Category Archives: national news

Calling it the TEA party from now on

Readers of this blog know that I refer often to the insurgent wing of the Republican Party, the one that gives the so-called “establishment wing” fits.

I am now going to refer to it as the TEA party, not the “tea party.”

TEA is an acronym, meaning “Taxed Enough Already.”

It’s meant to recall the Boston Tea Party, where colonials tossed tea into Boston Harbor to protest the tax they were being forced to pay for it.

The TEA party’s original mission seemed honorable enough. It has morphed into something else. TEA party officials have taken to opposing just about any kind of progressive legislation. Immigration reform? Forget about it. Health care reform? Pfftt!

I’ll simply remind the TEA party loyalists of their original intent in forming this wing of the Republican Party.

To paraphrase an earlier slogan: It’s the taxes, stupid.

 

Thrill returns at rocket launch

A curious feeling came over me this morning as I watched the television screen.

A rocket took off from a launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla. It was carrying — on its maiden flight — the Orion spacecraft. The Delta rocket roared to life, spewing flame and roaring like a thousand freight trains, and then it lifted off slowwwwly into the sky.

I began muttering under my breath: Come on, come one, come on.

Then I realized something. I was smiling broadly, ear to ear. I was feeling a thrill similar to what I had watching astronauts blasting into space aboard their Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and space shuttle craft.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/orion-clears-first-hurdle-in-getting-to-mars/

Hey, this was a big launch today.

Orion is being developed as the United States’s long-range vehicle that eventually will carry astronauts into deep space. I’m talking about Mars. Or perhaps to one of Jupiter’s moons. Or maybe to an asteroid.

It flew two orbits around Earth this morning, then splashed safely and on target into the Pacific Ocean.

Mission accomplished.

I’ll admit to being a sap when it comes to space flight. I’ve wept at the sight of rockets launching and at the sight of spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere. Heck, I’ve watched the film “Apollo 13” about, oh, 20 or 30 times and I still get misty when Jim Lovell tells NASA ground controllers that the spacecraft is coming home safely after that harrowing rescue mission in April 1970.

Orion’s first manned flight is years away. Its maiden voyage to the great beyond is even farther into the future.

I hope to be around to watch it take humans into our solar system. Yes, I’ll be crying.

 

Big jobs numbers, but still no GOP applause

Critics of President Obama have been beating the drum for years about the economic recovery.

Yeah, nice jobs numbers, but those wages just aren’t increasing, they say, while lampooning the economic recovery as a sort of mirage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/business/economy/november-jobs-unemployment-figures.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Today’s news brought some serious good cheer to some of us, but not all.

The economy added 321,000 jobs in November. Wages increased 0.4 percent as well. The bottom line? The economy is finally beginning to be felt in people’s homes.

Will there be cheering among congressional critics of the president? Don’t hold your breath.

My hunch is that they’ll find a way to spread the joy among themselves without giving credit to a federal economic policy that’s been working for, oh, about the past five-plus years.

The stock market is heading into record territory — again. The trade deficit is down. The budget deficit is down. The national debt is slowing. Unemployment remains less than 6 percent. Investments are up. Spending is up. Real estate prices are up. Auto sales are up. Domestic energy production is up. Gasoline prices are plummeting.

Holy cow! I can’t stand all this good news!

I’ll just have to proclaim it from this forum yet again.

 

Will hearings solve anything?

House Speaker John Boehner says he’s open to having congressional hearings on the deaths of two black men at the hands of white police officers.

Good. It is fair to wonder, though, whether they’ll lead to anything of substance.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/226029-boehner-open-to-hearings-on-garner-brown

The men at issue are Michael Brown and Eric Garner, both of whom died in confrontations with police officers. The man who shot Brown to death in Ferguson, Mo., was no-billed by a grand jury; the officer who choked Garner to death in New York got the same pass from another grand jury.

Of the two cases, the one involving Garner is proving to be more troublesome. A video shows the officer clamping a chokehold on Garner, who was being arrested for selling “loose” cigarettes. The Brown case involves a lot of contradictions. The Garner case, to my mind — and the minds of millions of others — is much more clear cut: The grand jury blew it.

