Birthright Citizenship

Current Events: The Supreme Court has decided that it would limit the ability of judges to limit presidential executive orders.

This is a major development.  I was confident that Federal courts would prevail, and prevent the prez from wielding this power.

To clarify: the way the law (a right enshrined in the US constitution as an Amendment, I believe) has been understood for all these years—at least since the Civil War—was that anyone born on US soil was eligible for citizenship.  But the present administration takes the view that only infants born to parents—to mothers, anyway—who are in the US legally have that right.

It is a fine point, but difficult to oppose, in my view.  Conservatives have been frustrated for a century at the ability for illegal visitors to this country to have babies that are automatically given citizenship.  Those who have felt, since the Civil War, at least, that US citizenship should not be rationed out stingily and sparingly, but granted to any infant as reasonably possible, held to the generous interpretation of the law.  But those who disliked the consequence of that law, that the birth rate among non-whites was a lot higher than among the children of whites, were pleased at this interpretation of the current administration. 

The prez is not a student of the law; he truly is nothing but a real-estate developer.  I am not versed in the law, either.  But there are lawyers advising him, and they appear to have thought this through.  The right way to do this is to get the law clarified by Congress, and ratified by the States.  It would be difficult to get it through two-thirds of the states (34 states?) with state representatives swayed by emotional appeals.

As much as I hate to agree with the prez, if there were some evidence to believe that a majority of citizens supported this amendment, I would support it too.

Kay

Well, just a minute!  Apparently the decision by the Supreme Court meant that some infants born in one state may be qualified as a citizen, but an infant born in another state may not!  I'm too peeved to read the whole article.  Here it is:

Political Musings

One thing I have wondered about for a long time, at least as far back as 2016, is (1) why do political commentators write in such high-flown language.  In contrast, (2) why does the prez speak in such disjointed language?  I'm reading comments about the performance of women basketball players, and some of the remarks are so poorly written as to be utterly unintelligible.  I obviously can't connect the ramblings of a deranged sports fan with those of a ill-spoken president, but it's awfully tempting to do so. 

Is it the case that everyone, young and old, is sick and tired of careful writing and speech, and are drawn to those who talk—and write—like toddlers?  I have even seen newspaper reporting with egregious mistakes in grammar and syntax (there I go again with my big words; any readers here who are also sports fans will be sticking pins in Kay Hemlock dolls), which must mean that either those articles were written in an awful hurry, or they've had to hire summer interns who are not up to the job. 

If Democrats want to be taken seriously, they may have to practice baby talk.  

Kay

This Blog

This blog is where I go when I want to comment on current events.  But I often think about the various stories I wrote, and that sort of reflection really belongs here, too.  I have two solutions I can think of. 

Move all writing-related blogposts to 'Helen' Blog.  Some of my readers are primarily interested in lesfic, and my comments about my own stories; they could simply head over to the Helen Blog, and only visit this one if there has been some really startling political development.  Language issues, such as punctuation, vocabulary, etc, could all be left on Helen.  Actually, I'll have to rethink that; it would be sad if only the president's foolishness ever got discussed on this side.  On the other side, I would put any posts about matters such as references to pets, for instance, in any of the stories. 

Compartmentalize the Blog.  I mean, leave the blogs as they are, but have departments in each one; a Current Events department, and LGBTQ department, a Fine Arts department, and Language department, and so on.

I really don't need to fuss so much about it; but adopting one plan or the other would make it easier to do the actual blogging.  The readership of the Blog is about 25 readers per post, and it isn't clear that every visitor reads the whole post!

I'm going to try a sort of hybrid approach for a while.

Kay Hemlock Bonaventura Brown

Apparently Turnout was NOT the Problem

In the last 10 years or so, a new generation of Politics Amateurs—people like me, who like politics, but weren't trained in it—have been trying to make sense of the political scene.  What happens when the Economy is like this, what happens when there is a big scandal in the White House, etc, etc.  The older generation had a handle on this, but (a) we don't trust their instincts, and (b) these are different people, and they don't behave the same way. 

First, let me out up a screen capture, so that my list of posts won't show just a uppercase 'A':

Well, I don't trust this Nate Cohn person completely, but it's an interesting idea that all the young people are drifting towards MAGA, and, of course, Trump.  I think people who first got to know Trump because of TV, are accustomed to hearing lies from him, and knew that he would change his mind several times a week.  As a TV personality, that would not have bothered them.  But some of the slower-witted ones let that lower expectation carry over to the presidential election.

A president who changes his mind several times a week is a problem to Congress, to government departments, to the Senate, to everyone.  We have now learned to live with various branches of government that regard this constant vacillation as a feature, not a bug.  It prevents the 'Liberals' from formulating a policy about anything.  But it also prevents the Administration from formulating much of any sort of policy either.  To think that the voters—essentially Generation X—are able to tolerate this policy-free state of existence, is very scary.

Kay

Record Temperatures

It was going to be hot, but it's 98 degrees Fahrenheit, which is extreme!

I don't have much to say, except that our two-faced president promised peace, and made fun of his predecessors for getting into foreign wars, and declared himself The Peace Candidate.

But he crowed to Truth Social: Fordow is gone!  Sad, pathetic little man.  He said it was the most awesome bomb that had ever been dropped in the history of the Universe.

Kay

Rose Garden

I'm not sure that this is happening, but there's a report that the Rose Garden at the White House is being paved over!

This isn't irreversible damage, but it must make those who were around during the sixties angry.  I  think the point is to generate a host of irritations so that Trump's weaknesses in International diplomacy are not observed. 

Mr Netanyahu of Israel is a shady character, and just as inconsistent as Trump, if not more.  What he will do next is going to be unpredictable, because it depends on his calculations about how to remain in power, and not any constant philosophy.  Meanwhile, Trump is doing the same thing.  And, from what I can see, Iran is also doing the same thing.  And meanwhile, the civilians in Gaza and Iran are watching helplessly.  They can't expect help from Trump, because what he wants is to build a hotel on the Gaza Strip.

Putting a businessman in the White House is stupid. 

Kay.

Not a Commercial

This girl was on Fb:

She's really beautiful.   But she looks very 'submissive' (a word I dislike intensely; it stereotypes people; I could imagine her becoming quite assertive, if she felt strongly enough about something).

Another girl I find interesting is Sophie Cunningham, who plays for the Indiana Fever, the women's basketball team (with Caitlin Clark, and all those delightful women).  She loves to wear super revealing clothes, and I'm generally unhappy about people who dress in super revealing clothes.  (I try not to say anything about modesty, generally, because if I were built like that, who knows?  I might have dressed in revealing clothes.  Kinda hypocritical to assume that we—commentators—have the last word in modesty of celebrities.)

kay

The Kitten that has Adopted Me

Well, I guess I'm well and truly adopted!

I'm visiting my friend, and she's got out her CD player, and she's playing all her golden oldies.

The cat doesn't mind the quieter songs.  But I was seated in a corner, going through my Facebook feed, when a noisy song came on.  Pretty soon, the kitten climbed up on my lap, and looked in my eyes.  Please, make it stop, was what she was telling me!!

The next song was a lot quieter, so she perked up and looked about, and seemed to say: That's much better, and she strolled off.  She obviously thinks of me as her personal volume control.

My friend had been taking things out of the coat closet—where she keeps the winter coats.   The cat had been outside, and came in, and after the little incident of the music, she noticed the closet door standing open. 

She studied it carefully; she obviously hadn't seen it open in a long time.   She walked over, and carefully studied the inside of the closet, and then went closer, and studied it some more.  There's not any sort of sense she can make of it; she's probably thinking: Wow, that's a lot of stuff.  She makes a mental note of it, and then moseys off to do more cat things.

She keeps a careful eye on where I am, so that she can come and get me when I'm needed!

My Fb feed is now full of cats in Florida and Arizona, who have either been lost, or stray cats—in those same states—that have been picked up.  Cat owners in those states seem awfully careless about their pets.  Or, they let their cats out, and they (the cats) go exploring, and then get lost.

For all our silliness, Pennsylvania cat parents appear to be pretty good at keeping track of where the cats are.  In the deep South, though, they're apparently too busy to keep an eye on them.

I don't know what to do about being inundated with cat stories.  I'm just going to enjoy them a little longer. 

Kay