Alabama Physician Dr. Brytney Cobia, MD: “I hold their hand and tell them that ‘I’m sorry, but it’s too late.'”

“I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections. One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that ‘I’m sorry, but it’s too late’.

“A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.

“They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu.’

“So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.

Dr. Brytney Cobia, MD is a Hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, AL.

“You kind of go into it thinking,

Nashville, TN Conservative Talk Radio Host Phil Valentine Hospitalized With COVID-19

Earlier, a friend had notified me that Phil Valentine, a Nashville, TN-based WASP Republican talk radio show host, affectionately known as “Uncle Phil” by listeners, is hospitalized with an infection of COVID-19.

Oh!

The irony!

He certainly fits the typical anti-COVID-19 vaxxer profile:
• Southern
• White
• Republican
• Conservative
• Male

The last FaceBook update from him was February 5, 2020, which consisted of a link to a podcast entitled “I’m Calling Bovine Scatology,” which is a “polite” way of saying “bullshit,” and the episode posted was entitled “They Closed Down the Economy for the Spanish Flu?”

• Business Insider picked up the story and wrote in part that, “A conservative radio talk-show host who had told followers that they were “probably safer not getting” the COVID-19 vaccine if they weren’t at high risk is now hospitalized in serious condition with the coronavirus, his family said.

“Phil Valentine, who hosts “The Phil Valentine Show” on WWTN-FM in Nashville, Tennessee, contracted COVID-19 more than a week ago and “has since been hospitalized & is in very serious condition,” his family said in a statement on Thursday.”

• All Access Music Group of Malibu, California wrote on their website that, “Posts by his family on social media confirm that CUMULUS News-Talk WWTN (SUPER TALK 99.7 WTN)/NASHVILLE afternoon host PHIL VALENTINE is in the hospital “fighting for his life” after contracting COVID-19.

“VALENTINE had voiced skepticism about the COVID-19 vaccine on the air and opposed government efforts urging the public to get vaccinated, touting

Republicans Commit Suicide En Masse

“By the time you get to October, these resurgent epidemics [will] have burned through a lot of the people who are susceptible.”

“What’s going on in the country with the virus is matching our most pessimistic scenarios.”

“We might be seeing synergistic effects of people becoming less cautious in addition to the impacts of the delta variant. I think it’s a big call for caution.”

— Dr. Justin Lessler, PhD, Professor, Epidemiologist, University of North Carolina

Republicans, conspiracy theorists, and other morons who “don’t believe” that COVID-19 will affect, or even kill them, are in for a surprise.

Yes, the White man is killing himself — committing suicide.

And frankly, I could NOT care less.

The world will be better off with out them.

If ANYONE — regardless of ethnicity, skin color, or any other factor – is STUPID ENOUGH to

Conspiracy Theorist, COVID-19 Denier, Trump Supporter Dies

Another unvaccinated Trump supporter has died.

Ho, ho hum.

“NO,” it’s not Marjorie Taylor Greene – aka “MT-headed Greene” – nor is it QAnon conspiracy theorist & high school dropout Lauren Opal Roberts Boebert of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, and neither is it “Florida Man” Republican U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz, of CD-1.

Positive case infections are up 66% in all 50 states.

Turns out, it’s because unvaccinated Trump supporters are •DYING•.

99.5% of people who have died from COVID-19 in this month (July 2021) have been UNVACCINATED.

Those reckless individuals are endangering the lives of children, and those who, for genuine health reasons, cannot take the vaccine.

COVIDiots are being killed by a virus they don’t believe in, after refusing to take a vaccine they believe is dangerous… you can’t make this stuff up.

Linda Zuern, of Bourne, waves a Trump flag during a rally at the airport rotary in Hyannis, MA on November 7, 2019. Zuern and others gathered in support of President Donald Trump.

Oh!

The irony!

Tough shit, lady.

More like her need to die.

It’s called “NATURAL SELECTION.”

By the way… whatever happened to the formerly-Grand Old Party’s so-called “Death Panels”?

Unvaccinated Trump supporters don’t need a mask, and don’t need to get the COVID-19 vaccine because their “God will protect” them.

So, why do they need a gun?

Sad, Odd Fact: Donald Trump has killed more Americans than Osama Bin Laden.

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https://www.rawstory.com/unvaccinated-trump-supporter/

On Tuesday, the Cape Cod Times reported that

Kenneth Starr Helped Jeffrey Epstein Avoid Federal Prosecution

Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr departs his home September 10, 1998, in McLean, VA. The 445-page Starr report on the investigation into the affair between President Clinton and former White House Intern Monica Lewinsky was delivered to Congress Wednesday afternoon.
KHUE BUI/AP

Here’s your QAnon pedophile network boss.

Would you be surprised to know that it’s Kenneth Starr?

Remember: The [radical right-wing] QAnon conspiracy theory [falsely] claims that Democrats are involved in a global cannibalistic pedophile network, and that anti-Trumpers were directly involved in an attempt to destroy the 45th President’s efforts in office because he was onto their game and was rooting them out of “deep state” government bureaucracies and big business. The never-Trump movement began as intra-party opposition by prominent conservative Republicans to prevent him from being nominated, and later morphed.

And it is worth noting, that the pernicious QAnon conspiracy theory has long been discredited by numerous independent individuals, none of whom worked together, and that like many other conspiracy theories – and viruses – continually evolves, ever changing various elements of itself to potentially become as  damaging as possible.

There’s always at least one element of truth in every lie, no matter how far-fetched the lie is, for without it, the entire house of cards falls apart. That’s just how fragile conspiracy theories are. They CANNOT survive independently, and like all parasites, need hosts in order to perpetuate.

Great Saint James (top center) and Little Saint James (lower center) islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands were owned by Jeffrey Epstein.

And in this instance, pedophilia is the solitary bit of truth.

From that single germ, the conspiracy begins to grow. Assertions of the existence of international cartels or networks are built upon the fact that Epstein was known to frequently fly abroad to various nations, and between 1995 and 2013 logged at least 730 flights to and from Teterboro Airport, NJ – a small, general aviation reliever “corporate” airport, just 12 miles from midtown Manhattan, where he maintained a seven-story, including basement, 18,814 square foot residence at 9 East 71st Street, on the posh Upper East Side of Manhattan. The pilots’ flight logs of his travel to and from Teterboro Airport represent only about a third of his total air travel between 1995 and 2013, and consist of thousands of flights. He was arrested at Teterboro Airport July 6, 2019 returning from Paris.

His international travel was facilitated by ownership of several jet aircraft and helicopters, including a Cessna Citation jet, a Gulf Stream jet, and a Boeing 727 jet airliner nicknamed “Lolita Express,” along with two Caribbean islands — the 78-acre Little Saint James, and the larger adjacent 165-acre Great Saint James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands — and was known to host notable guests on the them, among whom are known to have been former U.S. President Bill Clinton, accompanied by his Secret Service agents, because flight itineraries, manifests and passenger lists detail that he flew there as Epstein’s guest at least 26 times.

Jeffrey Epstein, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department booking photo, 27 July 2006, following his indictment for soliciting prostitution.

Other notable personalities who Epstein hosted regularly included such high-profile individuals as Donald Trump, renown Harvard University Professor of Law, emeritus, Alan Dershowitz, the UK’s Prince

Texas Governor Greg Abbott

“You can shine your shoes and wear a suit.
“You can comb your hair and look quite cute.
“You can hide your face behind a smile.
“One thing you can’t hide,
“Is when you’re crippled inside.”

– John Lennon, “Crippled Inside,” from his 1971 album “Imagine”

Everything is BIGGER in Texas.

Including assholes.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott leaves the podium after speaking at the 11th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast May 7 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Washington. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn) See BREAKFAST May 7, 2015.

The news item linked below, is from Daily Wire, a so-called “conservative” reporting outlet.

Texas’ BIGGEST problem is an incompetent and crippled Governor.

It’s not just his legs that are lame.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/governor-abbott-democrats-who-fled-texas-to-stop-democracy-will-be-arrested-immediately-upon-return

But then, what can one say about a 26-year-old man who, as new Vanderbilt University Law School graduate studying for the upcoming bar exam, while out jogging with a friend on July 14, 1984 in Houston’s wealthy River Oaks neighborhood, in a freak accident, had an oak tree to fall upon him, and then, sued the landowner, and the tree service company, and won a literal tax-free insurance jackpot for life?

Abbott’s settlement included

COVID-19 Vaccination Resistance: Let Them Die — So Close Yet So Far Away

Let them die.

I’m sick and goddamn tired of their INSANE conspiratorial bullshit.

LET THEM DIE.

“Actions have consequences,” they’re frequently fond of saying, and then perversely take some sense of pride in portraying themselves as “victim” — a role which they have gleefully derided and mocked over the years as they attempt to justify their various perverse positions.

Now, they want to assume that very role.

LET THEM DIE.

They mistakenly think that they’ll be some kind of pretend political “hero” for their imaginary “lost cause.” Heroes almost always end up dead.

LET THEM DIE.

Everyone has a proverbial and practical expiration date, and just like milk and other dairy products, which can be soured relatively quickly or ruined prematurely if not properly cared for by refrigeration, so can the human body be ruined if improperly cared for by smoking, excessive consumption of food and/or beverage alcohol intake, sedentary lifestyle, lopsided dietary intake, regular consumption of nutritionally deficient foods, and other forms of improper and inadequate care, including deliberate neglect, and wanton failure to prevent malfunction and disease.

