national news, political news

Birthers beware: Obama going to Kenya

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This story is utterly hilarious and I cannot wait for President Obama to jaunt down the steps of Air Force One in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, of all places.

The president is visiting the African country and is likely to stick straight in the eyes — and ears — of the so-called “birthers” who keep yapping that he wasn’t born in the United States and that he is somehow not qualified to be president.

To which I say: So bleeping what?

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/237384-former-nh-gov-obama-is-inciting-birthers-with-kenya-trip

Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, a player in the Republican Party hierarchy, thinks the president’s trip is going to energize the birthers. These are the clowns, such as Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas and perhaps a majority of the Texas Legislature for all I know, who keep implying that if Obama was born in Africa that he’s somehow disqualified from holding the office to which he was elected twice.

I have a two-word response: Ted Cruz.

The junior senator from Texas and GOP presidential candidate was in fact born in Canada. His mother is American, his father is Cuban. He’s been declared a U.S. citizen by every constitutional scholar under the sun. President Obama’s mother was American, his father was Kenyan. However, Barack Obama was born in Hawaii — but that hasn’t stopped the crackpot wing of the Republican Party from continuing to raise this birth issue whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Gov. Sununu thinks it well might rise again when the president jets off to Kenya later this year. “I think his trip back to Kenya is going to create a lot of chatter and commentary amongst some of the hard right who still don’t see him as having been born in the U.S.,” he said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”

The place of his birth doesn’t matter. He was born in Hawaii, U.S.A. Even if he wasn’t born in one of our 50 states, his mother’s citizenship makes this entire chatter moot.

The president’s upcoming Kenya trip only illustrates one thing: He’s got his mojo back.

Enjoy yourself, Mr. President.

 

national news, political news

O'Malley is right; pass him the 'crown'

Martin O’Malley wants to be president of the United States.

Look for the former Maryland governor to announce his candidacy soon for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. The man who once supported Hillary Clinton’s desire to be president now says the presidency isn’t some “crown” that should be passed between two families.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/29/martin-omalley-presidency_n_6964338.html

He refers, of course, to the Clintons and the Bushes.

Actually, O’Malley is getting way ahead of himself.

It seems likely that Clinton will run for president again; Jeb Bush is likely to seek the GOP nomination.

Are either of them locks for their parties’ nomination? Hardly.

Clinton once was a lock. She’s still the strongest Democrat out there, but her grip on the nomination has slipped bit since the email controversy broke a few weeks ago.

Bush hardly is a cinch for the GOP nomination. He’s got his own baggage, chief among it the memory of his brother’s recent presidency.

The burden now falls on folks such as O’Malley to prove why they deserve to be seen and heard. It’s not just about candidates with recognizable names.

As this “crown” business relates to the Clintons, it’s good to remember that Bill Clinton wasn’t exactly from a filthy rich family when he ran for president in 1992. He came from fairly humble beginnings, as did his wife.

Still, I’m willing to listen to candidates such as O’Malley make their case, as I am willing to listen to the thundering herd of Republicans getting ready to run for the White House.

Bring it on!

 

media news, national news, political news

How's this for demonization?

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A new poll shows just how polarized and how angry some Americans have become toward the president of the United States of America.

Get a load of this: A Reuters/Ipsos survey suggests Republicans believe Barack Obama poses a greater threat to the nation than Russian strongman/president Vladimir Putin.

Pardon me while I catch my breath.

There.

I’m better now.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-see-obama-as-more-imminent-threat-than-putin-reuters-ipsos-poll/ar-AAabXVM

One-third of Republicans believe Obama poses an imminent threat to the United States, outpacing the fear of GOP respondents about Putin’s threat to the country.

Reuters reports: “Given the level of polarization in American politics the results are not that surprising, said Barry Glassner, a sociologist and author of ‘The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things.’

“‘There tends to be a lot of demonizing of the person who is in the office,’ Glassner said, adding that “fear mongering’ by the Republican and Democratic parties would be a mainstay of the U.S. 2016 presidential campaign. ‘The TV media here, and American politics, very much trade on fears,’ he said.”

