Government Inefficiency is Astounding

I just figured out that the earbuds I brought with me, for some reason, do not work in my phone. So much for listening to an Andrew Klavan podcast on my train ride to Washington, D.C.  But being on Amtrak headed to our nation's Capitol got me thinking about the inefficiencies of our Government on display for all to see every single day.  So since I won't arrive in D.C. until the wee hours of the morning, I have plenty of time to hammer out a blog post from my smart phone.  Hopefully not too much time though. We haven't arrived at Penn Station yet, which I hear is disastrous these days...

You see, the Government owns Amtrak. Amtrak isn't doing well.  Neither is the United States Postal Service, which is owned by the same Government, of course.  Our nation is in trillions of dollars of debt, and many states are billions in debt themselves.  So why does anyone think that it's a good idea to let the Government run more things?  We're kidding ourselves if we think the solution to failing Obamacare is a single-payer system run by the Government.  No, the Republican Bill that didn't have a prayer of passing in the Senate wasn't the solution either.  But anything that allows more freedom and more Capitalism would be a step in the right direction.  Health Insurance companies ought to compete for business just like other companies, which will lead to lower prices.  We can start by opening up competition across state lines and continue by working on a bipartisan effort to fix the mess we are in.

The cost of many procedures and medications in the United States far exceeds that of many other countries.  If things cost less in other places, an opportunity exists for companies to compete and drive down costs.  Republicans and Democrats should get together and figure out why this isn't happening to the extent it ought to be.  Are there regulations in place stifling competition and Capitalism?  Do we disallow certain companies to compete in certain places?  I don't know the answers, but I know the astronomical cost of some very basic and fast healthcare procedures, and it just simply does not add up in my mind or the mind of anyone who is paying attention.  An inefficiency exists, and it must be fixable.

I don't fully agree with Conservative Libertarian folks like Ben Shapiro on Obamacare though.  Notably, despite the cost, we should find a way to support what Obamacare did in making sure folks with pre-existing conditions can have affordable healthcare.  No, I don't like that Obamacare is a tax for people who opt out of coverage, but if healthcare savings are realized elsewhere, this particular clause ought to have no trouble maintaining its funding.   If not, well, there are plenty of less important things that the Government is funding.  Or we can legalize weed and tax the crap out of it (admittedly not a Libertarian idea here, but I like it's guaranteed to bring in money and marijuana should be legal anyway).

I'm stopped at Penn Station now.  Why is the person who gives the announcements always either loud and annoying or impossible to understand?  Oh, for fucks sake, I know where we are going and where the trash cans and bathrooms are.  Do you actually have anything relevant to say, sir?  Oh, we're being delayed because we are waiting for a train to come in from Montreal?  Big surprise there...  I can't wait until this 29-minute hyperloop thing connecting NYC and DC actually happens.  Hopefully the Government keeps its hand out of it as much as possible...

Anyway, other examples of Government waste that I've encountered just today?  On my drive to work (East Haven to Wallingford, CT), they were repaving the street near my house.  That's been going on for a week already.  There was nothing wrong with the street.  Barely any potholes.  And they just redid that very same street a few years ago.  Do we really need to close two lanes for a mile and hire a bunch of cops so a few guys can actually do work, each surrounded by several trucks of all sorts?  Then, just outside of where I work, continues a project that's been going on for over a year, wherein they are changing the location of the on-ramp for the Parkway.  Most of the time, no work is happening, but there are often cops and Department of Transportation trucks.  When work is being done, it's like one guy with a jackhammer being watched by ten guys, with two guys directing traffic and some others just standing around.  I saw a viral video where a much more difficult project in another country was shown on time lapse.  It took three days.  Where are we on that?

I'm still stuck at Penn Station.

What else?  How about all the rules and regulations and Government specifications?  Some are necessary, but others are not, and they drive the cost of the products my company makes through the roof whenever the Government is the end user.  It's fine for my company though.  No matter, the taxpayers foot those bills.  And I'm sure it's not just my company.  I've heard stories where the same hardware you can get from Home Depot is marked up more than a hundred fold when sold to the Government with the required certifications.  One of my favorite new regulations came about last year, where several companies we do business with flowed down requirements from the Government that our company had to have a procedure for combatting human trafficking.  That's all well and good because we are all against human trafficking, except we didn't have a procedure and the corporate legal team had to come up with one, because we are a defense contractor in America that happens to not engage in prostitution on our premesis.  At least that particular clause wasn't too expensive to implement...

While we're at it with Government finance ideas, let's push campaign finance reform.  We just set a record for the most money spent in a House campaign--right around $50 million, the larger portion of which was by the loser, Ossoff.  How does that shit get funded while we debate healthcare and ways to help the poor?  Actually, maybe this is a rare spot where an additional Government regulation can help.  How about we mandate that candidates only get a certain percentage of the money donated to them, while the rest goes into a massive fund to help pay for healthcare for the impoverished (not that they are refused treatment anyway in the U.S.)?  Or perhaps we can just have it go directly to local food banks and homeless shelters?  I'm full of ideas when I'm stuck on a train that isn't moving...