LET THEM DIE.

Physicians cannot, and will not, treat patients who refuse to cooperate with the course of treatment.

LET THEM DIE.

Engrave upon their headstones “s/he wanted, and chose to die from a preventable disease.”

LET THEM DIE.

LET THEM DIE.

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In The Last Mile Of Our Battle Against COVID, The Enemy Is Us

Time may have come for more aggressive tactics on vaccinations.

In a scene from the movie “The Matrix,” revered by conspiracy theorists, the hero is offered a choice between the blue pill of comforting illusions and the red pill that offers nothing more than the truth.

The correct answer, of course, is the red pill that reveals the hidden forces that control the world.

These days, Americans are being offered an even more fateful binary choice.

Do you maintain the comforting illusion that

Research: Psilocybin Improves Depression

Better living through chemistry.

Because corrupt Republican President Richard Nixon’s 50-year lost cause, failed social experiment of the “War on Drugs” and Nancy Reagan’s “just say no” have never, and will never, work, nor ever benefited anyone who needed help — only those who perpetuated the war.

And, because no one — NO ONE — has ever said “when I grow up, I want to become an addict,” nor waked up one day and said, “gee… I think I want to become an addict.”

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In September 2018, Johns Hopkins researchers suggested that psilocybin should be re-categorized from a schedule I drug — one with no known medical potential — to a schedule IV drug (the lowest classification) such as with prescription sleep aids, but with somewhat tighter control, and summarized their analysis in the October print issue of Neuropharmacology, a peer-review professional journal.

Dr. Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins is one of the world’s leading researchers, and most published scientists on the effects of psychedelics on humans, and has conducted original and innovative research in the behavioral economics of drug use, addiction, and risk behavior. Dr. Johnson earned his Ph.D. in experimental psychology at the University of Vermont in 2004.

Dr. Johson spoke with JHU reporters about the research, and said, “We want to initiate the conversation now as to how to classify psilocybin to facilitate its path to the clinic and minimize logistical hurdles in the future. We expect these final clearance trials to take place in the next five years or so. We should be clear that psilocybin is not without risks of harm, which are greater in recreational than medical settings, but relatively speaking, looking at other drugs both legal and illegal, it comes off as being the least harmful in different surveys and across different countries. We believe that the conditions should be tightly controlled and that when taken for a clinical reason, it should be administered in a health care setting, monitored by a person trained for that situation.”

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One Dose Of Psilocybin Improved Neural Connections Lost In Depression, Study Says

By Joseph Guzman, July 6, 2021

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The psychedelic psilocybin mushroom has shown promise in treating depression, and a number of clinical trials into the fungus’s therapeutic effects have been conducted in recent years.

But now, a Yale University study published in the peer reviewed professional journal Neuron July 5, 2021, has shed light on how the compound psilocybin —the active ingredient found in so-called “magic mushrooms” — may produce antidepressant effects.

Researchers administered a single dose of psilocybin to mice and used a laser-scanning microscope to visualize dendritic spines in the rodents’ brains in high resolution. Dendritic spines are small protrusions found on nerve cells that play a key role in transmitting information between neurons. Previous laboratory experiments demonstrated promise that psilocybin, and the anesthetic ketamine, could decrease depression.

Stress and depression degrade and reduce the number of neuronal connections.

Within 24 hours of the single psychedelic dose, researchers observed an immediate and lasting increase in

Open Letter To White Republican Men

There is hope only for the living. As they say, “It’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion!”
— Ecclesiastes 9:4 (NLT)

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Dear White Republican men,

 

Whatever you do, DO NOT EVER — as in NEVER, EVER — GET VACCINATED AGAINST COVID-19.

And for goodness sake, REFUSE to wear a mask EVERYWHERE you go.

Your resulting infection with, and death from, COVID-19’s delta variant will leave society better off — MUCH, MUCH BETTER.

We don’t

Smart Phones and Dumb People

Recently, I got to wondering about why some folks haven’t fully embraced the COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States. “Fully embraced” as in a significant majority of folks who have received it nationwide. That includes the naysayers, most folks in the South, certain Republicans, and some others… including — believe it, or else — some healthcare professionals. Anti-vaxxers are excluded, of course, because they’re against every vaccine. Idiots.

Would that there were one for stupidity. It should be mandatory at birth, and for everyone. Maybe if it were called a “smart pill,” that’d help. We have “smart phones,” and plenty of dumb people. It just isn’t right.

But I digress.

Some folks have said that they don’t “trust” the vaccines, for one reason, or another. So far, no one’s been abducted by aliens after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, and that I’m aware, no one’s hair has tried to call Bill Gates after they received a COVID-19 vaccine. But Congress and the Department of Defense have released videos of what we once called “UFOs” – Unidentified Flying Objects. Now they’re called UAPs — Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. But I still like UFO. Still, no one knows what they are. Hence, the name. And quite fortunately, there’ve been no reports of folks growing tails and swinging from trees afterward, either. But doubtless, some have eaten bananas. Point for lower primates: 15 – love.

So we’ve moved from the known (stupid folks who don’t get vaccinated), to the unknown (mysterious video imagery of UFOs making some very impressive maneuvers).

But what is it that we don’t know? And how do we know what we know? As the late Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense once said

Conservative Oklahoma Shows States How To Run Medical Marijuana Program

Oklahoma State Representative Scott Fetgatter (R-16)

“Anybody who wants to use marijuana is already using marijuana.
You’re not stopping that.
The goal is to eliminate the black market.”

– Oklahoma State Representative Scott Fetgatter (R-16)

Legislators there (in OK) understand at least one thing: A truly “free market” is regulated at a minimum. Of course, some regulation is necessary, and as I’ve often said, regulation makes things operate more effectively and efficiently, much like a fine-tuned automobile engine, or any sports competition. But there is a point of diminishing returns at which increased effort will not increase output.

Another benefit of minimal regulation, is reduced criminal activity.

Many have made the argument that, in a manner similar to America’s Prohibition Era, in which organized crime was born, Nixon’s 50-year failed social experiment known as the “War on Drugs” has created global narcotrafficking cartels.

And indeed, it may, or may not, surprise you know that the Drug Enforcement Administration has offices and agents worldwide. And yet, for all that effort, and money spent, drug abuse has flourished, rather than diminished, and our nation’s prisons, and jails have proliferated populations, which are much more than a mere tax burden upon society, but rob the market economy of labor, and steal husbands and fathers from families. And then, once they’ve fully “paid their debt to society,” they’re further penalized – in essence, given a life sentence – through the legally enforced social stigma of possessing an arrest record, or having served time. Just think about it: When was the last time you saw, heard, or read, of a job advertisement that specifically stated “We hire ex-cons,” or “Former felons encouraged to apply”? Probably never. So much for so-called “corrections programs,” eh?

And then, there’s this prima facie fact as well, that no one in their right mind wakes up one day and says to themselves, “Gee… I think I want to become an addict.” No one.

We human beings are complex creatures, and it is impossible to point directly to one thing, and one thing only as the cause of addiction. Suffice it to say, that there are many factors, some of which include physical (including sexual) and/or emotional abuse, or other trials and tribulations of life. Some, as well, have been victimized by poor medical care, such as over-prescribing of narcotics by reckless, lackadaisical, or greedy physicians, some of whom have operated “pill mills,” indiscriminately dispensing huge volumes of narcotics for profit.

But, even the DEA (a Federal law enforcement agency), and reputable science and medical researchers have acknowledged that “No deaths from overdose of marijuana have been reported.” The same cannot be said of beverage alcohol. It’s literally impossible to die from over-consumption of cannabis, precisely because, unlike opioids, the psychoactive ingredient – THC – does not affect the brain stem (because there are no receptors there for it to attach to), which is where the body’s respiratory drive center is located. That is a finding of science made in 2020. Now, imagine this: Science would never have advanced by learning that seemingly minor fact if “Just say NO!” was effective (and it is not).

If you’d like to know more about cannabis science, I refer you to this science and fact-based page:
Questions and Answers about Cannabis

And, without further ado, I present to you this eye-opening article which genuinely warrants further consideration, and additional discussion.

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Why Red State Oklahoma Is Home To A Booming Medical Marijuana Market

Published June 28, 2021 
By John Schroyer

People outside the cannabis industry might be surprised to learn that the most liberal medical marijuana market in the country isn’t California anymore. Nor is it Colorado, Oregon or another left-leaning blue state.

It’s politically conservative Oklahoma.

The red state has pulled a U-turn on marijuana policy since 2014, when the state’s attorney general – along with his then-counterpart in Nebraska – filed a federal lawsuit to overturn neighboring Colorado’s new recreational marijuana program.
But the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Fast-forward to June 2018, when Oklahoma voters soundly approved one of the loosest medical marijuana programs in the country.

Two months later, Oklahoma regulators began accepting applications for MMJ business licenses.

Sales began that December, by which point the state already had nearly 900 dispensaries, and it’s been pushing the envelope since then when it comes to MMJ policy.

Today, business is booming.

Oklahoma has more than 2,000 dispensaries – the most in the nation. And the 2021 MJBizFactbook projects

COVID-19 Update: More Need To Die

Update Sunday, 04 July 2021: Martha Raddatz, co-host of ABC’s “This Week” news program, interviewed Democrat-turned-Republican West Virginia Governor Jim Justice about his state’s low vaccination compliance rate which aired today. The following dialogue occurred:

Raddatz: “Do you really think those people who aren’t vaccinated — who as you said may be more conservative, may not want anybody in their business — are really ever going to get vaccinated? What could actually put them over the edge to want it at this point?”

