Hating on The King
The late Elvis Presley is one of President Trump's 2018 Medal of Freedom honorees, so, as per usual, someone must be offended. So Washington Post pop music critic Chris Richards decided it would be him.
"[T]his," decided the writer, "is another MAGA ("Make America Great Again") maneuver - a little nod to the good old days, back when black visionaries could invent rock-and-roll but only a white man could become the king."
In other words, Trump, to proudly display his racist heart, picked Elvis for an award because he knew Elvis capitalized on his music's roots in rhythm-and-blues. The selection, the president must have thought, would stick it in the face of black rock pioneers.
But if the president knew so much about Elvis, he would have known how much respect the singer had for those roots.
"A lot of people seem to think I started this business," Presley said in an early interview. "But rock 'n' roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored (black) people."
The pop critic, in a rush to live up to his employer's anti-Trump vitriol, may have overanalyzed this selection a wee bit.
He'll say anything
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, apparently has no shame. If it fits the situation, he says it. If it fits the opposite situation, he'll gladly say it, too.
Case in point is the current scenario in the Florida Senate race, where Republican Gov. Rick Scott is leading incumbent Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson by more than 12,000 votes. The Senate minority leader has encouraged further vote counts and recounts even with allegations that votes are coming out of walls, being counted against state rules and that judges are adding time to counts that extend beyond state-mandated limits.
But 12 years ago, when two Republicans narrowly trailed their Senate races, the then-Senate Democratic Campaign Committee chairman said the men, incumbent Virginia Sen. George Allen and incumbent Montana Sen. Conrad Burns, should give up their recounting bids.
"And so I'm urging, with all due respect to the president (George W. Bush) today," Schumer said, "to urge Mr. Allen to forgo this futile recount and contestation policy which will simply delay the inevitable, which is that Jim Webb will be the new senator from Virginia."
While Scott is leading by 12,000 votes, Allen trailed by only 7,000 votes and Burns by 3,000.
OK for him, not OK for him
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump cited wording denying asylum claims to migrants who enter the country illegally. Specifically, he had his eye on the caravans of thousands of Central Americans (and others) who vow to march up to the United States border and expect to be welcomed in. In citing the words, he drew from Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Democrats, of course, are nearly unanimous in their desire for as many to enter the country as possible, with an eye on eventually making them citizens and subservient to the federal government - and, thus, lifetime Democratic voters.
Four years ago, though, a current open borders supporter, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, told then-President Obama in a letter something different. He could use "very broad power" in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to limit immigration as he saw fit.
"Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States," the rule states, "he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."
Feinstein said she'd even discussed the matter with then-Homeland Security Advisor Jeh Johnson.
"[N]o legislation is necessary," she wrote to Obama, "to give your administration the tools it needs to respond to this crisis, and that any needed temporary measures can be implemented through presidential action."
That was then.
No playing allowed
For 35 years, parents in Washington, D.C., have been dropping their children off for play-dates at the church-based Capitol Hill Cooperative Play School. But the D.C. Council's Office of the State Superintendent of Education wants to shut it down, saying it is violating the regulations that apply to a "child development facility".
But the voluntary cooperative in the Lutheran Church of the Reformation has never claimed to be that. It has no staff, only parents who rotate watching the 2-year-olds. It's available for three hours up to three days a week. Parents must submit emergency contact information and medical forms, and families must tell the group when their child has a contagious illness. A plan is in place for emergencies, and parents must not be distracted by work or phone if they are watching the children.
But, no, the office wants the play time licensed and regulated, having given parents a "statement of deficiencies" for child development facilities it says it found on an inspection.
No word was available whether the Council now wants to check on birthday celebrations or slumber parties.