On Friday, a 57 year old man walked up to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs and commenced to become another in a long list of American mass shooters.  When he was done, three were dead and nine were hospitalized.  We don’t know what motivated him yet, other than his mention of “baby parts.”

We do know that pro-life tweets were flying afterward in reference to the lives the gunman saved through his act of violence. These idiots theorized the domestic terrorist may have stopped some abortions somehow.  How ironic?  Pro “life” people publicly applauding death.  The pro-life movement’s leaders slowly condemned what happened, though the apparent connection to the now confirmed doctored videos on “baby parts” has not been mentioned.  Only silence has come from the GOP presidential candidate fleet.  Their condemnation would go a long way toward proving these pro-life leaders are actually among the living themselves.

Last week, a spokesperson for the Family and Social Services Adminstration gave a regrettable interview to Andi TenBarge of The Statehouse File.  The spokesperson was recorded stating that no Syrian refugees were scheduled for arrival in Indiana.  The interview was given the day Governor Pence suspended the refugee resettlement program.  The suspension not affecting any families already in the queue was certainly a relief.  Except that the statement was incorrect.

The next day, FSSA sent a letter to Exodus Refugee Immigration informing them that the family set to arrive in two days would need to be redirected.  The unfortunate comment the day prior implies that the administration had not properly vetted the situation before suspending the program.  How ironic?  Suspending a federal program due to its inadequate vetting, by not adequately vetting it at the state level.

In the Saturday Indianapolis Star, readers were treated to a column by conservative Pulitzer Prize winner, Charles Krauthammer.  The topic: Syrian refugees generally.  After the standard bashing of Democrat foreign policy and President Obama specifically as the cause of the current “crisis,” he goes on to point out a serious political problem for the GOP.

He describes the GOP presidential candidates as “chasing the polls” in their grandstanding of the anti-refugee, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab rhetoric.  He accurately describes the sentiment for what it is, and then declares that it won’t play well in the general election.  How ironic?  A GOP cheerleader describing a primary fight where his candidates are in a death match of checkers, just so the winner can then get creamed in the Fall playing chess.

And finally, some politically active friends of mine distributed an essay of sorts written by a paranoid think tanker at the National Review that really needs addressed.  Andrew C. McCarthy wrote this crazed diatribe on the evils of the Sharia Muslims and their apparent plot to overthrow the American government through the refugee program.  The rant was not just about the Syrians, but how the slow and methodical infiltration of Muslims in American society will eventually lead to “our” demise.

Mr. McCarthy writes:

“Vetting only works if you vet for the right thing. Washington, in its delusional Islamophilia, vets only for ties to terrorism, which it defines as “violent extremism” in purblind denial of modern terrorism’s Islamist ideological moorings. As the deteriorating situation in Europe manifests, our actual challenge is Islamic supremacism, of which jihadist terrorism is only a subset.”

That is paranoid crap.  He needs to spend a month with an American Muslim family, if any would have him, and then write another essay on the experience.

Did I forget the ironic part of this one?  Not at all.

Last weekend, my wife and I went to see the movie “Spotlight.”  This is the movie that chronicles the reporters at the Boston Globe that dug into and uncovered the systemic engagement in sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, and the Church’s shameful history of covering it up. It’s been a while since I went to a movie that ended with applause.  Yes, the movie is that good.

The irony though is that for the last two weeks in particular, the American people have been listening to politicians talk about why we should be afraid of Islam.  While I was watching the movie last weekend, I couldn’t help thinking this thought repeatedly:

Religions are full of people.  And people sometimes do terrible things.  This applies to all religions, including yours and mine.

In the movie, the victims of the abuse described the abuse as feeling like it was being done by God.  It was emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, but many of us overlooked the spiritual nature of the abuse.  That is a whole new level of evil in my opinion.  And the uncovering of this long shameful episode in human history only started thirteen years ago.  The victims are still living among us, all over the world.

So how do these problems reach resolution?

The shooter in Colorado is going to be dealt with by our system of justice.

I have faith that the states who have suspended their refugee programs will get their acts together and will soon return to the America I used to know.

The people of this country will ultimately reject the awful GOP presidential candidates at the top of their polls if the GOP is crazy enough to nominate any of the top three or four.

And Mr. McCarthy probably has already started his next ridiculous rant that only a mother or a reader with a limited vocabulary can blindly agree.  At least I hope he has, now that I have identified him.

After all, irony can be very predictable, when we exercise looking for the signs.