Congressional hearings will enable a more complete airing of the problems associated with these cases. Perhaps the question ought to be: Are these violent acts by police occurring with more frequency to black men than to white men, and if so, why is that?

Let’s advance this conversation through thoughtful congressional testimony, shall we, Mr. Speaker?

 

'Easy' confirmation ahead?

When a Republican curmudgeon like Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma says he would vote for a Democratic nominee for defense secretary, then you might expect the next nominee to have a relatively clear path toward confirmation.

Today, President Obama is going to nominate former deputy defense secretary Ashton Carter to run the Pentagon; he would replace outgoing Secretary Chuck Hagel. He’s been highly decorated and has been confirmed already by the Senate for his one-time post.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/05/politics/obama-ash-carter-defense-secretary/index.html

Carter is a well-known expert on weapons and their procurement. He knows the ropes inside the world’s largest office building and it appears he’s got support from at least one Republican senator who’ll get a chance to vote on his confirmation. Will there be more?

GOP lawmakers have been making a lot of noise lately about blocking Obama appointments as payback for his executive action on immigration. They’ve been careful to exclude national security posts from that petulant game.

Let’s hope they’re faithful to their pledge.

If there was a federal agency that needs leadership and cohesion in this troubled time, one would expect it to the be the Department of Defense.

Do not dilly-dally on this one, senators.

 

 

One more time on 'War on Christmas'

I’ve already pontificated on how I think the so-called “War on Christmas” is a trumped-up phenomenon, courtesy of the conservative mainstream media.

Allow me this one more brief note on the issue. Then I’ll move on to something else.

Conservative talking heads lament the “happy holidays” greeting that some retailers insist their employees give to shoppers as evidence of the phony war. I say: So what?

I prefer to wish people a Merry Christmas when I encounter them. Why? Well, I celebrate the holiday right along with the rest of the Christian world. I understand its religious significance and I enjoy most of the trappings that come with the holiday.

But the “happy holidays” greeting isn’t meant to insult me. I take zero offense at hearing it from total strangers.

They don’t know a thing about me. They don’t know whether I’m a Christian, or whether I worship some other faith that doesn’t celebrate Christmas.

What in the name of God Almighty is wrong with someone wishing a total stranger a happy holiday?

The war on Christmas isn’t being waged by those who are trying to please those they meet during a busy shopping season. Last time I checked, I realized that the United States of America is a diverse country filled with 300 million or so individuals of vastly different faiths. I see them regularly during the course of most of my days at my part-time job.

Am I going to wish them a Merry Christmas when I know they don’t celebrate this holy holiday season? No.

Nor do I take offense when someone makes a good faith effort to wish me happiness during this holiday season.

There. I’ve had my say.

I’ll enjoy the rest of my Christmas season.

 

'Stolen Valor' goes viral

Nothing is theft-proof. Not even valor, the kind one demonstrates on the battlefield.

People “steal” valor all the time, or so it appears. They deserve the shame that others heap on them.

A video has gone viral that shows an actual Army combat infantry veteran confronting a faux veteran at a Philadelphia shopping mall. The alleged imposter is taking advantage of the veteran discounts that many retailers offer customer.

I guess all you have to do is show up in a uniform and you get the discount.

Ryan Beck caught this guy in the act of faking his own military service.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/12/03/how-viral-videos-became-the-way-veterans-combat-stolen-valor/

Perhaps the most hilarious part of the video — which is included in the link attached to this post — is that the apparent imposter tells the real veteran, Beck, that he is an Army Ranger. Umm, take a look at the individual and you can tell right up front that he is not a member of the elite Army fighting unit.

The guy can’t explain why he’s wearing an improper Combat Infantryman Badge, or why the U.S. flag on his right sleeve is in the wrong location.

The Stolen Valor Act is meant to criminalize the act of impersonating a veteran. Indeed, it should be a crime, particularly when the imposters use their fake status to take money from businesses offering discounts in good faith to men and women who actually are serving in the military.

The manner in which Beck confronts this guy is classic. He isn’t rude. He isn’t bullying the guy. He’s asking legitimate questions that came to his mind the moment he saw this fellow at the mall in Philly.

