Examining My Mail-In Ballot for General Election

The other day Melissa and I received our mail-in absentee ballots for the November general election.  There are the easily understandable partisan races, such as for US senator, US representative, governor, state cabinet seats, state representative, and Alachua County Commission.  Then comes a long list of judges that I'm somehow supposed to know whether to retain or kick their sorry superior asses out.  This is followed on the ballot by officially nonpartisan races for circuit judge, Gainesville mayor, city commission, and five "soil and water conservation" seats.  Seeing these makes me automatically wonder who the stealth Republican candidates are in our heavily Democratic city...I strongly suspect at least one of them took great pains to wipe their Facebook page clean of any past comments they might have made concerning COVID-19 policy or the 2020 Election.  On the ballot's flip side are three Florida State Constitution amendments, along with three more local referenda.  I haven't a clue what to do about the judges...seems like our judiciary has become extremely politicized and will only get worse as vacancies arise.  As for the "nonpartisan" races, I'm not voting on any of them until I can distinguish the candidates' party allegiances.  As for that flip side, I don't see the point in "changing" the Florida Constitution after a previously approved amendment to restore voting rights to felons who had completed their sentences was negated when the state legislature subsequently added the condition that they first pay an exorbitant penalty fee for their incarceration. As for my recommendations on this ballot, I have none...just my own opinions, for better or for worse.  You're entitled to your own as well...why not inform yourself and vote this time around?

Quote of the Week...from Jean Yoon

If every time men had sex, they risked death, physical disability, social shunning, a life altering interruption of their education or career, and the sudden life-long responsibility for another being, I think they'd expect a choice in the matter.                                    ---Jean Yoon

I only know of the above quote by American-born Canadian actress/writer Jean Yoon because I've seen it reposted on Facebook a number of times in recent days...I haven't seen anything she acted in or read her writings before.  But her statement concerning too many men's attitudes regarding a woman's right to make her own reproductive choices to me expresses their fundamental hypocrisy on the subject when they justify their pro-life/anti-choice stance on "principles".  Principles, I might add, that don't apply to them since, as expressed in Yoon's quote, they aren't subject to the physical, social and economic consequences of pregnancy that the woman must endure, "chosen" or not. I recognize that this is a very sensitive issue and that well-meaning people, men and women both, have wide-ranging and often very passionate opinions about it.  But as I have stated before in earlier blog articles, it would be a good thing for everyone concerned if each of us showed a little compassion toward those with whom we disagree and at least tried to empathetically see things from their viewpoints...Jean's quote stresses this point.  But I see where our society is going right now and sadly doubt that my suggestion will be widely practiced anytime soon...

My Take on Senator Manchin's Present Senate Role

West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin has lately been receiving his share of criticism...some of it excessively personal...from others in his party, including the President.  Although not addressing Manchin by name, Biden referred to him and colleague Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona as two senators who seem to vote more with Republicans than Democrats...a patently false statement: Manchin votes overwhelmingly with his party.  But in some matters he represents a lone voice, opposing any move to eliminate the legislative filibuster as well as his party's current For the People bill about voting and election reform.  As it is, I think that with just about any piece of legislation there is room of compromise, but in this climate of political gridlock with each party catering to their extreme wing, that word "compromise" is almost always depicted as betrayal instead of the logical result of elected officials recognizing the importance of getting things accomplished in a constructive manner for the American people and passing legislation that won't automatically be rescinded the next time the "other" party gains power...and it always eventually does.  Now Manchin is being depicted as some kind of racist for his principled stands...nothing that I know of the man, though, indicates anything of the sort. What many in his own party don't seem to "get" is that in an overwhelmingly red state he represents like West Virginia, Joe Manchin...its former governor...is nowadays probably the only Democrat they would elect to statewide office.  Instead of running him down, Democrats should be counting their blessings and realizing that his presence in the Senate is the reason they can get Biden's nominees brought to the floor and approved and their bills can be sent through committees and also brought up for votes... 

