political news, State news

Texas GOP at war with itself

texas-republican

Do you want to see a prime example of how badly fractured the Republican Party has become?

Take a look at the fight for the Texas Republican Party chairmanship.

This is an amazing development.

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2016/05/challenger-for-texas-gop-chairman-says-incumbent-promotes-disgusting-homosexual-agenda.html

State GOP Chairman Tom Mechler has been accused of promoting a “disgusting homosexual agenda.” The accusation comes from supporters of Jared Woodfill, a Houston GOP activist who’s challenging Mechler for the party chairmanship.

Why is this so amazing?

Well, I happen to know Mechler. He hails from Armstrong County. He’s a Panhandle guy who is as conservative a politician as one can imagine. I consider Mechler to be a friend and, take my word for it, he doesn’t exactly line up with gay-rights activists’ world view.

The Texas GOP had the temerity to allow a gay and lesbian group to set up a booth at the upcoming state Republican convention. Does that constitute a “disgusting homosexual agenda”? I do not believe it does.

What it constitutes is a recognition that Texas comprises a wide array of individuals who have differing orientations.

That’s it.

Mechler is putting some distance between himself and the gay-rights group. According to the Dallas Morning News: “Mechler said he had nothing to do with the decision to allow the group, the Metroplex Republicans, to have a booth at the state GOP convention.”

Just as the national Republican Party is fighting among itself, the Texas GOP is exposing deep fissures within its own ranks.

The ultra-uber conservative wing of the Texas GOP is tossing out the “RINO” epithet at Mechler, who is the farthest thing possible from being a “Republican In Name Only.”

Believe me when I say this: Tom Mechler is a true-blue Republican believer. He’s the real thing.

 

State news

Lt. Gov. Patrick renews inappropriate intervention

3 Comments

Patrick-Scribner

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick hasn’t yet given up his interventionist strategy.

He’s continuing to insist that a local Texas school district superintendent step down because he’s doing something with which the lieutenant governor disagrees.

Patrick is off base.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/10/superintendent-wont-resign-over-transgender-bathro/

The issue is Fort Worth school superintendent Kent Scribner’s decision to allow transgender boys to use girls’ restrooms.

I am going to continue to insist that Patrick’s intervention flouts the traditional Republican philosophy that calls for greater local control  and fewer mandates handed down by the state.

Scribner today refused to quit, as Patrick has demanded. There’s no word yet from the elected school board that selected Scribner to run the school system on what it intends to do.

I’ll take a leap here and presume that Scribner is acting with the blessing of those who hired him.

Does that constitute a reason for the man who presides over the Texas Senate to weigh in on how a local school district should handle an internal administrative matter?

Not by a long shot.

Patrick went to Fort Worth today to say that Scribner broke state law by enacting the transgender policy. OK, so what if he did?

The school board should act independently of whatever the second-ranking state official thinks.

This issue is none of Lt. Gov. Patrick’s business.

 

media news, national news, political news

Let the horse-race … coverage … continue

2 Comments

polls

If you thought the media have done a terrible job of reporting on politics and policy — relying too heavily on polls — get ready for what’s to come.

The coverage is going to get worse.

The upcoming presidential campaign between Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Donald J. Trump is going to fill us to the brim with news about the “horse race.”

We’re going to be listening to evening news reports that will begin with coverage of the latest polls.

Trump has fed that narrative repeatedly during his amazing — and stunningly surprising — march to the GOP nomination. He takes the podium and blusters about his standing in the polls. The media cover it. Why? Because the public wants it.

Trump dismisses polls that show him trailing. He trumpets polls that show him standing tall over his fallen competitors.

And, yep, the media continue to cover it.

Look at me! I’m devoting an entire blog post to the coverage of polling in this upcoming campaign.

I’ve taken the bait. Swallowed it. Damn near choked on it, for crying out loud.

I am hoping we start paying more careful attention to what these candidates are going to say about things that matter. Policy stuff matters.

Foreign policy counts. Domestic policy affects our lives. Taxes. The environment. Economic policy. Those are the things that should have us riveted on this campaign.

They won’t. The media will continue to report on polls. Who’s up? Who’s down? Election probability will be the No. 1 topic of every news cycle — which, of course, has become a 24/7 phenomenon.

