business news, national news, political news

Ethanol subsidy argument runs into principle

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Oh, this might sting a little, but I’m going to speak well of the Cruz Missile, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

The freshman Republican senator from Texas stunned the political world Monday by defeating 10 other candidates in the GOP caucus in Iowa.

What is most fascinating — to me, at least — was that he did so while standing behind a principle that runs counter to the corn growers of Iowa.

There happens to be a lot of them in the Hawkeye State.

Cruz opposes federal subsidies to produce ethanol, a bio-fuel made with corn. He argued the case fervently as he traipsed through Iowa’s 99 counties. Cruz’s opposition to ethanol subsidies drew the wrath — and it’s not too strong a word — of Gov. Terry Branstad, the Republican who urged Iowans to vote for anyone but Cruz.

I have to give huge props to Cruz for standing firm.

The primaries occur in individual states that have specific issues, needs and interests. The common tactic for presidential candidates is to waltz into a state and talk positively about those issues. Cruz didn’t do that as it regards ethanol. He opposes them and told Iowans that very thing, to their face.

I have no clue about how many votes his opposition to the subsidies might have cost him. It might be that had he waffled on his stance against the subsidies that he would have finished farther ahead of the field than he did.

But he didn’t.

Has this guy changed my mind about him? Would I vote for him if hell freezes over and the Republican Party nominates him for president? What do you think.

Still, when someone stands on a principle when it threatened to torpedo his political ambition, well, that’s cause for a salute.

I am glad Sen. Cruz stood firm.

 

business news, local news

Timing creates strange juxtaposition

downtownamarilloinc1

The great baseball slugger Ted Williams used to say that “timing is everything” in hitting a baseball.

Thus, the timing of Amarillo’s announcement that it is filling some key administrative positions seems a bit curious.

Why? Well, the city just decided to absorb some key economic development duties, wresting them from Downtown Amarillo Inc., the non-profit agency that has developed a stellar track record in the revival of the city’s downtown district.

So, with the city still lacking individuals filling key administrative posts, it decided to bite off a huge chunk of responsibility from an agency that had been led by someone who’s an expert in the duties that City Hall now wants to take on.

DAI executive director Melissa Dailey is out of the picture. She quit her job this past week on the day before the City Council voted to place those economic duties in the hands of City Hall staffers.

A friend of mine noted on social media today that DAI “is a lot better at that sort of thing. Too bad our City Council is too shortsighted to realize that.”

Yes, it does strike me as curious that the city — which lost its city manager, its assistant city manager, city attorney and utilities director all in the span of a few weeks — would seek to take on an enormous task that had been done so well by another agency.

It’s the timing, man.

 

military news, Uncategorized

Indeed, women should register for the draft

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This almost seems like an oversight on the part of the Pentagon brass.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter declared a year ago that women should be able to serve in the combat arms of all military services.

But wait! They don’t yet have to register for the draft the way their male colleagues have to do.

The Marine Corps commandant and the Army chief of staff have testified before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that, yes, women should be required to register with Selective Service.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a member of the panel, agreed.

Generals testify

So, didn’t they think of this earlier, when they were deliberating in the Pentagon about allowing women to serve in direct combat? Women now are able to serve in the infantry, armor and artillery branches — the three combat arms — of the armed forces.

However, if we’re going to extend full equality to both genders, then we need to go all the way.

We don’t have a draft any longer. It ended in the early 1970s during the last years of the Vietnam War. Despite having an all-volunteer military force, young men have had to register for Selective Service in case there would be a need to call them into military duty.

With women now joining men on the battlefield as soldiers and Marines, it’s time to sign them up, too.

 

national news, political news

Clinton wins Iowa . . . finally!

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There you have it.

The Associated Press has declared Hillary Clinton the winner of the Iowa Democratic caucus.

Now she can declare victory, which she did — albeit a bit prematurely — Monday night.

It’s a victory without much actual meaning, though, if you think much about it.

The former first lady/U.S. senator/secretary of state once held a commanding lead over U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa. Then it vanished. Sanders began gaining traction with his progressive/populist message. He had those big crowds, remember?

So it ended Monday night with Sanders trailing Clinton by two-tenths of a percentage point. She won about four more state delegates than Sanders.

Yes, she won. Will it matter in New Hampshire, or in South Carolina or anywhere else? Probably not.

I am one of those who thought Clinton would be unstoppable. The Democrats would nominate her by acclamation at their Philly convention and she’d breeze to election in November, making history as the nation’s first female president.

She still might be impossible to stop. She’s got a party machine behind her. And, oh yes, she’s got her husband, the 42nd president, also campaigning for her.

Say what you will about former President Clinton, he remains to this very day the nation’s most formidable political figure.

However, this campaign is going to be a lot tougher than Hillary Clinton ever imagined.

