Tag Archives: Greg Abbott

political news, State news

Clinton, Trump: party unifiers

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Texas Democrats are meeting in San Antonio this weekend.

They appear to be downright giddy about their chances in this election year. Then again, they proclaim their giddiness at every election cycle, only to be disappointed when the ballots are counted.

Do you remember when former state Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth ran for governor in 2014 and how Democrats said that was the year? It wasn’t. Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott thumped Davis by more than 20 percentage points.

That was then, Democrats are saying now.

They’re squaring off against a Republican Party being led by one Donald J. Trump as their party’s presidential nominee.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston asked convention attendees: “Can you really believe that they nominated Donald Trump?” Why, the delegates couldn’t get enough of the “good news.”

Trump is going to be the unifier the Democrats need to help them carry Texas this fall with Hillary Rodham Clinton at the top of their ticket.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/18/analysis-republican-whos-keeping-texas-democrats-t/

But here comes the wet blanket.

Hillary Clinton is going to unify the Republicans, too.

There are differing dynamics, as I see it, working against both parties’ presumed nominees.

Democrats cannot believe that Trump — the huckster, reality TV celebrity, hotel and real estate mogul, thrice-married media star — is actually running for president of the United States of America. They dare not take him too lightly, and delegates are being warned of the risks inherent if they do.

Republicans, meanwhile, detest Clinton. They’ve been looking high and low for something that rises to the level of an indictment. They can’t find anything. They’ve hated her since her husband was president from 1993 to 2001.

I’m not going to project which emotion — the Democrats’ perverse joy or the Republicans’ loathing — is going to be the greater partisan unifying effect.

The major concern facing Republicans in Texas might not be the Democrats. It might be that their own party is showing signs of splitting apart because of their nominee’s own trouble within the party he wants to lead.

That, all by itself, might be enough to put Texas in play for Democrats, giving them a real honest-to-goodness reason for optimism.

national news, political news, State news

Abbott makes simple statement of solidarity

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott flew the flag at the Governor’s Mansion.

It was the Florida state flag, which he unfurled to honor the victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre, the worst such event in U.S. history.

He offered a statement calling on Texans to pray for the victims of the shooting. I applaud the governor’s simple statement of support for those who were killed and injured and for the loved ones who are grieving or praying for the victims’ complete recovery.

Then he lost me … almost.

Abbott used the occasion to make a statement that we need to do more to stamp out radical Islamic terrorism.

The gunman, an American, swore fealty to the Islamic State before opening fire at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, which caters to the city’s gay community. FBI director James Comey, though, has suggested that his agency cannot find any indication that the shooter was acting as part of an ISIS master plot; he was a lone wolf, a guy acting on his own.

My question tonight is this: How does the federal government stop a lone madman?

It’s a no-brainer to suggest that the government needs to do more to combat terrorism. Any act taken committed against us — whether it’s on a 9/11-type scale or anything less audacious — always means we need to “do more.”

Before we get too worked up about this latest attack, let’s remember what every expert the media could corral after 9/11 told us: There should be no doubt that we’ll get hit again by terrorists.

As for the latest incident, the best law enforcement minds on Earth are trying to ascertain whether the shooter was acting out of hatred for gay people or whether he was acting as a radical Islamic terrorist.

I’m glad the governor flew the Florida flag at Governor’s Mansion. The politicization? It seems a bit premature.

political news, State news

Texas may prove to be Trump GOP testing ground

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If Donald J. Trump is having trouble wooing Texas Republicans into his embrace, then he might be having even more trouble everywhere else.

Ross Ramsey’s excellent analysis in the Texas Tribune lays out the problem that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is having as he tightens the grip on his quest for the White House.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/06/analysis-texas-pols-trying-muster-words-support-tr/

Ramsey hold up Ted Cruz as an example of Trump’s Texas dilemma.

A lot of Texas politicians backed the junior U.S. senator’s bid for the White House. Cruz backed out of the race after the Indiana primary. He’s been mainly silent about Trump’s campaign ever since. Cruz has returned to work in the Senate.

His friends and allies, though, aren’t any more eager to attach themselves to Trump’s train than Cruz has been.