Let’s all get ready for a wild ride.

 

legal news, media news, political news, State news

Texas AG slams door on transparency

paxton

Ken Paxton’s tenure as Texas attorney general has gotten off to a rocky start.

First, a Collin County grand jury indicted the Republican politician on charges of securities fraud, accusing him of failing to report income he derived from giving investment advice to a friend. The Securities and Exchange Commission followed suit with a complaint of its own.

Bad start, man.

Then the attorney general accepts the resignations of two top aides and agrees to keep paying them. What’s worse in this case, according to the Dallas Morning News, is that the AG isn’t explaining why he’s continuing to pay the ex-staffers.

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/20160509-editorial-ken-paxton-should-answer-our-reporters-questions.ece

The Morning News accuses Paxton of bullying the newspaper’s reporters who keep asking questions about the payments. He’s not willing to explain why he’s using these particular public funds in this manner.

The newspaper has blistered Paxton in an editorial. It demands, correctly in my view, that he hold his office — and himself — accountable for the actions he has taken regarding the resignations of these individuals.

The Morning News asks a pertinent question, noting that state law allows public agencies to grant paid leave when it finds “good cause” to do so. Paxton decided to categorize their departure as paid leave, thus justifying the continued payments to folks who no longer work for the state. The paper asks: What’s the good cause? The attorney general isn’t saying.

The paper offers this bit of advice to the public as it ponders the AG’s behavior: “Voters should take note.”

 

political news, State news

Local control? Who needs it in Fort Worth?

dan patrick

What am I missing here?

Don’t statewide elected officials in Texas — all of whom are Republicans — tell us they prefer to let locals control their affairs? Get a load of this tidbit.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wants Fort Worth Independent School District Superintendent Kent Scribner to resign. He’s demanding it, by golly.

Why? Scribner has drafted guidelines regarding transgender students in the district.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/09/patrick-wants-fort-worth-superintendent-resign/

According to Patrick, Scribner has gone off the rails with this transgender matter.

I believe I’ll set aside the correctness or wrongness of Scribner’s view on dealing with transgender students. My issue here is whether the state’s lieutenant governor should pressure a local school superintendent chosen by a duly elected local school board to quit his job.

Lt. Gov. Patrick should butt out. How a major Texas school district decides to run its affairs is solely the province of its elected trustees.

The Texas Tribune reports: “‘After less than a year as superintendent, Dr. Scribner has lost his focus and thereby his ability to lead the Fort Worth ISD,’ Patrick said in a statement. ‘He has placed his own personal political agenda ahead of the more than 86,000 students attending 146 schools in the district by unilaterally adopting ‘Transgender Student Guidelines.'”

Interesting, don’t you think?

Patrick said the superintendent has “placed his own personal political agenda ahead” of the needs of students. Isn’t that what Patrick is doing now, by demanding that a local school superintendent step down?

This issue should be decided by the constituents in Fort Worth who elect the school board, which in turn appoints the district’s chief executive officer.

Lt. Gov. Patrick’s primary job is to preside over the Texas Senate and to guide legislation through the Legislature’s upper chamber. It should not include telling local officials how to conduct their own business.

 

political news

Liberal offers an instructive scolding to liberals

1 Comment

diversity

When a conservative scolds liberals about being intolerant, one can chalk it up to sour grapes or to the bias of the person doing the scolding.

The same can be said when the roles are reversed.

However, when a liberal scolds liberals — or when a conservative scolds his or her brethren — that gets people’s attention.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has offered an interesting lecture about liberal intolerance.

Here it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html?_r=0

He says liberal thinkers are none too tolerant of conservative thinkers on our nation’s higher education campuses. The intolerance undercuts liberals’ time-honored call for greater “diversity” of thought.

Hmmm. He’s suggesting that liberals want diversity as long as it agrees with their world view.

College and university campuses have erupted over many years when administrators invite conservatives to speak at, say, convocations or commencement exercises. Kristof’s essay talks about the reluctance of higher ed institutions to hire conservatives as faculty members.

Even in politically conservative regions, such as the Texas Panhandle, we’ve seen similar reactions to the presence of conservatives on college campuses.

