If your path is more difficult, it’s because your calling is higher. – Unknown

Happy November!

Welcome to the big column to end the week, “Caught My Eye” (CME)!

If you are a first-time visitor, welcome! CME is the once a week column that is posted here every Friday morning. This is when I take a look at some of the stories I did not have time to write about during the week. There may be some sarcasm and pointed independent commentary so be warned!

Here are the topics that “Caught My Eye” this week:

• The Impeachment Vote
• Facebook & Twitter
• One More Thing

THE IMPEACHMENT VOTE:

As the saying goes, “You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube,” the U.S. House voted Thursday to continue the investigations into the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Here is what the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday.

The official title of House Resolution 660 is:

Directing certain committees to continue their ongoing investigations as part of the existing House of Representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its Constitutional power to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America.

The Resolution passed 232-196. All the Republicans voted against it along with two Democrats. Being in the majority has its perks!

One the funnier things I saw was Republican Greg Gianforte posting on his Facebook page, “I voted today with Republicans and Democrats to oppose Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff’s partisan efforts to impeach President Trump.”

I know there are a lot of idiots across Montana who believe everything Gianforte says, but he did not even say that the resolution passed. Again, there were only two Democrats who voted against it and they voted against it because they want to be reelected. Gianforte needs Trump’s support because he is running for Governor. Gianforte knows that using the names Pelosi and Schiff in his Facebook post is probably worth a few thousand dollars in fundraising for him.

I’ve said in the past that if the Democrats try to impeach Trump it may get him reelected. That could still be the case, but I am starting to see some weak spots in Trump’s reelection chances.

We are a year away so nothing much counts now, except to lay the foundation so that people will not vote for him.

So that means with the impeachment hearings going public, the Democrats must believe they have enough information to harm Trump at the ballot box. They will probably be able to impeach him in the House, but not convict him in the Senate. That is unless Trump pisses off a bunch of Republican Senators and they decide he is not worth the headache anymore.

Nonetheless, Trump might be thinking, “these are troubling times in the kingdom.”

FACEBOOK & TWITTER:

It was announced that Twitter banned political advertising, although just what that means isn’t clear, yet. Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, Tweeted a thread of information about it, with this Tweet being the first:

We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. 

Dorsey says the final policy will be released by November 15.

Will Facebook follow Twitter in stopping all political advertising? That’s the big question.

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that Facebook’s policy is to accept paid political ads from candidates without fact-checking them or censoring them, even if they contain lies.

I don’t like that.

There are a bunch of gullible people on Facebook (many are in my personal Facebook (FB) page Friends list) and they fall for the stupidest crap and then repost it. Once upon a time, I did not post political stuff on my personal FB page and only posted it on my blog’s FB Page. Then, friends started posting fake crap and lies so I felt I had no choice but to counter their stupidity with factual posts or political cartoons. Now I post about the same things on both pages. I may change that soon.

When lies and fake news is spread across social media, it harms all of us.

• Follow me on Twitter @TheWesternWord
• Follow me on Facebook by clicking HERE.

ONE MORE THING:

President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he is making his permanent residence Florida instead of New York:

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House, is the place I have come to love and will stay for, hopefully, another 5 years as we MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, but my family and I will be making Palm Beach, Florida, our Permanent Residence.

I think Trump knows that he won’t win New York and he needs to carry Florida to have a good shot at being reelected. Now he can say to Floridians that he is one of them.

Congratulations, Florida!

The good news for me is that Florida is further away from Montana than New York! Congrats to me, too! #Winning

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