Wondering on Wednesday 7/15/26

 

Ready... Set... Wonder!

Today I learned (from reporting by The Guardian) that Secretary of Manly Manliness, Defense, and War Pete Hegseth is "authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency for our service members," to ensure they "have the right testosterone levels to operate at (their) absolute best.” 

As we know, the modern battlefield is brutal and unrelenting,” he added. “It requires and demands maximum psychological and mental readiness, and by addressing these health markers early, we’re keeping you on the leading edge of lethality, and giving you the same level of support that you give this nation – the absolute best.”

The plan will require "warfighters" who are at least 30 years old to have the test as part of their regular health assessment; folks younger than 30 who are, um, 'T-curious' can also participate. His announcement video says that treatment for those with low levels is optional, but I can't help wondering what'll happen the first time someone says 'no thanks' to the T tea, or however they treat it. 

And if you had to guess if there were any other members of the 'Make America' hat letters administration who know anything about this, I wonder if you'd be surprised to learn that RFK, Jr. has talked about getting testosterone injections as part of his "anti-aging' regimen? 

Nah... didn't think so.

Remember all the folks getting doxxed, or censured, or even fired for expressing opinions after the murder of Charlie Kirk? Well, it seems that some folks who got caught up in the "Don't Speak Ill of Charlie" mania are getting their just rewards.

According to The Hill and others, the Sunshine State must make a sizeable payment to a biologist at a state agency.

Brittney Brown lost her job at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) in September after reposting a message to her private Instagram account claiming Kirk did not care about children being shot in their classrooms. 

The post read: “The whales are deeply saddened to hear about the shooting of Charlie Kirk, haha just kidding, they care exactly as much as Charlie Kirk cared about children being shot in their classrooms, which is to say not at all.”

Her repost of someone else's words was seen by "popular conservatives" on social media, which, according to her lawsuit, cost Brown her job. The settlement requires Florida to pay a total of $485,000 to cover the loss of her job, back pay, and legal fees. 

And it turns out Brown is not alone. A retired law enforcement officer in Tennessee was paid $850,000 after being jailed - for more than a month - after sharing a post about Kirk on social media. And a teacher's union has filed a lawsuit against Texas for investigating teachers who shared comments about Kirk online. 

And, with the passing of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who had a long career and left plenty for people on both sides of the proverbial aisle to be grumpy about, I'm wondering how folks will be treated if they post their honest opinions about him on social media? 

Will they fall victim to the massive cancel culture machine that the FOTUS himself has promoted for years, and which was perfected by those "popular conservatives" on social media? Or will they get a pass and be allowed to say what they want without being reported to their employer, their church, their golf league, and the rest?

Last but not least, here are some of the remarks the FOTUS made when talking about experimental medications and the 'right to try' them. Here's what he said about one unnamed drug:

We've taken people that were dead. We had a person given the last rites - gone; the kids were crying and everything - and started him on this drug. And the person became better. It works.

The wondering here is rampant, as you might imagine, and honestly, some of what I'm thinking would probably get me in trouble with some agency or other, in DC, or Kentucky, or Iran, or... 

Anyway: what's on your wondering mind tonight? Drop a comment!

Sunday School 1/28/24: Extra Credit

Your Sunday School lesson was all about immigration, and we're continuing that conversation for your Extra Credit. 

I want to note that the House Homeland Security Committee released two articles of impeachment against Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

In its 20-page resolution, the Republican-led committee accuses Mayorkas of high crimes and misdemeanors, including "willfully" disregarding immigration law...

Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., said the committee had "exhausted all other options to hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable" and that "Congress must exercise its constitutional duty and impeach him."

Now, back to the classrooms, starting with Meet the Press. Kristen Welker talked about the bill with Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher and Matt Gorman, who worked on Sen. Tim Scott's campaign. 

Welker referenced what I characterize as the rock - Donald Trump - and the hard place - the "best possibility of getting a deal in decades" between which the Rs sit. Gorman, who believes President Biden can act unilaterally, said the whole thing reminds him of The Sixth Sense. 

It's been dead a month. No one noticed it yet... The White House and the Senate are acting like they're the only people involved in this. They're not. 

Belcher reflected on our sad history (my words, not his) of 'doing something' about immigration, only to have politics get in the way. We've seen it before, he said,

...(in) 2007 Bush wanted to do immigration. They – they attacked it as amnesty for illegals. Obama thought he had a deal with Boehner. He took it back to the House, and the Republicans killed it...

He said Sen. Tom Tillis (R-NC) who's "not exactly a liberal," says what the Rs are doing 

may be immoral, because they're killing it because president Trump thinks it's good for his politics.

Martha Raddatz (ABC's This Week) shared a taped interview in which Jon Karl asked Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-RA) about the six million people who have been apprehended at the border. 

What ultimately should happen to all those people, you know, the people who don't qualify for asylum, or totally came in illegally?

Newsom said  "You have to deal with the cards that are dealt. You've got to deal with the reality on the ground," but that the "fundamental issue" is, we need immigration reform, not just border security. 

Biden's strategy includes a pathway to citizenship "along the lines of (the GOP's) former hero, Ronald Reagan," Newsom said, adding there's a "$14B plan, right now," that gets us judges and border agents; Congress's refusal to act is just the Rs trying to

... find a crowbar to put in the spokes of the wheels of the Biden administration to disrupt any progress on this because they don't want progress, period.

Raddatz got an interesting response from National Review Editor Ramesh Ponnuru when Sen. Lindsey Graham's name came up. He noted Graham's support doesn't matter much to many Republicans; he's long advocated for "comprehensive immigration reform," but

there are a lot of people in the Republican Party who don't see things the same way Lindsey Graham does on immigration and don't trust him on this issue because they don't agree with him.