My overriding concern about voting and elections is the number of laws recently passed by Republican-run state legislatures that transfer the authority of certifying election results to those highly partisan legislatures, meaning that in any close election occurring under their jurisdiction they can let Republican victories pass unhindered while overturning Democratic wins under any pretext of false fraud charges.  The For the People Act doesn't seem to address this threat to our democracy, but rather tends to focus on making the act of voting much more a passive endeavor than one requiring the participant to make any sort of effort.  It also imposes a code of ethics on the Supreme Court and pushes for D.C. statehood, issues that are worthwhile to discuss but not directly germane to the bill's topic.  I personally oppose ballot harvesting, a process that this bill would impose nationally and which grants political operatives the opportunity to canvass neighborhoods for voters in their own party, pick up their ballots and deliver them to the elections office...all sorts of trouble can result from this.  And I'm also not a fan of universal vote-by-mail where the population regularly gets doused with mail-in ballots, as with the recent U.S. Census many of them to incorrect addresses.  To its credit, though, the bill does place restrictions on state officials purging voter rolls just before elections and gives such voters recourse to contest their removal. Senator Manchin has clearly stated that he objects to the For the People Act in its present form...in all likelihood he's seeing some of the same things I am.  There is no way I see him supporting eliminating the legislative filibuster, so the Democratic leadership has a choice: either work with the Republican opposition to come up with bills that can pass (and remain in law when power inevitably changes hands at some future time) or wait until the 2022 election and hope that they retain control of the House and expand their Senate majority to the point that Manchin and Sinema cannot thwart the move to end that 60-vote legislative threshold.  Will Joe Manchin disappoint me in the future by something he says or does? Almost certainly as he's already done so in the past, but unlike the millions of Trump idolaters and those who adoringly "feel the Bern" for Senator Sanders, I question elected officials and don't worship them...

Social Movements Need to Display More Honesty in Their Approach

When I hear of different social movements going on around me I often get a little taken aback by what I perceive as an inherently dishonest approach taken by those promoting them.  This manifests in four different areas: retroactive political correctness, restricting public debate only to areas that serve the movement's goals, treating the movement as something that had better be accepted or else, and removing personal responsibility from those whose interests are being furthered.  If those in the movement are pursuing something worthwhile,  that means that if they are successful then today's world and people's accompanying attitudes toward the issue in question will be better than they were yesterday, so consequently in such a positive scenario the past...along with what people believed and did back then...will naturally seem less enlightened and more subject to criticism.   Some celebrity or politician may have said something in 2005 about an issue that has since moved on and now somebody else wants to call them to task for it, or this movie or that book uses language that since has been adjudged to be insensitive or hurtful to one group or another...and the temptation is to retroactively condemn the person and censor expression, right?  But shouldn't we instead, in an enlightened, supposedly educated society, have enough sophistication to place the past in its proper context and appreciate the change for the better?   Movements may insist on "necessary conversations", but what they really mean is that you can only say what they want you to say and any attempt at broadening the message of their narrative or mitigating its generalizations is impermissible...they'll say it's their debate right now and you're just being tone-deaf, insensitive, or worse if you disagree with or even just modify one or more of their cherished positions.  If they want to essentially take over sections in different cities with protests, even vandalizing businesses and homes while harassing residents, pedestrians and customers in the area, well, this is such an important issue in their minds that they feel justified that everything else must completely shut down until they get what they want.  And with these movements, usually a group is labeled as the "victim" of another group...in their narratives, the incidents of victimization almost always portray the victim as passive and blameless or severely downplay his or her behavior in the incident being spotlighted.  But an honest discussion of anything should involve the actions of all parties involved...

I know there's a lot of injustice going on around me on different fronts and believe that if you want to draw the whole population into honestly recognizing it and working to make our society a more equitable and fair place to live instead of dividing them along political battle lines, then you're going to have to learn to listen respectfully to others with a differing point of view from you if you want them to be willing in turn to respectfully hear out your own agenda.  You may discern that in this article I'm thinking primarily of one particular social movement, and I'm largely in sympathy with its message and aims, albeit incompletely expressed...so let's allow for a more open, honest and civilly-responsible discussion which I believe in the end will contribute to a more unified, constructive outcome... 

Three Televised Presentations with Compelling Narratives about Reality

A week or two ago I was sitting comfortably at home in my recliner, in a desperate search to find something worth watching on TV...finally settling on a funding drive show on Public Television featuring Dr. Steven Gundry, who was promoting his most recent book titled The Immortality Paradox.  I was intrigued enough by his presentation to check that book out online from my library...I finished it and plan to add it to my Kindle collection of books, I was that impressed.  Yet something in how the good doctor presented his thesis on how the "gut" bacteria in our bodies determine our state of health and longevity gave me pause: Point A logically led to Point B which logically led to Point C...and all led back to repeated affirmations of his main point.  I get the appeal to reason, but something inside me still rebelled because I don't think that reality is that well organized: it's a lot more chaotic and the systems described are much more complex.  Yet I recognize and accept several points Dr. Gundry made and am partially changing my diet to improve my health...

A while back I saw Al Gore's 2006 movie An Inconvenient Truth, which warned in much the same manner as Dr. Grundy with his own topic about the dangers of global warning caused by man-made releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  The logic and reason with which Gore connected the difference sources of evidence for his thesis was very persuasive and compelling...yet once again after initially being swept away by the presentation, I thought that the system that he was describing contained many other factors that would counteract some of the predictions...just as chaos wreaks havoc with weather forecasting beyond a limited time span.  Still, as in Dr. Grundy's case, I do think it is advisable to take better care of our environment, and trying to restrict our carbon emissions is an example of good stewardship of the planet...