I haven't heard much about pushing for a flat tax lately either.  That would be nice.  By the way, is everyone familiar with the Laffer curve?  It's the most basic reason why Bernie Sanders and many of his supporters lack a basic understanding of how the economy works.  If you've never heard of it, do yourself a favor and look it up.

A larger woman just sat down next to me.  I'm glad I'm not on an airplane.  On an airplane though, they really ought to make you buy two seats if you're over a certain size.  And if you show up having only bought one seat and are unable to fit entirely in that one seat, those are the people who should get kicked off the flight.  The train is finally moving again!  I think it's time for a nap.  Maybe I'll wake up and we'll have a Libertarian Government.  Then I will realize that it's just a dream, because it's more likely that we'll just have more headlines about the current administration's alleged collusion with Russia instead...

Redskins Win! (Not at Football)

The Supreme Court recently ruled unanimously on Matal v. Tam, allowing the front man of a band called The Slants to register the band's name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office.  In the case, SCOTUS ruled a ban on names deemed offensive by the government as unconstitutional.  This is great news for the Redskins, and the other shoe dropped today when The Justice Department told a federal appeals court that they are conceding that the Redskins of the NFL will not have a trademark revocation.

This was, in my opinion, the correct decision, and it makes me feel a bit better about my country that it was a unanimous decision, meaning that even the justices often considered to be far Left were in agreement with an obvious defense of the First Amendment.  Sure, The Slants are an Asian-American band, so it's accepted to be fine and not racist, like when an African-American uses the N-word.  But the point is that the U.S. Patent and Trademark office can't block things that it finds offensive, that other people might find offensive, or that someone can construe as hate speech.  This is a huge win for free speech.

While the Redskins are different than The Slants in that the Redskins are not an exclusively Native American football team, it's a name that's been around since the days of the Great Depression.  No one seemed to have a problem with it until recently, and even now, it seems to be a handful of people on the far Left who have nothing better to do than protest the names of things and search for Native Americans who will agree with them to legitimize their triggered state.  While I understand why "Redskins" is a poor choice for a football team and "The Slants" is a poor name for a band, because we live in a free country, it's really not my decision to make.  Nor should it be.  If people are really upset by the name of something, the free market would serve to punish the business owners.  If I opened up a business called The Mountain Wop Shop, that should be my decision, and not only because I'm Italian-American.  If I want to name a cleaning product Spic and Span, that should be my decision, even though I'm not Hispanic.  ...Oh wait, someone already did that?  Where are the protests for that?

Not too far down the road from where I live is Yale University, where they are changing the name of Calhoun College because of John Calhoun's dealings in the slave industry.  Although it amounts to caving to the demands of angry Leftists who are always looking for things to complain about, that's Yale's decision to make.  But if Yale students are really serious, I wonder why they aren't protesting for Yale University to change its name.  Elihu Yale was a slave trader.  Could it be because it would be directly opposed to their self-interest?  Yale is a prestigious school--arguably the best in the world.  It's a well-recognized and well-respected name.  Changing its name to Tubman University or something, while it may make some folks feel good or vindicated, would be an absolute disaster.  It would take a long time for Tubman University to become a household name.

And it would be a long time until the Washington Red Hats or Potato Skins or Red Potatoes or whatever they would be called in lieu of the Redskins became a household name (Washington Congress would be great because they lose a lot and have a low approval rating).  And while we're at it, we must consider the feelings of those on the far Right.  Somewhere out there, there are conservative Christian mothers angry that Eddie Vedder's band is called Pearl Jam, which is just a term that means semen.  How about we start calling them Raspberry Jam instead?

One day a student would escape the oppressive Leftist regime at Tubman University via an underground railroad, catch a Red Potatoes game at a local bar, and get invited to attend a Raspberry Jam concert with new friends.  But later, his new friends would decide to give his ticket to someone else because they were Indian givers all along.

Political Toxicity Beyond Fever Pitch

Last Thursday was a shitty day in our nation's history.  Former FBI Director James Comey was called to Capitol Hill to testify under oath, and neither Democrats nor Republicans could stop themselves from being partisan.  I listened to the beginning of the hearing streaming from Reuters on my computer at work, with one ear bud in.  I shut it off after a while and left to meet a friend for lunch.  We talked about a lot of things, but one of the things I told him I would be doing when I got back to work was checking the headlines on the various news sites and comparing them to each other.  The same testimony would certainly yield very different, very partisan headlines.  I was right.  Fox News was focused most on the inappropriate things former Attorney General Loretta Lynch said, while CNN and MSNBC were focused on the inappropriate things President Donald Trump said and discussing how it was probably obstruction of justice.  The conservative news organizations talked about how great it was that Trump was right about not being personally under investigation for collusion with Russia, killing the Left's narrative.  The liberal news organizations talked about how great it was that Comey said he was afraid Trump would lie and that he took Trump's statement about hoping Comey could let Flynn go as a directive that went unheeded.  Reuters was somewhere in the middle.  That's been a decent homepage for the last several months.