Ponnuru also shared where opposition to the bill comes from. Paraphrasing here, some Rs seem to think the 5,000 daily limit is like the rent in NYC - it's too damn high. But that's not all.

...you've got this more basic thing, which a lot of Republicans say, 'if the problem is Biden is not enforcing the laws that are already on the books, which is what they have been saying for months, then passing a new law isn't a solution to that problem.'

I want to swing back to the State of the Union classroom. Dana Bash asked former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) if she was OK with the bill not including "a pathway to citizenship, or even protections for Dreamers." 

Well, no; the fact is, is that we need comprehensive immigration reform. That's not likely with the Congress that we have right now, so we have to move forward. This arrangement that the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have negotiated is a step forward... But we were never going to get a path to citizenship in this bill. 

I'm giving the last word to Bakari Sellers, a CNN political commentator. He chastised the Ds who "have refused to pay attention to immigration and crime in this country, saying it really didn't exist, it wasn't a problem." What's needed now is the folks who have complained,

we need our good mayors, like Frank Scott from Little Rock, like Chokwe from Jackson, Mississippi, we need Randall Woodfin from Birmingham, Alabama, and we even need mayors who don't know what they're doing, like Eric Adams in New York City, to now simply stand up for this piece of legislation and say, 'this is what we need done.'

This has to be the messaging and the messengers who can get this done for the country. This is not a problem that you kick down the road... This is something you fix right now. This is a problem. Fix it.

That sure beats merely complaining about the other side, doesn't it?

See you around campus, where I'm sure this will continue to be a topic through the election and beyond, if we're smart. 

Sidebar TGIF 9/2/22: Barack and Hillary Were Right, Too

President Biden's comments in Philly got me thinking back to when two other prominent Democrats got themselves into hot water talking about Republicans.

Here's what Barack Obama said that got him into hot water with the media and the Republicans, who purposefully ignored the most important part of his point: that people who are either ignored by politicians, or who are repeatedly given promises that are not kept, and to at least some degree, were never intended to be kept, are rightfully and understandably angry and frustrated with politicians. 

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

And, here's is what Hillary Clinton said that got her into hot water with the medial and the Republicans, who gleefully ignored the most important part of her point: not all of Trump's supporters are worthy of disdain, and that only a Trump supporter can put themselves in a basket.  

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? [Laughter/applause]. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.

But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

Both statements are inelegant, at best, but they are not the evil, hateful statements they were cracked up to be by the media, the punditry, or the Republicans. 

The media, which has an obligation to report the truth, and to separate news articles from opinions, didn't do a good job with either of these statements. Too often, they would report on the most inflammatory parts and, if you read the rest of the article, you could probably find a link to the entire quote. Of course, they know how few people read the entire article, right? Oh, hell - let's be honest - they know how many people read only the headline. 

The pundits, with no such obligation to the truth, blatantly ignored anything other than the most incendiary words - it was as if the rest of the quotes were not even spoken. I remember watching clips from the talk shows and the cable shows, and if anyone tried to mention the full breadth of the comments, they were shut down immediately: "Yeah, but he said..." "Yeah, but she said..."  "Yeah, but no one's going to remember that part, they're only going to remember the part that we're talking about..." "Yeah, but..."

The real villains here, in all three cases, IMO, are the Republicans who whole-heartedly embraced the soundbite, particularly Clinton's 'deplorables' comment. They owned it! They put themselves in that basket, they put their colleagues in that basket, they put their donors in that basket, they put their constituents in that basket, and they put everyone who voted for any Republican in that basket.  

It was almost as if they didn't even know there was a whole nother basket of Republicans who were not "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic - you name it." And if they knew those people existed, they sure didn't care about them when they accepted the title of "deplorable" or, in the case of Obama's comment, when they accepted the title of "gun-clinger," "religion-clinger," "antipathist," "anti-immigrant," or "anti-trade."

I remember talking with Republican friends who said Clinton called them a deplorable, and when I explained only they could choose the deplorables basket, they were confused. And silent.

And the Republicans who were not the people Obama and Clinton were talking about? That so many of them stayed quiet while their party leaders and elected representatives called them names is something I still don't understand. 

And the same thing is happening with Biden's comments, which were talked about as if he had smeared every Republican in the country, when he very carefully said he was talking about only a specific subset of the GOP: Trump's MAGA Republicans - the ones I call RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only. 

RINO, of course, is the name he gives to Republicans who disagree with him, or who don't vote with him, or who don't beg for his endorsement... you get the drift. If you don't put him first, you're not MAGA, you're a RINO. And, if you're with him, you're an American; if you're not with him, you're definitely not one. Don't believe me? Check out a recent survey question from Trumpworld.

No one - no one - in the past seven years has said worse things about Republicans generally, and about specific Republicans, than Donald Trump. No one - no one - in the past seven years has done more damage to the reputation of the Rs than Donald Trump and his supporters.

Don't blame Barack Obama. 

Don't blame Hillary Clinton. 
Don't blame Joe Biden. 

The Republicans who are spitting mad about Joe Biden calling out Donald Trump, MAGA Republicans, and MAGA extremists today have no one to blame but themselves. 

And no one said it better than Trump-defending Sen. Lindsey Graham: 

You did. You did. And you do.

Let's Fight This - TOGETHER!

A Special Message from

the Twice-Impeached 

45th President of the 

United States

They've got it all wrong, the Lame Stream Media, the liars on CNN and MSDNC and the failing New York Times and the Bezos Washington Post and all the rest... they've got it All Wrong. 

Let me give you the Truth about what's happening here. 

First of all, I didn't lose the election. 