And the other night I watched the 2016 documentary movie 13th, directed by Ava DuVernay, which presented its own thesis that the 13th Amendment to our United States Constitution, long celebrated because it officially abolished slavery, is actually flawed in that it contains a clause that makes an exception for criminals...a loophole that has been used ever since against blacks to oppress and exploit them.  Seen in this light, as one piece of historical evidence supporting that thesis is followed by another...and then another, after the movie ended I thought that the conspiracy it exposed was real...yet once again I have to inject the role of chaos into complex ideas that sound true, and which most definitely contain many significant elements of truth.  Racism is a major problem in our society...but it is one of many factors and doesn't account for all the problems that affect us.  Yet the movie was an eye-opener for me and I highly recommend it...

The three previous examples The Immortality Paradox, An Inconvenient Truth, and 13th all deal with very important subjects immediately relevant to our lives here and now.  I'm inclined to defer within each of them to subject matter I don't completely understand...yet I am inherently skeptical of buying every conclusion they promote hook, line and sinker.  Instead I come away with an action plan from each presentation: be kinder to my own body, be kinder to my own planet, and be kinder to others different than myself.  Maybe that sounds too simple, but the way I see it our lives in the end break down to simple acts, one thing at a time...

Quote of the Week...from President Trump

Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.      ---President Donald Trump

To this quote I'd like to add two pro-gun clichés and two New York Times headlines:

The Clichés:
1) If guns were outlawed only outlaws would have guns.
------and------
2) Guns don't kill people, people do.

The NY Times Headlines (August 6, early and late editions):
1) Trump Urges Unity Vs Racism
------and------
2) Assailing Hate But Not Guns

The Times headlines and article came after President Donald Trump spoke to the nation following the mass shooting murders in El Paso and Dayton this past weekend. There was so much criticism coming at the newspaper for its first headline...which critics claimed failed to capture the essence of Trump's address...that they changed it between editions.  The President did speak out against racism and for national unity...but he also gave a variation on the second of my two cited clichés with the above quote, claiming that the gun doesn't pull its own trigger.  No kidding, sir, yet I've heard this kind of foolish argument before by gun advocates, implying that since guns don't shoot people by themselves, then they're somehow okay and shouldn't be part of any discussion...and tagging the mentally ill with blame for gun violence doesn't correspond to the facts as I know them. No, it's the wrong guns (military-style weapons with multiple rounds increased by high-capacity magazines) in the wrong hands (only the military and law enforcement should have them, in my opinion) that is causing the problem with these evil mass shooters using them to pick off multitudes of innocent people in stores, places of worship, schools, concerts, festivals, workplaces...or any other locale where people gather in numbers.  So although it's commendable that Trump spoke out against racism and hate, he has yet to explain why it's quite all right for civilians to be able to legally acquire semi-automatic rifles that can be used to inflict massive carnage quickly on large numbers of people, as preferred as they may legitimately be by some sportsmen with their game hunting.  Still, from where I stand the public's security far outweighs the enhancement of some people's hunting experiences. It's true that many more murders are caused through the abuse of handguns...and to be sure, by other means than through firearms. Restricting these higher-powered weapons will not thwart evil people from trying to murder others...and sometimes tragically succeeding.  But you would not be looking at these horrendous casualty figures had the mass shooters been more limited in their choice of murder weapon.  Regarding that first cliché above, it sadly has much truth to it.  Localities and states that greatly restrict legal gun ownership put their law-abiding citizens in a helpless situation against the criminal elements operating there who can easily bring in their weapons from outside.  And even if the nation as a whole enacted stricter laws against these military-level guns, we would still be overrun with them for years...and no doubt a thriving black market would develop as well.  As for more stringent background checks for gun buyers, I wonder how many of the mass shooters over the past several years would have been caught and prevented from building up their arsenals if the laws now being pushed had already been in place...probably not that many, I'm guessing.  Doesn't sound like I'm very optimistic about where this is all going, does it?  Well, give me something positive to latch onto, then, while I reflect on the somber conclusion that we live in a culture that idolizes and glorifies violence, inviting evil into our midst while refusing to acknowledge it for what it is...