Justice: “Well, Martha, I hate to say this, is what would put them over the edge, is an awful lot of people die. The only way that’s going to happen is a catastrophe that none of us want.”

Raddatz: “Let’s go back to who’s not getting vaccinated. The statistics will show it’s poverty, race and you just look at the map — it’s a lot of red states.”

Justice: “Well, I mean, there’s some truth to that and everything. Because, you know, the red states probably have a lot of people that, you know, are very, very conservative in their thinking. And they think, ‘Well, I don’t have to do that.’ But they’re not thinking right.

“When it really boils right down to it, they’re in a lottery to themselves. We have a lottery, you know, that basically says, ‘If you’re vaccinated, we’re going to give you stuff.’ Well you’ve got another lottery going on, and it’s the death lottery.”

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The “Angel of Death” has much more work to do
—
with children, teens, and adults.

With at least 33,677,411 confirmed cases – the most in all the world – at least 605,010 known U.S. deaths – again, the most in all the world – untold numbers of hospitalizations, and the perilously close collapse of the U.S. healthcare system, human suffering from the novel Coronavirus Disease-2019 (SARS-CoV-2) has not nearly reached its apex in the United States.

MORE people – particularly, and especially children – need to suffer and die.

It’s difficult to feel any scintilla of sorrow, or even scant sympathy for stupid people wantonly negligent and abusive parents who willingly expose their children and themselves to diseases and other preventable dangers.

That big ol’ knot at the end of your neck is supposed to be used for something else other than a hat rack. And for those who claim faith, especially the so-called “Evangelical” community, you dishonor your Maker when you refuse to exercise any brainpower – which is a gift to you, to Creation, and all of humanity, even though you don’t act like it, and wastefully squander it.

And, your fatalistic fait accompli that your “God will provide,” or surreptitious claims that infection and/or resultant death “is God’s will” is not merely baneful, pernicious, and malignant, it is wholly, fully, and entirely contrary to good and common sense, and orthodox theology.

In other words, you’re AFU – All Fucked Up. Soon enough, you’ll be FUBAR’d – Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

So-called “American exceptionalism” isn’t so “exceptional” – especially among Republicans, Trump voters, and other such idiots morons.

So, please…whatever you ilk decide to do, PLEASE, DO NOT GET VACCINATED – not yourself, not your children, and BY ALL MEANS, NOT just against COVID-19, but against ANY disease.

“Actions have consequences,” I believe is the saying.

Yet so do inactions.

And “tough love” to you.

Thoughts and prayers…

Thoughts and prayers.

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Nearly 100 Teens & Adults COVID-19 Positive At Illinois Church Summer Camp

Crossing Camp, a Christian summer camp operated for children and teens in west central Illinois near Rushville, in rural Schuyler County, has been forced to close prematurely this year following a COVID-19 “outbreak” which has so far infected very nearly 100 children, teens, and adults across 3 states.

Crossing Camp is owned and operated by an independent Protestant, Evangelical multi-campus church called “The Crossing” which main campus is in Quincy, IL, and has attendance of approximately 10,000 members weekly on several campuses in Illinois, Missouri and Iowa.

The entire camp, their staff, and all guests are now considered “super spreaders” after at least 50 COVID-19 cases were first confirmed June 23 by Pike County Public Health officials with the Health Department after camp members’ traveled to a nearby conference, which became the super spreader event.

The day prior, Tuesday, June 22, 2021, the Schuyler County Health Department notified the public about a super spreader exposure event to the COVID-19 virus at the camp which occurred from June 13 through June 17.

Two days later, on June 24, the Adams County Health Department was alerted to a COVID-19 super spreader exposure event in Adams County where a conference sponsored by The Crossing church was held on June 18th and 19th. It was the second such public health warning directly associated with The Crossing church.

USA Today was among the first to report the massive infection that spread among children and has left one teen hospitalized so far, news which has since “gone viral” and been reported by numerous news outlets.

The Schuyler County Health Department told CNN that their Public Health officials had worked with camp staffers “to provide guidance and mitigate the situation.”

The Illinois Department of Health (IDPH) first found that 85 attendees and volunteers at Crossing Camp tested positive for COVID-19, and that only a “handful” of campers and volunteers had received any vaccine against the disease. Since the first report, the number of infected people has since increased to 96, and public health officials expect an untold number more.

State Public Health records indicate that Indiana’s Schuyler and Adams counties, where Crossing Camp and The Crossing conference are located, only have a 40% COVID-19 vaccination rate, while statewide in Illinois, only 46.1% of the population is fully vaccinated.

IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike, MD, issued a Public Health statement addressing the spread of Coronavirus Disease among children and teens which stated in part that,

Cheating On Taxes, Bumming A Ride, And Economic Growth

Renown U.S. economist John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) identified an economic theory – the “horse and sparrow” – which he described thusly:

“If you feed the horse enough oats,
some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.”

Today, we call that “trickle down” economics – the theory popularized and promoted by POTUS Ronald Reagan. Never mind that the word “trickle down” just sounds so very wrong – the picture of urine being foremost – but the renown London School of Economics has recently put the kibosh on that idea, after studying history of 38 nations over 50 years which did the same thing – cut taxes on the wealthy in the hopes that it would provide economic stimulus of various and sundry types.

It did not.

For anyone who’s been paying even the slightest amount of attention, they would know that the world’s wealthiest man – Jeff Bezos – paid practically no income taxes on his vast personal fortune, neither did his corporation, Amazon. He was by no means the only one who shirked their patriotic duty by cheating the government, there were many more – billionaire pal Elon Musk is among them.

Dr. John Kenneth Galbraith, PhD, was a noted economist and author, the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Harvard University, former Ambassador to India, and former Presidential Advisor. Internationally renown for development of Keynesian and post-Keynesian economics, he was equally well-known for his wit and candor, evidenced in his prolific writings, which included over 30 books. His last book was a 1999 memoir “Name-Dropping,” in which he wrote about the historical individuals whom he’d known in his long, colorful life as an economist, professor, ambassador, and lifelong liberal.
Harvard University News Office image handout

As well, PayPal founder Peter Thiel, another billionaire, took unfair and unjust advantage of a Roth IRA – a savings vehicle created and designed to benefit the working families of America – and using tricks and maneuvers not available to the average person, turned a retirement account worth under $2000 in 1999, into a $5 billion tax-free windfall by the end of 2019. That same year, Forbes estimated his net worth at $2.3 billion – less than half of his Roth IRA’s value.

In stark contrast, the average Roth IRA was valued at $39,108 at the end of 2018.

So, we have one perspective, but let’s put things in even more clear focus, shall we?

How much is $5 billion?

If every single one of the 2.3 million people in Houston, Texas were to deposit $2,000 into a bank today, the total of all their accounts would still not equal what Peter Thiel has in his Roth IRA.

Of course, since a Roth IRA is a retirement income savings vehicle, taxation of deposited funds is not just significantly deferred until after the 60th birthday of the depositor, it is 100% TAX FREE FOREVER. So in essence, he cheated the system.

While you, I, and other patriotic Americans are dutifully paying our income taxes like the loyal citizens we are – paying for all of our nation’s governmental services, military service members salaries, defense budget, and more – most all wealthy Americans are very happy to continue shirking their responsibilities to pay their fair share, and are even more happy that you, I, and every other red-blooded patriotic American are picking up the tab for them.

This article details exactly how PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel truly cheated a system which was NOT designed for wealthy individuals.
https://www.propublica.org/article/lord-of-the-roths-how-tech-mogul-peter-thiel-turned-a-retirement-account-for-the-middle-class-into-a-5-billion-dollar-tax-free-piggy-bank

This article cites prospective Congressional action which will likely be taken following publication, and discovery of the abuses of the Roth IRA by Peter Thiel, and other ultra-wealthy individuals.
The Ultrawealthy Have Hijacked Roth IRAs. The Senate Finance Chair Is Eyeing a Crackdown.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-ultrawealthy-have-hijacked-roth-iras-the-senate-finance-chair-is-eyeing-a-crackdown

Now, as for the Horse And Sparrow Theory, a research paper by the London School of Economics found that, contrary to the assertions of those who promoted them, tax cuts upon the wealthy DO NOT improve the economy in any way whatsoever.

The study examined

Gerrymander 2021: Republicans To Choose Voters

“Redistricting is like an election in reverse! It’s a great event. Usually the voters get to pick the politicians. In redistricting, the politicians get to pick the voters!”

— Thomas Hofeller (1943-2018), Republican National Committee Redistricting Director, GOP strategist and district mapmaker at “Redistricting & Census 2000,” an event sponsored by the National Conference of State Legislatures, (see video at 33:50–34:24), at Henry Gonzales Convention Center, San Antonio, Texas

Should politicians choose their voters?

Or, should voters choose their politicians?

That’s the essence of what will be the next great political fight to come from Republicans.

And, if things go the way that many expect them to go, the GOP will crown themselves the victor.

“The fix is in,” as the saying goes.

Here’s one recent news item detailing how the formerly-Grand Old Party will manipulate the system:

Republicans Eye Nashville Crack-Up To Gain House Seat
By Reid Wilson – 06/20/21 04:32 PM EDT

“Republicans plotting to maximize their advantages in state legislatures across the country during the decennial redistricting process are considering cracking apart Tennessee’s largest city, an ambitious move that could signal how aggressively the party will try to rig maps in its favor in the coming months.