I didn't lose the election, so there was no reason for me to pack anything, so I didn't pack anything, because I won and wasn't going to be leaving. And I'd still be your President, Right Now, and there wouldn't have been a problem if only Georgia had found those 11,780 votes like I asked them to, and like Lindsey asked them to, and like Rudy asked them to, and like everyone else asked them to. 

Or Arizona, too, if they had done the right thing. Or Michigan, or Nevada, or  Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. So if they had just done the right thing, none of this would be happening right now, and all my documents would be safe and the Country would be safe, our Borders and our Stock Market and our Taxes - everything would be safe, if they had just done the right thing. 

But they didn't and when that wimp, that un-American, un-Patriotic traitor Mike Pence refused to do the right thing and send it back to the states like he was supposed to, I was stuck. I swear, my Secret Service guys should have just grabbed him and stuffed him in the SUV. Worthless. 

Anyway, Melania was so frazzled that we were leaving - she had more decorating to do, and stuff to document just like she was doing on January 6th and didn't know anything about what was happening, she really didn't - she was upset, she loved it here - she just started throwing stuff in Tupperware bowls and tubs and stuff, even the jewelry I gave her, the ungrateful wench. 

And there I was, alone. Jared was, I don't know, showering all day long or counting his Saudi money with his crook of a father - why did I pardon him again? 

Those worthless sons of mine were probably out golfing or something, or maybe Donny Jr was home waiting for what's her name, the "The Best is Yet To Come!" girl I paid $60,000 to for introducing Don Jr. to the crowd at the Ellipse on January 6th - what a waste of money she is! And how on earth was she married to that incompetent commie nutjob in California, Gavin Newsom? And now she's my son's fiancé? What did I do to deserve this?

And my beloved Ivanka was home with those Beautiful grandchildren of mine, aren't they Beautiful? They are the most beautiful grandchildren a man could have, right? Just Beautiful, through and through.

So the staff people, the ones that I hadn't scared off,  the staff came running up to the residence with boxes every day, packing, packing, boxing up everything they could get their hands on, I don't even know what they put in all the boxes, the stuff was just thrown in, all willy-nilly, and then the boxes were stuffed in the truck and off everything went to my Beautiful, Historic, Important Mar-a-Lago, the most Famous house in all the world.

I barely managed to get my hands on the compromising photo books, and my pictures of Vlad - it was crazy.

And then, when they reached out to me last year, I had no idea there was anything being stored at my beloved Mar-a-Lago that I wasn't supposed to have. I thought I had taken care of most of the stuff anyone would worry about; that was ripped up and disposed of at the White House. 

And what about that Crooked Hillary flunky, Maggie Haberman, the third-rate NY Times reporter - half the kid her parents were, for sure, sharing those pictures... who takes pictures of other peoples' toilets?

And remember when I complained about having to flush and flush and flush? Yeah, well now you understand right? Damn 'green' toilets. You gotta flush and flush and flush them, it's a mess. Horrible.

And in January when I gave them boxes, they were boxes I had never even seen before, maybe someone found them in the back of Melania's closet, that's why I didn't know anything about them. And so, they took the boxes and I thought that was it. They even got back that meteorological map of Dorian - just like I told you, Alabama was in danger the whole time! 

And then they said other stuff was missing.

And so I let the lawyers handle everything, and they all said we gave everything back, and that's what they told them, so I just assumed that there was nothing left. They even signed something, saying they had given everything back, I didn't even know we had anything, I didn't pack anything.

And then we heard from them again - good lord, don't these people have anything do to other than pester me about boxes of stuff I know nothing about? Why aren't they trying to put Crooked Hillary in jail? Why the hell aren't they publishing all the stuff off Hunter's laptop, all the Biden Crime Family stuff, instead of trying to pretend there's a Trump Crime Family? What a lie! Everything I have, I've earned the hard way, ever since I was a kid. Even my bone spurs, hard-fought battle but I got them.

'Put a new lock on the door', they said - 'it's not secure enough,' they said. So we did, and even that wasn't good enough, they wanted the camera footage and they sent a subpoena, and still we were cooperating with them, just like from the beginning when the White House Staff filled the boxes and put them in the truck and then they came and picked stuff up. 

Just like I've said all along, if they wanted the boxes back, I would have given them back, but they never asked. And once they sent the subpoena, why should I give them back the boxes? Just because they sent me a subpoena? 

I've gotten hundreds of subpoenas in my life, and I never just do what they ask me to, that's ridiculous, especially when Trump is under attack, all the time, my entire life. I've been sued more times than anyone in history! My legal files are the biggest you've never seen! They're massive, way bigger than Obama's! I can show you - mine are bigger, no question about it.

And it doesn't matter anyway, because I declassified everything - every single piece of paper, photo, post-it note, article, white paper, briefing book, eyes only piece of paper they shoved under my nose - I declassified it ALL - all at the same time. They must know that, everyone knows that - I can do it, and I did it, and all of this is stupid. Nothing is classified anymore, I declassified all of it, I stood right there over the boxes. 

Oh, wait that's not how I did it, I had no idea what was in the boxes, the staff took care of that. But I declassified everything, everything in the residence was declassified, even if it wasn't classified in the first place. 

And even if I didn't, it doesn't matter, because all of this is old stuff now, since they kicked me out of my White House in January 2021, that bastard Mike Pence, we should have hung him, just like I said. So how can something a year-and-a-half old be a threat to Our Great Country? 

Well, it was Great once, now it's a Third World Country with the libs and Sleepy Joe and Carmella and Drunk Nancy and Cryin' Chuck and the Radical Left Squad and the Woke Mob in charge - what a Mess they have made of our Beautiful Country, right? Antifa and BLM and all the rest...

