Notes from around the Human Experience…
UH, THIS ISN’T EXACTLY BREAKING NEWS: President Donald Trump this week withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accords. This was hardly the Upset of the Year, because Trump had been threatening to do this since the primaries.
USA! USA! Afterwards, we were treated to the usual partisans saying the usual partisan things since we’re incapable of civilized discourse in this country, not that America has ever set the pace in this category because from town criers to the Internet American discourse has been one long march of partisan yapping.
Extra, Extra, Read All About It: One aspect of the Paris Accords you heard very little about was how the Accords was never presented to the United States Senate for ratification. President Obama declared the treaty a “voluntary agreement” and implemented it unilaterally, which he was not empowered to do.
Friends, you can call a treaty a voluntary agreement from here to Reno, but it is still an agreement between the United States government and other governments, so it is a treaty and subject to Senate ratification.
Dry, Technical Matter: Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution is very clear on the matter, stating, in part:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;
Trump pulled America out of an agreement it had never ratified – at least in accordance with the Constitution – so we were never obliged to abide by any part of it. Literally, Trump’s action had the same effect of pulling America out of the Warsaw Pact.
WE’RE BEGINNING TO SPOT THE TREND: Another black man was released from prison this week after spending decades behind bars. Desmond Ricks, now 51, was released from prison in Michigan last Friday after his 1992 second-degree murder conviction was thrown out.
Fly In The Ointment: The problem was the bullets pulled from the victim did not match the gun prosecutors offered as evidence.
Regular readers of this crap will recall last week we wrote about Cleve Heidelberg, another black man, who was released from prison in Illinois after 47 years of confinement after his conviction was vacated!!!
More USA! USA! Why this does not cause us all to collectively go stand in the corner and hang our heads in shame remains beyond me. Does anybody really disagree with the statement that in a nation conceived in liberty this should never happen?
The Bottom Line: Presidents not bothering the US Senate with a treaty he went and implemented on his own, people, mostly black, spending decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, you and me, we the people are putting up with it, just like we’ve put up with all the other examples of lousy government we’ve received since Kennedy was assassinated.
GO IN PEACE, SERVE ME: Queen Elizabeth II is crowned Queen of England and other assorted places on this date in 1953. She had ascended to the throne in April 1952, after the death of her father George VI and she still reigns, hale and hearty at 91, the longest reigning monarch in British history.
Great Moments In The Gas Chamber: Luis Monje, a convicted murderer, is executed in Colorado’s gas chamber on this date in 1967. It was the last execution in America before the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972.
More Great Moments In Colorado: Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy in the Oklahoma City bombing in Denver on this date in 1997. He would be executed four years later.
Whoops, My Bad: Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers becomes the first major league player to lose a perfect game because of a blown call by an umpire on what would have been the 27th out on this date in 2010.
Pitching for the history books against Cleveland’s Jason Donald, Galarraga gets Donald to bounce to the first baseman, whose toss to Galarraga is in plenty of time for the out and a place in this history, but first base umpire Jim Joyce calls Donald safe anyway and all Galarraga has to show for the great night of his life is a one-hit shutout.
Looking Back: It was a situation both men ended up handling with a very high level of class.
Quotebook: Carpentier did it again!, a second time, and this was the blow perfected by a lifetime of training…it rocked Dempsey to his heels, but it broke Carpentier’s hand. His best was not enough. – Heywood Braun
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The only major league player who faced a future Hall of Fame pitcher in a game where he hit four home runs is Gil Hodges, who hit one home run off Warren Spahn of the Boston Braves on July 31, 1950.
Today’s Stumper: Who was the first person executed in the United States after Monje’s execution in 1967? – Answer next time!
