Stuffing the Sack with Goodies.

College Football Playoff.  Well, were you offended when the almighty NCAA Committee selected Alabama instead of Ohio State for the College Football Championship series?  I was.  I don’t really care for either team; they are arrogant, entitled, and have way too much influence on the college game.  I would have rather seen UCF go into the Series as the fourth team.  Is UCF better than the other two?  Not likely; but they did go undefeated and Cinderella in the Series would be interesting.  My beliefs aside,  here is a real plan from a professional sports writer that makes a lot more sense than the current system… https://sports.yahoo.com/heres-make-college-football-playoff-even-better-032144320.html.  Once again…championships should be settled on the field and not in a board room with old gray-haired men sitting around a table.  Additionally under this plan and as Wetzel points out, a much larger share of the playoff revenues would go to the schools and not to the corporate bowl conglomerates.

The Shadow DOJ Persists.  And now we are discovering for a fact what has long been suspected about the Department of Justice under Obama; it was corrupt and politicized to the max.  Can any objective person put any faith or trust in Mueller, Comey or any other individual coming out of that politically-biased morass?  The Obama Administration politically-weaponized any governmental agency that proved useful to it and its agenda; the corruptive stain will take a long, long time to remove.  Trump was a fool not to get rid of Mueller early on when he had the opportunity.  Now he must deal with the idiocy that springs forth from this special-prosecutorial theater of the absurd.  With the mainstream media breathlessly waiting to slurp up every idiotic, anti-Trump morsel his team leaks or discloses, this special counsel foolishness will continue to hemorrhage tax money and political poison for who knows how long.  And now Republicans want their own special counsels to investigate this or that…Really?  Please…no more special counsels!!  Congress; do your job.

The Distinction between Product and Service.  As the SCOTUS continues to hear the baker’s case, we are presented with the question of discrimination applied to products versus discrimination applied to services.   Some would say that while banning discrimination from the sale of off-the-shelf products is fair and proper; it is nonetheless acceptable to discriminate, based on one’s personal beliefs, in the sale of professional services.  To me, this is very thorny issue and I am very interested in the SCOTUS decision.  I can see logic in allowing one to abstain from participating in a ceremony that they object to in principle; but I also see the danger in that logic traveling down unanticipated highways.  If a service provider can discriminate against gays; what is to keep this discrimination from expanding to gender, race, ethnicity, hair color, shoe size, college alma mater…you get the point.  If one’s profession entails providing service, should that service not be available to anyone seeking said service; the same as a cake on the shelf is available to anyone having the means to purchase it?  On the other hand, perhaps a provided service is the equivalent of an unbaked cake.  If a baker objects to a male wedding, he or she will not bake a cake with only male figures on top.  No decision has to be made whether or not to sell such a cake because such a cake is never created.  Might it be reasonable to say that a service provider’s cake is not baked until the service is provided; thus giving them the option to select which type of cake they choose to bake with their talents?   This is not an easy question.   Where do the rights of an individual to practice their personal beliefs as they see fit end and the obligation of a merchant not to discriminate begin?

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Obamacare Redux.  The Republicans have passed their tax reform legislation packages in each body of Congress.   They have done this in the first year of the Trump Presidency.  They have done this after failing to address the health care crisis in America.  They have done this after failing to pass and approve the required appropriations bills for our government’s normal operations.  They have done this in an unorganized, chaotic, insufficient, and irresponsible fashion.  They have done this in a clearly partisan way.  It is fair to observe that the passage of these tax reform packages by the Republicans is eerily similar to the passage of Obamacare by the Democrats.  The Republicans had time to do this the right way; using normal rules of order.  The Republicans had campaigned for eight years that this tax reform was one of their top priorities.  The Republicans caved into every single potentate Senator who dared, at the last minute, to threaten a desertion of the unified Republican tax message.  No matter how much this nation needed tax reform and how effective this possible reform may prove to be (once reconciled), this manner of legislating is shameful.  There can be little doubt that just as Pelosi’s Obamacare claim of “having to pass it to see what’s in it” was true; the same likelihood of unanticipated consequences will rule in the eventual passage of this Republican tax reform. 

Who Shall Judge?  And as a final note, let us turn to the fates of Al Franken, John Conyers, and Roy Moore…and others both present and yet to arrive.  Specifically; what standing might Congress have to judge whether or not a person is suitable to serve in its hallowed halls? Without addressing the merits of each of the mentioned politicians’ alleged transgressions, I will suggest one clarifying point at which to begin.  The appointed Congressional powers-to-be, be they the Ethics Committees or whatever, should restrict their resources and jurisdiction to the actions and behavior of its members while they are members.   Once a politician leaves Congress through defeat, death, or retirement, there is obviously little cause for any type of ethical judgment to be passed.  However, if the actions or behavior in question occurred prior to the individual assuming their elected office in Congress, then there appears to be a temptation by some within Congress to determine whether or not that particular individual is fit to serve in Congress.  Without going into the low altitude that the moral and ethical standards of Congress reside at, suffice it to say that matters that occur prior to assuming political office should be left to the auspices of the law, the people, and the Lord.  It is simply too ridiculous to consider the good members of Congress sitting in judgment on the wisdom of any particular state’s voters.