Some Comments About the United States Senate

As you might already know if you regularly read this blog, I am an avid fan of the United States Senate floor proceedings, broadcast live on C-Span2 (Cox Channel 81 in Gainesville). The United States Senate "usually" convenes on Monday at 3 pm and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 9:30 or 10 am...not a lot of action for a body that complains of not having enough time to do all its work. At the opening of each session is a prayer, thoughtfully and reverently delivered usually by Senate Chaplain Barry Black, followed by the Pledge to the Flag and an opening statement by the Majority Leader, usually later followed by the Minority Leader and/or assistant leaders.  It is these speeches that I tune in to hear, for they reflect to a great degree what the two major parties are up to with their visions and agendas.  Later today, for example they will hold a floor vote...doubtlessly split along party lines...that will drastically reduce the debate time before final confirmation vote for the President's nominees that are not for the Supreme Court or Cabinet-level positions, going from 30 hours to only 2.  I support this move as far as departmental bureaucratic leadership positions are concerned since they are pertinent only to the ongoing administration.  But for lifetime positions on the Federal Court, prospective judges should receive greater time and scrutiny as once they are confirmed they will wield enormous power over all Americans...and that should concern you regardless of your political orientation.  It's even more imperative to have more time to look at and discuss their records because after then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (a Democrat) got rid of the 60-vote threshold in 2014 to end debate on this level of judicial nomination and the current Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (a Republican) refuses to honor the Blue Slip tradition of both senators having to sign off on a nominee from their state before he or she can be considered, more ideologically and judicially extreme and less qualified candidates have a much easier time getting a simple majority to pass and be confirmed to their life-long posts.  But McConnell is determined to see this bill passed, and much like Reid's earlier mistake will probably see his adversary party, the Democrats, eventually take full advantage of the ill-advised change when they take back power, which is only a matter of time and probably sooner than the Majority Leader shortsightedly imagines...

The United States Senate's website, which you can access by click on the link US Senate, provides up-to-date information on all the senators and recent votes...as well as providing information about the sometimes curious way by which this body of Congress operates.  I wish more senators would make floor speeches about their views on different issues...if seems that most of the Senate's time is spent in quorum calls as the chamber is empty other than the Senate staff and the presiding officer...

Looking at Politics, Issue By Issue

Life would be a lot simpler for me if I followed the example of millions of my fellow Americans who joyfully and dutifully march in lockstep with their own political parties, passionately adopting all of the party positions on the issues...even those that, given a little thought, might not be in the best interests of either the country or themselves personally. Yes, many folks can’t wait to turn their radio on to Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage...or eagerly anticipate what FoxNews will tell them to think through their idol Sean Hannity. That’s just on the political right...on the left we have MSNBC and their cast of opinion makers like Lawrence O’Donnell and Rachel Maddow, each of them looking through the TV “at” the viewer with a look that says I know you’ll believe anything I tell you, you’re one of us. And CNN, while pretending to be unbiased, sometimes has the most biased presentation of the issues, with the moderator usually eager to jump into the fray with his or her presumptions. My political philosophy has me usually landing on the side of the Democrats, but that doesn’t mean that they are always correct on the issues, in my opinion. So it grieves me at times to side with President Trump on border security and national defense while I know that he ultimately isn’t temperamentally or morally suited for such a position of responsibility and authority. Yet my own party’s leaders would go against steps that I feel we need to take to ensure our national security, so it can get to be trying hearing people who are all on one side or the other, usually delivering their viewpoints in a very harsh, judgmental, and personal manner directed at the “bad guys” and those who support them. The way I see it, if you’re a thinking person you’ll have varying views on issues, most of which will probably resonate with your general political alignment and a few of which won’t. It isn’t our responsibility to conform ourselves to the positions of our respective political parties, but rather their responsibility to accommodate and not summarily dismiss ours...

A Little Political Talk

It's funny how I will lose contact with someone, such as a classmate or former coworker, over the span of years, and then hear from them again...only to find that they have become very emotionally committed to partisan politics, either on the left or the right.  The motives for their alignment may be some issues important to them or the relative philosophies and priorities of conservatives and liberals, but their outward expression tends to be highly personal, with politicians and media figures on "their" side depicted as noble, principled, pro-freedom heroes and those on the "other" side as villainous, dictatorial, dishonest, corrupt, and stupid.  Since the 2016 presidential election this personalization of politics has greatly intensified due to the controversial winner, who attacked the personalities and integrity of opponents within his own party during the primary season, made hateful remarks about various media figures critical of him, and then called his general election opponent "evil" and "the devil".  And later, after taking office, he had the nerve to bemoan that there was so such hatred!  Given these theatrics, it is understandable that many of us are more inclined to see politics through personalities rather than issues...but reality dictates that we live in the present and are much more likely to be affected by how our elected politicians...whether we like them or not...are making decisions on those issues that affect us a lot more than any impulsive tweets or stump speech assertions.  I've said it before: I personally disliked both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during last year's campaign, but one of them was going to be elected president.  Now it's a little more than half a year into Trump's term and I like him less than ever...but he is my president and, looking at some of the issues he is facing, I find myself supporting him on some and opposing him on others...