“In preliminary conversations, top Republicans in the Volunteer State have contemplated dramatically redrawing the boundaries of a district anchored in Nashville, one of just two U.S. House seats in Tennessee held by a Democratic member of Congress.

“The move would put the squeeze on Rep. Jim Cooper (D), the dean of Tennessee’s congressional delegation and a presence in Washington since he first won his district in 1982, save for an eight-year absence after he lost a race for a U.S. Senate seat in 1994.

“Cooper has never had trouble winning reelection: He ran unopposed in 2020, and he hasn’t taken less than 62 percent of the vote since the Republican wave of 2010.

“Cooper’s strength lies in Nashville’s Davidson County, home to about four in five of his constituents. The county gave President Biden almost two-thirds of the vote in 2020, while the smaller but more Republican suburbs in Dickson and Cheatham counties voted heavily for former President Trump.

“Nashville and Davidson County have been wholly contained within one congressional district since at least the 1950s, a logical function of its role as the population epicenter of Middle Tennessee.

“But if Tennessee Republicans decide to divide Davidson County between neighboring districts, Cooper may find himself facing the unpalatable decision to run in a district that is much more favorable to Republicans: All three of the neighboring districts — held by Reps. John Rose (R) to the north and east, Mark Green (R) to the west and south and Scott DesJarlais (R) to the southeast — gave Trump at least two-thirds of the vote.

““Tennessee has changed dramatically, in a lot of ways,” said Gregory Gleaves, a Republican strategist in Nashville. “I don’t think it would be that unusual for Nashville to get split. It happens in other states. There’s no law saying Davidson County is the one county that can’t be split.”

“Democrats would have little ability to resist the GOP power play. Republicans hold 26 of 33 seats in the state Senate, and 74 of 99 seats in the state House of Representatives. Gov. Bill Lee, also a Republican, has the final say in approving any new district maps.

“It’s always going to be chopped up to the advantage of the ruling party. So that’s expected,” said state Rep. Antonio Parkinson (D), the chairman of the Tennessee state legislature’s Black Caucus. “It makes it harder for Democrats to get elected.”

“Cooper’s office did not respond to a request for comment. But he is no fan of partisan gerrymandering: Cooper introduced legislation earlier this year that would require states to create independent and bipartisan redistricting commissions.

“Voters should continue to choose their elected officials — not the other way around,” Cooper said in a statement introducing the bill in January. “The redistricting process shouldn’t be about protecting the powerful and we need to fix it.”

“The U.S. Census Bureau has not put out block-level population data that will inform state legislative mapmakers, after the pandemic delayed data collection and analysis, so any potential plans to split Nashville are preliminary at most.

“But redistricting experts say they see the move to divide Tennessee’s biggest city among multiple districts, diluting the power of Nashville’s voters and giving Republicans a chance to pick up a seat, as emblematic of a strategy the GOP will use in other states.

“This is a common tactic used by state legislators especially in order to crack voters into different districts,” said Ari Goldbloom-Helzner, a computational research analyst at the Electoral Innovation Lab at Princeton. “It makes it difficult for those groups to constitute a majority in electing a representative of their choice that represents their community.”

“Several other cities have been chopped between districts for partisan gain, too: In the last decade, Texas Republicans split Travis County, home of liberal Austin, among five separate congressional districts, four of which are held by Republicans. Pennsylvania Republicans drew district lines so bizarre in the increasingly Democratic Collar Counties around Philadelphia that the state Supreme Court set a new map of boundary lines in place for the 2018 elections. In Michigan, liberal Lansing is divided between districts held by Reps. Tim Walberg (R) and Elissa Slotkin (D), after Slotkin defeated Republican incumbent Mike Bishop in 2018.

“As the Census Bureau prepares to deliver new block-level data to states, Republicans and Democrats are beginning to outline strategies they will implement to take full advantage of the control they wield.

“Republicans, by dint of their advantage in so many state legislatures, will have a leg up. The GOP holds complete control over the redistricting process in 20 states that will collectively send 188 members to the House of Representatives. Democrats control the entire process in only seven states that account for 72 members of Congress.

“Sixteen states will draw new boundary lines through independent or bipartisan commissions or through power-sharing agreements because both Democrats and Republicans hold at least one lever of government. The seven remaining states send only one at-large member to Congress.

“The Republican advantage is less than it was a decade ago, just after the 2010 election handed the GOP control of a large number of governorships and state legislative chambers. But recent Supreme Court rulings have removed some of the guardrails that constrained legislatures last time around, potentially giving Republicans and Democrats alike greater freedom to exercise their control over the redistricting process.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/559207-republicans-eye-nashville-crack-up-to-gain-house-seat

See also: The Path To The Supreme Court’s Big Gerrymandering Decision Led Justices Through Tennessee
by Joel Ebert, The Tennessean, July 4, 2019, 10PM CST
https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/05/supreme-court-partisan-gerrymandering-debate-barker-vs-carr/1623807001/

See also: Grand Divisions Episode 58: A Look At A Landmark Supreme Court Case With Tennessee Ties And Gerrymandering
by Joel Ebert, The Tennessean, July 9, 2019, 5AM CST
https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/09/tennessee-gerrymandering-baker-v-carr-supreme-court/1676767001/

If it’s wrong for one party to do it, it’s wrong for the other party to do it — regardless of which one is in power. Both parties would decry such an unjust and inequitably lopsided measure if the other one did it.

It’s not mere politics. The problem is very real, and is a dangerously destabilizing force upon our free and independent Constitutional processes, most notably upon voting, by making it ineffectual, null and void, and jeopardizing our national security and our democratic republic. In essence, it is a theft and usurpation of power out of the hands of The People, and into the pockets of politicians.

All that is thanks in large part to Thomas Hofeller, a Republican strategist who some say “perfected” the art of gerrymandering – a manipulative process designed to usurp power from the people, and instead, give it to politicians.

However, HR1 and companion bill S1, would put a stop to such abusive practices by establishing independent, nonpartisan redistricting boards in all 50 states, which is but one reason why that bill is so very important. It also puts an end to the abuses of “dark money,” and brings to a screeching halt the disastrous “money is free speech” SCOTUS ruling in Citizens United.

After Hofeller’s death, his daughter Stephanie discovered what amounted to a veritable treasure trove of information, all which was from his work drawing maps that would significantly benefit Republicans. What was embarrassing, was that all of his work was designed to limit the political influence of Blacks, Hispanics, and other non-White people. Stephanie’s discovery of his arguably racist work was so shocking, that the Republican party in North Carolina – where Hofeller’s maps work was successfully utilized by the GOP – sought to legally prevent her from publicly releasing his work.

They were unsuccessful.
See: https://www.TheHofellerFiles.com/
See also: https://election.princeton.edu/2020/01/13/the-hofeller-documents/

Thomas Hofeller’s work creating gerrymandered exclusionary political maps was nationwide and included redistricting in Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia, as well as Nassau County New York, and Galveston, and Nueces counties in Texas.

Hofeller was also significantly responsible for the idea of a prospective Census question “Is this person a United States citizen?” which was eventually nixed by the judicial system.

Stephanie said that her father’s stated objective was to use the manipulative process of gerrymandering to “create a system wherein the Republican nominee would win. State legislature, it doesn’t matter who votes for what. Congress, it doesn’t matter who votes for what. And president, it doesn’t matter.”

Ms. Hofeller said that

Oregon US Representative Earl Blumenauer Introduces Blueprint to Legalize Marijuana

PREDICTION:

Cannabis WILL be legalized within the next 6 – 8 months at the Federal level.

As state after state, and nation after nation is legalizing or decriminalizing cannabis in one form, or another, the United States is facing a decision which was made nearly 100 years ago to make illegal a practically harmless substance, which itself has shown, and continues to show significant promise for the amelioration of serious disease, malady, and human suffering.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, in their 2017 “Drugs of Abuse” report,

“No deaths from overdose of marijuana have been reported.”

The National Cancer Institute has written that it’s impossible to overdose on cannabis, because our body’s cannabinoid receptors — the chemicals that bind to THC — are not located in areas of the brainstem that control respiration. For that reason, a “lethal dose” of cannabis is like the flying spaghetti monster: It DOES NOT EXIST.

In stark contrast, the CDC has stated in January 2018 that

“excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths.“

Significantly greater lethality comes from tobacco use, and in April 2018, the CDC stated that

“cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 Americans each year.“

In 1972, the Schaffer Commission, officially, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, issued a report entitled Marihuana: A signal of misunderstanding which was the first report by the United States Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, was largely dismissive of specious claims that there was danger in its use, and recommended ending marijuana prohibition and adopting other methods to discourage use.

Specifically, it debunked false claims made about cannabis, and found that, contrary to earlier assertions made about during efforts to keep it illegal,

“marihuana was usually found to inhibit the expression of aggressive impulses by pacifying the user.”

It stated further that,

“neither informed current professional opinion nor empirical research, ranging from the 1930’s to the present, has produced systematic evidence to support the thesis that marihuana use, by itself, either invariably or generally leads to or causes crime, including acts of violence, juvenile delinquency or aggressive behavior.”

Another infamously false claim that marijuana use caused “insanity,” was similarly debunked, and the Commission wrote that

“previous estimates of marihuana’s role in causing crime and insanity were based on quite erroneous information.”

