|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Our Congressman, Eric Swalwell, seems determined to pander to the mainstream media and give them special treatment.
He introduced a genuinely silly bill that would make attacks on news reporters a federal crime. Doing so, he decried the atmosphere that President Trump has created with his attacks on “fake news.”
As one who has observed and worked in the industry for decades, the President is right on some of his labels of fake news — think single un-named sources that are treated as front page or lead stories on broadcasts.
What’s truly absurd is that Swalwell only cites a few cases. It’s a non-issue unless you want to make points with the left.
It also continues to wrong-headed practice of singling out crimes against certain groups or individuals for special treatment. We’re not talking violent crimes or using a gun — the best example is the “hate crimes.”
Assaulting a person already is a crime in local jurisdictions. There’s no need for the federals to get into it.
Swalwell should withdraw the bill — as should his co-sponsors, among them Ro Khanna, the representative for Fremont and the South Bay.
When it comes to legislators thinking they know better in this nanny state, consider the bill to ban tackle football until high school that was introduced this month by two Democrats.
Kevin McCarthy (Sacramento) and Lorena Gonzalez (San Diego) think Sacramento knows better than the kids’ parents.
It’s a typical example — you see it all of the time in the public schools — of “experts” or bureaucrats who think they know more what students need than do their parents.
When it comes to football, an extracurricular — thus optional — activity, the Legislature should but out. This should be a parent decision.
That’s not to say there are no hazardous to playing football — face it, there are hazardous to living, whether it’s driving on the highway, riding a bike, sliding down a ski slope or scaling a rock face.
An internet search on average number of injuries between 2002-2014 showed basketball topping the list with 119,589, followed by football at 188,886. Other sports and the numbers: soccer (45,475), baseball (27,208), gymnastics/cheerleading/dance (22,671), wrestling/boxing/martial arts (18,174), softball (18,119) and volleyball (14,304). This did not consider the number of participants, but it is interesting that wrestling and the martial arts had fewer injuries than cheerleading, dance and gymnastics.
Thinking about severe injuries that drew headlines recently, I can recall a college school player who died from a head injury after heading the ball and the recent case of a high school wrestler who was paralyzed in action.
Here’s hoping the hysteria surrounding the football injuries does not turn into a publicity gathering stampede, although the bill did receive some national attention.