Wondering on Wednesday 6/8/22

 

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Today was the day that the House Oversight Committee welcomed testimony on guns and mass shootings and murdered children, and kinda sorta welcomed alternative voices, too. 

It was also the day that a California man was apprehended near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house. Allegedly the man wanted to kill Kavanaugh, was upset about the leak of the Alito draft overturning Roe, and concerned that the Court would loosen gun laws.

In response, the Senate's Grim Reaper, Mitch McConnell (R-Someplace Dark and Cold in Kentucky) declared that the House must pass the Supreme Court Security Bill, because the justices need protection now!

House Democrats have spent weeks blocking the measure that passed here unanimously related to security for Supreme Court justices. That needs to change, and it needs to change right now… No more fiddling around with this… They need to stop their multi-week blockade against the Supreme court security bill and pass it before the sun sets today.

The guy was arrested, his weapons confiscated, and no one was hurt. And so, I find myself wondering why we need more laws, when we can just enforce the laws we have? 

If that's the answer whenever we talk about trying to make changes to gun laws to protect innocent children, concert-goers, grocery shoppers, prayer groups, church attendees, movie watchers, doctors and nurses and other health care professionals, and more, why isn't that the answer for SCOTUS justices?  

And then, there are all those bills that have gone to die in the Senate under McConnell's "leadership." I wonder, how many Americans could have been helped by those, and why they collectively matter so much less than Kavanaugh?

Wondering on Wednesday (v156)

There was mourning, and retrospection, and celebration today, as we paused, for a couple of hours, for the state funeral of President George Herbert Walker Bush, #41. And there was also wondering, it being a Wednesday.

I found much of the funeral very moving, but I was struck more by the comments of his pastor than I was by those of President George W. Bush. I think I tend to be more shocked by deeply personal comments from someone who has an 'official' role than I am by a family member, where it would be more shocking if those comments were missing.

As to any wondering about today's events, I do have to wonder why the medial seems so stuck on talking about president Trump and how he managed to sit next to President and Mrs. Obama without there being some kind of incident. I can only surmise that they missed the antagonistic tweets they're accustomed to seeing all day long.

Also on the wondering today? USA Gymnastics has filed for bankruptcy, apparently to protect their finances in a way that they never protected the hundreds of girls and young women who were victimized by Larry Nassar. According to Kathryn Carson, the chair of the organization's board,

Our organization is a financially solid going concern but for the hundred lawsuits that we do have out there. That is the primary reason that we made the filing, to use the Chapter 11 process as a vehicle for resolving those claims.

The organization's official statement noted, in part,

This filing will enable USA Gymnastics to continue to support its athletes, to fully operate and meet its responsibilities to the entire membership and to expeditiously resolve the claims made by the survivors of sexual abuse perpetrated by Larry Nassar.  

We owe it to the survivors to resolve, fully and finally, claims based on the horrific acts of the past and, through this process, seek to expedite resolution and help them move forward... 

I honestly wonder whether this will be better for the victims, who truly deserve to have these cases resolved once and for all, or if it will be better for USA Gymnastics.  I'm hoping it's the former.

Democracy is collapsing in Wisconsin - again - as the Republican majority passed legislation in the wee hours of the morning that limit the incoming Democratic governor. You know, that whole "will of the people" thing that Republicans have no problem ignoring when it suits them. Just ask Merrick Garland, right?

Among the changes they approved, and that lame duck gov Scott Walker has said he'll sign, are a cut in the early voting time period. I have to wonder why it is that those pesky Dems take so darn long to vote.

Why are they doing all of this?

We do not believe that any one individual should be able to come in and with the stroke of a pen eliminate things that went through the legislative process as a result of listening to the people of Wisconsin.

Those people of Wisconsin, they can apparently only be listened to once, it seems. So I wonder, why did they even bother having an election?

There's more wondering out there, of course -- but we'll have to save it for another Wednesday.

Wondering on Wednesday (v119)

Another Wednesday upon us - and a ton of wondering going on.

We know there are any number of things wrong with disgraced doctor/serial abuser/child porn aficionado Larry Nassar, but even given everything we've heard about him and what he did, I wonder for the life of me what he thought he would accomplish by suggesting, in his letter to the judge in his current case, that his victims were lying and were 'scorned women' in the process?

I was a good doctor because my treatments worked, and those patients that are now speaking out are the same ones that came back over and over. The media convinced them that everything I did was wrong and bad. They feel I broke their trust. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Or, no fury like over 150 women abused by beastly man who took advantage of his position, and the fear of the athletes, and their trust in authority, when no one - not even their parents, in some cases - would believe them.

Staying with USA gymnastics, are companies doing the right thing by pulling their sponsorship from the organization? Does that serve the program, or hurt it?  I wonder if they couldn't do a whole lot more to have a positive impact by demanding change -- real change-- in the leadership, policies and procedures of the national program , and pulling their dollars only if the changes being sought were not realized? Seems we're hurting future champions because prior ones were failed. 

I heard that White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said today that local law enforcement officials can't pick and choose what laws they enforce. Her comments were in relation to so-called 'sanctuary cities' but I found them relevant here in New York, where another provision of the NY SAFE Act is coming into effect. I have to wonder whether anyone in the NY State Police or say, the Cayuga County sheriff's office, has heard about that, since they're not going to be enforcing the latest provision, the one requiring renewal of  pistol permits?

And, speaking of  crime, why did it take the president so long to talk about the shooting in Kentucky? I really don't understand that one at all. He is much quicker to talk about attacks in foreign countries than he is to talk about bad acts here in America, at least, when they're committed by plain old ordinary (white) Americans -- what happened to America first?   If the shooting had been committed by an immigrant - any immigrant, legal or not -- I wouldn't be wondering about how long it took him to comment, I'm sure.