Brexit, budget, and the KKK: Today's news for March 13th

Yahoo News (AFP):

Brexit set to begin as bill enters final stages

Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to trigger Brexit this week by formally informing the European Union of Britain's intention to leave the bloc, sending her country into uncharted waters.

The legislation empowering May to put Britain on a course that no member state has ever taken returns to parliament for its final stages on Monday as European capitals prepare for mammoth negotiations.

After heated debate and a delay in the upper House of Lords, the bill could win final approval by both Houses by Monday evening -- leaving May's path clear to begin Brexit whenever she wants.

The prime minister promised months ago to invoke Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, starting the two-year withdrawal process, by the end of March.

Last week she expressed her impatience, telling reporters at a Brussels summit: "Our European partners have made clear to me that they want to get on with the negotiations, and so do I."

It is fascinating how the article says the Brexit will send Britain "into uncharted waters". It isn't like Britain was ever autonomous before.

End sarcasm, and move on to other news...

Washington Post:

Trump budget expected to seek historic contraction of federal workforce

President Trump’s budget proposal this week would shake the federal government to its core if enacted, culling back numerous programs and expediting a historic contraction of the federal workforce.

This would be the first time the government has executed cuts of this magnitude — and all at once — since the drawdown following World War II, economists and budget analysts said.

The spending budget Trump is set to release Thursday will offer the clearest snapshot of his vision for the size and role of government. Aides say that the president sees a new Washington emerging from the budget process, one that prioritizes the military and homeland security while slashing many other areas, including housing, foreign assistance, environmental programs, public broadcasting and research. Simply put, government would be smaller and less involved in regulating life in America, with private companies and states playing a much bigger role.

This sounds great, but will the budget still be spending less? Color me cynical.

Finally, in my home state of Georgia...

Washington Post:

In Georgia, reaction to KKK banner is a sign of the times

DAHLONEGA, Ga. — The mayor was still home when his phone started ringing. The reverend was still down with the flu when he began getting one message after another. Valerie Fambrough had just dropped off her daughter at day care when she heard.

“Have you seen the sign in the square?” a parent asked her on a cold morning three weeks ago. “There’s a Ku Klux Klan sign in the town square.”

And, in fact, there was. Just past the old brick courthouse and across the street from candy stores and antique shops, a large rectangular banner was screwed tight into the cracked wood siding of a long-vacant building on East Main Street. “Historic Ku Klux Klan Meeting Hall,” it said.

It had a cartoonish drawing of a white-sheeted person raising a hand. In addition, there was a Confederate battle flag at one corner of the building and a red flag with a white cross and the letters KKK at the other. They were fluttering in the wind blowing across Dahlonega, and what happened next would become one more pocket of America dealing with a disturbing incident at a time when hate crimes have been on the rise and new brands of white nationalism have been making a comeback across the country.

They are comparing this to a hate crime? Only a northeastern liberal rag like the Washington Post could make that connection. This is more like Barney Fife's wife took up sign-making:

By evening, though, people had found out who was really responsible: It was one of their own, an 84-year-old white woman named Roberta Green-Garrett, the owner of the building in question who lives in a brick mansion with four white columns on a hill overlooking the town.

Offering no explanation and declining to speak with reporters, she had told town officials that she had allowed the banner to go up and might try to put it up again. She had been seeking permission to build a hotel on the square, and people speculated that it was all an audacious ploy to embarrass the town into approving her plans.

Seriously, this has all the plot points of a southern-based sitcom.

This description of Dahlonega was spot-on:

All over town that first day, people kept saying this was not the Dahlonega they knew.

“Our little pocket of loveliness” is how one resident described the former gold mining town an hour north of Atlanta, known for its redbrick square lined with antique shops and wine tasting rooms. It was the seat of Lumpkin County, which did not have the reputation for racial violence that many other north Georgia counties did, though no one disputed that there were probably Klan members scattered around. It was overwhelmingly white and Republican, though Dahlonega itself was home to a small, if deeply rooted, black population, and had in recent years attracted a more liberal crowd who considered themselves part of the progressive South.

I used to live in Dawsonville for 11 years, which was just south of Dahlonega. Dahlonega was the picture perfect definition of "small rural town in Georgia". Nothing much happens there, so an old lady putting up a KKK sign in order to rile up the townsfolk into letting her build a hotel sounds more like small town high jinks than any kind of "hate crime".

Naturally, the Leftists got hold of this and started protesting:

To paraphrase Charlie Daniels, Leftist insanity went down to Georgia, and clearly claimed a few souls.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for a good protest against real racism. But this situation doesn't even remotely approach that. This is a silly incident followed by an overreaction from politically correct ninnies. Fortunately, the Washington Post is here to blow it all out of proportion.