Tuesday’s Quick Hits

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In order to be old and wise, you first need to be young and stupid. – Unknown

Tuesday’s Quick Hits is the column where I post a short narrative from recent major stories and provide brief commentary.

Today’s quick hits deal with these important subjects:

  • Trump Picks Gianforte
  • Red Flag Laws
  • Rev. Franklin Graham
  • Brawl of the Wild

TRUMP PICKS GIANFORTE:

With the announcement that Donald Trump, Jr., and his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, are heading to Helena to headline a fundraiser for U.S. Representative Greg Gianforte’s 2020 campaign for Montana governor, it looks as though the Trumps have picked their candidate.

Thanks for playing Attorney General Tim Fox and state Senator Al Olszewski – they are the other two Republican candidates.

It’s kind of shitty for Trump to do this and leave Fox and Olszewski swinging in the wind, but there’s some good news.

The good news for Fox and Olszewski is that President Trump and Junior came to Montana about a gazillion times to campaign and fundraise against U.S. Senator Jon Tester, but they failed.

Read the whole MTN News report by clicking HERE.

RED FLAG LAWS:

I’m for about anything that will stop mass shootings – CBS News reports that there have been 366 mass shootings this year.

On 60 Minutes this past Sunday, they did a segment on Red Flag Laws. In the report, Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes says:

In recent years, 17 states and the District of Columbia have adopted Red Flag laws which allow the confiscation of firearms if a gun owner raises a Red Flag with threatening behavior. California adopted Red Flag in 2016. And there’s been a big movement toward the law recently with 12 states adopting it in the 21 months since the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

One of the authors of the bill, Josh Horwitz, explains it this way:

This is a law that is a temporary civil restraining order that allows family members or law enforcement to go to a court and remove the most lethal means – a firearm – before a tragedy occurs. And if the judge agrees and issues the order, law enforcement will go and serve the order on the respondent, remove the firearms, and then somewhere between 7 and 21 days everybody will come back to court there’ll be a full hearing. If the person, in fact, is dangerous to self or others, the firearms will be kept by law enforcement, and that person won’t have access to them for a year.

60 Minutes also reported that there have been court challenges based on the Second and Fifth Amendments but, so far, Red Flag laws have been ruled constitutional.

Of course, the big hurdle will be when it is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read/Watch the 60 Minutes story HERE.

REV. FRANKLIN GRAHAM:

From his Twitter and Facebook posts, I don’t believe Rev. Franklin Graham likes Democrats. The good news is that Jesus loves Democrats, and Republicans, and Independents.

Franklin Graham needs to be more like Jesus. Read on…

In the past couple of weeks, reports have surfaced (like this one) that Evangelical leader Franklin Graham is urging the public to pray for President Trump as the House impeachment inquiry moves into a new phase.

I think we should pray for our elected leaders all the time. It should not matter to which political party they belong. It seems that Graham has sided with the Republicans and Trump. Here’s a Tweet:

This is a sad day for America. Our politics in this country has hit a new low. @SpeakerPelosi and her followers in Congress have weaponized the impeachment process. This is just another attempt to tarnish and embarrass @POTUS @realDonaldTrump before the next election.

A longer Facebook post can be found HERE.

Some of his posts are ending up on church Facebook pages. The last thing I want to see on my church Facebook page is something about politics. We get enough of that on the rest of Facebook and Twitter. I believe that the church should be a politics-free zone. Leaders in churches should encourage their congregation to vote and to pray for elected leaders. I know some churches have held open prayers for President Trump. I don’t think they did that for President Obama. That makes them hypocrites.

I think Graham should be praying that the truth comes out during the impeachment process and whatever the truth is the elected members of Congress see the truth clearly – and act on it.

BRAWL OF THE WILD:

Don’t forget to vote in The Western Word poll that asks, “Which team will win Saturday’s Brawl of the Wild football game, the University of Montana Grizzlies or the Montana State University Bobcats?”

Click HERE to vote.

The results will be released Friday.

 

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