President Trump went on to say more dumb things after the hearing, calling out the credibility of Comey's under-oath testimony.  Predictably, the Left pivoted from the narrative of Trump lying about Comey having told him three times that he wasn't personally under investigation (CNN even made a rare retraction of a fake news story when Comey confirmed Trump's account there), and to the narrative of Trump obstructing justice by saying he hopes that Comey could let Flynn go.  Trump's son made a good point about that statement though, that most people who know anything about Trump would probably believe to be accurate, in that when his father tells someone to do something, there is no question that he is telling them to do something.  There is no, "I hope you can do this..."  Even Comey had to admit that he couldn't think of a time when someone was prosecuted for a comment of that nature.  Of course, he didn't go quite as far as he did with the Hillary Clinton investigation, where he inappropriately suggested that no reasonable person would try to prosecute her.  The way in which he "learns from his mistakes" seems rather partisan.  That was the reason cited for him refusing to say publicly that Trump wasn't under investigation anyway.

Whether or not a reasonable person would ever try to prosecute Trump for his statement to Comey about his hopes for Michael Flynn, Trump's statement was highly inappropriate and worrisome.  Comey was certainly right about that.  That is not how a President should act.  Though not criminal and not solid ground for impeachment, it's concerning and problematic that he said that.  And if I can admit that, the Left should be able to admit that Loretta Lynch's statement telling Comey to call the investigation into Hillary Clinton a "matter" rather than an investigation during the election cycle was highly inappropriate.  And don't even get me started on Eric Holder, Barack Obama, and Fast and Furious...  But the difference between Lynch's comment to Comey and Trump's statement to Comey was that Comey appeared to obey Lynch's suggestion and ignore Trump's suggestion.  He should have ignored both.

Ever since Comey was fired, I've said that he's going to get a multi-million dollar book deal, and that appears to be happening.  He's an intriguing and tragic character who I believe has inadvertently contributed to the deep political division of our country.  I think he started out with good intentions and ended up in some impossible no-win situations, with several unfortunate election-cycle announcements that likely impacted voters.  In my opinion, he's near the center politically, and he tried to stay out of politics, though he probably preferred Clinton to Trump.  When Trump got elected, he felt responsible and developed an extreme distrust of Trump, and the media helped fuel the fire, so he felt the duty to take detailed notes on all of his meetings with Trump and ultimately testify before Congress, having construed Trump's worrisome behaviors in the worst ways possible.

In the long run, Comey's testimony won't impact very much, though it's at least understandable why he testified before Congress.  Having Sessions testify was a waste of time.  Foghorn Leghorn isn't in cahoots with the Russians either.  But here we are in mid-June, with the NBA and NHL champions crowned, the dog days of summer just around the corner, and America's pastime, baseball, in full swing.  There's nothing like baseball to bring people together.  The Republican congressmen and Democratic congressmen were practicing for their ballgame against each other this morning, and a gunman opened fire on the players on the Republican diamond.

The gunman was a Leftist who volunteered for the Bernie Sanders campaign.  He was frustrated with "the one percent."  He disliked Trump, he disliked Republicans, and he was a complete lunatic.  If not for the policemen with guns on scene, there would have been many more deaths than just his.  As of now, there are some severe injuries, but thankfully no deaths.  The Democratic Congressional team got together and prayed for those who were hurt, a classy move.  And apart from a few crazy far Leftist reactions, the act was universally condemned by Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents.  For those few who suggested that it was a good thing, or normalized violence by saying it was self-defense for Republicans trying to repeal Obamacare, while being upset with people who normalize or even humanize Trump (a human being who is President of the United States whether you like it or not), you're even worse than the crazy people on the right you hate so much for being alright with the killing of abortion doctors or bombing of abortion clinics, although I can't even remember the last time that actually happened.

But the only person to blame for what happened this morning is the gunman.  The media was all about blaming the far right when a Democratic Congresswoman was shot, as well as in pretty much every crime that was even possibly politically-motivated where they could spin it in a way to blame Rush Limbaugh or Donald Trump or whoever else.  Was Keith Olbermann the most recent pundit to play that card?  I don't remember, because it's happened so often.  But I don't blame him, or Bernie Sanders, or the actors in the plays portraying Trump being murdered, or even Kathy Griffin.  They have the right to say and do what they want under the First Amendment, short of actually calling for and inciting violence, shootings, and murders.  The blame rests squarely on the psychopath gunman, but the increasingly divisive political climate in our country certainly doesn't help.

And for fuck's sake, can we stop with the narrative that we need more gun control every time some psychopath goes on a rampage?  The idiot Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, said that it wasn't the time for that, but in the same breath called for more gun control and cried about the "93 million" people killed by guns in America every day.  That would leave us with a population of zero in four days, or roughly how many people would be left it all of the bad guys had guns and none of the good guys did.

