Tag Archives: GOP

State news

‘Big-city liberals’ do what, Lt. Gov. Patrick?

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Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has been running a TV ad that makes an accusation that offends me to my core.

The Republican is running for re-election and he is proclaiming how tough he is on illegal immigration. Then he declares: “Big-city liberals favor open borders.”

To which I say, “Huh? What? Are you serious?” Well, sure he’s serious. Because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

You see, what Patrick is saying suggests that “big-city liberals” want no controls on immigration. That they want to allow everyone into this country, regardless of their standing. They “welcome” illegal immigrants who might have criminal intent.

That is the rhetoric of a blatant demagogue.

I am no “big-city” liberal. I live in a moderately sized city in the Texas Panhandle, where most of my neighbors are likely to vote for Patrick later this year.

I also believe in stricter enforcement of our immigration policies. I am willing to pay for more Border Patrol personnel, for more electronic security/surveillance equipment.

However, I part company with Patrick and others on construction of a wall across our southern border. Furthermore, I am pretty damn sure that my own beliefs don’t make me someone who favors “open borders.” My strong hunch, too, is that other liberals would object to the “open borders” canard that comes from the lieutenant governor’s mouth.

business news, national news

Cyber security remains a (pipe) dream

CIA Director Mike Pompeo has issued a dire warning, which is that it is a near certainty that Russia is going to try meddling in our 2018 midterm election.

Yep, just like they did in the 2016 presidential election, the event that the president of the United States — Donald John Trump Sr. — keeps denying publicly.

Mr. President, please talk to the CIA boss. He knows more about this stuff than you do.

However, I keep circling back to an initiative that was launched in 2011 in Congress. It was designed to improve cyber security and was to be led by my own member of Congress, Republican U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry.

House Speaker John Boehner appointed Thornberry to lead a select committee to iron out the wrinkles in our nation’s cyber security system. It’s interesting to me that this was a GOP-only panel, comprising just Republican members of the House. I guess Thornberry and Boehner didn’t think there were any Democrats who could contribute to what ought to be a bipartisan/non-partisan concern.

Thornberry said in a statement after the panel’s work was done:

Cyber is deeply ingrained in virtually every facet of our lives.  We are very dependent upon it, which means that we are very vulnerable to disruptions and attacks.  Cyber threats pose a significant risk to our national security as well as to our economy and jobs.

At least 85 percent of what must be protected is owned and operated by the private sector.  Government must tread carefully in this area or risk damaging one of our greatest strengths — dynamic, innovate companies and businesses that are the key to our economy and to cybersecurity advances.

A “significant threat to our national security.” Yep, Rep. Thornberry, that is so very correct.

That threat presented itself in the 2016 election. There remain myriad questions about whether the Donald Trump campaign played a role in that threat. We’ll know the answer in due course, once the special counsel, Robert Mueller, finishes his work.

However, I do believe it’s fair to wonder: With all the work that Rep. Thornberry’s committee did to improve cybersecurity, did it do enough to protect our electoral system from the hanky-panky that came from this country’s preeminent foreign adversary?

I do not believe it did.

local news, political news

Voting early … under duress

I’ve stated over the years my distaste for voting early. I prefer the ritual of voting on Election Day. It’s a matter of seeking to protect myself against any of my candidates doing something that would make me regret casting my ballot for them.

Here comes the punch line: I am likely going to have vote prior to the March 6 primary election.

It’s not because I want to do so. It’s because my wife and I plan to be out of town that day. Our granddaughter’s birthday will require us to be away from our polling place on Election Day. Thus, I’ll be voting “absentee,” which is what they used to call it long before states made “early voting” so fashionable.

I remain opposed to voting early when I know I will be home on the day we go to the polls.

My opposition is as strong as ever.

Now the quandary: Which primary do I choose? In Texas we have what’s called an “open primary” system. We don’t walk into a polling place registered to vote in one party’s primary; we make that decision when we get there. The election judge then might stamp our voting card with the name of whichever primary we choose to cast our ballot.

Since my wife and I are registered to vote in Randall County, it’s a foregone conclusion that the local races will feature zero Democrats. In these mid-term elections, I often find myself voting in the GOP primary because that’s where my vote counts for county race and state legislative contests. I am occasionally inclined to look past the national races — U.S. House and Senate — while preferring to decide for whom to vote in the general election in November.

So, this year I likely will get to break with personal tradition.

local news, political news

Trump brings out worst in allies and foes

I have reached a regrettable conclusion about the state of political play in the Texas Panhandle.

It is that I cannot discuss politics where it involves specifically the policies promoted by the president of the United States, Donald John Trump.

More specifically, I cannot talk openly about my own feelings about the president, who I consider to be wholly unfit to hold the office he has occupied for the past year and six days.

I had an exchange this week with a good friend, someone I have known for the entire 23 years I have lived and worked in Amarillo. He is an elected official. He is as fine a public servant as I’ve ever met in my professional life.

My friend is a dedicated Republican. He’s a fierce partisan. He also has a good heart and is dedicated to serving the people who have elected him to public office.

We were chatting the other day when Trump’s name came up. My friend initiated the discussion. I grimaced noticeably. He knows my political leanings, which run counter to the prevailing view of the Texas Panhandle’s half-million or so residents. The residents of the 26 counties of the Texas Panhandle voted overwhelmingly for Trump over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2016 election.

My friend began talking about the “deep state,” and about how “corrupt” the FBI has been and how Trump is the “right man for these times.” I told my pal that I didn’t want to get into it with him at that moment. I sought to tell him that I detest the president’s policies. He said, “You’re a smart man. You’re smart enough to know what I’m talking about.”

And as he kept heaping faint praise on me about my intelligence, I could see that he, too, was getting worked up over my intense loathing of the president. He was pursing his lips and his eyes narrowed into a bit of a squint.

I then managed to change the subject. We moved on to the next topic. Our friendship is intact. I breathed a sigh of relief.

This is what has happened in the Era of Trump. Friends on opposing sides of the Great Divide no longer can talk about politics without getting worked up, getting angry at the other guy.

It occurs me: This is precisely how Donald Trump is governing. He is dividing Americans. His pledge to “unify the country” is the stuff of a flim-flam artist.

I guess I should thank the president for affirming my point about his unfitness for the job to which he was elected.

I should. But I won’t.

national news, political news

Mueller: still trustworthy

Robert Mueller must have grown a second head.

He must also have been seized by demons, or brainwashed by enemy terrorists.

The special counsel whose appointment by the Department of Justice drew bipartisan praise has become the bogeyman that congressional Republicans have feared.

Thankfully, not all GOP congressional members have bought into the fear being fanned by those on the far right wing of their party. U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, says Mueller should be trusted to do the right thing as he continues his probe into allegations that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 election outcome.

This paranoia among some in the GOP suggests that Mueller isn’t the “friendly” party they envisioned when the DOJ appointed him.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe, given his role in the Trump campaign and its transition into the presidency. The task of finding a special counsel fell to Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, who selected Mueller, a former FBI director with impeccable credentials.

Don’t you remember the high praise that poured forth from both sides of the political divide? I damn sure remember it. I joined in that praise, given Mueller’s reputation for meticulous preparation and deliberate purpose.

Even the subject of his probe — Donald J. Trump — is alternately combative and cooperative as it regards Mueller. At this moment, allegedly, the president is willing to talk “under oath” to the special counsel if he gets asked to be questioned. I hope the president doesn’t turn combative again.

As for Mueller’s reputation, I believe it should remain intact. He’s still the same man that Justice Department officials selected for this important and complex job.

So … let the man do his job.

national news

Hold the applause and the back-slapping, Congress

I swear I could hear — even way out here in Flyover Country — the sounds of cheers, backslapping and high-fiving on Capitol Hill.

The U.S. Senate this morning approved a measure that funds the government all … the … way until Feb. 8.

Great, huh? Well, not even close.

The House of Representatives now gets this measure. House members will follow suit. Then it will head to the White House, where Donald John “Dealmaker in Chief” Trump will sign it into law.

What got the deal done? Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to allow debate on the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals status in exchange for reopening the federal government that had been shuttered since midnight Friday.

Oh, brother. What a sham!

The president said in September he wanted to disband DACA, but gave Congress until March to find a legislative solution. Congress didn’t get there. Then came the government shutdown game of chicken.

Neither side blinked when the money ran out. The government closed its doors. The blame game commenced.

Now we have Senate Republicans crowing that they got Democrats to accept most of their demands.

To what end? We have yet another temporary repair. Then we get to have another face-off — maybe, perhaps, possibly — on Feb. 8.

DACA screams loudly for a resolution. It involves the status of U.S. residents who came here illegally when they were brought here — as children — by their parents or legal guardians. These young men and women do not deserve to be shipped back to the country of their origin, countries they do not know; they grew up as Americans.

The Trump re-election campaign poisoned the discussion over the weekend by releasing a TV ad that declares Democrats would be culpable if an illegal immigrant commits murder, saying that Democrats would have blood on their hands.

So, here we stand. We’re likely to get the government reopened. DACA will return to the bargaining table. Senators and House members are proud of themselves because they worked hard all weekend to find a solution.

However, it’s another short-term fix.

We need something that we can call the “law of the land.” We need to end this gamesmanship. We need a government that works.

When we arrive at that point, then we can break out the bubbly.

national news

Geniuses surrender to idiots

Bill Cassidy has produced — to my mind — the most memorable quote from the current government shutdown/game of chicken.

The nation, said the Louisiana Republican U.S. senator over the weekend, was “founded by geniuses but is being governed by idiots.”

You go, Sen. Cassidy!

https://highplainsblogger.com/2017/07/sen-cassidy-faces-his-critics/

Yes, the idiots have taken over. The men and women who comprise the Congress, along with the individual who sits in the White House, cannot govern the greatest nation on Earth.

Oh, no! They are bound up in a fight over a spending bill. They cannot settle their disagreements over how to control illegal immigration. The people caught in the grip of this government sausage grinder happen to be individuals who were brought here as children when their parents sneaked into the country illegally.

Republican hard liners cannot find it in what passes for their heart to extend protections for those so-called “Dreamers.” These folks were raised in the United States; this is the only country they know. But the GOP “base” wants to send them back to their country of origin?

What the hell … ?

As a result, the government is now officially paralyzed.

The idiot in chief — the president — can’t decide whether to approve an extension of those protections. He is getting pressure from his GOP base.

I continue to believe that this is the Trump Shutdown. He is joined by the idiots in Congress. I won’t assign all the blame to just one party. There’s plenty of blame to go along.

However, we have just a single president. He is The Man. He has an entire nation as his constituency. Not all of us approve of the way he is running the government; indeed, more of us voted for the other major-party candidate than for the guy who actually won.

Where in the world are the geniuses?

national news, political news

Is this the work of a ‘fraud’?

I wasn’t looking for proof of a political accusation, but one has presented itself anyway.

In 2016, former Republican Party presidential nominee Mitt Romney peeled the bark off the party’s primary frontrunner when he called Donald John Trump Sr. a “fraud” and a “phony.”

I thought at the time that the 2012 GOP nominee was talking exclusively about Trump’s penchant for bellicosity and insults. However, in the past few days, some things have come into sharper focus.

The president campaigned for office proclaiming his immense skill as a deal maker. He promised time and time again on the stump that he’d make the “best deals” in the history of humankind … or words to that effect. He vowed that the nation no longer would be snookered into falling for “bad deals.”

Well, here we are. One year into Trump’s time in office, the nation’s government is shut down. The president has been unable to deliver on one of those fundamental promises of his winning presidential campaign. He hasn’t cut any deal at all, let alone any bad deals.

I guess I can presume that’s what Mitt meant when he called Trump a “fraud.”

The late, great heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali used to say about his predictions about when he’d knock his foes out that “It ain’t braggin’ if you do it.”

Donald Trump needs to quit braggin’ if he can’t deliver the goods.

national news

It’s all about compromise, stupid!

Good government requires compromise.

Past presidents have known it. So have members of Congress — from both political parties. The rigid ideologues — either on the left or the right — might sleep well at night knowing that they hold firm to their principles. But the rest of us pay the price.

So it is with the current government shutdown that commenced at midnight Friday.

As I understand it, Democratic leaders in Congress have agreed to give Donald Trump money to build that wall he wants to erect on our southern border. They have demanded something in return: a commitment to avoiding the deportation of thousands of U.S. residents who came to this country as children when their parents brought them here illegally.

OK, then. Republicans get the wall; Democrats get to keep the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals rule.

Both sides give a little to the other.

Isn’t that how it works? Sure it is!

Meanwhile, the president who touts himself as a supreme deal-maker keeps changing his mind. He wants a deal to protect DACA recipients because he loves them. Then he feels the heat from the ideologues within his Republican Party who want to toss them out.

As for Democratic leaders, they, too are feeling the heat from their ideologues who want nothing to do with a wall.

I tend to favor the lefties on this one. However, I want the government to reopen fully. I also want compromise to rule the day. I want our elected leaders to do the job we sent them to Washington to do: I want them to govern effectively.

I do not believe in rigid ideology. I am now 68 years of age. The older I get the more room I seek to maneuver for the cause of good government.

Give a little. Declare victory. Open the doors to our government — for which we are paying good money!

 

national news, political news

By all means, it’s the ‘Trump Shutdown’

A headline on Politico.com sought to say how media outlets are “struggling” to assign blame for the current shutdown of the federal government.

Are you kidding me? I know who’s to blame. Someone just needed to ask me.

It’s Donald John “Deal Maker in Chief” Trump Sr.! He’s the man. He’s the one. He’s the guy who’s got to shoulder the blame.

How do I know that? Because the president of the United States laid the previous shutdown, which occurred in 2013, at the feet of Barack H. Obama, his presidential predecessor.

He said the president has to lead. He’s the one elected by the entire country. The president has to step up, take charge, bring members of Congress to the White House, clunk their heads together and tell ’em shape up, settle their differences and get the government running again.

Trump said all that. He was right.

But now that Trump is the man in charge, he has retreated into the background. Trump is pointing fingers at Democrats. He says they are to blame solely for the shutdown.

Give me a break!

A president is supposed to lead. We elect presidents to run the government. They stand head and shoulders above the 100 senators and 435 House members. When the government shudders and then closes its doors, we turn to the president to show us the way back to normal government functionality.

Donald Trump hasn’t yet shown up to lead the government out of its darkness.

Who’s to blame? It’s the guy who called it in 2013.

This is Trump’s Shutdown. Pure and simple.

If only he’d kept his trap shut when he was a mere commercial real estate mogul and reality TV host …