Ideas, Opinions, Genealogy, and Book Reviews
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not say to shutup and sit down but that was the result of his objection to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s speech. Twitter quickly came alive with people saying #LetLizTalk
Senator McConnell used his power to silence an opposing voice in a confirmation hearing. He invoked Senate rule 19 which in part says
Continue reading “Shutup and sit down or #LetLizTalk”
Pennsylvania Senate Bill 3 would criminalize abortion in cases where the fetus is older than 20 or 24 weeks. There are other provisions in the bill as well providing exceptions, additional requirements, criminalization of a specific type of abortion (at any gestational age), and additional reporting requirements.
It is a bit hard to tell which way it will go now. The bill is before the Judiciary committee today and both numbers are in the bill online. I think that means that one number is current law and the other is in the bill.
Continue reading “Pennsylvania Senate Bill 3, express your opinion”
The news that wasn’t seems to be around a lot lately. Part of the news that wasn’t was my announcement of the renaming of this blog (see Reality Based Opinions), so I am sort of qualified to discuss this. But I suppose I should back up.
When I was much younger, there was a TV show called “That Was the Week That Was”. Since we now have so much fake news coming out of the Trump administration I was thinking we could have a new show called “That Was the Week That Wasn’t”.
Continue reading “News that wasn’t”
I am glad to hear that the Senate has voted to repeal the Stream Protection Rule . I hope the House and President follow-up on this quickly. I just love that dirty water.
I have long been tired of clean drinking water. I just doesn’t have an interesting taste. I am looking forward to the added taste of coal debris or maybe even coal tar in my drinking water. It may add a bit of flavor.
Unfortunately flavor in drinking water does not seem to add many jobs.
Continue reading “Love that dirty water”
President Trump in less than 2 weeks in office has become the super-imperial president. He has far outpaced his predecessors in issuing executive orders.
Remember when President Obama issued orders often to solve problems when Congress failed to act. Republicans were livid and complained about his illegal imperial presidency. Now President Trump is out doing that. You would think Republicans would again be outraged. But this super-imperial presidency is much to their liking.
A few Republicans have complained about some specific executive orders but for the most part hypocrisy rules. See the recent editorial in USA Today “Hypocrisy on executive orders: Our view” for details.
Are women people ? You would not think that needed to be asked or could be asked without giving offense. Unfortunately it is an important question right now.
Why is it important to ask this question when most people would think the answer so obvious? Most people would say “YES” and perhaps add a few words about my stupidity for even asking. But the reason I bring the question up is not that I doubt women are people but I do not think we need a Supreme Court justice who believes that the legal rights in our Constitution do not apply to women.
Judge Neil Gorsuch has been nominated by President Trump to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. His legal philosophy is said to be very similar to that of Antonin Scalia.
Over 6 years ago, I wrote about Justice Scalia’s beliefs on women and legal rights . So I was concerned about Judge Gorsuch’s beliefs.
Continue reading “Are women people ? – legally speaking”
Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy has introduced the Protect the National Security Council from Political Interference Act of 2017.
Do you think the our national security should be a political thing? Should Steve Bannon as President Trump or other political types determine how we should respond to national security issues? Should the National Security Council (NSC) be nonpartisan and consist of security professionals as discussed here.
If you find this issue important please read the Congresswoman’s remarks on this.
They can be found at http://stephaniemurphy.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=18
It may come as a surprise to many but President Trump is going to have a diverse administration. You say you haven’t seen it. Well, the diversity is there and increasing, but you haven’t looked hard enough.
His cabinet includes both billionaires and multi-millionaires. He has added Steven Bannon to his National Security Council to add a bit of diversity. Why should the National Security Council be dominated by security experts and folks like the director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?
Continue reading “Diversity, President Trump, Steve Bannon”
I’m glad that President Trump shares the truth and avoids the biased media.
After watching the news with thousands of people around the county protesting President Trump’s immigration order and the detention of legal residents, legal immigrants, and visa holders I was not surprised to hear about his attempt to blame the problem on airline computer problems.
Continue reading “President Trump shares the truth and avoids the biased media”
President Trump has recently issued an executive order on immigration. I have been writing about that alot in the past few days. But this post is just about a small part of it which is quoted below.
Upon the resumption of USRAP admissions, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality.
Since the ban is on immigration from 7 majority-Muslim nations, it is very clear that minority religion means all religions except Islam.
Continue reading “Trump’s religious preferences on immigration”
This is an update on my GOP cowards post. A few more Republican lawmakers have have been brave enough to take a stance. Some positive, some negative, and some unclear.
But it is nice to know where these Republican lawmakers stand. It would be nice if others also had the courage to express a view.
Here is the latest from the Washington Post
I used to call this blog Reality Based Opinions. Then I thought that since my opinions are not the only ones based on reality, and there may be relatively few who do not base opinions on reality, Reality Based Opinions was more than a bit presumptuous and discouraging of any real conversation so a new name was in order.
I chose Retired Guy since that did describe my situation. I am retired and now have time to read books and publish some book reviews here, time to work on my genealogy and publish something here in hopes of finding a new relative, and time to express my opinions (which I believe to be based on reality).
Continue reading “Reality Based Opinions”
I just read an article on Ethics Trump-style while writing my last post. In some respects it seems that President Trump’s executive order which was proclaimed as strengthening our ethics rules on lobbyists was actually weaker than the Obama rules it replaced.
Read the Politico article on Trump lobbying ban weakens Obama rules.
I called this post GOP cowards. That may be true in some cases but some may just be a case of mistaken belief. Perhaps GOP stupidity or maybe GOP strangeness would have been a better title but that would have been overly long and I don’t like to bore my audience.
According to Politico only a few Republicans have expressed opinions on President Trump’s executive order temporarily barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations. It could be more will eventually give an opinion, perhaps after they see the polls.
But the small sample showing courage to share opinions either opposing the order or agreeing with the administration is fairly small. If they agree or say nothing it could be because they really agree or maybe they are cowards afraid not to support the administration.
Continue reading “GOP cowards”
Are we being misdirected?
President Trump is well known for his alternative facts and apparent obsession with fairly minor things such as crowd size and millions of illegal voters. Perhaps this is just misdirection so we don’t pay enough attention to the important stuff.
Was misdirection the secret to at least some of his business success. While some of his “partners” were busy dreaming of their profits, was Mr. Trump was busy taking the money and setting others up for the fall?
Continue reading “While we were being misdirected”