Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 2, Ed. 1 Monday, August 4, 2014 Page: 4 of 14
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4A
Monday, August 4, 2014
OPINION
Denton Record-Chronicle
Denton Record-Chronicle
Published by Denton Publishing Co.,
a subsidiary of A.H. Belo Corporation
Founded from weekly newspapers,
the Denton Chronicle, established in 1882,
and the Denton Record, established in 1897.
Published daily as the Denton
Record-Chronicle since Aug. 3,1903.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Bill Patterson
Publisher and CEO
Scott K. Parks
Managing Editor
Les Cockrell
Region Editor
Mark Finley
City Editor
Mariel Tarn-Ray
News Editor
PAST PUBLISHERS
William C. “Will” Edwards
1903-1927
Robert J. “Bob” Edwards
1927-1945
Riley Cross
1945-1970
Vivian Cross
1970-1986
Fred Patterson
1986-1999
Editorials published in the Denton Record-Chronicle
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Other voices
Texas needs foster
care solutions
he national debate over what should happen to the
thousands of migrant Central American children
who have fled to the U.S. seeking refuge rages on.
And while this is an urgent issue that deserves a just and
humanitarian resolve, policymakers must not lose focus
on the foster care crisis in Texas and other states across
the country.
State agencies charged with monitoring foster care
nationally are plagued by high turnover rates, overbur-
dened case workers and limited resources. In Texas, a
recent spike in foster care deaths has placed the Depart-
ment of Family and Protective Services under the public
and legislative microscope.
Although currently unaccompanied minor children
entering Texas are not part of this system, some likely will
be. Historically, unaccompained children who receive
refugee status and cannot be placed with a responsible
adult become wards of the states’ foster care systems.
While many children may be returned to their home
country, it is possible that eventually some number will
enter Texas foster care, further straining the system.
Earlier this year, the House Select Committee on Child
Protection was tasked by Speaker Joe Straus, R-San An-
tonio, with examining ways to better protect children in
the Texas foster care system.
Recently, the nine-member committee, chaired by Rep.
Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, heard from young adults who
grew up in Texas’ foster care system. Many recounted
harrowing stories of abuse and emotional trauma.
The state’s foster system has been under scrutiny for
years, but policymakers intensified their focus after seven
children died of abuse or neglect in 2013.
During the recent hearing, John Specia, commissioner
of the Department of Family and Protective Services, said
that the system fails when children are shuttled between
multiple homes. His push for internal agency “culture
change,” he said, would make foster care placements more
permanent.
Recently, a report commissioned by the Texas Depart-
ment of Family and Protective Services showed that CPS
caseworkers in the state spend only 26 percent of their
time actually meeting with children and families. Instead,
state workers charged with investigating cases of alleged
child abuse and neglect are inundated by paperwork and
other bureaucratic distractions.
The effect of the Central American crisis is unknown,
but by year’s end, the number of unaccompanied minors
from that region is expected to be 90,000.
Though some of the newly arrived migrant children
have been reunited with family members already here in
Texas, officials at the Texas Department of Family and
Protective Services expect that at some point a number of
these children may end up in their care. Cases where
relatives take custody of a child rather than parents are
most vulnerable to ending up in the foster care system,
officials say.
The agency has been presented with changes to con-
sider, including reducing the number of children assigned
to a caseworker, pairing new workers with mentors, as
well as enhancing job training. Analysts also suggest re-
ducing paperwork requirements and unnecessary steps in
the investigative process to increase the time caseworkers
spend with children.
It’s true, efforts to rectify the problem are already in
motion like the replacement of the agency’s record-keep-
ing software and a new system to collect and analyze data
to better identify “red flags,” with the goal of preventing
future child deaths.
But the pressure is on to find solutions to protect the
children of this state — whether bom native Texans or
coming from near and far — as even greater challenges
are on the way.
— Austin American-Statesman
This day in history: August 4
Today is Monday, August
4, the 216th day of 2014.
There are 149 days left in the
year.
On August 4, 1944, 15-
year-old diarist Anne Frank was
arrested with her sister, parents
and four others by the Gestapo
after hiding for two years inside
a building in Amsterdam. (Anne
and her sister, Margot, died the
following year at the Bergen-
Belsen concentration camp.)
In 1916, the United States
reached agreement with Den-
mark to purchase the Danish
Virgin Islands for $25 million.
— The Associated Press
Akin retracts apology
o, Todd Akin is back and he’s talking
rape again.
