Ohio pols take great interest in Alaska’s business

September 1, 2015 kanelis2012

Technically, I suppose, Ohio Republican politicians have a smidgen of vested interest in the renaming of North America’s highest peak.

Mount McKinley has been renamed Denali. The former name honored the late president, William McKinley, who — as luck would have it — hailed from Ohio. The new name is a native Alaska name used by the residents of the nation’s 49th state.

President Obama’s formal renaming changes the name of the peak on a federal registry of geographic locations. Therefore, I guess, it becomes a federal issue. Ohio politicians say they’re insulted by the renaming of the peak and want to take action in Congress to reverse the order.

Good grief, folks. Get a grip.

Alaska’s congressional delegation is all for the name change. And they’re all Republicans, too.

They’re the ones who look at Denali when they’re home. Sure enough, their constituents, get to ogle the 20,320-foot peak all the time.

Alaskans generally are agreeing with the name change.

So, what’s the deal with these Ohioans sticking their noses into something that — as a practical matter — is none of their damn business.

Butt out!

International news

Should pols care about polls?

September 1, 2015 kanelis2012

Politicians say all the time — sometimes boastfully — that they don’t care about public opinion polls.

My answer? They should care. Why? Because they represent the people being questioned by pollsters. Politicians aren’t supposed to operate in a vacuum. They’re supposed to understand what their constituents are thinking about critical issues of the day.

Let’s take the Iran nuclear deal … as an example.

A new poll shows Americans favor the deal worked out with other great powers that would prohibit Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. The University of Maryland survey says 55 percent of Americans favor the deal and want Congress to approve it.

Do politicians ignore the poll? Well, I guess one would have to examine the poll closely to see if it was done without bias and scientifically. Pollsters shouldn’t ask loaded questions aimed at generating desired responses.

All congressional Republicans appear to oppose the deal. Most Democrats appear to support it. Are they defying the poll results of constituents whose interests they represent?

According to The Hill: “The poll was conducted online, and the participants went through an in-depth process of listening to arguments from both sides. People were subjected to a detailed list of critiques of the agreement, followed by rebuttals to those arguments with reasons to get behind the deal.

“The most convincing criticisms focused on the lack of ‘anytime/anywhere’ inspections of Iranian facilities, the fact that limits on Iran’s nuclear development ‘will go away’ in 15 years and Iran’s ability to use the money that it receives under the deal to threaten regional security. A majority of Democrats said those arguments were either ‘somewhat’ or ‘very convincing.’

“’There is a lot of concern about key terms of the deal, especially the limits on inspections and the release of frozen funds to Iran,’ Steven Kull, director of the university’s Program for Public Consultation, said in a statement.”

It doesn’t appear, therefore, that this survey was designed to elicit the results it produced.

Do members of Congress accept and act on those poll results or do they proceed as if they know better than their bosses?

national news

Resign from your office, Kim Davis

September 1, 2015 kanelis2012

Consider this an open letter to Kim Davis, the rogue county clerk in Kentucky who thinks she’s above the law.

Madame Clerk, quit pretending you’re serving the people of Rowan County, Ky., your state and your nation.

You keep refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because, you say, God doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage.

But the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that gay couples are entitled to be married, just like straight couples. It ruled recently that you cannot keep refusing to issue the licenses to gay residents of your state. You still refuse. Hey, does that mean you’re in contempt of court?

I get that you’re invoking your religious liberty.

But your freedom to pray as you wish isn’t being threatened here. What’s at issue is whether you’re going to remain faithful to the secular oath you took when you became Rowan County clerk.

It says you will uphold the laws of the state and the nation. It doesn’t provide any qualifiers; there’s nothing in the oath that allows you to say “but only if those laws do not conflict with my religious beliefs.”

You adhere to all the laws or none of them. If you can’t do your job, then quit.

To be honest, I would salute if you did exactly that.

Kim Davis defies the high court

State news

Shooting statement falls far short

September 1, 2015 kanelis2012

President Obama isn’t tone deaf. He can’t be. He’s been elected twice to the highest office in the land and he did it with profound political savvy and insight.

Why, then, has he fallen woefully short in condemning the horrifying murder the other night of a Harris County sheriff’s deputy?

Darren Goforth was shot in the back as he pumped gas in his patrol car in Houston. He fell and the gunman then emptied his pistol into Goforth’s body.

A 30-year-old man, Shannon Miles, was apprehended a short time later and charged with capital murder.

That’s not the whole story.

Goforth was white. Miles is black. The president has been hair-trigger quick to condemn the shooting of young black men by white officers — as he should be. However, his statement on Goforth’s murder doesn’t measure up to the outrage he has expressed when police officers do the shooting.

