News, Bad, Sad and Weird.

       The amazing and disappointing perfidy of the current administration continues in what seems an unending stream. Trump decries China’s internal monetary processes as if he would respond deferentially if China chided us for “currency manipulation.” So, it’s only wrong if China does it?

         Then we have Trump’s National Security Advisor, John “Hawkman” Bolton, bloviating through his walrus whiskers that any nation which trades with Venezuela’s “Socialist” regime faces US economic sanctions. Note that “Socialist” seems to be the point, not corruption, election fraud or any other reason. Who’s next? How about Sweden, Denmark, Norway, all Socialist? Oh wait, they’re “Aryan” aren’t they.

        Meanwhile, doctors warn that Ebola has become epidemic in Congo, and asks the US and others in the International health community to help marshal defenses to combat the deadly plague. Seemingly either unconcerned or distracted, Donald Trump seemingly backs away from his momentary disaffection with White supremacy to focus on video games as the motives behind recent mass shootings.  

        Trump also claims (today) that his political rhetoric “brings people together” and that he sees no “Political Appetite” for banning assault weapons.  One wonders if the foaming at the jowls Trumpists remember their former icon. Reagan and his adamant support of an assault weapons ban.

        With the support of four presidents, the assault weapons vote in the House was still a cliffhanger, passing 216-214 after one Indiana Democrat changed his “no” to a “yes.” Thirty-eight Republicans voted for the bill, including the, then retiring, House Minority Leader Robert Michel of Illinois.

        For the next ten years, until a Republican-controlled House allowed the law to expire in 2004, the AK-47 and 18 other types of semiautomatic weapons could not be sold. During that decade, a researcher from the University of Massachusetts found that mass shootings totaling six or more deaths dropped. But once the ban was gone, they soared. Now, two bills banning assault weapons are before Congress. They are co-sponsored by 195 Democrats and zero Republicans. When will we learn?  

        In lighter and (if that's possible) far more frightening news: A Port Charlotte woman was thankful she escaped unhurt when her toilet (as in the commode) exploded into hundreds of porcelain fragments. Apparently, a lightning strike ignited a methane gas buildup in the sanitary drain pipes, destroying, in a huge blast, both the inside fixture and her septic tank. Glad she wasn’t on the “throne,” or the obituary writer might have faced a truly daunting challenge!