2016 July 17^th

We will hear much ado about the Republican Convention in the next few days. The platform has been co-opted by the far right of the Party; James Dobson of the Family Research Council is in the driver’s seat. There are some parts of Dobson’s platform with which Trump is certainly not in agreement: Foremost is the Republican Party edict, ala Dobson, denying women abortion under any and all circumstances, including rape, incest and the mother’s life. Trump, on the other hand, is on record as permitting these exceptions. How will this be resolved? Will Trump discover a belittling name for Dobson; Dumbo Dobson comes to mind, but I’m sure Trump needs no help with his unique brand of name calling.

There are other issues with the platform as well: With its sharp move rightward under Dobson it is not surprising that the platform opposes gay marriage. In this case, Trump agrees with them. He favors traditional marriage…well no, after all he has been married three times, with at least one child from each marriage, so it would be more exact just to say that he opposes gay marriage. The Republican Platform and Donald Trump may be on the same side of this issue, but the majority of the American people are on the other side. The latest Pew Research poll shows that 65 percent of Americans support gay marriage and that percentage has been increasing.

Then we have a novel counter-factual position: the platform asserts, with no supporting evidence other that its regional popularity, that coal is “clean energy.” They also want “religion to be a guide when legislating,” OK, who needs the First Amendment anyway? There should be no restriction on the sale of the infamous AR-15 and its look-a-likes; nor any restrictions on the magazine capacity of these weapons. Thus does the pro-life party advance its pro-life agenda.

The platform does recognize an immediate public health crisis: it is pornography; not the Zika virus, not MERSA, not cancer, but pornography. I have trouble envisioning anyone dying of pornography but then I’m not a real doctor.

On another and totally unrelated…but still interesting topic: My friend has a son who is employed by the World Bank. He is based in Turkey and flies all over that part of the world analyzing businesses subsidized by the World Bank. He survived the recent nastiness, both the airport massacre and the attempted military coup. He was recently assigned to investigate a business in Gaza. He flew in to Israel without incident, took in some of the typical tourist venues and then picked up another World Bank employee, a Palestinian woman, and headed for Gaza. At the border his colleague, the Palestinian woman was obliged to leave the vehicle, walk across the border and then re-enter the vehicle. The Israelis, whom we subsidize to the tune of 3 billion a year, feel this regulation is necessary for their country’s security.