GOP nomination fight becomes hazardous … for GOP

April 20, 2016 kanelis2012

This story just knocks me out.

U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker is a Mississippi Republican who heads the Senate’s GOP campaign committee.

His advice to senators facing tough re-election battles? Don’t go to Cleveland this summer for your party’s presidential nominating convention.

What in the world … ?

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/276910-gop-campaign-chief-to-vulnerables-stay-away-from-convention

U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona — the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee — is staying away. Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire aren’t planning to go, either. And get this. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, in whose state the convention will occur, isn’t sure he’s going to attend.

Does this say something about what lies ahead for the GOP combatants and the delegates who’ll select the next party nominee?

I’m wondering now if it means that the nomination for president of the United States will even be worth the fight.

What in the world is keeping all these folks away? It might the threat leveled by GOP candidate Donald J. Trump that there will be “riots” if the convention chooses someone else to be the nominee. Who wants to be a part of such a melee?

Chaos reigns supreme in this year’s GOP nominating fight.

Tonight, to be sure, Trump did take a big step toward securing the nomination by scoring the big win in the New York Republican primary. He’s still a ways away from getting the required delegates he’ll need to win the nomination on the first ballot.

If the fight goes to a second ballot or beyond, well, then the chaos is likely to erupt.

Meanwhile, the head of the Senate’s GOP campaign committee has issued fair warning to senators who might be in trouble: Stay away or you, too, may become a victim of the fallout.

local news, State news

Do these guys represent the state … or not?

April 19, 2016 kanelis2012

Hurricane protection is a real big deal if you live along the Texas coast.

My family and I lived there for nearly 11 years before high-tailing it to the High Plains more than two decades ago. We still have dear friends there who face the threat of being wiped out by killer hurricanes that blow in from the Gulf of Mexico.

The Texas Tribune reports that many of the state’s congressional delegation, including some House representatives from the imperiled region, aren’t yet willing to commit to spending what it takes to protect coastal cities from potential destruction.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/04/17/congress-mostly-silent-hurricane-protection-texas/

What’s up with that?

They don’t want to spend the money it will take, for example, to buttress the seawall protecting the Houston-Galveston region. It’s not politically prudent, apparently, in this age of penny-pinching for the sake of penny-pinching.

“While state officials say the project enjoys the full support of Texans in Congress, almost every member has been silent on the issue, including those who hold the most sway,” the Tribune reports.

Don’t these individuals represent the state that sends them to Washington to certain things for us, such as argue for legislation that benefits the state?

Sen. John Cornyn, the senior man from Texas, isn’t weighing in on the coastal protection plan. Texas’ other senator, Ted Cruz, is too busy running for president to give much careful thought to the needs of the home folks … or so it seems.

The Tribune reports that Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush has placed coastal protection at the top of his own agenda. Bush hopes Cornyn will climb aboard the protection bandwagon. If he does, he figures to bring considerable political clout to the battle, which matters a lot, given that Cornyn is a key member of the Senate Republican leadership team.

The issue is money. As the Tribune reports: “But with a price tag sure to reach into the billions, the spine will almost certainly require a massive infusion of federal money, state officials agree. Whether Texas’ congressional delegation has the political backbone to deliver the cash remains to be seen.”

I’m trying to imagine an earlier generation of Texas pols — guys like Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn — sitting on their hands.

national news, political news

Pass the pills to Rep. King?

April 19, 2016 kanelis2012

There’s hyperbole.

Then there’s this, from U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., about the prospect of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz becoming the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.

King said he might “take cyanide” if Cruz gets nominated.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/276789-rep-pete-king-i-hate-ted-cruz

Holy moly, Congressman. Don’t sugar-coat your feelings.

“I hate Ted Cruz,” King said.

I guess his mother needed to tell young Petey what most of our mothers told the rest of us: “If you can’t say something nice … ”

It must be Cruz’s “New York values” comment that got New Yorkers all riled up. Perhaps it’s the idea that a Texan could lead the party’s election ticket this fall.

I’m pretty sure, though, Cruz’s values statement really got under King’s skin. He said any New Yorker who votes for Cruz should “have their head examined.” That’s a clue, yes?

But then King said some more curious things.

He believes Donald J. Trump will be the GOP nominee, but he’s not “endorsing” his fellow New Yorker. Then King said he voted for Ohio Gov. John Kasich in early voting, but he isn’t endorsing Kasich, either.

A vote isn’t an endorsement? C’mon, Rep. King. Shoot straight with the rest of us. OK?

He said that Kasich would make a “good vice president” running with Trump at the top of the ticket.