The president needs to call for a federal investigation into whether the suspect — whose action was videotaped by surveillance cameras — was acting in response to the protests that have occurred in recent weeks by those condemning police activity. They’ve chanted “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em in bacon!”

The president did call Deputy Goforth’s wife to express his sympathy. He said in a statement that Goforth’s death is “unacceptable.” Gee, do ya think?

Come on, Mr. President. Re-dial your political radar. You need to use the bully pulpit of your high office to call attention to attacks on police officers who take an oath to protect and defend communities against the very people who would shoot them in the back.

International news

Who’s in charge of U.S. foreign policy?

September 1, 2015 kanelis2012

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., thinks it’s OK to travel abroad and to meet with a foreign head of government for the purpose of undermining a key foreign policy initiative.

It’s not OK. At least it’s never been acceptable … apparently until now in some circles.

Cotton went to Israel and Is meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to figure out a way to torpedo the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the United States and five other great powers.

Cotton’s meeting with Netanyahu now has become the norm, it seems, for critics of President Obama. They forget what they said when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Syria to meet with dictator Bashar al-Assad. Vice President Dick Cheney reminded us then that only the president can conduct foreign policy.

Except that Pelosi coordinated her visit with Bush administration officials and had made sure she didn’t interfere with what President Bush’s goals were as they regarded U.S. policy toward Assad.

Cotton said: “Today’s meeting only reaffirms my opposition to this deal. I will stand with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel and work with my colleagues in Congress to stop this deal and to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself against Iran and its terrorist surrogates.”

We’ve only got one president of the United States at a time. And at this moment, it isn’t Tom Cotton.

national news

Now it’s a mountain name that brings criticism

September 1, 2015 kanelis2012

You almost could have predicted this would happen.

President Obama decided to rename Mount McKinley, which had been named in honor of a Republican president, William McKinley. The tallest peak in North America now is called Denali, which is a native Alaskan term.

But here it comes: Ohio Republicans are angry at the mountain renaming. They think it’s a slight to a GOP president who, by the way, never set foot in Alaska, let alone climb the peak.

Ohio GOP up in arms

House Speaker John Boehner, who hails from Ohio, says the president shouldn’t have acted unilaterally. Other lawmakers from Ohio say they’ll try to block the name change legislatively.

Oh yes. Then there’s Donald Trump, the GOP front runner for the party’s presidential nomination, who says if elected president he’ll undo Obama’s decision.

Alaska’s Republicans, though, are in favor of the name change. The state’s senior U.S. senator, Lisa Murkowski, its House member, Don Young, and its junior senator, Dan Sullivan, vow to block any effort to reverse the decision.

Alaska has been calling the peak Denali since 1975. The president’s action changes it in the federal registry of geographic names.

Oh, but it’s now a slap in the face to a former president who happened to hail from Ohio and that it detracts from his legacy.

Good grief. Can we call a halt to this partisan bickering over an issue that makes not a bit of difference, except perhaps to the native Alaskans who can recite the grand peak’s new name with their own sense of pride?

What in the world is wrong with that?

International news, national news, political news

About those walls …

August 31, 2015 kanelis2012

As long as we’re talking about building walls to keep illegal immigrants from streaming into our country, let us ponder some things.

My wife wondered recently about the proposed Trump Wall along our southern border. “What does Donald Trump propose to do about those who would tunnel under the wall?” she asked.

Good question, Girl of My Dreams.

What does Trump propose for the wall and how deeply does he want to sink it into the dirt along our 1,900-mile-long border with Mexico? Ten feet, 20 feet, 30 feet … 100 feet!

Has he heard about how the infamous drug kingpin El Chapo dug his way out of that maximum-security prison in Mexico?

OK, so Trump has been joined in the Build-a-Wall chorus by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who said over the weekend it’s worth considering a wall between the United States and Canada.

That one would be roughly double the length of the Trump Wall.

Remember that we have a significant border with the Canadians along our Alaska state line.

So, not only would a U.S.-Canada wall stretch 3,000-plus miles along our countries’ east-west border, it would go another 1,200 or so miles north and south from the southern tip of the finger of Alaska that deeps south to, um, the Arctic Ocean — wa-a-a-ay up yonder.

And while we’re on the subject of the northern border, Gov. Walker, what are you going to do about some shared attractions?

Niagara Falls — which my wife and I visited in 2011 — comes to mind immediately.

This wall-building rhetoric is easy to throw out there. It gets applause and cheers from the Republican Party faithful.

However, this nonsense requires some serious thought … which we have not yet heard from any of the people who want to be president of the United States.

political news, State news

Texas Democrats … wherefore art thou?

