Notes from around the Human Experience…
WHAT IN THEE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?: The GOP is in power and they are unable to govern!
This is relatively funny, actually. A party in control of both the White House and the Congress should be able to pass whatever legislation it wants, from mandating color of socks to who ends up having health insurance and who does not.
Stop Us If You’ve Heard This Before: Of course, the health care legislation the GOP-controlled Congress is trying to pass is spiteful and mean. The act it is supposed to replace, the Affordable Care Act, had no business being passed in a nation conceived in liberty in the first place.
Get Your Official Daily Dose Policy Right Here: We let the free market provide food, clothing and fidget spinners and we should also let it provide medical care. Doctors and health insurers should have the same access to the free market your plumber, banker or butcher has.
Back On Message: The GOP can’t get anything done, though. Their president, unable to think beyond his next Twitter post, has been unable to provide the big picture leadership and inspiration required of a chief executive.
This really shouldn’t be too much of a problem, however, because a strong Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader should be able to take of routine matters like this as a matter of course. But they can’t. This lead current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to lament this weekend:
It’s not easy making America great, is it?
Oh Jesus H: Yes, it is, Senator. Good government isn’t hard: Low taxes and free markets. Stop fighting wars in countries that represent no threat to us. Stop convicting the innocent. A great America is there for the taking. But the American electorate isn’t demanding greatness at the ballot box. We have settled for a second-rate nation.
The Bottom Line: We had pretty low expectations for the Trump Administration. Trump was a misfit as a private citizen and an embarrassment as a candidate so it should not be a surprise he has turned out to be both as president. But even our originally low expectations are being exceeded and deep down even the most ardent Trump supporters have to be scratching their heads and wondering exactly what is going on.
USA! USA! The United States of America is formed on this date in 1776, when the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, adopts the Lee Resolution, which declared the 13 colonies independent of Great Britain.
And You Wonder Why You Don’t Get Invited To More Parties: After “Sundry letters were laid before Congress, and read” the Congress “…resumed the consideration of [the Lee Resolution] and the same being read, was agreed to as follows”:
Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and, of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion between them, and the state of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved
Dry, Technical Matter: Though America celebrates its independence on the July 4th, the day Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, more than one Founding Father at the time thought July 2 was the day that would live down the ages.
Great Moments In Presidential Assassination: James Garfield becomes the second US president to be shot while in office, being shot twice from behind by Charles Guiteau at Washington, DC train station on this date in 1881. Garfield would die on September, 19 and his 200 day presidency is the second shortest in American history.
Fly In The Ointment: The wounds themselves did not cause Garfield’s death, infection did, and it is believed by some that had Garfield would have recovered with sterile medical care.
Oh Yeah: Justice was swift in America back then. After Garfield’s death Guiteau was charged with murder, convicted in January, 1882 and was hanged the following June.
Never Again…At Least Until The Next One: American officially ends its involvement in World War I on this date in 1921 when President Warren Harding signs the Knox-Porter Resolution. The resolution was necessary because the United States Senate had rejected Treaty of Versailles, which had officially ended the war amongst the other nations involved.
Watch Out K-Mart…And Sears…And Everyone Else: After operating Walton’s Five and Dime in Bentonville, Sam Walton opens the first Walmart – then known as Walmart Discount City – in Rogers, Arkansas, on this date in 1962. Walton would have 24 Walmarts in Arkansas by 1967 and in 1968 would open its first stores outside the state and today Walmart is the world’s largest retailer, the world’s largest company by revenue and the world’s largest private employer.
Here, Take That: Two Chileans with the nerve to protest dictator Augusto Pinochet are burned alive in Santiago, Chile on this date in 1986.
Rodrigo Rojas DeNegri and Carmen Gloria Quintana were part of a group that had gathered, prepared with, among other things, Molotov cocktails and gasoline. Their group encountered a military patrol, with everyone but DeNegri and Quintana escaping. Both were set on fire then wrapped in blankets and shipped off my the military patrol to a ditch out of town, where they were tossed out and left to die. They were found by some farm workers and taken to a hospital.
DeNegri died four days later, but Quintana is still alive. She emigrated to Canada in 2010.
Thought For The Day: The heroes see themselves simply as chaps doing the best they can in a special situation. – Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: 1979 was the year the most Chevrolet Corvettes were produced (53,807).
Today’s Stumper: Who was the first US president to suffer an assassination attempt? – Answer next time!
