Writing! Opinions! Jokes?

Hi, I'm Andrew. I'll be your writer for this blog.

I'm a recovering journalist with a desire to write. My plan is to focus one bigger segment on a word or an aspect of media coverage or politics, then some smaller odds and ends. As I'm no longer a journalist and (gasp!) am for better or worse a pundit, I will have opinions, but I do want to hold myself to a standard of fairness and being able to back up with sources. My plan is to write 1-2 times a week. Those things can be national, state, sports or even things I'm learning about the local community (Kansas City/Liberty). I might even throw a few things about raising twins in there.

"Investigate"

Whenever you hear the words "investigation" in relation to a big story, take that as a signal. It means that politicians want to paint the subject with a negative brush regardless of what the investigation actually reveals. It allows the group calling for an investigation to score political points against an unpopular opponent even if the underlying issue is based on a false narrative. In effect, it is "guilty until proven innocent." I've got a couple of examples, on either side of the aisle.

Politicians called for Planned Parenthood to be investigated after a series of edited, skewed videos. What you may not have heard is that 11 states have already cleared Planned Parenthood of doing anything illegal. That includes states in which you would think there would be some bias toward finding negative results, such as Texas, Kansas or Missouri. If they were acting as illegally as claimed, surely something would have come up after that many investigations in that many states, right? There's a difference between morality and illegality, and so far there's no evidence of the latter.

The other is the "Bridgegate" scandal involving Chris Christie from 2014. Except: Three investigations — one by Christie, one by the U.S. Attorney's office and one led by a bunch of Democrats — concluded that there was no evidence linking Christie to "Bridgegate." His top staff was absolutely involved, but three investigations do not link Christie to the scandal directly. Note: Politifact called this half true, citing that the latter two investigations don't expressly clear him, leaving the question open in case more evidence comes up. However, since it's now half a year later, I'd say the issue is settled and Christie is cleared.

An investigation means nothing if it finds no actionable item (Note: Seven Benghazi investigations turned up nothing, and the Clinton email scandal was, effectively, an accidental find by the eighth.). An indictment means a prosecutor believes they can win a case, but they might not. A verdict is the only thing with absolute importance. Unfortunately, it takes time to go through the legal process. And that's time, not to mention money and public opinion, that the accused loses while on the defensive.

GOP Primary

There have been headlines in which Republican leaders wonder who's worse: Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. Here is one example. That has an interesting assumption: It's not whether either is bad for the GOP, rather it's the degree of awfulness. Which raises some questions: If neither candidate is good for the GOP, then why are they leading the GOP primary polls? And if these candidates are bad for the GOP, yet primary voters like them anyway, does that mean the voters have drifted from the party or the party has drifted from the voters?

Iran... so far away

Hours before President Obama's State Of The Union address, there was a report that U.S. sailors were in Iranian custody. As part of the report, there was word that the sailors would be returned the next morning. After the SOTU, Fox News spent ample time (no link, but we watched it) attacking Obama for failing to mention the sailors in his speech. The next morning, Iran returned the sailors — whose boat had malfunctioned and had drifted into Iran's waters — after giving them a meal and a place to sleep for the night. So there was a lot of anger over a situation that was immediately resolved exactly how it should be resolved. Why was this an outrage?

Summary Judgments

My old home of Pittsburg removed a sign saying "God Bless America" from the Post Office on Wednesday. Both Elk Grove v. Newdow (2004) and Lynch v. Donnelly (1984) uphold a "ceremonial deism" for such things as "In God We Trust" or "Under God." My bet is the post office removed the sign because they expected a costly legal fight — one they'd win, but one they'd rather avoid by simply removing a sign. It would have been a pyrrhic victory over a minor issue. (UPDATE: Also, it was against USPS policy. That's probably the real reason.)   •    •    •   If you ever learn the name of a low-level coach or employee of a team, it's never because something good happened. See: Blake Griffin   •    •    •   Generally speaking, frontrunners want fewer debates. Fewer debates = fewer chances to screw up. It could be why Trump's avoiding the race tonight. So why is Hillary Clinton up for an extra debate?   •    •    •   Maybe it's just the legal process taking its sweet time, but why did it take so long for MU's assistant professor of "muscle" to be charged with assault or to be suspended?   •    •    •   White (Now-former) NAACP President in Arizona doesn't like racism, but cool with sexism!    •    •    •   My daughter woke up at 5 a.m. this morning, and wouldn't go back to sleep. She remained fussy and irritable all morning, grumpy about everything. Then, just before we leave for daycare, she walks over to her brother and gave him a hug on her own. Then he gave her a kiss. AWWWWW ALL IS FORGIVEN!