Gainesville Daily Register (Gainesville, Tex.), Vol. 127, No. 183, Ed. 1 Wednesday, May 17, 2017 Page: 4 of 10
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4 - WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2017
GAINESVILLE DAILY REGISTER
Opinion
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reveals GOP divide
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Off-the-field drama take center stage
Byron York
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.
Frank Mahnich, Gainesville
Spending bills, not
Obamacare,
Got an opinion?
Share it
Gainesville Mayor
Jim Goldsworthy
Gainesville City Hall, 200 S. Rusk,
Gainesville, TX 76240, 940-665-7777
YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS
President
Donald Trump
The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania
Ave., Washington, D.C. 20500
www.whitehouse.gov/contact
U.S. Senator
John Cornyn
517 Hart Senate Office Bldg.,
Voters must act to stay informed
In a recent Letter to the Editor, the Gainesville Daily Register was
chastised for what was considered to be poor timing of coverage
of candidates and the recent elections.
While I agree that newspapers have a role in providing
information about upcoming elections, the responsibility to gain
knowledge about any ballot issue remains with the voter. On April
22, the GDR provided detailed information about all local elections
including names of candidates, voting times, and locations etc.
At that point, it became the voters responsibility to seek out
information from the various entities and those running for the
various seats to assist the voter in making informed decisions prior
to casting their votes. The fact that a person does not retrieve
a paper from the mail or take advantage of the free electronic
version of a paper which is delivered right to an email account
does not negate the obligation a voter has to conduct personal
FIRST AMENDMENT: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Fax: 202-225-3486 http://thornberry.
house.gov
Texas Governor
Greg Abbott
P.O. Box 12428, Austin, TX 78711
512-463-2000, http://gov.texas.gov
State Representative
Drew Springer
investigations about issues and candidates.
Too many Americans believe that voting is now passe and/or
that their votes don't matter. And at the same time, too many do
not take the time to become involved with the process to allow
them to make intelligent, informed decisions. Do the newspapers
play a role in this process? Yes!
Did anyone call GDR to determine when they were going to
run information about the candidates for the hospital board? Only
individuals can answer that question. But prior to the election, I
saw articles and several letters to the editors about the hospital
issues. It was then I took the time to do research and get informed.
I and many others did the same research about a local school
bond election. Those that were interested took steps to determine
the facts, retrieve a list of registered voters, and set up a call team
to express opinions, state facts and urge voters to get out voting.
This is what we should all do when faced with elections and not
lay the blame for a lack of information on a third party. Information
is the key and personal efforts are needed to keep ones self-
informed. I urge all citizens of Gainesville to do so in the future.
Arkansas Times columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner
and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You
can email Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo.com.
Vice President
Mike Pence
Executive Office Building, Washington,
D.C. 20501
vice_president@whitehouse.gov
Washington, D.C. 20510,
Main: 202-224-2934
Fax: 202-228-2856
www.cornyn.senate.gov
U.S. Senator
Ted Cruz
404 Russell, Washington,
D.C. 20510, Main: 202-224-5922
Fax: 202-228-3398 www.cruz.senate.gov
U.S. Representative
Mac M. Thornberry
2525 Kell Blvd., Wichita Falls, TX, 76308
Main: 202-225-3706
State Senator
Craig Estes
P.O. Box 12068, Capitol Station
Austin, TX 78711, (512) 463-0124
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Cooke County Judge
Jason Brinkley
Cooke County Courthouse, Gainesville,
TX, 76240, 940-668-5435,
jason.brinkley@co.cooke.tx.us
P.O. Box 2910, Austin, TX 78769
512-463-0526,
Gainesville: 940-580-1770
www.house.state.tx.us/ members/
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If you want to see what divides Republicans in
Congress, don’t look at the struggle to repeal and replace
Obamacare. Look at spending.