Trump said some pretty spiteful things about Cruz during the campaign. And, no, they didn’t gin up much sympathy from me … as I didn’t want Cruz to be the next president of the United States. If you’re Cruz, though, you should take some of these epithets personally.

And then there was that hideous attack on Heidi Cruz, for crying out loud!

Gov. Greg Abbott is kinda/sorta backing Trump. Ramsey noted that recently Abbott made a speech backing Trump without ever mentioning the candidate’s name. How do you do that?

Then again, Abbott has his own Trump burden to bear, given the state’s investigation into the defunct Trump University and the campaign contribution that showed up immediately after Abbott — while he was Texas attorney general — dropped the state’s legal action.

Hmmm.

Let’s not forget former Gov. Rick Perry, who once called Trump a “cancer on conservatism.” He’s now backing him out loud and proudly. As Ramsey points out, Perry also said he’d accept a vice-presidential invitation if it came from Trump.

Many actual Republicans in Texas accuse Trump of being one of them in name only. You know, a RINO.

But as Texas Republicans have demonstrated time and again since ascending to power in this state, they are willing to put actual qualifications and fitness aside when selecting candidates for high political office. Party labels matter more than anything else.

To be fair, Democrats did much the same thing when they ran the show. We still actually have a smattering of those “Yellow Dog Democrats” out there who’d vote for a yellow dog before they’d vote for a Republican.

Trump’s fight for the love of Texas Republicans remains a daunting task. As Ramsey notes:

“Many others in the GOP seem stuck on the road between their original choices for the Republican presidential nomination and Trump, the apparent winner.  Some will convert. Some will get out and proselytize for the nominee.

“But not yet. That first sale is the hardest one to close.”

political news, State news

A summation of Trump’s unfitness

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Erica Grieder writes a blog for Texas Monthly.

She is highly opinionated, which is why I enjoy reading her blog. She doesn’t hide her disdain for Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.

She writes: “My contempt for Donald Trump is admittedly sincere and abiding, but I suspect that even observers who take a more temperate view of the man might agree that the Republican Party’s decision to accept him as their presidential nominee is a calculation that could haunt them for years.

Here is more of what she wrote about Trump’s candidacy: “Trump is GOP nominee for president. His opponent, in the general election, will almost certainly be Hillary Clinton. He is technically qualified to hold the office, should he win 270 electoral votes, as he was born in the United States and is over the age of 35. At the same time, Trump is an uninformed and emotionally unstable plague who has, over 70 years of life, proven himself incapable of wielding any form of power without immediately looking for some ham-fisted way he can leverage it to serve his profoundly fragile ego.”

Here’s the entire blog posted on the Burka Blog website:

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/greg-abbotts-trump-problem/

She writes that Gov. Greg Abbott is backing Trump even though he knows Trump is a phony and a fraud.

Back to one of the points in her paragraph that I shared with you here.

Trump’s candidacy is not built on a commitment to public service. It is built solely on his monstrous ego. Listen to what he says about his supposedly immense wealth, about his “world-class business” ventures, about the women in his life, about his singular plans to “make America great.”

Public service? It’s a foreign concept to this guy.

Say what you will about the ills of the nation — which I believe have been grossly overstated by Trump and those who have glommed on to what passes for this fellow’s campaign message.

We must do better than elect an entertainer with zero experience dealing with a government he now proposes to fix. He has no template from which to pattern whatever he intends to do.

If he intends to repair the government, someone needs to explain to me what he intends to produce.

Does this guy have a clue about anything that resembles an understanding of the massive governmental machine he intends to operate?

State news

Governor, comptroller right to end ‘severance pay’

abbott

Why did it take a controversy to get the Texas governor and the state comptroller of public accounts to do the right thing?

Gov. Greg Abbott and Comptroller Glenn Hegar have ordered state agencies to end the practice of granting what’s been called “emergency leave” pay for public employees who left their public-sector jobs.

Let’s call it what it was: severance pay.

Someone leaves public employment voluntarily and then collects pay even though he or she is no longer on the job?

Ridiculous!

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/01/governor-comptroller-orders-agencies-stop-pay-depa/

The issue blew up when Attorney General Ken Paxton — the guy who’s got his own share of legal difficulties with which he must contend — paid two former top assistants after they had left the AG’s office. It turns out that the General Land Office did the same thing.

