Some thoughts heading into the weekend:
-
·The latest controversy swirling around the Trump
Administration is that the White House allegedly attempted, “to pressure US
immigration authorities to release migrants detained at the border into
so-called sanctuary cities … to retaliate against President Donald Trump’s
political adversaries,”
according
to the Washington Post
.
This should come as no surprise. It’s as if the White House
is saying to its critics, “OK, you want us to release these migrants, you can
have them in places that you are giving sanctuary for undocumented immigrants –
it’s your problem, then.”
The response from the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-CA), under the claim of “cynicism and cruelty,” was this, “Using human
beings – including little children – as pawns in their warped game to
perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable.”
While the plight of some of these migrants is genuine and
deserving of proper treatment, one wonders who is behind the large-scale migrant
caravans from Central America that are trying to get into the US. Aren’t they, “Using
human beings – including little children – as pawns in their warped game” to destabilize
the Trump Administration and American society?
-
·A 22-year-old Michigan State University senior
has stepped forward to publicly say that she filed a lawsuit a year ago
claiming that three Spartan men’s basketball team members sexually assaulted
her in an incident in 2015. Bailey Kowalski said that she was told by
university counselors not to report the incident at the time, and said that she
is speaking out in order to “help other victims.”
Kowalski hasn’t named her attackers, didn’t file a police
report, and in her press conference, said that, “For me, this is not a
basketball story. I did not choose who my rapists were. This is not about
bringing attention to the Michigan State University basketball team.”
Columnist Graham Couch of the
Lansing
State Journal/Detroit Free Press
said it best: “This is partly an MSU
basketball story. There would have been no press conference … if the three
alleged assailants weren’t former members of the MSU basketball team. Kowalski,
as an 18-year-old freshman, would have encountered a different reaction from
university counselors if she’d told them she’d been raped by someone else.”
The incident in itself is deplorable. Couch added that MSU
coach Tom Izzo should reach out to the victim to share her story with him
directly in order “that he can work to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
However, how many other schools have had similar incidents?
How many lesser-profile programs have had similar incidents? How many other
victims have been sexually assaulted by those students who aren’t in athletic
programs, who may be in fraternities or not even in any organized group? This
doesn’t lessen what happened, but it also brings perspective as to a problem that
goes far deeper than this one incident.
-
·After visiting all 131 branch offices during her
first 100 days in office, climaxing a story that
we
told you nearly a couple of months ago
, Michigan’s newly-elected Secretary
of State, Jocelyn Benson, said in a press conference that she will work to
implement what she calls “improvements” in customer service.
One of her campaign promises that helped her defeat Mary
Treder Lang last November was guaranteeing no more than 30 minutes in a branch
office for customers. However, she has had to back off on that somewhat, as
Benson is now saying that “deep-seated problems” won’t bring that to reality
until 2022 … just in time for her to run for reelection.
Somewhere, Ruth Johnson, Terry Lynn Land and Candice Miller –
Benson’s three immediate predecessors as SOS – probably smiled. They all also promised
changes and improvements when they took office, only to find out the same
things that Benson found out.
It’s one thing to promise something as a challenger from the
outside, but in most cases, reality brings aspirations crashing down to earth.
Thanks!