I believe that it is a Constitutional mandate for the president to protect the people of the United States against dangers from abroad.  The ideas of securing our borders and being more careful about admitting others into our country are good, prudent ones...unfortunately, Trump's implementation of these worthy goals have been marked by a lack of preparation and careless speech overgeneralizing different ethnic and religious groups, too much of it aimed at a political base containing many xenophobes.  But the aims are necessary...

Donald Trump wants to wipe out ISIS, a.k.a. "Islamic State".  But since this terrorist organization has planted itself in several countries and has an Internet-based communication and recruitment network, driving them out of Iraq and Syria won't completely eliminate them.  But the people living in Mosul and Raqqa want no part of them and welcome the liberating forces supported by both the present and previous president...a positive continuity of policy.  Good!

I tentatively support President Trump's apparently constructive attitude in favor of funding our space program, especially manned space travel, although the pattern over the years has been for each succeeding president to drastically change the goals...causing disruption, delay, and wasted efforts and money.  The best outcome would be for him to continue the project to go to Mars and to eventually restore George W. Bush's plan to establish a permanent base on the moon...

Well, that's three issues; there are some others that I have mixed feelings about such as energy, infrastructure, and health care...maybe I'll go into them at another date.  And then, on the negative side, there's Trump's desire to squelch criticism of himself and his administration, his conflicts of interest, and the ongoing Russian investigation.  Can I trust this man when dealing with this complicated relationship between America and Putin's Russia?

I don't know what the future will bring, but I know one thing right now, in late July of 2017: for this season in our country's history Donald Trump is the president...and Republicans have majorities in both houses of Congress as well as most state governorships and their legislatures.  They will do some good things...and some not-so-good things.  Let's focus more on the issues at hand and less on the often melodramatic personalities...although the biggest drama queen of them all seems to think the world itself is one big reality TV series, with himself the (only) star and tweeter-in-chief...

   

Sampan Off the Port Bow

If you've been anywhere near a TV set during the last few days and happened to hit upon one of those cable news channels, you've no doubt encountered the extensive coverage of the prolonged protests in Charlotte, North Carolina against the fatal police shooting of a young black man there.  At the same time, there is a parallel story going on in Oklahoma where a young white female cop is being charged with manslaughter after shooting to death a black man on a highway there.  As a matter of fact, these types of fatal encounters have been accumulating and have gotten quite beyond old...they are reprehensible.  Not just because some people got shot, or necessarily because the most highly publicized incidents involved black victims...I wonder if those in other demographic groups who have been killed in this fashion by law enforcement are being filtered out of media coverage because they don't fit the protesters' narrative.  No, the truly reprehensible...and frightening...aspect to all of this is the attitude that the police take to citizens under their jurisdiction when they decide that they are suspects: suddenly the lives of the very people they were supposed to be protecting...but whom they're now suspecting...no longer seem to matter very much...

Off and on for the last 52 years, the United States military, while avoiding officially declared wars, has instead been engaged in what our government has termed "police action", especially regarding the adventures in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  The missions in these places have been to protect their populations against the "bad guys" (like communists and terrorists) and give the people there the chance to enjoy freedom and prosperity.  The problem with all this is that, once the troops were there occupying the land that others called their own, the soldiers often could not distinguish among those who were friends and who were foes.  So in a sense the locals collectively became the "suspects", and that tended to cheapen their lives.  You may have heard of the terrible My Lai Massacre in South Vietnam, which is an illustration of this point, as well as seeing on the evening news back then the burning down of villages in order to "save" them.  The movie Apocalypse Now, which depicted the overwhelming suspicion that a sizable segment of the American troops had of the native population, has a scene in which the Navy boat transporting upriver the movie's protagonist, played by Martin Sheen, encounters a Vietnamese junk boat, also referred to as a "sampan".  Someone yells out "Sampan off the port bow!" and, despite Sheen's protestations, the Navy boat's chief insists on stopping it and investigating.  The Vietnamese on it dutifully provide the necessary papers, but no, they are now "suspects" and so the boat has to be searched for contraband.  While this is going on, a woman in the boat suddenly lurches toward the back and the entire Navy boat goes berserk with gunfire, killing all of the Vietnamese on the sampan.  These were supposed to be the people that were being protected in this "police action" most of the world called the Vietnam War, but instead they were always going to be suspects from the soldiers' viewpoint and suffer the resulting peril...