Abbott and Hegar’s directive stipulates that it will remain in effect until the Legislature decides how to handle it.

Here’s an idea for legislators to heed: Ban it forthwith. Make it illegal to pay these kinds of severance packages to public employees who resign their jobs voluntarily.

I trust we’re clear on that.

 

legal news, political news, State news

Irony in all these lawsuits

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There’s a certain sort of irony one can find in this story from the Texas Tribune.

Texas’s Republican political leaders have made it a point of pride that they have sued the federal government 40 times since 2009, the year President Barack Obama took office.

The state’s two most recent attorneys general — Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton — have had mixed results from all those suits.

Hey, man, they’re still glad to sue the daylights out of the president and the government over which he presides.

Their cause? The government is overreaching, seeking to usurp authority set aside for the states — allegedly.

The irony? Well, I recall many Republican candidates for public office contending that they wanted to stem the flood of lawsuits. They would argue that many of them are frivolous and that the courts couldn’t afford the escalating costs of litigation. I won’t argue that the suits are “frivolous,” as I am not a legal scholar.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/26/texas-vs-federal-government/

The link attached to this post itemizes the costs of the suits. Add  them up. They have cost the state — that’s you and me, folks — a good chunk of money over the past eight years.

This is a point of pride with these fellows?

legal news, political news, State news

Pay attention, Gov. Abbott

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There’s little I can add to this blog post by Brian Sweany of Texas Monthly.

Except, perhaps, this: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has a sharp legal mind and he ought to know more than he’s acknowledging regarding the conduct of the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton.

Here’s Sweany’s blog post:

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/abbotts-feigned-ignorance/

Sweany asks a pertinent question: Why doesn’t the governor know more than he knew more than a year ago about Paxton’s conduct?

The AG has been indicted by a Collin County grand jury on felony accusations of securities fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint as well. Paxton is accused of failure to disclose properly income he earned while giving investment advice.

As for Abbott’s “feigned ignorance,” as Sweany calls it, I’ll just add this.

Abbott was a trial judge in Houston before being elected to the Texas Supreme Court. He then was elected as the state’s attorney general, a post he held until January 2015 when he became the state’s governor.

Paxton succeeded Abbott at the AG’s office.

It would seem implausible that the governor knows nothing more now than he did a year ago. I don’t want Abbott to convict his Republican colleague, either, through statements to the media.

Still, to borrow a phrase: Gov. Abbott, what did you know and when did you know it?

 

political news, State news

Cruz’s omission spoke volumes at GOP gathering

tedcruz_0

Texas Republicans gathering at their state convention in Dallas over the weekend waited to hear from one of their golden boys.

He went to the podium and delivered a typically fiery speech about how the Texas GOP should stand firm behind its “conservative principles.”

The message came from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who until just about three weeks ago, had contended that he would be the party’s presidential nominee.

He won’t make it.

That prize is now left for Donald J. Trump to grasp.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/ted-cruz-chooses/

So, the question becomes: Will the vanquished junior senator from Texas endorse the presumptive GOP nominee for president?

Excuse me while I laugh … out loud.

As Erica Grieder writes for Texas Monthly, it ain’t gonna happen.

Cruz’s speech to the convention delegates contained a lot of references to those conservative principles. He didn’t mention Trump’s name a single, solitary time.

No mention of the nominee, the guy who’s going to hoist the party banner and traipse across the land proclaiming himself to be the party messenger.

Are you as not surprised as I am that Cruz wouldn’t mention Trump?

I ran into Randall County Judge Ernie Houdashell just before he shoved off for the GOP convention. He and I exchanged a few friendly words in the supermarket parking lot. He mentioned Cruz’s name in passing. The judge — as reliable and devoted a Republican as you’ll ever see — made no mention of Trump.

I’ll have to ask Houdashell the next time I see him to ask him straight away: Are you going to “support” the party nominee? I’ll try to avoid asking whether he’d vote for Trump this fall, given that he’s entitled to cast whatever vote he wants in private.

Sure, Trump is gathering his share of public endorsements in Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott is on board, as is former Gov. Rick Perry.