Maybe we can start to bring this country back together.  Maybe all the cable news networks can air a live baseball game between Red and Blue members of Congress.  We can raise money for charities that both sides agree on as worthy, we can enjoy watching Rand Paul slide Brillo pad first into second base, and we can all just drink a beer and watch a ballgame together as Americans.  At least until Bernie Sanders complains that, "Eight Republicans came to bat in the same inning where only four Democrats came to bat.  It's an injustice!  Shouldn't both teams be allowed to send six men to bat?"
"Bernie, that's not how baseball works," Ted Cruz will say.  "Both teams are allowed three outs."
"Baseball is unfair!"

Manchester Divided

The horrific terror attack in Manchester has brought with it debates surrounding Islam.  Some people are saying that Islam is a problem, with a subset of them accusing all Muslims of being terrorists.  And some people are saying that Islamophobia must end, with a subset of them blaming the West (or Global Warming or poverty or something) for terror attacks like this.  So I decided to look up some straight up poll statistics in an attempt to see what's going on.  I know plenty of Muslims here in the United States, and I don't believe any of them to be extremists or terrorists, but that doesn't mean that none exist in the U.S., and it doesn't mean that what holds true in America holds true throughout the rest of the world.  I know more Christians, some of them extremists and some of them terrible people, though none who have ever committed terrorist attacks.  I know Jews, atheists, and people of other religions as well, but I don't know any terrorists.  Yet they exist, and it does indeed seem that, right now, the only people committing terrorist attacks in the name of their God are extremist Muslims.  If it's in a Western country, we hear about it, but in non-Western countries, these attacks happen quite often without receiving media attention.  So what's true?  Are there many or few Islamic extremists?  Let's look at what the statistics say (the article I'm using, from May 26, is seen in the picture).

According to the article, as of 2015, there were around 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, nearly a quarter of the world's population.  It's the second largest religion behind Christianity/Christendom.  In the United States, only about 1% (3.3 million) of the population identifies as Muslim, and 63% of the U.S. Muslim population consists of immigrants.  One of the main arguments you'll find against Islam is against those who support Sharia law as the law of the land.  If you're unfamiliar with Sharia law, look it up.  It a nutshell, it's actually sexist, but not nearly as sexist as it is flat out horrific.  I won't go over all of the crimes and punishments, but suffice to say that apostasy is punishable by DEATH.  Yeah.  So you would think that not many Muslims around the world support Sharia law, right?  Well, here's another graphic from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/26/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/

Well, fuck.  Yeah, that's the extent of my analysis on these numbers, but I think that sums it up nicely.  A lot of Muslims believe that Sharia should be the law of the land, and that is extremely disturbing, because Sharia is extremely disturbing.  And yes, I've heard the arguments comparing Islam and Christianity, and sure, there are some Christians who think that their laws should be the law of the land, but even the majority of very conservative Christians believe in separation of church and state.  But even if they didn't, it's not even comparable, because apostasy isn't punished by death in Christianity.

Missing from the Sharia graphic is the United States, but the article does go on to state that 86% of Muslims in the United States (according to a 2011 survey) believe that "suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam are rarely or never justified."  However, 7% say that they are sometimes justified, and 1% say that they are often justified.  In the United States, seven percent is 231,000 Muslims and one percent is 33,000 Muslims.  That's a bit disconcerting, but we also find that in the rest of the world in general, Muslims (in most countries) overwhelmingly view ISIS as negative, as this graphic from the same article cited before shows:

Here's my problem with this: Even if we ignore the disturbingly high percentage of respondents who said they don't know whether ISIS is bad or not, those small slivers of respondents who have favorable views of ISIS, when added together, represent many tens of millions of people.  So, folks saying that a very small percentage of Muslims are in favor of ISIS are correct, but folks saying that many Muslims are in favor of ISIS are also correct.  Remember that there are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world.

Based on these numbers, it's right to be in favor of vetting for immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, but it's also clear why people would want to leave oppressive countries where Sharia is the the law of the land and seek refuge in the United States.  It's a delicate balance.  I have no problem with the vast majority of Muslims in the United States, who are peaceful people in general, but there is a problem with those who take a very strict and literal translation of the Quran, which can lead to supporting Sharia, and sometimes even ISIS and Jihad.  I also have a problem with Christians who take a very strict and fundamental view of the scriptures, but even the worst groups of Christians I can think of, such as Westboro Baptist Church, don't go around killing people.  They're hateful and terrible to people, but they don't kill them.  If there was a Christian group that took verses of the Old Testament out of context and out of the light of the fulfillment of the law by Christ Jesus, and decided it was a good idea to murder non-believers, that would be hugely problematic too, but also very much unsupported by the full weight of the Christian scriptures.  Also of note is that Jesus died as a 33-year-old virgin, while Muhammad had sex with little girls.