King needs to go back just a few days. That was when Kasich said, in effect, that hell would have to freeze over for him to run on a ticket led by Trump.

Well, that’s what Kasich said. Politics, though, does have this way of changing politicians’ minds.

I’m sure, therefore, that Rep. King won’t be popping any poison pills if the Republican Party launches the Cruz Missile at the Democrats this fall.

business news, national news

McDonald’s goes through total makeover

April 19, 2016 kanelis2012

Message to my sons: Your dad’s McDonald’s is gone.

I just saw this link posted to my Facebook feed this morning. McDonald’s — which once sold burgers for 15 cents apiece and hired only boys — has gone higher-tech than it already had been.

http://toprightnews.com/15-minimum-wage-pushers-devastated-after-mcdonalds-makes-this-bold-move/

This comes from a conservative website that I opposes cities and states lifting the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Oh, the agony of reading this link.

A St. Louis, Mo., McDonald’s is introducing bottom-less French fries, cushy lounge chairs for its customers and kiosks that will take customers’ orders. Fast-food vending machines might be next.

I’m an old man now and I’m starting to sound like my own father who used to recall the old days with some fondness.

McDonald’s is a big part of my life story.

I got hired at a McDonald’s on the corner of Northeast 122nd Avenue and Glisan Street in Portland, Ore., the day before my 16th birthday. It was such a major event in my life that I actually remember the date with as much clarity as I remember my birthday, my wife’s birthday, my wedding day, the births of my sons and my granddaughter and the day I got my draft notice.

It wasn’t a high-tech operation.

I got paid a dollar an hour; we peeled our own potatoes every morning in machine that spun the spuds around a rough-sided drum. Burgers sold for 15 cents, cheeseburgers cost four cents more, milk shakes and soft drinks sold for a quarter. A big day occurred when we grossed $1,000 in sales … for the entire day; today, they take in that kind of fiscal volume in an hour.

What about sex-discrimination laws? Don’t make me laugh.

The owner of the place hired only boys in keeping with corporate policy. We might as well have taken the sign down from the tree fort and hung it on the front door: “No girls allowed!”

I don’t object to the minimum wage increasing to a more livable sum. I am saddened, though, to see the impact these municipal and state laws are having on a venerable American tradition, which would be the fast-food joints that used to employ youngsters such as myself.

I made friends for life working with guys just like myself. I met two of my best friends ever working at the McDonald’s where I started out. One of them became my best man. The other one became my “brother” because we resembled each other as kids and our customers used to think we actually were kin; the hilarious part of that story is that we look like brothers today.

That was the environment we shared as kids working for virtually nothing, hauling 100-pound sacks of spuds up the stairs and sweating over a grill frying burgers by the dozens.

Onward we go to a future that guarantees a “livable minimum wage.” It’s a shame that we have plowed asunder a tradition that allowed many millions of Americans to come of age.

national news, political news

McConnell wants Cruz to be nominated?

April 19, 2016 kanelis2012

It must take a lot — as in a whole lot — to make Mitch McConnell angry.

Consider what he has said about the prospects of a contested Republican National Convention this summer.

The U.S. Senate majority leader said he is “optimistic” that the convention will go to a second ballot or even longer as it tries to nominate someone to be the GOP’s next presidential candidate.

What does that mean? It means that Sen. Ted Cruz’s chances of being nominated over Donald J. Trump might be enhanced.

So, why speculate on McConnell’s anger level?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/18/jab-at-trump-mcconnell-optimistic-about-contested-convention.html

Cruz has called McConnell a “liar.” Moreover, he recently said he has no intention of taking back that bit of name-calling. He means what he says, Cruz said.

So, it now seems that McConnell is lining up behind his Senate colleague in his fight against Trump.

The Republican presidential primary fight is getting down to brass tacks. Trump and Cruz are running first and second in the fight for the GOP prize. Meanwhile, Ohio Gov. John Kasich is hanging on, hoping that polls that show him as the only GOP contender who can beat Hillary Clinton this fall somehow will persuade convention delegates to defect to his side.

But the Senate’s leading Republican is saying he is “increasingly optimistic” that the convention will turn into a donnybrook.

From where I sit, an expression of optimism means the individual making it wants something to happen.

I guess it can be no secret that McConnell would detest a Trump nomination this fall. It would doom the Republicans’ quest for the White House, not to mention greatly jeopardize the GOP’s control of the Senate.

If, however, the most plausible alternative is Ted Cruz, then that must mean McConnell is ready to forget that Cruz has insulted the majority leader’s character as a human being.

I guess the enemy of one’s enemy really is a friend.

State news

Teaching to the test, 2.0

April 18, 2016 kanelis2012

I never cease being amazed how some issues and concerns never seem to go away.

They hang around so long that you’d think they would get moldy, would wither and just disappear like so much dust.

Back to the Earth.

But they don’t. They linger. Forever and ever.

Standardized tests and the concerns about how Texas educators administer them remains a hot topic.

Seven years ago, on April 13, 2009 to be exact, I wrote a blog about Texas’s standardized testing regimen that went by a different name.

Here’s what I wrote then:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2009/04/teaching-to-the-test/

Another school year is drawing to its conclusion. The Texas Legislature will convene next January for its biennial 140-day bloodletting.

Teachers are still complaining about the current form of standardized tests they must give to their students. Parents gripe about them, too. I’m betting students — particularly those who don’t test well — also are complaining.

You’ll recall that three decades ago, a fiery Dallas billionaire named H. Ross Perot led a blue-ribbon commission to reform the Texas public school system. He’d bitched out loud about how Texas was more interested in developing blue-chip athletes than in developing blue-chip academic scholars. Then-Gov. Mark White called him out and challenged him to come up with a method to improve Texas students’ academic achievement.

That’s when the Perot Commission came to life.

A special legislative session in 1984 produced a new set of standards that included testing for students.

Few folks liked it then. Few folks like it now.

Why can’t we craft a system that makes more people happier about it than angry about it?

My kids are graduated long ago from Texas’s public school system. They got by just fine dealing with the tests they had to take. Were my wife and I happy about the requirement that they take the tests? Not really. Still, we persevered as a family.

Our sons have done well for themselves in the 20-plus years since they graduated from high school.

Now, though, we have a granddaughter who’ll be entering school soon. We don’t know what her parents have in mind for her education. If it involves public schools, well, she’ll have to pass her tests.

The Texas Legislature comprises 181 individuals who serve in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Surely some of them have a creative idea in their skulls to come up with a testing procedure that doesn’t cause heartburn among teachers, parents and students.

Or …

They can find a committed “civilian” out there to lead another effort to overhaul the public education system that’s been overhauled already.

Unless, of course, these legislators actually like hearing their constituents gripe at them about how teachers have to keep “teaching to the test.”

legal news, political news, State news

Texas voters need to share in Paxton saga

April 18, 2016 kanelis2012

Erica Greider, writing a blog for Texas Monthly, takes note of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s growing legal problems.

He shouldn’t stand alone in the alleged culpability, she writes.

Part of the responsibility — perhaps most of it — belongs to the Texans who elected him in 2014 as the state’s top law enforcement officer.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/indictments-texass-attorney-general/

A Collin County grand jury indicted Paxton this past year on several counts of securities fraud. Now, though, the Securities and Exchange Commission — the federal agency that oversees investment transactions — has leveled complaints against the attorney general.

Greider notes correctly that Paxton deserves the presumption of innocence, but she adds: “Even so, for an attorney general to rack up so many indictments with such ease and rapidity is in poor taste and raises troubling questions about his efficacy as manager.”

But none of this was a surprise sprung on Texans after he took office. It had been reported well before the November 2014 election that Paxton was in trouble for allegedly receiving income for investment advice he was giving to friends without reporting it properly to state election officials.

With that, Texans knew they were possibly electing a top legal eagle who himself might be facing some serious legal difficulty.

They elected him. He took office and then — wouldn’t you know it? — the grand jury indicted him and then the SEC weighed in with complaints of its own.

It just seems — to me, at least — that voters ought to be a good bit more discerning when selecting people to high public office.

It’s especially true — again, in my view only — that such discernment ought to be tuned even more finely when those selections involve people we entrust to enforce the state’s laws.

We can do a whole letter better than electing folks who are lugging around this kind of baggage.

national news, political news

Bernie turns mean against Hillary

April 18, 2016 kanelis2012

What in the world has gotten into U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders?

The kind old gentleman has turned into a grouchy curmudgeon as he seeks to forestall Hillary Clinton’s march to the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

Sanders lit into Clinton at a Brooklyn, N.Y., rally over the weekend, firing up an already-raucous crowd.

Isn’t this the fellow who said he was “tired of hearing about your damn e-mails” during an earlier Democratic debate with Clinton? Isn’t this the man who pledged to keep his campaign positive?

It ain’t happening these days, I’ll tell you.

