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Saturday, August 19, 2017

News Weakly - 8/19/2017

Pot, Meet Kettle
The president took Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to task for not repealing and replacing Obamacare yet. "Maybe," the president suggested, "he should step down." Given the impressively short list of the president's accomplishments in his current term, I wonder if he'll apply the same rule to himself?

In other news, the president is a great defender of the free market concept unless it's someone he doesn't like.

Killing Babies as a Right
Oregon has signed into law a bill "expanding coverage on abortions and other reproductive services to thousands of Oregonians, regardless of income, citizenship status or gender identity." This new law will offer free, state-paid abortions (read "your tax dollars") including sex-selective and late-term abortions. Companies will be required to cover abortions with their health insurance at no cost to the patient. Oregon has sent the nation a message. "We are willing to kill the unborn for any reason at any time on your dime and call it 'progress'. Your rights are secondary. Deal with it."

Killing Others
Not to be outdone by Oregon's generous murder laws, the Netherlands is expanding their euthanasia laws from the old and infirmed who ask to die to those with psychiatric and dementia issues without ability to decide for themselves. Their current law is for patients with unbearable suffering with no treatment alternatives, but they're aiming more toward those that don't want to live or even who might have expressed at some point "Why am I still alive?" but are no longer able to affirm their desire, even if they are not in the "unbearable suffering without possibility of treatment" category. Because in our world today human life isn't the highest value; personal preference is.

The Real Target
We're all aware of the nastiness (that's called "understatement") of last Saturday in Charlottesville. Protesters, counter-protesters, fights, mayhem, and murder ... it all got too ugly. Then, of course, the president failed to say the right thing. "There are bad people on both sides." No, no, not good enough. Try again. "Racism, neo-nazis, and white supremacists are bad." No, no, not soon enough. You should have said that the first time. Try again. "I think there is blame on both sides. What are you going to do ... take down Washington statues, too?" Nope! The military and his own party want him gone. Indeed, since he cannot say what we want, he should be impeached.

What happened in Charlottesville was horrendous. What has happened since is not making it better. And I'm not sure anyone is paying attention to where it's going. First they came for their Confederate flags. Then they came for their Confederate statues. Next is George Washington And the American flag. Once this kind of thing starts, there is no end to it. All have sinned; all ought to go down. Will they actually take it to its logical end?

The Communication Problem
We're all happy with "social media" -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram ... more names than I can list. It's making us "more connected". It's giving us all a voice. We're more able to communicate. The problem, however, is that we are able to communicate without filters. That's why Missouri state senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal put a comment on her Facebook hoping that Trump gets assassinated. With no reflection on liberals, Democrats, or anyone else, this is what we get when there are no restraints to communication. It's not all good. You should keep that in mind the next time you text, tweet, comment, or post. We don't communicate in a vacuum. There are consequences. If not here ...

Not So Funny Humor
The Babylon Bee has a way of speaking truth with humor, but this time it's not so funny. The headline reads, "Organization That Murders 200,000 People Of Color Each Year Takes Stand Against Racism." Ouch!

3 comments:

Marshal Art said...

Was your first point tongue-in-cheek? I hope so. How long has McConnell been around, even as senate leader of the GOP? What has he accomplished in that time? As for Trump, there are numerous articles on-line speaking to his accomplishments...and not all of them from his own people. Among them is the following:

https://americafirstpatriots.com/complete-list-trumps-accomplishments-far-going-viral/


One can certainly quibble on more than one of them...I certainly have my opinions with regard to several...but what constitutes "an impressively short list" in your mind? What would be considered the minimally accepted number of accomplishments to no longer be "short"? In some ways, it's amazing he's been able to get anything done at all, given the level of nonsense thrown his way by the Trump-haters from all sides. He's not on my top ten list of presidents yet, and likely never will be, but I won't disparage his presidency just yet, either.

Anonymous said...

I don't know if anybody makes T-shirts celebrating David Duke. I've never seen one. But I have seen people wearing T-shirts honoring Tupac Shakur. I admit I only know a small amount of the biography of those two fellows, but from what little I know I would say they are roughly equivalent in the degree to which they dishonored this nation. Can anybody here enlighten me if he thinks I am getting this wrong? And what would Dan Trabue say?

Stan said...

Marshal,

I looked at the list. I would have to disagree. Trump has not improved the market. The market has improved since he has been in office because business believes he can do good things for business, but no action on his part has improved the market.

He has decreased regulations, but not everyone is happy about that. Much of it has been to benefit big business without concern for the environment, for small businesses, or for the American people in general.

I'm not at all sure how much of the rest Trump has "accomplished". That it happened under his watch and he "accomplished" it are not the same thing. What is known is that his promise for a wall hasn't taken place, his threat to cut funding to sanctuary cities hasn't occurred ... and so on. Now, I'm not saying 1) I'm in favor of any of this stuff, or 2) that he is to blame for none of it happening, or 3) that he hasn't accomplished anything, or 4) that I'm in favor of what he has accomplished. I'm simply saying that presidents, including the Donald, cannot do all they promise any more than Congress can. We call it "checks and balances" and it works. He hasn't done what he said; they haven't done what they said. Pot, meet kettle.

No, not tongue in cheek.