Tag Archives: U.S. Senate

national news, State news, Uncategorized

Who are you calling ‘crazy,’ Rep. Hastings?

It’s one thing to be called “crazy” by someone whose very presence commands respect and dignity.

It’s quite another to be labeled as such by someone who, shall we say, has a bit of a checkered past himself.

All that said, it’s bizarre to the max to see such an eruption of anger at a congressional rules panel hearing between Republican and Democratic members of Congress, the people’s representatives in the government of the world’s most powerful nation.

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., called Texas a “crazy” state and said he wouldn’t live here “for all the tea in China.”

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2015/02/crazy-texas-republicans-to-alcee-hastings-dont-mess-with-texas/

Hastings made the crack during a House Rules Committee hearing on the Affordable Care Act and whether Texas would participate in its implementation.

His remark drew a sharp rebuke from Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, who said Hastings had “defamed” the great state of Texas. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but the remark seemed a bit of a diversion from the issue at hand.

I won’t get into defending the state where my family and I have lived for the past 31 years — except to say this: Yes, the politics here aren’t quite to my liking, but the state is chock full of decent, hard-working, caring, compassionate folks who don’t nearly fit the stereotype that many Americans attach to Texans.

The sunrises and sunsets ain’t bad, either.

As for Hastings, I just wish he wouldn’t have brought up that crazy talk.

This individual once sat on the federal bench. President Carter appointed him to be a U.S. District Court judge — and then he got himself impeached on perjury and bribery charges by a Democratically controlled House of Representatives. The vote was 413-3. How did he fare in a Senate trial? Senators convicted him and he got tossed out of office.

Never fear. Congress welcomed him in 1993 when he won election.

So, let’s stop throwing “crazy” talk around out there, Rep. Hastings. Shall we?

 

national news, political news

Obama rising; GOP standing firm

Do you kind of get a sense that a huge political struggle is going to become the hallmark of Barack Obama’s final two presidential years?

The president’s poll numbers are up significantly in recent weeks. Congressional Republicans — feeling pretty flush themselves with their takeover of the Senate after the 2014 mid term election — are going to dig in their heels.

Can Obama keep rising?

Get ready for the fight.

So many fronts. So many battles. So many hassles.

Ah, politics. Ain’t it noble?

Polling suggests Obama is scoring better with some key demographic groups. Hispanics and young voters are approving of the president once again. Hispanics particularly are buoyed by the president’s executive action on immigration.

But as GOP strategists are quick to point out, as noted in The Hill article attached, the president’s base is holding firm right along with the impenetrable ceiling that keeps him from soaring even higher. That ceiling is put there by stubborn Republican resistance to almost every initiative he proposes.

That’s where the GOP thinks it will win the day.

Well, what happens then will be — dare I say it — more gridlock and more “do-nothingness.”

Obama is planning to reveal a $4 trillion budget that will seek tax breaks for middle- and low-income Americans while asking wealthier Americans to pay more. There will be other areas of the budget that are certain to draw a sharp line between the White House and Congress.

The president believes the wind is behind him. Then again, Republicans believe they have the advantage.

All that talk about “working together” is likely to give way — rapidly — to more of what we’ve witnessed for the past, oh, six years.

Get ready for a rough ride, my fellow Americans.

 

national news, political news

Now it's Santorum, again, thinking about '16

Good grief. Now we have a former senator from Pennsylvania climbing aboard the GOP Presidential Bandwagon.

Rick Santorum is considering another run for the Republican Party presidential nomination.

That’s right. Rick Santorum!

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/rick-santorum-criticizes-mitt-romney-114374.html?hp=r3_3

This is a big deal. The senator ran for the White House in 2012 and declared war against those who use contraception to protect themselves against unwanted pregnancy. Santorum, a devout Catholic, doesn’t believe in contraception — in accordance with church doctrine. Contraception became his signature issue, to the dismay of Republicans who actually employ contraceptive measures to prevent pregnancy.

Santorum washed out of the 2012 GOP primary season, but he might be coming back for more.

I believe Republican primary voters need to ask one critical question: If the voters of his own state refuse to re-elect him to the U.S. Senate in 2006, why should he ask all Americans to cast their presidential vote for him in 2016?

Santorum lost his re-election bid to Bob Casey, a pro-life Democrat.

When the ballots were counted, Casey had 59 percent of the vote; Santorum had 41 percent.

Where I come from, that’s what I call a landslide loss.

 

 

business news, International news, national news, political news

Economy now off the table for 2016 campaign?

Let’s allow this declaration: Barring an unexpected collapse that could occur at any moment, the state of the nation’s economy will not be an issue in the 2016 campaign for president of the United States.

The Labor Department released more job numbers today. They’re good.

The economy added 252,000 jobs in December; unemployment fell from 5.8 percent to 5.6 percent.

Is it a perfect score? No. Wages took a slight dip in December, compared to the substantial growth they showed the previous month.

Republican contenders for the White House, though, are going to have to look beyond our borders for issues to toss against Democrats — namely against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Those opportunities aren’t going to be that easy to exploit against the former secretary of state, former U.S. senator, former first lady and prohibitive frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The economy? Well, I’ve noted before how the Obama administration took bold steps early on to stop the free fall it inherited when Barack Obama took the presidential oath on Jan. 20, 2009.

The economy is picking up considerable steam now.

The war on terror? It’s still going on. Yes, the president said the “war on terror is over.” He misspoke. The nation continues to hunt down killers, who continue to strike at innocent victims, such as those most recently in Paris.

Let’s face this cold, harsh fact: The war on terror is unlike any war we’ve ever fought. There will be no way to declare victory. The 9/11 attacks brought forward what intelligence analysts and deep-cover agents have known all along, that terrorists are out there plotting against us.

That fight will go on, and on, and on.

At home, though, the economy has recovered.

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 scores sweep; now let's govern … actually

The deed is done.

Republicans got their “wave” to sweep them into control of the Senate, with an eight-, maybe nine-seat pickup in the U.S. Senate. What’s more, they picked up a dozen more seats in the House to cement control of that body.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-control-at-stake-in-todays-midterm-elections/2014/11/04/e882353e-642c-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html

The only undecided race will be in Louisiana, which is going to a runoff. Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu appears to be in trouble there. Big surprise, huh?

What happens now?

Despite all the good economic news, there appears to be rampant discontent out there with a Democratic administration and its friends in Congress. So the voters spoke, tossing out Democratic incumbents and turning seats over where Democrats had retired.

Republicans say they want to work with the president where possible. I’m not yet ready to swill that drink.

Senate Majority Leader-in-waiting Mitch McConnell had declared his primary goal in 2009 was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. It didn’t work out that way. So now he wants to actually govern — he says.

We’ve got this immigration thing hanging over the Congress; that oil pipeline known as “Keystone” needs to be decided; the president has an attorney general appointment to make; and, oh yeah, the Affordable Care Act still is on the table, even though it’s working and insuring Americans.

How is Congress going to get past all those differences? And how is the White House going to reconcile itself with the change in power in the upper legislative chamber?

My friends on the right are crowing this morning that Democrat Harry Reid no longer will run the Senate. They now believe Hillary Clinton’s presidential “inevitability” in 2016 has been damaged by this shifting power base. They think the president has been made irrelevant as he finishes out his tenure in the White House.

I shall now remind my right-leaning friends of something critical.

The 2016 political roadmap looks a bit different than the 2014 map. Democrats will be positioned to take over some key Republican Senate seats in a presidential election year, which historically bodes quite well for Democrats.

This was the Republicans’ year and their time. Nice going, folks.

It’s time now to actually govern and to show that we can actually keep moving this country forward — which it has been doing for the past six years.

 

 

national news, political news

What's in store on Election Day?

Who knows what the future holds in the next four days?

Americans are going to elect a new Congress, several governors and thousands of county commissioners, sheriffs, constables (in Texas at least — ugh!) and assorted lower-level government officials.

Everyone who follows this stuff, though, has their eyes on the U.S. Senate. Will it swing from Democratic control to Republican? Virtually everyone who isn’t a dedicated Democratic Party operative thinks it’s a done deal.

Here’s what we ought to look for on election night to determine how strong the tide will be.

The earliest poll closings will be back east. In New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is being challenged strongly by carpetbagger Republican Scott Brown, who lost his Senate seat in Massachusetts and then moved to New Hampshire because he wants to serve in the Senate from another state. If the race is too close to call when the polls close — or if Brown is declared the winner — in the Granite State, Democrats are going to lose big.

Look for something similar to happen in North Carolina, where Democratic Sen. Kay Hagen is being challenged by tea party Republican Thom Tillis. If Tillis is declared the winner outright when the polls close, turn out the lights — as Dandy Don Meredith used to say — the party’s over.

OK, one more key race to ponder. Down yonder in Georgia could tell us something. If Democratic challenger Michelle Nunn defeats Republican foe David Perdue for that state’s Senate seat, then we’ve got something quite different going on. The seat has been in GOP hands. Both of these candidates are kin to political giants in Georgia: Michelle’s dad is former Sen. Sam Nunn; David’s cousin is former Gov. Sonny Perdue. Talk about dynasty politics, right?

These early races could determine how much of the rest of the country will go.

Texas’s Senate race between GOP incumbent John Cornyn and Democrat David Alameel? That one’s over.

The GOP tide has yet to build in the eyes of many observers. We’ll know in due course whether the swells are growing across the country or whether the Senate flips with a slim majority turning up on the Republican side of the chamber.