And now that we've got this NEW Witch Hunt, after the Fake Russia Russia Russia and Impeachment#1 and Impeachment #2 and Mueller's Fake Witch Hunt, now we've got another one to deal with and I tell you, real Americans are just not going to stand for this anymore! We must FIGHT to get Our Great Country back again. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Because these documents that I never took and didn't know I had and they could have had back at any time just by asking for them and they're not top secret any longer because it's old stuff on old paper, and besides, I declassified EVERYTHING, and this RAID on my Beautiful Home, the most Beautiful, Famous home in the world, ask anyone, this Raid and this Unlawful Search - they touched Melania's clothes, can you believe that? I think one of them even put on her I Don't Care Do U? jacket, we saw that on the camera, I'm sure we did.

These are just the tip of the iceberg that's going to hit Our Country if we don't stop the woke mob, the lazy liberals who are trying to turn us into a Fourth World Country and if there weren't any of those last week, we're the first and best Country ever to become one. And don't believe any of that Climate Change crap; if it was so warm, why do we still have icebergs? And that iceberg aiming for America right now? 

Civil war, I tell you. Some people are saying we're on the verge of a civil war.

I even called Merrick Garland - and have you ever heard anyone so wimpy? His mother Judy, boy could she sing, right? He sounds like a little kid up there, trying to convince his parents he wasn't out drinking with what's her name, that Renate person... oh wait, that's a different judge, never mind. 

Anyway, Garland, I called him, asked him what I could do to calm things down after HE raided MY house, SEIZED my documents that I never had and even if I did have them, it doesn't matter because there's nothing wrong with it, and besides, I declassified everything back in January before I left Washington so I wouldn't have to be there for the Fake Inauguration of the Fake President. 

Here I am, trying to help, and what do I get? NOTHING! Merrick Garland, he didn't even take my call. We get nothing, Patriots - you and I, we get nothing. But that's all going to change. 

With your help, and your prayers, and your donations, we will Fight this Together! We Love You. You are all Beautiful, Special people. Stand back and stand by, and if you do that near an FBI office, that's even better. 

We Love You. 

And we will fight this together.

Rush your Generous Donation to the

Protect Melania's Wardrobe and Keep The "Justice" Department 

and the Liars at the FBI from Ruining Our Great Country PAC

right away (you can just ignore the highlighted box

making this a daily contribution - that's just a joke). 

We love you. And together We. Will. Save. America.

And if you donate within the next 45 minutes, we'll make sure

the President sees your name at the top of the list of America-loving Patriots.

And if yours is the lucky name he circles with his Presidential Sharpie,

you could win tickets to his next rally. 

And remember to vote against

Liz Cheney. Even if you don't live in Wyoming. 

Thank you for your support. 

You're a helluva Patriot.

Sunday School 8/7/22: Extra Credit

The Sunday School lesson came from Meet the Press, winner of the lucky classroom drawing. For today's Extra Credit, we're wandering down the hall to the CNN State of the Union classroom to catch Dana Bash and Sens. Dick Blumenthal (D-CT) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC).  I know, I'm breaking with my new 'one classroom policy' but I thought this one was interesting.

Bash asked Blumenthal how the Inflation Reduction Act would help Americans. He spoke about cuts in drug costs, energy costs, and "greater tax fairness" because corporations with assets or earnings of more than a billion dollars "currently paying nothing will have to pay at least 15%." He said gas prices will continue going down, and "necessities" will also decline. Altogether, he said, "I think Americans will see historic results."

Graham chimed in, saying "this is not the bipartisan part of the interview," and proceeded to slam the American Rescue Plan ("it became a recession plan") and the new bill, which he said "is going to make everything worse." And even though he voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the gun bill, he's a no on this.

... If a company buys a piece of equipment, they could expense it under the 2017 tax cut in the same year they bought it. That goes away. So, CBO says it disincentivizes companies for building factories, buying equipment, which would help us get out of recession. There's a 16.4% tax on imported barrels of oil that are going to increase cost at the gas pump. Subsidies for Obamacare go to families making $304,000 a year, which I think is ill-conceived. And the bottom line, it's not going to help inflation.

Bash didn't question Graham's claim on the subsidies, nor did she ask if the Rs have an alternative for the estimated 3 million people who would lose insurance, or the 10 million who would see a sharp increase in their premiums this fall.

Graham is upset that the deficit is only being reduced by $100B, while the spending is about $750 trillion. And, about the subsidies, he said "we all know they're not going to go away. So, if they stayed in place for 10 years, it would add $280 billion to the deficit. So, it's a gimmick.... no Republican is going to vote for it."

Blumenthal said "one thing where I think we can agree... is the IRS is going to have resources it needs to go after the highest-income Americans that are cheating on their taxes right now. And that will mean more money for the government." And, he continued,

 ... the average American sitting at their kitchen table deciding whether they can buy medicine, pay their mortgage, or go to the grocery store and get the food they need, they're going to be able to get that medicine much more cheaply…Overwhelmingly, the American people want to cut the cost of prescription drugs. This measure does it through enabling Medicare to do what the VA does, what the Department of Defense does, negotiate for lower prices. And that will affect the entire course of inflation.

 Graham wasn't having it.

... They take 15 drugs, and they put a limit on what you can charge. That sounds good, until pharmaceutical companies invent less new drugs. Remember COVID? Well, it was the American pharmaceutical industry that got us the drugs that keep us out of the hospital and keep a lot of us alive. This is price-fixing. It has never worked for us. It's not going to work now. Hiring 86,000 more IRS agents, if that makes you feel better, you have missed a lot. They're coming after waitresses, Uber drivers and everybody else to collect more taxes. So, if you think growing the IRS is good for you, you're wrong.

