Tag Archives: Barack Obama

legal news, national news, political news

Cruz is ‘eligible’ to run for POTUS

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 06: Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz listens at the restaurant Sabrosura 2 on April 6, 2016 in the Bronx borough of New York City. Cruz, who won last night's Wisconsin primary, was visiting New York in advance of New York's Republican primary on April 19, 2016. (Photo by Bryan Thomas/Getty Images)

This is fantastic!

The Ted Cruz Birther Movement is slow to die. Heck, it might never wither away!

Constitutional crybabies keep insisting that because the Republican U.S. senator from Texas — and GOP candidate for president — was born in Canada that he isn’t eligible to seek the presidency, let alone hold the office if elected.

Plaintiffs in several states have sought to block Cruz’s candidacy on specious grounds that the senator is a foreigner.

These challenges are doomed. They won’t get to first base, I believe, with the U.S. Supreme Court.

A lower court judge put it well. A natural-born citizen “includes any person who is a United States citizen from birth,” wrote Pennsylvania Commonwealth Judge Dan Pellegrini.

Young Rafael Edward Cruz came into this world as a U.S. citizens because his mother is an American. Therefore, no matter where on Earth baby Ted was born he became eligible to run for the presidency.

The U.S. Constitution doesn’t define “natural-born citizen.” It doesn’t specify that a president must have been born on sovereign U.S. territory. All it specifies is citizenship — and federal law, by golly, is pretty damn clear on that point.

Still, this birtherism regarding Cruz’s eligibility is nearly as funny as the cockamamie notion that dogged President Barack Obama right up until the moment he won re-election to a second — and final — term in November 2012.

 

national news, political news

Bernie turns from nice to nasty

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Bernie Sanders once vowed never to speak ill of his chief rival for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

He said he wanted to stay on the high road. He barely mentioned her by name while stumping across places like Iowa and New Hampshire.

That was then. Today he went straight after Hillary Clinton, contending in New York that the former secretary of state, U.S. senator — from New York! — and first lady isn’t “qualified” to become the 45th president of the United States.

Why is Clinton now unqualified to hold the nation’s highest office? According to the Vermont independent-turned-Democratic senator, her acceptance of money from “big Wall Street banks and other establishment political action groups makes her no longer qualified.

Hmm. That’s an interesting accusation.

You see, from my perspective, Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most qualified candidate — among the five people in either party still seeking the presidency — to become the next president.

She served several terms as first lady as Arkansas; she became first lady of the nation for two terms and had a profound influence on her husband’s rather successful presidency; she was elected twice to the U.S. Senate from New York; she served as secretary of state during President Obama’s first term.

Surely, there have been other candidates over the years who’ve brought more sparkling resumes to the Oval Office. I keep thinking that of the presidents who served in my lifetime, the one with the glossiest history was George H.W. Bush. World War II fighter pilot, CIA director, member of Congress, U.N. ambassador, Republican Party chairman, vice president? The man had chops to be president.

As for Sanders’ own qualifications, well, he’s marginally so.

But the tone of this Democratic primary campaign has changed dramatically.

Now the nation is paying attention.

That’s the way it goes. Negativity works.

 

local news, national news, political news, State news

Wind power is in the wind

wind farm

ADRIAN, Texas — You have to squint your eyes a bit to take in the view in this picture.

It’s along Interstate 40 in the Texas Panhandle. I shot the picture this afternoon with my fancy-shmancy phone camera as I was returning home from a lunch meeting with a colleague in Tucumcari, N.M.

It’s a wind farm. Lots and lots and lots of wind turbines are blowing in the breeze, generating electricity — I reckon — to be shipped to points hither and yon. Given that I don’t get out as much as I used to, I was struck by the sight of hundreds of those turbines along nearly the entire length of I-40 through Oldham County after driving back onto the Caprock.

I want to call attention to this form of energy because of the presidential campaign that’s now in full swing in both major political parties.

Republicans and Democrats are seeking to nominate candidates for the White House, one of whom will succeed President Obama on Jan. 20, 2017.

That silence you’ve heard along the campaign trail has dealt with wind energy. You remember wind energy, don’t you?

Politicians are supposed to talk about it as a way to wean this nation from its dependence on fossil fuels. We’ve made some progress in one critical area: The United States is about to become the world’s leading fossil fuel energy producer, which means we’ve all but ended our dependence on foreign oil.

