There are always more things on my mind than days of the week. Many thoughts make it to my notes but not to this site. Most days I write about a single topic in at least some detail. Today I’d like to give mention to several. Let’s explore.
Starting out on a positive note I’d like to mention an “alignment of the stars” that I hope is a good omen. Several major religious holidays of different religions and denominations coordinated this year. The Christian holiday of Easter is often celebrated on different Sundays by the orthodox and non-orthodox Christians. This year all Christians are celebrating this Sunday.
Passover is a major Jewish holy holiday and this year it is being observed from April 10th to the 18th. The first two and last two days of that period are the holiest. Again that coordinates with Easter. My ethnic heritage demands that I throw this one in: Monday the 18th is Dyngus Day. Far from a religious holiday, (although derived from one), it is a big celebration day for the Polish.
May all this coordination mean that we are coming closer together as a community of man; not separating ourselves into rival factions!
There are four special elections to fill House seats vacated by members who took posts in the Trump administration. All four are in historically safe Republican districts. The Republicans have a huge majority in the House and even if they lost all four of those seats still would. Much is being written about all of them and they all look at least somewhat in play. I’d like to take a brief and incomplete look at the race in Georgia’s sixth Congressional District to replace now HHS Secretary Tom Price.
Georgia has a primary system that is a vestige of the Jim Crow era. Then it was designed to insure that a white Democrat ultimately won the election. The racist Southern Democrats of the Jim Crow era are now Republicans as a result of Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For this special election all candidates (there are 17 of them) regardless of Party affiliation are on a single ballot. In order to win the seat you have to get a clear majority (50% plus 1). If nobody gets the majority (the most likely outcome) the top two candidates run off head-to-head at a later date. Polling has Democrat Jon Ossoff within striking distance of the majority. I took a look at the most recent polling and noticed who number two was. When I did I decided I had to write about this race. Her name is Karen Handel.
If the name rings a bell this is probably why. Handel became Sr. Vice President for Public Policy at the Susan G. Komen Foundation in April of 2011. By January of 2012 she was the driving force behind Komen cutting off their funding to Planned Parenthood. The backlash was swift and widespread! It is almost impossible to anger liberals when you represent an entity like Komen, but Handel is so radical she managed to. Without getting into a lot of the weeds, if this election goes to a second round I am willing to bet that Handel wins. That is not good for America!
I was sitting in my upstairs recliner when I read the news. I let out a shout that got my wife’s attention on the first floor. My most sincere congratulations to David Farenthold of the Washington Post for winning a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize! If you remember he was a finalist for my Progressive of the Year last year. His investigative reporting into Donald Trump’s finances and “charitable giving” was not able to derail Trump’s Presidential bid but it may well be laying the foundation to his ultimate demise.
The Neil Gorsuch watch over the next few years will be interesting, if nothing else. Here is a little known quirk about how the Supreme Court operates. The most junior Associate Justice is the last to vote. Assuming no justices change their vote before announcement of the final decision, he will know that his is the deciding vote in 5-4 decisions. Let’s see just how much he cares about America. I don’t have a good gut feeling about this one.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham compared Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan the other day; coming from a Republican that is high praise. I compare Trump’s action in Syria to Reagan’s actions against PATCO. Both acted like bullies. They picked a fight with someone much weaker than them. Reagan’s actions against PATCO ended up being a turning point for the American laborer. The middle class has steadily declined while the super wealthy have gotten much richer. Trump’s fireworks show didn’t change a thing on the ground in Syria and like Reagan’s disrespect of organized labor won’t make America any stronger – hopefully it won’t weaken us. I see a lot of Reagan, (as well as Nixon and W), in Trump and none of that is good! By the way Senator Graham, I see no evidence to support your claim that either Reagan was or Trump is smart.
OK, I got some things off my chest and out of my notes; now go get ready to enjoy the holidays however you choose to celebrate them.
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