I say YES. YOU say NO....Numero Tre! Enjoy!

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Comments

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777

    Well, that's great Mike, but you know there are some who don't agree with you.

    "... The United States will not allow Russia to win the war against Ukraine..."- Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777

    About it:

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • cardplayer
    cardplayer Member Posts: 2,051

    Opinion by Alexandra Petri for the Washington Post

    October 27, 2023 at 3:09 p.m. ET

    “The end of the day, it’s, the problem is the human heart. It’s not guns. It’s not the weapons. At the end of the day, we have to protect the right of the citizens to protect themselves, and that’s the Second Amendment.”

    — House Speaker Mike Johnson, asked by Fox News’s Sean Hannity about demands for more gun laws or more legislation in the wake of mass shootings

    Human hearts! That is the problem! In America, we are uniquely badly positioned because of our human hearts. Why don’t we have stone hearts like the French; or efficient, wood-burning hearts like the Germans; or the Teflon hearts that I hear Elon Musk will soon be pioneering to an elite crowd of subscribers? (I, for one, cannot wait! Anything to divert his attention from X!) Why don’t we have alien hearts with extra ventricles, splendidly green and impervious to pain; or efficient, 3D-printed e-hearts; or anatomically inaccurate paper hearts? So many better kinds of hearts to have! It isn’t the guns. The problem is the human heart. Week, feeble, pitiful heart. Put it up against a gun, and it loses every time.

    The problem is the human heart. Gun violence is an unchangeable, immutable fact of the human condition. That is why it is localized so strongly to this country and this time period. This is not a problem with a solution. It is the price you pay for being human. This is not unique to the United States, although you see it only here. Maybe it’s something to do with the water. Not laws, though; as we know from our efforts to impose vicious lawsuits and increasingly draconian restrictions against anyone who seeks an abortion, it is pointless to legislate about a problem. Some things, you are just born with and must accept; guns are one of them.

    The heart is a uniquely American problem. Johnson, I hear, had his removed long ago, which allows him to look on the suffering of his fellow man with equanimity and detachment, because of his serene awareness of the Divine Plan. Some people’s hearts are simply bad (learned too much Darwinism, or too little prayer, or too much bodily autonomy). Johnson has been saying things of this kind for as long as he has been in the public eye. The problem is never guns. The problem is abortions. (“When you break up the nuclear family, when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, then you do wind up with school shooters.”) The problem is not guns; it is teaching evolution. It is the theories of Charles Darwin! “Because we’ve taught a whole generation — a couple of generations now — of Americans, that there’s no right or wrong, that it’s about survival of the fittest, and [that] you evolve from the primordial slime. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there’s nobody sacred to whom it’s owed.” Imagine thinking that the only reason to protect the human heart was allegiance to your God! The valiant little muscle clenching inside your chest, keeping you alive, powering your moves through the world, letting you see birthdays and graduations and beating faster when you see something you love — what could be more obviously worth protecting?

    But the problem is never the gun. Hearts stop all the time, for myriad reasons. They are vulnerable to poverty and despair and anxiety, and the United States has all of those in ample supply.

    Obviously the problem is the human heart. The human heart cannot stand the strain of living in the United States (a nice place, were it not for the nagging suspicion that any time you gather in a public place you might be gruesomely murdered with a gun). The human heart was not built for this low whine of anxious terror. It is the human heart’s fault — not strong enough. Sometimes the human heart just stops. (Only in America, like this.) You never see a gun get stopped by something as routine as despair. You never see a gun get stopped by anything.

    The problem is not guns. It’s not weapons. We have to protect ourselves. (From what, Mike? From what?) We must have our guns, to protect ourselves. (Then what are we arming the police like this for? Why are they laden with all this military-grade equipment, if protecting myself is not something I’m supposed to be outsourcing to them?)

    The problem is the human heart. It breaks a little bit each time we see another mass shooting. If only they were a harder target. That is the problem. That so many hearts are aching for something to change, for a framework of laws that does not accept gun violence as inevitable.

    Think what a different country we would have if we wanted to protect the human heart instead of the gun.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777

    Hillary Clinton had a name for people like these - deplorables.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777

    fat chance.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777

    BREAKING: Ivanka Trump gets caught in the blast of her father's legal problems as a judge rules that she MUST testify in Donald's massive civil fraud trial in New York.

    This is terrible news for Ivanka. She was hoping to slither out of it...

    Judge Arthur Engoron — the same man who was forced to slap Donald Trump with a $10,000 fine for violating a gag order — ruled today that just because Ivanka was dismissed from the case due to the state's statute of limitations, doesn't mean that she can avoid taking the stand.

    She has been subpoenaed by the New York Attorney General Letitia James and must honor the legally binding order. She will not be forced to testify before November 1st, giving her lawyers a chance to appeal the ruling.

    This is cut and dry. Ivanka worked at the Trump Organization for years. The company stands accused of massively inflating the value of assets to defraud banks and investors.

    Just because Ivanka can no longer be held legally accountable for the myriad crimes allegedly committed doesn't mean she shouldn't be forced to reveal what she knows.

    The best part?

    If she is sworn in to testify and then lies about what happened she could go to prison for perjury.

    Ivanka is slowly being backed into a corner.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777

    As was mentioned, someone needs to update hi on current events — like ALL his indictments he doesn't seem to recall.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777

    my dog.

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777

    DARK BRANDON STRIKES AGAIN:

    BREAKING: Republicans are LOSING their minds that the Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a 4.9% annual rate last quarter and talks of a recession have evaporated.

    The blowout rise for US economic growth in the third quarter delivered an upside surprise, especially for analysts.

    Democrats NEVER tout our accomplishments enough. Let’s blast this to space: 



    Last month the U.S. added about 336,000 jobs in September, nearly twice the Dow Jones prediction of 170,000 jobs and above the monthly average of 267,000 jobs over the past year

    What’s more, America has surpassed all the jobs lost during the pandemic, and created 3.6+ million more.

    Biden credited the positive jobs report to his economic policies, which his administration has dubbed "Bidenomics."
    "It's no accident. It's Bidenomics," Biden said. "We're growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down."

  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777
  • illinoislady
    illinoislady Member Posts: 39,777

    You seem to be full of something — hint, it is not intelligence that's for sure.

  • ruthbru
    ruthbru Member Posts: 47,702

    I hope!

  • exbrnxgrl
    exbrnxgrl Member Posts: 5,296

    Ruth,

    If only… however, Alcatraz (La isla de las alcatraces) is worth too much in tourism dollars for the San Francisco Bay Area to throw it away like that 😉.

  • cardplayer
    cardplayer Member Posts: 2,051
  • cardplayer
    cardplayer Member Posts: 2,051
  • cardplayer
    cardplayer Member Posts: 2,051
  • cardplayer
    cardplayer Member Posts: 2,051
  • cardplayer
    cardplayer Member Posts: 2,051
  • cardplayer
    cardplayer Member Posts: 2,051

    What??