Another mass shooting, this time in Virginia Beach. Details not yet clear but my thoughts are with the families of the victims and the survivors, always. The shooter came armed with multiple extended magazines intending to kill as many people as he could. What insanity grips our nation that these mass murders keep happening ….. copy cat killings, the twisted notoriety of being the center of the news, the madness of entitlement. Beyond gun safety, there are issues of mental stability and early detection and intervention ….. and national leadership.
Bi-partisan opposition to our President’s decision to use increasing tariffs on Mexico as a means to force action to prevent immigrants, refugees really, from arriving at our southern Boarder. Ultimately it is American consumers who pay for those tariffs in increased costs of food and consumer goods. In a previous post I outlined my approach to the refugee problem, immediately increase the numbers of Boarder patrol agents and the numbers of immigration judges while working with Mexico and Central American neighbors to improve conditions in the origin countries. Learn from experience, far fewer Mexican nationals now trying to come to the United States because economic conditions in Mexico have improved. Can’t say now how this tariff thing will shake out, it should be abandoned, but Mexico may retaliate in the same way that China has recently done. Stop buying Soy Beans or Corn from the United States. So the farmers take the brunt of it again while average Americans pay more.
In the last couple weeks the 150 year celebration of the transcontinental railroad. Thousands of people turned out in every town, at every grade crossing and view point to watch a famous restored steam engine travel from Wyoming to Promontory, Utah for the event. Lincoln told the builders of the Union Pacific railroad to “bind the nation together with bands of steel”. We so need that vision today.
