Lots of doings in the last couple days:
Biden Just Says No. Personally, I’m glad he’s not running. He’s earned a less stressful life with all he’s endured in his private life and all the pressures of his public life. So, it was a quixotic journey to get there but I think he’s made the right decision even though he wanted the office so badly. While I’m happy for him he got to make the announcement in the Rose Garden, I think it was most inappropriate. That is not the location for a Vice President to announce he isn’t running. Call me a traditionalist but that’s my view. And, using the President of the United States as a prop – well, that isn’t right either.
Paul Ryan Just Says Yes. The Congressman put some conditions on his agreement to be Speaker of the House but they were conditions for the right reasons – his survival both as a Speaker and as a husband and father. To see some in the GOP caucus whine that the job of a Speaker if 24/7 and to raise them money, meaning more time on the road than at home, well – where are their supposed family values? He wants to be there for his family. Horrors! Ryan doesn’t want the job but understands that if he takes it, it’s a huge responsibility for him. He doesn’t want the additional time suck of raising money for others, some of whom want to get him out of his job. Don’t those Members remember they just bounced the guy who raised millions for them in John Boehner? Besides it used to be that the Speaker’s job was to run the whole House not his or her own caucus. That’s why the Speaker doesn’t have to be a Member of Congress – the job is bigger than the party, or it’s supposed to be.
Who Will Just Say No to Trump? All of us “pundits” have been wrong each step of the way about Donald Trump’s candidacy exploding/imploding – calling Mexican immigrants mostly criminals, saying John McCain is not his kind of hero (his kind of hero doesn’t get captured, he said), making crude, rude and horrible comments about women, etc. etc. He has survived them all. I do not believe he will be the GOP candidate and one thing that could blow him up is what’s blown up politicians (and yes he is a politician) for years – hypocrisy. Sooner or later the piling up of his changing of positions (from quite liberal to quite conservative) will catch up to him. Sooner of later his “I’m really, really rich and do great things” without anything to back it up as far as a president goes, will catch up to him. And, my guess is, sooner or later his claims that he doesn’t have a super PAC will also implode. Too many media outlets are finding too many connections between Trump and the Make America Great Again Super PAC for him to be “unaware” or “unaffiliated” with what it’s doing. He’s attended fund-raisers for the PAC, his daughter’s in-laws are its major funders and his top paid political adviser is buddies with the folks involved with the PAC. Where there’s smoke…
Just Say No to Distracted Driving. A study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has found it can take 27 seconds for a driver using a voice-activated entertainment system to regain full alertness after making a command from behind the wheel. The study, according to The Washington Post, says, “That means a car going 25 mph can travel the length of three football fields before a driver’s brain fully recovers from the act of dialing a phone number or changing music using increasingly popular in-car entertainment systems.” Please don’t get a false sense of security that using a hands-free device makes your ride any safer. It doesn’t.
Biden Just Says No. Personally, I’m glad he’s not running. He’s earned a less stressful life with all he’s endured in his private life and all the pressures of his public life. So, it was a quixotic journey to get there but I think he’s made the right decision even though he wanted the office so badly. While I’m happy for him he got to make the announcement in the Rose Garden, I think it was most inappropriate. That is not the location for a Vice President to announce he isn’t running. Call me a traditionalist but that’s my view. And, using the President of the United States as a prop – well, that isn’t right either.
Paul Ryan Just Says Yes. The Congressman put some conditions on his agreement to be Speaker of the House but they were conditions for the right reasons – his survival both as a Speaker and as a husband and father. To see some in the GOP caucus whine that the job of a Speaker if 24/7 and to raise them money, meaning more time on the road than at home, well – where are their supposed family values? He wants to be there for his family. Horrors! Ryan doesn’t want the job but understands that if he takes it, it’s a huge responsibility for him. He doesn’t want the additional time suck of raising money for others, some of whom want to get him out of his job. Don’t those Members remember they just bounced the guy who raised millions for them in John Boehner? Besides it used to be that the Speaker’s job was to run the whole House not his or her own caucus. That’s why the Speaker doesn’t have to be a Member of Congress – the job is bigger than the party, or it’s supposed to be.
Who Will Just Say No to Trump? All of us “pundits” have been wrong each step of the way about Donald Trump’s candidacy exploding/imploding – calling Mexican immigrants mostly criminals, saying John McCain is not his kind of hero (his kind of hero doesn’t get captured, he said), making crude, rude and horrible comments about women, etc. etc. He has survived them all. I do not believe he will be the GOP candidate and one thing that could blow him up is what’s blown up politicians (and yes he is a politician) for years – hypocrisy. Sooner or later the piling up of his changing of positions (from quite liberal to quite conservative) will catch up to him. Sooner of later his “I’m really, really rich and do great things” without anything to back it up as far as a president goes, will catch up to him. And, my guess is, sooner or later his claims that he doesn’t have a super PAC will also implode. Too many media outlets are finding too many connections between Trump and the Make America Great Again Super PAC for him to be “unaware” or “unaffiliated” with what it’s doing. He’s attended fund-raisers for the PAC, his daughter’s in-laws are its major funders and his top paid political adviser is buddies with the folks involved with the PAC. Where there’s smoke…
Just Say No to Distracted Driving. A study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has found it can take 27 seconds for a driver using a voice-activated entertainment system to regain full alertness after making a command from behind the wheel. The study, according to The Washington Post, says, “That means a car going 25 mph can travel the length of three football fields before a driver’s brain fully recovers from the act of dialing a phone number or changing music using increasingly popular in-car entertainment systems.” Please don’t get a false sense of security that using a hands-free device makes your ride any safer. It doesn’t.
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