Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Links for 05/15/17

Links for 05/15/17: At the Tablet, a fun little piece I did on the weirdness of Trump's foreign policy at the 100 day mark. 

At Politico, a look at how the abortion issue is affecting two senators who try to av...

MGB:_Presidents and their cabinet secretaries usually learn to listen to the civil service, especially in Defense, State and Intelligence rather quickly as lower level appointees interface with the permanent government, which can keep the political class out of trouble. Trump has not appointed those people, thus cutting a vital link to sanity, and it shows. Sadly, I think this was intentional as a way to not be hamstrung by the bureaucracy. Dumb idea.

Dumping on Planned Parenthood is the Pro-Life’s way of looking busy. Heaven help them if they actually got the funding canceled, since they have few ideas left. The whole issue is based on the notion that PPUSA ignore OMB directives on their accounting system, as if that were possible given their profile. Like most pro-life efforts, this is based on false information. TRAP laws and personhood went down in constitutional flames and there are, at best, two Justices on the Court willing to overturn Roe, with Gorsuch being a question mark and Thomas believes that Section X of Roe can be altered from the bench rather than having Congress do it. Of course, congressional action would likely ratify the status quo while ending the ability of both NRLC and NARAL to fundraise and turn out volunteers in elections.

The Knights are regrettable part of the pro-life fundraising scam (especially the inaptly named Susan B. Anthony Fund, which gave us the House Freedom Caucus and all the damage it has done) and the movement to keep gays on the margins in the Church, a battle that they will lose. Their compensation package is quite capitalist. I suspect their leader takes home more than the Holy Father. They are quite clear about anyone who is pro-choice not being welcome in their ranks. I won’t be following my late father into the Knights and because of the paranoia of Pope Pius IX and others about secret societies, I won’t be following my maternal grandfather into the Masons. No rituals and funny hats for me. From what I see, most knights are older than I am, and I am not young, so they may soon be the stuff of history. I am sure they were overjoyed at the election of Trump, but they have to be having buyer’s remorse if they are at all sane.


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