Blumenthal thinks that's just silly. Uber drivers and "everybody else" is going to be OK, because the IRS will be targeting the "highest-income Americans." 

The idea that there's going to be this army of IRS agents defending -- descending on the average American is just preposterous. Tax fairness is what we need. And for the biggest corporations in this country to pay no taxes, for them to do stock buybacks that benefit the shareholders, but, for example, in the case of oil companies, they are making three to four times what they did just last year. What are they doing with those excess windfall profits? Lowering gasoline prices? No. They aren't doing stock buybacks. They ought to pay a tax on it. And I think there ought to be rebates to consumers from those excess profits.

Let's move to the bipartisan part of the interview, where there's agreement that:

• we should label Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, that we need to provide more military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and we need more sanctions on Russia. 
• Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan wasn't a mistake; Blumenthal said "...the Chinese can't tell our legislators or any American citizens where to travel." Graham suggested her visit sends a message to Iran and Russia, not just China, adding we need Taiwan economically, and we need to provide it more economic and military support.
• we need to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, but not with a national red flag law, with incentives to states to help them to what they need to do - and due process must be a part of whatever that looks like.
• they'll both support their team's presidential candidate in '24; Graham wants Trump to be the candidate, as long as he doesn't talk about 2020, while Blumenthal wasn't definitive in whether he wanted Biden to run.

I'll leave it here

Graham: So, there are plenty of us up there (DC) who fight and work together. I just want the country to know that all is not lost in Washington.

Bash: Well, that's why we have you on... we all agree this is good for the country to see that you can disagree without being disagreeable, but also work together where you see those issues.

Blumenthal: And working together is what the American people really want. 

That's it, in a nutshell: work together, on behalf of the American people, not on furthering you party's interests.

See you around campus.

Wondering on Wednesday 7/6/22

Ready... Set... Wonder! 

• I wonder why I can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, but folks can legally purchase so-called 'weapons of war', so-called 'assault rifles' and happily go people-hunting, mowing down children, teenagers, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents - pretty much anyone they feel like aiming at... 

• A little bit ago, I opined that it would be discriminatory if 'life begins at fertilization' only applied to the pre-born conceived in a womb, and not to those conceived in fertility clinics. There's an article in the Boston Globe that explores this issue that I found very interesting.

First, I'm surprised at how little interest there is in regulating all embryos the same. According to a spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee, "IVF is not even really on our radar." And second, I have to wonder why red-state legislators "in at least 10 states" have put bills out there that would treat frozen embryos the same as, you know, warm ones - and not a single one of the bills have passed. 

• Here's another one that's got me doing some bigtime wondering. A guy who, I'd surmise, was trying to prove how manly he is, wandered around Broken Arrow, OK wearing a tactical vest and openly sporting both a pistol (in a holster) and a semi-automatic rifle. From the article, it seems pretty much everyone was nervous or scared. For example,

Employees at the Broken Arrow Justice Center ― a government building that houses the local court and police offices ― locked their doors, and someone called 911. 

Oklahoma's constitutional carry law  "allows people ages 21 and over to carry firearms in public without a permit or training." Police didn't have a lot of options to do anything, but as luck would have it, the guy was also carrying brass knuckles, which are illegal under both state and city law. 

I have a hard time with open carry laws, I really do - especially ones that allow rifles to be slung casually over someone's shoulder like a purse. And I don't wonder at all why the sheriff said, "nobody needs to be walking down the street with a rifle. But I don’t make the laws; we just try to live by them and do a very difficult job in a world that’s got those people in it."

Hear, hear - even to his use of "those people" which normally I don't approve. In this case, I'll make an exception.

• Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-we ever screwed for electing Trump, or what?) was one of the Trump minions issued a subpoena by a prosecutor in Georgia. His attorneys say they'll fight it, even though they said Graham's "neither a subject nor target of the investigation, simply a witness." I wonder, though, about their grounds for fighting it. Ok, honestly? I laughed at their grounds for fighting it.

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Graham was well within his rights to discuss with state officials the processes and procedures around administering elections. Should it stand, the subpoena issued today would erode the constitutional balance of power and the ability of a member of Congress to do their job.

Now, does anyone else wonder whether Graham was acting in his official capacity as ranking member - not chairman - of the Judiciary Committee when he stuck his genteel nose into the Georgia process, or do you think he was acting as a rank member of Trump's cadre of snoops and liars?

• And the final bit of wondering tonight comes courtesy of Martha Raddatz, who hosted This Week on Sunday. Here's the silly question she asked Mary Bruce, ABC's Senior White House correspondent, to close the show.

And, Mary, we really just have about 20 seconds, but I want to go back to Uvalde. What is President Biden doing about that?

I'm not sure why she dignified the question with an answer, but she did. And when she finally got around to talking about the feds and Biden, it was to note that "it's pretty unclear" how much the feds can do, adding 

But this White House continues to point to that gun legislation they’re passing. Would that have solved this? We just don’t know.

Except we do know quite a bit, Mary.  

Anyway, here's what I'm wondering: why didn't she say, "look, Martha, President Biden is much too busy causing global inflation, global supply chain issues, global food shortages, global immigration issues, and doing too much and not enough to help Ukraine, NATO, the EU, and others, to be able to focus his attention on a single mass shooting that happened months ago. Haven't you been to a gas station lately and seen his sticker?"

What's on your wondering mind tonight? 

TGIF 4/8/22

Who had a week, and what kind of week was had? 

The House of Representatives referred two more Trump flunkies - Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino - to the DOJ for criminal prosecution for contempt of Congress. A bad week for them is a good week for us.