August 31, 2015 kanelis2012

Ross Ramsey is as smart a Texas political analyst as they come.

Thus, his analysis of the moribund state of the Texas Democratic Party is worth your time to read.

Democrats nowhere to be found.

The Texas Tribune editor hits out of the park.

His thesis basically is this: If Texas had a viable two-party political system, the big mistakes being made by two statewide Republican officials would become immediate fodder for the opposing party.

He references Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.

Paxton’s been indicted for securities fraud by a grand jury in his home county … that would be Collin County.

Miller — who Ramsey refers to as “Yosemite Sid” — has come out for cupcakes in classrooms and said he want to return deep fryers to public school kitchens. Ramsey also reports: “His campaign Facebook page shared a post featuring a picture of an atomic bomb blast and the words ‘Japan has been at peace with the US since August 9, 1945. It’s time we made peace with the Muslim world.’ His political staff removed it, said one of his workers had posted it and stopped short of an apology.”

What’s been the fallout of all this? Nothing. As Ramsey reports: “You can argue about what Democratic voters might think about Paxton and Miller. But those Democratic sentiments, whatever they are, apparently don’t matter to the Republicans. If they were worried about the reaction from the other party’s voters — or concerned that GOP officeholders were creating opportunities for candidates from the other side, they’d be doing something about it.”

When you’re the king of the mountain, by golly, you can say and do almost anything in a one-party state.

International news

Nuke deal becomes partisan numbers game

August 31, 2015 kanelis2012

There once was a time — it seems like an eon or two ago — when foreign policy decisions weren’t divided along party lines.

Those days are gone. Maybe they’ll be back. Eternal optimist that I am, I remain hopeful for a return of sanity in our federal government.

The Iran nuclear deal is the most glaring example I’ve seen of how partisanship now supersedes national unity in the face of threats from adversaries.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, became the 31st Democrat to endorse the deal brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry and officials from five other great powers. Its aim is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has insisted it intends only to provide energy for its people; of course, no one believes that.

Congressional Republicans appear united in their opposition to the deal. Democrats are mostly united in favor of it, although some have declared their intention to vote “no” when the issue comes up for a vote.

Merkley said something quite wise in announcing his support of the deal: “The future, whether we approve or reject the deal, is unknowable and carries risks. But the agreement offers us better prospects for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and more tools and leverage to ensure that outcome.”

We cannot predict the future with absolute certainty, he said.

Democrat backs Iran deal

Is the deal perfect? No, but then again, when have we ever struck the perfect foreign policy agreement with anyone?

The agreement aims to derail whatever intentions the Iranians have of developing a nuclear bomb. It allows inspections of sites. It dismantles centrifuges. It allows the rest of the world to bring back strict economic sanctions if the Iranians are caught cheating on the deal.

None of that is enough to persuade Republicans to back it.

So, the world’s greatest military power is now showing to the world that its foreign policy team is being undercut by partisan political divides when it should be demonstrating an unflinching resolve to stand united against a rogue nation.

It’s turning instead into a numbers game, with Democrats seeking to pile up enough votes to filibuster Republican opposition to the deal while also gaining enough votes to sustain a certain presidential veto of any GOP rejection of the deal.

This is no way to conduct foreign policy.

local news

Welcome back, Mme. Tax Collector

August 31, 2015 kanelis2012

This doesn’t happen every day in county government.

In fact, this is the first time I’ve seen it occur in more than 30 years observing politics and government in Texas.

Randall County’s tax assessor-collector, Sharon Hollingsworth, only thought she was retiring this past week. She’s getting her old job back after the woman appointed to succeed her, Christina McMurray, decided she wanted to return to her old job in the county tax office.

So, McMurray quit the tax assessor-collector job and Hollingsworth is returning to her post — albeit temporarily.

She still plans to retire and go fishing with her husband. I spoke with Hollingsworth a few days ago when I learned of her plans to retire and she expressed joy at the prospect of getting on with the rest of her life.

Well, it’s going to wait a little while longer.

According to the Canyon News: “Randall County Judge Ernie Houdashell said that the court will go back on the search for a replacement for Hollingsworth, thanking her for continuing her service until a replacement can be qualified and sworn in.”

At least there’ll be no on-the-job training required for county’s newest tax assessor-collector.

High Plains Blogger

Ohio pols take great interest in Alaska’s business

Should pols care about polls?

Resign from your office, Kim Davis

Shooting statement falls far short

Who’s in charge of U.S. foreign policy?

Now it’s a mountain name that brings criticism

About those walls …

Texas Democrats … wherefore art thou?

Nuke deal becomes partisan numbers game

Welcome back, Mme. Tax Collector

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