Her victory was hard-earned. Then again, she wasn’t supposed to work this hard to get it.

national news, political news

Trump was the biggest loser

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Donald J. Trump doesn’t like to be called what he calls others.

Loser.

This morning, though, he is.

The real estate mogul/reality TV personality finished second last night to Ted Cruz in the Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa. Cruz the Carpet Bomber knocked Trump down to second place by 3 or so percentage points.

It might be that Trump’s larger embarrassment — if he’s capable of feeling it — is that third-place finisher Marco Rubio damn near caught him.

Two junior U.S. senators — Cruz from Texas and Rubio from Florida — put Trump into a kind of a political fecal sandwich, which ought to have taken some of the swagger out of Trump’s campaign strut.

Ought to, yes?

Well, time will tell us pretty quickly whether it did.

Trump is heading to New Hampshire to carry on his GOP primary campaign, right along with Cruz, who vanquished him in Iowa and Rubio, who almost did.

I still don’t believe Rubio should have sounded so, um, victorious last night as he crowed about his third-place finish. Cruz and Rubio still finished ahead of him.

However, there are ways to spin this in a way that should give Trump plenty of pause as he marches on.

I am not going to speculate on what might have caused Trump’s failure to finish first, which he all but guaranteed. His stiffing of the Fox News debate? His phony pandering to evangelicals? His continuing insults to just about anyone who disagrees with him? The absolute absence of a sophisticated policy — on anything?

It might be one of those things. Or all of them. Or, perhaps, none of them. There might have been just a visceral dislike for a guy whose glitzy New York style just doesn’t play well with the corn-fed Middle Americans who comprise Iowa’s voting  population.

The next chapter in in this saga is about to unfold.

On to New Hampshire!

national news, political news

Nice seeing you, Iowa; on to New Hampshire!

iowa_caucus

I’ve just shaken the dust loose from a night’s sleep and discovered the results of last night’s Iowa caucuses.

Two things jump out at me.

First, Ted Cruz’s victory well might be a hollow one for the Republican Party.

Second, Hillary Clinton didn’t win a thing last night.

Cruz thumped Donald J. Trump — yes, thumped — with a pretty convincing victory in the Republican caucus. Sure, a 4-point win isn’t yuuuge in conventional terms, but this ain’t a conventional election season.

Trump has boasted all those glowing poll numbers and all but guaranteed — a la Broadway Joe — a victory. His two-minute concession speech last night spoke volumes, though, about what happened.

The evangelical vote turned out for Cruz. They came “home” to Cruz, who’s really one of them, unlike Trump, who pretended to be one of ’em.

Why might a Cruz win in Iowa portend trouble for the GOP? He is a patently unlikable man, according to those who work with him in the U.S. Senate. He seems like a dedicated family guy; he might even be someone you’d want to talk to informally.

However, he talks a bit too brazenly about “carpet bombing” the Islamic State and putting “boots on the ground” in the Middle East.

OK, he makes me uncomfortable. That’s clear. It’s my own bias, which I admit to readily.

Hillary Clinton’s victory declaration was hollow.

Clinton declared victory. Is that right? How can she do that? She was tied with Bernie Sanders in the Democratic caucus.

If anyone can declare a “moral victory,” it would be Sanders, the indy/Democrat from Vermont who once trailed Clinton by a zillion percent in the polls. Yet he finished with nearly as many votes and delegates as she did.

Sanders now takes his “big mo” to New Hampshire, which is next door to Vermont. He’ll win there. Then the road show heads for South Carolina.

Clinton had better hope she keeps Sanders within sight as they move into the Deep South. She’ll need the African-American vote to put her over the top as the campaign then moves into some serious regional primary contests, which include Texas, in early March.

Honestly, I was hoping some of the other Republicans would do better. I am pulling for John Kasich to snap out of it; I once had hope that Jeb Bush might get ‘er goin’.

Oh yes, Marco Rubio? He declared victory, too, on the GOP side. He finished third. But that was good enough in young Marco’s mind to declare that he’s the man to beat.

Memo to Marco: You have to get more votes and delegates than anyone else to make that claim.

One final thought: All this analysis of Iowa might not matter.

If the Iowa caucuses are supposed to gauge the mood of the country, then we would have had President Huckabee or President Santorum watching all of this from the Oval Office.

It’s a marathon, folks. The candidates have just made the first turn.

national news, political news

Martin, we hardly knew ye

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How frustrating it must be for Martin O’Malley.

The former mayor of Baltimore and former governor of Maryland didn’t register among Iowa Democrats tonight in that state’s presidential caucus.

All that effort. All the time spent. All the posturing and preening one must do to get people’s attention when you run for president is all for naught. Nothin’, man.

O’Malley is going to “suspend” his campaign, which means it’s over. Suspension of campaigns is political-speak that enables candidates to keep raising money to pay off debts incurred for their failed efforts.