I don't say things like that to disparage Muslims.  I say them because they are largely uncontested and accepted facts that some folks ignore.  But people who follow religions that are rotten to their core are still people, and should be treated as people and judged based on their actions.  There are a lot of Muslims who are wonderful people, and hate crimes and physical attacks against Muslims are in no way acceptable.  They should not happen, but they do, as do hate crimes and physical attacks against Christians, Jews, and others.  Actually, antisemitism is still running rampant in America compared to attacks against folks of other religions.  We live in a world full of evil.  And there are those who will mistake my views shared here as "Islamophobic," but I am simply pointing out facts.  The majority of Muslims are not to be feared, and there are so many other groups of people with people in them who commit heinous acts.  The very vast majority of violent crimes in the United States are committed by non-Muslims, which is not surprising when you consider that Muslims only make up about one percent of the U.S. population anyway.  But a look at the numbers does us good, because it gives us a chance to calibrate where we are, and see that something is rotten before we allow it to create a stronghold.  God forbid Sharia law should ever be acceptable anywhere in the United States.

It's strange to me that the Left calls out Christians for anti-women sexist things, sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly, but rarely calls out Muslims for anti-women sexist things, when their prevalence and severity in Muslim culture, as evidenced by Sharia law and by every country under Muslim rule, is so great.  It is here that I can find common ground with some on the Left, such as Bill Maher.  But as for the handful on the far Left who are defending child marriages, or blaming them on global warming and poverty, or saying that forcing genital mutilation upon young girls falls under the umbrella or religious freedom, we have no common ground: you are a terrible person, and you should go visit a place under extreme Sharia law for a while.  Let me know how it went when you get back.  I won't expect to hear from you.

COMEwhatmaY

I've found myself watching less news lately.  Maybe it's because the weather is finally nice, maybe it's because it's baseball season, or maybe it's because both the mainstream media and the Trump administration are batshit crazy.  On one side is the Trump administration and Fox News, who largely believe that everything Trump and his administration do is right.  Not just right but good. Not just good but tremendous.  Believe me.  No one has done it better than them.  In history.  And on the other side is the rest of mainstream media, and they all believe that everything Trump and friends does is wrong.  Not just wrong but bad.  Not just bad but horrific.  Nixonian cover-ups bigger than Watergate.  The most inept administration in history.  Racist, homophobic, xenophobic, villainous, trying to destroy the environment.  And you know what?  Both sides are losing.

Mainstream media is dying, and President Trump and his administration are losing credibility.  And as a moderate Libertarian who leans right, I'm just getting tired of hearing how much more terrible the latest story about Trump is than everything else he's done so far, which were all things that were, at the time, much more terrible than the previous stories about what Trump did.  And I'm tired of hearing Trump talk about how great a job he is doing and how he's been treated more unfairly than any politician in history.  Lincoln was hated by half the nation and eventually shot and killed, and there are plenty more who have been treated more unfairly than our current Tweeter-in-Chief.  So, I'm just immune to the left-wing outrage and the right-wing ridiculousness.  We are at the point where, if Trump did something horrific, most people wouldn't notice because the outrage level and impeachment calls are already near their maximum, and if he did something spectacular, most people wouldn't notice because hardcore Trump supporters already think everything he does is the best fucking thing in history.

The latest stories have revolved around James Comey and Russia, not unlike a high percentage of the stories since the 2016 campaigns started.  When Trump fired Comey, the man many Democrats (perhaps partially correctly) blame for Hillary Clinton's loss in November, suddenly Democrats who wanted him fired decided that he should not have been fired, and his firing was essentially evidence that people from Trump's campaign colluded with Russia during the election (as if firing Comey magically makes this investigation disappear).  And shame on Trump for not heeding Saint Barack's sage advice to not tab Michael Flynn as national security advisor.  Maybe former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates wasn't fired for refusing to support Trump's travel ban after all, but rather for knowing too much about Flynn!  Oh, and Trump got two scoops of ice cream when everyone else in the room only got one.  I think that's called Ruski ice cream.

I was on business travel last week, and before and after the in-flight movie (JetBlue is my favorite airline, by the way), I flipped through the channels and saw the headlines.  The big story on CNN, MSNBC, etc. before departure was that Trump shared classified information with Russia.  That sounded pretty disturbing.  Trump sharing classified information about ISIS with an ally of Syria?  Sure, as President, he can decide what to share or not share with a foreign country, and even what is or isn't classified in that situation, so no crime was committed, but it still didn't sound good.  The political pundits were talking about how this is so much worse than anything else he's done.  This is impeachable.  Treason!  This should bring everyone together against Trump.  I flipped to Fox News and they were all twisting themselves into pretzels trying to defend Trump.  Was this a big story or a typical media day?  I flipped to one of my three free in-flight movie choices.

After the movie was over, we were still in the air, so I flipped through the channels again.  The headlines were all new.  This wasn't even two hours later.  The big story was that anonymous sources had leaked some more shit, and this time it was a James Comey memo about a conversation he had with Trump in which Trump allegedly suggested that he should stop investigating Michael Flynn.  If true, this presents legal problems to both men involved in the conversation.  If false, well, I guess they'll have to find some other reason for impeachment hearings.  Maybe anonymous sources will find something else again.  Or maybe we should just wait to judge until we hear from both Comey and Trump on the nature of the alleged conversation.  Folks on CNN and MSNBC were calling for impeachment for obstruction of justice now.  Fox News was defending Trump again.  I wondered what happened to the huge story from earlier in the day, and I don't even remember which network I was watching when someone talked about how Israel was fine with the information that was shared, Russia was saying they could prove it wasn't classified, and most importantly to me, H.R. McMaster said he was in the room and that Trump didn't do anything he shouldn't have done, and McMaster is a guy who has earned my respect and trust.

CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPO and the like all know exactly how this is going to turn out.  Fox News, Breitbart, and Trump know exactly how this is going to turn out too.  Except the left and right know opposite and conflicting truths, thus someone is wrong.  Or both sides are wrong.  Truth is not relative.  I'm going with the idea that both sides are wrong, because I don't have a clue how this is all going to turn out.  This could be more nothingness drummed up by Leftist media organizations, fueled by anonymous sources.  Or Trump could end up impeached.  I'd like to hear from Comey, from Trump, from both sides.  I'd like to hear from Flynn and Manafort, and from those who claim to have evidence of their wrongs.  I would also like to hear more from Sally Yates, and from those investigating the sources of classified leaks.  Heck, I'd like to hear more about why Huma Abedin hasn't been charged with a crime yet.

As far as Comey, I think he should have been fired, though the timing of his firing was not ideal.  I don't think he was doing a good job, and I don't think most Americans were confident in the job he was doing.  I also think he's a massive attention whore who likes being in the spotlight.  All three of his major announcements during the election cycle were ridiculous and uncalled for, and others from the FBI even had to clarify some of his recent comments in front of Congress because they weren't exactly accurate.  The Clinton e-mail investigation was closed, then re-opened, then quickly re-closed again, and the Russian collusion investigation continues to drag on.  No word on investigating classified leaks, Huma Abedin, or Lois Lerner.  Or maybe there was, but the media didn't cover it very thoroughly?

And Trump doesn't help himself at all.  He uses hyperbole like Jose Canseco used steroids.  He complains about being treated more unfairly than any politician in history.  He brags about how he ran the best campaign of all-time, set records for crowd sizes, and set records for electoral vote counts.  He gives ridiculous and implausible reasons for firing Comey, after having fired Comey at a rather bizarre moment in time.  He talks about how he should maybe cancel press conferences, and how great all the things he does are.  He calls out the mainstream media lies and half-truths and then pedals his own.  He tweets, he golfs, he makes Leftists fondly remember the days of President George W. Bush.  I didn't think that day would ever come.  Leftists hated Bush.  I was a student at Wesleyan University when Bush was President, and most people there thought Bush was Satan.  But now Trump is Satan.  I wonder if Leftists will long for the days of the Trump Presidency when the next Republican President is elected, but mostly I just hope we'll have a Libertarian President sometime soon.

Also, I'm toying with the idea of calling a mainstream media organization as an anonymous source with a YUGE story about Trump or someone connected to him.  I wonder if a story I made up would get traction.  Or maybe it would turn out to be true.

Bill Nye and Berkeley, Why?

'Member the 90s?  'Member Ecto Cooler?  'Member Bill Nye the Science Guy?  It was a show we grew up watching, where some funny-looking guy with a BS in Mechanical Engineering taught us all about scientific things.  Fast forward a few decades, and Ecto Cooler made a comeback when a crappier version of a Ghostbusters movie came out.  And Bill Nye is back with a show on Netflix called Bill Nye the Bullshit Guy.  I'm sorry, that's not what the show it called.  That's what it should be called.  Nothing is called what it should be called anymore.  It's called Bill Nye Saves the World.  And one of the groups protesting free speech at Berkeley calls itself Antifa, as in anti-Fascist.  Because trying to silence speech that you don't agree with, especially violently, is a very anti-Fascist thing to do, right?

Bill Nye is trying to appeal to those nostalgic for the 90s by reprising his role as an expert on all things scientific, except that he's peddling Leftist political talking points masquerading as science.  Of particular annoyance to those anywhere to the right of the far left are his commentaries on gender.  As a Libertarian, I really don't think it's my business or the government's business to get involved with peoples' sex lives, as long as those sex lives involve only consenting adults.  I don't care if you're straight, gay, or bi.  I don't care which gender you identify with.  I don't care which bathroom you use.  I really don't.  It's not my business, and I don't want to hear about it either.  But Bill Nye continues to say asinine things from his pulpit of BS (not referring to his Mechanical Engineering Degree).  According to Nye, "By three or four, most kids identify with a gender, and it doesn't always match the sex they were assigned at birth."  That's great.  So should we just roll with that and treat them as what they say they are when they're THREE OR FOUR YEARS OLD?  I know several three and four-year-old kids.  They claim to be a lot of things.  They say they're dogs, cats, princesses, superheroes, and sometimes even the opposite gender of what they actually are, speaking from an actual scientific viewpoint anyway, involving chromosomes.  Hey, if you're an adult and you want a sex change, you get to make that decision.  Let's not start listening to what toddlers say about who or what they are, k?