Of late, the only mention I’ve heard of energy production has been on the Democratic side of the campaign trail, with Bernie Sanders accusing Hillary Rodham Clinton of being in the hip pocket of fossil fuel producers; Clinton has fired back, saying Sanders also is beholden to campaign contributors who are associated with fossil fuel producers. The world has a glut of oil, demand is down, therefore so is the price of fossil fuel-related products — such as gasoline!

Oh sure, the candidates traipsed through Iowa corn fields in the first contest of the season and talked here and there about ethanol, the “bio-fuel” produced by corn. One of the big surprises of the campaign, of course, was Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s victory in Iowa — even though he stuck his neck out and criticized ethanol subsidies as a form of government giveaway the nation couldn’t afford.

The Republican/Democratic Road Show trekked eventually to Texas. Did you hear much around the Panhandle about how any of the candidates would seek to shore up wind power?

If you did, then were dialed in far more acutely than I was. I don’t recall hearing a peep out of that still-large herd of candidates in the time leading up to the March 1 Texas primaries.

I’m proud of my state for becoming a leader in wind energy. Think of it: Texas and California have something in common after all, as they are the two leading wind-producing states in the country. Who knew?

Heaven knows we have enough of it here. It’s renewable and clean — even when it kicks up tons of dirt from the cultivated fields that are spread out for miles upon miles along our vast horizon.

Here’s my plea to the candidates … if they or their staffers see this blog post: How about talking more about wind and other renewables? It’s no longer cool to just “drill baby, drill.” We’ve got a lot of wind out there that’s not coming from the mouths of political blowhards.

How about ensuring we find ways to put it to use?

 

media news, national news, political news

Win or lose, Trump’s impact has been ‘y-u-u-u-u-ge!’

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Americans ought to perhaps prepare themselves for a major shock at the end of this year.

I’m talking about Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign.

No, I do not mean to suggest that Trump is going to win the election and start preparing himself to settle into the chair behind that big ol’ desk in the Oval Office. He won’t ever get to do that — in my humble view.

What I mean is that Trump’s presence on the campaign scene has had an impact far, far beyond anyone’s expectations when he entered it this past summer.

Yes, America, this man well could become Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2016.

I don’t know how the Time editors are going to process this election. The winner of the campaign assuredly should be the logical choice for the esteemed honor. If it turns out to be Hillary Rodham Clinton, well, she will have made history as the first woman ever elected, just as Barack Hussein Obama made history by becoming the first African-American ever elected president.

Trump’s influence on this election, though, has been overarching.

He has redefined how the media cover these events.

Think of it: The guy has no government experience of any kind whatsoever. He is known as a reality TV celebrity and real estate mogul. He has lived a life of excess — and boasts about his extramarital sexual conquests. He begins his campaign by insulting Mexican immigrants who come here illegally by lumping all of them together as rapists, murderers and drug dealers.

Then it got worse.

Still, the man remains the frontrunner for the Republican Party presidential nomination. The media cannot stop reporting on his utterances. Why is that? Because the public is infatuated with them. Even those of us who cannot stomach the sight of him or the sound of his voice can’t stop writing about him.

Trust me on this: If there wasn’t a public appetite for this guy, the media wouldn’t report on him. The media respond to what the public demands.

The Time editors have made much of the criteria they use for these selections. The person they put on the magazine’s cover are there because of what they contributed for “good or ill.” The publication has put some pretty hideous characters on its cover: Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and the Ayatollah Khomeini come to mind immediately.

Donald J. Trump ain’t in their league.

However, he’s had a gigantic impact on the political process that selects the person who becomes president of the United States.

International news, military news, national news, political news

POTUS shows command of the obvious

barack

Barack Obama demonstrated today a compelling command of the obvious when he said the Republicans’ leading candidate for president “doesn’t know much about foreign policy.”

The president was responding to comments from Donald J. Trump about allowing South Korea and Japan develop nuclear weapons programs.

Yep, Trump said he would be open to that possibility as a deterrent to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

According to Politico: “The person who made the statements doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean peninsula or the world generally,” Obama told reporters as he finished the last of a series of high-level meetings on nuclear security in Washington.

“The person” to whom Obama was referring also said the United States shouldn’t even rule out using nuclear weapons to fight the Islamic State in the Middle East and, oh yes, in Europe.

Oh … my.

That’s the obvious criticism: that Trump doesn’t know diddly about U.S. foreign policy, its aims, how it protects U.S. interests and how it intends to maintain peace.

What is not so obvious is the question that the president didn’t ask. Perhaps he didn’t want to stick the proverbial hot branding iron in the eye of the Trumpsters who keep cheering their man on.

I’ll ask it here: How is it that the individuals who keep voting for this guy give him a pass on such obvious ignorance?

I am acquainted with some Trumpsters here in Amarillo. They keep answering with the same refrain: Trump “tells it like it is”; political correctness be damned!

As Ricky Ricardo might say: Ayy, caramba!

Trump’s ignorance keeps revealing itself in breathtaking fashion.

Just this week alone, he said women should be “punished” if they obtain an illegal abortion; he then reversed himself … twice! Then came the remarkable assertion about the use of nukes to fight radical Islamic terrorists. To be fair, he didn’t pledge to drop A-bombs on them, only that we shouldn’t take their use “off the table.”

Still, this individual does not grasp the meaning and the gravitas of what he says. As the president noted today in his remarks, the world pays careful attention to what major political leaders in this country say. Obama said: “I’ve said before that, you know, people pay attention to American elections. What we do is really important to the rest of the world, and even in those countries that are used to a carnival atmosphere in their own politics want sobriety and clarity when it comes to U.S. elections because they understand the president of the United States needs to know what’s going on around the world.”

Trump may say he’s not a politician, but that’s now patently untrue. He is a politician seeking the highest office in the land. He seeks to become chief executive, the head of state and the commander in chief of the United States of America.

Yet he keeps shooting off his mouth about matters of which he knows not a single thing.

How in the name of all that is holy does this clown keep getting away with it?

 

local news, media news

This is how you trick ’em

beilue_13

My pal Jon Mark Beilue has established an April Fool’s Day tradition at the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for 17-plus years.

This man is a master of putting one over on readers.

He does it intentionally once each year. He did so again today with this masterpiece about a proposed location for the Barack H. Obama Presidential Library.

He once spun a yarn about film star/heartthrob Matthew McConaughey moving to Amarillo; he once told a tall tale about the late Stanley Marsh 3 establishing an art museum inside an abandoned grocery store building next to Interstate 40. There have been others; those are two of my personal favorites.

I’ll just add this point before asking you to enjoy it as I have done already today.

The beauty of this kind of writing, which Jon Mark does better than anyone else I know, is that it tempts you to suspend your disbelief when you read it. You actually start to believe it could happen that, somehow, it’s not a prank.

Well, obviously it is.

Most of us in this part of the Texas surely are glad that it’s all a joke.

Others of us, well, might think differently.

Still, this is brilliant.

Enjoy.

legal news, national news, political news

Clinton, Sanders differ on SCOTUS approach

hillary

Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders differ on quite a bit these days.

One of the more intriguing differences is seen in how they want the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court to be filled.

Sanders would pull the nomination of Merrick Garland — who President Obama has appointed to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia — off the table if he is elected president in November. He then would pick someone of his choosing.

Clinton doesn’t even think that’s a topic for discussion. She said this week that Obama is president until January and he deserves to have his pick for the court considered by the U.S. Senate.

She also takes sharp aim at the reason Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gives for obstructing this nomination, for wanting the next president to make the choice. McConnell said “the American people deserve a voice” in determining who that person should be.

Fine, said Clinton. “I was one of the 65 million people who voted” for President Obama’s re-election in 2012, she said, adding that McConnell is now trying to silence her voice, along with tens of millions of other voters who choose Obama over Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

You got that right, Mme. Secretary.

I, too, am among the nearly 66 million Americans who cast their ballots for the president. I don’t like being silenced any more than Clinton does. Nor should the rest of those who cast their ballots for the president.

Don’t we operate in a system that grants power to the candidate who gets more votes than the other person?

Yes, we have one president at a time. The man in the hot seat right now still has all the power entrusted to him by the U.S. Constitution.

Let this nomination go forward, Mr. Majority Leader. Americans’ voices have been heard.

International news

Commies are getting a taste of dissent

castro bros

Cuba’s ruling communists are getting a snoot full from the proletariat.

They’re unhappy with the way the commies are governing the country and are beginning to speak their minds. Even the commies themselves are griping openly.