And let's throw another bad week into the mix: Will Smith, who resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences a week ago, has been banned from attending the Oscars or any other Academy event for ten years. The ban includes both in-person and virtual appearances. 

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will become Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson - a good week for her, and for the rest of us. All 50 Senate Democrats and three reasonable Republicans voted for her elevation to the Supreme Court. Jackson, speaking to a Rose Garden gathering, said in part

In my family, it took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Sens. Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, and Rand Paul had a bad week. Paul, for not being on time to vote against Jackson; everyone had to wait a reported 25 minutes for him to drag himself to the cloakroom, open the door, and toss a thumb's down before slinking away. The cloakroom vote was necessary because he couldn't trouble himself to put on a tie. Neither could Graham, according to reports, although he was wearing on earlier in the day. As for Cotton, he suggested that Jackson might have defended Nazis at Nuremberg, a comment so nasty that even John Roberts of Fox News challenged it. Cotton's a jerk, with or without a tie. 

Tiger Woods is having a good week; he's playing competitive golf again. Against almost all odds, Woods made the cut in the Masters, a tournament he's won five times. A mere mortal might have been killed in a similar accident, or ended up losing their leg. But Tiger Woods is no mere mortal, is he? 

Russia had a bad week; the Senate voted unanimously to strip the most-favored-nation (MFN) trade status from the country, and to ban imports of Russian oil products. The House also passed both bills, although not unanimously. Voting against the MFN removal? Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, and Matt Gaetz. Let's give them a heartfelt bad week round of applause.

The jury in the trial of four men accused of plotting to kidnap and murder Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had an interesting week, which caused a bad week for the government and a good week for the four defendants. Two were acquitted; the jury failed to reach a verdict on charges against the others. It sounds like the jury believed the defense theory that the FBI went off the rails on this one; or, maybe the defendants truly had a jury of their peers?

In another high-profile case, a Minneapolis police officer who killed Amir Locke in February won't face charges. Body cam video released this week shows Locke, who was not a subject of the no-knock warrant being executed at his cousin's apartment, holding his legal gun in a manner that led to the officer to shoot him three times, within ten seconds of entering the apartment. To me, this deserves a horrible week mention - there are no winners here, that I can see.

Let's end on a good week note, OK? How about dogs being reunited through pet DNA testing? A Texas woman had adopted one of the pups; an Oregon woman adopted the other. The women had the DNA tests don on their dog and a match was made. The women via social media, and a play date was arranged. There's video - and who doesn't like cute pet videos?

TGIF, everyone. 

TGIF 3/25/22

After last week's all good news TGIF, we're back to the regular format, where both good and bad week stories are included. Let's dive in with a good week mention, to get us off on the right foot. 

Some great unemployment news came out Thursday, giving the Biden team a bit of a good week. It's possible you missed it; good news doesn't garner wall-to-wall coverage in the press like bad news does

Here's the scoop, from the White House:

This morning, we received news that the number of Americans on unemployment insurance fell to its lowest level since 1970 and the number of Americans filing new claims fell to its lowest one-week level since 1969. 

Now, it wasn't just the White House talking about the great numbers. Reuters concurred. 

The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits dropped to a 52-1/2-year low last week, while unemployment rolls continued to shrink, pointing to rapidly diminishing labor market slack that will keep boosting wage inflation.

Piggybacking on that good news, I'll give a shoutout to businesses that are paying higher wages to get and keep good employees. I'm especially proud of them for not waiting for the government to order them to do that.

Hearings were held this week on Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. As with other recent SCOTUS hearings, we saw a teeny bit of time spent on learning about the nominee, and an overwhelming amount of time spent on career advancement, harassment, and showing off by Judiciary Committee members. Here are some noteworthy takeaways from the hearings, both good and bad.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) had a good week, for calling out the bad behavior of his  colleagues - and not just the ones making fools of themselves in these hearings. While explaining why he doesn't want cameras in SCOTUS proceedings, he offered this bit of wisdom, with which I can't argue. 

I think we should recognize the jack-assery we often see around here is partly because of people mugging for short-term camera opportunities.

On the very bad week side of the ledger, there's Sen. Ted Cruz (R- Cancun). I've made no secret about my dislike of him over the years, and nothing he said this week changed my opinion of him.

Of all the folks on the Judiciary Committee, he was the most hypocritical, especially on the issue of critical race theory. Here's what he thinks about that, and about Judge Jackson being on the board of the school that he says

aggressively teaches critical race theory, and that is an extreme and divisive theory that pits children against other children, divides us based on race, and teaches a false and revisionist history of our nation.

The problem? He sends his daughters to a school that espouses a similar philosophy. For example, statements by school leaders after the murder of George Floyd said the school

must be antiracist and eliminate racism of any type - including institutional racism - within our school, community, and beyond.

And, from the school's website, we learn that "cultural proficiency, diversity, global awareness and inclusivity" will be incorporated "into all facets of the curriculum." One can't help thinking Cruz has never looked at his daughters' homework. Unless  he only gives a hoot about this stuff when the cameras aren't on.

In fairness, I must give the Rs on the committee a wee dollop of credit; it seems the idea of boycotting the vote to move Judge Jackson's nomination out of committee is DOA. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said

There's not going to be any boycott. There's zero, not one iota (of a chance) that we would boycott.

Other senators, including the despicable Lindsey Graham (R-Shriekerville) said he didn't think that was the right way to handle it. John Cornyn (R-TX) said they should

show up and try our best to be on our best behavior and treat the nominee respectfully. (Emphasis added)

Good luck with that, if what they showed this week is any indication. 

Speaking of being on best behavior, Judge Jackson was remarkable. Her grace, tolerance, and patience were on display throughout the hearings. There was a moment, though, when she took a very long pause before answering one of Sen. Cruz's questions. Elie Mystal of The Nation explained what that pause meant; in part, she said

It’s the calculation when black people try to decide: “Am I gonna risk it all for this?” 

Jackson took a moment to decide if it was worth it to throw everything away—her chance, her good name, maybe even her whole career—just to tell Ted Cruz, a man she’s known for over 25 years, what she really thought of him. 

She decided against it, of course.

And in that moment, she proved herself better than Cruz, Graham, Cornyn, Hawley, and all the rest of them. 

I'll close with one more reference to Cruz; as I said, he had a very bad week. USA Today columnist Rex Huppke addressed the same question as Elie Mystal - did Jackson think babies are racist? Here's his take.

Some viewers wondered why a man who looks like he rubbed honey on his face then rolled on the floor of a barbershop would pose such a question. In fact, the collective eye roll was so intense the Earth briefly tilted off its axis.

But I stood and cheered the bold senator from Texas/Cancun. He was speaking truth to power and addressing an issue few Americans have ever been willing to face: Babies are incredibly racist. 

We know this, he opines, because babies "are silent on the issue." 

If babies aren’t racist, and if a clearly intelligent and serious U.S. senator is out there floating a possible epidemic of infant racism, don’t you think babies themselves would stand up, immediately fall down, and then assure everyone they don’t have a racist bone in their soft and pliable bodies?

Of course, they would. 

TGIF, everyone. 

Wondering on Wednesday 3/23/22

Ready... Set... Wonder!

What's wonder-full today? 

My local newspaper ran an article letting us know that gas prices in my neck of the woods fell a dime a gallon in just ten days. Now, if you've been paying any attention, every time the price of gas goes up, or there's even a hint that it's going to go up, the angry folks on the right throw a mass conniption fit, which apparently causes them to run around putting Joe Biden "I Did That!" stickers on gas pumps, yell out their windows that they're mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore, and run out and order overpriced gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs which they drive around potholes and stones in the road and stuff.

And I'm wondering, why the heck they aren't thanking Joe Biden for lowering the price? Is it because they really know that presidents don't have a whole lot to do with gas prices? 

You may have heard the news that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been hospitalized since last Friday. Keep that thought in mind as we reflect on Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Some pissed-off place south of North Carolina) and his questioning of SCOTUS nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Graham was particularly interested in how other people, or outside groups lobbied hard to have Jackson be Biden's pick; or, maybe, they lobbied hard to have Judge J. Michelle Childs, from South Carolina, not be Biden's pick. Either way, Jackson herself had nothing to do with that, Graham knows that, and he doesn't give a dried-out palmetto leaf if we all know he knows.

I think it does matter that the groups that came to your aid at the expense of Judge Childs - how did that happen and why were they doing what they were doing? What is it about your nomination that the most liberal people... threw in their money, their time, their support, and threatened Joe Biden if he picked Judge Childs? 

So, here's what I'm wondering: if Justice Thomas is unable to return to the bench, for whatever reason, how hard would Senator Graham lobby to have Judge Childs replace him?

And, sticking with the Judiciary Committee hearings on Judge Jackson's nomination, I wonder why so many Republicans want to spend so much time talking about child pornography? 

And I wonder why these Republicans are expending so much effort on how Judge Jackson sentenced offenders in these cases, when what she did was exactly what other judges were doing? 

Were those judges questioned on this issue? Not just soft-on-crime-liberal-Democrat appointees, but Republicans, too, the ones recommended by the Heritage Foundation (they're the folks who fan themselves with their pocket copies of the US Constitution if it gets too hot in the freedom-loving trenches)? Judges nominated by Donald "Only the Best People" Trump, their appointments strongly supported by these same porn-focused senators?

And I wonder why these child-porn-focused Republican senators are now asking to receive additional information on these cases, including pre-sentencing reports? And why is Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin withholding information from the Republicans, if in fact that's happening here?

Truth be told, there's a simple way to resolve that conflict, and I wonder why no one has suggested it yet: have the FBI urgently investigate, like it did with the sexual harassment allegations against Brett 'I Really Like Beer' Kavanaugh, and then the senators can all go into a SCIF or something and have the report read to them. Oh wait - we all remember how that went.

There was much more from the hearings that inspired wonder, like the war criminals issue involving George W. Bush (but curiously not Barack Obama) question and the definition of 'woman' but I'll leave it here, and you can wonder out loud or to yourself, as you prefer.

I'll close out tonight's wondering where we started - with gas prices. It seems that, in addition to the blame game, some folks in DC want to try and help. And we know there's a whole lot of wondering going on when that happens, right?

We've got three federal proposals - and it's only March 23rd. Who knows how many more there'll be, since the House isn't occupied with Daylight Savings Time. One would provide a

monthly energy rebate of $100 per person. That refund would kick in for the rest of 2022 (if) the national average gas price topped $4 a gallon during any given month... both joint and single tax filers would receive $100 each, while each dependent would also receive $100 each. In other words, a family with two kids could receive up to $300 a month in rebate checks. 

The second would offer less money, but would be paid for, I think. It'd offer

a quarterly rebate to consumers based on a tax levied on oil and gas companies. The Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax would charge a per barrel tax equal to 50% of the difference between the current price of a barrel of oil and its pre-pandemic average price between 2015 to 2019... if the per barrel price sits at $120, the tax would raise about $45 billion a year — providing single filers with $240 annually and joint filers with $360 each year. 

The last proposal would also be paid for, but differently, and we have no idea how much money's involved. It would

create a rebate based on oil company profits. It's unclear how much Americans would receive because the plan is based on taxing this year's profits from oil and gas companies. 

So, what's the wondering on this one? Well, for starters, how much more appetite is there for sending checks to Americans who may or may not need them? Didn't we learn anything from the previous stimuli? And, what are the chances that any of these will make it through the legislative process before the midterms? I'm guessing slim to none, but maybe that's just me.

What are you wondering about tonight?

Sunday School 3/6/22: Extra Credit

In your Sunday School, we heard from people who don't get a lot of air time. 

For your Extra Credit, let's dive in with Fiona Hill and Adm. James Stavridis (Ret.) who talked with what's-his-name on Meet the Press. Hill, of course, is a Russia expert - and, more importantly, one of the good people in the Trump administration. Stavridis is a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. 

Hill was asked to compare Trump's towards Russia with the Biden efforts. While she did say there "was an awful lot" done under Trump, she said

I think there's just the one point that sums everything up... that President Trump at a pretty critical period, withheld military assistance to Ukraine that was desperate for it at that particular junction, basically to get Volodymyr Zelenskyy to do him a personal favor.

That sent a message to Vladimir Putin that "Ukraine is a plaything for him" and for the US, too, and she said that was "ultimately a sign of weakness."

It’s our political divisions, our parties are infighting, which was on full display there, that Putin I think is quite shocked now that we've got some collective action together.

Stavridis talked about the possibility of a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which President Zelenskyy wants and the West is resisting. The admiral knows more about this than most people; he implemented one over Libya. And it's not a good idea in this instance. 

It's quite obvious that if we put US (and) NATO jets in the air enforcing a no-fly zone, they'll be going nose to nose with Russian fighter aircraft. Down that path, the potential for miscalculation and a war between NATO and Russia and a war between Russia and the United States rises significantly.

The better alternative is to help Ukraine to "create a no-fly zone" by getting them the Russian-made jets they need, and "more stingers, more missiles that can go higher than stingers." He also said that our allies have enough Russian jets to give Zelenskyy "a chance at air superiority." NATO collectively outnumbers Russia five-to-one in combat aircraft, and four-to-one, so Putin is "not going to cross a NATO border in anger," he said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Hoping Donald Trump Still Likes Him) recently suggested that the world doesn't need love, sweet love - it needs someone in Russia to assassinate Putin. Hill says  

We have to be extraordinarily cautious about how we talk about this conflict. We need to stop the war in Ukraine, but we have to be very careful about talking about war with Russia, regime change, about these other things because then he absolutely will double down further.

Seems that's the last thing we'd want, right? 

Switching gears, I dropped in on the group chat on Fox News Sunday, hosted by Shannon Bream. On the panel: Jonathan Swan of Axios; Catherine Lucey of The Wall Street Journal; Mo Elleithee from Georgetown University; and Katie Pavlich of "Town Hall." 

Bream asked who President Biden was talking to with his State of the Union address. Swan thought it was "independent voters who have abandoned him in numbers that no one could have believed at the start of his presidency," and said Biden's trying to find "opportunities to not just contrast himself with Republicans, but to contrast himself with the left flank of his own party."  Swan's assessment is spot on, I think.

Crime is one of the opportunities - Biden's got to counter the "defund the police" nonsense, which is the gift that keeps on giving for the Rs. Immigration was an unexpected topic, one that Bream said drew a "huge bipartisan response" but she wondered if anything was going to happen on it.

Pavlich acknowledged Biden's approval Bump after the SOTU, and that he's doing well on Ukraine, but said there's an issue of sustainability with the numbers. That requires policy change, which may or may not happen. She pointed to the midterms as a driver of his message.

The midterms pose another problem for the Dems, according to new ABC News/Washington Post poll which Bream referenced. The poll asked

would you rather see the next Congress controlled by the Republicans to act as a check on Biden, or controlled by the Democrats to support Biden's agenda. And Republicans lead that by ten points.

Elleithee said that kind of polling "usually foreshadows a 'big wave election' in a midterm," but he said the Dems still had a chance to "mitigate some of the expected losses." Biden's SOTU was a big part of that; he suggested he was reminding voters why they voted for him - or, for the Biden that campaigned closer to the middle than many of his opponents. And, he added,

I think it was him sort of reorienting the public perception of the Democratic Party, which, for many months now has been defined by a fight between the left and Joe Manchin, you know, and Kyrsten Sinema over the Build Back Better, right? That was what was defining the Democrat Party in the eyes of many voters. And I think Biden said, let me remind you what you got when you voted for me.

It's not just the Dems who are having issues ahead of the midterms. Sen. Rick Scott (R- Florida Man) is pushing his own 31-page agenda which includes naming the (completed) border wall after Donald Trump, sunsetting all legislation after five years, stopping "left-wing efforts to rig elections" (I assume right-wing efforts in that regard are still fine), requiring  income tax from all Americans, including those living miles below the ridiculous federal poverty level, and more. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Nobody Respects Me Anymore) isn't happy about that, saying

And let me tell you what would not be a part of our agenda. We will not have, as part of our agenda, a bill that raises taxes on half the American people, and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years. That will not be part of a Republican Senate majority agenda. 

Bream wondered if the Rs can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat; Lucey thinks they can.

 -- the real thing here is the context, right, which is, as we just talked about, the fact that Republicans are going into midterms that they feel pretty good about. There's a lot of strong indicators for them. Their candidates are feeling pretty optimistic. And Senator McConnell definitely does not want the distraction of a conversation about taxes and Rick Scott's plan.

We'll have to wait and see how that power struggle works out; it might be fun to watch.  For some real extra credit, read Scott's agenda, mull it over, and drop your thoughts in a comment. 

See you around campus.