Texans Sing Same Song, 2nd verse, 2nd verse Same as the 1st

One thing you can’t hide, is when you’re crippled inside.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott leaves the podium after speaking at the 11th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast May 7, 2015 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Washington, D.C. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn)

Texas Guvnah Greg Abbot is a goddamn moron, a cruelly incompetent, and corruptly selfish son-of-a-bitch, fucking liar and idiot, whose brain is apparently as crippled as his withered, useless legs.

Cow turds have some nutrient fertilization value for soil, and when dried, can even be burned; whereas on the other hand, he has no value whatsoever.

Texans will have to burn more cow turds to keep warm, since your sorry-ass governor can’t even keep the goddamn lights turned on. But, that’s what you wanted, because you voted for more of it. So, enjoy your fill until January 19, 2027.

And be certain to thank the Electric (Un)Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), a “membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, governed by a board of directors and subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature.” They’re similarly corrupt, inept, and in the pockets of the Repugnicunt state legislature, and executive office.

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Frustrated Texans Endure Winter Storm With No Power, No Heat

Thursday, 02 February 2023

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Thousands of frustrated Texans shivered in homes without power for a second day Thursday, most of them around booming Austin, and fading hopes of a quick fix stirred grim memories of a deadly 2021 blackout after an icy winter storm across the southwestern U.S.

The freeze has been

Repugnicunts Want to RUIN the U.S. Economy

repugnant — incompatible, inconsistent, hostile, distasteful, contradictory, abhorrent, obnoxious, odious; originates directly from the Latin term repugnantem (nominative case repugnans), present participle of repugnare, meaning “to resist, fight back, oppose; disagree, be incompatible.”

repugnant (adj.)

early 15c., repugnaunt, “hostile, opposed; contrary, inconsistent, contradictory,” from Old French repugnant “contradictory, opposing” or directly from Latin repugnantem (nominative repugnans), present participle of repugnare “to resist, fight back, oppose; disagree, be incompatible,” from re- “back, against, in opposition” (see re-) + pugnare “to fight” (from PIE root *peuk- “to prick”).

The meaning “distasteful, objectionable” is from 1777; that of “offensive, loathsome, exciting aversion” is by 1879.

cunt (n.)

“female intercrural foramen,” or, as some 18c. writers refer to it, “the monosyllable,” Middle English cunte “female genitalia,” by early 14c. (in Hendyng’s “Proverbs” — ʒeve þi cunte to cunni[n]g, And crave affetir wedding), akin to Old Norse kunta, Old Frisian, Middle Dutch, and Middle Low German kunte, from Proto-Germanic *kunton, which is of uncertain origin. Some suggest a link with Latin cuneus “wedge” (which is of unknown origin), others to PIE root *geu- “hollow place,” still others to PIE root *gwen- “woman.”

The form is similar to Latin cunnus “female pudenda” (also, vulgarly, “a woman”), which is likewise of disputed origin, perhaps literally “gash, slit” (from PIE *sker- “to cut”) or “sheath” (Watkins, from PIE *(s)keu- “to conceal, hide”). De Vaan rejects this, however, and traces it to “a root *kut-meaning ‘bag’, ‘scrotum’, and metaphorically also ‘female pudenda,’ ” source also of Greek kysthos “vagina; buttocks; pouch, small bag” (but Beekes suspects this is a Pre-Greek word), Lithuanian kutys “(money) bag,” Old High German hodo “testicles.”

Hec vulva: a cunt. Hic cunnus: idem est. [from Londesborough Illustrated Nominale, c. 1500, in “Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies,” eds. Wright and Wülcker, vol. 1, 1884]

First known reference in English apparently is in a compound, Oxford street name Gropecuntlane cited from c. 1230 (and attested through late 14c.) in “Place-Names of Oxfordshire” (Gelling & Stenton, 1953), presumably a haunt of prostitutes. Used in medical writing c. 1400, but avoided in public speech since 15c.; considered obscene since 17c.

in Middle English also conte, counte, and sometimes queinte, queynte (for this, see Q). Chaucer used quaint and queynte in “Canterbury Tales” (late 14c.), and Andrew Marvell might be punning on quaint in “To His Coy Mistress” (1650).

“What eyleth yow to grucche thus and grone? Is it for ye wolde haue my queynte allone?” [Wife of Bath’s Tale]

Under “MONOSYLLABLE” Farmer lists 552 synonyms from English slang and literature before launching into another 5 pages of them in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. [A sampling: Botany Bay, chum, coffee-shop, cookie, End of the Sentimental Journey, fancy bit, Fumbler’s Hall, funniment, goatmilker, heaven, hell, Itching Jenny, jelly-bag, Low Countries, nature’s tufted treasure, penwiper, prick-skinner, seminary, tickle-toby, undeniable, wonderful lamp, and aphrodisaical tennis court, and, in a separate listing, Naggie.] Dutch cognate de kont means “a bottom, an arse,” but Dutch also has attractive poetic slang ways of expressing this part, such as liefdesgrot, literally “cave of love,” and vleesroos “rose of flesh.”

Alternative form cunny is attested from c. 1720 but is certainly much earlier and forced a change in the pronunciation of coney (q.v.), but it was good for a pun while coney was still the common word for “rabbit”: “A pox upon your Christian cockatrices! They cry, like poulterers’ wives, ‘No money, no coney.’ ” [Philip Massinger: “The Virgin-Martyr,” Act I, Scene 1, 1622]

See also: https://qz.com/1045607/the-most-offensive-curse-word-in-english-has-powerful-feminist-origins

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And, given the opportunity, Repugnicunts would ruin the U.S. economy.

Even now, in the opening days of the 118th Congress, there’s talk among Repugnicunts of eliminating the Federal Income Tax, along with all other forms of Federal tax, and replace it with a 30% Value Added Tax.

If you think inflation is a bugbear now, just add 30% to it, and see what it’s like. Repugnicunts are such morons.

The reason why, is because that’s what they want to do:

TEAR IT ALL DOWN.

Not repair, not rebuild, not reinforce, not improve efficiency… but TEAR IT DOWN — and hope for the best, then sell off to the highest corporate bidder the skeletal remains.

For example, NOT A SINGLE REPUGNICUNT in the House or Senate voted for Pandemic Economic Relief.

Had the American people not had that money, our economy would have melted down, and suffered a depression even worse than the Great Depression.

But, it didn’t.

In fact, it didn’t even have a recession.

Not even.

So, when the Repugnicunts cry and whine about national debt, not only are they TOTALLY missing the boat, they’re missing the BIG PICTURE.

And here’s the odd thing about it:

They want to cut spending, but don’t want to pay for it — they do NOT want PayGo, or pay-as-you-go. And if they had their way, they’d let America default on its “loans.”

But, there’s an even BIGGER picture that few, if any, ever talk about, and certainly, most probably don’t even understand it. This entry will try to correct that.

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“…the U.S. government’s ability to borrow.”

U.S. To Max Out On Debt Soon, Setting Up Political Fight

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government is on track to max out on its $31.4 trillion borrowing authority as soon as this month, starting the clock on

Here’s One Easy Peasy Way to Find Truth

Representative Jim Jordan-R,OH4

Have you recently read any crap on Twitter?

It’s much too easy to read plenty of phony baloney malarkey on Twitter.

Of course, that’s not very difficult to do now that Elon Muskrat is actively burning down that house, and welcoming Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, Big Lie promoters, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and other such ilk on board… again.

Here’s but one statement which I recently read on that social media dumpster fire:

“Incoming House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has not authored, sponsored, nor passed one piece of legislation in his 17 years in Congress.”

Of course, there were other surrounding contextual words and remarks, some of which were opinion, others fact (sounds vaguely familiar, eh?), and it was quite obvious that the author had no love lost for Ohio’s 4th Congressional District Republican Representative.

And frankly, neither have I lost any love for that lunatic.

But, on its face, such a claim — that Jim Jordan has

Mitt Romney Was Correct

Mitt Romney’s remark made at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines in 2011, that ‟Corporations are people, my friend,” was then, and remains even now, painfully accurate.

His explanation, however was an abysmal failure, and came nowhere close to explaining why ‟Corporations are people, my friend.”

Essentially, ‟Corporations are people, my friend,〞because their articles of incorporation state something to the effect that they can “… to wit, to do any thing a natural person could do…” That is known as “artificial personhood.”

Cornell University writes the following about artificial personhood, which may sometimes also be referred to as legal personhood, though the two are not always interchangeable — a Natural Person is also always Legal Person, but a Legal Person is not always a Natural Person — which is why there is a differentiation made with Natural Person, and the term “Artificial Person” is much more simple, and descriptive:

“An artificial person is also known as a juridical person; it has a legal name and has certain rights, protections, privileges, responsibilities, and liabilities in law, similar to those of a natural person. In other words, an artificial person is a non-human legal entity that is not a single natural person but an organization recognized by law as a fictitious person. In the United States, an artificial person usually refers to “any entities established under the law of the United States, any foreign country, or a state, province, territory, possession, commonwealth, or dependency of the United States or any foreign country, and as to which the government, state, province, territory, possession, commonwealth or dependency must maintain a record showing the entity to have been established.” Specifically, in a business sense, an artificial person is any form of business association and any other non-governmental legal organization, including a profitable or non-profitable corporation, partnership, limited liability company, association, trust, or unincorporated organization.”

The United States Supreme Court has reinforced that sense of personhood by and through their decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which was issued January 2010, which supported the notion of artificial personhood, and granted additional rights to corporations, but few, if any, of the responsibilities.

Some rightfully call it the “money is free speech” ruling, and the primary problem with such a belief, ruling, or ideology, is that, if it is true that money is free speech (it is not), then the poor man has none, and the Constitution was written for all, equally, and so, in that sense, at the very least, the ruling violates the Equal Protection Clause, and the First Amendment.

The essence of the case is summarized as;

Holding: Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and the government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections. While corporations or unions may not give money directly to campaigns, they may seek to persuade the voting public through other means, including ads, especially where these ads were not broadcast.

Judgment: Reversed, 5-4, in an opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy on January 21, 2010. in a 5-4 decision with an opinion written by Justice Kennedy. Justice Stevens dissented, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor.

There are other cases, of course, and this one didn’t just suddenly appear out of nowhere. There were other precedents which prepared the way for it, among which were:

• Buckley v. Valeo (aka The Court’s First Big Mistake) (1976)
• First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (aka The Citizens United of the 1970s) (1978)
• Federal Election Commission v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life (aka The Nonprofit Case) (1986)
• Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (aka The Good One) (1990)
• Citizens United v. FEC (aka The Worst Decision Since Dred Scott) (2010)
• Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett (aka The Public Financing Case) (2011)
• McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (aka The Nightmare Continues) (2014)

But, to be absolutely certain, the problem can be traced back even further, to the Civil War era, when before that time, corporations were held to account by focusing upon the Chief Executive who was responsible, and accountable for all aspects of operations, and any failures fell squarely on their shoulders alone. Power and responsibility were natural complements of each other. After changes in laws were made, power and responsibility were separated, and power was concentrated at the top, but responsibility was diffused throughout the organization, so that no one person could be held to account — all the power, and all the perks that came along for the ride, but all the responsibilities were left at the train station.

That all came to a metaphorical head with the collapse of Enron, a once-high-flying Ponzi scheme bankruptcy of an energy company based in Houston, Texas which was founded and headed by the now-late Ken Lay (1942-2005). That firm’s collapse and subsequent bankruptcy was one of the largest instances of corporate fraud then to have occurred in America, and illustrated how the divorcement of power from responsibility was a formula for disaster. Healthsouth, another firm caught up in such a scheme, in which “cooking the books,” i.e., purposely, deceptively, and fraudulently making falsified entries in the firm’s accounting, most often for the purpose of driving up (artificially inflating) the company’s stock prices, which in turn benefited the executives, primarily, but others who may, or may not, have been somewhat privy to the acts… which, at that time, were not in and of themselves illegal, per se, though they were most certainly frowned upon by reputable accounting firms, Wall Street, and others.

Congress put a screeching halt to such abuses by writing legislation requiring the CEO to personally sign for the authenticity and accuracy of all corporate accounting and reports. And that was just a scratch up upon the surface of corporate greed and corruption, which remains prevalent today, more so now in the form of avarice (greed gone wild), than anything else.

Corporate avarice is also the single greatest problem in our nation’s economy, with one very minor example being the difference between the CEO’s pay, and their average employee’s pay — who, on average, made over 350 times the average employee’s pay. In 1989, the average differential was 61 to 1.

In fact, research performed by the Economic Policy Institute found that from 1978 to 2020, increases in CEO compensation far outstripped growth of either the Standard & Poor’s stock market index – 817%, exceeded by 6 times the increases in top income earners’ gains, and grew, on average, 1322%.

Meanwhile, in that same period, the typical employee’s annual compensation only grew a paltry 18%.

When it comes to Wall Street and BIG BUSINESS, it’s more for them, less for you.

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‟Corporations are people, my friend.〞

by Mark LeVine, Director of the Program in Global Middle East Studies at UC Irvine
12 August 2011

Mitt Romney’s friendliness to corporations excuses them from bearing the responsibilities endowed upon them by the rights they are given as ‘persons’ under US law [AFP]

Thank God for Mitt Romney.

In a moment of candour he likely thought would win him much needed support from the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, the presidential candidate explained his thinking to a heckler – who asked why

Thank A Republican

If you enjoy your electrical power from TVA, and all the other associated benefits that have come along for that ride, such as regional economic development, improved health, care & quality of life, etc., you can thank a Republican.

That man would be Nebraska Republican U.S. Senator George W. Norris (1861-1944), who served 5 terms in the House (10 years), and 5 terms in the Senate (30 years), the last term of which he became an Independent, and was defeated for re-election in 1942.

George W. Norris as a newly elected U.S. Senator, 1912.

Senator Norris was also a member of a somewhat contrarian group in the House of Representatives that, in 1910, brought reform to its practices, by reducing the autocratic control which the Speaker of the House then had.

He also authored the 20th Amendment, which abolished so-called “lame duck” Congressional sessions, fought for presidential primaries, and direct election of Senators.

He also saved TVA from being sold — more accurately, prevented Wilson Dam in the Muscle Shoals area of Northwest Alabama from being sold — to one of the wealthiest industrialists of his era, which POTUSes Coolidge and Hoover (especially), both GOPers, wanted to sell to private enterprise, bidding in which Alabama Power (part of Atlanta, GA HQ’d Southern Company) was a strong contender.

That man was Henry Ford.

In the May 22, 1920 edition of The Dearborn Independent, a Henry Ford publication also known as The Ford International Weekly, Henry authored a front-page article entitled “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem” that was later translated into several languages and distributed widely.

Interestingly enough, Henry Ford was a rabid anti-Semite Nazi sympathizer, of whom Adolph Hitler spoke fondly in a March 1923 interview with the Chicago Tribune, who said,

“Saturday Night Live” Dying A Slow, Torturous Death

Do you ever watch Saturday Night Live?