I reckon so.

Another interesting aspect of the poll is that 27 of Republicans see Democrats as an “imminent threat,” while 22 percent of Democrats believe the same thing about Republicans. Pretty close call on that one. That, too, reflects the polarization that exists today.

Fear is everywhere. It’s a bipartisan affliction — and it’s unappealing no matter who’s expressing it.

national news

Hard to oppose death penalty on this one

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is making it difficult for a capital punishment opponent — such as myself — to remain true to principle.

He’s the young man accused of killing three people and injuring several others April 15, 2013 at the end of the Boston Marathon.

The federal government has ended its case against Tsarnaev, turning it over to the defense team, which is going to argue that his life should be spared.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/boston-marathon-bombing-trial-1425481307-slideshow/boston-marathon-bombing-trial-photo-1427725054614.html

Tsarnaev’s guilt actually isn’t being questioned by his defense team. His lawyers are going to make the case that the feds shouldn’t execute him, which the Justice Department wants to do if he’s convicted of this terrible crime.

The case to keep him alive seems a bit shaky. Lead defense counsel Judy Clark said Dzhokhar was under the spell of his radicalized older brother, Tamerlan, who died when Dzhokhar ran over him with their getaway vehicle.

I remain opposed to capital punishment, but reporters covering the trial in Boston keep referring to the defendant’s lack of emotion, how he slouches in his chair and how seems utterly detached from what’s happening around him.

Any parent of a young man can relate to Dzhokhar’s outward demonstration of disinterest. It’s what teenagers and young adults do when they’re facing discipline — even when it threatens to end their life.

Tsarnaev is going down. That much is virtually without question. Whether he dies for his crime remains in the hands of the jury.

The family members of those who died deserve justice. They’ll get it with a conviction. To them, at least, justice won’t be delivered fully until Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is executed. While I disagree with that form of punishment, I certainly understand the loved ones’ desire to see justice administered in its entirety.

 

International news

Co-pilot had 'suicidal tendencies'?

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that every commercial air carrier on the planet ought to do thorough psychological screenings of the men and women they hire to fly airplanes carrying passengers.

Then they should set the bar as high as possible to determine who is fight to fly those aircraft.

I pose that notion in the wake of reports out of Germany that Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz had demonstrated “suicidal tendencies” several years ago, prior to obtaining his commercial pilot’s license.

What did he do after that? Well, he apparently locked the captain of the ship out of flight deck and then flew the A320 Airbus into the French Alps, killing everyone on board.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/crash-pilot-showed-suicidal-tendencies-in-past-prosecutors/ar-AAacg1v

This bit of news just takes my breath away.

MSN.com reported: “In the ensuing years and up until recently, he had doctors’ visits and was written off sick but showed no sign of suicidal tendencies or aggression towards others,” said Ralf Herrenbrueck, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in the western city of Duesseldorf.

Showed no sign? Well, that bit of intelligence now seems preposterous, given what is now widely accepted as the cause of the horrific air tragedy.

When someone exhibits such tendencies, is it ever safe to assume that such tendencies would never return? Ever?

How does a psychiatrist make that determination? How does a medical professional determine that someone’s desire to kill oneself is gone forever?

This is just my opinion, sitting far away from the scene, but it looks for all the world as if the 28-year-old Lubitz had zero business being on the flight deck of that aircraft.

However, there he was, locking the captain out and then deciding to kill himself — as well as 149 innocent victims.

Wow!

International news

End of Cold War brought disarray

Joe Scarborough asks a compelling question about the state of U.S. foreign policy.

How did it get so messed up?

The one-time Republican congressman from Florida wonders how the world’s pre-eminent military and economic power can get in such a muddled mess.

I think I have a partial answer. Or perhaps just some food for thought: The end of the Cold War.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/history-scarborough-obama-bush-isil-israel-116495.html?hp=l3_3

Geopolitical relationships have gotten incredibly complex since the days when the Soviet Union sought to control the world and the United States kept pushing back the Big Ol’ Bear.

Our adversary was a clearly defined nuclear power. It covered 8 million or so square miles of territory across two continents. They were fearsome. Then again, so were we.

Then the Berlin Wall came crashing down in 1989. Two years later, the Evil Empire imploded.

Just like that, our Enemy No. 1 was gone.

In its place a lot of other enemies have arisen to rivet our attention. Scarborough thinks two American presidents — George W. Bush and Barack Obama — have presided over this turmoil. Granted, the Soviet Union disappeared on George H.W. Bush’s watch and his successor, Bill Clinton, managed to keep the assortment of new enemies at bay.

Here’s part of what Scarborough writes: “Bush’s ideological foreign policy was tragically followed by Obama’s delusional belief that America could erase the sins of the Bush-Cheney era by simply abdicating the U.S.’s role as indispensable nation.”

I am not certain anyone quite yet is capable of juggling so many balls at the same time. President Bush took dead aim at al-Qaeda immediately after 9/11, but then expanded that effort into a war against Iraq. Then came Barack Obama — and the world has just kept on getting more unstable.

But we still haven’t yet figured out how to manage crises that keep cropping up throughout the Middle East and northern Africa. The result has been, as Scarborough notes, a vast explosion of crises involving ISIL, Syria, Turkey, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria … and even Venezuela in our own hemisphere. Let’s not forget North Korea and the immigration crisis emanating from Latin America.

We’ve got to keep our eyes on many balls all at once.

 

International news

Barack and Bibi: Let's make peace

President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are speaking to each other.

That’s good.

Now it’s time for the next step. Let’s stop squabbling and get back to a public understanding that Israel remains this nation’s most critical Middle East ally and the two heads of government need to return to having each other’s back.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/white-house-to-bibi-israel-your-move-116491.html?hp=t2_r

Netanyahu fanned the flames of anger between Washington and Jerusalem when, during the final days of his parliamentary election, he backed off on his previous support for a Palestinian state. Then his Likud Party won control of the Knesset and Bibi said, in effect, “I didn’t really mean what I said about the Palestinian state.”

As Politico reported, Bibi’s backtracking hasn’t exactly been accepted fully by the White House: “The White House has worked to cool down the rhetoric and public tension. But it’s not letting go. When Netanyahu insisted during the congratulatory phone call Obama waited to make that he was already backtracking and they’d get past this, an unimpressed Obama responded by saying, sure, but you said what you said. He and his aides believe it’s now up to Netanyahu to repair a rift that they stress is only about the peace process, not the larger commitment to Israel.”

Everyone on the planet knows that U.S.-Israeli ties are rock-solid, no matter what President Obama is saying these days about the frayed state of bilateral relations. If the shooting were to start, Bibi knows Barack — or whoever succeeds him in January 2017 — will be there.

It’s time to put this nastiness to rest. Make up in public, gentlemen.

political news

Wishing an end to 'at the end of the day'

Admit it. Some phrases drive you crazy.

Maybe it’s the one your mother always used. My mother used to say, as I smirked at her while she scolded me: “Wipe that smile off your face before I wipe it off for you.” My smirkiness got me in trouble occasionally years later when I was inducted into the Army and the drill sergeant would get in my face about something. I usually got punished for it — smirking the whole time.

A contemporary phrase is about to drive me insane. It’s the one politicians use far too often.

“At the end of the day …”

There it is. I’m on the verge of declaring all-out war against anyone using that within earshot of yours truly.

I might even establish it as a sort of litmus test for politicians seeking my vote. If any of them ever use the “at end of the day” lead-in to some obtuse answer to a direct question, I’m likely to disqualify that candidate from consideration to whatever office or she is seeking.

A colleague and friend of mine used to maintain a lengthy glossary of what she called “irksome phrases.” She’s changed that category to “nefarious phrases,” or NPs for short.

She, too, has declared war on the use of those phrases.

Hands down, without the slightest hint of doubt, my most irksome/nefarious phrase is “at the end … ” Good grief, I cannot even type it any longer.

The only theory that makes sense to me as to why it’s become so popular among politicians is that it makes them sound smarter than they really are. They say it as a prelude to whatever comes next out of their mouth, as if the next point after the word “day,” is so profound, so important, carries so much weight that you hear the irksome phrase and then you expect to be bowled over by the politician’s wisdom.

