Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, October 7, 2017

B3 Mountain Views News Saturday, October 7, 2017 OPINION B3 Mountain Views News Saturday, October 7, 2017 OPINION 
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SUSAN Henderson, PublisherENOUGH! 


ENOUGH: Exclamation: used to express an impatient desire for the cessation ofundesirable behavior or speech: 

This has been a very difficult week. It’s been a very difficult month, in fact, it’s been 

difficult for quite a while. When I awakened this morning, there was a newsflash that says

Donald Trump had signed an Executive Order that allows employers and insurers to deny

covering the cost of birth control pills for women. Really? We will now not cover pills that

have many uses including helping a family decide when they want to bring a child into this

world and a plethora of medicinal uses related to women’s health issues? Now women will 

have to pay for these perscriptions? BUT, MEN DO NOT HAVE TO PAY FOR VIAGRA. 

SERIOUSLY? I don’t believe I need to go into all of the reasons why this is a shameful set

of circumstances. Women’s Health and Family Planning are not a necessity but the ability 

to ‘hang in there’ for 4 hours is? (This is a family friendlu publication so I won’t go into any more detail.) POLITICS 
HAVE GONE TOO FAR! ENOUGH OF PLAYING WITH PEOPLE’S LIVES AND USING THEM AS POLITICAL 
FOOTBALLS. 

ENOUGH! 

Last week I attended funeral services for a dear friend, Attorney Richard Leonard. Richard and I had many 
differences, politically mostly, but he was a good man, a good person. I wanted to pick up the telephone and callRichard the other day when I heard about the shooting in Las Vegas because, Richard was an avid believer in the 2ndAmendment. He was a hunter and in fact had recently returned from an annual hunting trip with his friends. And, like 
my father believed that every law abiding citizen had the right to own firearms. However, even Richard and my Dadif he were alive, would certainly agree that with the changes in our society, we can no longer afford to live with such abroad interpretation of our ‘right to bear arms’. I have lost both my father (shot to death in a case of mistaken identity)
and my adopted son, shot in a random drive by shooting by a person who did not know him but was just cruisinglooking for people to shoot. Those are just my personal losses, but I have seen and/or heard so many, many more. So 
when is our society going to have enough? We don’t have to dismantle the constitution, but we do have to be realistic. 
Weapons of war do not belong in the hands of ordinary citizens. We need bans on the manufacture and distribution 
of all automatic weapons and accessories that convert them or conceal them (silencers), now! Our tragedies are not 
diminishing, they are increasing. Being in Nevada, an open carry state, did not save even one life on Sunday. We need 
to ban the ability to purchase massive amounts of ammunition and explosives. We need to allow the creation of a 
shared database so that perhaps our federal agencies will have a heads up on who is trying to amass stockpiles of guns,
ammunition and explosives. We should have had enough of death and sorrow by now to demand that our Congresscreate legislation that will protect us. Remember, there were NO automatic or semi automatic weapons when the 
second amendment was created. (Yes, the first such weapons were gaitlin guns used in the civil war.) By the way, whyare we all still wondering why the shooter killed and shot people for no reason? Simple answer, because he could. He 
could gain access to everything he needed, legally, to destroy so many lives. Get it? ENOUGH OF PLAYING WITH 
PEOPLE’S LIVES AND USING THEM AS POLITICAL FOOTBALLS. 

ENOUGH! 

I grew up in the 50’s when among other things, our country lived in fear of an attack from Russia. Many American’sbuilt bomb shelters; every school held regular Air Raid Drills to prepare students in the event of an attack. We lived 
everyday with the fear that America might be hit with a catastrophic bomb. Well, It’s been 259 Days, 1 hour, 14 minutesand 25 seconds at the time of this writing that Donald Trump has been President and guess what?, we are now facingthe reality that we may be faced with an attack from foreign enemies just like in the 1950’s! Those of us who rememberair raid drill days live in the same kind of fear today. Now in many ways, Russia, who has always sought to destroy alldemocracies in order to propagandize their form of government, is the least of our current problems. Yes, their cyberattacks have inflicted what may prove to be irrevocable damage but what they have done is nothing compared to thethreat of an attack from North Korea. A potential attack that is being baited by the President. In addition to that, Trumpis hell bent on dismantling the Iran Agreement and thus possibly creating another nuclear enemy of the United States.
And yet, there appears to be nothing that we can do to stop this man (Trump). Also as of this writing, there is talk ofhim removing the only sane cabinet choice he has ever made, Rex Tillerson, a man who understands that bullying isnot the answer. I don’t know about you, but I am completely done with this President. Yes he was elected and we try torespect the process but leaving the never ending scandals aside, his behavior in and of itself puts our lives and the livesof posterity in danger. This isn’t a partisan statement, I’ve lived through many Presidents from both sides of the fencebut never have I ever lived with a man who does not care about what his job requires of him, that is, serving all thepeople of the United States. A man who puts his popularity before the needs of his people. I’ve had enough of him, butmore importantly I’ve had enough of CONGRESS (both houses) who cannot or will not find a way to do their job andrecognize that this President is not a dictator and is not omnipotent. Their choices aren’t easy but the alternative leavesthe public at risk. American citizens including those in Puerto Rico are not widgets in a board game. ENOUGH OF 
PLAYING WITH PEOPLE’S LIVES AND USING THEM AS POLITICAL FOOTBALLS. 