If not, don’t worry. Not many people do… any more.

Like millions of other Americans, I do NOT watch it, and rather, see but snippets of it online every now and then, and occasionally see it mentioned in various news items here, there, and yon.

The reason I ask, is because a thought occurred to me, which is that, even though it’s circling the proverbial drain, it is salvageable.

In fact, in this now seemingly not-so funny time, it could quite possibly rise beyond its highest ratings period, which was its heyday, and perhaps even surpass it. But, the writers now ALL need to be fired. Why? They’re… Just. Not. Funny.

The track the show’s been on is eventually going to land it in the graveyard, and that’s not where longtime producer Lorne Michaels would like it to end up. But, at this point, it seems all but certain. The post mortem would read: Died for lack of humor caused by bad writing.

More to the point, as I pondered the matter, a thought occurred to me:

I do not ever recall having seen any skits or jokes about,
or references to,
the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

That thought occurred to me after reading an OpEd about the committee, which lead with this sentence,

“The U.S. House’s Jan. 6 committee has performed its task with a dignity that verges on parody.”

If you’ve ever seen SNL, even once, then

Kudos to you, James Dedelow of WJOB! And shame on you, NPR!

Purdue Northwest chancellor apologizes after mocking Asian languages
A university chancellor apologized after mocking Asian languages in his speech
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/16/1143222095/purdue-northwest-chancellor-mocks-asian-language

So much bullshit.

I mean to refer to the article.

People are wearing their goddamn feelings on their sleeves, waiting for ANY opportunity to pronounce their faux dismay and disgust at some inane remark made by anyone about anything for any reason.

The chancellor referred to a portion of the commencement speaker’s remarks which may be found beginning around the :52 mark, which in context, was his statement of a silly little game he played with his grandchildren, in which he used gibberish as a concocted foreign language — and indeed, demonstrated the same numerous times throughout his address, speaking to his family, who were in attendance on the front row, and to the greater audience.

Commencement speaker: James E. “Jack” Dedelow, WJOB Radio and Founder, JEDTV

“I wanna’ first thank my family that gets to sit in the front row here, and I’ll just mention them, because when you give a speech, you gotta’ always do that, and sometimes you forget.

My wife Alexis — gave the commencement four years ago, my daughter Jackie and Tommy… my dad who went here in the late ’50s.

My son Steve, my granddaughter Lois is there.

Genie Viegal… yes, there she is.

We have a special thing, I’m supposed to play this straight, but ah… I have a thing on the air, if you ever listen.

I sometimes just roll off into a made up language, and I’ve taught it to my granddaughter, so if she starts crying, or this baby over here [gestures to his RIGHT] starts crying, I have something for them. It’s the ishgamaloofka language, and hopefully I don’t have to use it.

[continues remarks… looks to his LEFT — interrupts his remarks 58:53 with gibberish, gestures with LEFT hand as exclaiming]

Adama noris mo adis mor nisti!

[asks his family w grandchild]

Is the kid gonna’ stop?
See?
Did you see that?
Just try that!

[points with LEFT index finger to grandchild]

Just go in the shower and make up a fake language and use it on your kids. It works great.

[continues remarks, turns to LEFT and addresses his father]

My dad here, in 1959, 1960 — he’s right here. He looks… well, ah… I can say this:

[points with LEFT finger, breaks out in gibberish exclaiming]

Hadama mañyerist nor amnisti!
See?
Did you see that?
My dad here played basketball and baseball at PNW.
And he still does it today at the age of 83.

[remarks continue, and he again utters gibberish]

[upon conclusion of his remarks, he seats himself, chancellor returns to podium]

Well.. all I can say is ‘homja yayiyom, [turns to commencement speaker] bye arr.
That’s my Asian version of his… his ah…

Here’s the odd, even perverse thing about NPR’s reporting on that particular story — and it speaks, in my opinion — about fundamental hypocrisy.

But, there’s an even greater, even grotesquely bitter irony, one that many may have overlooked, including the author of the article — who, in that piece, injected her opinion — a CARDINAL sin in reporting. It was, in fact, an article wholly written about HER OPINION of one minuscule, picayune, so infinitesimally minute, and inconsequential thing, that, had it not been for the HEADLINE BLASTING HER OPINION, few, if any, would have read it.

But she, and NPR, understand what William Randolph Hearst, and Joseph Pulitzer understood quite well many years ago: Yellow Journalism gets people’s attention. Salacious garbage sells. In broadcast lingo, viewership and audience is colloquially termed “eyes on the set.” And today, in the online Internet realm, it’s called “clickbait.”

What’s saddening, is that the author most definitely has an impressive professional journalistic resume, and a first-class education, having “graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media, where she was a fully funded Roy H. Park Fellow.” So, she most DEFINITELY knows better.

Naturally, there’ll always be people who are looking for something negative to write about, and this was no exception. The university’s Associate Vice Chancellor, Kris Falzone, spoke with the Chronicle of Higher Education and said that media outlets had blown out of proportion the Chancellor’s brief utterance by saying that, “Chancellor Keon was reacting to something that the speaker had said, and it was taken out of context.”

Citing statistics provided by Purdue, the author wrote, “Purdue University Northwest reportedly accepted one of its largest and most racially diverse classes of first-time freshmen this year. A combined 2.7 percent of students identify as Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, according to the university.”

The United States Census Bureau states that Indiana’s demographic profile consists of 3.7% AAPI individuals who are broken down into subgroups as follows:

American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent 0.4%
Asian alone, percent 2.7%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent 0.1%

So, a 2.7% student body population, and a 3.7% state population are statistically insignificant, insofar as there’s only 1% difference between the two figures. But, if one genuinely wants to split hairs, that’s a 31.25% difference between the two figures. But again, as a reflection of that segment of the state’s demographics, it’s insignificant — de minimis.

If the NPR article’s author, Giulia Heyward, had bothered to watch the entire video (I do not know if she did, or did not), she would have heard Mr. Dedelow explain the reason why he does what he does — having given up a lucrative job and seats on the Chicago Board of Trade, to buy a radio station, change his cell phone number, and begin a new career path. His remarks in full, in that context, begin at the 1:04:54 mark:

“This is the part where I tell you guys something meaningful. And I’m 60 years old, I lived in a commune, I traded at the Board of Trade for 18 years. I’ve been on the radio and built a media network. And I’ve lived a life, quite frankly, of debauchery at just about all of those levels.

But I do wanna’ tell you why I sit there every day.

I get up everyday at 4 o’clock, I ride my bike over there. Sometimes

How Sick Is A Sick Party That Pushes Sick Candidates On Sick Voters?

Appearing on Alex Jones’ “InfoWars” program, Kanye West recently said, 

“I see good things about Hitler. Jewish people are not going to tell me: ‘You can’t say out loud that this person ever [sic] did anything good.’ I’m done with that. I like Hitler. The Jewish media has made us feel like Nazis and Hitler, [and] have never offered us anything of value to the world.” 

Kanye is widely known as a mentally disturbed multi-millionaire Black male entertainer whose fortune came in large part from sales of athletic footwear following modest recording successes, and now prefers to be called “Ye,” who continues supporting degenerate racist Republican madman and chronically habitual liar, the chiseler-swindler-thief, former POTUS and election-denier-in-chief, Donald Trump.

Kanye has increasingly and very publicly exhibited bizarrely erratic behavior on full display through various online social media accounts, in other public venues and ways, in 2016 and 2019 was hospitalized because of psychiatric emergency, and in 2016 was diagnosed with bipolar disorder about which he has publicly spoken, though he denied it in a public White House Oval Office meeting with the 45th President in October 2018 claiming that he was merely “sleep deprived,” yet months earlier claimed bipolar disorder was “my superpower” and on his June 2018 album cover of “Ye,” scrawled “I hate being Bi-Polar its awesome.”

His deteriorated mental health condition is painfully obvious to even the most casual of observers, and with the 2010 production of an album named “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” in conjunction with his on-again-off-again denial of the reality of his disease, refusal to treat his disease with medications, in combination with a very public divorce involving four children, his life has become an unsightly public disgrace at best, and a laughingstock and open mockery at worse.

“InfoWars” is a moronic madhouse media show of radicalized right-wing extremist conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who, despite multi-billion dollar civil judgements against him for deliberately promoting lies, continues producing his show, and has most recently filed bankruptcy in Texas following the civil judgments against him.

Alex foists numerous mind-boggling insane rants, including most notably and tragically, that the 2012 mindless mass murder massacre of 20 6-and-7 year old children, 7 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut — and his mother in her home — was a “false flag” staged stunt, a hoax performed by actors perpetrated by the Federal government in an attempt to outlaw assault weapons. Alex Jones’ lies in turn caused his followers to harass the grieving parents & siblings, including an FBI agent who had responded to the scene. The 20-year-old perpetrator Adam Lanza committed suicide on site using the AR-15 style rifle fitted with several 30 round magazines which he used to kill the children, teachers, and his mother.

Alex Jones, Donald Trump, and Kanye West… those 3 men alone are IRREFUTABLE PROOF POSITIVE that America is much, much, much more gravely mentally ill than previously imagined, that the depths of depravity which they represent are but a mere scratch on the surface, the veritable tip of the proverbial iceberg, perhaps much like the one which sank the allegedly “unsinkable” luxury cruise ship “Titanic,” again, which ironically occurred after striking an iceberg on its 1912 maiden voyage.

But we could add a 4th: Herschel Walker, another man with a well-known mentally-disordered psychiatric disorder who is equally well known for his chronically habitual lying, spousal/partner abuse, and wholesale denial that anything is wrong with him.

Having been manipulated into becoming a candidate for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat under the Republican banner by the former 45th President, Hershel Walker appears to have violated Georgia election law by claiming to be a Georgia Resident and voting in the state’s Republican primary and the Georgia November 2022 General Election, while simultaneously taking a homestead tax deduction in Texas, though “the place where he stays” is his wife’s house in Georgia.

Herschel Walker is an equally VERY SICK, SICK man, who is also a known chronic pathological liar, spousal abuser, philanderer, manipulator and all-around psychopath… much like the 45th POTUS.

BUT!

Do you know what MUCH, MUCH — even EXCEEDINGLY — worse?

A people who either cannot see, or refuse to see, the depths of Herschel Walker’s depravity and utter lack of character qualities befitting such an office, which on their face are innately inherent moral disqualifications, or either are so blindly stuck on the GOP that they’d vote for a warm piece of shit, instead of anyone else, just because it’s under the Republican banner.

Yet those sick men’s cult members cannot themselves be blamed for perpetrating and promulgating such mass evil. Their enablers are

Internal Report: Unrest in China’s “iPhone City” will cause 6 million lost iPhones

Apple Could Lose Six Million iPhones
Taipei Times
Tuesday, November 29, 2022, page 12

FACTORY TUMULT: Departure of new workers will negatively affect production much less than official governmental quarantines imposed on existing employees, said a worker at China’s ‘iPhone city.’

Turmoil at Apple Inc’s key manufacturing hub in Zhengzhou is likely to result in a production shortfall of almost 6 million iPhone Pro units this year, said a person familiar with assembly operations.

iPhone 14 Pro Max

The situation at the plant remains fluid and an estimate of lost production could change, said a person who requested anonymity to discuss private information.

Much depends on how quickly Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the Taiwanese company that operates the facility, can get people back to assembly lines after violent protests against COVID-19 restrictions. If lockdowns continue in the weeks ahead, production could be further reduced.

The Zhengzhou campus has been wracked by lockdowns and worker unrest for weeks after COVID-19 infections left Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), and the local government struggling to contain the outbreak.

Thousands of staff fled last month after

iPhone 14, Domestic Manufacture, Free Trade, International Diplomacy & National Security

Apple charges between US$799 for a basic iPhone 14, to US$1599 for a top-of-the-line iPhone 14 Pro Max model.

That’s how much you’ll pay without carrier subsidies, which are typically tied to a service contract, but…

How much does Apple pay for it?

How much does it cost them to make it?

Japanese business newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun, and Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, a Tokyo-based mobile communications equipment analysis firm, collaborated to investigate and issued a report of their findings which were based upon disassembly of three models of the iPhone 14 series, and an estimated cost analysis of the hardware components.

Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nihon sometimes also spelled Nippon), translated as “Japanese Economic Newspaper,” is Japan’s most widely respected daily business-oriented newspaper, with a total morning and evening circulation of 3.7 million.

iPhone 14 Pro Max

The report found that the total parts cost of Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro Max, their top-of-the-line model, costs about 20% more than last year’s iPhone 13. The iPhone 14 Pro series has few new features, and is powered by Apple’s A16 processor, which continues the company’s strategy of producing ultra-high performance products, yet prices in the US and elsewhere remain the same, thus ostensibly constricting, or compressing, profitability.

Since its 2018 introduction, iPhone’s flagship “Max” model has cost an extra US$400 to US$450.

Based upon their analysis, Fomalhaut estimated that the total parts price for the iPhone 14 Pro Max is approximately US$501, which is slightly US$60 more than last year’s iPhone 13 Pro Max model.

The cost increase in the iPhone 14 Pro series is primarily because of Apple’s “A16 Bionic” chip, which uses a state-of-the-art 4nm (nanometer) production process, currently only available from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC), and Samsung Electronics.

Moves Protect Intellectual Property

Headquartered in Taiwan, TSMC is the world’s largest contract chip maker, a major Apple supplier, and is constructing a US$12 billion plant in Arizona near Phoenix. Governor Doug Ducey had initially visited Taiwan in 2017, and again in August 2020 for a 3-day trip, at which time TSMC announced their intention to build a $12B chip foundry in Arizona that year, and shortly thereafter began seeking subsidies. At the time of the announcement, TSMC speculated that construction would begin in 2024.

However, in August 2022, Governor Ducey made a brief construction progress report about TSMC’s Arizona facility, and recollecting his previously visits, stated in part that, “Just over two years later TSMC has completed construction for its main facility and continues to make excellent progress. Along with TSMC’s historic investment, roughly two dozen Taiwanese-based suppliers are finding Arizona is right for investment.”

TSMC broke ground on the project March 2021 and had a ceremonial “topping” celebration, a construction industry term meaning installation of the last beam, with 4000 attendees in July 2022. The property literally went from 1100 acres of tumbleweeds to factory shells in under six months.

But not only is the construction of TSMC’s Arizona facility a win-win for the United States, it also represents a prospective national security matter, because there have been rumblings that the Communist Chinese government could seize the Taiwanese facility.

Speaking in May 2022 at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China in Beijing, Chen Wenling, Chief Economist at the Communist Chinese government-run China Center for International Economic Exchanges told attendees that, “If the US and the West impose destructive sanctions on China like sanctions against Russia, we must recover Taiwan.”

Her remarks were alarming, and appeared to encourage Chinese military assault, and she warned the attendees that

Tim Cook & Apple Computer MUTE On Human Rights Abuses In Factories

In what is rapidly becoming an International Public Relations, Marketing and Sales nightmare for Apple Computer — the world’s largest and wealthiest corporation, with a market capitalization value of at least US$2.356 Trillion — Chinese citizens in Zhengzhou, China, known colloquially as “iPhone City” for its massive manufacturing facilities owned by Foxconn, which are contracted with Apple Computer, of Cupertino, California, to manufacture the iPhone 14, and other Apple-branded consumer computer hardware — have gone on strike after having been brutally beaten by Communist Chinese police over a reneged promise made to prospective and new employees by Foxconn for their pay.

The iPhone 14, Apple’s latest and greatest model, which retails from US$799 to $1,599.00 for a top-of-the-line iPhone 14 Pro Max model, is now “behind the power curve” on holiday sales leading up to, and immediately after “Black Friday,” when many American customers nationwide reported an inability to find the product in stores, or online. The phrase is an aviation-related one, which colloquially means to be in a situation in which circumstances are beyond a locus of control, and any extra effort to play “catch up” only gets worse with each successive attempt.

“Black Friday,” of course, refers to the day immediately after Thanksgiving (which always occurs on a Thursday) in which retailers experience their greatest sales, which for many, if not the exceeding majority, accounts for a significant portion of their annual profitability, and places them “in the black,” rather than being in an indebted, or profitless condition, which is referred to as being “in the red.”

Tim Cook, Apple CEO, official portrait

The events in China’s “iPhone City” couldn’t have come at a worse time for Apple.

Matters are further complicated by the Communist Chinese government’s mandatory “shutdowns” of all public business operations, and public intercourse.

Again, ALL of this is completely outside Apple Computer’s locus of control. Yet, there are some thing that Tim Cook could do to minimize, or ameliorate, any damages, now, and in the future.

Naturally, the problem is not limited exclusively to Apple Computer, and rather, is the initialization of an avalanche-like, cascading chain of events which will reduce Apple’s profitability, as well as that of retailers nationwide.

Beyond that, it further reemphasizes what has been continually been an increasing point of contention in the United States, which is the “outsourcing’ of American manufacturing jobs —  the most notable of which is China — to nations where there are little-to-no labor laws, practically non-existent workplace safety laws or regulations, and certainly no wage standards, and neither minimum wage laws, nor collective-bargaining labor unions to represent the employees’ interests.

In short, it is the moral equivalent of — and for all practical purposes is — slave labor, because the employees in  factories in China, overseas, and in other developing nations, have no rights, nor opportunity for redress of grievances against their employer as in the United States. It is capitalism run amok. And the worst part of it all, is that it originates from within the United States.

We are now living in an era and age in which

CDA Section 230 violates Equal Protection Clause & threatens National Security

There’s been a significant amount of handwringing over remarks made by so-called “free speech” advocates who assert that anyone can say anything online “because it’s ‘free’ speech,” and ostensibly protected by the First Amendment.

I demur.

Facebook, Instagram (owned by FB), and Twitter, which are the “Big Three” online Social Media (SoMe) corporate megaliths (that is, if Twitter survives Elon Musk, if not, then TikTok may take Twitter’s place), have increasingly come under fire in the past several years — justifiably so — for turning a blind eye to bad behavior, “speech” in particular (as writing and/or video, both mediums posted on the services), thereby, in essence, becoming purveyors of lies, complicit by their inactions, in aiding and abetting actions of bad actors, consequently harming our nation — a significant portion of which continues originating in nations hostile to American national interests.

Writing in the Global Security Review, June 10, 2019, in an article entitled “Facebook, Compromised: How Russia Manipulated U.S. Voters” — the second of a four-part series — Sophia Porotsky detailed how Russia, as a malign foreign actor, sought, and continues seeking, the downfall of the United States.

“Russian Information Warfare content on social media attempts to subvert Western democracies in five ways:

1.) Undermine public confidence in democratic government;
2.) Exacerbate internal political divisions;
3.) Erode trust in government;
4.) Push the Russian agenda in foreign populations, and;
5.) Create confusion and distrust by blurring fact and fiction.

Russian propaganda on social media can be divided into four themes:

1.) Political messages intended to foster distrust in government (e.g. allegations of voter fraud, corruption);
2.) Financial propaganda (i.e. create distrust in Western financial institutions);
3.) Social issues (e.g. ethnic tensions, police brutality), and;
4.) Doomsday-style conspiracy theories.

“Information warfare content is generated and disseminated through channels that fall into three attribution categories:

1.) White (overt);
2.) Grey (less-overt), and;
3.) Black (covert) channels.

They propagate a blend of authentic, manipulated, and fake stories and they feed off of and reinforce each other.”

Among the numerous sources cited was “Russia’s Approach to Cyber Warfare,” a paper written by Michael Connell and Sarah Vogler published March 2017 by the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) — an 80-year, independent, nonprofit research and analysis organization dedicated to the safety and security of the nation that informs the decisions of Navy, Marine Corps and DOD leaders as the Department of the Navy’s federally funded research and development center — which stated that,

“Russia views cyber very differently than its western counterparts, from the way Russian theorists define cyberwarfare to how the Kremlin employs its cyber capabilities.” Part of that difference is that the Russians “conceptualize cyber operations within the broader framework of information warfare, a holistic concept that includes computer network operations, electronic warfare, psychological operations, and information operations.”

And as part of their overall operations in that realm, not only does Russia “employ cyber as a conventional force enabler,” they integrate cybercriminals, hacktivists, and other nefariously malign non-state actors into their overall operations scheme, a practice also undertaken by “China, Iran, North Korea, and other cyber adversaries.”

That information is further borne out by the writings of Professor Dr. Mark Galeotti, PhD, who in June 2022 was recently banned from travel to Russia, wrote an OpEd in the independent news journal The Moscow Times, published December 22, 2017, that, “It is hard to sustain a serious claim that NATO tanks are about to surge eastwards – though some of the Kremlin’s more fanciful propagandists do try – but the virtues of the “secret battlefield” of intelligence work is that it is precisely covert.”

Dr. Galeotti is an internationally-recognized expert in security politics, intelligence services and criminality of modern Russia, is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow of the Institute of International Relations Prague, an Associate Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy, Honorary Professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, Honorary Professor at University College London, and Executive Director and principal in Mayak Intelligence, a London-based consultancy specializing in, and primarily focusing upon understanding organized and transnational crime, war, politics and history in Russia. Dr. Galieotti is also a contributing member of the Network of Experts of the independent civil-society organization Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

The root cause of such problems, wrote David J. Smith in “How Russia Harnesses Cyber Warfare,” published in Defense Dossier, American Foreign Policy Council (August 2012: Issue 4), 9,” is inherently based in, and the natural outcome of,

Herschel Walker campaign to Trumpublicans: Stop “deceptive fundraising” in Senate runoff

Why is Herschel Walker surprised?

Seriously… WHY?

The GOP (Grand Old Party, a Republican moniker which emerged c.1854) is no more, and is not even a mere shadow of its former self. It is LITERALLY the FGOP — Formerly Grand Old Party, or OGOP, Once Grand Old Party.

Today, it’s the POT (Party Of Trump) — a natural-born liar, swindler, cheater, chiseler, defrauder, narcissistic, racist, xenophobic, duplicitous, unpatriotic, treasonously treacherous traitor who will LITERALLY DO ANYTHING to get what he wants, everyone and everything else be damned — and his servile sycophantic boot-licking, pablum-puking puerile punks.

They’re ALL ass-kissers — as POS45 (Piece Of Shit 45) described his subservient anointed Ohio Senate candidate J.D.Vance while campaigning with him September 17, 2022 saying, “J.D. is kissing my ass he wants my support so bad“ — and mendaciously monolithic morons.

The last genuine Republican may have very well been the now-late Arizona Senator John McCain who so despised POS45 that, while in his last days on Earth, still in office and dying from glioblastoma, a brain cancer that typically kills its victims within 16 months +/-, that he gave specific orders FORBIDDING PO45 from attending his funeral.

So, for Herschel Walker, that poor fool-as-a-tool used by POS45 and the OGOP — a Black man, at that — it’s just another example of how the worthless scum who fly that elephantine banner treat Americans.

The “I love the poorly-educated” voters who cast their ballots for anything with the letter “R” beside their name (which instead ought to be a “T”), are unthinking “Concrete Block Republicans” who would literally vote for a concrete block instead of anyone in any other party, demonstrating that they’re vacuous prattling imbeciles who neither think, nor attempt to think, and very much vote for anything that flies that modern political jolly roger.

Moreover, it’s ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that PO45 will be VERY MUCH trying to buy his way back into the White House, and continues demonstrating his deliberately deceptive, swindling, chiseling, cheating ways.

It’s just pure putrid MAGA effluvium on the Trump Dump garbage scow.

---

Herschel Walker’s  campaign to Republicans:
Stop〝deceptive fundraising〞in Georgia U.S. Senate runoff

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/walker-calls-gop-deceptive-fundraising-georgia-race-rcna57136
November 14, 2022, 1814 CST
By Marc Caputo

Republican politicians and associated committees are sending out desperate fundraising emails begging the GOP faithful to help save America by getting behind Herschel Walker in his Dec. 6 runoff against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia.

But what’s not immediately clear to recipients is how little of that money is going to Walker’s campaign: just a dime for every dollar given by small donors.

Walker’s campaign, which has trailed Warnock’s in fundraising throughout the election, is asking fellow Republicans to stop their fundraising practices — or at least to start sharing more with the candidate.

Herschel Walker during his Unite Georgia Bus Stop campaign rally in Norcross, GA, September 9, 2022.
Photo by Demetrius Freeman / The WaPo

“We need everyone focused onwinning the Georgia Senate race, and deceptive fundraising tactics by teams that just won their races are siphoning money away from Georgia,” said Walker’s campaign manager Scott Paradise on Monday.

“This is the last fight of 2022, and every dollar will help,” Paradise said. “The companies and consultants raising money off this need to cut it out.”

The campaign said it first noticed the problem Saturday when

States’ Economic Recovery From COVID-19 Pandemic Is Widely Varied

The good people at GoBankingRates.com have compiled a short list of “States Whose Economies Are Failing vs. States Whose Economies Are Thriving,” which was written by Certified Financial Planner and Registered Investment Adviser John Csiszar, who, following his graduation from UCLA with a B.A. in English and a specialization in Business, worked in the financial services industry for 18 years.

Mr. Csiszar also earned the Certified Life Underwriter designation, while simultaneously working for a major, full-service Wall Street broker-dealer, and forming his own investment advisory firm, which managed over $100 million in client assets, in addition to providing investment advisory services, financial planning, and other related services.

His financial specialties include performing financial analysis, risk-avoidance strategies, long-term savings techniques, capital preservation tips, personalized investment advice, and daily budgeting.

In addition to that stellar financial profile, he further demonstrated diverse entrepreneurial skills by opening and managing a boutique travel company, and is a published author of 5 educational books on topics ranging from information technology to the element aluminum which are aimed toward the young adult market. He has also written extensively for numerous renown publications, and has authored several thousands of articles on personal financial planning, and financial services.

In his most recent article for GoBankingRates.com, “States Whose Economies Are Failing vs. States Whose Economies Are Thriving,” he lists 15 states each in 2 categories: States Whose Economies Are Failing, and States Whose Economies Are Thriving. The general purpose of the article and enumeration is to examine how states are faring in their economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. By examining 60% of the 50 states, it provides a relatively decent picture of the overall state of the states, and how they are each faring as individual parts of the greater national economy.

He notes specifically that because “the U.S. is such a large country, with a wide diversity of states and economies, the recovery is

Is Charles Grassley REALLY older than the Chocolate Chip cookie?

Yes, it’s TRUE:

Iowa Republican Senator Charles “Chuck” Grassley, now aged 89, (b.1933) was born before the invention of the chocolate chip cookie (late 1930’s).

And — believe it, or else — Iowa voters returned him to the nation’s Capitol to serve warm a seat another six (6) years in the United States Senate.

So, when was the chocolate chip cookie invented?

For that answer, we find this:

“The original recipe was created in the late 1930s by Ruth Wakefield who famously ran the Toll House restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts. The delicious mix of crispy cookie and melted chocolate chunks first appeared in

A Story of American National Interests… as told by a Piece of Bacon

THIS! is honest to goodness COUNTRY BACON !!😋

THIS! is honest-to-goodness COUNTRY BACON!!😋

NONE of that mass-produced, factory-farmed, Made-in-China, Made-for-China gobbledygook.

This does NOT need refrigeration!

And, these pieces are also cooked, of course.

Oh! And you KNOW, that since 2013, Smithfield Foods, in Smithfield, VA, a formerly-American-based company, has been OWNED BY THE COMMUNIST CHINESE “Shuanghui Group” (now known as “WH Group” because it sounds more “American,” you know) because Smithfield’s Wall$teet corporate owners sold their American birthright for a paltry bowl of porridge — a mere US$4.72B.

You DO recall that China is a Communist nation, don’t you?

WH Group’s “global headquarters is strategically located in Hong Kong, with regional headquarters in China and the U.S.,” while the “Headquarters Shuanghui Development in Luohe, Henan Province,” China, and WH Group’s U.S. Headquarters of their Smithfield Foods division is in Smithfield, Virginia.

WH Group is also one of the LARGEST FOREIGN OWNERS of American farmland, with 146,000 acres, and that separate sale (as part of Smithfield’s holdings) was worth US$500M, according to the USDA.

Put another way, 146,000 acres is 228.1252 square miles… that’s nearly 20% (18.79% exactly) of the entire state of

POTUS BIDEN IDs GOP Hypocrisy & Globalization Failure

Neoliberalism’s Globalization scheme has failed… SPECTACULARLY.

And all it took was 50 years, a global pandemic, the practical decimation via “outsourcing” of the majority of the American domestic economy, an increase in homelessness, deaths of all kinds from all sources, addictions, crime, disease, mass incarceration, increase in preventable deaths from lack of healthcare, all-time high wealth dispartity, increase in poverty rates, tax cuts upon the wealthiest Americans and their corporations, after GOP POTUS Richard Nixon kissed Communist China’s Chairman Mao’s derriere through cozying up to Mao’s successor/henchman Chinese Communist Chairman Chou En-lai.

What is “neoliberalism”?

Well, one thing it’s NOT, is pro-American.

The sequence of events that led to ‘Brexit’ — a moniker referring to the British exit from the European Union — began as part of a neoliberal campaign to deregulate many previously-regulated industries, and create a ‘free market uptopia’ in the UK. They failed at every turn.

