Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent
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The Washington Football Team (WFT) plans to announce its new name on February 2, 2022. The team, which plays American football, was founded in 1932 as the Boston Braves. It changed its name to the Boston Redskins the next year and played under that name until 1937. It then moved to Washington, D.C., and became the Washington Redskins.

In 2020, the team announced that it would retire the Redskins name and would be called the Washington Football Team until a permanent name could be chosen. Redskins is a term that refers to American Indians (Native Americans) and is now generally considered offensive.

Following are ten suggestions for new names for the WFT:

  1. Washington Wombats
  2. DMV Lines
  3. Washington Cronies
  4. District Dumbasses
  5. Capitol Insurrectionists
  6. Columbian Filibusteros
  7. D.C. Swamp Rats
  8. National Embarrassments
  9. Montreal Expos
  10. The Manifest Destinies

Justice Breyer to Retire

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Justice Stephen Breyer

United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has announced that he plans to retire at the end of the court’s current term.

Breyer was appointed by President Bill Clinton (D) in 1994 after Justice Harry Blackmun’s retirement. He was confirmed by a 87-9 vote in the United States Senate. Breyer is regarded as part of the “liberal” wing of the court and has tended to follow the “living constitution” school of jurisprudence.

President Joe Biden (D) has the constitutional authority to nominate a replacement for Breyer, and that nomination must be confirmed by the Senate. Biden is likely to appoint another “liberal,” so Breyer’s retirement is unlikely to result in significant changes to the ideological balance of the court.

Biden has promised to nominate a black woman to the court. In the public and private sectors it is usually illegal to hire on the basis of race or sex, but antidiscrimination laws do not apply to presidential appointments.

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The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) bears primary responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic. Even if the virus itself developed naturally, the PRC’s actions in the early days of the outbreak guaranteed that the world would never have any real chance of stopping it.

First they denied that anything was happening. Then, when they couldn’t deny it anymore, they lied about how serious it was and refused to let outside experts join the investigation or have access to critical data. They used their corrupting influence to undermine the World Health Organization, which became little more than a public relations mouthpiece for the Chinese regime’s lies. Even now, the PRC refuses to cooperate in any meaningful way with investigators trying to analyze how this all happened—how a bat virus conquered the world—and how we can stop it from happening again.

There’s no way to know if the SARS-CoV-2 virus could have been contained in Wuhan. Perhaps, if China had done everything right and the world had been able to impose travel restrictions months earlier than they did, we might have been able to prevent all of this. And if containment was truly impossible, we would at least have bought some more time . . . time to prepare, time to develop the vaccines, and time to learn how to protect the most vulnerable populations without shutting everything down.

The world needs to hold China responsible. But it won’t. As the pandemic comes to its ignominious, whimpering end, that much is clear. So let’s do the next best thing. Let’s send our individual bills to China. Here’s a fillable PDF form you can use:

Read more . . .

Virginia House of Delegates, Special, 2022

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A special election will be held on January 11 to fill a vacancy in the 89th district of the Virginia House of Delegates. I make the following recommendation in that race:

  • 89th District: Former Delegate Jay Jones (D-VA 89th) resigned in December. Giovanni Dolmo (R) and Jackie Glass (D) stand as candidates to replace him. I recommend voting for Giovanni Dolmo.
TapTheForwardAssist [CC BY-SA 4.0]
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On January 6, 2021, I watched on television as a mob of rioters climbed the steps of the United States Capitol, broke its windows, ripped apart its doors, stormed the building, vandalized it, terrified the public servants who work there, assaulted law enforcement officers, and desecrated some of the highest symbols of the American republic. It is one of the saddest things I’ve seen in many years.

Don’t misunderstand me. The storming of the Capitol in 2021 was not even half as severe as the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in 2001 . . . or, for that matter, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941, or the burning of Washington, D.C., by the British in 1814. Comparison to these events is, at best, historically ignorant. This was no republic-shaking “insurrection.” It was a riot . . . a big, stupid, hurtful, pointless riot. The only thing that made it significantly worse than the other riots that plagued the nation over the year prior was the prominence of the place it targeted.

It deserves unequivocal condemnation. Aimless destruction of property is not an acceptable response to any problem, whether real or imagined. I don’t care if your riot is labeled “Stop the Steal” or “Black Lives Matter.” It’s wrong. It hurts the cause it is supposed to be supporting and, worse, it hurts innocent people.

Read more . . .

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.