Oh, but Nye didn't stop there.  "The science says we're all on a spectrum," he says, talking about human sexuality.  What science, exactly?  Sure, there are people who are gay, straight, bi, and whatever in between, but what science says that every person is on a spectrum?  Is this the same science that says that fetuses have their own DNA, or are we confusing science with feelings and Leftist jargon?  Based on a skit involving ice cream cones of different flavors discussing sexuality and then having an orgy (not a parody--this is something that Nye actually had as part of his new show), I'm going with the feelings and Leftist jargon hypothesis.  But it didn't stop there.  In perhaps the shittiest rap song I ever heard (and I lived with white guys who listened to a lot of rap during college), Rachel Bloom performed a song on Bill Nye with potential Grammy-winning lyrics like, "My sex junk is so oh-oh-oh much more than either or-or-or.  Power bottom or a top off, versatile love may have some butt stuff.  It's evolution, ain't nothin' new..."  Yes, you heard right.  Evolution isn't just what you were taught it was in school, kids.  It now involves doing sexual stuff involving your butt.  Because nothing progresses the species forward like inserting foreign objects into your ass.

So naturally, I think we need to shut down Bill Nye.  Let's protest Netflix.  Let's have violent rallies preventing him or Rachel Bloom from talking or rapping wherever they go.  Let's call ourselves anti-Fascists and compare Bill Nye to Hitler.  After all, didn't Nye say something about imprisoning climate deniers and having the Government limit family sizes?  Totally something Hitler would say.  Nye and people like him should not be allowed to speak, because they offend me, and if speech offends me, it's hate speech, and we should shut it down.  Oh, wait, sorry...  Strike this paragraph from the record.  I would never say that.  That's what I would say if I were a complete idiot on the far Left.  Except that then I would like Bill Nye then, so that's what I would say if I were a complete idiot on the far Left and someone like Ann Coulter or Ben Shapiro came to speak at a University near me.

Fascists try to stop free speech.  You cannot call yourself "Anti-Fascist" and try to stop free speech, ESPECIALLY when you are doing so violently.  As much as I disagree with Bill Nye, or Peter Singer, or even Richard Spencer, they are free to speak.  If we lose freedom of speech, we lose America, and that includes protecting the right of people to speak even when we vehemently disagree with them and know they are wrong.  Hate Speech is subjective, and thus protected under the first amendment unless it's an actual call to violence.  For example, a KKK member can freely say that he doesn't like Black people and thinks they are inferior, but he can't say, "let's go beat up the next Black guy we come across" or "I'm going to hurt you because you are Black."  Bill Nye can say whatever he wants about climate change and gender, as long as he's not threatening people.  Peter Singer can say whatever he wants about abortion, although he's walking a fine line when he says that killing newborn babies should be legal, but since he's not actually threatening someone's life, it's protected speech.

I disagree with a number of things that Ann Coulter says, but she should be able to say them without the threat of violence.  What happened at Berkeley is not right, and the failure of Democrats in power to assure protection is disgraceful.  I disagree with very few things that Ben Shapiro says and hope that he runs for President one day, but he is protested on so many of the campuses he speaks at, mostly because a lot of college students are afraid of facts, logic, and hearing opposing views.  Otherwise, why would they try to stop a Jewish guy the same size as me, who also isn't fond of President Trump, from speaking?  Aww, do Ann and Ben threaten your safe space?  You poor baby.  Let's make the bad people go away so you can go on pretending that the world is a safe space where you don't have to deal with opposing viewpoints.  I think Bill Maher (Good Lord, I'm quoting Bill Maher) put it best when he said, "Berkeley used to be the cradle of free speech, and now it's just the cradle for fucking babies."

I've dealt with two issues here, but they are related.  Bill Nye should be allowed to continue spouting his garbage and calling things science that are not science.  And Ann Coulter should be allowed to continue spouting her viewpoints in her shrill voice, without the threat of violence.  Based on merit alone though, I can't imagine Netflix would want to sign Nye up for additional seasons of his disastrous show, but if they're trying to push a Leftist agenda with 90s nostalgia, then great, they should go for it.  Heck, they got a hit with Fuller House.  While they're at it, let's find a few other 90s stars to throw in the mix.  Bill Cosby can teach us about family values, Roseanne Barr can teach us how to sing the National Anthem, and Stephen Collins can teach us how to act around children.

Mr. Bill, Oh No!

It's weird how things work sometimes.  Bill Cosby had been accused of raping women for decades, but it never gained much traction until a comedian made a joke about Cosby being a rapist.  Suddenly, the accusations resurfaced, reinforced by loads of new claims, bringing the downfall of the once-great comedian and destroying the childhoods of those who grew up with Dr. Huxtable.  Bill O'Reilly had been accused of sexually harassing women for decades, but that didn't gain much traction either, until he made some fairly obvious and accurate observations about the hair of Representative Maxine Waters resembling that of that of James Brown. This offended the Left, which accused O'Reilly of being sexist (and, of course, racist).  O'Reilly being a sexist isn't exactly inaccurate (although not because of his comment on one of the worst Representatives in the country), so with a target on his head, out of the woodwork came everyone who had ever accused him of sexual harassment, along with some new accusations and investigations of millions of dollars in payoffs.  The Left claimed victory when Fox News finally fired the man who had been at the top of the cable news ratings for the last 15 years.