They even warned that
maintaining cannabis’ illegal status
“carries heavy social costs”
and that
“the better method {to discourage its use}
is persuasion
rather than prosecution.”

And in fact, they wrote that “we reject the total prohibition approach and its variations” and instead recommended “a decriminalization of possession of marihuana for personal use on both the state and federal levels.”

A portion of their recommendation was regulation, and wrote in part that “by establishing a legitimate channel of supply and distribution, society can theoretically control the quality and potency of the product.”

Of course, none of the recommendations were followed, and instead, Nixon, the paranoid president who maintained an “enemies list” (and recorded conversations, and narrowly missed criminal indictment, for which reason he resigned the Presidency), initiated his now-infamously-failed “War on Drugs,” and kept marijuana listed on Schedule I.

Nixon’s Domestic Policy Advisor, John Erlichman (1925-1999), was quoted by Dan Baum in Harper’s Magazine April 2016, and said the following of Nixon’s War on Drugs:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968,
and the Nixon White House after that,
had two enemies:
The antiwar left and Black people.
You understand what I’m saying?
We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be
either against the war or Black,
but by getting the public to
associate the hippies with marijuana
and Blacks with heroin,
and then criminalizing both heavily,
we could disrupt those communities.
We could arrest their leaders,
raid their homes,
break up their meetings,
and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
Did we know we were lying about the drugs?
Of course we did.”

Such statements seem to very clearly suggest that laws prohibiting cannabis consumption were left in place for one purpose alone, and that is to use the instrument of law to keep under foot those who might be socially undesirable – most notably, the poor, and ethnic minorities – and that is an egregious abuse of law, and contradicts almost every idea of equality under law in our Constitution.

Our Federal government, along with State and Local governments, regulates and taxes beverage Alcohol and Tobacco (which is 2/3 of the ATF’s name), and does so successfully, and in the process, generates significant revenue for all three levels of governments. Along with that, entrepreneurial enterprises in those two industries hire almost countless numbers of people, and generate significant revenue nationally, and globally through export.

The Libertarian think-tank Cato Institute, in their statement which decries that which they call the “nanny state,” quotes late, former POTUS Ronald Reagan in former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s book “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” as having said, “Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.” (Penguin Press, Chapter 4, (p. 87), 2007.)

In keeping with the overall sentiment expressed in the Shafer Commission report,

50 Years Of Failure – Total Wa$te Of Time And Money

How long does it take to see a failed social experiment for what it is – a total, abysmal failure, which has taken a wrecking ball to society?

Apparently, at least 50 years.

We learned much more quickly with beverage alcohol.

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The War On Drugs: 50 Years Later

After 50 Years Of The War On Drugs, “What Good Is It Doing For Us?”

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1006495476/after-50-years-of-the-war-on-drugs-what-good-is-it-doing-for-us

When Aaron Hinton walked through the housing project in Brownsville on a recent summer afternoon, he voiced love and pride for this tight-knit, but troubled working-class neighborhood in New York City where he grew up.

He pointed to a community garden, the lush plots of vegetables and flowers tended by volunteers, and to the library where he has led after-school programs for kids.

But he also expressed deep rage and sorrow over the scars left by the nation’s 50-year-long War on Drugs. “What good is it doing for us?,” Hinton asked.

As the United States’ harsh approach to drug use and addiction hits the half-century milestone, this question is being asked by a growing number of lawmakers, public health experts and community leaders.

In many parts of the U.S., some of the most severe policies implemented during the drug war are being scaled back or scrapped altogether.

Hinton, a 37-year-old community organizer and activist, said the reckoning is long overdue. He described watching Black men like himself get caught up in drugs year after year and swept into the nation’s burgeoning prison system.

“They’re spending so much money on these prisons to keep kids locked up. They don’t even spend a fraction of that money sending them to college or some kind of school,”  said Hinton, shaking his head.

Republican President Richard Nixon explains aspects of the special message sent to the Congress, June 17, 1971, asking for an extra $155 million for a new program to start his infamous social experiment which he called the “War on Drugs.” He labeled addiction and drug misuse “a national emergency” and said the money would be used to “tighten the noose around the necks of drug peddlers and thereby loosen the noose around the necks of drug users.” In 50 years, his plan has proven to be an abysmal failure. Behind him on the LEFT is Egil Krogh, Deputy Director of the Domestic Council. At right is Dr. Jerome Jaffe, MD who Nixon recruited to lead a new drug strategy. (AP Photo/Harvey Georges)

Hinton has lived his whole life under the drug war. He said Brownsville needed help coping with cocaine, heroin and drug-related crime that took root here in the 1970s and 1980s.

His own family was scarred by addiction.

“I’ve known my mom to be a drug user my whole entire life. She chose to run the streets and left me with my great-grandmother,” Hinton said.

Four years ago, his mom overdosed and died after taking prescription painkillers, part of the opioid epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Hinton said her death sealed his belief that tough drug war policies and aggressive police tactics would never make his family or his community safer.

The nation pivots (slowly) as evidence mounts against the drug war

During months of interviews for this project, NPR found a growing consensus across the political spectrum — including among some in law enforcement — that the drug war simply didn’t work.

“We have been involved in the failed War on Drugs for so very long,” said retired Major Neill Franklin, a retired Major with the Baltimore City Police and the Maryland State Police who led drug task forces for years.

During a press conference this week, he said,

Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema & John C. Calhoun Walk Into A Bar…

Joe orders a Black Russian, Kyrsten orders a White Russian, and John C. Calhoun orders a filibuster.

Nobody got any drinks.

West Virginia U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat in his 2nd term has an illustrious history as a public servant which began with election to the state’s House of Delegates, then to the State Senate, and from there to statewide office as WV Secretary of State, and then as Governor.

In a June 6, 2021 Op-Ed published in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, he announced his opposition to H.R.1 – the “For the People Act of 2021” – ostensibly because of a wholesale lack of Republican support for it, including opposition to the idea of eliminating the filibuster.

Among other things, the bill would unify election law throughout the 50 United States by establishing uniform standards for federal elections, establish non-partisan independent state redistricting commissions in all 50 states, establish a Federal Judicial Code of Conduct, outlaw any action that would “corruptly hinder, interfere with, or prevent another person from registering to vote” or assisting another to register to vote, mandate “motor voter” registration when applying for a driver license, prohibit partisan voting registration “dirty tricks” to cull voters without their knowledge, require voter-verified permanent paper ballots, mandate early voting, as well as numerous other significantly beneficial improvements to national security and election law.

Relatedly, Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema, a Democrat two years into her first term, has announced her opposition to eliminating the filibuster – a procedural tool most often used by the minority to thwart legislation, by requiring at least 60 votes to proceed, thereby preventing it from even being discussed, in order to effectively kill the prospective measure.

The Senate’s 2 Independents – Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Angus King of Maine – caucus with the Democrats, and in the case of now-rare tie votes, the Vice President Kamala Harris would cast any tie-breaking vote… if it weren’t for the filibuster – which has now degenerated into a mere threat, with no real “action” required to “activate” it, per se. It has become the quintessential model, and most public example of, pathological passive-aggressive behavior – doing nothing (the passive behavior) to control, or manipulate others (the aggressive behavior).

Back To The Future

At one time, or another, Republicans and Democrats have separately expressed desire to eliminate the obstructionist tactic of the filibuster, which was not supported by the Founders, but rather, was a response to Vice President Aaron Burr’s criticism (shortly after his indictment for the murder of Alexander Hamilton) that the Senate’s rules were a mess, with numerous rules that duplicated each other, and in particular, singled out the “previous question” motion. So, when the Senate met the next year in 1806, they eliminated the “previous question” motion of parliamentary procedure, which functionally ceased debate using a simple majority vote… because Aaron Burr told them to.

Deleting that rule did not immediately cause filibusters to break out all over, but merely made it possible for them to happen — because there was no longer a Senate rule that could have enabled a simple majority to cut off debate. It was only several decades later in 1837 that the minority exploited the insufficient limits on rules of debate, and had the first filibuster.

There were three essential reasons why the filibuster was so rare, and infrequently used before the Civil War, because:

1.) The Senate operated by majority rule, and Senators expected that matters would be brought to a vote;
2.) The Senate had little work to do in that era, and there was plenty of time to wait out any opposition, and;
3.) Voting coalitions in the Senate were not as polarized as they later became.

Catch-22

As our nation grew, and added states, so did the Senate add more members. With growth, came increased work. And by 1880, every Congress had at least one episode of filibustered obstructionism, most of which were unconcerned with important matters of the day, and instead were focused upon trivial, inconsequential matters.

So, when filibusters did occur, Senate leaders tried to ban them. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries Senate leaders tried to reinstate the “previous question” motion – but they failed repeatedly – and ever since, have long sought a procedure to end debate on any given matter.

More often than not, senators gave up any hope for reform when they became aware that opponents to the elimination of the filibuster would kill any such effort at changing the rules to eliminate the filibuster — ironically, by filibustering — thereby putting the majority’s other priorities at risk. Because they were unable to reform the Senate’s rules, leaders developed other innovations such as unanimous consent agreements, which measures were an option of second resort for managing a chamber which by then, was prone to filibusters.

In response, the Senate changed… but not by much.

