Tag Archives: John Cornyn

national news, political news, State news

Trump brings one positive: big voter turnouts

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I am about to do something that gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I’m going to write something positive about Donald J. Trump.

The man has boosted voter turnout in these Republican Party presidential primaries. He’s boasted about it, which is no surprise.

As one who for decades as a print journalist bemoaned the lack of voter participation, I will say that the turnout we’ve seen in the GOP side of the primary battle has been inspiring.

Trump’s tapping into that voter anger has brought people to the polls, which is a good thing. Yes, it is a good thing!

None other than John Cornyn, has said so, too. The senior U.S. senator from Texas — who says he’s remaining neutral in the primary fight — has lauded the result produced by Trump’s presidential candidacy.

According to the Texas Tribune: “The Republican primary has been surprising in a lot of ways, but one of those ways is the tremendous voter turnout that we’ve seen across the country, while the turnout in the Democratic primary has been lackluster,” Cornyn said. “That’s going to be really important in November, and my view is that I will support whoever the nominee of the Republican Party is.”

Cornyn is right, as well, about the “lackluster” Democratic turnout so far. It’s worth speculating, though, that Democrats just might re-discover their turnout “luster” if Trump becomes the GOP nominee and we are going to decide between Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the fall election.

Again, if the turnout this fall sets records and many millions more Americans go to the polls than ever before, we ought to thank Donald J. Trump for that, too.

That’s it. That’s all the niceness I can spare for this guy.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Americans have already decided who gets to choose

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., center, is joined by, from right to left, Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., as he speaks with reporters following a closed-door policy meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016. The Senate will take no action on anyone President Barack Obama nominates to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, Senator McConnell said as nearly all Republicans rallied behind his calls to leave the seat vacant for the next president to fill. His announcement came after Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee ruled out any hearing for an Obama pick. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

What part of the American electoral process don’t U.S. Senate Republican leaders understand?

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said “the American people should decide” who gets to make the next appointment to the Supreme Court.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has echoed that sentiment.

McConnell said the Judiciary Committee will not conduct any hearings to decide whether to confirm whomever the president nominates. It’s malarkey, man.

OK, this isn’t an original thought, but it’s the best one I can come up with.

Americans already have decided who gets to fill the vacancy created by the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia. They decided it in two presidential elections.

Barack H. Obama won them both. He won the 2008 election by nearly 10 million votes; he was re-elected in 2012 by nearly 5 million votes.

Both times the young man gave every indication he would find someone to sit on the court with whom he — as a progressive Democrat — was ideologically comfortable. Two of his picks, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — already have taken their seats on the court.

He gets to nominate a third individual to succeed Justice Scalia.

Yeah, he’s a “lame duck.” What difference does it make? None. He’s still the president. The Senate is still functioning.

So … let the president propose and let the Senate dispose.

Senators can stop hiding behind the cheap canard that the “American people” deserve a voice.

The people’s voice has been heard. Twice!

national news, political news

Cornyn is correct; Cruz is, um, incorrect

John Cornyn knows how the U.S. Senate functions.

He’s been serving there for some time now as a Republican from Texas.

His whipper-snapper colleague, fellow Republican Ted Cruz, doesn’t know how it works quite so well.

Accordingly, Cornyn took Cruz to task for the attack he leveled at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Cruz did so in a speech on the Senate floor in which he called McConnell a liar.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/07/26/cruz-and-cornyn-engage-senate-floor/

McConnell had allowed a vote on the Export-Import Bank, which Cruz and some other Senate conservatives want to eliminate. McConnell, R-Ky., allegedly had promised that a vote wouldn’t occur. Cruz took him to task for it and then decided to say out loud what he could have said in private, which is that McConnell can’t be trusted to keep his word.

Enter the senior senator from Texas, Cornyn.

“I have listened to the comments of my colleague, the junior senator from Texas, both last week and this week, and I would have to say that he is mistaken,” Cornyn said, adding that McConnell did not deceive any senator with his fancy procedural footwork. According to the Texas Tribune: “If the majority leader had somehow misrepresented to 54 senators what the facts are with regards to the Ex-Im Bank, I would suspect that you would find other voices joining that of the junior senator, but I hear no one else making such a similar accusation.”

“There was no misrepresentation made by the majority leader on the Ex-Im Bank,” Cornyn added.

I continue to believe that Cruz — who’s also running for president — hit the floor of the Senate when he took office aiming to make a name for himself. He’s done so quite nicely and along the way incurred the wrath of his GOP colleagues, not to mention the Democrats with whom he must work.

Remember, during former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearing, when Cruz questioned out loud whether Hagel — a former Republican senator from Nebraska and a decorated Vietnam War combatant — was taking money under the table from North Korea? That line of attack drew a sharp rebuke from another noted Vietnam War combatant, Republican Sen. John McCain, who scolded the freshman for impugning Hagel’s patriotism and integrity.

Now the senator who wants to be president has been lectured by his fellow Texan about the rules of the Senate.

You just don’t call another senator — let alone the majority leader — a liar.

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.