I brought up the above illustration, admittedly in itself a work of fiction, to point out what I believe to be the main problem. Whether one is a policeman on patrol duty in this country or a soldier on "police action" duty in an occupied country, they should be respected and applauded for their brave service and sacrifices.  But the behavior of some of these courageous public servants seems to "go south" toward any individual once he or she gets put into the "suspect" category...and the value of that suspect's life becomes diminished as a result.  It is not for the police to administer justice or decide who is guilty.  I cannot understand how the only available option for subduing uncooperative suspects is to shoot them with deadly force.  As far as the racism angle being charged by protesters and movements like Black Lives Matter is concerned, I feel that there may be a tendency for some of those within the police forces to discriminately, even if done unconsciously, move African-Americans they encounter in the line of duty out of the category of the "protected" and into that of the "suspected".  And once you're a suspect, life can get very, very scary: make the wrong move and you're history, whether you are a Vietnamese running in a sampan or an American reaching into your pocket or your car...

Unnecessary Homeland Security Bill Senate Filibuster

The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives has passed a  Department of Homeland Security authorization and funding bill to keep the crucial department fully funded through the end of the year.  However, included in the bill is a repudiation of President Obama's executive action giving partial amnesty to illegal aliens (or "undocumented immigrants", if you want to tip-toe through political correctness land).  This bill has now been brought up before the Senate, where Democrats are filibustering it to keep it from being submitted to the floor for debate, amendments, cloture, and a final vote.  As was the case tith the recently passed Keystone XL Pipeline bill, it has no chance of being signed into law by the President, and there is no hope of overriding a presidential veto.  So I ask myself, regardless of anyone's opinion about the propriety of the Republicans' actions attaching the anti-exucutive action part to the bill, why can't it be brought up to the Senate floor for debate as the Keystone Pipeine bill was?  I'm not a Senate insider here, with my own connections and news sources.  But I have a sneaking suspicion...

Back in January when the Keystone bill was openly debated, amended, and voted on, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was absent due to an accident that he was being treated for.  I his place, Minority Whip Dick Durbin stood in and ran his party...and allowed the bill to pass through the normal legislative process.  But the minute that Reid came back, though, presto!...here comes the filibustering...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell  has proposed splitting up the Homeland Security reauthorization bill into two parts, one being a "clean" bill that funds the department without reference to Obama's recent immigration executive action, and the other a section on whether that action should be accepted or rejected.  That sounds quite reasonable to me, but I have my doubts about even that great concession on the part of the majority Senate leadership being accepted by morose and spiteful Senator Reid, sad to say.  Still, there is hope now for this important bill to be passed and the needed funding to continue.  The next day or two will tell what happens...

Oh, by the way, after I had posted this article and looked back up on its title "Unnecessary Homeland Security Bill Senate Filibuster", I realized that it could be taken two different ways.  No, the Homeland Security bill is necessary, but the filibuster against it isn't...

President Obama Gives State of the Union Speech

Yesterday President Obama laid out his vision for the rest of his term in office in his State of the Union address, given before a joint session of Congress.  I did not watch it, but caught most of it from the radio. It was a good speech, as this president is so adept at when presenting prepared material to a group.  Although the President covered many topics, his salient points, as I saw it, were (1) the economic recovery is going full swing, but that it is important that the middle class and poor be able to enjoy the benefits as well as the rich (meaning raise taxes on the higher-income brackets), (2) our foreign policy should be carefully crafted so that we explore and implement a variety of approaches when dealing with our enemies abroad...so that we don't allow ourselves to get mired down in wars, and (3) we should invest in education and infrastructure to keep America at the forefront of the world.  With regard to the last point, he alluded to his recent proposal of granting free community college education (I wonder if that includes soon-to-be old-timers like me who want to do something new as retirement approaches...no, I'm probably excluded) as well as diminishing the significance of the important Keystone XL Pipeline issue now before Congress by stating that the various needed infrastructure construction and repair projects for the country would generate thirty times more jobs than "one pipeline".  And he pushed all of the required liberal social issue buttons, including more than once supporting gay rights and same-sex marriage (which he opposed back in 2008 when that stance was more politically feasible for him).

