PoliTex: Obama: ‘Don’t take the silverware’

President Barack Obama welcomed holiday revelers — including a few Texans — to the White House recently.

Tarrant County Justice of the Peace Sergio De Leon and his wife, Frances, were among the crowd that attended a recent Christmas gathering there.

Both President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama greeted the crowd.

“He was very down to earth, cracking jokes,” Frances De Leon said. “He told us to eat up, drink up — but don’t take the silverware. “

Local leadership

A Fort Worth man will be leading the festivities to honor Gov.-elect Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov-elect Dan Patrick next month.

Ardon Moore of Fort Worth — president of Lee M. Bass Inc. in Fort Worth — has been named chairman of the 2015 Texas Inaugural Committee.

In announcing the appointment of Moore and others, Abbott noted that “Texas inaugurations are steeped in time-honored tradition and reflect the story of our great state.

“These men and women are the best possible team to honor this tradition and I look forward to working with them as we plan the 2015 Texas Inauguration.”

Moore said he’s pleased to lead the effort.

“As a lifelong Texan, it will be an honor to assist in the planning and oversight of this celebration honoring Texas’s new era of visionary leadership,” Moore said.

Hands up

Two U.S. Texas House members were part of a recent protest by the Congressional Black Caucus on the U.S. House floor whose members put up their hands in the “don’t shoot” sign in solidarity with Ferguson, Mo., demonstrators.

Reps. Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee, both Democrats from Houston, and New York Democratic Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clarke spoke on the killing of unarmed African American teenager Michael Brown by a white policeman in Ferguson last August. Protesters have adopted the “hands up” gesture as a symbol of the African-American experience with law enforcement.

“I will continue to hold my hands up,” Green said during a floor speech. “I will continue to support those who engage in peaceful protest because holding one’s hands up is an indication that you don’t have anything that will be harmful, an indication that you are willing to move freely and give an opinion about something you believe to be important.”

No ordinary shovel

On Dec. 4, almost exactly 50 years after the groundbreaking for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., a group of dignitaries led by Vice President Joe Biden shoveled some dirt in a new ceremonial groundbreaking for an expansion of the arts center.

But it was no ordinary shovel.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson used the same shovel when ground was first broken for the center in 1964. Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein told the audience that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used it in 1938 for the groundbreaking of the Jefferson Memorial and President William Howard Taft, who presided over the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922 when he was Supreme Court chief justice, reportedly lifted the same implement in 1913 for the start of the Lincoln Memorial. Taft was president when he signed the bill in 1911 to create the monument, but he was defeated in 1912.

One date that is not in dispute said Steven Holl, the architect of the expansion, is the dedication of the new project: May 29, 2017. That is the 100th anniversary of the birth of President John F. Kennedy and the supporters are firm, said Rubenstein, that that will be the day the expanded Kennedy Center will be ready.

This story was originally published December 12, 2014 at 9:36 PM with the headline "PoliTex: Obama: ‘Don’t take the silverware’."