The other thing that IT IS, is a primarily a GOP-wielded tool… though, in all fairness, there have been some Democrats (like Bill Clinton) who enthusiastically supported it, along with the so-called “Three Strikes” laws which is a two-part scheme, consisting of a:

1.) School-to-prison pipeline, which then becomes a;
2.) Prison-packing scheme

— which has continuously disproportionately harmed our non-White brothers & sisters, primarily, and in that process turned America into a police state. In the United States, there are MORE TOTAL PEOPLE INCARCERATED than in all the prisons combined in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, North Korea, China, and other despotically-ruled totalitarian regimes worldwide.

Applying a “Free Market” ideology to that scenario would dictate that capacities of the prisons should not be enlarged (in order to minimize operating costs), and instead, build Wall-$treet-traded PRIVATE FOR-PROFIT PRISONS — which is a very “pro-free market” thing to do, which again, is part and parcel of neoliberal behavior, strategies, and tactics.

Yeah.

But “neoliberalism” is a hard-line “modern spin” on some old ideas, at least as interpreted by an entire cadre of moderns (most of whom are in the current era).

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy writes this about Neoliberalism, stating that neoliberalism is a:

“philosophical view that a society’s political and economic institutions should be robustly liberal and capitalist, but supplemented by a constitutionally limited democracy and a modest welfare state.”

Typically, individuals who subscribe to, and promote, such ideas often do so blindly, and unthinkingly.

Again, most — but, not all — whom have espoused, or supported neoliberal ideas have been (and are) GOPers and Radicalized Republicans.

Recall that it was Ronald Reagan who, in his first Inaugural Address January 20, 1981, stated that “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.“

The preposterous absurdity of that statement is self-evident, because if government is the problem, then the obvious solution to that problem is elimination of it (government); and the absence of government is a state of anarchy, chaos, and lawlessness. Yet, it was at that point in which radicalized Republicans who identified themselves as the “TEA Party” caucus (Taxed Enough Already), began in earnest to slowly dismantle government, bit-by-bit, piece-by-piece, and law-by-law.

POTUS Clinton was also largely sycophantic to the GOP’s destructive objective under the direction of GOP Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, when he proudly proclaimed in his January 23, 1996 State of the Union Address, that “The era of big government is over.” Yet, his go-along-to-get-along strategy proved inadequate when faced with the reality of the failures of Three-Strikes laws, creation of a school-to-prison pipeline as a private-prison-for-profit packing strategy, which incarcerated more non-Whites than Whites, especially through disparate sentencing for crack vs powder cocaine, and cannabis.

Investopedia lists these characteristics of the ideals, principles, and practices often found in neoliberal governments which often

The stock market retracted 1% yesterday and THE SKY IS FALLING!

 The way some of those clowns write, one would think the sock… er, stock market had crashed, that Mount Vesuvius had become active once again, and that nuclear war had broken out all over.

 

This is just so MUCH BULLSHIT. (Or instead, perhaps that should that be bullshittery?)

 

I mean, seriously… a 1% and a 1.6% decline?

 

Are you kidding me!?!

 

That’s a “plunge”?

It’d be like dipping the very tip of your little finger in a finger bowl moistened with a few drops of water and then claiming that you went swimming in the Pacific Ocean. 

 

If anyone went to any store anywhere and saw a sign reading “HUGE SALE! Up to 1.6% off EVERYTHING!” they’d laugh the store to shame for promoting such an asininely ludicrous bit of blatantly fraudulent puffery and nonsense.

 

The stock market is that store.

And yet,

Fetterman v Oz

Contrary to what some political pundits, prognosticators, soothsayers, and talking heads say, Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race has not “turned ugly.”

It has always been ugly.

Keystone State residents are faced with what has, once again, become a sad reality across this nation:
An extremely wealthy GOPer faces off against the Common Man.

Why people would choose someone so very unlike them to represent them is beyond the scope of imagination. But, “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me… you can’t get fooled again.”

And in that process, the GOPer merely shows their true colors. But unlike the true colors in Cindi Lauper’s song by that same title, they’re not beautiful. They’re grotesquely hideous, and a maliciously macabre mockery.

The nation saw it in Georgia with Kelly Loeffler, the unarguably wealthiest individual ever to warm a seat in the U.S. Congress — House, or Senate — whose financial net worth, with her husband Jeffrey Sprecher, owner and CEO of the New York Stock Exchage, was then valued at upwards of $800 million.

Loeffler is so very wealthy, that after she was briefly appointed by Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp to briefly fill the vacancy created by the resignation of U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson due to declining health from Parkinson’s Disease, she used Trump’s 2017 tax cuts “loophole” to purchase a fancy corporate jet — a 2010 Bombardier Challenger 300 (tail#N830EC) — for a mere $10,000,000 and claimed that she used it for campaign travel.

In fact, under Trump’s tax law changes, the entire purchase price of a new or used aircraft bought by a company can be a 100% tax deductible write-off against its earnings.

What the multi-millionairess did, was to create an “ownership trust,” which is a company that owns the plane, rather than herself personally. By so doing, it offers some degree of anonymity by giving it the appearance of being isolated from the individual(s) whom actually control it. Essentially, it’s a type of “shell company” set up exclusively for the purpose of ownership, and nothing else.

Its greatest single benefit?

It helps avoid taxes.

This has all raised its ugly head because the Oz campaign’s Senior Communications Adviser Rachel Tripp said in an interview with Business Insider published August 23, 2022, that, “If John Fetterman had ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn’t have had a major stroke and wouldn’t be in the position of having to lie about it constantly.”

Tripp is an alum of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and one would expect more from a university-educated woman like her, and certainly much, much, more from the one who hired her — Oz, a very wealthy (as in multimillionaire wealthy) retired cardiologist. Of course, Oz has his own baggage, but the difference is, he doesn’t carry his own luggage — he has a porter to carry it for him.

But Tripp’s remark not only shows ignorance, it shows Oz’s true colors… his yellow belly, and forked tongue.

While as a retired cardiologist Oz knows about Afib,

WIN Failed, But Government Cheese Won

Losing WIN, and Feeding the Poor:
Ford, Carter & Reagan have important lessons to teach us.

Remember Gerald Ford, and his WIN — “Whip Inflation Now” — campaign?

 

It was a failure.

The two premises of that effort — encouraging increased individual savings, and reducing personal spending — were not merely ineffectual, they were also justifiably ridiculed because they did absolutely nothing to lower prices.

 

In a TRULY free market economy, not only is government allowed to compete, but prices, as others and I have continually said, are controlled by the seller, NOT the buyer. The SELLER is the one setting prices. 

 

For example, if Exxon Mobil, British Petroleum, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Marathon, Valero, and Phillips 66 (in the TOP 10 largest oil companies globally by revenue) were to reduce by 25% their consumer prices of gasoline & diesel fuel (and, they could), that would significantly change, at least on some level, the volume of sales/consumption. 

 

Yet the study of economics also tells us that merely lowering prices will not always increase consumption to a certain price level. Consider bananas; if more folks ate more bananas, their prices ~might~ decline, but only modestly, and certainly not by 25%.

 

Though agricultural production has some similarities to industrial production, it fundamentally relies upon a renewable resource to satisfy demand (including an often-fickle, and increasingly angry and uncooperative Mother Nature), where as oil does not, because petroleum is a finite resource.

 

And THAT is PRECISELY WHY others and I maintain that establishing a windfall profits tax (WPT) could be used to help consumers -and- companies that rely upon petroleum for their existence, because it would return TO THE PEOPLE a ~fraction~ of the excessive portion of the rapacious profit made by Big Oil companies which are paid to their executives, overlords, and Wall Street wheeler-dealer shareholders.

 

• Congress first enacted a WPT in 1917 which ranged from

Corrupt SCOTUS Radicals’ Roots Go Through Reagan Directly To Nixon

Joker in Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. has presided over THE MOST radicalized Supreme Court in well over 100 years.

Since his nomination by then-POTUS George W. Bush, and Senate confirmation by a 78-22 margin, Roberts has demonstrated, time, and time, and time again, that he, and other radicalized SCOTUS GOPers, have no respect for the legal concept of stare decisis, precedent, or other staid legal matters, the purpose of which is to provide stability to civil society.

What do Robert Bork, and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts have in common?
To find out more, read on.

If, in the law, nothing is TRULY ever settled, and any court now, or in the future, can simply overturn any law or decision with which they disagree — regardless of how long it’s been in effect, and regardless of what their confirmation testimony was — then our nation’s foundation is insecure.

And like subterranean termites tunneling into a well-built house, practically undetected, it is showing signs that it has been undermined. And just as with termite damage, exactly how extensive it is, how severe it has become, and what repair costs will be, remains to be seen.

Since becoming Joker in Chief Justice in September 2005, he has presided over 20 reversals of opinion, some dating as far back as 1911.

That case was Leegin Creative Leather Products Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., 551 U.S. 877 (2007), which overturned the 1911 decision in Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co., 220 U.S. 373 (1911).

What do Robert Bork, and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts have in common?
To find out more, read on.

In the Leegin case, the matter brought before the SCOTUS was one of violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act through price-fixing by Leegin, which, as the court’s decision stated in the beginning, that, “in Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373 (1911), the Court established the rule that it is per se illegal under § 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1, for a manufacturer to agree with its distributor to set the minimum price the distributor can charge for the manufacturer’s goods.”

Further, the court noted that, “on appeal Leegin did not dispute that it had entered into vertical price-fixing agreements with its retailers.”

A “vertical agreement” is the integration of two or more businesses in a supply chain. A “horizontal” merger would be the combining of two or more companies that did essentially the same thing.

Vertical agreements are generally illegal because they tend to eliminate competition, create a monopoly, artificially increase prices and otherwise adversely affect a free market.

And yet, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Leegin.

Why?

This is where matters begin to show the influence of relationship and affiliation.

What is fascinating, and disturbingly telling, is that the Roberts-led radical court quoted a book on anti-trust law authored by

Grocery Co$t$ to be PERMANENTLY HIGH because of Chinese-owned $mithfield Food$

史密斯菲尔德食品

Wan Long, RIGHT, Chairman and CEO of WH Group, formerly called Shuanghui International, shakes hands with Charles Larry Pope, President and CEO of Smithfield Foods, at a press conference of WH Group in Hong Kong, China, 14 April 2014.
Two subsidiaries of Henan Shuanghui Investment and Development Co have gained access to the Russian market, after its parent company — WH Group Ltd, the world’s largest pork producer— acquired US pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc and bought a stake in Campofrio Food Group SA of Spain, the largest pan-European packaged meat products company, last year. The two Heilongjiang-based companies — Wangkui Shuanghui Beidahuang Food Co and Heilongjiang Baoquanling Shuanghui Food Industry Co — got the official nod after their production facilities and products were examined and assessed by officials from Russia’s meat products watchdog, the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, in August, Shuanghui Development said on its website. To widen its import market for meat, the Russian government agreed to import meat products from five Chinese suppliers by the end of August, indicating the nation has taken a flexible strategy to balance the supply and demand relationship, while the US and its European allies are trying to squeeze the country’s trade space in the world market.

Chinese translated as “Smithfield Food”

Amidst the cacophony of overall price inflation in fuel, food, and other items, there are numerous underlying and related causes.

There are not merely one, two, or even three contributing problems to this lingering miasma, and rather, like a line of dominoes tumbling, one after another, significantly increased prices in consumer goods are taking a toll on Americans, whose incomes — unlike those of CEOs, and other high-level corporate executives — have not risen in response.

Consider food.

The United States Department of Agriculture found national slaughter capacity reductions [i.e., the CLOSING of abattoirs/processors/slaughterhouses] in pork, and cattle, of 35-40%, and 30-40%, respectively, which have translated to hyper-inflated costs to consumers.

---

NOTE: Big Oil has done similarly. They’ve closed their oil refineries & capped wells, thereby creating a false shortage, and simultaneously INCREASED prices, resulting in record profits not seen since the 1950’s.

THAT is why fuel prices are sky high.

There is NO OTHER REASON.

The Energy Information Administration has a page dedicated to Refinery Utilization and Capacity in the United States which shows that 679 oil refineries were closed and not utilized in 2021 — the GREATEST number ever, since 1985.

For more detailed information, see this entry: https://warmsouthernbreeze.wordpress.com/2022/06/28/energy-information-administration-data-shows-how-big-oil-is-abusing-consumers/

---

But business practices, related closures and production slowdowns in abattoirs and processing facilities have their roots elsewhere in time, and policy.

On June 10th, 2022, the communist Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods announced the following:

Smithfield Foods, Inc. today announced that it will cease all harvest and processing operations in Vernon, California in early 2023 and, at the same time, align its hog production system by reducing its sow herd in its Western region. The company will decrease its sow herd in Utah and is exploring strategic options to exit its farms in Arizona and California. Smithfield harvests only company-owned hogs in Vernon. Smithfield will service customers in California with its Farmer John brand and other brands and products from existing facilities in the Midwest.

(see: https://www.smithfieldfoods.com/press-room/2022-06-10-Smithfield-Foods-to-Close-Vernon%2c-CA-Facility-Reduce-Hog-Production-in-Western-Region/)

• A little less than a year ago, in early July 2021, Smithfield settled (for $83M) a Class Action Federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota accusing it of price-fixing, and

Energy Information Administration data shows HOW BIG OIL is ABUSING CONSUMERS.

The
EXCLUSIVE REASON
WHY GAS PRICES ARE HIGH
is because
OIL COMPANIES HAVE CLOSED REFINERIES
&
REDUCED REFINERY INPUTS.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s website (https://www.eia.gov/) has a page dedicated to “Refinery Utilization and Capacity” (https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_unc_dcu_nus_a.htm) which shows that, NOT ONLY have BIG OIL companies CLOSED REFINERIES, they have also DECREASED OIL PRODUCTION (Gross Inputs to Refineries) — BOTH which have contributed EXCLUSIVELY to hyper-inflated gas prices, and bank-busting profits for BIG OIL & their stockholders.

In other words, they’ve also “capped oil wells.”

One way to INCREASE PROFITS is to PRICE GOUGE, another is to MANIPULATE THE MARKET.

BIG OIL companies are doing BOTH.

Refineries — which are owned by oil companies — have been CLOSED BY THE OIL COMPANIES, despite making bank-busting RECORD PROFITS.

Would another “government cheese” type program work today for meat?

Hearken back about 2 years, or thereabouts, when the COVID pandemic was descending into its deepest throes in our nation, when news came out of South Dakota that employees at a meat processing plant there in Sioux Falls began to suffer rampant infection with the viral disease. 

 

Around March 25, 2020, the first news of an infected employee was shared with the Argus Leader’s FaceBook-based tip page when an anonymous tip was sent that an unnamed employee had tested positive for the disease. They published the story online the next day at 0735 with the straight-forward headline “Smithfield Foods employee tests positive for coronavirus.” (see: https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2020/03/26/smithfield-foods-employee-tests-positive-coronavirus/2914475001/) 

 

The Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods, though a company spokesperson, Keira Lombardo, Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs, had confirmed to the to the paper the veracity of that claim, and asserted that the unnamed employee was being quarantined for 14 days, with pay, at their residence, and would not be permitted to return to work until given medical clearance to do so. The exceeding majority of employees there were immigrants, and refugees from all over the world – including Congo, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Nepal, with over 80 different languages spoken in the plant – most of whom did not speak English, and rumors had been circulating of other employees who had earlier fallen ill and were hospitalized with a mysterious disease. 

Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods pork processing facility in Sioux Falls, SD, where the American COVID-19 pandemic first began to escalate among immigrant & refugee employees characterized as “front-line” workers. A company spokesperson said a majority of meat they export to China are so-called “underutilized” products that are allegedly not consumed in the U.S.

 

In the 3-week period that followed, positive cases of coronavirus among plant employees rapidly escalated from 80, to 190, then to 238. And by April 12, with 644 confirmed cases, the number of infected individuals at the plant accounted for about 55% of all cases statewide, with a per capita concentration of 182.25 per 100,000 — far exceeding those of more populous neighboring states, greater even than Chicago, and Seattle — while Sioux Falls’ population was a little over 192,000. Ultimately, the number of positive cases continued skyrocketing, and eventually had at least 761 positive employees.

 

After the 1st confirmed death, and under mounting pressure from Republican Governor Kristi Noem, and Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken, both who wanted the plant to close for 2 weeks, officials at the plant announced that

Looking at Russia and Criticizing America -or- Through the Looking-Glass… Albeit, Darkly

“Russia is scouring the country for manpower and weapons, including old tanks in the Far East, after using up much of its military capacity since invading Ukraine”

see: https://twitter.com/Quicktake/status/1536830368254410756

see also: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-14/russia-turns-to-old-tanks-as-it-burns-through-weapons-in-ukraine

---

In the coming months & years, Russia will be verging on the brink of utter & thorough economic collapse. Political collapse is also all but certain, for NO NATION — including the United States — can continually sustain war/armed conflict efforts without some sort of price which they’ll pay — in one way, or another.

For us, since 2001 until this administration, in the Middle East (Afghanistan, then Iraq), we have opted to build weapons of war, over repairing & rebuilding our internal infrastructure here at home. We have quite literally “beat our ploughshares into swords, and our pruning hooks into spears.”

We have opted to subsidize the makers & builders of bombs, bullets & matériels of death, over life-giving, life-sustaining healthcare & education “to the least of these, my brethren.”

Grim Reaper statue, Cathedral of Trier, Trier, Germany

We have paid the piper, because we CHOSE to dance to the merry macabre tune of death, rather than choosing LIFE for those who are breathing, and food for the living.

We have given to the rich, and demanded from the poor, we have turned upside down & perverted the Constitution by saying “corporations are people, my friend,” and given power to them, while robbing it from The People, all while allowing the coarse grit of wealth to abrade the thin veneer of “justice” by

Big Brother is NOT the Government, it’s CORPORATIONS

Yeah… it’s fixin’ to get POLITICAL — as in ALL UP IN YO’ BIZNISS!

Almost EVERYONE complains about Congress, but not everyone votes. Some don’t for religious reasons, some don’t because that RIGHT has been voided by the government, others just don’t give a shit because they say “no one listens to me, anyway,” and for the greatest part, they’re correct. With a Representative-to-People ratio of 1-to-766,000, there’s no question — you’re NOT being heard, and they don’t care… or else ongoing & necessary would’ve happened long ago.

BUT!

There IS a group(s) who ARE listening to & watching you… all WITHOUT your knowledge.

You could call them “Big Brother,” but it’s NOT the government… it’s private enterprise — corporations not only in America, but worldwide.

Yeah.

You see,

Common Sense Gun Reform Laws

“Common sense isn’t so common, anymore,” goes one woefully pithy saying.

And, it certainly seems true — at least when it comes to matters of politics in this period.

But, exactly WHAT IS “common sense”?

Common sense could be the proverbial “moving target” which changes with every whim, and puffing wind of doctrine.

But, let’s hit the “pause” button for a moment and examine some matters surrounding firearms, aka “guns” and at least the two most recent tragedies in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX, both sites of mass murders by 18-year-old gunmen armed with AR-15 style rifles.

Campaign flyer for GOP Arkansas U.S. Representative, Jay Dickey, CD-4.

Hyperbole aside, is there ANYTHING which could have been done to have prevented either holocaust?

Quite possibly, yes.

So, let’s examine some facts, and what laws ALREADY EXIST (or not) pertaining to firearms that might have prevented such carnage, and if they were useful — or not.

First, in BOTH cases, the perpetrators were aged 18.

Second, in BOTH cases, the firearm used — an AR-15 style rifle with a high-capacity ammunition magazine — was legally purchased.

Incidentally, that was also the firearm of choice used in numerous other massacre-style killings.

With respect to the Federal Government, there is NO law requiring establishing a comprehensive database of such massacres, and because of that, there is none. The ONLY such databases are maintained by private, non-governmental entities. That should not be so.

The Department of Justice maintains all sorts of statistics about crimes, and their perpetrators, but not on matters like this.

Why not?

That’s because a GOP Representative from Arkansas’ 4th Congressional District, Jay Dickie Jr. (1939-2017), put a “rider” onto a budget item in 1996 which has since been monikered as the “Dickie Amendment” which specifically forbade the Federal Government from studying such things.

At the time of his terms in the House of Representatives, Dickie described himself as an ardent Second Amendment supporter, which essentially translated into being “the NRA’s point person in Congress,” as he later described his role in a July 27, 2012 Op-Ed co-authored with Dr. Mark Rosenberg, MD.

“One of us served as the NRA’s point person in Congress and

Let’s Talk Taxes!

We have a crazy economy, for sure.

And, it seems to be working best, and most, for the über-wealthy, the out-of-touch-with-reality “multi-billionaire class” type folks, and their corporations. You know… the ones who pay little-to-no income taxes upon their vast wealth.

Those are the ones who have no idea what a gallon of milk costs, what diapers cost, what childcare costs, and who, instead of going to Disneyland, Dollywood, or down the road for vacation, dish out million$ from their morbid exce$$ to fly to outer $pace ju$t for fun, or buy boats so big that they won’t fit under a bridge on an inland waterway where they’re built so they get the government to temporarily dismantle the historical landmark just to sail through it, etc.

We’re talking about folks like Jeff Bezos and his Amazon Corporation, Elon Musk and his Tesla/SpaceX corporations, the so-called “Oracle of Omaha” CEO of holding company Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. Warren Buffett, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google co-founders Larry Page & Sergey Brin, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and Bloomberg founder/owner Michael Bloomberg, all who round out the Top 10 Wealthiest People in America.

These are men who are individually, each worth more than the entire GDP of Iraq — U.S.$201,472,000,000 — and 163 other nations in the world.

And combined, they’re worth U.S.$1,346,600,000,000 — between the GDPs of Spain (U.S.$1,439,958,000,000) & Mexico (U.S.$1,285,518,000,000), ranked 14th & 15th, respectively, internationally, of 216 nations.

According to Forbes, their wealth is practically unimaginable, which “membership” in the Top 400 grouping now requires a minimum net worth of $2.9 billion, up $800 million from a year ago.

As well, the vast majority of them are greedy, also according to Forbes, which wrote,

“The 400 wealthiest Americans saw their collective fortune increase 40% over the last year,
to $4.5 trillion.

What hasn’t increased?

Their generosity.

The number of Forbes 400 members who gave away more than 20% of their net worth since last year’s list,
dropped from 10 to 8,
while those who gave away less than 1% of their wealth went from 127 to 156.”

Imagine that, eh?

I got mine, good luck getting yours.

They’re probably cheapskate tippers, as well. Not at all like the anonymous folks who leave a $1000 tip for a $25 meal, or skinflints who chisel the pizza delivery driver.

What an attitude, eh?

But, let’s talk about income taxes, which are not paid by such folks, who craftily, and legally — yes, legally — hide their money from the tax man through various mechanisms, some of which frankly, are abusive, such as

Vanderbilt Nurse On Trial: Will The Outcome Adversely Change Healthcare?

NOTE To The Reader:

This matter has been previously addressed in an entry dated January 28, 2019, headlined as “Vanderbilt University Medical Center Corruption.”

The subject of concern is a complex one, with many “moving parts” which most news-reporting organizations have not mentioned, nor will they. (That’s a whole ‘nother “ball of wax.”) In this entry, I will attempt to enumerate some of those important-yet-unreported situations, scenarios, their corollaries, and relationships, in order to give a more full understanding to the readers.

---

One CRITICALLY IMPORTANT MATTER is the as-yet-unreported problem in which CMS found that VUMC had 100% TOTAL responsibility for the failure that led to the patient’s death.

Yet this trial is apparently completely overlooking that matter, and the critical unitarily integrated legal principle of “respondeat superior.”

As written in the journal Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent). 2010 Jul; 23(3): 313–315., which appears online at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2900989/, in the article “Responsibility for the acts of others,” by Russell G. Thornton, JD:

“Respondeat superior embodies the general rule that an employer is responsible for the negligent acts or omissions of its employees. Under respondeat superior an employer is liable for the negligent act or omission of any employee acting within the course and scope of his employment (1). This is a purely dependent or vicarious theory of liability, meaning a finding of liability is not based on any improper action by the employer. The fact that the employer may have acted reasonably in hiring, training, supervising, and retaining the employee is irrelevant and does not provide a basis on which the employer can avoid liability for the acts of employees (1). The underlying premise of respondeat superior is that the cost of torts committed in the conduct of a business enterprise should be borne by that enterprise as a cost of doing business (2).

“An employer can also be directly liable for the negligence of its employees. This means that some negligent act or omission of the employer was a cause of, allowed, or led to the negligence of the employee, thereby causing injury to the claimant. This direct or independent liability of the employer generally arises from a claim that it negligently hired, trained, supervised, or retained the employee in question (13). These claims can also involve allegations that proper policies and procedures were not implemented or enforced and that those failures caused the injury at issue (13).

“If a member of your group acts negligently, you must expect there will be a direct liability claim for negligent hiring, training, supervision, or retention of that person. In my experience it is rare that the employee at issue in one of these claims is a longstanding, well-qualified, well-experienced, still-employed exemplary employee that simply made a mistake. More often than not, the employee involved was not very good to begin with, had been talked to before about competency-related issues, and was subsequently let go for similar reasons within 12 months or so of the incident at issue.

“The assertion of a claim against an employee also means that employee’s past experience and performance are relevant. As such, the hiring, training, supervision, and retention of that employee are relevant and discoverable. For this reason, it is imperative that problematic employees not be retained. It is also important that any concerns about employees are quickly and properly addressed and that these steps are noted in that employee’s file.”

The RN undoubtedly made a horrible mistake, a sloppy, lazy one, even, as some have previously noted.

However… the matter turns not on her carelessness, or sloppy work, per se, inasmuch as it OVERLOOKS the CMS findings of FAULT with VUMC, which agency attempted to coverup their doings and activities, by FAILING to report the matter to the appropriate regulatory agencies, State and Federal.

Further, while the RN’s admitted mistakes resulted in a death, it has NEVER been the practice of ANY law enforcement agency to prosecute any practitioner for such careless work, however “negligent” it may be.

Such matters have historically been handled by civil courts, not criminal, and by licensing and/or professional boards of practice.

At first, the TBON (TN Board Of Nursing) did NOT revoke, nor suspend (as best as I recall) her RN license… BUT! After the Davidson County DA obtained a criminal indictment, TBON reversed and rescinded their previous ruling, and revoked her RN license to practice.

Meanwhile… VUMC got off SCOT-FREE.

Not even a 10¢ fine.

VUMC was NOT punished. They only received a threat of what was essentially “fix this NOW, or else we’ll pull the plug.”

WHERE is the JUSTICE in that!?!?

Again, this is NOT to exonerate her sloppy, even careless work, but to illustrate that historically, such matters have NEVER been criminal, only civil, because there was NO MALICE involved.

---

Nurses, and the healthcare professions in general, will undoubtedly be watching the State of Tennessee’s criminal lawsuit against RaDonda Vaught, of Bethpage, TN (an unincorporated community in Sumner County, Zip Code 37022), with bated breath.

The outcome of the trial-by-jury case against her in Davidson County Superior Court in Nashville could affect the very future of the Nursing profession, and healthcare delivery in general, on a broad national scale.

The “long and short” of the matter is, that

Gas prices got you feeling pinched?

Here’s everything that Congress has done about the matter.

---

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

Yeah.

Bupkis.

Nada.

Isn’t that what Congress specializes in doing — NOTHING!?

But, in all fairness… Congress (the House) did pass legislation about hair styles.

That’s NOT a joke.

Or, is it?

H.R.2116 – CROWN Act of 2021 — “An act To prohibit discrimination based on an individual’s texture or style of hair.” — was referred to the Committees for Judiciary; Education and Labor; Budget. In a roll call vote held on 03/18/2022, the act was Passed/agreed to in House: On passage Passed by the Yeas and Nays: 235 – 189 (Roll no. 82).

And to compound problems, the Mass Media hasn’t done a good of their job of reporting on what exactly HAS been done… as in what bills have been written, and sent to committee. And there have been some, with full information — including the text of the bills — about which are linked herein to the Congress.gov website.

Of course, Republicans have little of any substance to offer except for “tax cuts,” which is their standard tune, and their answer to all of life’s problems.

Yeah.

But, do you ever get the feeling that you’re being manipulated by the Mass Media?

That’s because YOU ARE.

Is there anything else it could be called when full information and details of bills that could help We The People are purposely omitted from being reported upon?

---

In an article headlined “Gas prices are near record highs. A fuel tax holiday could give consumers some relief.” NPR reported today (Friday, 18 March 2022) that “the Georgia House last week approved a bill to suspend the state’s 28.7 cents a gallon motor fuel tax through the end of May.”

Given that the Energy Information Administration shows that taxes account for only about 15% of the price of gasoline and diesel fuel, a so-called “tax holiday” would hardly provide any substantial relief, if any at all.

Jeff Davis, a Senior Fellow with the Eno Center for Transportation — a Washington, D.C.-based non-partisan think tank founded in 1921 by traffic safety pioneer William Eno that examines transportation issues across modes and levels of the federal-state-local government chain — is also the Editor of the Eno Transportation Weekly, and said that cutting the federal gas tax really won’t save drivers much money.

“Well, you know, we’re paying

GOP Traitors Spent July 4, 2018 In Russia. Why?

WHY would

U.S. Senators:

• Richard Shelby – R, AL

• Jerry Moran – R, KS

• John Kennedy – R, LA

• Steve Daines – R, MT

• John Hoven – R, ND

• John Thune – R, SD

• Ron Johnson – R, WI

-and-

U.S. Representative

• Kay Granger – R, TX-12

ALL GO TO RUSSIA on July 4, 2018?

