News Weakly - 1/30/2021

Negativity
Disney is revamping the Jungle Cruise ride both in California and Florida to eliminate "negative depictions of natives." We are still waiting to hear from the animal kingdom and their negative depictions of hippos. (Titus 1:15)

Why It Matters
On the day of his inauguration Biden signed his "Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation" executive order, legislating from the Oval Office what America will be required to believe about gender identity and sexual orientation. Carl R. Trueman at First Things gives some answers to the question, "What is that to you?" You might take a look. (For a humorous-but-serious take on it, you might look at the Genesius Times look at the story.) And Joe Carter at TGC writes about "The Radical Incoherence of Biden’s Transgender Policy." Another offering worth the read.

Who Would Have Thought?
Who would have thought that a modern European country would be on this list, but Poland has affirmed its near-total ban on abortion when the courts ruled that the abortion of congenitally damaged fetuses is unconstitutional. In some places in the world human life is still valuable.

Priorities
In case anyone was not clear, more than half of Americans voted in this new president who, based on the things he is doing at the outset, is most concerned about LGBT issues, providing them with the greatest freedoms and protections in opposition, say, to the protections provided in the Constitution, and killing babies. He promised before the election to make Roe v. Wade "the law of the land" and he is consistently moving toward less religious freedom, more power for LGBT, and more dead babies ... in accordance with those who voted for him. That is, it's not merely an indictment of the president or his political party; it's a commentary on the majority of Americans.

Partisan
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has leveled an accusation against Senator Ted Cruz, suggesting (after he agreed with her on a subject) that he almost got her killed in the Capitol riot. "If you want to help," she tweeted to Cruz, "resign." This ought to go a long way toward avoiding partisan politics, right?

Equivalence
The story is simple. The University of Wisconsin-Madison's police chief has banned officers from using the "Thin Blue Line" imagery. So, first, that image resembles an American flag, but has a blue stripe to show police solidarity. (Other versions have other lines for things like federal agents, search annd rescue, correctional officers, breast cancer survivors, and first responders.) Oh, no, that will never do. Apparently support for police is classifed as "white supremacy." The fix is not to correct the idea that solidarity with the police is racism, but to eliminate the symbol and, more importantly, the concept. Now, let's see ... there are those who (absolutely wrongly) link Christianity with "white supremacy," so we can see where this is headed.

To Bee or Not to Bee
They're planning to impeach a civilian, not a president, and the Babylon Bee presents the tongue-in-cheek possibility that they might just go further and retroactively impeach all former Republican presidents. Why not?

On other topics, the Bee reports that Biden set the record for most COVID deaths in the first week of office. And in the another fun story we read a commentary on Biden's intolerant refusal to accept the world climate's decision to transition.

Among other fun stuff from the Babylon Bee.