He’s teeing off on Clinton’s acceptance of big money from “corporate special interests” which, he says, have corrupted the electoral system. He’s questioning her “judgment” in voting to approve funds for the Iraq War. He’s labeling her a tool of the super PACs that have lined up behind her candidacy.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/276624-sanders-scathing-clinton-attack-invigorates-brooklyn

I’m sure it gives Sanders a rush to hear all the cheering, whoopin’ and hollerin’ from the crowds that come to hear his message.

It also seems to smack a bit of desperation from someone who needs to win Tuesday’s New York primary if he is going to remain a serious challenger to the Clinton juggernaut.

If he doesn’t win the primary, they might start blinking the “last call” lights on Sanders’ campaign.

I’ll say this about Sanders: He’s managed to dictate the terms of the Democratic primary debate. To that end, he’s scored a sufficient victory already.

This extreme negativity, though, is unbecoming from someone who once sought to stay on the high road.

national news, political news

Constitution silent about the nominating game

April 18, 2016 kanelis2012

All this yammering and yapping about the delegate selection process has given the 2016 presidential campaign its unique feel.

Interesting, to say the very least.

So-called Republican frontrunner Donald J. Trump is getting wiped out by Sen. Ted Cruz in these caucus states, resulting in Trump griping about the selection process. He calls it “rigged” against him.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders is wiping Hillary Rodham Clinton out in those caucuses, but can’t seem to make a serious dent in her delegate lead. She owes her lead at the moment to the “super delegates” who pledged to support her; these are the political heavy hitters who are free to declare their support for whomever they wish.

The U.S. Constitution doesn’t say a single word about the nominating process. This belongs to the parties exclusively. They make their own rules and force the candidates to play by them.

For that matter, the Constitution doesn’t even mention political parties. The founders wrote only in terms of governance.

We need not amend the Constitution to create a political party presidential selection system that everyone must follow.

How about, though, if the party bosses were to huddle along with selected members of their respective brain trusts to hammer out a uniform system that both parties could follow?

Is that so hard?

My first priority would be a way to apportion the delegate selection process for primaries and for caucuses that make sense for every state. Why not dole out the delegates in direct proportion to the votes they get in a primary election? But what the heck, perhaps the parties could follow the framework used in electing a president: Give the winning candidate all the delegates up for grabs in the primary state. If a candidate wins a state in the general election, he or she gets all the Electoral College votes in virtually every instance.

The caucuses also could be made uniform in those states that choose to select delegates in that fashion.

This whining and griping about delegate selection — which seems heightened this year by Trump — need not cloud the issue of the nominating process.

This is the most serious purely partisan political activity that occurs; I must add that it’s serious in spite of the picture of a 2008 Democratic convention delegate that accompanies this blog post. We do this only once every four years.

It seems we ought to be able to make these choices without quibbling and quarreling over whether the system is rigged.

national news, political news

Whinin’ Donald needs to quit griping about delegates

April 18, 2016 kanelis2012

Donald J. Trump has a trove of nicknames he tosses out at his political foes.

Lyin’ Ted is one. So is Little Marco. Now he’s come up with Crooked Hillary.

Oh, but one of those adversaries, Ted Cruz, may have coined a name for Trump.

Whinin’ Donald.

Sen. Cruz today told Trump to quit his “whining” about the Republican Party’s delegate selection process leading up to the GOP presidential convention in Cleveland this summer.

Trump is griping about the process, calling it a “sham” and a “disgrace.” He says the game is rigged against him.

Actually, it’s not. It’s the way the RNC has set up the selection process. It allows candidates to persuade delegates to join their team. Trump’s campaign staff apparently hasn’t gotten the word on how the process works. They’re being outhustled by the Cruz Missile’s team.

Trump doesn’t like it.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus says he isn’t changing anything. The rules are the rules, he said. Trump has to work within those rules, the chairman added.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/276595-rnc-chief-no-changes-to-delegate-requirement-likely

Priebus said the RNC will continue to insist that one of the candidates for president must have a majority of delegates pledged to capture the party’s presidential nomination. Trump suddenly is looking vulnerable in the hunt for delegates and he is arguing now that a plurality ought to be good enough.

No can do, Priebus said.

Trump now has turned to whining about the process.

This GOP campaign gets more fun as each day passes.

High Plains Blogger

GOP nomination fight becomes hazardous … for GOP

Do these guys represent the state … or not?

Pass the pills to Rep. King?

McDonald’s goes through total makeover

McConnell wants Cruz to be nominated?

Teaching to the test, 2.0

Texas voters need to share in Paxton saga

Bernie turns mean against Hillary

Constitution silent about the nominating game

Whinin’ Donald needs to quit griping about delegates

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