PROBLEMS WITH THE BOEHNER RESIGNATION

OK. This may be straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel, but…maybe that's what bloggers are supposed to do.

The presidential succession amendment makes the House Speaker 2^nd in line to run this country. That is, if both president and veep become incapacitated, for any reason, the speaker becomes president. The theory was, when passed, instead of the Secretary of State—a presidential appointee, taking over, someone elected, even if IN-directly by the people, should get the job.

All this wayyyy before gridlock set in.

So 218 votes of the House could make someone our chief executive. Frankly, in all the Tea Party bickering within the majority GOP party in the House, that frightens me. It is, theoretically possible that a Tea Party Republican, or someone who would shut our government down could get that job.  Stranger things have happened. (Like Donald Trump being the top choice of one of our 2 major parties; who’d a thunk that?)

Solution?  Reason and a true love of country; an appreciation for the spirit of compromise so absent in our nation’s capital...or maybe a realization that at least the Secretary of State was an appointee of the person who won our national election and would best carry on the president’s policies. I’m not holding my breath.

Just one more manifestation of the wild things gridlock has done to our national consensus—and shows no signs of abating.

George Washington weeps.

I'm just sayin'...

Who can you trust???

First, there was Toyota…a truly stellar, blue chip firm whose accelerators stuck, causing deaths and damages—and denials. Innocent people were found guilty of major traffic violations when it wasn’t them, it was their cars.

A massive fine followed..no one went to jail.

Then it was GM—even worse, a decade of denying a major problem that caused over one hundred deaths and even more damages. A huge fine..no one went to jail.

Now it’s VW---a deliberate, malice aforethought scheme to violate the law. No deaths, that we know of yet, but major damages to our health and environment. Fines should follow..we will see about jail time.

In between times, a peanut firm CEO in Georgia was convicted of deliberately shipping adulterated products to stores to be sold to you and me. 9 deaths resulted..and he gets 28 years.

Something is out of whack here.

When reporters questioned the US attorney who settled the GM case, asking why no one was being charged in the case, his reply was the laws he worked under didn’t permit it.

Meadow muffins..or, to quote Dickens; "If the law thinks that, sir, the law is an ass.”

Should he be correct, here are laws that need changing…and far more important than defunding Planned Parenthood or shutting down the government.

I'm just sayin'...

KIM DAVIS AND THE REFUGEE PROBLEM

One of religion’s big problems is how we individually translate our beliefs..from what each person’s “Bible” tells him to do.

Kim Davis obviously doesn’t understand “render unto Caesar”..but then, that’s the way I interpret that verse (and I have a lot of company, but not universally.)

In Hungary the government has raised barbed wire fences to keep refugees from war-torn Syria out. Why? The prime minister said: "because they (the largely Muslim refugees)  threaten our Christian beliefs.”  Which beliefs?  How about “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Or even better what Christ  often said, "Love one another.”

And that church in Topeka, which claims to be Christian, obviously doesn’t understand that “loving” part..as it pickets burials of our servicemen and women.

And even the conservative columnist Cal Thomas tried to tell Mrs. Davis that "America is not a Christian nation.” Religious, Yes. Christian, No.  Baptist, are you kidding?

But when public officials, whether an obscure county clerk in the U-S, or the prime minister of a European nation try to impose their translation of religion on the rest of us, I can only think of another Biblical verse  “Jesus wept.”

I'm just sayin'...

NEPOTSIM

Nep-o-tism:  noun.  The practice among those with power and influence of favoring friends and relatives especially by giving them jobs.  (See Rowan County, Ky.)

OK, I added the last part about Rowan…but it’s true there and in many Kentucky counties...and it is almost a sure sign of corruption…an issue our state has long struggled with.

Veteran political writer Al Cross told me there are no state laws against nepotism. It is left up to local government ethics codes and many permit it. 

As in:

“Hiring my daughter was not nepotism, it was just good business.”

The practice originated centuries ago, mainly among the bishops and popes of the Catholic church. Ah, religion enters the picture. Surprise!

Either you believe the most qualified person should get the job, or you don’t. Appointing your Grandmother to office for the good of the party,  as Ambrose Bierce suggested, isn’t an option. And Kentucky won’t  progress until nepotism is outlawed...a topic that ought to be on the agenda of the January session (the regular session, not a special one at $60,000 plus a day.)

And yes, Kim Davis, under various names, worked for her mother, the Rowan clerk for 30 years, and when Kim became clerk, she named her son a deputy clerk---the only one who continued to refuse to follow court orders to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.

It’s all an insidious, in-bred, bastard offspring of the way we conduct politics in Kentucky...and no matter what you think of Mrs. Davis’ stand, it is past time to clean up the situation.

Or just maybe, as one protestor put it..."I’d like to earn $80,000 for not doing my job.”  Can Kentucky really afford this?

I'm just sayin'...