Tag Archives: Newt Gingrich

national news, political news

Spinning losses into moral victories

Politics has this way of producing victories where none is apparent.

Democrats around the country, for instance, are seeking to turn electoral defeats into a form of winning. It’s a fascinating thing to watch — and it has me shaking my head.

A Kansas congressional district special election produced a Republican victory recently. The Fourth Congressional District seat once was held by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, whom Donald Trump appointed to become the nation’s top spook. Trump won that district over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and it has been in GOP hands seemingly since The Flood.

The Republican who won the seat in the special election did so narrowly. Thus, Democrats are claiming some sort of victory.

Today, voters in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District are going to the polls. They’re going to choose a successor to Tom Price, who represented the GOP-friendly district before becoming secretary of health and human services; the Sixth District once was represented by none other than the inimitable Newt Gingrich.

A large field is running. It includes five Democrats and 11 Republicans. The top vote-getter needs to win with 50 percent plus one vote to win the election outright. The leader is a Democrat, a young man named Jon Ossoff. Polling indicates he is likely to fall short — barely — of the majority he needs to win. If he doesn’t make it, he needs to face the No. 2 finisher, likely one of the Republicans. The GOP hopes the party will rally behind their guy and elect him over Ossoff in the runoff election.

Still, Democrats — even if they lose this election — are likely to crow about how they damn near flipped that district.

Please.

As a progressive-leaning voter myself, I am pulling for an upset in Georgia. I would be glad to see Ossoff score an outright victory by day’s end. A win by the young Democrat clearly would send a message to the president and his Republican friends that they’re likely to have a serious fight on their hands in next year’s mid-term congressional elections.

However, elections determine winners and losers. Candidates need to get more votes than their opponent to actually win. Falling short of the total they need today in Georgia will not stop Democrats from spinning a loss into some sort of moral victory.

As the old saying goes, “Close counts only in horseshoes and hand grenades.”

national news, political news

‘My military’? No, Mr. POTUS, it’s ‘ours’

Some commentators and analysts on MSNBC are getting a bit worked up tonight over Donald J. Trump’s use of the first-person singular pronoun.

Trump was speaking today of the use of the so-called “mother of all bombs” on Islamic State targets in Afghanistan. He referred to “my military” taking charge of the mission and executing it with precision.

My military? Umm, no sir. It’s our military, the people’s military, the nation’s military.

Now, to be fair …

Other presidents have done the same thing, taking direct ownership of the office they occupy. Barack Obama was fond of referring to “my national security team,” or “my vice president,” or “my economic team,” or “my presidency.”

I once challenged the former president’s generous use of that pronoun, trying to remind him that none of it belongs to him personally. I also sought to remind him that every single government employee — and they number in the millions — belong to the taxpayers who pay the bill.

That includes the president of the United States of America.

The message I imparted then still applies to the current president.

“My military”? No, Mr. President. The men and women who defend our nation do not belong to you.

They belong to us. For that matter, Mr. President, so do you.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/07/take-ownership-not-possession/

 

national news, political news

Another ‘family values’ official takes a fall

Robert Bentley got elected governor of Alabama partly on the basis of his belief in what he defined as traditional family values.

But wait! The Republican got involved romantically with a senior staffer. He got re-elected and then tried to cover the affair up. His wife of 50 years then divorced him after learning of text messages revealing the affair hubby was having.

Now he’s out of office.

This isn’t a huge deal in terms of what it means for the entire nation. Kay Ivey, another Republican, took the oath of office as governor today. State government will go on. Bentley will serve two years of probation and then he’ll disappear from the public stage.

What gives this story its legs, I suppose, is the sight of another moralist/politician going down for the count. We see this kind of thing on occasion.

Two pols stand out in my memory.

Do you remember John Edwards, the former Democratic senator from North Carolina? He used to talk publicly about the love he had for his late wife, Elizabeth, all while he was taking a tumble with a woman who was assigned to put his life story on film.

Then we had the former Republican speaker of the U.S. House, Newt Gingrich, ranting and railing about President Clinton’s sexual misdeeds as he, too, was cheating on his wife with a staffer.

