A Heart Attack or a Hangnail

You get to choose….

Today I read the heart-wrenching story of Bruce Tipton, a 75-year old Navy veteran in Marshall, North Carolina, who desperately clung to a tree for 7 hours as flood waters from the French Broad River raged around him.  Finally, he couldn’t hold on any longer and slipped into the water.  “He was a father, a grandfather, a brother and a friend to everybody here,” stated Annie Meadows.

My sadness at this tragedy remained, but an intense anger joined it as it became known that the help those in Appalachia were waiting for was slow-walked because FEMA didn’t have enough money and needed to reserve some for the “next” disaster.  

Was this because stingy tax-payers didn’t “pay their fair share”?   The Department of Homeland Security (the agency that runs FEMA) in this administration somehow had enough money to spend almost a billion dollars in the past 2 years on illegal aliens. The administration will say the two are not related, as the appropriation was completely separate.  Some in the once-independent journalist class point to any suggestion to the contrary as “misinformation”.

I don’t know about you, but when someone uses the terms “misinformation”, “disinformation” or even “malinformation” (just what the heck is that?) I see it as a cover for the item in question as being an inconvenient truth for them.  Remember, all of these were termed “misinformation”: COVID came from the lab in Wuhan, masks don’t work, closing down churches but not liquor stores is nonsense, the jab is safe and effective. 

The list in the last 4 years is endless.  Virtually anything termed “misinformation” is more likely to be eventually found to be true.  I’m tired of being lied to…  I don’t care if the money for illegals is separate from the money for disasters.  There still are homeless vets sleeping on the sidewalk while the illegal “newcomers” sleep in the luxury hotel. Whoever made this judgement call needs another job.

In September, Pope Francis, the leader of the largest Christian denomination in the world, urged United States Catholics to “pick the lesser of two evils” in the upcoming election. He stated, “Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies,″  Some saner voices cringed at this answer, but what was said was said.

Even if it was only “killing babies” in the words of Francis, I would have no problem making the choice.  But it is quite a bit more than that.  The current administration  Has  he following added to their side of the equation: the disaster in Afghanistan, prioritizing the borders of Ukraine over our own, a crippling lockdown and mandate that seriously damaged our economy and military, intentional loss of energy independence, pushing a DEI agenda in every aspect of federal government  that prioritizes politics over competence, destroying women’s sports, supporting psychological and physical mutilation of children in the name of “gender affirming care”, giving tacit approval to a rise of virulent antisemitism. The list could continue for the rest of this page and then some.

So, Pope Francis, I am going to take your advice.  Your choice is the lesser of two evils between a heart attack and a hangnail.  I pick the hangnail, and I hope every critical thinker in this country does the same.