“Unanimous Consent” agreements emerged like mushrooms after a springtime rain shower. And then, cloture was created in 1917 during the waning days of World War I. Not “simple majority” cloture, but “supermajority” cloture. The Senate filibustered for 23 days following President Woodrow Wilson’s proposal to arm merchant marine ships during WWI. It also ground to a halt all other work in the Senate. The President criticized the Senate by saying it was

“the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”

In response to President Wilson’s withering criticism, a bipartisan Senate committee was formed to negotiate the form of the rule. Five of the six Democrats supported a simple majority rule; one Republican supported a supermajority rule; and one Republican preferred no rule. Negotiators then struck a compromise:

1.) Cloture would require two-thirds of senators voting;
2.) Opponents promised not to block or weaken the proposal, and;
3.) Supporters promised to drop their own proposal for simple majority cloture — a proposal which was supported by at least 40 senators.

Rule 22 – the cloture rule, to cease filibuster by a two-thirds majority vote – was adopted 76-3, on March 8, 1917.

Just Say No

Without Senators Manchin and Sinema’s support on vital bills forwarded from the narrow Democratic majority House, it’s practically assured that Republicans – who control 50 Senate seats – will once again, control movements of all legislation, despite the fact that when they were in control as the majority, they “circled their wagons” and got things done, even with Democratic opposition.

And, at a recent press event in his home state on May 5, 2021, Senate Minority Leader Kentucky Republican “Moscow” Mitch McConnell said,

“One hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration.”

So, it very much looks like the Senate’s legislative “Grim Reaper” is back to his old manipulative tricks, despite being in the minority – just because he can.

Prophecy Fulfilled

As many political scientists, politicians, and analysts have observed, increasingly, the formerly Grand Old Party is losing grassroots support on a broad basis. But, it’s not as if such problems weren’t predictable. On February 1, 1993 Washington Post Reporter Michael Weisskopf wrote that:

“The gospel lobby evolved with the explosion of satellite and cable television, hitting its national political peak in the presidential election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

“Unlike other powerful interests, it does not lavish campaign funds on candidates for Congress nor does it entertain them. The strength of fundamentalist leaders lies in their flocks. Corporations pay public relations firms millions of dollars to contrive the kind of grass-roots response that Falwell or Pat Robertson can galvanize in a televised sermon. Their followers are largely poor, uneducated and easy to command.

““The thing that makes them powerful, is they’re mobilizable. You can activate them to vote, and that’s particularly important in congressional primaries where the turnout is usually low. Some studies put the number of evangelical Americans as high as 40 million, with the vast majority considered politically conservative,” said Seymour Martin Lipset (d.2006), professor of public policy at George Mason University.”

What Michael Weisskopf wrote caused such an outrage and an uproar, so much so to the extent that the Post was moved to write some type of retraction as a “correction.”

It’s always easier to ask forgiveness, than permission.

But, what Weisskopf wrote about the predominately Rural, Republican-voting, White Protestant Evangelicals – that “Their followers are largely poor, uneducated and easy to command” – was true then, and it’s even more true now.

Folks don’t get mad because of falsehoods, or scurrilous accusations.

They get mad because of truth.

While campaigning for the Republican party’s nomination, after winning Nevada’s Republican caucuses on February 23, 2016, the later-45th President exclaimed, “I love the poorly-educated!”

Of course he does — because they’re too stupid to know when they’re being played for a fool. And he played them like a fiddle – like Nero, while Rome burned.

The once-Grand Old Party has demonstrably become the Party of Poorly-Educated, Low-Skilled, Poorly-Paid and Often-Impoverished, Rural Working Class Whites who watch and believe Fox News like religion – especially men – who twice voted for Trump, still believe his Big Lie, earn well under $50K annually, and increasingly vote Republican – against their own best self-interest.

They support candidates whose exclusive guiding political philosophy is to refuse endorsing higher wages, healthcare, education, and other matters of direct concern to them and their families, and magically believe that a privatized, laissez-faire free market everything will solve all problems. They are becoming, or have become, a minority voting bloc whose interests are not represented by the political party for which they increasingly vote.

They are, in essence, deluded.

We’re Going Down

In the few days before the January 6 insurrectionist attack upon Congress at the Capitol, led by far right-wing extremist Kentucky Republican Representative

It’s True: The Über-Wealthy Pay ZERO Income Taxes

Moochers.

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We are disclosing the tax details of the richest Americans because we believe the public interest in an informed debate outweighs privacy considerations.

Today, ProPublica is launching the first in a series of stories based on the private tax data of some of our nation’s richest citizens. We obtained the information from an anonymous source who provided us with large amounts of information on the ultrawealthy, everything from the taxes they paid to the income they reported to the profits from their stock trades.

In the coming months, we plan to use this material to explore how the nation’s wealthiest people — roughly the .001% — exploit the structure of our tax code to avoid the tax burdens borne by ordinary citizens.

Many will ask about the ethics of publishing such private data. We are doing so — quite selectively and carefully — because we believe it serves the public interest in fundamental ways, allowing readers to see patterns that were until now hidden.

Tax experts have long understood that the wealthiest Americans reap outsized benefits from the federal tax code’s emphasis on taxing income rather than assets like stock holdings and property. Yet, when The New York Times disclosed in 2020 that President Donald Trump had amassed so many deductions he paid no taxes in 11 of 18 years, it was assumed that his case was an anomaly, reflecting the unique breaks real estate developers receive under our tax system.

It is now clear that there isn’t just one such taxpayer — there are many, in multiple industries. We believe that disclosing the identities of billionaires who paid little to no taxes in years their fortunes grew by billions of dollars will help readers understand the magnitude of the tax advantages the ultrarich enjoy.

https://www.propublica.org/article/why-we-are-publishing-the-tax-secrets-of-the-001

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“America’s billionaires avail themselves of
tax-avoidance strategies
beyond the reach
of
ordinary people.
Their wealth derives from the
skyrocketing value of their assets,
like stock and property.
Those gains are not defined
by U.S. laws as taxable income
unless and until the billionaires sell.”

In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.

Typical Americans his age paid more in taxes than they saw in wealth growth over that period.

For every $100 of wealth growth from
2006 to 2018,
typical Americans paid $160 in taxes.

Bezos paid only $1.09.

Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.

ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans of business, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and taxes, but also their investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits.

Taken together, it demolishes

The Cornerstone myth of the American tax system:

That everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most.

The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year.

Many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, amassing little wealth and paying the federal government a percentage of their income that rises if they earn more. In recent years, the median American household earned about $70,000 annually and paid 14% in federal taxes. The highest income tax rate, 37%, kicked in this year, for couples, on earnings above $628,300.

The confidential tax records obtained by ProPublica show that the ultrarich effectively sidestep this system.

American multi-BILLIONAIRES
LEFT to RIGHT, TOP to BOTTOM: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Michael Bloomberg (Bloomberg), Rupert Murdoch (News Corp), Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway), Carl Icahn (Icahn Enterprises), George Soros (Soros Fund)

America’s billionaires avail themselves of tax-avoidance strategies beyond the reach of ordinary people. Their wealth derives from the skyrocketing value of their assets, like stock and property. Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell.

To capture the financial reality of the richest Americans, ProPublica undertook an analysis that has never been done before. We compared how much in taxes the 25 richest Americans paid each year to how much Forbes estimated their wealth grew in that same time period.

We’re going to call that their true tax rate.

The results are stark. According to Forbes, those 25 people saw their net worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That’s a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%.

It’s a completely different picture for middle-class Americans, for example, wage earners in their early 40s who have amassed a typical amount of wealth for people their age. From 2014 to 2018, such households saw their net worth expand by about $65,000 after taxes on average, mostly due to the rise in value of their homes. But because the vast bulk of their earnings were salaries, their tax bills were almost as much, nearly $62,000, over that five-year period.

No one among the 25 wealthiest avoided as much tax as Buffett, the grandfatherly centibillionaire. That’s perhaps surprising, given his public stance as an advocate of higher taxes for the rich. According to Forbes, his riches rose $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018. Over those years, the data shows, Buffett reported paying $23.7 million in taxes.

That works out to a true tax rate of 0.1%, or less than 10 cents for every $100 he added to his wealth.

In the coming months, ProPublica will use the IRS data we have obtained to explore in detail how the ultrawealthy avoid taxes, exploit loopholes and escape scrutiny from federal auditors.

Experts have long understood the broad outlines of how little the wealthy are taxed in the United States, and many lay people have long suspected the same thing.

But few specifics about individuals ever emerge in public. Tax information is among the most zealously guarded secrets in the federal government. ProPublica has decided to reveal individual tax information of some of the wealthiest Americans because it is only by seeing specifics that the public can understand the realities of the country’s tax system.

Consider Bezos’ 2007, one of the years he paid zero in federal income taxes. Amazon’s stock more than doubled. Bezos’ fortune leapt $3.8 billion, according to Forbes, whose wealth estimates are widely cited. How did a person enjoying that sort of wealth explosion end up paying no income tax?

In that year, Bezos, who filed his taxes jointly with his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, reported

The Best

The Best – and Worst – of Everything

If you’ve done any Internet-based searches for practically any product, good, or service, you may have noticed at least one recurring theme:

Best.

In an email today, I found the following:

• The 100 Best Movies on Netflix (June 2021)
• The 30 Best Horror TV Shows on Netflix
• The Best Sitcoms on Netflix Right Now (June 2021)
• The 35 Best Horror Movies on Netflix Right Now
• The 20 Best Sci-Fi Movies on Netflix (June 2021)
• The Best Comedies on Netflix Right Now (June 2021)
• The 7 Best Fantasy Movies on Netflix
• The Trailer Park: The Best New Movie Trailers of the
• The 60 Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Video Right Now (2021)
• The 10 Best Movies in Theaters Right Now
• The Best Sci-Fi Movies on Amazon Prime (2021)

I thought that I would vomit after reading that garbage, because it was so nauseating.

The best

Slap the word “best” into the headline, and POOF! “Suddenly,” it’s the ultimate, never-to-be challenged, or surpassed. And who, or what group established any “standards” by which the items were compared to establish what is “best,” or “worst”?

And what are the qualifications of the writers to establish what thing is “best,” or not?

It’s so just because they say so.

Again, an utter failure.

And then, when it comes to “news,” or what is often allegedly passed off as “news,” there are at least

No Smoking, No Joking: Alabama’s Medical Marijuana Law Examined

Flowering bud (female) of the Cannabis Sativa plant, aka “marijuana”

There are 49 other states to which Alabama could turn to examine what works, and what does not, and could emulate the best of the best.

But, Alabama’s gonna’ Alabama, regardless of who, or what party’s in office.

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Alabama patient advocates may have celebrated following “Guvnah Memaw’s” signature on the “Darren Wesley ‘Ato’ Hall Compassion Act” sponsored by Republican State Senator Dr. Tim Melson, MD (District 1).

But now, reality is about to set in.

The law, like so many others, is a fiasco. Citizens should rejoice the legislature cannot figure out how to connive and wheedle a gambling scheme to benefit themselves, or their “Big Mule” cronies.

Superficially, the “compassion act” sounds good.

That’s where it stops.

The law leaves patients high and dry when it comes to protecting them, and:

• Allows them to be fired without recourse, denied UC benefits, and denied Worker’s Comp benefits “regardless of the individual’s impairment or lack of impairment resulting from the use of medical cannabis.” {page 15, line 20, §20-2A-6(a)(10)} {page 16, line 13, §20-2A-6(a)(11)(c)}

But then, patient abandonment & neglect is Alabama’s forte.

• Allows DHR to remove children from a patient’s household, and states that the agency shall not be prohibited from “considering a parent or caretaker’s use of medical cannabis as a factor for determining the welfare of a child.” {page 16, line 19, §20-2A-6(a)(11)(d)}

• Penalizes diversion much more harshly than trafficking <500lbs of marijuana – 2 to 20 years vs 5 years + $50,000 fine, respectively. {Section 13A-12-231(1)(a)&(b)}

• Automatically suspends the driver’s license of “any person who is recommended a daily dosage of medical cannabis that exceeds 75 mg… regardless of whether he or she holds a valid medical cannabis card.” {page 99, line 9, Section 6}

• Taxes collected, over and above the board’s operating expenses, less 10%, will go to… The General Fund. {page 22, line 18, §20-2A-10(3)(c)}

No surprise there. It’s Alabama’s slush fund.

• Has an even number of voting board members (12), assuring deadlock on

“God told me to.” A hallmark of mental instability.

I would be very surprised if the judge in his case did not mandate that he receive mental health help. And, s/he certainly should.

The man is clearly delusional.

And with severe psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, that’s often the case, that, not only are the individuals delusional, but they’re also frequently highly religious.

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Man accused of stealing fire service car from Alabama fire station.
Said,“God told me to.”

By Mary Helene Hall
mhall@al.com
2021-06-03, 15:05:32
https://www.al.com/news/2021/06/man-accused-of-stealing-marked-car-from-alabama-fire-station-god-told-me-to.html

A man accused of stealing a marked fire vehicle from a Prichard, Alabama Fire-Rescue station was arrested Wednesday. Prichard is in Mobile County, and adjacent the City of Mobile on its Northern border. The town’s population is under 23,000.

According to FOX10 News – WALA-TV, Virtual Channel 10 (RF Channel 9), Mobile, Alabama – Jeffrey McCants was found a few hours after the crime was committed. The vehicle was stolen from the central station on Turner Road.

Prichard Police tracked the car down and got the suspect out at gun point.

Surveillance video shows Jeffery McCants Jr. walking into central fire station on Turner Road in Prichard.

He had a gas can in his hand and was looking in an area where Prichard Fire and Rescue members say they once stored gasoline. He then walked over to the station’s Ford Crown Victoria, got inside, sat there for a moment and then started it up. He then backed it up, and drove it out of the garage.

“It had the keys in it. I needed some gas so therefore I took the car, I had to. It was the only way to get gas. It said ‘hey man, you’ll get there faster if you take me,’ so I said, ‘ok, car, ima take it,’ so I took it and I washed it. I washed the car,” he said.

The fire department said

Michael Flynn Should Be Reactivated, Tried Under UCMJ, And Have Retirement Revoked

Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency; official portrait

This past Sunday, 30 May 2021, in Dallas, TX, disgraced former National Security Advisor LTG Michael Flynn, U.S. Army (ret.) made remarks at a QAnon gathering which billed itself as a “For God & and Country Patriot Roundup.”

An audience member who identified himself as a Marine, asked Mr. Flynn:
“I want to know why what happened in Minamar [sic]can’t happen here.”

Mr. Flynn replied:
“No reason, I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That’s right.”

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Congress should revoke Mr. Flynn’s Army (Federal Government) retirement.

Michael Flynn with Vladimir Putin at RT (Russia Today, a state propaganda outlet) sponsored dinner.

And, he should be prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

“Under the so-called “Hiss Act,” Members of Congress (and most other officers and employees of the federal government) will forfeit their entire federal employee retirement annuities if convicted of a federal crime that relates to espionage, treason, or several other national security offenses against the United States.”

–– reference: “Loss of Federal Pensions for Members of Congress Convicted of Certain Offenses,” 96-530, by Jack Maskell, Legislative Attorney, September 12, 2013, Congressional Research Service, 7-5700, http://www.crs.gov

Military retirees are also still subject to the UCMJ. There is also the possibility that Flynn could be reactivated, and charged under the UCMJ in order to stop his retirement.

DoD Financial Management Regulation, Volume 7B, CHAPTER 3 PAYMENT RESTRICTIONS, SECTION C – EXPIRATION OF ELIGIBILITY TO RETIRED PAY, 30321. Conditions

e. National Security Violations Within the Scope of 5 U.S.C. 8311-8322.
Note: The “Hiss Act,” Public Law 769,1 Sep 1954 (68 Stat 1142) codified as 5 U.S.C. 2281-2288. The Act, as amended, prohibited the payment of retired pay to military personnel who were convicted of any

Research: Most Religious Americans Support Broad Cannabis Legalization

A Pew Research Center survey conducted April 5-11, 2021 among 5109 randomly sampled U.S. adults who were all members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel – a group of over 10,000 adults randomly selected from throughout all 50 states who regularly participate in Pew’s surveys – found that most religiously affiliated Americans favor broad cannabis legalization.

Compared with other religiously affiliated groups, at 44%, White Evangelicals were

Is White Supremacy The New World Order?

Let’s get one thing straight: The United States Department of Justice, agencies of National Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation should waste no time in rounding up White Supremacist scum and prosecuting them for every imaginable crime, hate crime, treason, using RICO statutes, and every law enforcement tool available to them.

The Capital Police should have used flame throwers to quell the goddamned insurrectionists, and cooked those domestic terrorist motherfuckers to a toasty, black, crispy piece of garbage.

Every. God. Damn. One. Of. Them.

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From the Past, a Chilling Warning About the Extremists of the Present

By Neil MacFarquhar
May 1 ,2021

June 18, 1984 – Alan Berg, a liberal Jewish attorney talk show host in Denver, Colorado at KHOW Radlo, lies slain in the driveway of his townhome, next to his black VW Beetle convertible. He had returned from dinner date with his wife and was gunned down in retaliation for speaking his views opposing White Supremacy and racism by members of White Supremacist group “The Order” who illegally modified a semi-automatic MAC-10 to become a fully automatic submachine gun, and was shot 12 times. (Photo By Lyn Alweis/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

They robbed an armored car outside a sprawling Seattle shopping mall.

They bombed a synagogue in Boise, Idaho, and within weeks assassinated a Jewish talk radio attorney host in Denver.

Then a month later, they plundered another armored car on a California highway in a spectacular daylight heist that netted more than $3.6 million.

What initially seemed to F.B.I. agents like distant, disparate crimes turned out to be the opening salvos in a war against the federal government by members of a violent extremist group called the Order, who sought to establish a Whites-only homeland out West.

Their crime spree played out in 1984. Fast forward to 2021. Federal agents and prosecutors who dismantled the Order see troubling echoes of its threat to democracy in the Capitol riot and the growing extremist activity across the country.

“When you see the country as politically and philosophically divided as it is today, that makes it more likely that somebody could take advantage of these times to bring about another revolutionary concept like the Order. We stopped the Order. We did not stop the ideology,” said Wayne F. Manis, the main F.B.I. agent on the case.

Those who tracked the Order say the legacy of the group can be seen in the prominent role that far-right extemist organizations like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers played in storming the Capitol on January 6.

“Many of the participants of these groups today come from the same sources as the Order. I think they might be just as committed to totally changing democracy as we know it,” said Gene Wilson, the lead prosecutor, who went on to become a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Seattle before switching to private practice.

The agents who played central roles in disbanding the Order still consider it the most important case of their lives. Given the Order’s “potential for violence and destruction,” said Mr. Manis, no other domestic group posed a similar threat to the United States.