The House’s narrow passage of a partial repeal of
Obamacare dominated media for days. Happening at
the same time, but receiving relatively little coverage,
was the Senate’s approval of a $1.1 trillion spending
bill that revealed — far more than Obamacare — the
deep differences among Republicans in both houses of
Congress.
The story is in the numbers. On Obamacare, 217
Republicans voted for partial repeal, while just 20 — a
little under 10 percent of the House GOP conference —
voted against it.
On the spending bill, just 131 Republicans voted yes,
while 103 GOP lawmakers — about 43 percent of the House
GOP conference — voted no. In the Senate, 32 Republicans
voted yes, while 18 GOP senators — about one-third of the
Republican side — voted no.
Lawmakers gave several reasons for rejecting the
leadership’s spending deal with Democrats.
“This bill funds sanctuary cities, funds
Planned Parenthood, it funds Obamacare
and I think that was unfortunate and
it’s a real missed opportunity,” Sen. Ted
Cruz — a no vote — told San Antonio
radio host Trey Ware. “There is a reason
Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are
celebrating, because the spending
measure funds everything they
want and funds virtually none of the
priorities we were elected to fund.”
“I think the Democrats cleaned our clock,” said Sen.
Lindsey Graham, another no vote. “I’m for comprehensive
immigration reform, but sanctuary cities go untouched.
Obamacare continues to be funded in a way that we all say
is illegal.”
“Drain the swamp, right?” asked Rep. Dave Brat,
another no vote, in Buzzfeed. “Where is that in the
budget? Nowhere. We fully funded the swamp.”
Another House Republican no vote pointed to a
provision in the spending bill that would double the
number of so-called H-2B visas to allow temporary low-
wage foreign workers into the U.S. — a move a number of
experts said would lower wages for American workers.
“H-2Bs will be an issue and will cause a loss of
conservative support for the bill,” the member said
shortly before the vote. “Very un-Trumpian to ban border
wall construction and fund sanctuary cities while also
expanding foreign labor!”
Foreign labor was a key factor in the no vote of Sen.
Tom Cotton. In a floor speech Thursday, the Arkansas
Republican explained that he recognized the good parts
of the bill, in particular more defense spending. But he
focused on the H-2B provision, not just because it is bad
policy — he explained at length what that is so — but
because it “shows just how bad this process is.”
“It’s not necessary,” Cotton said of the visa expansion’s
inclusion in the bill. “It has nothing to do with funding
the government, nothing. It hasn’t been vetted. It hasn’t
gone through the normal legislative process, which would
be the Judiciary Committee, where the chairman and the
senior Democrat both have written that they oppose this
measure. I don’t even know how it got in (the bill).”
And yet there it was. And President Trump signed it
into law.
In the end, the spending bill votes revealed significant
divisions among Republicans about the amount of
spending — more precisely, the amount of deficit spending
— they can tolerate. Those differences extend far beyond
their conflicts over Obamacare repeal.
A grand total of 20 GOP House members split with their
leadership on health care, while 103 did so on spending.
In the Senate, where the Republican majority is so
narrow they have just two votes to spare, the GOP lost 18
votes. Those are signs of problems ahead.
Sometimes, the most important things that happen at
the ballpark are only tangentially related to the games
themselves. I speak as one who hasn’t missed a televised
Boston Red Sox game this season, and may not between now
and October. Win or lose, I’m in it for the stories.
To me, baseball season resembles an epic narrative — think
“Don Quixote” or the seagoing novels of Patrick O’Brian —
filled with an ever-evolving cast of characters and events.
Although I’ve never lived in Boston, I’ve followed the Red
Sox off and on since 1953, the year Ted Williams returned to
Fenway Park after his second tour of duty as a Marine pilot.
To me, they were the un-Yankees. Enough said. I think
Williams’ prickly independence appealed to me, too.
So does that of Adam Jones, the Baltimore center
fielder whose refusal to submit to racist taunts from
the Fenway Park bleachers led to last week’s dramatic
events.