Do you remember the mini-uproar that boiled up years ago when West Texas A&M University invited Karl Rove — the architect of President George W. Bush’s winning campaigns — to speak at an event honoring WT graduates? Some faculty officials disliked having Rove speak to the students.

Universities ought to welcome, embrace, even solicit differing — and diverse — points of view.

According to Kristof, though, they’ve become havens for liberal/progressive thinkers who dislike mingling with those on the other side of the fence.

Message received, Mr. Kristof.

 

environmental news

Bison get new, exalted status

bison

Let us take a break from partisan politics for a moment and talk briefly about something that ought to warm our hearts.

The bison has been named the national mammal of the United States of America, to which I offer a hearty “bravo!”

President Obama has signed the National Bison Legacy Act into law. This new designation does not remove the bald eagle from its standing as the national symbol. It does give the bison some added standing as the national mammal, which is a good thing, considering what human beings did to the grand creature during much of the 19th century.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/north-american-bison-national-mammal-us-222975

We’ve all studied American history enough to know how humans slaughtered the great herds on which Native Americans depended for food, clothing and shelter. Bison would roam the prairies in vast numbers. Millions of them galloped across the High Plains, for example.

Humans killed so many of them that their numbers were decimated to fewer than 1,000 or so head of wild beasts by the turn of the 20th century.

They’ve come back. Thankfully.

Several hundred thousand of them now are being raised on ranches and farms. Thousands more roam on public lands. Why, we’ve even received some of them at Caprock Canyons State Park in the Texas Panhandle, where the herd is doing quite well, according to Texas Parks & Wildlife officials.

I’m glad that Congress and the president saw fit to honor the glorious beast with this national mammal designation.

Fans of the bald eagle need not worry about the national symbol, though. It, too, was nearly killed off until the government banned the use of the pesticide DDT, from which the great birds were dying because they were eating fish that had been poisoned by the chemical.

So, what’s next? Designation of the national reptile? I have a suggestion: the alligator, which has made a dramatic comeback of its own along the Gulf Coast.

Meantime, let the buffalo — ‘er bison — roam.

 

 

national news, political news, State news

‘We let bygones be bygones’

Perry_presser_photoTT_jpg_800x1000_q100

I generally like the craft of politics and, yes, I like some of those who practice the craft.

One of the aspects of politics, though, is the ease with which politicians can set aside amazingly hurtful comments they make about each other to pursue newfound friendships and alliances.

Take the case of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party, Donald J. Trump.

I would have bet real American money that the two men truly detested each other after hearing Perry skin Trump alive with comments about the real estate mogul being a “cancer on conservatism.”

Not long after that, Perry dropped out of the GOP primary race and then endorsed the formerly “cancerous” Trump’s bid for president.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/06/perry-defends-trump-endorsement/

According to the Texas Tribune: “We are competitors, and so the rhetoric is in the heat of battle. It’s in the chaos of a presidential bid,” Perry said, also noting his criticism of Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign. “If no one doesn’t understand that, then they don’t understand how our process of elections work. We compete, and then we let bygones by bygones.”

I guess Perry deserves credit for being a good sport. So, too, does Trump for accepting the Perry endorsement.

The things they say to and about each other, though, do seem to cross some imaginary boundary of decency.

I look back at the 2000 contest for the U.S. Senate seat in New York. The Democratic Party nominee for that seat was none other than first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. I considered it astonishing then that Clinton would want to serve in the legislative body with senators who actually voted to convict her husband of charges brought against him in that impeachment.

It also astounded me, after she won the seat, that Clinton managed to form constructive working relationships with her Republican Senate colleagues, who, you’ll recall, voted to convict President Clinton of the charges brought against him.

I didn’t think she’d run for the Senate seat. Nor did I believe she could ever trust her GOP colleagues as far as she could throw them.

I’m left to ask myself: Could I ever let “bygones be bygones” and throw in with former adversaries?

Umm. No.

 

State news

Texas getting special attention these days

texas

Manny Fernandez has written a fascinating essay for the New York Times about Texas.

He seems to like living here. Indeed, he is not alone in being attracted to Texas, as the state’s population is growing rapidly. We aren’t likely to catch California any time soon, but the number of Texans is now approaching 30 million.