I don't have a problem with a lot of President Obama's speech, but I do have a major one with this tendency of him to smugly dismiss issues that others consider to be important.  For example, in 2009, after single-handedly forcing NASA to abandon its worthy and ambitious project to establish a base on the moon (after he had promised during the 2008 campaign not to do this), he brushed away any criticism with the flippant comment "We've already been there".  That offended me somehow.  Now it's just this "one pipeline"... just a drop in the bucket, right?  But it is the number one item for consideration for the new Republican congressional majority in both houses and, regardless whether you're for or against the pipeline (I happen to be for it), his casual brushoff of the issue does not bode well for his relationship with either the Senate or the House in the next two years.  No, sadly, I see this speech, which might have been more constructive and conciliatory, to have been little more than oratorical posturing for the primary purpose of shoring up the Democratic Party base for the next election, in other words, the same old "stuff".  Perhaps the saddest thing of all, though, is that regarding this president, whom I have supported through two elections (though not wholeheartedly in the last one), he would still get my vote were he eligible to run again as I look at the sorry list of Republicans (especially Mr. Romney, the perennial candidate) who currently have their power-hungry eyes fixed on his job...

Just Finished Reading Not Cool! by Greg Gutfeld

Well, I just resisted the temptation of titling this article "Greg Gutfeld's Not Cool!", but I had to throw in the line anyway.  Gutfeld is a Fox News Channel commentator, host of his own show Red Eye, and a regular panelist on the late afternoon show The Five.  He is funny, feisty and very opinionated, but doesn't automatically subscribe to the Republican Party's talking points as others on this channel do.  Instead he takes a generally libertarian view of the issues (like being in favor of the legalization of marijuana and gay marriage)  while siding with the general Party leadership on issues like business and bank deregulation, gun rights, national security, and empowering police to fight crime.  But in Not Cool!, his latest book, while a making partisan conservative spin on some things (e.g. he profusely lauds John Bolton, one of Fox's "contributors" who consistently spins Obama's ongoing foreign policy efforts into the ground and then stomps on them), is more about how a certain segment of our society, which he terms as "the hipster elite", continually screws up things by making heroes out of terrorists and other criminals, making crime victims out as being guilty, trashing important life-saving scientific and technological advances like genetic modification of foods, effective insecticides like DDT, and vaccinations, refusing to recognize the Islamic element in so many of today's terrorist attacks and wars,  the propensity to call anyone in disagreement with them as "haters",  the refusal to support the domestic exploration, extraction, and transportation of our own energy natural resources like coal, oil, and natural gas, attacking the traditional American family and glorifying "alternative lifestyles", demonizing our military and national defense efforts and seeing all overseas problems as somehow being America's fault, the irrational embracing of foreign despots (but only if they're on the left politically), the stereotyping and ridicule of the South and its traditions, the elevation in stature of irresponsibility and shallowness in youth culture, jumping on the-pro-gay-bandwagon-and-anyone-who-isn't-on-it-is-retroactively-a-hater, stigmatization of openly conservative entertainers, and using news stories of shootings to attack people's legal rights to own guns.  Whew!, that's a lot of ground for Gutfeld to have covered, and in a relatively short book at that.  Plus, he goes off into other subjects as well (including a section in the end where he recommends a number of musical artists that I've never heard of).

I don't agree with all that Greg Gutfeld has presented here, but we're on the same wavelength on many of the issues.  I salute him for expressing his views, and look forward to seeing him on TV..it's obvious to me that he speaks his mind and isn't just trying to tow some party line or please his employer.  Plus, I like his flowing, conversational writing style, which I also try to use here in this blog...albeit without Gutfeld's sprinkling of profanity.  I recommend Not Cool!, although, if you're one of those "hipster elitists" you may want to ditch it after a couple of pages....

Obama Push for Syria Strike

The push to give President Obama the political backing he wants to attack Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons on its own people during its civil war is now going on full swing.  I haven't been ignoring this important issue, but have been hesitant to write about it for a couple of reasons.  One, I don't know all the facts; in a situation like this I'm left depending on the words of those in authority who have access to information, much of it classified, that I am not privy to.  This is similar to the time leading up to George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq more than ten years ago, when as it turned out that the needed information was indeed there...it just wasn't true!  Two, although arguments have been made that not striking Syria will discredit U.S. efforts to dissuade Iran from developing nuclear weapon capability and will embolden terrorists who would then see us as weak, I could counter-argue that by attacking Syria we would be strengthening terrorists within that country's borders who would then become our de facto allies (and later attack us).  No, I don't see Syria as directly threatening us, and in this I am astonished (and more than a little disturbed) to find myself siding with far-right tea party politicians, the most notorious of them being Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. That in itself is enough to make me want to turn my head from this issue and think of something else (like football or the weather)...

Alabama Farms Go Unharvested

I have lately been following in the news how Alabama farmers are losing a lot of money because their ripe fields have too few willing to harvest them. Why is this happening? Apparently, a new Alabama state law is coming down very hard on undocumented immigrants and they are moving out of the state en masse. Many of these had been providing the migrant farm labor these farm owners had been using for many years to work their crops. And they can't find enough "real" Americans willing to perform the low-wage, difficult work that the mostly-Mexican migrant workers consistently did.

