Tag Archives: John Cornyn

legal news, national news, political news

GOP gangs up on Ted Cruz … good deal!

Ted Cruz keeps trying to rouse the U.S. Senate rabbles with his obstructionism.

But now the freshman Texas Republican lawmaker is finding trouble in a most unlikely place: within his own GOP Senate caucus.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/loretta-lynch-vote-ted-cruz-114921.html?ml=po

The fiery loudmouth wants to employ procedural trickery to delay the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on attorney general-designate Loretta Lynch’s nomination to take over the Justice Department. Why? Because he just cannot stand the fact that she supports the president’s executive actions on immigration reform. Who knew?

That she would endorse President Obama’s executive authority just isn’t possible, right?

Oh, wait! Lynch is Barack Obama’s choice to be attorney general. Gosh, do you think she’s on the same page as the president of the United States on this contentious issue?

None of that matters, of course, to the Cruz Missile.

He’s going to do whatever he can to disrupt, dismiss and just plain dis the president whenever possible.

Fellow Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn also opposes Lynch’s nomination, but he doesn’t want to block her confirmation vote from proceeding. Indeed, Lynch already has gathered considerable Republican support for her nomination, including from serious conservatives such as Orrin Hatch of Utah, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Cruz should look at it this way, as well. Every day that Lynch is denied the nomination on the basis of some specious procedural chicanery is a day longer that Eric Holder remains as attorney general. After all, Senate Republicans are known to detest Holder more than they oppose Lynch.

Eric Holder did a good job as attorney general — and Loretta Lynch deserves confirmation and she needs to get to work.

 

national news, political news

Go, Louie, go for the speaker's job!

This might be the best news yet of the new year — which, I know, is just four days old.

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-TEA Party Fringe, has just announced he’s going to challenge John Boehner as speaker of the House of Representatives.

How does it get any better than that?

Gohmert, you see, is in the running as well for being the goofiest member of Congress. He’s got some competition for that honor. The previous frontrunner was fellow Texan Steve Stockman, who had the bad form to challenge Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary this past spring; he lost badly. He’s now out of the House. Right up there, too, is Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who said illegal immigrants are packing illegal drug across the border while running on “calves the size of cantaloupes.”

Gohmert hails from East Texas and he’s challenging fellow Republican Donald Trump for the unofficial title of “birther in chief.” He and The Donald just do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States of America, in Hawaii, and that — by golly — he’s constitutionally qualified to serve in the office to which he was elected twice.

Now he’s running for speaker. He told his pal Tucker Carlson on Fox News that someone needs to challenge Boehner. Gohmert says he’s gotten “a lot” of support to mount that challenge.

I’d love to ask him how he defines the measure of so-called support. Maybe it is a lot. It surely must be vocal because that’s how the TEA party wing of the GOP operates. It outshouts the other side within the Republican Party and then it outshouts the Democrats.

Hey, the truth is he’s just firing a shot across Boehner’s bow. He’s telling the speaker to watch his right flank. The TEA party will be watching, waiting and looking for any opportunity to undermine the speaker’s instincts to work with the other side.

I’m still glad to see Rep. Gohmert step up — even if it does embarrass some Texas residents back home who really would prefer that he shut his trap.

national news

ICE gets new director

Sarah Saldana has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, aka ICE.

Wow. That was a close a call that never should have been that close.

In that curious game of political gamesmanship on Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans who once sang Saldana’s praises turned on a dime against her nomination. Why is that? Well, it seems they didn’t like her support of President Obama’s executive order delaying deportation of millions of illegal immigrants.

OK, so let’s consider that for a moment.

Saldana was deemed supremely qualified to lead this critical national security agency prior to the executive action. NPR this morning had a report of how the GOP tide turned against her instantly as she backed Obama’s decision. One of her supporters-turned-foes happened to be Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

So, the Republicans wanted her to in effect turn against the policies of the president who appointed her.

What in the name of God’s green Earth did they expect from this presidential appointee? Is this person going to spit in the face of the man who selected her to lead the effort to protect our borders? Of course not!

Yet the GOP caucus in the Senate all but demanded it of her.

All the while, Senate and House Republicans keep harping — correctly, I should add — that the nation needs to do all it can to prevent illegal immigrants from streaming into our country.

Do they want the president to appoint an ICE director or don’t they?

Well, we now have one.

As someone noted this morning on National Public Radio, the job Saldana is about to assume is arguably the most difficult job in the federal government.

If she was a stellar choice prior to her backing the president on immigration, then she remains a stellar choice today.

Let’s get to work, ICE Director Saldana.

 

 

national news, political news

GOP adults start to tamp down 'I-word' talk

Yes, the Republican Party has some actual grownups in its midst.

Some of them are beginning to speak up against the rough talk of the kids within the party about impeaching President Obama if — and when — he issues that executive order on immigration.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/republicans-immigration-impeachment-113027.html?hp=c1_3

Frankly, I don’t quite know how to respond to that tamping down of a possible rebellion.

The president is expected Thursday to issue an order that delays deportation of about 5 million illegal immigrants. Congressional GOP leaders have threatened all kinds of mayhem if/when he goes through with it. Some of those threats include impeachment — which is about as stupid an idea as anything I’ve heard in years.

One of the grownups, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said this: “Impeachment and shutting the entire government down takes the focus away from him to us, There are some people in the conferences that will have their 15 minutes of fame over this. But the rest of us want a Republican Party that can compete across the board in 2016.”

Another of them, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said this: “Nobody’s talking about the ‘I’ word like the White House and others. They would love for us to take the bait. We’re not going to take the bait.”

Actually, I should point out that some of the young Turks within the GOP caucus have said it, too, along with their friends in the conservative mainstream media, such as columnist/Fox News talking head Dr. Charles Krauthammer.

This is nonsense, but it does give Democrats and other friends of President Obama some ammo to shoot back at the GOP chuckleheads.

Therein lies the source of my mixed feelings.

 

 

 

 

 

national news, political news, State news

Sen. Cruz denies the obvious

Someone will have to pass the smelling salts to me. I must have been in a stupor the past year or so.

Either that or U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is utterly delusional.

I’ll go with the latter for now.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/09/cruz-denies-playing-role-in-congressional-gridlock/

Cruz is a Texas Republican who has denied playing a role in shutting the government down over a fight about the Affordable Care Act. He said at Texas Tribune Fest that the “blame” belongs to President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Cruz’s role in that debacle? He says he didn’t have any role to play.

Huh? Cruz’s Republican colleague in the Senate, fellow Texan John Cornyn, said otherwise.

So has every observer of Capitol Hill — Democrat, Republican, independent, media observers — said that Cruz was a key player in the shutdown.

He filibustered against the ACA trying to repeal it. Didn’t he do that?

Of course, Cruz blamed the media — which he said sides with Democrats — for the characterizations attached to the junior senator. According to a blog posted by the San Antonio Express-News: “Remarking that Republicans are usually criticized as either crazy or evil, Cruz said he took it as ‘somewhat of a back-handed compliment that the press has invented a third caricature of me, which is crazy.’”

Well, he’s not crazy. Almost everything he’s done publicly since joining the Senate in January 2013, though, reveals a burning ambition. He’s been out front on high-profile issues almost from Day One of his still-young Senate tenure. He ignores Senate decorum. He’s drawn the ire of fellow Republicans as well as Democrats.

Now he says he had nothing to do with the government shutdown.

The young man possesses some serious hubris.

Uncategorized

Time to pony up on border emergency

Republicans in Congress have been griping about Barack Obama’s so-called imperial presidency.

They want the president to consult more with them before acting.

OK, then. The president — and Congress — have a serious border emergency on their hands right here in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. It involves the mass migration of thousands of children and adults from Central America.

To help fight the problem believed to part of an international human trafficking ring, the president has asked Congress for more than $2 billion in emergency money to beef up detention facilities along the border and to bolster border security.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/29/obama-to-request-billions-to-deal-with-border-crisis/?hpt=hp_t1

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has asked the president to do more. So has Texas Gov. Rick Perry, another Republican.

The question of the day: Will GOP lawmakers consent to the request or will they continue to dig in their heels, contending that the United States can’t afford the money and, thus, keep sniping away at the administration for its “failure” to protect the border against illegal immigration?

CNN.com reports it this way: “A White House official told CNN the money will go to securing appropriate space for the detention of children but also stemming the tide of immigrants. The government hopes to increase its ability to investigate and dismantle smuggling organizations as well as quickly return children and adults to their home countries if they do not qualify for asylum.”

For his part, Obama is sending stern messages to governments south of Mexico. “Do not send your children to the borders. If they do make it, they’ll get sent back. More importantly, they may not make it,” Obama said to ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos.

Can he do more? Sure. First, though, he needs the resources, meaning the money, to pay for the stepped-up efforts to stop the illegal immigrant flow. The funds can come from Congress.

Will the legislative branch put it up?

Uncategorized

This just in: I'm going to live

Given that I posted a blog item a few days ago about my impending medical appointment at the Thomas Creek Veterans Medical Center in Amarillo, I thought I’d provide a brief — and detail-free — update.

The bottom line: I’m going to live a good bit longer, if everything stays the same for a while.

I mention all this only because of the controversy surrounding the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA secretary, Eric Shinseki, has resigned. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, wants the FBI to investigate the deaths of those 40 veterans in Phoenix. President Obama has all but said heads likely will roll as the investigation continues. VA medical centers across the country now are under the microscope — and I only can assume that includes the Creek medical center here in Amarillo.

No worries for yours truly. I was in and out in less than an hour. Got the lab work done. Visited with the nurse practitioner, who read me the results of the labs; all of ’em look good.

I was out the door and headed for the house.

Oh, how I hope the Creek center isn’t producing the hideously long wait times discovered at other VA-run hospitals.

