Tag Archives: Tea party

national news, political news

Perry heading for the exit?

perry

It isn’t supposed to end this way, but that’s where it’s headed.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the one-time TEA Party darling and conservative firebrand, is — shall we say — in a critical flameout.

The former U.S. Air Force pilot knows of what I speak. His campaign “engine” has stalled and he cannot get it to reignite.

I am not crying crocodile tears over this. Honestly, I was hoping he’d do better in this presidential campaign than he did in the previous one that was punctuated by the infamous “oops” moment.

Perry campaign on the ropes

Perry pulled the plug on his 2012 Republican presidential campaign, came back to Texas to finish his stint as the state’s governor; he rested up, cracked the books and studied the issues; then he returned to the campaign hoping to redeem himself.

Being that I prefer political redemption over condemnation in almost all cases, I was pulling for Perry to do better.

He’s not. He has run into the buzzsaw aka Donald Trump. The TEA Party faithful have turned to others, such as Trump, Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina … oh, I could go on, but you get the point.

Perry has quit paying his campaign staff. He’ giving up on New Hampshire. Still, he calls the race a “marathon” and insists he’s in it for the duration.

Well, it now appears that the duration has arrived.

 

national news, political news

Stop the presses! Cantor endorses Bush

cantor

I feel like dealing with two unrelated subjects in this blog post.

Except that they both deal with Jeb Bush.

First, the former Republican Florida governor today earned the endorsement of Eric Cantor.

You remember Eric Cantor. He is the former U.S. House of Representatives majority leader who, in the Republican primary of 2014, lost to TEA Party favorite David Brat.

What was the knock on Cantor in Virginia, which he represented in the House? It was that he was too wedded to being part of the GOP congressional power structure and that he cared too little about the home folks’ concerns. He was an out-of-touch Washington pol.

So, his congressional district primary voters turned on him, tossed him out of office.

I believe his endorsement of Gov. Bush will mean, well, not a thing.

***

Second, I am considering referring to Jeb Bush in the future by putting his first name in all capital leaders, just as I have done with the TEA Party.

Why? Well, “TEA” as in TEA Party is an acronym, meaning “Taxed Enough Already.” So, I’ve declared it appropriate to refer to this wing of the GOP with an all-cap reference.

The same principle applies to Jeb Bush. His first name also is an acronym. “Jeb” stands for “John Ellis Bush.”

Should I refer to him as “JEB” Bush, the way Confederate Gen. James Ewell Brown (aka J.E.B.) Stuart is identified?

local news

Convention expert says: Your downtown plan won’t work

I’ve got to hand it to those who are seeking to promote a comprehensive effort to rebuild, remake and revive downtown Amarillo.

They are unafraid to hear contrary views.

They got quite a few of them Monday night when Heywood Sanders came to Amarillo to speak to them about plans to build a convention hotel downtown. Sanders, an expert on these matters, said it’s a waste of time, money and effort.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/29645624/convention-center-expert-claims-downtown-convention-hotel-doesnt-work

Sanders spoke to the City Council, Downtown Amarillo Inc., and the Local Government Corporation. Two of those three entities have serious designs on pressing forward; the council, with its new majority, has been thrown into the “undecided” category, at least for now.

I believe it’s fair to pose a couple of thoughts about Professor Sanders’ visit.

One deals with how deeply he looked into the specifics of what’s being proposed for Amarillo. Was he relying chiefly on his extensive research into the general notion of convention centers. He’s written a book, “Convention Center Follies,” which I understand debunks the notion that convention hotels boost communities’ economy.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this visit centers on the organization that invited Professor Sanders. It came from the TEA Party Patriots of Amarillo. Readers of this blog know that I like to capitalize “TEA” as in TEA Party, because the letters comprise an acronym that stands for “taxed enough already.”

The TEA Party branches throughout the nation tend to stand strongly opposed to government-initiated or sponsored projects.

The three-pronged downtown project — the multipurpose event venue, the downtown hotel and the parking garage — is being billed as a private-enterprise endeavor. However, the government is involved, as the Amarillo EDC is providing incentives and the city intends to use hotel-motel tax to help maintain the MPEV and the downtown Embassy Suites hotel that’s being proposed.

Did the TEA Party hosts look for someone who’d back up their anti-government agenda?

I did not attend the meeting Monday night, so I won’t critique the specifics of what Professor Sanders said.

Still, it was instructive to hear from someone with knowledge of these things. I’m glad the various pro-downtown project principals were willing to hear what he had to say.

legal news, political news, State news

Can’t we get a do-over?