I haven’t heard much from Sen. John Cornyn or from former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on whether they’re going to back Trump.

Cruz, of course, has been gored terribly by his party’s nominee. Trump’s “Lyin’ Ted” label surely hurt the senator, as did Trump’s hideous reference to Heidi Cruz, the wife of his former GOP presidential foe.

So, he didn’t mention Trump’s name at the GOP convention podium. Cruz’s silence spoke volumes.

As Grieder writes in her blog about Cruz: “He recognized Trump’s political appeal earlier on, in other words, and responded with an eye toward his strategic goals rather than his values or principles. He deserves criticism for that. But so too do many of his critics in the Republican Party — all too many of whom are now, after nine more months of this lurid spectacle, making an even more cynical bargain, and one that Cruz, clearly enough, is unwilling to accept. It’s like he said. You learn a lot about a candidate over the course of a campaign.”

 

national news, political news, State news

‘Rampant’ voter fraud in Texas? Not even close

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott describes the instances of voter fraud in this state as “rampant.”

The state, he said, has sought to curb the epidemic of voter fraud by requiring voters to produce photo ID — driver’s licenses, passports, etc. — when they go to the polling place.

The Texas Tribune’s Ross Ramsey, though, has shot down the governor’s assertion with an interesting analysis of Abbott’s challenge to a President Obama’s critique of Texas’ historically poor voter turnout.

The evidence of fraud is “scant,” according to Ramsey.

Here’s part of what Ramsey writes: “A study done by News21, an investigative journalism project at Arizona State University, looked at open records from Texas and other states for the years 2000-2011 and found 104 cases of voter fraud had been alleged in Texas over that decade.

“Chew on this: If you only count the Texans who voted in November general elections — skipping Democratic and Republican primaries and also special and constitutional elections — 35.8 million people voted during the period covered by the ASU study.

“They found 104 cases of voter fraud among 35.8 million votes cast. That’s fewer than three glitches per 1 million votes.”

Does that fit the description of “rampant” voter fraud?

Not exactly.

Obama made the point at a fundraiser the other evening that Texas remains one of the nation’s poorest-turnout states. I am not going to blame the voter ID push for driving down the turnout. Suffice to say, though, that Texas can — and should — do more to promote greater turnout.

I’ve lived in Texas for 32 years. I have been watching, reporting and commenting on the political process here for that entire time. I have no recollection ever of the state — from the governor’s office on down — launching a concerted effort to drive up voter participation.

There has seemed over all that time to be a sense of complacency, that the state puts little emphasis on greater turnout.

“The folks who are governing the good state of Texas aren’t interested in having more people participate,” the president told The Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith at South by Southwest Interactive.

Abbott’s response? He trotted out the allegation of “rampant” voter fraud. The numbers don’t add up.

 

International news, national news, political news, State news

Give Cubans the dickens, Mr. President

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Critics of President Obama’s upcoming visit to Cuba ought to chill out for a moment or two.

They’re raking Obama over the coals because, they say, he’s lending “legitimacy” to the dictators who are running the island nation. They’re a bunch of commie Marxists who don’t deserve a visit from the head of state of the world’s most powerful nation, they say.

Hey, let’s take a breath.

The president is going there to continue the normalization of relations between the nations. The Cold War is over. We won. Cuba no longer presents any kind of threat to this nation. Its benefactor, the Soviet Union, receded into the dustbin more than 20 years ago.

What shouldn’t be lost is the opportunity that the president will have to tell Cuban President Raul Castro of the concerns the United States still has over the communists’ treatment of their citizens. Obama says he’ll bring it up directly. Face to face. Man to man.

Let us also be mindful that the two men will be able to speak outside of earshot of prying media representatives. Does anyone ever really with utter certainty what two leaders ever say to each other when no one is listening?

The president insists that the visit will keep the normalization process moving forward. Part of that movement must depend on assurances that the Cubans are going to do better at recognizing the rights of all human beings — and that should include their own citizens.

Look at it this way as well: Did the Texas Republican governor, Greg Abbott, just visit with Cuba on a trade mission aimed at boosting commerce between Texas and our nation’s former enemy?

Where was the criticism of that visit?