So far, barely a year into my VA medical enrollment, I cannot complain one teeny-tiny bit about the care I’ve received.

Let’s hope it stays that way.

Uncategorized

Let the FBI join the VA probe

U.S. John Cornyn has it right: It’s time to deploy the Federal Bureau of Investigation in this still-metastasizing scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/05/shinseki-had-to-go-and-now-its-time-for-a-criminal-probe.html/

Cornyn, R-Texas, wants the FBI to begin looking into whether there are criminal charges to be brought against VA staffers complicit in the deaths of veterans waiting too long for health care from an agency charged with caring for them.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki has quit. The president of the United States has declared his anger over the treatment of veterans. How about calling your pal, the attorney general, Mr. President, and telling him to order the FBI to look at this matter?

This scandal is huge … and yes, it deserves the “scandal” label while most of the other stuff doesn’t rise to that level of deserved outrage.

Dallas Morning News blogger/editorial writer Mike Hashimoto hits it out of the park with this assertion: “Yes, Shinseki had to go, and there’s a long list of VA administrators at three dozen or more hospitals who should join him. And it was beyond shameful that some of them profited from the scheme in the form of undeserved bonus payments. I’m no legal expert, but doesn’t it seem as if some law was broken here? And, if so, don’t we need a criminal investigation?”

In my mind, yes … absolutely.

Uncategorized

Texas tea party stands tall

I always thought “Texas tea” referred to oil.

It now has a political connotation, as in “Texas tea party.” Ladies and gents, the tea party has taken the Texas Republican Party hostage. It has swallowed it whole and has produced a slate of statewide candidates that’ll make the hair stand up on some of us Texas residents.

Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka is one who is very afraid of what the future might hold.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/tea-party-takes-charge

I concur with his assessment.

He seems to be conceding the November election already to one tea party candidate in particular: state Sen. Dan Patrick, the Republican/tea party candidate for lieutenant governor.

I’m not yet ready to go there.

Democratic nominee, fellow state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, well could turn out to be the most formidable Democratic candidate on the statewide ballot. She’s Patrick’s opponent this fall. I’m going to wait until all the ballots are counted before declaring him the all-but-certain lieutenant governor.

Of all the assertions Burka makes, the most interesting is this: “One thing I believe with absolute certainty: Dan Patrick as lieutenant governor will hasten the day Texas turns purple. His personal history is one of recklessness and carelessness. There are going to be train wrecks along the way. I have serious doubts about whether the tea party can govern or whether Patrick can get along with his peers without having a meltdown along the way.”

Meltdown? I keep thinking of the release late in the campaign of Patrick’s medical records, which included some time with a shrink who counseled him about his depression. It was a low blow at the end of a tough campaign to bring that stuff up … but is this part of Burka’s calculation about how the Texas Senate might be run under the leadership of a Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick?

Tea party candidates have bitten the dust all over the country. Not in Texas, though. They’re riding high.

One bit of cheer is worth passing on: At least Republicans had the good sense to toss aside Steve Stockman’s challenge to John Cornyn in the U.S. Senate primary.

Uncategorized

Texas Democrats still floundering

David Alameel.

Say that name a few times. Have you heard it before? Probably not.

Alameel stumbled out of the tall grass some time ago to run for the U.S. Senate. He’s now the Democratic Party nominee who will challenge Republican incumbent John Cornyn this fall.

To get that nomination, though, Alameel had to defeat someone named Keesha Rogers in the Democratic runoff. Rogers had called for — get this — the impeachment of President Obama.

Therein, boys and girls, lies an answer as to why the Texas Democratic Party is in such a shambles.

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/democrat-david-alameel-handily-defeats-kesha-roger/nf8Gd/

There exists no Democratic statewide officeholder to challenge the Republicans. The party is still looking for candidates to run against powerful GOP incumbents.

Democrats are trying to talk bravely about turning the state from Republican red to swing state purple. Some folks have actually said with a straight face that this is the year the transition begins.

I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Yes, the party has two quite credible candidates running at the top of the state ballot: Wendy Davis for governor and Leticia Van de Putte for lieutenant governor. Both are state senators, both are articulate and fearless. Their chances of winning remain dicey.

I keep coming back to David Alameel, wondering: Who is this guy?

I don’t know much about him, other than he’s a multi-gazillionaire businessman who’ll likely pour a lot of his own money into the Senate campaign. Other mega-rich guys have won in Texas, the latest of whom, Lt. David Dewhurst, got his head handed to him in the GOP runoff by Dan Patrick in the race for lieutenant governor; but before Tuesday’s vote, Dewhurst had been a successful self-funded politician.

It’s instructive, to me at least, that the state of Texas Democratic Party can be summed up in the fact that its nominee for the U.S. Senate had to endure a runoff against a fellow Democrat who wants to impeach the president of the same party.

Setting aside the races for governor and lieutenant governor, Texas Democrats have a ways to go before finding their way out of the wilderness.