To quote Lin-Manuel Miranda, ““You’re going straight to hell, @realDonaldTrump,” the Pulitzer Prize-winningplaywright tweeted at the President. “No long lines for you. Someone will say, ‘Right this way, sir.’ They’ll clear a path.” 

Unfortunately, until we have had enough, he’ll be taking all of us with him! 


LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN 
DICK POLMAN 


MEET THE NEW FACE OF 

REPUBLICAN EXTREMISM 

Thank you, Alabama Republicans! Thank you for choosing a Senate

candidate whose reactionary ravings and paranoid fictions make 

Donald Trump look semi-sane.

 Seriously, could Democrats have ever imagined receiving a better gift

than Roy Moore, the bat-crazy theocrat who has twice been dumped

from his post on the Alabama Supreme Court? Democrats are always

on the lookout for a right-wing poster child - and few Republicans fillthe bill better than this loon from Toontown, who defies federal orders (refusing to recognize gaymarriage), and who says (among other things) that lesbian mothers are “a crime against nature”
and that 9/11 was God’s punishment for sodomy.

Moore, who won Tuesday night’s GOP primary (beating Trump’s candidate, incumbent Sen.
Luther Strange) will probably defeat Democratic nominee Doug Jones in December’s specialelection, because we’re talking here about Alabama, where a Democrat hasn’t won a Senate race inthe last quarter century. But so what. More importantly, he’ll resonate nationally - as a lawmakerwho believes that “God’s laws are always superior to man’s laws” - and for Republicans, that’s bad 
news. 

Karl Rove, the ex-Bush guru and party strategist, says it better than I can. Moore will be “theTodd Akin of 2017 and 2018 for every Republican on the ballot.” Akin, lest we forget, was the nutwho won the Missouri Senate GOP primary in 2012 and lost a winnable election after he insistedthat women can’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape,” because “the female body has ways to shutthe whole thing down.” 

Akin, with gleeful Democratic assistance, epitomized Republican extremism and alienatedwomen from the party nationwide. Moore is potentially the same kind of nightmare. As Rove andothers point out, the GOP can’t afford to get bogged down in God, gays, and rape. And Moore’swin last night may well prompt similar reactionary populists to come out of the woodwork tochallenge establishment Republican candidates in ‘18 House and Senate primaries. That too bodesill for the party’s battered image.

Katie Packer Beeson, a Republican strategist and deputy campaign manager for Romney-Ryanin 2012, laments that Moore “longs for the America we see on shows like ‘Leave it to Beaver.’ Thatshow depicts a time when men were the heads of the house, women knew their place and childrendidn’t question, they just obeyed. A time when homosexuality was whispered about but neverdisplayed publicly. A time when women didn’t pursue careers but stayed home, kept the houseclean and had dinner on the table for their man.” 

Beeson acknowledges that Trump won in 2016 with largely-white supporters who yearned fora yesteryear. But women and minorities are still ascendant in the electorate - and she warns thatMoore will send the wrong message: “(He) seems to embrace a 1950s Baptist Sunday School viewof America and demands that everyone subscribe to that vision or keep quiet. But this vision ofAmerica doesn’t make room for minorities, career minded independent women, gay people orothers who were outside of the 1950 mainstream...A Republican party that is already carryingsignificant baggage brought on by the president cannot afford to reignite the culture wars withhateful, divisive rhetoric directed at those who disagree with them.” 

Ousted White House aides Steve Bannon (the white nationalist extremist) and Sebastian Gorka(the guy with Hungarian anti-Semitic links) campaigned heavily for Moore, because they firmlybelieve that the Trump regime and the Republican Congress are too moderate. That should tellyou plenty about today’s GOP. And it tells you plenty about Moore that not even Trump couldstomach endorsing him.