Well, politicians, I’m on to you.

I get what you’re doing. I won’t stand for it.

If you intend to win my vote, stay away from that hideous phrase. It’s driving me insane. I value my sanity more than you should value your trumped-up brilliance.

 

Uncategorized

First big RV trip: a rousing success

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

We can declare our first-ever multi-state, multi-day trip in our recreational vehicle to be a success.

And a rousing one at that.

We shoved off from Amarillo the morning of March 21 and arrived back home just yesterday. Our travel took us to Mesa, Ariz., where we met up with my sister and brother-in-law, who had driven their RV from just north of Vancouver, Wash.

We had a serious blast with them, enjoying the sunshine, a bit of fellowship with fellow RV owners encamped at the park in Mesa and visiting with our aunt and uncle, who live about an hour’s drive south of the Phoenix area.

Except for a couple of mechanical issues we’re going to resolve with the folks who sold us our fifth wheel, our trip began and ended well for us.

But we did learn a valuable lesson while towing our 28-foot RV: Do not venture somewhere until you know for certain whether you can be comfortable getting there — and then coming back out.

We pulled out of the RV park Friday morning to start our trip home, but then we decided to take a gander at an attraction called Tortilla Flats, about 25 miles or so northeast of Mesa along an Arizona state highway. We looked at our map and assumed we could keep on going to a more significant highway once we finished visiting the attraction, which was billed as a replica of a ghost town.

You know what they say about assuming … yes?

Tortilla Flats sits along a very narrow road, with plenty of curves, switchbacks and, I should add, some seemingly harrowing areas. We hauled our fifth wheel through and along all of it en route to Tortilla Flats. For a bit of the trip in there, the road was bordered on side by rocky cliffs and the other side by, well, a serious drop-off into a bright blue lake full of boaters and kayakers.

I had a nightmare scenario of getting the fifth wheel too close to the edge and being pulled into the drink backward by the plummeting RV.

We got there just fine, but then learned that getting out would present a bit of a challenge. The paved road became an unpaved road once we got past Tortilla Flats. We were advised by a young restaurant waitress that we should just go back the way we came in.

Well, OK. But to get turned around, we had to take the RV up a dirt hill, onto a parking area and get it pointed in the right direction for the return trip back to Apache Junction. It required us to back the thing up.

We sized up our turning area and decided we could get the truck and the RV lined up to back up in a straight line enough to get it turned toward the right direction.

So … we did.

And out we came. Back to Apache Junction, back to the main highway and off toward Payson, Holbrook and then on to Gallup. N.M., for a night’s stay.

We breezed home along Interstate 40 the next day.

All is good. Our fifth wheel has been cleaned of the bugs that splattered it on the way to Mesa.

Once we get the mechanical issues resolved, we’ll be ready to ride.

 

political news

Fiorina as next president?

Carly Fiorina says she’s highly likely to seek the Republican Party nomination for president of the United States next year.

She says “competence” is the core issue that needs to be discussed.

Interesting, if you think about it.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/%e2%80%98higher-than-90-percent%e2%80%99-chance-fiorina-will-run-for-president/ar-AAaaoPt

Fiorina touts her business acumen. Hmmm.

She once headed a giant company, Hewlett-Packard, managing a conglomerate with thousands of employees. Then things got a little dicey at HP. Stock value plummeted. Many of those employees were laid off.

Then the HP board decided the company wasn’t going in the direction it wanted, so it blamed the CEO. That would be Carly Fiorina. She was “forced to resign,” or terminated, or she just quit to “pursue other interests.” Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace brought that up. Her response: “We took Hewlett Packard from about $44 billion to $88 billion in six years. We quadrupled cash flow. We went from a market laggard to a market leader in every product category and every market segment.”

But, but, but … why did they let you go, Ms. Fiorina?

Fiorina is going to wait until April or May to make a probable announcement.

She’ll have to explain some of this competence stuff as she hits the trail.

Good luck with that.

 

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