bench in western Washington state by President George W. Bush.

According to NBC News: “He (Robart) suggested in court that Trump’s 90-day entry ban on people from the countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen was not ‘rationally based,’ since no one from any those countries had been arrested in the U.S. on terrorism-related charges since 9/11.”

There’s more: “‘I’m sorry, there’s no other way to put it,’ Robarts said from the bench. ‘It’s Keystone Cops. It really is. And that’s not just me speaking, that’s Republican members of Congress.'”

The president doesn’t like being criticized by anyone. Not by the media, or political foes or by judges who disagree with his decisions. His mode of response? Twitter! He tweeted: “The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/who-is-the-so-called-judge-trump-rips-over-ruling/ar-AAmCbUO?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Judge Robart is doing what he believes his oath requires him to do, which is to interpret federal law to see if it squares against the U.S. Constitution.

Robart is a Seattle native, he received his undergraduate degree in Walla Walla, Wash., got his law degree at Georgetown and practice law in Seattle from 1973 until 2004, when President Bush tapped for him for the federal bench; the Senate approved his nomination.

There’s nothing “so-called” about this fellow, Mr. President.

Pipe down and let the system play out.