During the nadir of Clinton’s presidency there were candidates for public office who would proclaim their sexual fidelity as a reason to vote for them. Imagine that, will ya? As if that’s something about which you should boast.

Bentley quit just as Alabama legislators began filing impeachment procedures on the basis of evidence that Bentley violated state campaign rules in covering up this episode.

The late President Nixon taught the nation graphically a particular lesson about political scandals. It’s rarely the deed itself that brings the politician down; it usually is the cover-up.

Governor pleads guilty, then quits

There might be a lesson, too, for future politicians to heed. Don’t try to sell yourself as a “family values” champion if you have any predilection to violate a sacred pledge.

local news, medical news, national news, political news

Who works for whom in Washington?

Donald Trump thought he could strong-arm congressional Republicans into doing his bidding.

He wanted them to enact a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. GOP lawmakers — namely the more conservative members of their caucus — weren’t budging. Why? I believe it’s because they knew something that the president doesn’t understand: They work for their constituents; they do not work for the president.

When I heard today that Trumpcare went down in flames, I flashed back to another time, in an another era, when another lawmaker decided to stick it in the ear of his congressional leadership.

I recalled former U.S. Rep. Larry Combest, a Republican from Lubbock, who once defied the speaker of the House of Representatives who wanted Combest to back some legislation that he just couldn’t support.

It occurred in the late 1990s. Combest represented a largely rural West Texas congressional district that ran from southern Amarillo all the way to the Permian Basin.

GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich was pushing something called Freedom to Farm, a dramatic overhaul of national farm policy. If memory serves, Freedom to Farm would have drastically reduced the amount of subsidies the government gave to farmers and ranchers to help them through difficult years. We get those kinds of seasons in West Texas, as you might know. Drought has this way of inhibiting dryland farmers’ ability to harvest crops; such a lack of moisture also restricts the amount of grain that ranchers use to feed their livestock.

Gingrich pushed Combest hard to back Freedom to Farm. Combest resisted. He finally voted against Freedom to Farm.

Combest was left to remind the speaker that he didn’t work for congressional leaders. He answered to the farmers and ranchers who elected him to Congress. These folks back home would suffer from Freedom to Farm and Combest wasn’t about to let them down.

I applauded Combest at the time, remarking in an editorial — and also in a couple of signed columns — that he showed guts by defying his congressional leadership and standing up for his constituents.

Congressional Republicans today don’t work for the president. They answer to their constituents at home, the folks whose votes upon which these lawmakers depend. They hate the GOP alternative to the ACA and let their congressmen and women know it in no uncertain terms. Democrats hate it, too.

That is how representative democracy works, Mr. President.

Just ask Larry Combest.

national news

A true GOP leader passes from scene

Today’s congressional Republicans don’t invoke the name of Bob Michel these days.

Why is that? Well, Michel represented another Republican Party, one that knew how to legislate, to govern even when it was in the minority. The former Illinois congressman had friends and allies who happened to be Democrats. The GOP of today is more partisan, angrier, more committed to ideology than to actual governance.

Bob Michel has died at the age of 93. He won’t be feted with a huge state funeral. There might be the perfunctory words of praise for his service to the country.

Actually, though, this man represented a kinder, gentler — and more effective — time in government.

Michel served as GOP leader in the House of Representatives. Then he got pushed aside by firebrand Newt Gingrich, the GOP congressman from Georgia who led that Contract with American revolution that took command of Congress in January 1995.

As Politico reported, Michel often car-pooled to and from work at Capitol Hill with crusty Democratic Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, a fellow Illinoisan. He didn’t shy away from his across-the-aisle friendships.

He also was a fierce champion for President Reagan’s conservative Republican agenda. But he fought hard while maintaining his friendships with those on the “other side.”

If only more lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans — could mirror the temperament exhibited by Rep. Michel. There actually could be some effective legislation enacted that would become laws that most of us — if not all of us — could embrace.

national news, political news

Battleground state getting bloody

darrylglenn

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — I’m getting a taste of what we’ve been missing in Texas.