O’Malley couldn’t outshout Bernie Sanders or outspend Hillary Clinton. So, he’s about to be gone from the campaign.

His departure won’t matter much. Clinton and Sanders will fight it out between them.

You know what? To be brutally honest, I cannot think of a single landmark issue that set O’Malley apart. Clinton’s toughness and hawkish foreign policy has become her key point; Sanders’ battering of Wall Street and his call for wage equality have become his signature issues.

O’Malley was just the third candidate in the ring.

He will spin it positively, of course, as politicians do.

The frustration, and the pain, must hurt.

 

local news, media news

Feeling more ‘retired’ these days

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This is the latest in an occasional series of blogs commenting on upcoming retirement.

I’ve mentioned already that I have assumed a new status at one of the four part-time jobs I’ve been working during the past year.

The new on-call/as-needed status means that I’m spending more time at home working my three other jobs, all of which allow me to work from my study.

One of them does require that I leave the house to interview subjects for news stories I write.

But here’s what I’ve discovered about this new phase of my life as I inch toward full retirement: I like the untethered feeling.

What’s more, I’m getting more comfortable with it.

Yes, I have errands to run and things to do around the house. I get to keep posting items on this blog, which gives me great joy as I’m able to comment on this and that.

These days, though, my wife and I spend a good deal of time talking to each other about our future. The conversations almost always involve spending more time with grandchildren, traveling in our recreational vehicle, sprucing up our home and just feeling good these days about our lot in life.

I’m not yet ready to jettison the rest of my jobs. They all involve journalism, which for decades — while I was working full time for The Man — defined me to my friends and acquaintances. It doesn’t define me that much these days, which is the way I want it to be. Still, my work with two TV stations in Amarillo and a weekly newspaper in New Mexico give me great pleasure.

My former career is getting much smaller in that proverbial rear-view mirror. That’s all right, too.

Life is good.

 

legal news

Let’s just call him ‘Silent Clarence’

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I actually thought it had been longer than a mere decade since Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had asked a question during oral arguments before the nation’s highest court.

Nope. It’s only been 10 years.

The New York Times article attached here spells out what Justice Thomas has settled on as his reason for remaining silent.

It’s discourteous, he told the Times.

Discourteous? You mean if a lawyer says something that you believe needs clarification, but none of your court colleagues wants to seek some clarity, that you don’t want to be rude by asking the lawyer a question?

I don’t quite get that.

On second thought, it makes no sense at all.

Justice Thomas was President George H.W. Bush’s pick in 1991 to serve on the court. He succeeded perhaps one of the most argumentative men ever to serve there, the late Justice Thurgood Marshall, who earned his Supreme Court spurs by arguing successfully before the court on the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision that ended desegregation in public schools.

President Lyndon Johnson made history by appointing Marshall to the court in 1967, making him the first African-American to serve there.

Justice Thomas is a decidedly different type of high court jurist, both in judicial philosophy and temperament, apparently, than the man he succeeded.

I believe President Bush offered a serious overestimation of Clarence Thomas when he called him the “most qualified man” to sit on the high court.

That said, Thomas has been true to his conservative principles over the past quarter century.

As for the next time he asks a question of a lawyer, you can be sure the media will make a big deal of it.

 

medical news, national news

‘Moonshot’ cancer initiative must go beyond Obama years

Vice President Joe Biden points at President Barack Obama during the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

Why do I get this nagging knot in my gut that President Obama’s so-called “moonshot” effort to find a cure for cancer isn’t getting enough attention on an important aspect of it?

It will have to continue long past the day that Barack Obama leaves the White House for the final time as president.

He turned to Vice President Biden during his State of the Union speech and made Biden the leader of the effort to find a cure for cancer. The president now wants to commit $1 billion toward that goal.

But the 44th president has less than a year to go. There won’t be a cure found before he leaves office. Who’s going to keep fighting that fight? Who’s going to lead the effort?

Would it be Biden, who leaves office the same day as Barack Obama? It ought to be.

We all know someone who’s been affected by this killer. Many of us have endured treatment and therapy ourselves.

There’s certain to be opposition to the president’s call for such a major expenditure. My hope is that we can muster the kind of national will that we managed to find for the actual moonshot initiative launched by President Kennedy in 1961.

According to The Hill: “In any type of major ambitious efforts, unless you set your sights high, you’re almost guaranteed to not get to the type of success that we all want,” an administration official said. “There’s a reason the vice president is aspiring big, it’s the only way we’re going to push the envelope and make this kind of progress.”

True enough. This project, though, is going to require a lot of attention that must persist long after the current administration leaves office.

Whoever succeeds Barack Obama has to commit with the same fervor to the fight to cure cancer.

One demonstration of that commitment would be to keep Joe Biden on the job.

 

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