{"id":40366,"date":"2019-12-18T22:58:03","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T22:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=40366"},"modified":"2019-12-18T22:58:41","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T22:58:41","slug":"do-any-minds-ever-get-changed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=40366","title":{"rendered":"Do any minds ever get changed?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=MAGA%20%23TeelBivins%20%23CarlParker%20%23Trumpimpeachment%20%23GOP&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Watching the &#8220;debate&#8221; on the House of Representatives floor today over the impeachment of Donald J. Trump brings to mind something I heard many years ago from a Texas state legislator.<\/p>\n<p>In early 1995 I had the pleasure of meeting the late state Sen. Teel Bivins, an Amarillo Republican. I went to his downtown Amarillo office, exchanged greetings with him and sat down for some discussion.<\/p>\n<p>Bivins knew I had moved to Amarillo from Beaumont. I worked for the Beaumont Enterprise and then went to work for the Amarillo Globe-News. Bivins then brought up the name of a fellow state senator with whom he had a sometimes-testy relationship. He talked admiringly about the debating skills of Democratic colleague Carl Parker of Port Arthur.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/carl-parker.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-40367\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/carl-parker-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/carl-parker-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/carl-parker.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Parker is a trial lawyer who possesses tremendous rhetorical skill. Bivins called Parker a &#8220;friend,&#8221; and then told me that he actually once witnessed how Parker&#8217;s intense debating ability changed the minds of one or two of his Senate colleagues on an issue that Parker was debating.<\/p>\n<p>I thought about the tale Bivins told about Carl Parker and wondered if there are any such debaters squaring off today under the Capitol Dome. I ain&#8217;t hearing anything of the sort. They&#8217;re all dug in. No one is going to budge.<\/p>\n<p>I am left to wonder if any minds could be changed were they to hear the <em>thundering rhetoric<\/em> that a Texas state senator could deliver when the chips were down.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=MAGA%20%23TeelBivins%20%23CarlParker%20%23Trumpimpeachment%20%23GOP&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watching the &#8220;debate&#8221; on the House of Representatives floor today over the impeachment of Donald J. Trump brings to mind something I heard many years ago from a Texas state legislator. In early 1995 I had the pleasure of meeting the late state Sen. Teel Bivins, an Amarillo Republican. I went to his downtown Amarillo &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=40366\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Do any minds ever get changed?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[867,4544,4701,7793,5045],"class_list":["post-40366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-carl-parker","tag-teel-bivins","tag-texas-senate","tag-trump-impeachment","tag-us-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40366"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40369,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40366\/revisions\/40369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}