Making the punishment fit the crime
President George W. Bush’s decision to commute the prison sentences of two former Border Patrol agents, convicted in the shooting of a suspected Mexican drug smuggler in 2005, seems a just use of presidential pardoning power. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were convicted on a number of charges related to the shooting of the suspect who was trying to escape from Texas across the Rio Grande. Trial testimony showed Ramos and Compean tried to cover up the shooting and tampered with evidence. They have served about two years in prison. They became poster material in the national immigration debate. Conservative talk show hosts denounced as unduly harsh the sentences the agents received for conduct while attempting to protect the country’s southern border. Bush administration officials believed the convictions just, which is why the president commuted the sentences instead of issuing outright pardons. Certainly, Ramos and Compean made mistakes and deserved to be punished. President Bush’s action properly limits their punishment without signaling that the agents’ misdeeds are in any way condoned.
Mercedes loading zone
What do Steve Jobs, Julia Roberts and Paris Hilton have in common? They drive expensive cars and have been caught parking in handicap spaces without a permit. The familiar blue handicap parking designation with its symbol of a wheelchair can be seen in every public parking lot, but some celebs seem not to notice them. Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc., was caught docking his $130,000 sports car in a handicap slot so often than one wag pasted a Mercedes logo over the wheelchair picture. The Oklahoman reported this week that 12,000 citations for illegal parking in handicap slots were issued in the past two years in Oklahoma City alone. We doubt that many of them were celebrities. Or politicians. Speaking of which, Anthony Steen, a Conservative member of the British Parliament, when caught illegally parking, defended himself by saying, “I should not have parked there and I am sorry for that but there was nowhere else I could go.” This is an old dodge: Many folks believe there are too many handicap slots and most of them are empty most of the time.
Taxing situation
It remains to be seen whether Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner’s failure to pay self-employment taxes for a number of years while employed by the International Monetary Fund might trouble his nomination. President-elect Barack Obama calls Geithner’s tax problem an honest mistake and says he should be confirmed nonetheless. Geithner didn’t pay self-employment taxes from 2001-2004. After an IRS audit he paid his 2003 and 2004 obligations. After his nomination to head Treasury, Geithner paid the taxes for 2001 and 2002. The total, including interest, was nearly $43,000. Meanwhile, Bryon York of National Review Online reports that while Geithner wasn’t paying his self-employment taxes he was receiving tax compensation from IMF. IMF employees are expected to pay taxes out of their own pockets, but then it gives them an extra allowance to cover those tax payments, York writes. Most Americans would like to think their Treasury secretary knows tax law and pays his share like everyone else. Geithner’s tax shortcomings should make for a lively confirmation hearing.
Party time for Wanda Jackson fans
We suggested last fall that fans of Wanda Jackson might just do like her biggest hit song says – Let’s Have a Party – if she were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Well, break out the noisemakers and confetti.
Jackson was chosen for induction this week.
Jackson, 71, is a native of Maud and now lives in Oklahoma City. She began her career singing country music in the early 1950s but later switched to rock ‘n’ roll. Jackson will be inducted in the hall’s “early influence” category.
Congratulations to the Queen of Rockabilly, whose cause for the hall was championed for years by colleagues including the likes of Elvis Costello. Let the party begin.
Encouraging word heard
Some surprisingly encouraging words on coal and nuclear power from Stephen Chu, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for energy secretary. Chu is known as a big renewable energies guy, but at his confirmation hearing this week he emphasized the need to use available resources like coal and nuclear — heretofore absolutely shunned by the green-energy types who’re likely to drive policy during the Obama administration. Chu said federal loan programs should be used to jump-start the nuclear industry and that the U.S. shouldn’t abandon coal while it searches for ways to make use of it cleaner. Time will tell whether that’s Chu’s true heart or just a bid for brownie points in the confirmation process.
Obama quite a salesman
President-elect Barack Obama is getting a sarcastic salute from a news service that caters to outdoors enthusiasts. The Outdoor Wire named Obama its “Gun Salesman of the Year” because of the way gun sales have increased since his election.
We’ve seen it in Oklahoma, where gun shops report brisk business since Election Day when Obama beat John McCain and Democrats increased their majorities in the U.S. House and Senate. Some dealers have even advertised “pre-inauguration specials.”
Outdoor Wire publisher Jim Shepherd said he’s just giving credit where it’s due. The president-elect, Shepherd said, has “made it plain to anti-gun groups that despite what he might say to the contrary, he’s on their side. … Buyers we’ve surveyed across the country seem to have a single explanation for their rush to purchase firearms – Obama.”
Harvest moan
Citizens are reveling in the price for a commodity they can’t do without – gasoline – just as they were grumbling about a price they could do nothing about a few months ago. For farmers and ranchers, commodity prices are a matter of survival. They can do little to control commodity prices and must live with the fact that larger harvests depress prices and lower harvests raise them – just when they have less of a crop to sell. Weather is the “commodity” that no one can control. Oklahoma harvests were generally mediocre last year, the Tulsa World reports, and farmers were often unable to take advantage of higher prices for some crops because of weather. The state’s cotton, corn and hay crops were down in 2008, but wheat, soybeans and peanuts had improved harvests from 2007. Think filling your gas tank was rough last summer? Try making a living when your petroleum-based inputs such as diesel and fertilizer are sky high and the skies are lowering with storm clouds right before harvest.
On a Rolle toward success
The question faced by many high-level college football players this week has been, do I stay and play or go and play? That is, stay in school or go to the pros. Florida State’s Myron Rolle decided to go – and learn.
Rolle, a defensive back, was awarded a Rhodes scholarship in November and plans to take advantage of the opportunity by studying at Oxford in pursuit of a master’s degree in medical anthropology.
He could have chosen to make himself available for the NFL draft, where as a projected early round pick he likely would have made head-turning money. Instead he plans to do that in 2010.
Rolle is a true student-athlete – he took graduate-level courses this year after finishing his undergraduate work in just 2½ years, and hopes one day to attend medical school.
Movin’ on out
People are leaving California in droves, according to Census Bureau figures, but the
Golden
State still glitters for immigrants, illegal and otherwise. The Associated Press reports that
California continues to lead the nation in the rate of departures by existing residents.
New York is second.
California continues to grow, however, because of births and immigration. Census figures aren’t the only way to track arrivals and departures. For 40 years, Allied Van Lines has recorded the number of household shipments into and out of a state using an Allied affiliate. In 2007, Texas had the highest “net relocation gain” (inbound moves minus outbound moves), followed by North Carolina and
Georgia. According to this measure,
Michigan had the highest net location loss.
California had the highest outbound traffic, but inbound movements partially offset that.
Oklahoma was somewhere in the middle of the states, posting a slight net loss. A newer survey from Atlas Van Lines, though, says
Oklahoma had a net gain in moves for the first time in 15 years.
Movin’ on out
People are leaving California in droves, according to Census Bureau figures, but the
Golden
State still glitters for immigrants, illegal and otherwise. The Associated Press reports that
California continues to lead the nation in the rate of departures by existing residents.
New York is second.
California continues to grow, however, because of births and immigration. Census figures aren’t the only way to track arrivals and departures. For 40 years, Allied Van Lines has recorded the number of household shipments into and out of a state using an Allied affiliate. In 2007, Texas had the highest “net relocation gain” (inbound moves minus outbound moves), followed by North Carolina and
Georgia. According to this measure,
Michigan had the highest net location loss.
California had the highest outbound traffic, but inbound movements partially offset that.
Oklahoma was somewhere in the middle of the states, posting a slight net loss. A newer survey from Atlas Van Lines, though, says
Oklahoma had a net gain in moves for the first time in 15 years.
