Tag Archives: GOP

political news

Beware of polls in Alabama

A word of caution may be in order.

Public opinion polling indicates that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore is falling farther behind his Democratic opponent, former federal prosecutor Doug Jones, in the race to join the World Greatest Deliberative Body.

A special election will occur in ‘Bama on Dec. 12. Moore has been swallowed up by a controversy involving whether he made improper sexual advances on young girls in the 1970s when he was a state prosecutor.

It’s been in all the papers, you know?

Be careful — very careful — about interpreting too much in these polls. You see, they at times can produce what political scientists call “phantom support” that manifests itself in voters being untruthful to pollsters.

Voters might be unwilling to say out loud to a pollster that they’re going to still vote for a guy who’s accused of pedophilia. Then they vote for the guy anyway. Indeed, this is why we call it a “secret ballot.” The fear is profoundly ridiculous, given that reputable polling firms do not reveal the identities of those they question about their voting preferences.

It’s all water over the proverbial dam anyway. Even if Moore manages to win the special election, I find if impossible for him to serve in the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — against whom Moore has declared political war — likely will not allow him to take the oath and then tar the Republican Party with his very presence on Capitol Hill.

I’m just saying that as the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States has shown us, the new normal in American politics has proven to be anything but normal.

local news, political news

Judicial turnover: part of the political process

Republicans in Congress aren’t the only politicians fleeing the unflinching glare of public service.

About a half-dozen Texas Republicans have announced they won’t seek re-election. I think the total of GOP lawmakers who won’t seek re-election numbers more than 20. There’s a smattering of national Democrats, too, who are bailing out of Congress.

Much closer to home, we’re seeing a similar exodus from the judicial bench. It’s producing the likelihood of a lively election season right here in Amarillo, Texas — in both Randall and Potter counties.

The outbound lane extends as well to Amarillo’s municipal court, where Judge Sonya Letson — a former Potter County attorney — has announced her intention to enter “quasi-retirement.” There will be no election there, since the City Council appoints the municipal judge.

But look at what’s occurring.

* Randall County Court at Law No.2 Judge Ronnie Walker is bowing out. He attracted three GOP challengers before he announced he wouldn’t seek another term, which makes me wonder: What did the judge do — or not do — to attract such a crowded field of challengers?

* Potter County Court at Law No. 1 Judge Corky Roberts is retiring, too. A Republican primary field of replacement candidates is lining up to succeed him.

* Potter County Court at Law No. 2 Judge Pam Sirmon is bailing out as well. Her office is likely to attract plenty of ballot action when the GOP primary occurs next spring.

Even though I am not a big fan of electing judges — especially on partisan ballots — I am going to be fascinated to see how this field of contenders will seek to say they are the best choices for voters.

The rule of thumb in Texas has been — as I’ve witnessed it for more than 30 years covering these offices — that incumbents rarely draw opposition. When a vacancy occurs, then all bets are off.

Many lawyers I’ve known over the years have aspired to be judges. One of the more interesting answers I ever got from a judicial candidate came from lawyer Ana Estevez, who was running for a district court judgeship in Amarillo. Estevez was born in South America. I mention that because I asked her about her political aspirations. “I can’t become the president of the United States,” she said, ” so I want to be named as a justice on the Supreme Court.”

She is not bashful.

Let the 2018 campaigning begin. I do love Election Season … even when it includes judge races.

medical news

Senate GOP makes yet another run at the ACA

Here we go … again!

U.S. Senate Republicans have come up with a scheme to pay for the big tax cut they’re trying to enact that involves the Affordable Care Act. They want to repeal the individual mandate portion of the ACA, which they say will save more than $300 billion over the next decade.

The savings would be used to pay for the tax cuts being pitched for many wealthy Americans.

This is so very maddening, in my ever-so-humble view.

Congress trying again to repeal ACA

Congress has been unable to repeal the ACA and replace it. The president has been unable push his Republican pals across the finish line. They have tried and failed since long before Donald Trump took office as president of the United States.

Now comes this bit of Senate trickery: attach the individual mandate repeal to a tax cut they say would jumpstart the economy. Moreover, is anyone on Capitol Hill or the White House worried any longer about the national debt and our annual budget deficit, which economists say are going to explode under the GOP tax cut?

I want to make a couple of points.

One is that the economy is rocking along just fine. The U.S. Labor Department announced earlier this month that non-farm payrolls jumped by 260,000 jobs in October; the unemployment rate is at its lowest rate in 17 years. Not bad, man!

Two, enrollment for the ACA is moving along at a brisk pace. Hundreds of thousands more Americans signed up for insurance when open enrollment began at the beginning of the month, despite the president’s efforts to undermine the ACA.

I remain totally opposed to any wholesale repeal of the ACA. I continue to insist that it can be improved. It can be made more affordable. 

Removing the individual mandate — which requires Americans to purchase health insurance or face a penalty — is certain to do one thing: It will toss millions of Americans off the rolls of the insured.

How is that supposed to help?

national news, political news

How can this guy possibly serve?

Texas’ two U.S. senators, both Republicans, have turned their backs on a GOP candidate who wants to join their august body.

John Cornyn has joined Ted Cruz in saying that Roy Moore of Alabama is not fit to serve in the Senate. They say the accusations against him by women who accuse him of improper sexual advances when they were girls are deal breakers.

Senate support vanishes

Get out of the race, Roy Moore! they are saying. Moore is having none of it. He continues to stand his ground. He says the women are liars. He blames Democrats and the liberal “fake media” for making these stories up. He says he “generally” didn’t date teenage girls when he was a 30-something lawyer; that is some denial, eh?

Senate leaders are bailing left and right from Moore. They don’t want him in the Senate. One Republican senator, Jeff Flake of Arizona, now supports Moore’s Democratic opponent, Alabama lawyer and former federal prosecutor Doug Jones.

This arcs back to my fundamental question: How in the world can this clown possibly serve in the Senate?

Moore is in it for the duration, or so he says. Time will tell. The Alabama special election is still about a month away.

Maybe this individual might realize what the rest of us already know: There is no way he can serve the people back home if he manages to get elected to the U.S. Senate.

national news

Moore scandal threatens to blow up GOP

The Roy Moore scandal is the gift that keeps on giving … for bloggers such as yours truly.

Moore well might get elected to the U.S. Senate — despite being accused of making improper sexual advances on several underage girls. His opponent is Democrat Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama; Moore is the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Here’s the latest and the greatest: Moore’s possible election could result in his being expelled by the Senate. Republicans don’t want anything to do with a guy who would take office under a sinister cloud of seedy suspicion.

Several GOP senators are calling for Moore to step down. They want him out of the campaign. The Senate’s main Republican, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, believes the accusers and says Moore needs to go … away!

Others are suggesting that the battle between McConnell and Moore symbolizes the ideological rift that is dividing the Republican Party. It’s the Establishment vs. the Outliers.

Expulsion is fraught with peril

Some GOP senators want to expel Moore. Others aren’t so sure that’s a good idea. Some are suggesting that any effort to expel Moore could energize his support in Alabama and propel him to victory over Jones.

I know I don’t have a vote, but I’ll just reiterate that Roy Moore shouldn’t be elected to the Senate, the accusations notwithstanding. He’s a crackpot religious zealot who doesn’t respect the secular nature of the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, Moore’s constant reciting of his “Christian values” on the campaign stump makes the accusations against him so damning and potentially damaging.

Moore insists he is staying in the race for the duration. It that’s the way it is going to be, then we’ll just have to let the battle continue — and let the gift just keep on giving.

political news

Say it ain’t so, Joe

It pains me to say this, but I must reiterate what I believe remains the case to this day.

Democrats need not look to old warhorses to salvage their political fortunes, which means to me that former Vice President Joe Biden shouldn’t be a candidate for his party’s presidential nomination in 2020.

I say this despite my affection and respect for the former vice president. I’ve long admired his tenacity, his passionate patriotism and his sense of collegiality and comity. He served in the U.S. Senate for 36 years before joining the Democratic Party ticket led in 2008 by his Senate colleague, Barack H. Obama.

I believe still that Democrats need to find a newcomer to the national scene. I believe also that the nation has become afflicted with Clinton Fatigue, which means Hillary Clinton also is out of the presidential political game.

It appears to me that Democrats would do well to look for someone who is as unknown to the public as Jimmy Carter was in 1976. The nation was starved back then for a fresh face and they got one when the former Georgia governor climbed to the top of the party’s primary fight.

Vice President Biden has said publicly that he hasn’t ruled out a 2020 run. He was thought to be a possible candidate in 2016, but at the end had to stand down, given his intense grief over the death of his son Beau and his inability to commit fully to a presidential campaign.

Biden has been openly critical of Donald John Trump. Hmmm. Imagine that. So have many others. The ex-VP has spoken out strongly, much like another former veep — Dick Cheney — did during much of President Obama’s time in office.

But I don’t believe a Biden presidential campaign is going to serve the party well. Democrats would do well to find a fresh face, with fresh ideas to challenge a Republican Party that has been hijacked by a president who came into power knowing not a damn thing about how to govern the greatest nation on Earth.

national news, political news

Roy Moore’s non-denial adds to suspicion

Roy Moore is getting buried under a pile of political doo-doo.

The Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Alabama is trying to fend off accusations that he made an improper and illegal sexual advance on a 14-year-old girl in 1979; Moore was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney at the time of the alleged incident.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate are calling for Moore to quit the campaign. Democrats, too, but that’s no surprise.

Now comes this strange non-denial from Moore, a champion of the morally strict wing of the GOP. Questions have arisen in the past two days or so that Moore was fond of dating high school students when he was a grown man, a 30-something lawyer. How did Moore respond to that accusation?

By saying that he didn’t date those young girls “as a general rule.”

Huh? What the hey? As a general rule? What in the world does that mean? Did he date the girls on occasion?

I believe therein might lie the problem with Moore’s response to these allegations. Congressional Republicans are placing greater value in the accusations that have come from several women who’ve backed the initial allegation leveled by Leigh Corfman, who’s now 53 years of age. Those accusations are more credible, they say, than Moore’s strange denial.