You remember what happened
last time. The would-be Missouri senator
torpedoed his campaign two years ago after
suggesting in a TV interview that if a woman
is a victim of‘legitimate rape,” she is unlikely
to get pregnant because her body “has ways
to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Those comments, he now wants you to
know, were perfectly
reasonable. In his new
book, Firing Back,
Akin informs us that
some rapes are not ‘le-
gitimate” because
some women falsely
accuse. And when he
spoke about a woman’s
body shutting “that
whole thing down,”
well, he was referring
to the possibility rape-
related “stress” would inhibit her ability to
conceive.
As its title suggests, Firing Back is about
settling scores. Among its targets: “evil”
Democrats, ‘biased” media and “spineless”
Republicans who joined the chorus of con-
demnation his quote engendered, unwilling
to stand up for an “unapologetic conserva-
tive.”
For the record, the conservative in ques-
tion was in fact quite apologetic when the
‘legitimate rape” controversy brought inter-
national opprobrium down upon him.
He released a statement asking forgive-
ness and claiming he misspoke. I opined at
the time that his real problem was not that
he misspoke, but that “he spoke all too clear-
ly’’
Looks like he agrees. Because one of the
major takeaways from this book is Akin’s re-
traction of his apology. He shouldn’t have
done it, he says now. By apologizing, he vali-
dated “the willful misinterpretation” of his
words.
Akin has certainly picked an interesting
time to dredge this back up. In recent
months, his party has embarked on an effort
to rebrand itself. Its slogan might be (but
isn’t), “Try the new GOP, now with 25 per-
cent less crazy!”
Of course, “crazy” (read: tea party) has
been the GOP’s sine qua non — indeed, its
energy source — for years now. Call it the
politics of pitchforks or just the politics of
anger, an ideology defined less by ideas than
by ovenveening resentment, simplistic solu-
tions, rhetorical arson, and unrelenting op-
position to any and every thing Barack Oba-
ma does, down to and including breathing.
It made political stars out of the unlikely
likes of Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Ted
Cruz, Christine O’Donnell, Herman Cain
and Akin himself.
But that’s so 2012. Having seen the hated
president sail to re-election and sensing op-
portunity in the coming midterms, the
grown-ups in the party are busily trying to
disentangle themselves from the lover’s em-
brace they not so long ago cherished.
“I don’t care what they do,” snapped
House Speaker John Boehner about the tea
party back in December. A recent Huffing-
ton Post analysis found the GOP’s establish-
ment wing pouring money like Kool-Aid in-
to primary races against tea party challeng-
ers.
“Can the GOP Be a Party of Ideas?” asks a
recent New York Times magazine story. Let
us hope it can. That would be a welcome
thing.
But crazy will not be denied. like a stal-
kerish ex who can’t take “Get the hell away
from me!” for an answer, crazy keeps pop-
ping up at the most inopportune places and
times.
Here’s the party trying to recast itself in a
more serious vein, trying to prove it is not
divorced from reality. And there’s Sarah Pa-
lin talking impeachment. There’s Chris
McDaniel talking election fraud. There’s
Dick Cheney, talking.
And there’s Todd Akin retracting an in-
sincere apology for one of the more pro-
foundly stupid and offensive comments in
recent political memory.
The GOP can’t seem to get out of its own
way. It’s enough to make you feel empathy
for the grown-ups — all four of them — in
the party as they try without success to end
this toxic relationship. Apparently, Neil Se-
daka was right.
Breaking up is hard to do.
LEONARD PITTS writes for the Miami
Herald. His column is distributed by Tri-
bune Content Agency.
Leonard
Pitts
Letters to the editor
Fundamental right
Sam Alito, a justice confused about the
distinction between church and state, wrote
the opinion in a 5-4 decision granting the
Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby, the
right to force their extremist religious views
on their employees, already open to prosely-
tizing.
Normally, as an American, I ignore kooky
religions, but when Alito insists that the fed-
eral government inflict them on people, I am
forced to examine them.
People who give up time, energy and
work to business and corporate interests
have a right to be compensated. Employees
in a strong position receive much while
those in a weaker bargaining position rely
upon government to further their rights.
A fundamental employee right is medical
care, which for a young woman has as its
cornerstone the right not to become preg-
nant.
The possibility exists that a young wom-
an employee of Hobby Lobby, who refuses
birth control because she is not sexually ac-
tive, is raped and her employers, the Greens,
add insult to injury by refusing to pay the bill
to eliminate the living tissue that has been
forced into her body against her will.
SUBMISSIONS
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The Record-Chronicle reserves the right to edit
letters for length. Letters should be typed or
legibly handwritten and be 250 or fewer words.
We prefer e-mail submissions.
Send to: drc@dentonrc.com.
Otherwise, fax to 940-566-6888, or mail to:
Letters to the editor
P.0. Box 369
Denton, TX 76202
Somehow the Greens believe that a pos-
sible pregnancy from this horrible crime has
God’s approval.
They believe the Bible has one interpre-
tation, theirs. True baptism is manifested by
uttering sounds no one understands. They
oppose going to bowling alleys, movie the-
aters, wearing gold and shopping on Sunday.
They are currently working to install
their religion in Oklahoma public schools,
and Sam Alito sees fit to promote federal
help for this nonsense.
Walter Lindrose,
Denton
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Democrats
really like
to talk about
impeachment
f f orry to email you late on a Friday,
but I need your urgent support,”
Nancy Pelosi wrote me.
The House minority leader went on to ex-
plain that “for the first time in history, Con-
gress voted to sue a sitting president.” And,
“Today: the White House alerted us that they
believe ‘Speaker Boehner ... has opened the
door to impeachment.’
“What Republicans are doing to Presi-
dent Obama is historic
— and offensive,” she
wrote. And then, in a
bright bold red text
that can’t be done jus-
tice in black and white,
she chided me, “With
everything happening
right now, I’m a little
disappointed to see Joildh
that you haven’t had a _
chance to chip in to de- GOldDCTfl
fend President Oba-
ma.
“Jonah — we could use your support to-
day.”
Nancy (apparently we’re on a first-name
basis) went on to promise that all gifts are
triple matched!
This was only one of a bushel of such
emails from the Democratic Party.
I particularly like the ones from the Dem-
ocratic Congressional Campaign Committee
referring to the “red alert impeachment
deadline,” complete with a scoreboard slowly
ticking upward toward $2 million. “We now
have a shot at hitting our $2,000,000 goal to
defend the President — and defeat Boehner’s
Republican House.”
No doubt as karmic payback for grave
sins I committed in a past life, I am on all of
the Democratic fundraising lists.
In terms ofwhipped-up urgency aimed at
low-information voters, there’s nothing spe-
cial about these importuning missives.
I can’t count how many times I’ve been
told that if I don’t chip in $5 — right now! —
the Koch brothers will throw another puppy
into the furnace of their land-raping dyna-
mo.
But what is interesting about these emails
is the transparent glee. Far more than Re-
publicans, Democrats love talking about im-
peachment.
Not just Pelosi and the DCCC, but White
House spokesman Josh Earnest, Obama ad-
viser Dan Pfeiffer and first lady Michelle
Obama all chummed the waters with the I-
word, igniting a frenzy among reporters who
pretend that this is a real thing.
Ostensibly the hook for all of this is John
Boehner’s decision to sue Obama for abusing
presidential authority.
Pfeiffer said recently that the suit “opened
the door to impeachment.” But pretty much
everyone in Washington knows that the po-
litical motivation for the lawsuit is to close,
not open, those doors.
The president constantly talks about the
evils of cynicism as if denouncing the alleged
dishonesty of others demonstrates his own
honesty.
In 2008, he said cynicism was his real op-
ponent. Recently at an LA. fundraiser, he re-
turned to the theme, calling Republicans li-
ars and bamboozlers.
The cynicism of Obama’s war on cynicism
is breathtaking. He’s wasted so much of his
presidency demonizing political opponents
as deranged radicals who need to shut up
and get in line.
Even now he is thumping the podium
about “economic patriotism,” as if loyalty to
his views on taxation is the only proof of 100
percent Americanism.
Last fall, Obama did nearly everything he
could to be thrown into the briar patch of a
government shutdown in order to denounce
the Republicans for shutting down the gov-
ernment.
When it went into effect, the administra-
tion endeavored to make the shutdown as
painful as possible — a replay of a similar
scheme with the sequester — so he could
arouse the public against his political foes.
Given Obama’s famously low regard for
the Clinton presidency, it’s ironic that he
keeps stealing from its playbook. Bill Clinton
benefited from a government shutdown and
impeachment and from the general percep-
tion that his enemies were worse than his
sins.
The difference is that while Clinton was
hardly immune to the charge of cynicism, he
wasn’t trying to shut down the government
or get impeached for narrow political advan-
tage.
Now Obama is reportedly considering a
unilateral amnesty of millions of immigrants
here illegally, knowing full well it will spark a
fierce political backlash and heighten im-
peachment talk.
No doubt he thinks it’s the right thing to
do on the merits, with his famous pen and
phone.
What’s less clear is if the merits are his top
priority.
JONAH GOLDBERG is editor-at-large
of National Review Online. His column
is distributed by Tribune Content Agen-
cy.
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 2, Ed. 1 Monday, August 4, 2014, newspaper, August 4, 2014; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1124391/m1/4/?q=%22~1~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .