We’ve come a long way, baby
From The Baltimore Sun
As a political weapon, a government shutdown is a bit like self-immolation — it certainly demonstrates a commitment to one’s cause, but there’s no real victory possible for participants. The last shutdown was back in 2013 when Barack Obama, a Democrat, was president, and Republicans controlled Congress. How will voters respond when the GOP controls both the executive and legislative branches?
Give Republican leaders on the Hill this much credit — they know it won’t play well with the electorate, and by all accounts they have been working hard to come up with a spending plan to avoid this Friday’s deadline. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump appears not to have gotten the memo and may embrace the kind of brinkmanship politics that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others in Congress wisely reject. It’s a resolve born of Trump’s signature presidential traits: inexperience, nativism and ego. His 100-days-in-office mark looms this coming weekend, and he clearly worries he has little to show for it.
What President Trump wants most of all is funding for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, a massive project that may be important for him politically, given how much he’s talked it up, but amounts to an enormous waste of money, particularly considering that nearly half of illegal immigrants arrive legally bu wt overstay their visas. Add to that the decade-long decline in illegal immigration generally and you have a solution in search of a problem — unless, of course, the point is simply to stir up anger and hatred toward a minority group, in which case the wall has been doing its job beautifully.
And here’s where it really gets absurd: Trump has tried to foist the blame for a possible shutdown on Democrats, warning that unless enough of them support funding for the wall to get it through Congress, the spending plan won’t contain health insurance subsidies mandated by the Affordable Care Act. In other words, the president is willing not only to hold the federal government hostage but the health care of American families, too, unless he gets money to meet an arbitrary deadline to help build a project that will take years and tens of billions of dollars to complete. Oh, and he’s not even threatening the party that controls Congress; he’s expecting those crucial votes from the opposition.
Nothing but clear-thinking there, right? President Trump isn’t just a bull who happens into a china shop; he’s a bull who prefers to be mindlessly breaking porcelain and crystal whenever possible.
The confrontation may be dramatic, but it’s unlikely to accomplish anything meaningful. Democrats have already called funding for the wall, hostages or not, a non-starter. Good for them. For once, a disagreement between the White House and Congress isn’t a product of partisanship, it’s an assertion of reason over self-aggrandizement.
If Republicans deny funding for the ACA and insurance rates skyrocket as a result, it won’t be Democrats who bear the brunt of the anger. Similarly, if the government has to close offices and shutter services, it won’t be Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who gets the blame. The voters simply aren’t that gullible. They know which party controls the purse strings, and thanks to the quick and partisan approval of a new Supreme Court justice by the Senate, they also know that Republicans are willing to cut corners and act expeditiously to get those things done they really want done. There’s just so far that alternative facts can take a president when the actual facts aren’t working for him.
Based on what members of Congress are saying, the odds of a government shutdown are probably low. Given this president’s unpredictability and penchant for the emotional outburst, you probably can’t rely on him to follow through with his threats. Is this another Twitter brouhaha or an actual showdown? That’s a question Americans may be asking themselves a lot more often in the months ahead.
Heck, in the hours ahead; Trump promises to make the flight even more turbulent on Wednesday when he says he’ll reveal his plan for a massive tax cut. Buckle up, America, and keep that air sickness bag handy. From The Dallas Morning News
There is one obvious takeaway from Arkansas’ chaotic and misguided attempt to execute eight death row prisoners in a span of 11 days, including two who were put to death Monday evening.
The death penalty is arbitrary. It is unfair. And it should have no place in the American justice system.
As a newspaper that opposes capital punishment, we ask this question: Why these eight men, and why now? All eight had been sitting on death row since at least 2000 — one since 1989, when President George H.W. Bush was in office.
On top of that, Arkansas had not executed a death row inmate since 2005 and seemed in no hurry to do so — until the state discovered that its Midazolam, a controversial lethal injection drug, expired at the end of April. This is the same drug administered in flawed executions in Oklahoma and Arizona, where witnesses said the inmates writhed in apparent pain on the gurney. Are drug expiration dates our new standard of justice? As Arkansas abruptly scheduled this execution binge, it touched off a flurry of state and federal legal challenges from the eight inmates, based on claims of untested DNA, mitigating mental illness or intellectual impairment, the propriety of the drug, and even a suit from a drug company that another drug used in a lethal cocktail was never intended as an execution drug.
Various courts blocked four of the executions. However, inmate Ledell Lee, convicted in 1993 of killing a 26-year-old woman, was executed last week, after the Supreme Court declined to stay the execution so that he could obtain DNA testing. Two convicted murders, Jack Jones and Marcel Williams, also lost appeals and were executed Monday night, making Arkansas the first state since 2000 to carry out two death sentences on one day.
And let it not be said that this is simply swift justice. No, only the end was rushed after these inmates’ decades of imprisonment.
The timeline instead laid bare two arbitrary and capricious reasons to take a life — the availability of a controversial execution drug and Arkansas’ desire to beat a deadline. When a life-and-death decision comes down to something so random, we all should be outraged.
Due process is a critical part of our justice system, and we must all be watchful when it is encroached upon. We simply cannot leave open the possibility of getting it wrong in a capital case; there is no undoing an execution. Rushing the process makes that more possible.
It shouldn’t matter whether you favor or oppose the death penalty. This rush was uncalled for and is yet another reason that the death penalty should be abolished.
The Horticulture Department at Georgia Northwestern Technical College would like to thank our customers and the public for their continued support.
The 2017 Spring Plant Sale was an enormous success in great part due to your patronage and loyalty. We would also like to thank the faculty and administration for their generous efforts in promoting our program and the success of our students.
We look forward to continuing
DEmail letters to the editor to MColombo@RN-T.com or submit them to the Rome News-Tribune, 305 E. Sixth Ave., Rome, GA 30162.
Please limit letters to 250-300 words in length. Be sure to include a daytime telephone number so the letter can be verified. All letters are subject to editing. the high standards you have all come to expect in the future years. With fall semester approaching, we hope a new crop of students and our returning class will enjoy the same strong id you hear the story about the 70-year-old woman who ran the Boston Marathon last week, 50 years after she was the first woman to officially complete the race?
The year was 1967, and Katherine Switzer was a journalism student at Syracuse University. She was running with the men’s cross country team because a female team didn’t exist. She asked the coach if she could run the Boston Marathon that year. He told her women were too fragile for that distance, but challenged that if she could manage to run the 26.2 miles, he would take her with the men.
She met his challenge, so he added another hurdle: she had to get an official entry. She applied using her first initials and noticed there was no question about gender on the form. She soon received her bibs in the mail. The day of the race her “teammates” suggested she should disguise herself as a man to prevent any problems. She refused, wearing lipstick and earrings with pride. She saw no reason to hide.
What happened next made for an iconic photo-op that changed the dialogue about women in sports in a way Switzer never intended, nor could have dreamed possible.
Several miles into the course, in front of a group of press vans, race director Jock Semple noticed Switzer and chased her down, grabbing at her bibs and screaming, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!” Her boyfriend pulled him off of her, allowing her to continue. She knew there was no way she could stop after that. It became imperative that she show that a woman could finish the course in qualifying time.
Switzer didn’t enter the race to make a statement; she just really loved to run. In the 50 years since, she has run 40 marathons. But the photos of that incident led to the eventual inclusion of women in the Boston Marathon, as well as helping turn the tide for women in sports across the country.
How often is it true that simply doing our best to create our own personal success has the ripple effect of changing circumstances for others? It’s worth considering.
Having spent a dozen or more years shuttling my daughter from one sports event to another, watching her and her friends run cross country, play basketball and soccer, it is fascinating to realize how far the ripples from Switzer’s MONICA SHEPPARD Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press relationship and experiences with you and the faculty. Our doors are always open and we are accepting new applicants be they continuing education or degree and diploma goals.
The new year has many projects in store including plans for a Fall 2017 Plant Sale. We urge you to listen for news concerning dates for the sale in the upcoming months.
Sincerely, The GNTC Horticulture Department simple act of personal achievement have traveled.
We all know girls who excel in sports these days, and we all know young women who are entering college on athletic scholarships, an option that would never have occurred to Switzer back then.
Recently, I have been coming to grips with my daughter’s sports career coming to an end. I initially told myself that I was merely empathizing with her loss. I can’t remember a time when she didn’t have to fit practice and games and travel into her academic schedule. It has taught her discipline and strategy and perseverance that have supplemented her academic success in a most helpful way. Amazing friendships and support systems have also developed. Sports have imprinted an indelible stamp on her identity.
But, if I’m honest with myself, my sense of loss is really about what a void it will leave in my own life.
I have thoroughly enjoyed watching her and her teammates pour their hearts and souls into their sports over the years.
Always there with a front row seat for the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, it has truly been inspiring.
I have joked with the parents of the younger girls on her basketball team that they should not mind me, showing up next year, simply there to enjoy the game and the memories. I promise not to dress like Delta Dawn in a faded rose from days gone by.
As she heads off to college next year, I am confident my daughter will be fine. She can satisfy her need for athletic structure with a running regimen or intramural sports. And, she and her friends will take the discipline and work ethic that sports have taught them and pour them into their careers and community work in ways we can all appreciate. We can thank Switzer and other trailblazers like her for paving the way for young women to know such strength.
But, me? What is a sports momma to do? Hmmm, I hear that athletic stuff is good for you. Maybe I will try running a step or two, myself. Look out, Katherine Switzer, here I come.