You don’t have to see many Orioles games to get
what a terrific player Jones is: a five-time All-Star who
tracks down line drives like a cheetah and hits for
power. He also starred for the U.S. team in the recent
World Baseball Classic — something most MLB
players are reluctant to risk.
To the dismay of Red Sox fans, Jones had a great day in the
field May 1, making game-saving catches on balls some center
fielders wouldn’t have reached. For this he got pelted with
bags of peanuts and called a damn “nigger” by some drunken
idiot in Section 35.
Do I know the guy was drunk? No, he was never identified.
Nor did anybody complain to Fenway ushers, perhaps
signifying that he was a belligerent drunk as well. (On Boston
sports radio, some took this as evidence that the slur never
happened.) The guy who threw the peanuts was identified and
removed from the ballpark.
Talking to reporters, Jones said that heckling and booing
were part of the game, but that “the N-word” was taking it too
far. Where he grew up (San Diego), Jones added, racial slurs
were fighting words, but a professional athlete can’t confront
every bigot he encounters. “It’s unfortunate that people need
to resort to those type of epithets to degrade another human
being,” Jones said.
Nobody in the Red Sox dugout doubted Jones for a moment.
For one thing, they know him. Boston outfielders Mookie Betts
and Jackie Bradley Jr. said that, while they’d not personally
heard racial slurs at Fenway, other African-American
teammates had. Pitcher David Price contacted Jones privately.
Boston officials reacted fast. Before Tuesday’s game, Red
Sox owner John Henry and team president Sam Kennedy
visited Jones in the clubhouse. Mayor Marty Walsh and Gov.
Charlie Baker emphasized that the incident did not reflect
the values of the city or state. The baseball commissioner
and the Major League Players Association expressed similar
sentiments.
Which may have been laying it on a little thick, to be frank.
Even given Boston’s decidedly mixed history — the Red Sox
were among the last teams to sign black players in the 1950s
— hardly anybody thinks that bigotry is the norm in a city
that all but deified Red Sox slugger David Ortiz.
One drunk does not a city make, a point made forcefully
by Red Sox African-American outfielder Chris Young:
“If you do that,” he told the Globe’s Alex Speier, “you’re
. doing the same thing that every prejudiced person
J out there does, which is judge one person of a certain
. ethnicity, color, religion, race, whatever it may be,
7 J and generalizing everybody from that... You can’t say
J something about a fan and tie that to an entire city.”
Right-fielder Mookie Betts took to social media,
urging fans to “literally stand up” for Jones. And so
when the Baltimore center fielder came to bat in the
first inning on Tuesday night, they did. Sitting in front of the
TV halfway across the country, I had a pretty good idea what
was coming. I called my wife, a coach’s daughter, in to watch.
As Jones walked to the plate, a few fans behind the dugouts
stood up and cheered. Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale, normally a
very fast worker, deliberately stepped off the mound to let a
long ovation build.
“I wanted to show him the respect he’s earned and that he
deserves,” Sale said later. “We have a great fan base here. I
don’t want a few idiots to mess that up. I think Fenway came
together, the Boston fans came together, and did the right
thing today, plain and simple.”
Then Sale unceremoniously struck Jones out.
Next Sale delivered another message: unleashing a wicked
99-mph fastball behind Orioles slugger Manny Machado’s
knees, the central figure in an escalating (and dangerous)
beanball war between the two teams, as if to say, “Keep
screwing around, and the next one won’t miss.”
Back to baseball, America’s greatest game.
Send your letter to the editor to editor@
gainesvilleregister.com. All letters are
subject to editing for clarity and length.
One letter per writer will be published
in the same week. All letters must
contain a physical address and daytime
phone number. Only names and
hometown will be published.
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Armstrong, Mark J. Gainesville Daily Register (Gainesville, Tex.), Vol. 127, No. 183, Ed. 1 Wednesday, May 17, 2017, newspaper, May 17, 2017; Gainesville, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1323974/m1/4/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Cooke County Library.