The irony is that Moore shares Trump’s talent for concocting paranoid lies. Just to give you aflavor, here’s a recent exchange with a reporter:

Moore said, “There are communities under Sharia law right now in our country. Up in Illinois.
Christian communities.” 

The reporter naturally asked, “Which American communities are under Sharia law? When didthey fall under Sharia law?”

Moore replied, “Well, there’s Sharia law, as I understand it, in Illinois, Indiana - up there. I don’tknow.” 

The reporter said, “That seems like an amazing claim for a Senate candidate to make.” 

Moore replied, “Well, let me just put it this way - if they are, they are; if they’re not, they’re not.” 

The reporter said, “I’d like to learn more about the communities in America you think are 
under Sharia law.” 

Moore replied, “I was informed that there were. But if they’re not, it doesn’t matter...I don’t knowif there are. I understand that there are some.” 

Um, whacko? There are none. 

So welcome to the latest devolution of the Republican party, where the Trumpkins unleashedby Trump are in the hunt for candidates who can out-Trump Trump. They actually think they’redoing Trump a favor, saving him from the Washington “swamp.” 

Or perhaps, by saddling him with people like Roy Moore, they’ll all sink together. 

Copyright 2017 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
Dick Polman is the national political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia(newsworks.org/polman) and a “Writer in Residence” at the University of Pennsylvania. Emailhim at dickpolman7@gmail.com. 

MAKING SENSE by
MICHAEL REAGAN 


GUNS & POLITICS 

Today I’m counting my blessings.

My wife Colleen, my daughter Ashley and I are huge country &
western fans. 

We go to lots of outdoor concerts and Country MusicAssociation awards shows. 

In fact, we were planning to attend the Route 91 Harvest Festivalconcert on Sunday night and stay at the spectacular Mandalay BayResort and Casino in Las Vegas.

In the end, we decided not to attend. 


Otherwise, we might have been among the 59 killed and hundreds wounded by themonster who strafed the crowd of 22,000 from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel.
Many worried friends who expected us to be at the music festival – and sitting upfront-- called or texted us to make sure we were alright.

We were lucky we stayed home in LA. But we were touched by what happened in Vegas.
We know country music fans who were there and we know people who know some of thevictims. 

While I counted my blessings, I watched in anger as yet another terrible murderousevent became an overnight political opportunity for gun-hating liberals.

Early on I tweeted, “Please don’t let this become a political issue, because it’s not.”But 
by Monday morning the usual cries for more and tougher gun control laws were comingfrom the left and the liberal media. 

Early calls for silencers to be outlawed were replaced by calls to outlaw “bump stocks,” 
which the killer used so he could shoot his arsenal of semi-automatic weapons at a faster 
rate. 

This week’s knee-jerk calls for more laws to be passed as a way to prevent future massmurders reminded me again of what I was told right after my father was shot on March 30,1981. 

I remember asking the agent in charge of my Secret Service detail, “How can this happenwith all the security around my father and family? How do you let this happen?”

The agent said, “Michael, as you know, we train 24/7 to protect you and your family. Butone thing we can’t train for is the crazies.” 

That’s apparently what we’re looking at in Las Vegas – a lone depraved killer intent ondoing as much harm to innocent people as he could.
He was never on anyone’s radar.

He bought his huge cache of weapons and ammunition legally.

He’d never been in trouble with police and didn’t have known psychological problems.

We don’t know why he did the terrible things he did – not yet. But sometimes with acrazy man there is no why and no reason.

All the new gun-control laws liberals can dream up will not stop future crazies intent onattacking concerts, ball parks or suburban malls.

The truth is, in the aftermath of the Vegas tragedy we should not look to the governmentand politicians to “fix” things.

It will be the private sector that will make another attack on innocents from the windowsof a 32nd floor hotel room unlikely or impossible.

Hotels in Vegas and around the world already are thinking of ways to beef up theirsecurity.
They’ll hire more armed guards. They’ll put alarms on their windows and have guardsoutside looking up at them.

Hotels will do whatever they need to do and spend whatever they need to spend toprotect their customers and assure the public it’s safe to stay in Vegas or wherever else.

Trust me, an evil man with ten suitcases of guns isn’t going to check into the MandalayBay ever again without being stopped.

Hotels will make it safer to come to Vegas and gamble your money away, not a politicalopportunist like Chuck Schumer. 
——


Copyright ©2017 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan,
a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press).
He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan LegacyFoundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Sendcomments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.

Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For infoon using columns contact Sales at sales@cagle.com. 

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