http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Opinion/010613SUNedit

The U.S. Senate is proof of the messiness of representative democracy.

Its rules are arcane, occasionally weird and at times nonsensical. Take the way the Senate allows its members to “filibuster.” Filibustering used to require senators to stand before their colleagues and actually talk a bill to death. That requirement doesn’t exist these days. Senators can just say they oppose something … and then they can vacate the chamber and go about their business, whatever that may be.

The rules ought to restored to the old way.

I kind of like the image of watching senators talk until they pass out. They can talk about anything they want once the filibuster commences. Except that nowadays none of that is required.

To unblock the bill, the Senate now requires a 60-vote supermajority. One idea being kicked around is to allow the so-called “cloture” vote to pass with a simple majority of just 51 votes.

But the best reform is to require senators to stand up and be counted. Don’t they all talk about the need for transparency in government?

The record time for a filibuster belongs to the late Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who in 1957, blabbed for 24 hours 18 minutes as he railed – during his segregationist days – against a civil rights bill. The previous record was held by my favorite Senate curmudgeon, the late Wayne Morse of Oregon, who yakked for 22 hours 26 minutes in 1953.

Those were the days when the world’s Greatest Deliberative Body forced members to earn their pay. By golly, if they felt strongly enough about something, they ought to be forced to work for it.

As the Santa Fe New Mexican said in an editorial, senators “should talk and talk and talk, without stopping, so that the whole world sees who is gumming up the works.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2-faced-zealots-congress-kick-sandy-victims-gut-article-1.1233607

There once was a time whenever natural disasters inflicted grievous pain and suffering on Americans that the rest of the country would rally in force to offer their support and comfort in times of tragedy.

Those days are gone.

Sixty-seven Republican members of Congress – including Mac Thornberry of Clarendon – voted “no” on a bill this past week to send emergency aid to the folks in New Jersey and New York who were pummeled in October by Hurricane/Super Storm Sandy.

As New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica noted (see link attached), these individuals “seem to have all the qualities of dogs except loyalty.”

The bill, which the House did approve, would spend federal money for flood insurance to aid the victims of Sandy. What’s especially galling is that some of the “no” votes actually came from Gulf Coast lawmakers who had their hand out when Hurricane Katrina shattered the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama more than seven years ago. They had no problem then asking for money, but when it came to delivering aid to someone else, well … that’s a different story.

This is the new age in Washington.

Remember the Joplin, Mo., tornado that ripped that city apart two years ago? Remember what House Republican Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia said at the time? He’d support aid to Joplin, but only if the House could find enough money to cut somewhere else to pay for it. Imagine if a tornado had obliterated his congressional district.

I’m still scratching my head over this. I kind of expected this kind of game-playing from the likes of Reps. Louie Gohmert of East Texas and Joe “You Lie!” Wilson of South Carolina. But not from Thornberry.

Don’t Americans rally to help each other during crises? Are we no longer a compassionate people capable of setting aside political differences when tragedy strikes?

All the individuals who said “no” to the Sandy relief money – and that includes Mac Thornberry – need to explain in detail why they have turned their backs on their fellow Americans.

A good friend and former colleague of mine was fond back in the day of reminding me that “the president proposes, while the Congress disposes.”

His meaning is simple: The president can propose laws all he wants, but it rests with Congress to enact them.

That’s the lesson that needs to be learned as the current president, Barack Obama, and the 113th Congress prepare to battle over the debt ceiling. Indeed, President Obama is beginning to make a point that ought to resonate across the nation. Congress, he said today in his radio address, must honor the debt obligation that it has run up.

At issue is whether the United States is going to increase the amount of debt it can accrue legally. The nation will reach its debt limit by the end of March. Congress has to increase it to make sure the government can pay its bills. Failure to do so would threaten the nation’s credit rating around the world.

Historically, the debt ceiling has been increased automatically with little or no debate. But these days Congress is populated by lawmakers, mostly Republican tea party types, who have taken a new tack. They won’t boost the debt limit without insisting on spending cuts. They threaten the financial well-being of the nation by digging in their heels on the debt limit. Obama says he won’t “negotiate” with Congress over the debt ceiling. Many in Congress say they won’t increase it without spending cuts.

Even the late Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of tea party Republicans, managed several automatic debt increases during his two terms as president in the 1980s.

The zealots in Congress must understand something here. They inherited that body’s constitutional responsibilities when they took their oaths of office. The Congress still disposes of laws. It, not the president, is responsible ultimately for spending government money – and for incurring the debt that now totals more than $16 trillion.

It does no good to shove the responsibility off on the White House, which isn’t responsible in the first place for the government being so deeply in debt.

Is it so wrong to boost the debt ceiling while continuing to search for places to cut future government spending?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130105/cotton-texas-am-johnny-manziel-dominates-oklahoma/?xid=cnnbin#

I thought Heisman Trophy winners were supposed to be jinxed, spooked, cursed … whatever.