Here’s the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/us/what-makes-texas-texas.html

As I read it Sunday, though, I was struck by something left out.

Fernandez talks extensively about how some Texans take their Texanhood so very seriously, even to the point of putting Texas soil under the bassinet of a newborn baby to ensure the baby’s Texas roots.

He didn’t mention how an anti-littering slogan coined in the 1980s has been morphed into a kind of macho mantra.

“Don’t Mess With Texas” came into being after the Texas General Land Office decided to make the state more conscious of litter and how it soils the landscape. (Note: The picture on the link does have a “Don’t Mess With Texas” sign in it.)

We can thank then-Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, on whose watch the slogan came to life.

Since then the slogan has come to mean something quite different in many people’s eyes. It’s come to mean that you don’t “mess with” the state at any level. Don’t disrespect us. Don’t insult us. Don’t make fun of us.

Don’t do this or that … or else we Texans will make you pay for it.

I have no particular problem with the Don’t Mess With Texas slogan as long as it is being used for its intended purpose, which is to admonish litterers to avoid tossing their empty beer cans or their used-up containers of Skoal onto our highways.

I wonder, though, if the Land Office ever envisioned it being perverted in the manner that it has over the years.

It’s also become, in addition to a kind of battle cry for Texans, grist for those who seek to belittle the state.

Sure, Texas is a special place. We’ve lived here for 32 years. We call it home — even if the right-wing politics here at times makes me a squirm just a little.

I encourage you to read the New York Times link. It spoke clearly to me as a Texas transplant who has learned about the state’s peculiar obsession with itself.

 

national news, political news

GOP walks tightrope with Trump at top of ballot

Republican hopeful Kelly Ayotte, former Attorney General of the State of New Hampshire, of Nashua, at a debate at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, N.H., Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010. The Republican hopefuls are running for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter)

You’ve heard the phrase, no doubt, of “a distinction without a difference.”

How does a politician “support” another politician without “endorsing” that individual?

This is one of the myriad dilemmas facing Republican pols across the nation as the party gets ready to nominate a certifiable huckster as its next nominee for president of the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/08/us/politics/trump-endorsements-congress-republicans-gop.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

I refer to Donald J. Trump as the huckster.

Some leading Republican politicians, though, are seeking to hedge their bets in occasionally awkward manners.

Consider the statement of U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the GOP senator from New Hampshire, who said she can “support” Trump but cannot “endorse” him.

Ayotte is facing a potentially difficult re-election effort as Democrats likely will send Gov. Jean Shaheen against her. Ayotte can’t take the full plunge by endorsing Trump but, by golly, she’s going to support him.

A distinction without a difference?

It looks that way to me.

Other leading Republicans are walking away from Trump. Still others are offering tepid support. Sure, some have endorsed the hotel mogul and reality TV celebrity; former campaign foes New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who once called Trump “unfit” for the presidency, and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who once called Trump a “cancer on conservatism” have endorsed him.

It’s the Ayotte caveat, though, that I find most intriguing.

I’ve been watching politics for nearly 40 years. I studied political science in college. I became engaged in the presidential election process starting around 1968, when I shook Sen. Robert Kennedy’s hand at a chance meeting one week before an assassin robbed us all of a chance to see if RFK could be elected president.

This truly is the first time I’ve witnessed such intraparty reticence to clutch the coattails of the presumed party presidential nominee.

But it’s there. It’s real.

Sure, Trump has appealed to millions of Americans who claim to be “angry” with politics as usual. This clown “tells it like it is,” supporters tell us, while they ignore — or laugh off — the abject crassness of his rhetoric and the tastelessness of his insults.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, another former primary campaign foe, said it well: “I just really believe that the Republican Party has been conned here, and this guy is not a reliable conservative Republican.”

Just today, on “Meet the Press,” Trump said he would consider raising taxes on wealthy Americans, which by my way of thinking runs utterly counter to standard Republican Party tax principles.

This is the problem facing Republicans across the country as they ponder their own political futures. How do they run with someone who says whatever pops into his head?

Or do they seek to split hairs as finely as they can by “supporting” him without “endorsing” him?

It is tough to be a Republican these days.

 

Commentary on politics, current events and life experience