Our kids really are watching...
One of the things one tries to do when relating current events or news stories is to keep a distance from one’s feelings that compromise the truth. Anger can take your stories to a place of unfair or biased commentary. When I write something, a lot of which is critical of the President of the United States, it is steeped in facts and the truth. Without it, you may as well scream into your pillow because it has the same temporary and ineffectual outcome. Today, I will admit I am angry, and it took me a day or three to write down my feelings. Since the first time I saw Mr. Trump stand on a stage and mimic a physically disabled reporter at a rally, I have seethed with disgust. I am sure the family of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a congenital joint condition and was the reporter Mr. Trump mocked, was equally incensed.
My youngest son and his wife have six children, and the two oldest boys were born with some profound mental impairments. They are on the autism spectrum disorder scale (ASD). In May, I wrote about the oldest boy, now a young man, who, after years of being labeled unable to thrive, beat all the odds and graduated from college on time. When he walked across the stage and through my tears, the look of pride on his face was indelibly burned into my mind and soul. Unfortunately, a month before his graduation, he had to hear the Secretary of Health and Human Services say about people with autism, “They'll never pay taxes, they'll never hold a job, they'll never play baseball, they'll never write a poem, they'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted,” said Robert Kennedy Jr. My daughter-in-law, with her husband, has worked tirelessly throughout her kids' lives to improve them, and wants not only to be a guide but also to find answers and strategies for other parents.
She is now a Ph.D. student with an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree in childhood neurodevelopment disorders. For her to have to process the government [HHS] telling her that, because she took Tylenol for a fever during her pregnancies, she may be the cause of her son’s autism, was a further slap to the face. As a long-time Democratic liberal, being called a ‘lib-tard’ by conservatives is something I have gotten used to hearing. Mr. Trump went on a two-week tirade aimed at calling reporters either a pig or stupid.
Indiana state Senator Michael Bohacek, a Republican, has decided that enough is enough and that too much stinks, as my great-grandmother used to say. Bohacek, the father of a daughter with Down Syndrome, objected to a description President Trump used to describe Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as “seriously retarded.” Mr. Bohacek has decided not to vote for the questionable redistricting efforts in Indiana to change voting maps and help ensure a favorable congressional outcome for Republicans. State Senator Bohacek is not defying the administration for politics, but for simple decency, in an attempt to defend his daughter.
The infection of the Republican psyche is so corrupted that in response to a note of sympathy for the slain National Guard trooper in Washington, DC, from former Democratic Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot and suffered a traumatic brain injury: Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project and a conservative legal activist, reportedly used a profanity-laced social media post to tell former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords to “f-off Gabby,” he continued his post writing, “The real problem is your piece-of- f-shit husband @SenMarkKelly and other Democrats….” Mike Davis, who is being considered for a post in the Justice Department, is emblematic of an administration led by a president beneath the respect, consideration, or any doubt that he is a tragic and disgusting blight on the presidency and on America's long and varied history.
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