Tag Archives: Dallas Morning News

International news

Evil needs to be 'mocked'

Rudolph Bush’s blog for the Dallas Morning News is so spot on it’s nearly impossible to improve on it.

I won’t try here, except to add a point here and there.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/01/evil-cannot-stand-to-be-mocked-so-lets-all-mock-it.html/

The assassins who opened fire on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris embody evil in its purist form. Bush’s point is that evil hates being mocked and he encourages good people around the world to mock whenever and wherever possible.

I’m not inclined to “mock” evil. Instead, I prefer to call it what it is. “Evil” well could be the most descriptive four-letter word in the English language. So, let’s allow the word to stand on its own.

Bush writes: “If we think about the good people we know, they’re often lighthearted. They might lead serious lives, but they are quick to pull themselves down, often with a joke at their own expense. They don’t burden others with their troubles. They don’t blather on about their accomplishments or beliefs. Their lives are quiet examples.

“Not so the evil. They can’t stop jabbering on about their own goodness, or the goodness of their beliefs, or the goodness of their possessions, or on and on. It’s a loud and energetic effort. The evil are often very busy people, and they would have us know it.”

Charlie Hebdo had satirized the prophet Mohammed, enraging three Muslim cultists who opened fire on the magazine’s offices. One of them surrendered. Two others, brothers, are on the lam. French police essentially have locked down the nation and are dedicated to finding these individuals.

I’ll leave the mocking to others. But let’s all be sure that we don’t cower in the face of those who terrorize others. The world’s “lighthearted good people” cannot let them declare victory.

 

International news

Real-time pictures not necessary

Take a moment to look at the picture attached to the post linked to these brief comments.

The picture will tell you all you need to know why some images need not be broadcast in real time, live and as it is happening.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/12/live-images-of-the-airasia-8501-crash-crossed-a-line-of-common-decency.html/

Dallas Morning News blogger Jim Mitchell’s essay says it well. It’s as if someone goes up to a grieving family member and asks “How do you feel?” about losing someone they love.

Family members learned of the fate of those aboard AsiaAir Flight 8501 by watching live pictures of personnel recovering bodies from the Java Sea, where the plane crashed Sunday.

Mitchell writes: “It brings to mind 9/11, the most photographed real-time event in history, and the controversial ‘Falling Man’ photograph of a trapped World Trade Center worker plunging to his death from an upper floor. As I recall, the photo was published but for the most part was deemed too graphic and disturbing and has not appeared in U.S. newspapers (and probably television news) since then.”

Think for a moment how any of us would react if we are watching television and crews are possibly pulling your very own loved one from the water. Doesn’t the Golden Rule apply here, the one about doing onto others as you would have them do onto you?

Does anyone really need to see these images live, as they’re happening?

The answer, of course, is no.

 

local news, political news, State news

Panhandle might fall victim to intra-party squabble

Having taken note of the political demise of a soundly conservative lawmaker from East Texas to an even more conservative challenger, the thought occurred to me: Is the Texas Panhandle susceptible to this kind of intra-party insurrection?

State Sen. Bob Deuell is about to leave office after being defeated in the GOP primary by newcomer Bob Hall. As the Dallas Morning News columnist noted, the “farthest right” defeated the “far right.”

So, what does this mean for the Panhandle?

I’ll admit that the GOP primary contest for the Texas Senate seat held by Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, frightened the bejabbers out of me. Seliger almost got beat in the March primary by former Midland mayor Mike Canon, a nice guy who’s also a TEA party mouthpiece. Canon suggested during the campaign that Seliger, a mainstream Republican former Amarillo mayor, was somehow in cahoots with them crazy liberals in Austin.

The Panhandle, indeed all of West Texas, dodged a bullet by re-nominating Seliger in the primary and allowing him to coast to re-election in an uncontested race in November.

What does the future hold? What might occur if, say, state Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, packs it in? Smithee has served in the Legislature since 1985 and has developed a reputation as one of the smartest, most legislatively savvy members of the Texas House.

Who’s lying in wait out there for a key retirement? Who’s waiting in the tall grass waiting to seize the moment to launch a sound-bite campaign the way Hall did against Deuell?

It happened in a Texas Senate district down yonder. It can happen here.

 

political news, State news

'Farthest right' defeats the far right

Bob Deuell might be the face of the changing Texas Republican Party.

He is a soon-to-be former state senator from East Texas. Deuell got beat by someone described by Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow who is “a virtual newcomer to Texas and politics.” The man who’s about to represent the east Dallas legislative district did it be “branding Deuell a liberal,” according to Blow.

What little I know about Deuell, a family physician, he is anything but the liberal that Sen..-elect Bob Hall described in his successful campaign.

Therein might get right to the core of what’s happened to the Texas Republican Party. It has become something that mainstream, establishment conservatives — such as Bob Deuell — no longer recognize.

“To call me a liberal? It’s just ridiculous,” Deuell told Blow, who described the lawmaker as “my senator.” Blow said he had a “front-row seat on this crazy battle between the far and farthest right.”

Blow said he laughed when he received “mailers at home with freaky colorized photos of Deuell and Barack Obama pasted together. ‘Stop Bob Deuell’s liberal agenda,’ they said,” Blow writes.

How did this novice defeat a reliably conservative 12-year veteran of the Texas Senate? Blow said “Hall’s TEA party base was simply more energized and engaged.”

Bingo!

According to Blow, Hall managed to cobble together a campaign of lies about Deuell’s support for needle exchanges for drug addicts. Deuell bucked his Republican colleagues in supporting the exchanges because of “clear medical evidence” that the exchanges decrease incidents of hepatitis and HIVA. “And 20 percent of the addicts who participated got into rehab programs. To me, it’s the fiscally conservative thing to do.”

Blow rights that Deuell couldn’t get other legislators to support the exchanges out of fear they would be “sound-bited on the issue.”

“Predictably,” Blow writes, “Hall did exactly that against Deuell, characterizing it as ‘free needles for drug addicts.'”

Deuell predicts a long and arduous legislative session.

After all, the state Senate will be led by a lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who’s an expert at demagoguery and glib sound bites.

Welcome to the new Texas Republican Party.

International news, medical news, national news

Hysteria czar? Why not?

Todd Roberson’s blog for the Dallas Morning News is spot on.

The United States doesn’t need an Ebola czar as much as it needs a “Hysteria czar.”

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/we-need-a-hysteria-czar-not-an-ebola-czar.html/

The worst fomenters of the hysteria gripping some Americans appear to be the cable news networks. Roberson singles out CNN, with its endless “Breaking News” alerts and its ominous-sounding music.

He writes about images of men walking around in hazmat suits, helicopters flying over Dallas-area housing complexes and a Nigerian student being denied admission to Navarro College because the school no longer accepts applications from students who come from countries with confirmed cases of Ebola.

I don’t think I’m going to say much more about this hysteria nonsense. I’m spent. No one at CNN, Fox, MSNBC, CNBC or the broadcast networks are paying attention. I feel as though I’m talking to myself.

Ebola is not a “crisis” in the U.S. of A. We’ve had precisely one death of someone who came into this country from a country infected with the deadly disease.

I’m with Roberson. President Obama needs to appoint a Hysteria czar.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Take ownership of this failure, Mr. President

It pains me to say this, but President Obama’s response to the question of how the U.S. got “surprised” by the rise of the Islamic State is disappointing — to say the very least.

I’ve noted before how the president likes to use the first-person singular pronoun references to his presidency. He’s particularly fond of using it when they involved success.

When Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” asked him the other day how he could have been surprised by ISIL’s emergence, the president said: “Well I think, our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.”

There it is: “they underestimated …”

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/09/isis-sweep-into-iraq-was-no-surprise-to-anyone-paying-attention.html/

I’m not going to join the right-wing mainstream media chorus in saying Barack Obama has thrown Clapper “under the bus.” But as the blog from the Dallas Morning News notes correctly, ISIL’s emergence wasn’t a surprise to those intelligence officials who were paying attention.

Furthermore, as commander in chief, the chief executive of one branch of the U.S. government, the head of state and government, it falls directly on the president of the United States to be aware fully of these matters in real time, as they are happening.

The president did receive a letter signed by senators from both parties that warned him about ISIL. It was sent to the White House nearly 11 months ago, long before those gruesome beheadings captured the nation’s attention. Now we know what’s stake, yes?

Well, apparently, some legislators had more than an inkling nearly a year ago and warned the White House of the impending danger.

As the Morning News’s Tod Robberson notes in his blog: “Okay, let’s assume that Obama disregarded the letter as partisan hyperbole from the same ol’ critics, namely McCain and Graham. That doesn’t account for the contribution from Levin and Menendez. Let’s assume that Obama was reluctant to react because he didn’t trust the mercurial whims of al-Maliki. How does any of that explain his failure to respond when ISIS clearly was sweeping into Iraq’s Anbar Province in January?”

Well, the president is responding now. I’m grateful for that.

I do wish, though, he would take as much ownership of the setbacks as he does of the triumphs.

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

Medical history becomes slime target

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst just might have established himself as the worst attack politician in modern Texas political history.

Exhibit A? The slimy release of Republican runoff opponent Dan Patrick’s medical records.

What has this campaign for lieutenant governor come to?

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/05/16/possible-dewhurst-involvement-patrick-revelations/

The actual deed was done by Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who’s now backing Dewhurst after finishing last in the four-man race for the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor. Dewhurst is trying to put distance between himself and Patterson over the release of the records. Whatever, it’s got Dewhurst’s fingerprints on it, too. The tactic stinks to high heaven.

Patrick, for whom I have little positive regard, is understandably outraged.

He checked into a hospital in the 1980s suffering from exhaustion and depression. He was being treated for depression with medication. The drugs apparently got to him, so he sought psychiatric care. He got it and was cured of what ailed him.

This is what Patrick, a fiery state senator from Houston, said in a news release: “I voluntarily entered the hospital twice in the 1980’s for exhaustion and to seek treatment for depression. Some of prescribed medications exacerbated my condition and created more serious problems. Through prayer and with the help of my family and physician, like millions of other American, I was able to defeat depression. I have not seen a doctor or taken any medication to treat depression in nearly 30 years. Two weeks ago I released a medical report indicating I am in excellent physical and mental health; I am ready to serve.”

Dewhurst appears to be fading in the race to keep his office. The revelations about the records release — even if it was done by a surrogate — reflect badly on a once-respected statewide officeholder.

Dewhurst said this in a statement Friday: “Commissioner Jerry Patterson operates completely independently of my Campaign, and over my objections he chose to release information from (former Houston Post reporter) Mr. Paul Harasim’s files, which are all part of the public domain.”

Nice try, governor.

I kind of like Dallas Morning News blogger Rudolph Bush’s take on this matter.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/05/there-are-plenty-of-reasons-to-oppose-dan-patrick-for-lt-gov-seeking-medical-help-isnt-one-of-them.html/

The end of this Republican runoff campaign cannot get here soon enough.

Uncategorized

Abbott-Davis race gets ugly early

Oh my.

Is this what we can expect for the next, oh, 10 months in the campaign for Texas governor?

The two major parties already have their presumptive nominees: Republicans will nominate Attorney General Greg Abbott while Democrats will nominate state Sen. Wendy Davis. This will occur in March during the party primaries. Then we’ll get to watch these two bright individuals hammer at each other over things that likely will have little to do with public policy.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/02/03/democratic-spies-overhear-abbott-davis-controversy/

The latest is this: An audio recording has surfaced that suggest Abbott urged his supporters to keep stirring the pot over a controversy involving Davis’s rather fuzzy personal history. You know the story by now, right? Davis said she was a single mother, divorcing her first husband when she was 19. Turns out her divorce wasn’t finalized until she was 21. Then came other details about who got custody of her children and some other things. These details were revealed in a Dallas Morning News article written by veteran political reporter Wayne Slater.

The recording says this, according to the Texas Tribune: “We’re going to heat up this campaign, and it’s going to turn red hot as we keep Texas red.” That reportedly is Abbott speaking in January at a fundraising event in Wimberley.

The problem with the recording is that Abbott had clammed up when the controversy broke, maintaining a statesmanlike silence in public.

So, the question is this: Which Abbott are we going to see as the campaign unfolds further? The circumspect AG or a GOP gutfighter?

Uncategorized

‘Affluenza’ defense pays off for drunken teen

Ten years probation.

That’s what a Tarrant County teenager got for killing four people while driving drunk. In fact, Ethan Couch’s blood-alcohol level was three times the minimum legal definition of drunken driving.

Four lives are snuffed out and for this the kid gets probation? That’s it?

Amazing.

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20131212-despite-four-deaths-tarrant-judge-buys-affluenza-excuse.ece

The judge who handed down this virtual non-punishment is Jean Boyd, who presides over a juvenile court in Fort Worth. As the Dallas Morning News editorial attached here, the judge apparently bought a line of defense that strains credulity to the extreme. The Morning News opined: “Boyd apparently swallowed whole the defense argument that Couch was just a poor, little rich boy effectively abused by parents who set no boundaries and gave him everything except actual parenting. ‘Affluenza,’ as a defense psychologist called it, or wealth assuming privilege.”

Prosecutors sought a 20-year sentence for the kid, who’s now 16. On June 15, his recklessness killed those four people and wounded gravely two others who likely may never recover fully from their injuries. That is a path of death and destruction that cried out for some punishment other than just a probated sentence. As the Morning News noted in its editorial, Couch might have been paroled by his 19th birthday under Texas law had the prosecutors gotten their wish.

Police on the scene called the accident the worst they had seen. Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson said he will have trouble explaining probation to his children and grandchildren, given what he witnessed from this crime.

Justice wasn’t done with this decision. Shame on the judge.