If the Senate turns Republican Red when all the ballots are counted, then the game changes. We’ll have to see how these folks intend to actually govern and whether they can rise beyond the role of obstructionists.

I’m waiting anxiously.

 

 

International news, medical news, national news

Listen carefully to Dr. Frist

It’s always heartening to read about politicians who are actual experts on critical issues of the day speak those issues with calm, with reason and with intelligence.

Bill Frist once served as a U.S. senator from Tennessee. The Republican also served as Senate majority leader for a time before he decided he’d had enough of politics. He then went back to his first calling, as a cardiovascular surgeon who’s also treated patients with infectious diseases.

Indeed, while he served in the Senate, Dr. Frist usually spent part of his time on “recess” going to remote locations in Africa and Asia to treat patients infected with HIV/AIDS.

He is an honorable man.

So we ought to heed this fellow’s assessment of the Ebola situation that’s killed thousands of people in West Africa and precisely one person in the United States of America.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/former-sen-william-frist-ebola-crisis-in-west-africa-could-last-into-next-spring.html/

Ebola is going to be a “crisis” in West Africa at least until next spring, Frist says.

Frist was in Dallas, site of the lone Ebola-related death, to take part in a family-planning conference. As Dallas Morning News blogger Jim Mitchell reported, he put the Ebola “scare” into its proper perspective: “Frist estimates that 23,000 people will die of the flu this year, and in America less than ’10 will die of Ebola, hopefully just one.’ And while every death is tragic, the reality is that protocols have to be strictly established and followed. ‘This is not contagious virus like flu,’ he said.”

Frist is one more reasonable voice that needs to be heard as the world searches for a way to stop this virus from spreading beyond its source in West Africa.

According to Mitchell: “While the Ebola crisis in West Africa has lasted longer than he anticipated, (Frist) wants people to know that he is confident it will not spin out of control in the United States even though it might seem that public uncertainty is trumping established science.”

I should add that media hysteria isn’t helping, either.

Pay attention to this man. He knows of what he speaks.

national news, political news, State news

Mitt falls far short of saying 'no' to 2016 run

Don’t believe Mitt Romney’s non-denial about whether he wants to run for president one more time.

The 2012 Republican presidential nominee told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace that “I am not running. I have no plans to run.”

OK, Mitt. That ain’t one of those Shermanesque statements, you know, where you’re supposed to say “If nominated I won’t run; if elected, I won’t serve.”

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2014/09/romney-195006.html?hp=r6

Mitt says he’d be a better president than Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democrats’ presumed frontrunner for the 2016 nomination. He also says he’d do better than the man who beat him in ’12, President Barack Obama.

Mitt told Wallace that his time had “come and gone.”

Hey, doggone it, he still hasn’t said he won’t run under any circumstances.

These non-statements about political futures are so frustrating. Politicians keep saying they “have no plans” to do something, then turn around and do what they said they have no plans to do.

The problem with that non-statement is the verb “have.” It’s a present-tense verb that doesn’t rule anything out, say, for tomorrow. Or the next day, or the day after that.

I remember in 1988 I asked the late Sen. Lloyd Bentsen if he would consider running as Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis’s running mate on the Democratic Party presidential ticket. Sen. Bentsen said his plate was full serving as Texas’s senior U.S. senator. He never actually answered directly: yes or no. Turned out he was dodging. Dukakis selected him to run with him for the White House.

Bentsen had an out. He was able to run successfully for re-election to the Senate that year.

Is Mitt Romney really and truly not going to run for president in two years?

I’ve heard nothing from him that says “not just no, but hell no.”

 

 

national news, political news

Kansas turning blue? Maybe

Albert Hunt probably wants this to happen, given his political leanings.

The veteran political journalist is suggesting that Kansas — one of the country’s most dependably Republican states — might elect its first Democratic U.S. senator since 1932.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-04/will-kansas-go-blue

And you know what? It’s more than just remotely possible.

Pat Roberts is a veteran Republican senator who now is in the fight of his life. The Democrat who had been slated to run against him dropped out of the race. His name will remain on the Kansas ballot, for now; the decision is under appeal.

Roberts now faces a well-funded, popular independent, Greg Orman, a businessman who says he voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and for Mitt Romney in 2012.

As Hunt notes in his article for Bloomberg View, Roberts was beaten up badly in a Republican primary by an opponent who made Roberts’s residency an issue. Roberts didn’t help himself during the primary campaign when he let slip that “home” is Washington, D.C., and not Kansas.

Some polls suggest Orman is leading the two-man race for the Senate.

Even though Orman is a registered independent, he’s getting plenty of help from Democrats who want him to caucus with them if he gets elected.

What does this mean for an expected Republican takeover of the Senate? It means if Kansas, of all places, elects someone other than a Republican, then a GOP takeover might not be nearly as inevitable as a lot of folks are predicting.