The discontent comes in the wake of President Obama’s historic visit to Cuba, where he talked out loud about the virtues of freedom of expression and how everyone deserves the chance to express their grievances over the way the government is doing its job on the people’s behalf.

According to The Associated Press: “After months of simmering discontent, complaints among party members have become so heated that its official newspaper, Granma, addressed them in a lengthy front-page article Monday, saying the public dissatisfaction is ‘a sign of the democracy and public participation that are intrinsic characteristics of the socialism that we’re constructing.'”

How about that?

Dissent isn’t a bad thing, at least that’s how it’s viewed in societies that allow it.

Such open grumbling has been virtually unheard-of in nations such as Cuba, where the communists took over a government run by an iron-fisted dictator. The revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro promised “change” in Cuba. They delivered it, all right … except that it looked a lot like the old way, only under the communist banner rather than the fascist banner waved by the preceding governing authority.

The U.S. president brought attention to the need for greater freedom. Cubans responded enthusiastically to his message.

Now, even the communists who run the place are griping about what a lousy job they’re doing.

Ah, change is in the wind in Cuba.

Perhaps …

 

media news, national news, political news

Speaking of polls, take a look at this

PollingFundamentals

Now that public opinion polls have become a staple of American political coverage, it’s good to look at the latest survey of Americans’ views of the job the president is doing.

RealClearPolitics posts a national average of polls daily.

The numbers are instructive.

President Obama now stands at 2.7 percent approval-over-disapproval in the average of polls that RCP posts.

Why is this important? It’s important because most of the remaining candidates for president — Republican and Democrat — keep talking about polls and their relative standing among them.

Donald J. Trump bellows constantly when the polls show him beating fellow Republicans Ted Cruz or John Kasich. Cruz counters with favorable poll reports when they suit his cause. Kasich keeps saying the polls show him as the only GOP candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton.

Oh yes. Bernie Sanders keeps talking about the polls that show him “closing the gap” for the Democratic nomination with Clinton.

Polls, polls, polls …

Remember when pols said “the only poll that counts is on Election Day”? Not only longer. They keep yapping about the polls and the media keep reporting it.

Thus, they have become important.

Back to the RCP poll average.

President Obama’s poll ratings had been in the tank for most of his second term. They weren’t necessarily horrible; just flat, lingering in the mid-40 percent range. What’s most interesting is that his favorable ratings were usually significantly less than his unfavorable ratings.

Today, though, it’s different. His favorability rating, according to the RCP average, stands at 49 percent, nearly 3 percent greater than his unfavorable rating.

Two more quick points.

One is that the RCP average takes into account all the major polling results done. Conservative polling outfits are measured, along with liberal polling companies. They’re tossed in altogether and you get the average of all the polls.

The second point is that RCP’s average of polls about the job Congress is doing shows a 14 percent job approval rating.

 

 

media news, national news, political news

Media should challenge pols? Sure, except for one thing …

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President Obama has thrown down on the national media, which he said aren’t doing their job properly.

The current political climate, the president said, is due partly because the media haven’t challenged presidential candidates’ falsehoods, outrageousness and manipulation.

Obama spoke to a media gathering and said the rest of the world is dumbfounded at what’s happening to the “crazy politics” that has infected the United States.

Hold ’em accountable

Here’s part of what the president said: “A job well done is about more than just handing someone a microphone. It’s to probe and to question and to dig deeper and to demand more. The electorate would be better served if that happened. It would be better served if billions of dollars in free media came with serious accountability, especially when politicians issue unworkable plans or make promises they cannot keep.”

Got it, Mr. President.

But here’s the catch. The media are considered part of what’s ticking off much of the electorate.

The media have sought to hold the candidates “accountable,” as you suggest. They have challenge absurd assertions by a number of the candidates, only to be outshouted by the angry legions of voters who continue to stand by their candidates’ original absurd assertion.

As someone who’s still associated with the media, I happen to believe the president is correct to assert that the media need to do better. We always can do more to provide context and to check all the facts before running with them.

It’s the suggestion, though, that greater media scrutiny — in this particular climate — is going to flip the switch on in voters’ minds and make them see the light, the truth and the way.

Instead, they’re increasingly likely these days to “double down” on what the candidate says and then blast the media for “lying” about their guy’s message.

I believe we are in a classic “Catch-22” situation.

Thanks anyway for the advice, Mr. President.