Civil Commotion

The Supreme Court Just Ended My Military Career

[ … ]

No one, including the lawyers for the Trump administration, has been able to show that inclusion of transgender service members or providing care to them has had any measurable negative impact on morale, readiness or unit cohesion. The chiefs of staff of all four service branches of the military have testified to Congress that there have been no issues.

This goes directly to the only licit question: Does the presence of transgender troops impair the ability of our armed forces to fight?

If the judgment of the people I have to trust to know is that it does, I would hold my nose and support Trump’s ban. If it does not — as seems to be the case — then transgenders who wish to join the military should be able to do so.

This ban is nothing but a sop to the Evangelical Right, those troubled delusionaries who think an Invisible Wizard is sitting on a cloud somewhere and inventorying the whereabouts of more than 3.5-billion male whatsits, and frowning angrily when he loses track of one because it’s hidden beneath a skirt. I say again, then: Never permit the Godly to go messing with grown-up stuff.

Apparently, the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board has an intense dislike of Scabby, an iconic balloon — Balloon! — often used by picketing union members.

Scabby the Rat stands 12 to 30 feet tall, teeth bared and claws raised aggressively, with hungry, bloodshot eyes. The giant rodent’s sickly-looking underbelly refers to the ‘scab’ pejorative sometimes used by unions against strikebreakers, making it a global symbol of worker protest.

Courts and the National Labor Relations Board have issued rulings over three decades holding that the inflatables are permitted under federal labor laws or are symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment. But the NLRB’s current general counsel, Peter Robb, has had enough of the rat—to the point that since April 2018 he’s been looking for a case he can use to exterminate it, according to sources familiar with his thinking.

So: 800,000 employees of the Federal government have gone unpaid for almost a month, many of them reporting to work anyhow, because the First Felon is a corrupt and vain madman — and the NLRB’s General Counsel is losing sleep over a … balloon. It’s the perfect expression of the emptiness of Trump and the sort of C-team talent he attracts.

Why is it that the pious almost always have frightening delusions, rather than happy and uplifting delusions? There is a lot of subterranean malice in Christianity.

Also this one:

You’d think — Wouldn’t you? — the killing would slow down during winter storms …

The Catholic school in Kentucky, whose odious students surrounded and harassed a marcher at the Indigenous People’s March, disavows the behavior.

The Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic High School have issued the following statement: We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students towards Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general, Jan. 18, after the March for Life, in Washington, D.C. We extend our deepest apologies to Mr. Phillips.

This behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person. The matter is being investigated and we will take appropriate action, up to and including expulsion.

We know this incident also has tainted the entire witness of the March for Life and express our most sincere apologies to all those who attended the March and all those who support the pro-life movement.

A miscellany of thoughts, in no particular order:

• Shame on the Diocese for sending these kids in the first place. Children, including teenagers, should never be used as political props — for the reason that their views and behavior are unformed. To put the point a bit differently, they don’t know what side of an issue they’re on.

• It probably is the case that there were two or three leaders, and a lot of followers; the leaders should be expelled without appeal, and the followers should all be obliged to read and then write a very long book report on Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, or something similar. The man who was surrounded should then be invited to a school-wide assembly to receive a public apology and to address the students.

• None of that will happen, excepting perhaps the expulsions — because the parents of these children are idiots and probably support their kids’ squalid behavior. After all, they got their ridiculous MAGA hats and bad ignorant attitudes from someplace.