Didn’t see any of that as Texas A&M dismantled Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl. Has Johnny Manziel – aka Johnny Football – broken the spell?

My friend Roy made some reference to the “Heisman jinx” the other morning after Oregon clobbered Kansas State, which had its own Heisman Trophy finalist in senior quarterbackCollin Klein. The Ducks bottled up Klein and the Wildcats nicely en route to their 35-17 blowout in the Fiesta Bowl. I wasn’t lamenting any such jinx at the time, you know?

Now comes Johnny Football. For the record, he ran for 229 yards, passed for 287 more yards. Let’s see, that’s 516 yards in total offense – from one guy alone!

The rule of thumb here is that Heisman winners go into a serious swoon after they accept the trophy, although there are exceptions. Cam Newton at Auburn won the Heisman and then led the Tigers to the national championship over the (gulp!) Ducks in 2011.

Johnny Football, though, is a seriously special athlete. Something tells me he’s got another Heisman Trophy – maybe more – in his future.

http://thehill.com/video/house/275555-gingrich-warns-boehner-could-have-disaster-on-his-hands

I can’t believe I actually am going to say this, but Newt Gingrich may be emerging as a sort of Republican gray eminence.

The former speaker of the House is urging the current speaker of the House, John Boehner, to think more strategically. The consequence would be that he’ll face many leadership crises as he commences his second term as the Man of the House.

Speaker Boehner, listen to former Speaker Gingrich. He knows a thing or two about leadership crises. Gingrich stormed to the speakership in the wake of the historic 1994 Contract With America election that saw both congressional chambers flip from Democratic to Republican control. He led the GOP down a terrible path that resulted in a brief, but catastrophic shutdown of the government over a budget fight with the Clinton administration. He fought with President Clinton over budget matters, worked with him on spending and tax reforms that produced a balanced budget … and then ran into some serious personal problems that led eventually to his decision to leave the House.

Still, Gingrich speaks with knowledge about some of the current problems plaguing Boehner, starting with restiveness within his own House GOP caucus. Some conservatives don’t like his style. He’s signaling a big fight soon over the debt limit, which President Obama has said will not be negotiated.

Gingrich appears to be suggesting that the debt-limit fight is a loser for Republicans, much as their recent shellacking in the negotiations over the budget deal hammered out by Senate Republicans and Vice President Biden.

If I were Speaker Boehner, I’d listen carefully to the wisdom of his elders.

I learned a valuable lesson Thursday night while watching the Oregon Ducks play the Kansas State Wildcats in the Fiesta Bowl.

If you’re going to watch a Ducks football game, be sure to watch every single play. You don’t, you’ll miss something big.

For the second time in as many seasons, during a BCS bowl game, I had the misfortune of missing a gigantic play from the Ducks.

I turned the game on exactly 12 seconds late. The picture on came and image on the screen was of the Ducks cheering, high-fiving and celebrating De’Anthony Thomas’ 94-yard touchdown run on the game’s opening kickoff. The camera flashed to the K State fans, many of whom were holding their heads in disbelief at what they had just seen.

OK, I saw the replay, but it isn’t the same.

This isn’t the first time the Ducks – and Thomas in particular – have done this to me. Flash back to last year’s Rose Bowl game: Ducks vs. Wisconsin. I was watching every snap. Then I made a critical mistake. I got up, walked into the kitchen to get something to drink. What do hear coming from the TV set? Cheering and hollering and TV announcers exclaiming about what they had just seen – which was Thomas busting a run from scrimmage for a 91-yard touchdown.

Lesson learned a year ago, right? Oh, no.

I had to re-learn it Thursday night. Shame on me.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/03/16327125-boehner-re-elected-as-speaker-of-the-house-after-some-gop-dissent?lite&ocid=msnhp&pos=1

John Boehner has been re-elected speaker of the House of Representatives, but only over the objections of a few arch-conservatives within the Republican House caucus.

I must admit that the most ludicrous objection of all came from right here in Texas, from Rep. Louie Gohmert, who voted for someone who’s no longer even serving in the House.

Gohmert, an admitted conspiracist from East Texas who continues to doubt President Obama’s constitutional qualifications to serve in the office to which he’s been re-elected – he wonders if the president was born in Kenya and not Hawaii, as POTUS has declared – voted for former Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, who lost his own re-election bid in November.

Seems that Gohmert likes West’s brand of nutcase conservatism. West, who served a single term in the House, once accused dozens of House Democrats of being closet communists; he labeled Florida congressional colleague Debbie Wasserman-Schulz, a Democrat of course, a “despicable human being”; and most recently joined the right-wing chorus accusing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of faking her concussion to get out of testifying on the Sept. 11 Benghazi, Libya attack that killed four Americans, including the U.S.ambassador to Libya.