Someone ought to give Beck another medal for “outing” this individual.

 

It appears nearly unanimous: grand jury blew it

The chatter all across the country — from the left and the right — appears to be saying the same thing about the death of Eric Garner at the hands of Staten Island, N.Y. police.

The grand jury blew it when it declined to indict a police officer for a crime when he choked Garner to death.

I finally saw the video last night showing Garner being questioned by cops over his alleged selling of “illegal cigarettes.” Garner pleaded with the police to leave him alone, that he wasn’t guilty of any crime. One of the cops then slapped a choke hold on Garner, wrestled him to the ground.

Garner was heard on the video telling the officers 11 times that “I can’t breathe.” He passed out and then died.

And the grand jury couldn’t find probable cause to accuse the officer of a crime?

What in the world has happened here?

The difference between this incident and the Ferguson Mo., case involving the shooting death of Michael Brown, a young black man, by Darren Wilson, a white former police officer, is crystal clear. The Ferguson case had too many conflicting accounts of what happened, whether Brown was surrendering or attacking Wilson. The Garner case is cut, dried and laid out there for everyone to see: The police officer — aided by several of his colleagues — slapped a killer chokehold on Garner.

Could he have lessened the pressure enough to allow Garner to breathe? I believe he could have done exactly that.

Whatever in the world the grand jury was thinking needs to be revealed. As Ricky told Lucy: You got some ‘splainin’ to do.

 

What? No indictment in NYC?

I have just watched a video of a New York City police officer subduing Eric Garner.

Garner was arguing with police that he wasn’t doing what they suspected he was doing. He asked the officers to “leave me alone.” One of the officers then clamped a chokehold on Garner, wrestling him to the ground.

Garner said several times, “I can’t breathe!” The officer didn’t heed the plea. Garner lost consciousness and then died.

A grand jury today returned a no indictment ruling against the officer, Daniel Pantaleo.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/ny-policeman-not-indicted-in-chokehold-death-us-justice-sets-probe/ar-BBgio9c

I have a simple question: What in the name of God’s Planet Earth was the grand jury thinking?

This is just another case of a white police officer killing a black citizen. Now, I’m not going to probe too deeply into the racial component here — white cop, black civilian. But why didn’t the officer let up on the chokehold after Garner told him repeatedly — repeatedly! — that he couldn’t breathe?

The no-bill here has provoked the predicted demonstrations in New York City. It has prompted even more debate over the state of race relations between law enforcement and the African-American community.

This non-indictment has me puzzled and perplexed, having seen the video evidence of what happened that day.

Based on what I saw on that video, the grand jury surely could have come back with something with which to charge the officer.

Those grand jurors and the district attorney’s office have some serious explaining to do.

I’m waiting. The nation is waiting.

 

Cop brings pride in hometown

Bret Barnum makes me proud of my roots in one of America’s most beautiful cities.

He’s a police officer for the Portland Police Bureau and he did something the other day that has been seen around he world. He hugged a boy.

http://www.oregonlive.com/multimedia/index.ssf/2014/12/portland_police_sgt_bret_barnu.html#incart_m-rpt-1

The boy was Devante Hart, 12 years of age. Devante was taking part in a peaceful protest in Portland in the wake of the grand jury’s decision against indicting former Ferguson (Mo.) policeman Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. We all know the story by now.

Devante was carrying a sign advertising “Free Hugs.” Sgt. Barnum saw the youngster and the sign.

He shook the boy’s hand and asked him why he was crying. Devante said the protest saddened him.

With that, Barnum embraced Devante — with tears streaming down the boy’s face — and the image was snapped by a freelance photographer and flashed around the world.

Barnum has been a Portland police officer for two decades. He seems like an unassuming fellow. He works in the traffic division of the Portland Police Bureau.

“If it helps other people out, fantastic,” he said of the hug he gave Devante. “It just shows how great our city is.”

It also shows that human beings really can be kind to each other in the midst of strife and turmoil.

A simple embrace stands in stark and glaring contrast to the hideous rioting and looting that took place in Ferguson.

Well done, Sgt. Barnum — and young Devante Hart. You made this Portland native mighty proud.