I have been away for most of this week, at an HHMI conference. It was enlightening and informative, and I came away with many new ideas. It was also a packed schedule, starting early in the morning every day and going on until late at night, and I was not keeping up with the news, so I missed a few things.
Bill O’Reilly was fired for his sexual harassment antics? About time.
Jason Chaffetz is not going to run for re-election, and may even retire early? Well, that was unexpectedly good news.
Now I’m really sad that my conference ended, because my time offline was accompanied by the increasing crumbling of the Republican asshole edifice. If only this conference had gone on for a few more weeks, imagine all that could have happened: I’d have become a somewhat better biologist and teacher, the Republican leadership would have all retired, Ivanka and Jared would be arrested for corruption, Donald Trump would have been indicted and impeached, the tensions with North Korea and China and Russia would have eased, the Syrian civil war would have ended, world peace would have broken out, the Catholic church would take their vows of poverty seriously and divested, turning over all their assets to NIH and NSF, and I would have won a Nobel prize for not blogging.
HHMI clearly needs to schedule much, much longer conferences.
If it helps, just remember that with Republicans in power, Chaffetz was going to shrug his way through his duties as Oversight chair as much as possible. With that in mind, his bailing so early in his term could be a strong indication that something big is coming down the pike, something that hasn’t been made public, he can’t keep out of the public eye, and will be hard for him to ignore like he’s being paid to without it blowing back on him.
O’Hindenburg was fired for costing the Murdochs money. No one there cared about women.
I fully expect BO to land a job on the Trumptanic. As for Chaffetz, meh, I’m sure the good people of Utah’s 3rd congressional district can replace him with someone equally reprehensible.
And did you hear that Trumpster did not send that aircraft carrier task force to Korea? The task force was heading toward an exercise in the Indian Ocean. It was all bullshit. One bat shit kook trying to bully another.
Only folks in certain orders within the Catholic Church take vows of poverty. Most priests and bishops only take vows of celibacy and obedience. With the vow of obedience being the most important. Thus priests can easily be defrocked for disobedience but rarely for breaking the vow of chastity (as the world has seen when it involves minors).