Since we don’t live in a “battleground state,” my wife and I have been spared the barrage of TV commercials from Donald J. Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Moreover, since we don’t have any serious statewide races to decide this election cycle, we’ve also been spared some of the amazing down-ballot campaign rhetoric voters are hearing in this battleground.

Darryl Glenn is a Republican running for the U.S. Senate in Colorado. He is seeking to unseat Democratic incumbent Sen. Michael Bennett.

A 30-second TV spot from Bennett asks voters if they know who Glenn is. The spot highlights a recording of Glenn saying that he is “running against Democrats.” And, he adds, he is campaigning “against evil.”

Democrats personify “evil,” says the Republican.

Oh, brother.

Twenty-two years ago, a Republican House of Representatives firebrand named Newt Gingrich led a partisan revolution that resulted in the GOP takeover of both houses of Congress.

He instructed his Contract With America brigade to paint “Democrats as the enemy of normal Americans.” The enemy. Not a mere political adversary. The enemy, man.

Now the enemy has morphed — in the mind of another Republican — into evil.

See what we’ve been missing at home? Have you missed it? Neither have I.

national news, political news

Gingrich, Guiliani: spokesmen for marital fidelity?

how_common_is_infidelity_anyway

Donald J. Trump has enlisted two of the more ironic choices to stand up for him as he ponders whether to raise the issue of former President Bill Clinton’s marital difficulties during the presidential campaign.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani are two of the GOP nominee’s main men on the subject of marital fidelity.

The irony is rich!

For starters, Trump is now on his third marriage. He has bragged about cheating on wives No. 1 and 2.

Gingrich? Well, let’s see. He, too, is on his third marriage. Calista Gingrich once worked for Newtie when the speaker was railing against Bill Clinton’s affair with the White House intern. It turns out Newtie was fooling around with Calista while he was married to wife No. 2 — and while he was telling Americans that the president had the morals of an alley cat.

Guiliani? OK, there’s this. He’s on his third marriage as well. The first marriage ended in divorce. But then Rudy decided later to seek and annulment from his first wife. Why annul the marriage? Because he’s a practicing Catholic and church doctrine doesn’t allow divorce. So, an annulment wipes a marriage off the books as if it never happened. I guess I should mention that Guiliani also engaged in extramarital activity.

Three politicians. Nine marriages among them. Several extramarital affairs, too.

I truly dislike talking about this stuff in the context of a presidential campaign. Trump, though, brought it up.

He might bring the issue of Bill Clinton’s transgressions to the forefront at the next joint appearance scheduled with the former president’s wife, Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Someone as well will have to explain to me as if I’m a third-grader how Bill Clinton’s behavior really matters in the current campaign for the presidency.

Well … ? How is any of this relevant?

local news, national news, political news, State news

A rigged election? Yes, but not the way Trump calls it

Texas house of reps

Donald J. Trump likes issuing dire warnings about a “rigged election” on the horizon.

He means, of course, that the presidential election will be rigged and that the Republican nominee will lose only because of “crooked” politicians seeking to grease it for Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton’s election to the presidency.

Trump is mistaken, but only partially so.

Yes, the election at another level will be “rigged.” The rigging occurs in the election of members of Congress.

The culprit is the tried-and-tested method of gerrymandering, which the Republicans in charge of Congress and in many state legislatures around the country have fine-tuned to an art form.

David Daley writes in a blog for BillMoyers.com that the rigging will allow the GOP to maintain control of the House of Representatives, even as the Senate could flip to Democratic control — and as Clinton is swept into the White House in a landslide.

http://billmoyers.com/story/real-way-2016-election-rigged/

Yep. The GOP has done well with this totally legal process of apportioning House congressional districts. It’s done every 10 years after the census is taken and ratified.

They have gerrymandered the dickens out of the House districts, drawing lines in cockamamie fashion to include Republican-leaning neighborhoods and to shut out Democrats.

Now, to be totally fair and above-board, this isn’t a uniquely Republican idea. Democrats sought to do it, for example, in Texas when they ran the Legislature. As recently as 1991, the Democratic-controlled Texas Legislature monkeyed around with congressional districts, seeking to protect Democratic incumbents in the U.S. House.