Oh… wait… here’s the answer:

https://www.rferl.org/a/us-legislators-shelby-kennedy-arrive-moscow-mission-improve-ties-observe-economy/29334313.html

U.S. Legislators In Moscow On Mission To Improve Ties, Observe Economy

July 03, 2018 03:01 GMT, Updated July 03, 2018 17:30 GMT

• By RFE/RL

(with video)

U.S. Senators • Richard Shelby – R, AL; Jerry Moran – R, KS
• John Kennedy – R, LA
• Steve Daines – R, MT
• John Hoven – R, ND
• John Thune – R, SD
• Ron Johnson – R, WI
-and-
U.S. Representative
• Kay Granger – R, TX-12
all met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the Kremlin in Moscow, July 4, 2018.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says a visit by Republican members of the U.S. Congress should improve ties between the two countries’ legislatures.

The U.S. lawmakers are in Russia this week on what they say is a mission to try to help revive relations, which are severely strained, and observe how Russia’s economy is doing after four years of Western sanctions.

At a meeting on July 3, Lavrov said he hoped the visit will “symbolize the renewal of relations between the parliaments” of the United States and Russia, something he said was “very timely” ahead of the summit in Helsinki — the first full-fledged meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

“We come here realizing that we have a strained relationship, but we could have a better relationship between the U.S. and Russia, because we have some common interests around the world that we could hopefully work together on,” Senator Richard Shelby (Republican-Alabama) told Lavrov at the start of their meeting. “We could be competitors — we are competitors — but we don’t necessarily need to be adversaries.”

The U.S. lawmakers were also meeting with State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, a close ally of Putin, and Konstantin Kosachyov, the chairman of the Federation Council’s International Relations Committee.

The Duma is the lower house of Russia’s parliament, and the Federation Council is the upper chamber. Both are dominated by parties loyal to the Kremlin, and virtually all legislation passed by the parliament has the blessing of the Kremlin.

Before arriving in Moscow late on July 2, the U.S. legislators met in St. Petersburg with the city’s governor, Georgy Poltavchenko, and expressed hopes for improving relations. Poltavchenko told them he was “ready for cooperation on all fronts.”

The legislators were invited to Russia by U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman and are considered to be sympathetic to or allied with U.S. President Donald Trump, who plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 16 in an effort to revive Russia-U.S. ties after years of deterioration.

“We will have to wait and see, and go from there, but we recognize that the world is better off, I believe, if Russia and the U.S. have fewer tensions,” Shelby said.

Senator John Kennedy (Republican-Louisiana) told CNN he hoped the group would be able to meet with Putin, though Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov there were no plans for Putin meet with the legislators.

“I want to be able to meet with government officials, try to establish some rapport, talk about common interest, talk about common problems,” Kennedy said, emphasizing that his goal was to “establish rapport between the United States Congress and the Putin administration.”

All members of the delegation voted to pass the legislation last year that tightened and expanded sanctions on Russia, originally imposed over Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. The legislation, which Trump opposed, also makes it extremely difficult for Trump to lift the sanctions without congressional approval.

Kennedy said he wanted to see how Russia’s economy is doing.

“Some say it’s in shambles,” he told CNN. “Others say with the increase in the price of oil, it’s doing much better. Others say [Russia is] spending all their money on Syria and weaponry and the people are starving to death. Others say that’s not true. So I don’t know.”

Asked if he would bring up the topic of alleged Russian meddling in U.S. elections, Kennedy said, “Now, I don’t want to do anything to start an international incident, but I believe in talking frankly about these things.”

Kennedy told CNN that there had been a lot of “serious allegations that Russia has interfered with not just our elections,” but with elections in France and Germany as well as with Britain’s vote in 2016 to exit the European Union.

The congressional delegation arrived in Russia on June 30 and plans to stay until July 5. Also included in the group are Senators John Hoeven (Republican-North Dakota), John Thune (Republican-South Dakota), Jerry Moran (Republican-Kansas), Steve Daines (Republican-Montana), and one House of Representatives member, Kay Granger (Republican-Texas).

With reporting by Reuters, AP, CNN, and TASS

RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) journalists report the news in 27 languages in 23 countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established. We provide what many people cannot get locally: uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate.

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18 USC Chapter 115: TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=%2Fprelim%40title18%2Fpart1%2Fchapter115&edition=prelim

Why Russian Oil Should Be Sold Worldwide

I’ve done a 180º on the matter of selling Russian Crude Oil & Natural Gas (NatGas), and placing economic sanctions upon that nation.

I think that President Biden (POTUS BIDEN) should even consider INCREASING importation of those Russian fossil fuels.

Further, I think that we should be pursuing “business as usual” within Russia.

Matter of fact, so should the peace-loving world, particularly and especially all European nations.

Why?

Number one, embargoes, economic sanctions and other physically non-violent means are

Putin, Zelenskyy, and Biden Walk Into a Bar…

Putin, Zelenskyy, and Biden walk Into a bar.

Putin orders a Ukrainian invasion.

Biden says, “I’ll have the same.”

Zelenskyy spends all his time trying to keep the bartender from serving either one.

---

Western “media” outlets, and others — including the U.S. Congress, most notably — are but paying lip service to Ukraine, and their struggle to oust the tyrannical madman and international terrorist, Russian president Vladimir Putin.

There is no shortage of “I stand with,” or “I support Ukraine” expressions, either by decorative building lights in the evening, or signage so expressing. Even some businesses are in on the symbolic support, including liquor stores, which have conducted well-publicized publicity stunts to waste Russian vodka.

Then, of course, there’s the moron factor — GOPers who support the invading force, and its tyrant Putin.

In response, the President has stated that he’ll impose strict sanctions against Russia, but again, it’s a largely symbolic effort because it’s merely halfhearted, and fully hypocritical, because of things like this:

Treasury Department Assures Wall Street It Can Still Trade Russian Oil And Gas

March 4, 2022
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/treasury-department-assures-wall-street-it-can-still-trade-russian-oil-and-gas/ar-AAUDaAu

In a stunningly hypocritical move this afternoon

Assassinate Vladimir Putin? Or Try Him in the International Criminal Court in The Hague?

Vladimir Putin sits at the end of a 40-foot-long table in the Kremlin for 2 reasons:

1.) So the men at the other end can’t smell the fear in his breath, and;

2.) So they can’t see the cowardice in his eyes.

Vladimir Putin is an evil man, and an International Terrorist.

For that reason (being an International Terrorist), the CIA, our military intelligence, and other such officials in our government are EXEMPT from Executive Orders

Here’s What POTUS BIDEN Should Do Regarding Putin

I wish — with ALL MY HEART — as a show of solidarity and unanimity with the Ukrainian people, and as a fearsome show of force, might & power — including as a warning to the world, that POTUS BIDEN would:

1.) Order NON-STOP, 24/7 air superiority strikes by aircraft to fly out of Ramstein AFB, Germany (near Kaiserslautern) including use of long-range heavy bombers including the;

Five Takeaways on Five Takeaways -and- Russian Oil in America

1.) Morons.

2.) Morons.

3.) Morons.

4.) Morons.

5.) Morons.

Don’t you just hate what most journalism has become?

I do.

---

Recently, I sought a friend’s opinion about POTUS BIDEN’S SOTU, who in response wrote that, “I thought Biden was a joke. He is providing Putin with the money for the war. It has been reported that the US is the largest purchaser of oil from Russia. He talked about funding the police, securing the border, it was all lies.”

I could have guessed any response would have been as much, given that individual was a Trump voter. But, what shocked me was the claim that “He is providing Putin with the money for the war. It has been reported that the US is the largest purchaser of oil from Russia.”

That friend and I have known each other for several years, and on Saturdays we would regularly “solve the world’s problems” over breakfast at area restaurants. And here’s the interesting part: When we got down to brass tacks, didn’t insult each other’s ideas or opinions, and worked to the fundamental root cause of problems, we actually saw eye-to-eye on many topics. We just had to move away from the temptation to play the “sport” of politics, which is now all-too-often, par for the course.

But on the matter of the claim that POTUS BIDEN “is providing Putin with the money for the war,” and the related claim that, “It has been reported that the US is the largest purchaser of oil from Russia,” I set out to disprove what, on its face, prima facie evidence, if you prefer, seemed outrageous.

So, I visited the Energy Information Administration’s website to learn more. (AKA “Your Tax Dollars At Work.”)

Here’s what I found.

On a page entitled “U.S. Imports by Country of Origin,”  in 2020, the United States imported from a total of 72 nations a GRAND TOTAL of 2,877,890 thousand barrels of oil. (NOTE: 2020 is the most recent year for which annual information is available, while monthly data for July–December 2021 is available. The July-December 2021 monthly figures may be found toward the bottom of this entry, below the horizontal line.)

The Top 10 nations from which the USA imported oil are, in order, with volumes (in thousands of barrels):

1.) Canada — 1,509,646
2.) Mexico — 274,757

Our “Privacy” Policy

Policy is NOT law.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition, defines policy as:

1. A plan or course of action, as of a government, political party, or business, intended to influence and determine decisions, actions, and other matters: American foreign policy; the company’s personnel policy.
2. a. A course of action, guiding principle, or procedure considered expedient, prudent, or advantageous: Honesty is the best policy.
b. Prudence, shrewdness, or sagacity in practical matters: It is never good policy to speak rashly.

Policy can change at any time, for any reason. It is not set in stone.

Furthermore, policy is not legally binding, nor is it a promise, and can be violated at any time, for any reason whatsoever, even by the one that establishes “policy.” A company does NOT have to abide by their “policy.”

Companies that have so-called “Privacy” policies are simply pulling your leg. They’re buffaloing you, pulling the wool over your eyes, fooling you, into believing that they actually “care” (give a rat’s ass) about you.

They do not.

To them, you’re nothing but a sales tool, to be exploited, bought, sold, and traded on the open market — a means to an end, that end being increasing their bank account.

Seriously.

Now, think about it for just one moment: Why, or what possible legitimate business reason, would ANY company have to “respect” your “privacy,” unless they had an ulterior motive (or policy) to violate it to begin with?

That’s like a couple going out on a first date, and one says to the other, “I don’t kiss on the first date,” while the other says, “That’s okay… I don’t mind. But I fuck on the first date,” and then proceeds to rape the one — but doesn’t kiss.

So to the other’s way of thinking, the one’s “policy” of not kissing was upheld.

That’s what a so-called “privacy” policy is like to businesses.

It’s like going into a dressing room, changing clothes, and admiring yourself in the mirror, only to find out later that it was a “one-way mirror,” and that you were not only being watched the entire time, but being recorded, as well — AND, that the video was sold — all without your knowledge, or consent.

How about THEM apples, eh?

Yeah.

THAT is what’s going on.

Why?

Because Congress has NOT given Americans any online privacy protection laws like the European Union has.

Or Japan.

The Fourth Amendment of our Constitution states, verbatim:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,
and particularly describing the place to be searched,
and the persons or things to be seized.

That amendment is NOT limited to the government, because

Off Work Due To COVID, or Quarantine? The Law REQUIRES You be PAID 100%.

If you’ve missed work because you, or a member of your household, has a COVID infection, or, if you are quarantining because you’ve been exposed, or possibly exposed, or are caring for someone with COVID-19, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which is administered by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, requires that you be paid 100% of your regular pay during that time.

Additional details about the law — H.R.6201 – Families First Coronavirus Response Act — may be found on Congress’ website at:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6201

The following information is from the Department of Labor’s website, and the page entitled:

Families First Coronavirus Response Act: Employee Paid Leave Rights

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA or Act) requires certain employers to provide employees with paid sick leave or expanded family and medical leave for specified reasons related to COVID-19. The Department of Labor’s (Department) Wage and Hour Division (WHD) administers and enforces the new law’s paid leave requirements. These provisions

Ain’t Skeered of COVID-19? Try this on for size.

Let’s pretend that you’re an “anti-vaxxer,” that for whatever insane reason, you’re not going to ever receive any FREE COVID-19 vaccination.

Let’s also pretend that you get infected with COVID-19.

And, we’ll further pretend that because of the infection, you get really, really, really sick — as in “intubated in the ICU” sick.

Should you even be there? Should you even be treated, or cared for? Should anyone have mercy upon you because you made the decision to NOT receive (reject) a FREE vaccine? After all, you’re just wasting oxygen, and taking up space.

Shouldn’t the resources that are being expended upon you, and your care (because you didn’t care enough to get vaccinated), be expended upon others who did? After all, you made the conscious decision to NOT care enough about yourself, or others, to get vaccinated.

Freedom is not, nor has it ever been, an “I’ll do what I want, where I want, when I want, how I want, because I can” type of proposition.

You see, freedom has responsibilities.

In practice, that means you can’t

WV Charter School Company Robs Kids of Education, Puts Taxpayer$ Money in CEO’s Wallet

In an entry entitled “Denis Smith Warns West Virginians About Charter Schools” published today (Sunday, January 9, 2022, 9:00AM), in the introductory portion of that entry, Research Professor of Education and historian Dr. Diane Ravitch, PhD, wrote that,

“Denis Smith was a teacher and an administrator in West Virginia. He moved to Ohio where he worked in the State Education Department. His last position before retiring was in the office of charter schools (misleadingly called “community schools” in Ohio, even when they operate for profit).”

Dr. Diane Ravitch, PhD

Dr. Ravitch also wrote that “the link works but doesn’t permit me to copy any print.”

She was referring to a guest Opinion-Editorial authored by Denis Smith which was published January 3, 2022 in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, which is WV’s largest newspaper, about a recent state judicial ruling, that attempts by K12 Inc., a Wall $treet-traded, private, for-profit charter school management company, to create a publicly-unaccountable school district inside a school district that only they could control, was illegal under state law. He further opined about the miasmatic mess that the state’s legislators had created with their charter school law.

Nationally, there is an almost overwhelming abundance of complaints from coast-to-coast about the total costs and losses, not all of which are monetary, that have come directly from the charter school “movement,” which is, at its core, a private profiteering effort funded by public tax dollars, regardless whether the charter school is for-profit, or not-for-profit. No more, no less. It is, in essence, an unaccountable system which owes fealty to corporate owners, not to the taxpayers who fund them. For additional information, see:
https://NetworkForPublicEducation.org/chartered-for-profit/

As a courtesy to her, to her readers, and to others, the Op-Ed to which she referred is

Why is America Subsidizing Communism?

You know, the irony of the Opioid Epidemic is that folks are seeking relief from pain… pain which is psycho-social, emotional, not related to disease, injury, or surgery. But pain, nonetheless.

And what might the cause of that pain be?

Joblessness, homelessness, hopelessness.

Why don’t they have a job?

Ask Congress.

They were the ones who sent their jobs overseas in the misguided notion that it’d help our nation’s economy.

Yeah.

Right.

And there’s a Santa Claus, too — and an Easter Bunny, and a Tooth Fairy.

The Sackler family and other pharmaceutical makers were only capitalizing upon human tragedy by peddling pain relief.

And oddly, that’s what was needed… in addition to a job.

But you can’t sue Congress.

However… you CAN vote the bastards out of office — and should.

Every goddamn one of ’em.

ALL Republicans, ALL Democrats, ALL Independents.

ALL OF THEM.

And then, establish Term Limits for Congress; 20 years combined elected Federal service ought to be enough for anyone. That’d be 10, 2-year terms in the House, or 3, 6-year terms in the Senate (18) plus 1, 2-year term in the House, or any combination thereof. Remember when Newt Gingrich promised that with his “Contract on America”? Promises, promises. He also cheated on his wife, and asked her to sign divorce papers while she was on her near-death bed following cancer surgery. She survived. He remarried. Divorced his 2nd wife. He’s now on the 3rd one. Funny thing, too… Gingrich led the cavalry against then-POTUS CLINTON when he was accused of getting a blow job from Monica Lewinsky in the oral… er, Oval Office.

Yeah. What a guy, eh?

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

It was on September 4, 2009 when

Alabama 3rd Most Foreign-Owned Farmland in USA

THIS! is honest-to-goodness COUNTRY🥓BACON!!😋

In its uncooked state (this is cooked), it does NOT require refrigeration!

NONE of that mass-produced, factory-farmed, Made-in-China, Made-for-China gobbledygook.

You KNOW that Smithfield Foods has been OWNED BY THE CHINESE “Shuanghui Group” (now called “WH Group” because it sounds more “American,” you know) since 2013 and paid US$4.72B to buy the Smithfield, VA-based American company.

WH Group’s “global headquarters is strategically located in Hong Kong, with regional headquarters in China and the U.S.,” while the “Headquarters Shuanghui Development in Luohe, Henan Province,” China, and WH Group’s U.S. Headquarters of their Smithfield Foods division is in Smithfield, Virginia.

For more information see: WH-Group.com

For more information see: Shuanghui.net

For more information see: SmithfieldFoods.com

WH Group is also one of the LARGEST FOREIGN OWNERS of American farmland, with 146,000 acres and that separate sale was worth US$500M, according to the USDA.

Put another way, 146,000 acres is 228.1252 square miles… that’s nearly 20% (18.79% exactly) of the entire state of Rhode Island, which has 1214 square miles.

Unbridled greed in the extreme, aka AVARICE, is to blame. And Americans laws DO NOT FORBID, nor punish, such BAD BEHAVIOR. In fact, it’s REWARDED & ENCOURAGED.

Blame Congress — which has been bought & paid-for by Corporate lobbyists — for their FAILURE TO PROTECT AMERICAN DOMESTIC INTERESTS. THAT is a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY.

But let’s do something else. Let’s examine HOW MUCH U.S. land is owned, or controlled by, foreign interests.

Using a 1978 law — the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act, which requires foreign entities to report farmland transactions to the USDA’s Farm Service Agency — the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting examined USDA & other Federal data to determine how much land is owned/controlled by foreign interests.

They found that in 2016, foreign investors that year acquired at least 1.6M acres of U.S. farmland. And USDA data shows that either through direct ownership, or long-term leases, foreign investors control at least

Should You Panic? You’re Being Stalked Online… Legally.

Polly want a cracker?

How about a cookie, instead?

And to make it even better, we’ll make it a STALKING COOKIE!

Yeah… “stalking” as in “we’re watching EVERYTHING YOU DO ONLINE — where you came from, how long you stay, when you arrive, when you leave, what you click on, hover over, move around upon, your age, sex, where you live, your income, your education level,

• your employer, how long you’ve been there, your kids, their ages, the schools they attend, where you worship if you do, what car you drive, how far you drive,

• what size clothing you wear, your political identity, voting proclivities, what you eat, where you shop for groceries,

• who your doctor is, what conditions you’re being treated for, with what medications, how regularly you take your meds, what your allergies are,

• what teevee shows you watch, who your ISP is, how long you’ve been with them, your cell phone number & provider,

• how much your utility bill was last month, what you read, what you subscribe to, what type computer you use, where you use it, what your email address is, how much email you get,

• how many phone calls you get, how long your conversations are, how many and to whom you send/receive text messages, how many pets you have, their ages, sexes, and breeds, what and how often you feed them, who their veterinarian is,

• how much money is in your bank accounts, how much your mortgage is, and for how long, how many cars you’ve ever owned, how much you travel and where,

• your hair and eye color, your parents’ names, their addresses, birthdates, ages, when and where they and you were born, how many moving citations and/or parking tickets you and they have ever had, who your neighbors are, their and your skin color,

• when and if you menstruate, how often and with whom you have sex, if you use a condom, use any other form of birth control… you get the idea.

Frankly, NONE of that should be public knowledge, but, it is. And, it ALL can be bought for a price.

And YOU ARE THE COMMODITY bought, sold, and traded.

And so, would it surprise you to know that ALL that information cited above — AND MORE — is ALL available to be purchased?

In the EU, their citizens have PRIVACY LAWS that protect them from being stalked by online companies.

But not in the USA.

Again, whyzat?

Congress.

In the USA, NO ONE has any “right” to their own intellectual property, specifically, that means ANY, EVERY, and ALL information about you: YOU, as a human being, what your habits are, your daily routine, your purchases, your income, your medical diagnoses, your doctors, medicines, who you have sex with, when, how, if you use birth control, or not, what animals you own, how much you make & pay taxes, how often you drive, if you do, where you go, how far on average you drive on a daily basis, what size clothes you wear, who your friends & family are, what your genetic information is, and the list just goes on, and on, and on, and on from there.

Yes… YOU are a commodity – an intellectual SLAVE – to be bought, sold, and traded. And what’s worse, ANYONE can obtain that information. ANYONE. All they have to do is… PURCHASE IT.

That’s NOT a joke.

Just think of it this way:

STALKING.

It’s happening, you just don’t know it.

And THAT’s the whole point.

You are, in essence, an electronic slave, the intellectual property of others, not your self. For if you were your own property, you would

Let’s Talk About AVOCADOS! (Confronting lies, ignorance, and fear in modern journalism.)

Yesterday, I happened upon a story (a poorly written, and unconvincing one, at that — and there are several) about a complaint that someone, or some group, was making to so-called “chefs,” who in response were removing the avocado from their menus, ostensibly because of some alleged character flaw characterized as “un-sustainability.”

Avocados are a nutrient dense, heart-healthy food, production of which is SUSTAINABLE, and lucrative, for this, and other nation’s economies… contrary to what the goddamn ignoramuses tell you. There are PLENTY of academically, statistically, economically, and scientifically validated facts about avocados in this entry, ALL from HIGHLY REPUTABLE sources which almost every one DIRECTLY CONTRADICT the goddamn lies and BULLSHIT that so-called “journalists” write, and hope to get you to believe.

What a crock!

“Sustainability” my ass!

You wanna’ know what’s “unsustainable”?

Life without water. Life without food.

Besides… the fucking avocados are Hecho en Mexico.

Yeah, you stupid motherfuckers… Mexico produces the lion’s share of the world’s avocados, followed by Dominican Republic, Peru, Colombia, Indonesia, Kenya, Brazil, Haiti, Chile, and Israel.

NOT ‘Murka.

A business intelligence report on the global avocado market wrote this, in part, about the fruit:

“Avocados contain vitamins A, B, C, E, and K, including 25 essential nutrients. It also contains phytochemicals, like beta-sitosterol and antioxidants, like lycopene and beta-carotene. The essential nutrients are increasing the demand for the fruit, globally, and therefore acts as a major driving force behind the growth of the avocado market. The demand for avocados is increasing globally due to their health benefits as it increases vision, prevents heart-related diseases, and helps in improving digestion. The increased demand across the globe has resulted in increased production. According to FAOSTAT, avocado production was 5.7 million metric ton in 2016, which has increased by 12.7% and reached 7.1 million metric ton in 2019.”

FAOSTAT is the Statistics Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

So… that’s not enough facts, figures, and statistics about avocados?

You’re about to get more than you can shake a stick at. So, sit tight, and hold onto your hat. We’re about to go on a whirlwind ride!

Here are more facts, figures, and statistics about avocados, from NASS, 2020 (National Agricultural Statistics Service — i.e., your tax dollars at work):

In 2020 the United States produced 206,610 tons of avocados. That same year, economic value of U.S. avocado production was $426 million. California’s 2020 avocado production value was $411,720,000, with 47,300 acres in production, which yielded 3.98 TONS / ACRE.

For comparison, the U.S. Gross Domestic Product in Q3 2021 was $23.173496 TRILLION. California’s avocado production DOES NOT even make it into the state’s Top 10 most valuable agriculture products, which are:

• Dairy Products, Milk — $7.47 billion
• Almonds — $5.62 billion
• Grapes — 4.48 billion
• Pistachios — $2.87 billion
• Cattle and Calves — $2.74 billion

• Lettuce — $2.28 billion
• Strawberries — $1.99 billion
• Tomatoes — $1.20 billion
• Floriculture — $967 million
• Walnuts — $958 million

In California, avocados are the 16th most valuable crop. Tomatoes, strawberries, hay, oranges, rice, tangerines, almonds, pistachios, broccoli, and lettuce all outpace the state’s avocado production value.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis found that in Q2 2021, the value of California’s Gross Domestic Product was $3,290,170 million ($3.29 TRILLION), and accounted for 14.5% of U.S. GDP.

In the U.S., a total of 52,720 acres were in stable avocado production. Certain varieties, such as the Hass, have a tendency to bear well only in alternate years. That’s a 50% reduction biennially. How would you like it if your income fluctuated like that?

In the past decade, U.S. avocado consumption the U.S. has doubled, and is now about

Good Chef, Bad Chef: Thief Chef Mario Batali Faces Sexual Misbehavior Charges

Previously, celebrity chef Mario Batali had plead settled a Class Action lawsuit instead of going to trial over substantiated accusations that he and his business partner had long been stealing employees’ pay. Now, he’s been credibly accused of sexual abuse and/or misbehavior – meaning that there was enough evidence for the city government prosecutor to bring charges against him.

He has paid dearly, financially, and reputationally.

Now, he has a lousy reputation.

And, it would not surprise me in the least to know that in some secret, surreptitiously clandestine way, he’s hiding, or protecting his money as best possible.

As I began to investigate the matter, I learned that on several occasions he has sexually abused female employees. At the hearing for one such incident, while he plead not guilty, and then paid several hundred thousands of dollars to settle, he said that, “My past behavior has been deeply inappropriate and I am sincerely remorseful for my actions.”

The first is a story from 2012.

The most recent story appears at the bottom, below the image of him, and is about his arraignment on indecent assault and battery charges stemming from allegations that he forcibly kissed and groped a woman after taking a selfie with her at a Boston restaurant in 2017.

Batali must see the light at the end of the tunnel… and, it’s a train headed straight toward him.

Mario Batali Exits His Restaurants

From March 6, 2019:

The 20-year partnership between the celebrity chef Mario Batali and the Bastianich family of restaurateurs was formally dissolved on Wednesday, more than a year after several women accused Mr. Batali of sexual harassment and assault.

Mr. Batali “will no longer profit from the restaurants in any way, shape or form,” said Tanya Bastianich Manuali, who will head day-to-day operations at a new company, as yet unnamed, created to replace the Batali & Bastianich Hospitality Group.

The new company will operate the group’s remaining 16 restaurants under a new management and financial structure. Mrs. Bastianich Manuali and her brother, Joe Bastianich, have bought Mr. Batali’s shares in all the restaurants. They would not discuss the terms of the buyout.

Several famous chefs and restaurateurs have recently been accused of sexual harassment, but Mr. Batali is the first to surrender all his restaurants.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/dining/mario-batali-bastianich-restaurants.html

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Thief Chef Mario Batali

In Proverbs, the Good Book says “Excuses might be found for a thief who steals because he is starving.

“But if he is caught, he must pay back seven times what he stole, even if he has to sell everything in his house.”

I would hardly imagine Mr. Batali qualifies as “starving.”

What, then, should his punishment be?

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Mario Batali Agrees to $5.25 Million Settlement
Over Employee Tips

By Benjamin Weiser, Associated Press
March 7, 2012, 6:10 pm

“The celebrity chef and restaurateur Mario Batali and a business partner have agreed to pay $5.25 million to

Facebook is now Dead

Long live Facebook!

The company formerly known as “Facebook,” whose CEO/Chairman of the Board is Mark Zuckerberg – whom is Jewish – amidst increasingly withering criticism of longstanding unscrupulous, unAmerican, and unethical activity by the company, has recently announced that he has unilaterally decided to change the company’s name to “Meta.”

The perverse irony of that matter, is that the English word “meta,” as spoken, is the Hebrew word for “dead.”

The Hebrew word מֵ֣ת (mêṯ) is a verb, in the perfect, third person tense, and is the singular of מוּת (muth) meaning “to die,” or “to kill.”

That’s entirely appropriate, of course, considering that the company has conducted internal research which has conclusively proven that Facebook’s secret algorithms have caused suicides in pre-teens, especially little girls.

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-knows-data-instagram-eating-disorders-suicidal-thoughts-whistleblower-2021-10

Frances Haugen, a former Facebook executive and data scientist for the social media behemoth, testified October 5, 2021 before the United States Senate Commerce Committee’s Sub-Committee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, and stated in part that,

A Common Sense Approach To Lowering Medical Bills

Common sense approaches work well.

Unfortunately, common sense isn’t so common, anymore.

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Why Medical Bills Can Be Lower in Maryland

Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, MD

October 24, 2021

Guest Essay

Dr. Rosenthal is the Editor in Chief of Kaiser Health News. She was an Emergency Room physician before becoming a journalist.

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A $1,775 Doctor’s Visit Cost About $350 in Maryland. Here’s Why.

Illustration by Alvaro Dominguez

For the past 18 months, while I was undergoing intensive physical therapy and many neurological tests after a complicated head injury, my friends would point to a silver lining: “Now you’ll be able to write about your own bills.” After all, I’d spent the past decade as a journalist covering the often-bankrupting cost of U.S. medical care.

But my bills were, in fact, mostly totally reasonable.

That’s largely because I live in Washington, D.C., and received the majority of my care in next-door Maryland, the one state in the nation that controls what hospitals can charge for services and has a cap on spending growth.

Players in the health care world — from hospitals to pharmaceutical manufacturers to doctors’ groups — act as if the sky would fall if health care prices were regulated or spending capped. Instead, health care prices are determined by a dysfunctional market in which providers charge whatever they want and insurers or middlemen like pharmacy benefit managers negotiate them down to slightly less stratospheric levels.

But for decades, an independent state commission of health care experts in Maryland, appointed by the governor, has effectively told hospitals what each of them may charge, with a bit of leeway, requiring every insurer to reimburse a hospital at the same rate for a medical intervention in a system called “all-payer rate setting.” In 2014, Maryland also instituted a global cap and budget for each hospital in the state. Rather than being paid per test and procedure, hospitals would get a set amount of money for the entire year for patient care. The per capita hospital cost could rise only a small amount annually, forcing price increases to be circumspect.

If the care in the Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine system ensured my recovery, Maryland’s financial guardrails for hospitals effectively protected my wallet.

During my months of treatment, I got a second opinion at a similarly prestigious hospital in New York, giving me the opportunity to see how medical centers without such financial constraints bill for similar kinds of services.

Visits at Johns Hopkins with a top neurologist were billed at $350 to $400, which was reasonable, and arguably a bargain. In New York, the same type of appointment was $1,775. My first spinal tap, at Johns Hopkins, was done in an exam room by a neurology fellow and billed as an office visit. The second hospital had spinal taps done in a procedure suite under ultrasound guidance by neuroradiologists. It was billed as “surgery,” for a price of $6,244.38. The physician charge was $3,782.

I got terrific care at both hospitals, and the doctors who provided my care did not set these prices. All of the charges were reduced after insurance negotiations, and I generally owed very little. But since the price charged is often the starting point, hospitals that charge a lot get a lot, adding to America’s sky-high health care costs and our rising insurance premiums to cover them.

It wasn’t easy for Maryland to enact its unique health care system. The state imposed rate setting in the mid-1970s because hospital charges per patient were rising fast, and the system was in financial trouble. Hospitals supported the deal — which required a federal waiver to experiment with the new system — because even though the hospitals could no longer bill high rates for patients with commercial insurance, the state guaranteed they would get a reasonable, consistent rate for all their services, regardless of insurer.

The rate was more generous than Medicare’s usual payment, which (in theory at least) is calculated to allow hospitals to deliver high-quality care. The hospitals also got funds for teaching doctors in training and taking care of the uninsured — services that could previously go uncompensated.

In subsequent decades,

Swing Voters Hold Key To United States Future

GOP Voters Did NOT Want A Second Helping Of Trump

And, in their estimation, Trump v2.0, i.e., Trump 2024, is 100% OUT OF THE QUESTION.

Comments from the focus group referenced in the article linked below illustrate the GREAT NEED for our nation to be focused upon PROGRESS & CHANGE.

Regardless of anyone’s opinion, or any nation’s actions, catastrophic, or otherwise, tomorrow will happen.

It’s inevitable.

PROGRESS WILL OCCUR.

BUT, we could all do something to PREVENT bad things from happening, and should. We should improve conditions for our residents and humanity, rather than to allow them to suffer by negligence and neglect.

And yet, whether we do, or don’t, the sun will still rise.

Time marches on.

Recall the adage,

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”

That quote is by Dr. Jessie Potter, PhD (1922-1994), Founder/Director, National Institute for Human Relationships, Oak Lawn, Illinois; faculty member University of Illinois Medical School, Northwestern University Medical School, who was featured speaker at the Friday opening of the seventh annual Woman to Woman Conference, in an article entitled “Search For Quality Called Key To Life” by Tom Ahern, published in “The Milwaukee Sentinel” of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 24 October 1981; the quote appearing on Page 5, Column 5.

In my estimation, and in the estimation of that focus group’s members, America and American policy – domestic, and international – has REGRESSED, rather than progressed.

Progress supposes improvement. It’s like progressing from 3rd Grade to 4th Grade, or beyond. Progress implies a journey, and ALWAYS supposes improvement — getting from “Point A” to “Point B,” and beyond.

Like the primarily-Republican voters in this focus group, I too, have voted FOR candidates who were neither my first, nor best, choice. Sometimes, you vote for “the devil you know,” rather than “the devil you don’t know.”

I voted for Hillary, though I utterly loathed her for various reasons; besides being a proverbial “lightning rod” for controversy and division, rather than unity, another one being that she demonstrably screwed Bernie, and though what she did was not illegal, it was exceedingly unethical, and that she did it in secret, was very telling about her character. Had she not done that, Bernie would have most likely been the Democratic party‘s nominee – NO ONE ELSE had crowds the size of his – NO ONE.

But, because she had governmental experience, and was the nominee, I held my nose and voted FOR her. Similarly, I voted FOR Biden, though again, I much rather preferred Bernie, because I thought and hoped that Biden would essentially be a “yes man” to the party’s Progressive ideas. And quite frankly, I don’t think he’s ever demonstrated effective LEADERSHIP with ideas.

BIDEN is a conciliator, and after the previous administration, our nation was very ready for significant “conciliation.”

“Boring government” can be a good thing, per se — at least insofar as what it’s compared to in the immediately preceding administration.

Bold new ideas are not Biden’s forte. That’s Bernie’s bailiwick. And, as we all know, sometimes, “you gotta’ go along, to get along.”

We’re not even a year — 8 months 13 days, or; 36 weeks 3 days, or; 255 calendar days – into this administration, and yet, the prognosticators, pundits, and political soothsayers are busy at work. In my way of thinking, that demonstrates a deep longing for CHANGE. Not change from the GOP, but fundamental, wholesale CHANGE in governmental operations, i.e., PROGRESS.

Do we need change in our nation?

You bet your sweet bippy we do!

The colloquialism “politicians are like diapers on babies; both need changing regularly” is not mere hyperbole, it is true.

Consider our income tax system.

No one genuinely “likes” paying taxes – has anyone, ever? Even though it’s a patriotic duty, I don’t think so. But in your and my lifetime, the graduated income tax system in our nation has been highly compressed (there are now fewer brackets than ever), and the top rate for the highest income earners (multi-millionaires & multi-billionaires) has been so significantly reduced, that the net effect is a so-called “flat tax,” in which everyone – the wealthy and the impoverished – pays the same percentage rate, regardless. That’s an inherently unjust system, simply because the wealthy and the impoverished pay the same price for a gallon of milk, or loaf of bread. It just takes a BIGGER BITE out of the poor man’s paycheck, than it does the wealthy… who probably owns the farm –and– the bakery –and– the store that sells it.

It simply boggles my mind to know that Jeff Bezos, by FAR the world’s wealthiest man -and- his corporation Amazon, PAID NO INCOME TAX LAST YEAR… or, the year before, or the year before that. And he wasn’t the only one, not by a long shot. Elon Musk and Warren Buffett are also on that list of shame. Men whose names are practically household words, like Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg all come to mind. They too, paid little, if any, personal income tax compared to the Average American. To my way of thinking, that’s just plain wrong. Maybe you think differently.

What angers me particularly, is that,

Let’s Talk About… Critical Race Theory

Before we enter into a discussion about Critical Race Theory, let’s ask a question, or two.

First, is discrimination based upon skin color, ethnicity, national origin, or any other factor, something that can be eliminated by law?

Or, is it a flaw, a character defect permanently present in humanity?

At its root, racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and other ‘isms and phobias are based upon an inherent dislike, even to the point of hatred, of others who are dissimilar in some aspect, and because of that dissimilarity thereby become the object, and target of scorn and hatred from and by a perpetrator. Any discriminatory behavior by the perpetrator is justified by the same upon the alleged differences in the object (the one(s) being discriminated against), i.e., the victim(s), and subject, i.e., the perpetrator – the “hater” and “hatee,” if you will.

Various laws, including liberal laws regardless of their age, have thus far failed to eliminate such innately discriminatory practices, and damages, from law, or from business. The myriad laws in our nation touching upon the slave trade, slavery, and discrimination stand as ongoing evidence of that fact.

Everything Old Is New Again

In Abraham Lincoln’s day, a segment of the Republican party then called “Radical Republicans” — a faction within the Republican party comprised primarily of Northern altruists, industrialists, former Whigs, practical politicians, etc., led by Thaddeus Stevens in the House of Representatives, and Charles Sumner in the Senate, from about 1854 until the end of Reconstruction in 1877 — were renown for their goal of immediate, total, and completely permanent eradication of slavery, without compromise. They were opposed even by members of their own party, as well as by Democrats.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Today, within the Democratic party, the Progressive faction is opposed by “moderates,” and they’re all opposed by Republicans.

And even within the Republican party today, there are also splinters and divisions. The “Trumpers” aka sycophants of the 45th POTUS, and the more level-headed, even-keeled moderate faction of the party.

There are lessons to be learned from history… if only we’ll learn them. And sadly, it seems as if we’re condemned to repeat them, time, and time, and time again.

It was Spanish-born American philosopher/poet George Santayana (1863-1952) who wrote that…

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

–– George Santayana (1863-1952), Spanish philosopher, writing in “The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress“ (1905-1906), Vol. I, “Reason in Common Sense”

So… what about Critical Race Theory?

What is it?

Where’d it come from?

Who invented it?

What does it say, do, or advocate?

The very heart, the “nut,” or crux of the matter is addressed above, and could be stated this way:

Is it possible to eradicate discriminatory practices, and any associated damages, through legislation, and if not, to what extent are such discriminatory practices present, and how can they be rectified, or ameliorated, if at all?

Essentially, Critical Race Theory is a sophisticated, esoteric, high-level legal academic pursuit, which acknowledges that, to this point historically, laws (again, even liberal laws, regardless of their age) have failed to eradicate racism, racist practices, and discrimination, and asks if legal avenues (laws) are able to eradicate it, or if it’s a fixture permanently etched upon the human heart, and thereby inherently present in all laws, and if so, to what extent.

So yes, it’s a broadly-encompassing theoretical legal academic pursuit, and a question which possibly, might never be answered. Yet, there is understanding to be gained by such pursuit, and it is just plain wrong to chastise those who pursue such high-level questions and thinking.

16th Century Thought Police, and The Law of Unintended Consequences

Such chastisement is akin to the Church’s history of punishing or excommunicating scientists “back in the day” who posited that

Letter To A Longtime Friend

Following are excerpts of a letter to a long-time friend who has historically voted for Republicans… almost exclusively, at all levels – local, state, and federal.

I have not.

As I recall, the last Republican for whom I voted was Reagan in his first campaign. Yet, I have not voted for Democrats whom I either do not like, nor think they would do a good job. And, I would vote for a Republican… if I could find one worth voting for.

I cannot.

And the party nowadays is in wholesale disarray, which further complicates matters. One faction wants to tear it all down, while another radicalized faction has actually attempted to burn it all down by attempting to overthrow its Constitutionally-ordered processes… and to add insult to injury, it was at the behest of the sitting President. And neither faction wants to repair anything, much less economic infrastructure.

“Privatize it all!” is their battle cry.

Yet, he is like me in this regard: He is not now, nor has he ever been, a member of ANY political party. He is also like me insofar as he cares for the future of our nation, which, more specifically, means We the People — the Common Man.

“Blind Men Appraising an Elephant,” c.1800-1850, by Ohara Donshu (d.1857), Japanese Edo Period, Brooklyn Museum

But, to casual observers, they would not know that how we are similar, and would rather, note our seeming dissimilarities, when in fact, the opposite is true. We are more similar, than not — at least we are, on an essentially basic, fundamentally root level.

As I have long stated, we — he, I, and many others who, superficially seem to disagree — are like the proverbial blind men describing an elephant, which is an ancient moralistic tale about human nature with origins in the Indian subcontinent which is known as far back as circa 500 BCE.

“Our individual views of the universe may be different from one another’s because we each encounter only one small part of what is there. The ancient Hindu parable of the six blind men and the elephant — wherein each man describes only the part of the elephant he is touching, forming an incomplete representation of the whole — is an illustration of such individual differences. The elephant, a metaphor for the universe, is perceived by one man as a snake (because he feels the trunk), by another as a tree (because he feels the leg), and so on. However, individual differences in perception are not usually as large as the differences between the six blind men’s percepts of the elephant. The differences are not so large because perception is a complex phenomenon resulting from multiple small effects, such as many different genes and accumulated experiences, acting mostly separately.”

— “Individual Differences In Perception,” entry by Ariella Popple, PsyD, PhD, in “Encyclopedia of Perception,” E. Bruce Goldstein, ed., 2010, SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, California

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Hey Bud-E! How you are?

Still taking a licking, and keeping on ticking?

How’re your eyes? Still in your head?

Your eyes we can fix. My hearing, we can’t.

I’m going deaf.

No kidding.

My hearing loss is now much more significant than previously. And, I contend that it was because of the loud *!*BOOMS! *!*BANGS*!* & *!*EXPLOSIONS*!* to which I was exposed while in the Army. Training, of course. And so far, I’ve been denied a Service-Connected Disability rating. But, to be certain, I’ve not hammered the piss out of ‘em — the VA, that is — to get such a rating, and more importantly TO GET HEARING AIDS WHICH I DESPERATELY NEED!

You see, T, my good friend, this – my example – is but ONE of MILLIONS MORE exactly like me. Good and decent pubic education, college degreed, honorable service to our nation, and despite it all, not having healthcare insurance, nor the ability to shell out $10,000, or more, for hearing aids. And if my glasses break, I’m similarly up shit creek. And forget about my teeth. I’ve not seen a dentist in I-don’t-know-when. My next-door-neighbor D, who is 1 year younger than I, and a widower, had all his teeth pulled recently so that he could get fitted for dentures. ALL of that he had to shell out of pocket. ALL OF IT. And he delivers flowers for a living. A very modest paying job – not even $15/hr.

I’m fully certain that you KNOW that I am unapologetically FOR THE PEOPLE. And, I think you know me well enough to know that, by NO MEANS, am I “anti-business,” and rather, am anti-BIG BUSINESS — a scenario in which profiteering comes first, and people are an afterthought. THAT is a “cardinal sin,” because it demonstrates conclusively that, LITERALLY, we (our nation, our people, by and through our elected officials) DO NOT CARE FOR OUR OWN. And, I know the Scriptures well enough to know (and, I would hope that you do, also) that such a tact is 100% diametrically opposed to Biblical/Judeo-Christian principles. And indeed, it is against the principles of EVERY religion.

“If anyone fails to provide for his own, and especially for those of his own family, he has denied the faith [by disregarding its precepts] and is worse than an unbeliever [who fulfills his obligation in these matters].”
– 1 Timothy 5:8 AMP

For TOO LONG we have disregarded the sage, prophetic advice of POTUS Dwight David Eisenhower, a 2-term Republican, who, before campaigning for President, during WWII was Supreme Allied Commander – our nation’s last 5-star general.

And concurrently with that, we have continued to reduce income tax rates upon the wealthiest Americans, and their corporations, while simultaneously reducing and compressing the number of income tax brackets, thereby placing an increasingly undue responsibility and burden upon the impoverished and working families. Again, that burden has shifted AWAY from upon the wealthy, to be foisted upon the poor. Such an action is fundamentally UNJUST.

In his Farewell Address to the nation, delivered January 17, 1961, as POTUS, that speech, now known as the “Military Industrial Complex” speech, he warned about what we are now experiencing in our nation, and in part said: