Tag Archives: Mac Thornberry

No ‘town hall’ meetings; no surprise

February 20, 2017 kanelis2012

I guess this is one of the least-surprising things I’ve heard since Donald J. Trump became president of the United States.

West Texas’s congressional delegation is coming home for a weeklong recess — but none of them is planning any town hall meetings with constituents.

Why do you suppose they’re forgoing these events? My guess — and that’s all it is — would be that they might not ready to withstand the heat that their colleagues have gotten from their constituents when they have had town meetings back home.

U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, who has represented the 13th Congressional District since 1995, says he’ll be accessible to voters. Good. I trust he’ll keep his word while he’s back home.

The issue on voters’ minds happens to be the Affordable Care Act. Congressmen and women have been getting a snoot full from constituents about the ACA and what Congress intends to do if it repeals it. They don’t want to lose their health insurance and, near as I can tell, Republicans lack a replacement plan to insert in place of the ACA if they get around to repealing it.

But our West Texas congressional representatives aren’t going to hear from their constituents in a town hall setting.

I hope, though, that they open and read their mail and their staffers listen to phone calls from concerned citizens.

We aren’t brain dead in this part of the country. Indeed, lawmakers representing deep-red, solidly Republican congressional districts are getting their share of gripes.

I doubt we’re any different here.

local news, political news

Regretting a stance on Amarillo’s congressional alignment

February 19, 2017 kanelis2012

Every now and then, as I wander through Amarillo, I encounter people I knew in my previous life as a journalist and with whom I maintain friendly relations to this day.

I ran into one of them today. He is former Bushland School Superintendent John Lemons. We chatted about this and that, about people we know and how they’re doing these days. Then the conversation turned to an old friend of his, former U.S. Rep. Larry Combest.

Our discussion pivoted to a position the Amarillo Globe-News had taken while I was working as editorial page editor of the newspaper: It dealt with congressional reapportionment.

I told John that I have grown to regret a position the paper had taken, and which I had expressed through editorials published on the matter. The G-N argued for the “reunification” of Amarillo into a single congressional district.

A brief history is in order.

***

The 1991 Texas Legislature, which was dominated by Democrats, redrew the state’s congressional districts. Seeking to protect Democratic U.S. Rep. Bill Sarpalius, the Legislature split Amarillo in half: Potter County would be represented by Sarpalius in the 13th Congressional District; Randall County’s congressman would be Republican Larry Combest.

The realignment outraged the G-N at the time. They paper began calling for the city to be made whole by being put back solely into the 13th District.

The gerrymandering worked through the 1992 election, as Sarpalius was re-elected to his third term in Congress; so was Combest. The paper kept up its drumbeat for unification. The city’s interests were being split between men of competing political parties, the G-N said.

Then came the 1994 election. Sarpalius ran into the Republican juggernaut. A young congressional staffer named Mac Thornberry defeated him. Thus, the city would be represented by two congressmen from the same party.

I arrived at my post in January 1995 — and the paper kept hammering away at the unification theme. Bring the city together, we said. I scratched my head a bit over that one. I couldn’t quite understand why we were so upset with divided representation, given that both Reps. Combest and Thornberry were of the same party. They were rowing in unison, singing off the same page, reciting the same mantra … blah, blah, blah.

I told Lemons today that the city was able to “double its pleasure, double its fun” with two members of Congress representing its interests. One of them, Combest, held a leadership position on the House Agriculture Committee.

But we kept it up.

I told my pal John Lemons today I regret not pushing my boss at the time to rethink the notion that Amarillo needed to be made whole.

So … now I’m sharing my regret here.

I had a wonderful — and moderately successful — career in daily print journalism. However, it wasn’t regret-free.

local news, medical news, national news

Now, those are ‘town hall meetings’

February 12, 2017 kanelis2012

Town hall meetings usually are love fests, at least that’s what transpires when state legislators convene them in the Texas Panhandle.

State Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, quite often stages these sessions in communities throughout his sprawling West Texas district. As near as I can tell, they are civil, usually friendly and constituents spend a good bit of energy telling Seliger how much they appreciate his service.

Well, town hall meetings in many congressional districts have turned into something quite different in recent days. They have produced shouting matches between members of Congress and their constituents.

At issue? The Affordable Care Act.

Constituents are showing up in droves to tell their congresspeople to leave the ACA alone. Or, if they’re going to repeal it, they’d damn well better have something to replace it … as in immediately, if not sooner!

U.S. Rep. Gus Billirakis, R-Fla., got a snootful from his constituents, who told him they’d better not mess with “Obamacare.” He’s not alone. Someone uttered the term “death panel” during a town hall event and promptly got booed and shouted down.

I haven’t heard about any such encounters in my congressional district, which would be the 13th, covering the Texas Panhandle. Our member of Congress is a fellow named Mac Thornberry, a Clarendon Republican, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, a rancher and a self-proclaimed “recovering lawyer.” He has served in the House for 22 years, making him one of the big dogs of Capitol Hill.

Thornberry hasn’t said much in public — above a whisper — about how he would replace the ACA.

Town hall meetings, as I have long understood them, were meant for constituents to speak their minds freely, telling their elected representatives what they think about issues of the day and how their representatives are handling them. The bad comes with the good. Town hall meetings aren’t usually intended to be amen choruses.

Thus, the real deal has broken out in congressional districts across the land.

It’s beginning to sound as though Congress has just discovered a so-called new “third rail.” It used to be that you didn’t mess with Social Security. These days, with 20 million Americans insured through a new government-sponsored insurance program, the third rail might have switched.

Now it’s the Affordable Care Act … maybe.

local news, military news, national news, political news

Still waiting on Thornberry’s take on this hacking matter

January 7, 2017 kanelis2012

I’m thinking that we need to send out an all-points-bulletin for Mac Thornberry, the Republican member of Congress who represents the 13th Congressional District.

All this talk, all this chatter, all this debate over Russian hackers trying to influence the 2016 presidential election is missing a key voice.

That would be Thornberry.

John Boehner was speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives when he charged Thornberry with coming up with ways to secure our national computer grid. Thornberry chaired a special House committee to formulate a plan, a strategy, a defense against the kind of thing that appears to have been going on.

At this moment, I don’t know (a) whatever became of that committee’s findings and (b) why no one in the media has called on Thornberry to provide some context, perspective and expertise on what’s going on and how the nation can avoid this kind thing from ever happening again.

I have looked on Thornberry’s website and have found nothing from him about the issue that has consumed the national media.

Intelligence officials met with Donald Trump today to brief the president-elect on intelligence evidence that Russian spooks actually hacked into our cyber grid while trying to help Trump get elected president. Trump continues to downplay the allegation that our electoral process may have been compromised.

Didn’t the House speaker, though, commission our congressman to come up with answers to all this?

I’m all ears while I await what my congressman has to say about this issue.

Thornberry has served in the House since 1995. He’s a go-to guy on national defense issues, given that he chairs the House Armed Services Committee.

On this one, though, the chairman is missing in action.

local news, national news, political news

Cyber-security honcho is strangely silent

December 11, 2016 kanelis2012

There was a time — about a half-dozen years ago — when the then-speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner, R-Ohio, called on my congressman, Clarendon Republican Mac Thornberry, to head up a cyber-security task force in Congress.

If memory serves, Boehner tasked Thornberry with finding ways to improve our cyber network protection against the kind of things that have been happening of late: hackers seeking to disrupt the U.S. electoral process. Those pesky Russians have been fingered as the major culprits in this cyber issue; President Obama has ordered a full review of what we’ve learned; Donald J. Trump has dismissed the CIA analysis as “ridiculous.”

So, where is the one-time GOP cyber-security expert on all of this? He should be a major participant in the public discussion. I haven’t seen or heard a thing from the veteran GOP lawmaker since the Russian hacking story hit the fan.

I checked Thornberry’s website to look for a statement from the congressman about what he thinks regarding this matter. I didn’t find anything. I looked at the link titled “Press Releases” and came up empty; I went through the “Issues” link, nothing there, either. I scanned the list of Thornberry’s essays on this and that and couldn’t find a commentary about recent events relating to cyber security.

Here’s the link to his website. Take a look.

http://thornberry.house.gov/

Thornberry is a busy man, now that he’s chairing the House Armed Services Committee. He’s not superhuman.

However, Speaker Boehner gave Thornberry a big responsibility to craft a cyber-security policy that — one could surmise — was supposed to protect our secrets against foreign agents’ snooping eyes.

I’m wondering about the status of whatever it was that my congressman delivered to the speaker and whether any of his recommendations will become part of the cyber-security solution.

national news, political news

What might happen next with Donald J. Trump?

October 8, 2016 kanelis2012

Let’s roll out a few notions about what could happen to Donald J. Trump’s crumbling presidential candidacy.

Here’s what we know:

* Trump was caught on tape saying some unbelievable, hideous and profane things about women. We’ve all heard the tape.

* Many Republicans in both houses of Congress are calling for Trump to step down, to quit as their party’s presidential nominee. I’m waiting, however, for my own congressman — Republican Mac Thornberry — to issue a statement of any kind regarding his party nominee’s conduct.

* House Speaker Paul Ryan was going to appear with Trump at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, then he disinvited the nominee.

* Trump has issued a Twitter statement that vows he “never” will quit the race, that he will not let his supporters down.

* Polling after the first “debate” with Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton has shown Trump slipping dramatically; the revelation revealed in this horrific audio recording are sure to accelerate the polling free fall.

I refer occasionally to my trick knee. It’s acting up this afternoon just a bit and it’s telling me something I thought I’d never hear.

It’s telling me that the probability of a Trump withdrawal is increasing. How do I know this? I don’t.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pressure-mounts-on-trump-to-step-aside/ar-BBxaPaB?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

The pressure is building from within the Republican Party. Key Democrats don’t want Trump to pull out; they see him as their ticket not only to retaining the White House, but getting control of the Senate and possibly making serious inroads in trimming the GOP majority in the House of Reps.

That’s what is driving the Republican big wigs to persuade Trump to pull out.

He’s not going to be elected president. Indeed, he well now could lose the race in a huge fashion on Nov. 8. The bigger the margin of victory for Clinton, the greater chances of a Senate flip back to Democratic control.

Am I predicting a Trump withdrawal? No. I’m out of the predicting game, remember?

But if this guy has any sense — at all — of the disaster that awaits him and the party he only recently adopted as his own, then he ought to rethink that pledge to “never drop out” of the campaign.

In fact, when a politician is forced to say he’ll never do something, then we know he’s at least thinking about it.

local news, national news, political news, State news

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

August 22, 2016 kanelis2012

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.

military news, national news, political news

Thornberry weighs in on Khan kerfuffle … more or less

August 1, 2016 kanelis2012

U.S. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry said this about the recent tumult over remarks that Donald J. Trump made about the parents of a fallen U.S. Army hero:

“I am dismayed at the attacks Khizr and Ghazala Khan have endured after they spoke about their son’s service and sacrifice… I believe that each of us are called every day to show our deepest respect and gratitude to all of those who protect our freedom and their families.”

That’s it? Yep. Apparently.

To my reading of the statement from my congressman — a man with whom I have had a good professional and personal relationship for more than two decades — seems, shall we say, more than a bit tepid.

Thornberry is a dedicated Republican congressman representing an equally dedicated Republican congressional district. His party’s presidential candidate, Trump, has managed to step deeply into a morass by criticizing Khizr and Ghazala Khan after they spoke of their son’s death in Iraq during an appearance at the Democratic National Convention.

The Khans are a Muslim family and Trump’s response to their criticism of him has been, to say the very least, well … despicable and reprehensible.

I wish my member of Congress would take a moment or perhaps two to share the outrage that other Americans are feeling about the comments that a major-party presidential nominee would make about a grieving Gold Star Family.

As a friend of mine noted in a social media post, Thornberry’s response is on a par with declaring his undying opposition to “child abuse.”

local news, media news

Lack of civility seems to be contagious

July 20, 2016 kanelis2012

A buddy of mine has offered this timely and relevant nugget of wisdom, which I am sharing here.

“If you have children, please teach them that ‘you’re welcome’ is the correct response to ‘thank you.’ And that ‘no problem’ is a phrase that can go just away. I realize that there are more pressing concerns in the world, but the decline of civility, and basic functional English phrases that have endured for centuries, gives me a sad.”

The fellow who posted this on social media is a friend and former colleague of mine at the Amarillo Globe-News. He’s since moved away.

His social media post is so very true that I wanted to pass it along to my own network of friends, acquaintances and readers of this blog.

I get the “no problem” response constantly during my travels through our city. The more I hear it, the more annoyed I become.

I haven’t lashed out at a young’n for saying it … at least not yet. That doesn’t mean I won’t some day.

If you catch me on a bad day, I’m likely to strike back. For example, I once walked into a coffee shop here in town and was treated with what I only can describe as extraordinary rudeness. The young man who took my drink order was having a bad morning; he wouldn’t look me in the eye when I gave him my order; when he handed it to me, he did so while looking the other way and bitching at a colleague of his about the lack of something-or-other behind the counter.

I wrote the manager of said coffee shop, registered my complaint — and the place made a good-faith effort to make it up to me.

Perhaps it was a sign of the “lack of civility” that my friend mentioned. We’ve bemoaned the lack of civility in the halls of power, be they in Washington or Austin or perhaps of late even at Amarillo City Hall.

His post reminds me of something U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, told me many years ago. He lays down several rules for his congressional interns to follow when they go to work at his office.

One of them is to “Call your mother” regularly. Another of them is to say “You’re welcome” when a constituent thanks them for helping with an issue that needs a resolution. “No problem” doesn’t cut it in Thornberry’s office.

Nor with me … or my old pal.

local news, political news

Non-endorsements pile up for Trump

June 15, 2016 kanelis2012

Here’s what Mac Thornberry, a dedicated “establishment Republican” member of Congress said about whether he plans to “endorse” GOP nominee-to-be Donald J. Trump.

“If you endorse somebody, it’s like a stamp of approval and embracing them,” Thornberry said earlier this month, according to the (Wichita Falls) Times-Record News. “I’m not comfortable doing that with him based on a number of reasons.” A spokesman clarified to the Tribune that Thornberry would not vote for Clinton but has not committed to voting for Trump.

There you have it.

The Republican congressman whose 13th Congressional District stretches from Dalhart in the farthest northwest corner of Texas all the way to the northern Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, isn’t (yet) going to endorse his party’s presidential nominee.

As the Texas Tribune has reported, the GOP delegation from Texas is far less united in its view of Trump than the Democratic delegation is about their party’s presumed presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/15/texas-congressional-delegation-endorsements/

I am struck by Thornberry’s non-endorsement. It speaks oh, so very loudly to me.

He’s my congressman. I’ve voted for him a few times over the years, depending on the quality of his primary or general election opponents.

He’s generally quite careful and circumspect about political matters when he’s asked to comment publicly.

“Based on a number of reasons,” Thornberry said he is uncomfortable endorsing his party’s presidential nominee. What would they be? Trade policy? Statements that a woman should be punished for getting an abortion? The lengthy string of tasteless insults? His accusing President Bush of deliberate deception in taking us to war in Iraq? Might it be that Trump has no record at all of public service or any commitment to public service through his many business ventures?

You know, it looks for all the world to me as though Mac Thornberry is going to have a hard time even voting for his party’s presidential nominee, let alone endorsing him.

That’s just me talking, of course. Whatever the congressman decides, he’ll act on it in private.

I’ll just add one more point. If Mac Thornberry — who is as loyal a Republican as you’ll find — cannot endorse Trump, then the GOP’s top candidate for 2016 is facing serious trouble down the road.

High Plains Blogger