Lemon Drop

 Those who cannot savor the rush of pure vodka, need to shield  their palettes with lemon and sugar.  In a newsroom like CNN you need to be able to drink life straight up with no chaser.

Don Lemon stated that at 51 Nikki Haley is no longer at her prime.  Scientifically, that is almost certainly correct.  At worst, it is an opinion, well within the province of a news personality, like Don Lemon.  Certainly as a gay man, Don  had no sexual agenda in his observation.

Nonetheless many women at CNN threatened to quit if Lemon was reinstated.  Those who fail to resign should be fired.  Destabilized by so little, how would they handle a real crisis? This is a newsroom, designed to cover the extremes of human conduct.  If you cannot handle something from the top shelf, you are ill prepared to cover the rot gut of human existence.

Ilhan Omar

 Politics trumped good sense, a hallmark of the new GOP.  Ilhan Omar should not have been removed from the Foreign Relations Committee.  

Legislators seem to confuse Israel with Judaism.  Israel is a country, Judaism is a religion, and to an extent, a culture.  Opposing Judaism is antisemitic, disagreeing with Israel is not.  Israel as a country acts in its own self interest, or at times the self interest of leading politicians.  Sometimes the interests of Israel and the United States align, at times they may not.

Omar is not antisemitic.  She has at times made insensitive remarks.  But when she stumbled she stood up and apologized.  That contrasts with Mega MAGA Republicans who double down.  Perhaps we can use Jewish lasers to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon.

Omar is however, unapologetic in disagreeing with some Israeli policies.   The bulk of the work of Congress is done in committees, not on the House floor.  Diversity of opinion and reexamination has value.  Sort of like shooting the moon in the game Hearts, in the Talmud if there was a unanimous guilty vote by the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Court) the suspect was exonerated.  

A unanimous vote was considered suspicious.  A fix was in.  So too unanimity of thought in a Congressional Committee can be dangerous.  Consensus must be reached through discourse not dogma.