POLITICAL OBSERVATIONS

Two political observations. Re current happenings.

Democrat sit in in well of House of Representatives. A shame grown men and women have to conduct themselves as they are to make a point. Not the way for government to be run.

I do not blame the sit ins. I blame the Republicans. Who are cowering to the NRA, who are under the thumb of the NRA.

Trump off to Scotland for the opening of a golf course. I believe his second course there. The Scots have been pissed off with Trump re the construction and operation of one of them. I am curious to see how well he will be received.

Trump should stay home. He needs to address the American people more. One good speech a President does not make.

A local political update. The genetically modified mosquito fiasco.

The Mosquito Control Board voted last night to adjourn the vote re the issue from August to election day in November. If Zika is a true crisis, the vote should not be delayed. I thought even August was too far away.

Politicians never seem to get things done properly/timely. Recall the Flint water crisis. Some six months ago made public. Recall further the furor in Washington re the problem. Congressional hearings held. Local officials defecated upon by Washington know it alls. Something had to be done.

Nothing done yet.

No federal monies have been allocated yet. The President, Senate and House have different numbers in mind as to how much. So nothing done so far. While Flint water no better today that six months ago.

Anti-gravity treadmill yesterday. Moved up a few additional notche. Still a long way to go, however.

Still have not grocery shopped. Wanted a heavy lunch to make up for a minimal breakfast. I was hungry! 5 Guys the winner.

Back Bar at cocktail time. Mark Watson bartending.

Good company. Rick, John, Donna and Terri, and Donna’s daughter Stacie.

Speaking of Terri, she sings saturday night at Blue Heaven. Visit. She is not to be missed. Her voice outstanding.

Dinner later at Duffy’s. Maybe my last time, except for an occasional Maine lobster. It bothered me spending $5 extra for a prime rib I could not finish. Duffy’s other dishes do not appeal to me.

I have been doing some Hemingway reading the past few days. Re his loves. The man was a cocks man. Amazing how many women he had in addition to his wives. A couple were popular Key West writers.

The research was for a possible column. Will not be next week’s column. Too many and too much involved. The subject requires more research.

Enjoy your day!

 

 

25 comments on “POLITICAL OBSERVATIONS

  1. “I do not blame the sit ins. I blame the Republicans. Who are cowering to the NRA, who are under the thumb of the NRA.” — fuck off you liberal piece of shit.

    • It would be nice if the NRA…whoops Republican would MAN up and call for a vote on sensible gun control (i.e. no GUNS for terrorists), but that would prevent a legitimate gun sale and heaven forbid that! What a bunch of real pussUes!

      • Go suck a dick. If you can prove they’re terrorists, great b arrest them. But suspicion? What list would YOU like to be on?

        • Fred, you have a dirty mouth. I let it pass when you take a shot at me. But, I cannot let it pass when you ask a female who comments to “suck a dick.” Knock it off, please. Thank you.

          • Thanks Lou, a least their is some decency remaining on parts of the internet. Loud mouths like Fred must curse because they have no point.

  2. ‘I blame the Republicans.’
    end quote

    OH, of course you do. That would go without mention. Its about time to step on those rose colored glasses. I really do need to listen to Gary.

  3. What I find funny is remembering John Lewis marching for civil rights and now he is sitting on his ass against civil rights.

        • If a person is under investigation for making comments that infer their desire to kill and maim American citizens then they should be immediately placed in a database that precludes their purchase of weaponry. Read your Constitutional law (if you are at all literate which appears dubious) and you will see not all “speech” is protected just as the personal Second Amendment right was largely manufactured through recent judicial activism.

          If a person is too dangerous to exercise freedom of travel via a No Fly List, they certainly are too dangerous to be sold military assault weapons and ammunition. It is almost as if a large swath of this nation has totally lost their collective minds.

  4. Sage on June 23, 2016 at 6:41 pm said:
    Selling guns to terrorist is not a civil right. If it is we are all Royally scre*ed.
    end quote

    And it shouldn’t be. Our enforcement agencies should be able to do their jobs and then share information. With todays technology that should be easy and to me its criminal that it is not being done.
    If we keep on this current path beyond the election we are royally screwed.

  5. A well stocked library, being necessary for the success of our nation, the right of the people to read and carry books, shall not be infringed.

    Do you read this to mean that only libraries should be able to keep and carry books?
    Or that it’s an individual right of the people to read and carry books?’

    • Your analogy is nonsensical. I got the library to check-out books.

      No one is arguing about the “rights” of citizens. The issue is narrowly defined as the ability, in fact, of an individual (citizen or otherwise, legal status or not) who blatantly and overtly proclaims their desire to kill Americans and commit murder for whatever reason. At a certain level the mere threat is criminal alone. However, in our world of social media and a corrupted culture (please read some of the posts above), threats such as terrorist threats cannot be taken lightly, despite the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. Please read the news for the past year and you will see threats taken lightly lead to mass murder.

      With all rights comes responsibility and the ability to purchase and bear arms should be no different. We tend to laser focus on our rights and not responsibilities as citizens. The Supreme Court has limited free speech rights and Second Amendment rights often (in fact just recently in the case of State law in New York and Connecticut). There is no Constitutional reason someone making terrorist threats cannot be denied legal purchase of a weapon just as someone yelling fire in a crowded theater can be held liable for their speech.

      And from a common sense viewpoint, not arming the terrorists within our own nation is a pretty smart idea. And I know of THE NRA’s position of a Judicial proceeding to adjudicate the so-called infringement on the Second Amendment rights of an individual, and I will agree with that concept so long as during that process that individual remains barred from purchasing weapons. This is fundamentally no different than the Reasonable Suspicion standard used by law enforcement under the Fourth Amendment.

      I mean honestly, a group of ISIS fighters arrives in the US, the FBI knows they are here but doesn’t have time to head to court and you want them to be able to go the the gun store to get their ammo and AR’s? Really? Recall, they will probably already be on the no-fly list so their freedom of travel has been infringed under the Commerce Clause without any judicial oversight as that should rightly be an executive action given the nature of the threat.

      Funny how some folks love the courts and their endless process for certain positions but on other positions less to their liking any Judicial action is activism and any use of executive authority suspect.

  6. Funny how some folks love the courts and their endless process for certain positions but on other positions less to their liking any Judicial action is activism and any use of executive authority suspect.
    end quote

    Always works both ways doesn’t it.

    Also, The AR15 of the past several decades can not be considered an ‘assault rifle’, because, it isn’t one. It happens to be just another small caliber semi-automatic rifle. It has become one of the most popular sporting, hunting and target rifles in the world.

    Liberals always make it about the gun and not what the real problem is.

    • I would google Australia and gun massacre and read what an adult nation does following a massacre. Then read the statistics for homicide and suicide compared to the USA and think.

      I concur guns are a tool but we have a lot and I mean a LOT of “problem” people. So let’s focus on them and their access to deadly tools if we are at all serious about saving lives. I have no qualms about weapons in the hands of sane hunters and gun enthusiasts and for justifiable self-defense. After all, isn’t that precisely the right what the Second Amendment protects? I am concerned about allowing self-professed haters of America having the free opportunity to buy deadly tools (weapons). Not smart.

      As you wish to bring up labels calling it a “Liberal” issue versus plain common sense. I will retort that Conservatives believe arming Terrorists is a Constitutional right?

  7. ‘So let’s focus on them’
    end quote

    Thats been ‘our’ argument all along.

    ‘I will retort that Conservatives believe arming Terrorists is a Constitutional right?’
    end quote

    Nope, not at all and have never heard any such thing argued. Our ‘lame stream media’ tends to make that argument, but, I know no one that feels that way.

    And it seems to me that Australia’s fix was to take away its citizens guns. I shouldn’t speak about this countries laws because I’m not really familiar.

    The problem in this country is lack of or refusal to communicate or share info and flawed policy.

    • No, the problem my friend is the fact we won’t face the truth. And do something about our problems. The US is pretty messed-up and we keep denying it. The Millennials get it and as the older idiots die off things will change for the better as for the violence we permit and endure here. Unique in the “Western” world and in common with the crazy world of the Middle East and Africa.

      If the NRA really does not want terrorists to have weapons hey let them buy here then show me the issue with stopping their purchase? There is none but that propagated by the extreme right wing wingnuts who don’t realize they shill death for arms and ammo manufacturers or, most likely in our corrupt society, are outright profiting from and paid by them.

      My Dad was an Aussie and I’m a citizen there and here. Read our laws. Guns are not gone at all, far from it. So wrong. Read the law before you open thy mouth and pontificate. There are plenty of firearms down under. But here is also common sense and no mass murders in 20 years. America? Now a monthly occurrence.

  8. Your responses are starting to get as bad as Fred. No sense in arguing. This old rightwing nut idiot isn’t probably going to be around much longer anyway. Its best to ignore responses as Lou does.

  9. Well, I do try not to curse like Fred. To make a point I just use logic and facts which I know is definitely out of style these days.

  10. http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/25/the-australia-gun-control-fallacy/

    Mandatory buy back is confiscation in my book. The government wasn’t allowed by their law to just grab guns so they instituted a tax to raise funds to pay about half of what they were worth.

    These two countries can not be compared anyway. They are not the same, different problems.

    Facts don’t mean much since at times they are nothing more than some peoples opinions that are based on nothing substantail or altered data. They only try to pass them off as facts. Only correct data make good facts. Just what does logic mean, its different for everyone. What is logical for one is meaningless to another because it can’t be backed up.

    And thats all I have to say about that. Where have I heard that.

    • Actually no. It is one aging generation and their fears and need of weapons and another that sees things differently. Change is hard and people often get violent when everything they thought was real turns out to be different.

      And Australia is very much like the US in many, many ways but for the insane gun violence here on which we can apparently get no grip of what to do except perhaps arm everyone from a toddler to a pensioner with an AK and hope for the best like the Wild West.

  11. Maybe we should go back to the days of the old American cow towns. Myths have developed that they were pretty wild times that lasted a couple decades. The overall killing/murder rate averaged 1.5 per year in the ‘wildest’ of these towns.

    • According to research done by the Criminal Justice Research Center at Ohio State “Homicide rates in the West were extraordinarily high by today’s standards and by the standards of the rest of the United States and the Western world in the nineteenth century, except for parts of the American South during the Civil War and Reconstruction.”

      Having lots of guns in lost of peoples hands never was an especially good idea. There are plenty of flat out evil and crazy people and we don’t discriminate as to who we give deadly weapons to. Hence, we get the highest homicide rates, suicide rates, accidental death rates, etc. And mass murders and terrorism too.

      So giving people unfettered access to the tool of death (a gun) never works. However, if we ever grew-up and the old men stop whining about their right to their “toys” we could permit firearms to be available under controlled circumstances. After all, the Second Amendment was written by old white men for old white men. Though I grant you, the experience with the British shooting our militiamen didn’t help.

      We can have sensible gun control and still have access to plenty of guns. But we have to all be adults first.

  12. ‘We can have sensible gun control and still have access to plenty of guns.’
    end quote

    You’ve never gotten an argument from me about that. The key word is sensible and that we’ll argue over.

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