West, thankfully, is gone. Gohmert, though, remains and no doubt will continue to embarrass many of the rest of his fellow Texans with his loony rants.

Sigh …

Today is a landmark day in the history of Amarillo, Texas. It’s the day the city began enforcing a no-talk-on-handheld-cellphone ordinance.

Amarillo city commissioners did something in 2012 that took them out of their comfort zone. They enacted the ordinance all by themselves. They didn’t refer it to voters for their permission, as they have done twice with no-smoking bans. Nope. They acted like leaders.

Effective today, the police department has begun citing motorists they catch dialing up their friends and kinfolk on handheld cellphones while driving their cars. No can do, say the cops.

Texas transportation officials reported more than 400 traffic deaths in 2011 because of “distracted driving.” That includes the morons who think they can operate a motor vehicle and dial a cellphone at the same time. They’re talking multi-tasking to a dangerous new level. Of course, so do the idiots who apply makeup, fumble for a cigarette, read a book or unwrap a cheeseburger while driving.

But it’s clear, to me at least, that cellphone use has become the No. 1 cause of distracted driving. And don’t get me started on the brain-dead motorists I see texting while driving.

I’ll admit to being on both sides of the fence on this one. I settled finally on the side of those who want the city put its foot down on motorists who don’t understand – or ignore – the consequences of driving while taking one’s eyes and minds off the road.

Will the cellphone use ban reduce the roadway carnage? Not immediately. Police and transportation authorities believe that over time the levels of highway accidents caused by this activity to decrease. The ordinance won’t end it completely … any more than laws against murder have stopped that crime from occurring.

The city deserves high praise, though, for taking the lead on trying to solve this problem. And take my word for it, it is a problem in Amarillo.

Stand along any busy thoroughfare in the city and take note of all the drivers you see with a phone stuck to the side of their head.

Vice presidents of the United States can be major players in a political drama, as current VP Joe Biden demonstrated amply in the past couple of days.

He helped broker a financial deal that averted a potential economic catastrophe. Biden worked with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on a deal to save middle-class tax cuts and to stop automatic spending cuts that could have plunged the nation into another recession.

Biden’s role was critical for this reason: He spent 37 years in the Senate and knows how the system works in that body. He speaks senators’ language and knows many of the Senate’s senior members, such as McConnell, very well.

Indeed, President Obama employed the VPOTUS in a constructive manner that could serve as a model for future presidents. Indeed, think for a moment of another president limited legislative experience with a VP with many years of it working on Capitol Hill. The thought turns to President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson.

JFK never used LBJ in the way Obama deployed Biden. Johnson in fact was a master legislator, perhaps one of the best in Senate history. It is to his great credit that the current president sent Biden onto the legislative battlefield when the call came from McConnell to help rescue the talks that had broken down between the GOP leader and his Democratic counterpart, Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Whatever political spoils go to the administration over this deal, the president owes his No. 2 man a debt of thanks.

Given the stock market’s reaction to news of the deal – the Dow skyrocketed 300-plus points today – so do millions of Americans who made a few bucks today.

Good job, Mr. Vice President.

Note: I am going to write this post without using the words “fiscal cliff,” a description that is beginning to make me as crazy as the phrase “at the end of the day …”

Well, the House of Reps proved me wrong, and I’m glad it did.

I was sure the purists among them were going to spoil the Senate-passed budget hammered out by Vice President Biden and Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell. The pie-in-the-sky crowd had me going. Then, Speaker John Boehner counted heads and realized he didn’t have enough votes to amend the measure and send it back to the Senate … and then he put it to a vote.

Guess what? A bipartisan majority approved the bill – and that included staunch conservative Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon. Mac said “yes,” and then griped about the need for more spending cuts in his statement announcing his affirmative vote.

I’m glad the measure passed, not because I’m crazy about it. It needed immediate spending cuts. They won’t come for another two months when the “sequestration” deadline extension expires. That’s when automatic cuts kick in, unless our distinguished lawmakers make the cuts voluntarily.

But tax rates remain low for us middle-income Americans. The wealthier of us will see a modest increase, to the levels imposed during the Clinton administration, when the economy exploded in a grand expansion.

Even better news for us older Americans is that the stock market – which has some of our retirement income tucked away – took off like a rocket today with news of the budget deal. I don’t expect the market to keep soaring, but at least it didn’t fall off the, um … never mind.

I am gratified as well that House members and senators aren’t patting themselves on the backs today. CNN business correspondent Ali Veshi said it best on Tuesday when he reminded us that Congress had 518 days to get this thing done but waited anyway until the last minute. “They live in a parallel universe,” Velshi said.

They got the deal enacted, but they still should be ashamed of themselves.

Goodbye, 112th Congress, and good riddance.