Advice to Damn Fools
The other day, before the
President started spouting his nonsense about American Jews being disloyal to
Israel if they vote Democratic, Tom Friedman started off his New York Times
column by declaring:
“I am going to say this as simply and clearly as I can: If you’re an American Jew and you’re planning
on voting for Donald Trump because you think he is pro-Israel, you’re a damn
fool.”
Here’s
the article, folks. I hope some “damn
fools” read it. CLICK HERE to do so.
(Note: It’s difficult to “link” to New York Times
or Washington Post stories because access to their sites is often
limited to subscribers. That’s why the
link to this Times article is via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
which carried it.)
Jack Lippman
* * * *
Focusing on the Senate
Only one Democrat is going to
end up running for President next year, and probably, he or she will choose
their running mate from among the other presidential aspirants. That leaves us with a lot of very competent people
who won’t be at the top of the ticket. Two or three of them may end up in the
Senate, taking seats from Republicans. More about that follows.
Crucial to the success of any
Democratic administration will be control of Congress. If a Democrat is elected President, it is
likely that the House will remain in Democratic hands, but the Senate is
another matter. While “the power of the
purse” remains primarily with the House, the Senate approves Presidential
nominees for lifetime judicial positions, including the Supreme Court, as well
as other important administrative positions.
That’s why the Senate races will share importance with the Presidential
contest in 2020.
For Democrats to take control
of the Senate, where 22 Republican seats are being contested (only 13
Democratic seats are being contested), they must win four seats presently
occupied by Republicans. They cannot count on holding on to Doug Jones’ seat
from Alabama where he defeated Roy Moore two years ago in a special election. There
were a lot of reasons for Republicans to desert Moore two years ago which won’t
be present if they run another Republican against Jones so the Democratic goal
must be to take away four seats from the Republicans.
 |
| Beto O'Rourke |
Winning those four seats would
mean that there would be an evenly divided Senate with a Democratic
Vice-President having the deciding vote.
A John Hickenlooper victory in Colorado and a Beto O’Rourke victory in
Texas (I know he says he won’t run for the Senate, but I think he will) would
get the Democrats half-way there. Both
looked great in their Presidential debate appearances.
The other two Republican seats
which are most likely to turn blue are in Arizona where astronaut Mark Kelly is
challenging Martha McSally, whose seat was the result of an appointment by
Arizona’s G.O.P. governor and in Maine, where Susan Collins has her hands full
with her likely opponent, Democratic legislative leader Sara Gideon.
Democrats
have a chance to take over more than just four G.O.P. seats if their
Presidential candidate wins and has long enough coattails to take seats away from
such vulnerable Republicans as Jodi Ernst (Iowa), Tom Tillis (North Carolina),
David Purdue (Georgia), Steve Daines (Montana) … especially if presidential
aspirant Governor Steve Bullock chooses to run there … and surprisingly, Mitch
McConnell
(Kentucky). It would be nice
for the Democrats to gain at least one or two of these seats in addition to the
Colorado, Texas, Arizona and Maine seats mentioned above.
 |
| Defeating McConnell would be sweet |
The
Senate races are very important …. And it is important, once the Democratic
Presidential nominee is apparent (and that will be before the Convention), for
Beto O’Rourke and Steve Bullock to accept the fact that they won’t be running
for President and decide to run for the Senate.
JL* * * *
A
Bit of History and a Gun Violence Suggestion
On
the evening of April 11, 1865, Abraham Lincoln stood on the White House balcony
and delivered a speech to a small group gathered on the lawn. Two days earlier,
Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court
House, and after four long years of struggle it had become clear that the Union
cause would emerge from the war victorious. Lincoln’s speech that evening
outlined some of his ideas about reconstructing the nation and bringing the
defeated Confederate states back into the Union. Lincoln also indicated a wish to extend the
franchise to some African-Americans - at the very least, those who had fought
in the Union ranks during the war- and expressed a desire that the southern
states would extend the vote to literate blacks, as well.
In
the audience for the speech was actor John Wilkes Booth, whose sympathies were
with the Confederacy during the Civil War, and the speech apparently amplified
his already existing rage with the President. “That means nigger citizenship,”
he told Lewis Powell, one of his band of conspirators which already had been talking
about kidnapping Lincoln to be exchanged for Confederate prisoners. But this changed Booth’s plan. “Now, by God, I’ll put him through. That is
the last speech he will ever make,” he continued.
Three
days later, On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth became the first person to
assassinate an American president when he shot and killed Lincoln in his box at
Ford’s Theater in Washington. Jumping to
the stage, he screamed out “Sic semper tyrannis. (Thus always to tyrants),” and
fled the scene with a broken ankle. After a two-week manhunt, Federal troops
cornered Booth in a barn in Maryland, where a Union soldier shot him in the
neck. Booth died two hours later, his last words reported as being “Useless,
Useless, Useless.”
(Most, but not all, of this information
comes from an article on the website of the National History Teaching
Clearinghouse: https://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24242 .)
Booth’s
extreme feelings toward Lincoln certainly might be described today as reaching
the level of a mental disorder. Almost everyone, today, agrees that people with
mental disorders should not have access to weapons. Unfortunately
though, I see no way that knowledge of the Booth’s “mental disorder” might have
prevented Lincoln’s assassination. So long as he possessed a gun, he was able to carry
it out. Only strict gun laws barring civilians from
carrying weapons might have prevented the assassination.
We did not have such laws then
and we do not generally have them today, although when I visit a theatre (not a movie) or a baseball game, I am
screened for weapons possession. But how
far, in terms of where people gather, can this kind of screening be extended? Stores?
Parks? Schools? Hospitals? Malls? Houses of Worship? And I won't even venture a guess as to the number of folks with "mental disorders" no more extreme than Booth's who might frequent such places.
It
would be easier to get rid of the guns and repeal the Second Amendment, which has
outlived its usefulness (we
don’t have militias any longer where members are asked to bring their own arms,
and the wrong-headed 2008 Supreme Court decision which in effect voided those
first thirteen words of the Amendment which stated its purpose is certain to
be reversed, sooner or later.) REPEAL! That’s the best way of stopping gun violence, just so long as
the right to own weapons for hunting, agricultural purposes, sport shooting and
reasonable self-protection is preserved.
The Second Amendment is not there to permit acts of violence by people who passionately believe in a particular cause, as John Wilkes Booth did. Booth honestly believed that he was killing a tyrant. Many strong objectors to gun legislation today actually believe the Second Amendment justifies their using violence if they feel the government is tyrannical (the same word Booth used) and that's why they want to have access to weapons and play "war games" in the woods. In today's environment, the Second Amendment should be repealed. That won't solve the problem entirely but it would go a long way toward doing so
JL
No comments:
Post a Comment