Paul Burka apparently came out of retirement — perhaps just briefly — to write this scathing critique for TexasMonthly.com of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/ken-paxton-problem#.VZaoXwXb5tI.twitter

To sum up Burka’s analysis: Paxton’s public service career has been totally without accomplishment, yet he won the race for AG this past year because the state’s current TEA party golden boy, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, endorsed him.

Now the AG is facing a possible criminal indictment in his hometown of McKinney. A special prosecutor is going to take a complaint of securities fraud to a Collin County grand jury. If the attorney general is indicted, what happens then?

Burka noted that a Texas Monthly colleague asked Gov. Greg Abbott that question, and the government couldn’t/wouldn’t answer.

This appears to be one of those times when Texas voters should ask for a do-over from the most recent election.

I know it’s not possible, but I can wish for it anyway … can’t I?

 

political news

Fox dumps Palin … imagine that

The Fox News Channel says it has parted company with Sarah Palin, the former half-term Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee.

But it hasn’t. Not really. Palin will continue to get guest spots on Fox. She’ll get to have her voice heard. She’ll also be free to appear on other news and commentary outlets — have you put her on your speed dial, MSNBC?

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/sarah-palin-dumped-by-fox-119357.html?hp=l2_4

She remains a hot commodity among TEA party conservatives. She speaks their language, whatever that is.

But she also has become a political circus act. The reality TV appearances haven’t delivered any broader appeal. The drama involving some of her family members has created more snickers and ridicule than any politician should want. Her bombastic rhetoric has become tiresome and, frankly, quite repetitive.

However, in this age where public policy intermingles with pop culture, Sarah Barracuda will remain among us.

U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona chose Palin to run with him in 2008, seeking a “game-changer” in the race for the presidency. Her selection might have changed the game, all right, but not necessarily in the way Sen. McCain expected or hoped — especially as American began hearing the things that flew out of her mouth. Remember the “death panels”? And those amazing stumbles while being interviewed by what she calls the “lame-stream media”? Priceless.

As Politico reports: “When Palin was at her zenith, she made frequent appearances, and Fox installed a camera at her house. But executives consider her less relevant now, and her appearances were sometimes hampered by the vast time difference with Alaska.”

Is she going away? Not any time soon. If ever.

 

State news

Texas Senate to lose a voice of reason

The Texas Senate already is low on reasonable voices.

It is going to lose another one at the end of next year when Republican Kevin Eltife of Tyler leaves that chamber.

Eltife has decided 23 years of public service — in his East Texas home town and then in the Senate — is enough for now. He told the Tyler Morning Telegraph he wants to spend more time enjoying the company of his family.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/eltife-not-seeking-re-election

I respect his desire to take a breather, or perhaps step away forever. However, his absence in the 2017 Legislature will be felt in a body governed aggressively by the TEA party wing of the GOP, and that includes Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the 31-member body.

Republicans hold a commanding majority. One of the other more reasonable members happens to be Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, who was elected to the Senate the same year as Eltife.

Seliger often speaks kindly of his colleague, as he should.

Eltife resisted efforts to cut taxes in the 2015 Legislature without dedicating some public money to improving infrastructure and some other obligations to the public.

I’ve been concerned that the Legislature might be hijacked by the TEA party. Both chambers need reasonable men and women to keep the zealots from running amok.

The Senate is about to lose one of its voices of reason.

Will there be more? I’m hoping the answer is a resounding “no!”

 

 

political news, State news

Here we go again, Gov. Perry

Rachel Maddow is no fan of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

There. I’ve stipulated what many folks know already about the liberal commentator for MSNBC.

That all said, she noted Friday night that Perry is about to break another “glass ceiling” for Republican presidential candidates. He’s about to become the first candidate under felony indictment to seek his party’s presidential nomination. He’ll make his announcement on June 4.

The Texas Tribune has posted a fascinating analysis on the pluses and minuses of a Perry presidential campaign.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/05/15/case-and-against-perrys-2016-campaign/

You remember the indictment, yes? A Travis County grand jury indicted Perry in 2014 on charges of abuse of power and coercion when he tried to get the Democratic Travis County district attorney to resign after she pleaded guilty to drunken driving; if she quit, he’d then let the DA’s Public Integrity Unit have the money appropriated by the Legislature. She didn’t quit. So Perry vetoed the money.

The grand jury said that sequence constituted an indictable offense.

Hey, that doesn’t matter. He’s going to run for the presidency a second time, hoping that all will be forgiven from his first — and disastrous — run for the White House in 2012; he actually lasted only a few days into 2012, as he dropped out of the race in January of that year.

Will the indictment hold him back? Will it matter to GOP voters who are looking for a right-wing darling to embrace as an alternative to squishy moderates such as Jeb Bush, Rob Portmand, John Kasich, Lindsey Graham or Chris Christie? All of those guys — and the others who already have declared their intentions to run or are about to declare them — will seek to paint themselves as hard-core conservatives.