After hearing this news, I had two different reactions...

The first is the "obvious" one that the news presenters may have wanted me to have. Which is that Americans are too soft and whiny about their "poor" economic situation. After all, when there are jobs out there, they don't want to do them. Of course, with regard to the Alabama farm worker situation, that's nonsense: we're talking about illegal, under-the-table sub-minimum wage labor, aren't we?

My second reaction is to wonder how many of these "unfortunate" Alabama farmers, with the prospects of failed crops spoiling in their fields, passionately went to the polls and voted for the very same people that passed these restrictive and punitive laws that drove away their labor pool. I think that, once again, we see an example of a segment of the electorate being swayed on emotional hot-button issues to vote for one party against their own better interests. When, if ever, are the people going to awake and realize how they are letting themselves be manipulated??!!

Pro-Life Billboards

You can't drive for very long down the open Interstate Highway System without coming across one of the myriad billboards urging pregnant women not to get abortions. The message is usually targeted at those who have just discovered their condition and are uncertain as to what to do, usually in the very first few weeks of pregnancy. The strategy of many who put out these billboard ads is to convince the women that what they are carrying is a fully-developed human being, often by pointing out that the heart is already beating. As I drive past sign after tedious sign, it starts to bother me a bit: I dislike them as much as I dislike all those billboards proclaiming some strip joint or adult triple-X store down the road. However...

In spite of the fact that I dislike these anti-abortion signs cluttering up my drive, I actually support the fact that they are a legitimate expression of an important debate about the rights of the unborn vs. the rights of women to make their own reproductive decisions about their own bodies. The debate takes place in the context of abortions being legal nationwide due to the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling. If they weren't, there wouldn't be the need for those signs: it wouldn't be a matter of persuasion but rather a matter of reporting lawbreakers to the authorities. Unfortunately, I think that those behind these billboards would like nothing more than to end the debate by simply criminalizing any reproductive choice that they disagree with.

The pro-choice/pro-life debate will still continue in our country regardless of the law. But I would rather the debate be one of persuasion out in the fresh, open air of free speech rather than with the hard edge of coercion and the need to take the conversation "underground". Unfortunately, the political trends in the U.S. seem to be moving in the latter direction.

In a perfect world, there would be no unwelcome pregnancies and therefore no abortions done on an elective basis. Going to term with a pregnancy completely transforms the biochemistry within a woman and exposes her to numerous risks, including the possibility of death. I know: this almost happened within my own family! To make an edict FORCING a woman to undergo this from the very early stages of pregnancy seems barbaric and should have no place within a civilized society. And it becomes worse than barbaric when those behind this deny any collective social responsibility to help care for that woman and her child after birth.

Illegal Immigration Issue

Concerning the illegal immigration issue...

Proponents of strict enforcement of American immigration laws are often hammered as being "racist" or anti-immigrant. I have read and heard countless exhortations by well-meaning people (including President Obama) who, like me, want reasonable immigration reform that is realistic and compassionate toward those here without documentation. One of the arguments I hear, though, is patently condescending: we are a nation of immigrants, those currently here without documentation are the same as all of the others who passed into this country while following the law, and if you don't like the largely uncontrolled, primarily-Mexican influx then you must be racist or at least xenophobic (and therefore in need of this patronizing rebuke).

I remember in the not-too-distant past how refugees to the U.S. from Indochina often encountered hostility from some of the "natives": they were seen as "outsiders", supposedly taking away people's livelihoods by working cheaply or setting up competing businesses. But these were admitted into the country within the parameters of immigration law, with many more never making it into the United States. To the ones opposing those refugees, a rebuke about us being a nation of immigrants would be right on target and not condescending. After all, they came here within the confines of the law and were a true continuation of our admirable tradition of enhancing our national diversity through immigration.

Now I have no doubt that there are xenophobes among those clamoring for strict immigration enforcement. They are particularly strong among those who want the millions of illegal immigrants rounded up and summarily deported, even those who have been here for many years. But I can see that those arguing for strict enforcement have some good points without automatically attributing their motives to prejudice.

It is important to provide an avenue for legal residence to those currently in this country outside the law for a number of reasons. For one, they need to be able to rely on police protection and feel that they are not under the yoke of those who would exploit their vulnerable undocumented status to their own nefarious ends. For another, this is America, dude! You know, the land of the free! And when I interact with others in this great land, I want to feel that they, like me, are free to exercise all of their constitutional rights and to hold their leaders accountable. Only with the type of reasonable immigration reform proposed by our present and previous presidents, representing both major parties, can this be achieved.

But please, let's can the condescending lectures, O.K.? I also think our national borders need to be made more secure. That doesn't make me a bigot.