Bill O'Reilly was good at his job, but he was bad at being a nice or even decent person.  Some of the things he said were just mean, and others were sexual harassment.  Did he deserve to get fired for it?  Well, that was up to Fox executives, and they said yes.  Did Bill Clinton deserve to get fired for his sexual indiscretions?  That ultimately ended up being a no (though almost a yes for lying about adultery under oath), but Clinton's list of alleged sexual misconduct accusers included several alleged rape victims, and like O'Reilly, millions in payoffs.  He deserved to be fired and jailed for those things, if any of them were true, though he never deserved to be President in the first place.  But Bill Clinton was good at his job in that he was probably the best Democratic President since JFK.  The list of people who were worse at the job since then includes LBJ, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama.  So even though I'm no fan, I'll even admit that Clinton did at least a few good things while he was President, but my opinion is that, regardless of political persuasion, workplace sexual misconduct should generally result in firing, no matter how good you are at your job or what that job is.

Rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment are all terrible things, and we as a society need to do what we can to encourage women (and men) who are victims to speak up and report these things to the authorities immediately when they happen.  We need to create an environment where victims will not be shamed for having the courage to report assailants, and where they will know that if they do not report these things, there will likely be other victims.  But we also need to stop conflating everything.  Sexual harassment is bad, but rape is way worse, and not everything is sexual harassment, nor is all sexual harassment equal.  Some of the things O'Reilly is accused of, if true, should have absolutely resulted in his firing.  Calling someone to harass them while audibly masturbating is not an acceptable thing to do, and telling women that you will help impact their careers for better or worse depending on whether or not they have sex with you is terrible, but there are other mean-spirited and morally questionable things that people say, including O'Reilly, that should not be classified as sexual harassment.

Parading people on television to talk about things that O'Reilly said that they didn't like should be a bit more selective, because it can diminish the seriousness of the truly problematic things he (or others) said to other alleged victims of harassment if we're calling everything harassment.  Saying that someone looks good is not sexual harassment.  If you're saying it constantly, and the person makes it clear that it's bothersome, then it is, but otherwise, my goodness, give me a break.  If I tell a female (or a male) co-worker that her (or his) shirt looks nice on a day when it looks particularly nice, that is an observation and a compliment, but it has nothing to do with sex, and it is not harassment of any kind.  If I say something of that nature to you and you don't like it, act like an adult and tell me before going to HR.  And, in the particular case of O'Reilly, saying that you forgot someone's name because there are a lot of blondes on the network, and then later thanking her for her blondness is not sexual harassment.  It's not nice, it's not professional, and the picture of O'Reilly that has been painted is that of a giant asshole, but it's also not sexual harassment.

I don't understand the comparison of O'Reilly to Cosby though.  I really don't.  There are people calling for O'Reilly to be publicly shamed the same way Cosby was.  As far as I'm aware, no one has accused O'Reilly of rape or drugging.  In the hierarchy of terrible famous people named Bill, if even a few of Cosby's accusers are telling the truth, Cosby's crimes should be punished far more than O'Reilly's.  He deserves to spend his life in jail, even though he too was very good at his job.  Say what you want about Cosby, but he could be pretty damn funny, yet he deserves to never see the light of day again.  And as far as Clinton?  Well, if any of the rape allegations against him are true, he's even worse than Cosby.  At least Cosby had the courtesy to knock the women unconscious before raping them.  In all seriousness though, both of those guys should be in prison for the rest of their lives.  The only time I can turn a blind eye to rape is when rapists are raped in prison for raping other people.  It's still wrong, but I don't have much sympathy for the criminal victims there.

What would be a fitting punishment for O'Reilly, in addition to the firing?  Maybe forcing him to have a show on CNN where he would be doomed to have terrible ratings, eventually fading into irrelevancy?  Or maybe they can strip him naked and walk him through town Game of Thrones style, where people can just keep yelling "Shame" at him while they laugh at his tiny Irish penis (that statement is both racist and sexual harassment if you don't know what a joke is).  Regardless of what becomes of O'Reilly though, his firing means that mainstream news media political pundits have become even more irrelevant, which is a win for Independent podcasts and Internet stars.  But the real question is: Which famous person named Bill will be accused of sexual misconduct next?  Maybe Bill Nye?  He looks like a mean-spirited guy who's into weird shit.  Or Bill Maher?  The far left doesn't like him anymore since he's in favor of free speech, so maybe they're trying to dig up some stuff up on him.  Maybe it's a good idea to avoid being alone with famous people named Bill for a while, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do if you're a woman, but only if it isn't Vice President Mike Pence's idea.