For the life of me I don’t know how this guy can serve in the Senate if he manages to win the election on Dec. 12 against Democratic opponent Doug Jones.

Republican leaders in the Senate don’t want anything to do with this guy.

But he’s hanging on. He’s planning to finish this campaign. He calls the allegations a hit job by Democrats and the “fake news” media that are reporting it.

I believe he should quit the campaign.

Then he should disappear from public life.

national news

What might happen if Roy Moore actually wins?

It’s quite possible — if not probable — that Alabama voters next month are going to send an accused pedophile to the U.S. Senate.

Democrats are all a-flutter because their candidate, state Attorney General Doug Jones, has pulled even — and actually leads in some polls — in his race against Roy Moore, the guy who’s been accused of making sexual advances on underage girls back in the late 1970s.

But we’re talking about blood-red Alabama, where Republicans seemingly have to drool on themselves in public to get rejected by that state’s voters.

The question: What kind of reception would a Sen.-elect Moore get on Capitol Hill?

Many of his fellow Republicans are pulling their endorsement of him. Others have said that “if the allegations are true” he should pull out of the race. Even other GOP senators, such as Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, say Moore should quit the race now.

The Republican Party doesn’t want to be associated with someone operating under such a sinister, seedy and sordid cloud. Believe me when I say that. It’s a given as well that Democrats detest this guy.

Moreover, I am not sure how Moore plans to stay in this race for the duration if more of his possible GOP colleagues keep bailing on him.

So, what if he wins on Dec. 12? My sense is that he’ll be the loneliest Senate freshman perhaps in the history of the “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.” He’ll get crappy committee assignments. He won’t be invited to cloak room get-togethers. Senators won’t want to be seen in public with one of their own who has stands accused of some pretty vile behavior.

There’s also the possibility that he won’t be allowed to take the oath of office. The Senate has a provision that could call for his removal before he even takes the oath. That, of course, requires maximum courage by the Senate leadership. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called the allegations deeply disturbing. He is one of those who said Moore should quit the race if the allegations are true.

I don’t get a vote in this race, of course. I’m only allowed to spout off from my perch out here in Texas, several hundred miles away from Alabama. You know my thoughts already on Roy Moore.

I’m just saying that if Alabama voters are foolish enough to elect this clown, they’re going to send someone to Washington who very likely won’t be able to do a single thing on their behalf.

national news, political news

Political presumption differs from the judicial

They’re bailing rapidly from Roy Moore’s political campaign.

I refer to the Republicans in the U.S. Senate where Moore wants to serve. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is the latest GOP senator to withdraw his political support for the embattled Alabama Republican nominee seeking to join the Senate.

Moore has this problem. A woman has accused him of making an improper sexual advance toward her when she was just 14 years old. That was in 1979 and Moore at the time was a 32-year-old district attorney.

There have been no criminal charges filed against the former state Supreme Court chief justice. Indeed, the statute of limitations prohibits a criminal complaint against Moore.

However, there’s this political element that has no statutory limit. That is where Moore is facing some seriously deep doo-doo.

No self-respecting Republican wants to serve with someone who must fend off these allegations. Never mind the Senate Democrats; they don’t want him in the Senate just because he is a Republican.

Sen. Cassidy’s decision to bail on Moore illustrates the huge — and still growing — problem the Alabama politician is facing.

Reason would dictate that Moore is going to lose the December special election contest against Democratic Alabama Attorney General Doug Jones. These are not reasonable times, though. I mean, after all, we elected a carnival barker as president of the United States a year ago.

Is it fair for a politician to be presumed guilty of doing something terribly stupid and likely illegal? Not if you balance it against how we treat criminal defendants.

However, we aren’t dealing with a criminal justice issue. In the rough-and-tumble world of hardball politics, Roy Moore is being forced to deal with a harsh reality.

International news

Put, ‘er, blame America first?

Donald J. Trump pledged to “put America first” while he ran for the presidency.

It sold his pitch along the campaign trail. Guess what? He is governing under a policy of “blaming America first.”

The president is in Asia. He went to the People’s Republic of China and praised the Chinese government for “taking advantage” of the United States in piling up a huge trade surplus with this country. He also pledged to end that trend and vowed to restore some semblance of trade balance between the two economic powers.

Still, he blamed U.S. trade policy.

Then he ventured to Vietnam to attend a summit of foreign leaders. He shook hands with Vladimir Putin, who told the president — allegedly! — that the Russian government did not interfere with the U.S. presidential election in 2016. Trump accepted Putin’s assertion at face value.

When the Russian strongman says something, he “means it,” according to Trump. Oh, but what about the intelligence agencies who say the opposite, that the Russians did interfere and hacked into our electoral system? Trump calls former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper “political hacks.”

What the hell … 

He’s blaming America first, not “putting America first.”

I’m old enough to remember the 1984 GOP presidential nominating convention. The keynote speech at that event came from Jeane Kirkpatrick, the nation’s United Nations ambassador. She brought the house down by chastising who she called the “San Francisco Democrats” who were all too willing to “blame America first.”

I’m trying to imagine how the late ambassador would react to a president of her own party doing the very thing for which she once blistered the Democratic Party.