Amarillo became something of a testing ground for that experiment. The Legislature divided the city into halves, with the Potter County portion of the city included in the 13th Congressional District, while the Randall County portion was peeled off into the 19th District. Potter County contained more Democratic voters and the idea was to protect then-U.S. Rep. Bill Sarpalius of Amarillo, a true-blue Democrat, from any GOP challenge.

Randall County, meanwhile, is arguably ground zero of the West Texas Republican movement and its residents ain’t voting for a Democrat to any public office.

The tactic worked through the 1992 election, when Sarpalius was re-elected. Then came the 1994 Republican wipeout, led by that firebrand Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia. Sarpalius got swept out by the GOP tsunami that elected a young Clarendon rancher and self-proclaimed “recovering lawyer” named Mac Thornberry.

The Republicans would wrest control of the Legislature from the Democrats after that and they have perfected the art of gerrymandering. Sure, the Democrats tried to gerrymander themselves into permanent power.

Republicans, however, have proved to be better at it.

You want a “rigged” election? There it is.

The GOP presidential nominee, quite naturally, isn’t about to call attention to the real rigging of the U.S. electoral system. Instead, he’s going to fabricate suspicion in a scenario that will not occur.

national news, political news

Ready for a ‘first-name president’?

hillary

Am I hearing things?

Whenever I watch TV news/opinion talk shows, I keep hearing people — political experts, strategists and rank-and-file voters — referring to the Democratic Party presidential nominee by her first name.

She’s just plain “Hillary.”

Hillary’s got to do this or that. Hillary suffers from this “trust” deficit. Hillary’s standing in the polls is going up.

Hillary, Hillary, Hillary …

I don’t yet know about the psychology of this first-name reference. Hillary Clinton is a serious person. By my way of thinking, she’s far more serious than her Republican presidential nominee opponent, Donald J. Trump.

I’ve tried throughout my commentary on this political campaign to reference the Democratic nominee the same way media refer to every other politician or public figure: first and last name in the initial reference; last name in subsequent references.

I’ll admit, though, to fall off the traditional method wagon. I’ve taken to referring to other politicians by their first names. They are Mitt (Romney), Newt (Gingrich) and Jeb (Bush).

I mean no disrespect to any of them. I actually rather like Mitt and Jeb. Newt? Not so much.

I get a strange sense, though, that the use of Hillary Clinton’s first name only is more a symptom of disrespect than affection. I hear it from disgruntled voters who are likely to vote for Trump. I hear it also from conservative media talking heads who certainly are no fans of the Democratic Party presidential nominee.

As for the office these two people are seeking — the presidency — I also have taken up the custom of using the term “President” while referring to those who have held the office. I use that reference out of respect for the office.

My hope is that the media and others will treat Hillary Clinton with the same respect accorded those who have preceded her in that high office.

Now … as for Donald J. Trump, I’ll admit to anticipating a serious struggle if somehow he manages to become the next president of the United States.

national news, political news

Another actual Republican bolts from Trump

vin

The last time I thought about this guy, I understood that he was a seriously conservative Republican.

Vin Weber served a dozen years in the U.S. House of Representatives. He worked closely with Speaker Newt Gingrich. He’s the real GOP deal.

His view of his party’s presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump?

Weber says his party has made a mistake of “historic proportions” by nominating Trump.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/vin-weber-trump-mistake-226630

In the past, whenever I raise issue of former officeholders who have been critical of Trump, I get the “has been” rejoinder from my conservative friends. Who cares what Vin Weber thinks? some of them likely are going to say, just as they’ve said it about other Republicans.

Weber is a serious thinker. He is among the latest of several key Republicans who’ve bolted from Trump. According to Politico: “Weber joins a growing list of notable Republicans who have recently said they will not support Trump’s candidacy, including HP CEO Meg Whitman, Sally Bradshaw, a longtime aide to Jeb Bush, and Maria Comella, a former top aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.”

Despite all this, Trump keeps saying his campaign is in great shape.

Sigh …

We’ll see about that.