Perry, though, is the real thing … he says.

He’s got this chink in his conservative armor, however. It’s immigration. You see, as the governor of a border state for a bazillion years, he has this idea that we really ought to have immigration reform. He also favors something akin to President Obama’s DREAM Act, which grants amnesty to illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents, when they were children. And … he also favors granting in-state college tuition waivers to those very illegal immigrants.

That area is where I happen to agree with the former governor.

The rest of it? No thanks.

Plus, he’s got that indictment matter to settle before he thinks about taking the presidential oath on Jan. 20, 2017.

Something tells me it won’t come to that.

 

national news, political news

Socialist could do HRC a huge favor

Bernie Sanders’s campaign for president next year is likely to produce a huge favor for the Democratic Party’s frontrunner, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sanders is an unapologetic socialist. He’s an independent U.S. senator from Vermont. He’s going to attack Clinton from the left as the two of them seek their party’s presidential nomination.

The favor? It will be that Clinton will be seen as the mainstream candidate and — perhaps — more palatable to the vast middle-of-the-road sea of voters who dislike extremists on either end of the political spectrum.

Socialist to snap at Clinton’s heels

Republican candidates and members of the TEA party wing of the GOP try all the time to label Clinton as some kind of “closet socialist.” Well, she’ll be running for her party’s nomination against the real thing.

Sanders has no qualms about extolling the virtues of wealth redistribution, which is a socialist tenet. Clinton doesn’t say such things — out loud, at least. That doesn’t stop her fervent critics from hanging the socialist label on her.

So, look for Hillary Clinton to welcome Sanders’s attacks. She’ll parry them easily and possibly deprive her Republican foes a key weapon in their own arsenal against the probable Democratic presidential nominee.

 

national news, political news

Lynch gets key GOP ally

Politics occasionally produces peculiar alliances that develop at key moments.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked Attorney General-designate Loretta Lynch’s confirmation vote over an unrelated bill dealing with human trafficking. Then the Senate approved the trafficking bill. What did McConnell do then? He rounded up enough votes to get Lynch confirmed.

McConnell whipped for Lynch, avoiding nuclear fallout

His work to end a filibuster that had stopped Lynch’s confirmation apparently has angered the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz and other members of the Senate’s TEA party caucus.

My reaction? Live with it.

This seeming reversal gets to a key element of McConnell’s leadership. He can be a fierce partisan when the opportunity presents itself, but he knows how the Senate is supposed to work and he knows how to deal with the “other side,” namely Democrats, when that opportunity presents itself.

Compromise, therefore, isn’t a bad thing when a failure to compromise gums up the legislative works — as it did while Loretta Lynch waited an interminable length of time to be confirmed as the nation’s next attorney general.

So, now let’s move on to the next congressional crisis.

 

national news, political news

HRC needs to prove she's authentic

Authenticity.

That’s the one word, I believe, that sums up Hillary Rodham Clinton’s major hurdle as she begins her second quest for the presidency.

It starts once again on Sunday. She’ll convene some small-group sessions. She’ll talk to voters who about herself, which is what all politicians do when they discuss campaigns for public office.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-begins-her-entry-into-the-2016-presidential-race/2015/04/10/f5f08ef0-df9c-11e4-a1b8-2ed88bc190d2_story.html

I’m left to wonder, though. Just who is this person?

I also am going to venture a guess that a lot of Americans are going to seek to find the real Hillary Clinton, whoever she is.

The email kerfuffle and her delayed reaction to it just stokes the flames of those who think she’s a phony. She’s got all that big-time money backing her, yet she’s going to say that the Citizens United case — which allows corporations to give unlimited amounts of money to politicians — needs to be overturned. She told us a while back she and her husband, the 42nd president, were “dead broke” when they left the White House in January 2001; well, a lot of Americans define “dead broke” differently than the way Hillary Clinton defined it.

Is she for real? Does she really connect with me, or you, or most Americans?

Her campaign begins once again in about 24 hours. She’s going to be the Target No. 1 of every Republican running, or thinking of running, for president in 2016. She’s going to draw fire from those on the far left wing base of her own Democratic Party who are looking for signs that she isn’t too cozy with Wall Street.

What’s more, on top of all this, she’s got the baggage she’ll be lugging around from her time as first lady, when the entire Republican Party establishment — and before we knew about the TEA party wing of the GOP — was out to get her husband tossed out of office. She drew her share of enemy fire during that time. Is she ready to take more of it?

Just who is the real Hillary Rodham Clinton?

We’re about to find out.