The Order collapsed after

God Wanted Them Dead: TN Diet Guru/Christian Cult Leader Gwen Shamblin Lara’s Jet Crashed

N66BK is a 1982 Cessna Citation 501 2-turbofan engine private jet registered to: JL&GL Productions LP, 902 Franklin Road, Brentwood, Williamson County, Tennessee 37027-6535, United States. JL & GL are Joe Lara & Gwen Lara, Limited Partnership.

Diet guru / Christian cult leader Gwen Shamblin Lara, founder of the Remnant Fellowship Church and author/founder of “The Weigh Down Workshop,” her husband William J. “Joe” Lara who were residents of Nashville’s wealthy/ritzy Brentwood enclave, and 5 others are presumed dead after her Cessna C501 Citation private jet crashed into the waters of Percy Priest Lake near and southeast of Nashville, Saturday at 10:55 AM CDT shortly after takeoff from nearby Smyrna Rutherford County Airport.

Rutherford County spokesperson Ashley McDonald said the Cessna Citation 501 single pilot jet was bound for Palm Beach International Airport in Florida when it crashed into nearby Percy Priest Lake shortly after takeoff.

Federal Aviation Administration registry indicates that the private jet was registered to JL & GL Productions LP, located in Bradwell, Tennessee, while the Tennessee Secretary of State’s website indicated that JL & GL Productions LP was owned by Gwen Shamblin Lara.

The private jet, which was registered to their company JL&GL Productions LP, has not been found, though parts have been retrieved, along with human remains, and Rutherford County Fire Rescue Captain John Ingle said the debris field is about a half-mile wide.

On Sunday, officials said that dive teams have recovered several components of the Cessna Citation jet, along with human remains, from Percy Priest Lake. Recovery efforts will continue Monday, which is Memorial Day.

Tennessee Highway Patrol investigators said that a small aircraft had been seen descending into the lake, and that debris consistent with the jet had been found near a boat ramp.

Gwen Lara’s daughter, Elizabeth Hannah, sent a text message to church members stating that, in addition to her husband Brandon, her mother and father, all passengers had ties to the church, and that it was forced to make a “quick, controlled landing.” Authorities identified other passengers as David and Jennifer Martin, and Jonathan and Jessica Walters.

Elizabeth Hannah messaged further that “More information to come, but be in prayer—and be at peace. My brother and I are asking for immediate prayers right now, as we have just gotten word that Gwen and Joe Lara’s plane had to go down. GOD IS IN CONTROL, and we will not stop moving forward with WHAT GOD WANTS with this church.”

https://news.yahoo.com/plane-said-carry-christian-diet-232123416.html

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Based exclusively upon daughter Elizabeth’s text message, clearly, god wanted them dead, since “GOD IS IN CONTROL” because that’s “WHAT GOD WANTS.”

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The church’s website states that, “Gwen, her husband Joe Lara, and their children and grandchildren live within a few houses of each other.”

Based upon FAA registrations to JL&GL Productions LP,

iPhone Coronavirus Party In Vietnam

Who doesn’t like their iPhone?

The world’s most popular smartphone is ubiquitous.

And we Westerners must genuinely appreciate the slave labor used to manufacture the parts that go into the handheld electronic communication device.

And without access to cheap slave labor from our Oriental brothers and sisters in Vietnam, China, and other Southeast Asian nations, we couldn’t enjoy using the electronic devices that so captivate our attention, anesthetizing us to their, and others’ suffering.

The liberal ideal of so-called “free trade” has been perverted.

Rather than being used by our nation as a tool to sow seeds of freedom, and cultivate the fruits of liberty, it’s being abused to enslave others far from our shores in the guise of “profitability” and “progress.”

Aided and abetted by their Wall Street corporate masters and pecuniary overlords, American slavery has been exported as a material good to enrich the few at the expense of the many.

And Republicans scoff at Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren’s chastizement of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and other banksters who enriched themselves, and their corporate coffers, by TENS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS by simply continuing to charge overdraft fees to their customers who’d lost their livelihoods, jobs, and income during the the coronavirus pandemic – even though the Federal Reserve not only cut them significant fiscal slack, but also encouraged them to pass such beneficence along to their customers by forgiving such fees.

They did no such thing.

And what will democratic, freedom-loving American beneficence and largesse do in this instance?

My bet is on “Nothing.”

Gotta’ make no’ munny fuh massa’.

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Vietnam Detects New Highly Transmissible Coronavirus Variant : Coronavirus Updates

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/05/29/1001590855/vietnam-detects-new-highly-transmissible-coronavirus-variant

Vietnam has detected a new coronavirus variant that is highly transmissible and has features of two other strains.

“Vietnam has uncovered a new COVID-19 variant combining characteristics of the two existing variants first found in India and the U.K.,” Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said, according to Reuters. “That the new one is

Denial Is Not Just A River In Egypt

Bill Cosby is led to prison following his conviction.

The luminary former stand-up comedian-funnyman, actor in the comedy serial “I Spy” 1965-68, portrayed gym teacher Chet Kincaid on “The Bill Cosby Show” 1969-71, was the voice of principal cartoon character on “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” 1972-85, earned the Ed.D. 1976, played the inimitable obstetric physician Dr. Huckstable, MD, of “The Cosby Show” 1984-92, author, and winner of numerous entertainment, and music awards – Presidential Medal of Freedom 2002, Emmy awards, Golden Globes, Grammys – will die in prison all because he chooses to deny the truth – like liar Trump, and his cultic supporters – that he’s a serial rapist/sexual predator, and got off practically scot-free.

With any luck, maybe he’ll die in prison.

Wouldn’t that be funny!?!

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Bill Cosby Refuses Treatment In State Prison Sex Offender Program, And Is Denied Parole

https://apnews.com/article/pa-state-wire-bill-cosby-entertainment-arts-and-entertainment-1dbde3849fb68ca116fcfa875ca886b7

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Actor Bill Cosby won’t be paroled this year after refusing to participate in sex offender programs during his nearly three years in state prison in Pennsylvania.

The 83-year-old Cosby has long said he would resist the treatment programs and refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing even if it means

NYC Bird-Watcher Case NOT What It Seems

By now, I suppose that you’ve probably read at least 2, 3, or maybe even 4 articles on this matter, and perhaps heard 5, 6, or more stories on teevee and/or radio about it, as well.

And, you’ve probably also found that, almost without exception, they practically say the exact same thing.

But, when you read THIS article – and I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE your readership of it (it’s pasted herein below) – you’ll notice MANY things in this story that are DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT from 99.9% of all other stories covering the exact same subject matter.

ALL other articles on this topic are like cotton candy – colorful, appear larger than life, are sweet, fun to eat, easy to swallow… and entirely without substance.

After you eat it all, you’re immediately left wanting more. It’s NOT satisfying in any way.

Again, this article is 100% different, and is almost entirely satisfying – unlike all others.

From the outset, I’ve contended that there was, and is, MUCH MORE to that story than was being reported —and— I was also then aware of the bird-watcher’s habit of threatening dog owners, and his boastful tweets about the same in which he openly wrote/stated that he carried poisoned dog treats (in his backpack) “for such occasions.”

This story details the numerous similar incidents in which he was historically and regularly involved, and cites the individuals whom he threatened, and their reports of them.

I’d be very surprised if this woman didn’t become a multi-millionaire from this, and subsequent lawsuits, related to that most unfortunate incident in Central Park.

Woman in NYC Bird-Watcher Case Sues Former Employer Franklin Templeton over Firing
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/woman-who-called-cops-on-black-bird-watcher-sues-over-her-firing
–––––––––––––––––––––
–––––––––––––––––––––
For your benefit, here’s the article:

Woman in NYC Bird-Watcher Case Sues Franklin Templeton in Firing (1)

By Patrick Dorrian
May 26, 2021, 9:21 AM; Updated: May 26, 2021, 11:16 AM

COURT: S.D.N.Y.
TRACK DOCKET: No. 1:21-cv-04692

• JUDGE: Ronnie Abrams
• COMPANY INFO: Franklin Templeton

Franklin Templeton characterized a former employee as “racist” for calling the police on a Black birdwatcher whom she had words with while walking her dog in Central Park, publicized the incident on Twitter, and falsely claimed it conducted an investigation before firing her, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan.

Amy Cooper said the May 25, 2020, incident was spurred by her fear of the birdwatcher, Christian Cooper, who she says had a history of “aggressively confronting” dog owners for walking their dogs off-leash. He similarly initiated the dispute with her in the same aggressive manner while she was walking her dog alone, causing her “to reasonably fear” for the safety of her and her pet, Cooper said.

That’s why she called the police, Cooper told the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in a Tuesday complaint. Franklin Templeton would have known that if had performed the investigation it told the public it had conducted, she said.

“We believe the circumstances of the situation speak for themselves and that the Company responded appropriately,” Franklin Templeton told Bloomberg Law on Wednesday in an email. “We will defend against these baseless claims.”

The company didn’t really look into the incident before firing Cooper the following day, just shy of five years after she was hired, the suit said.

It only interviewed her in the immediate aftermath, when she was still “palpably distraught and fearful of her safety,” Cooper said. And it never spoke or tried to speak with Christian Cooper or any of the other dogwalkers he had previously accosted, she said.

That includes a Black man who issued a statement to the media May 26, 2020, stating that he too feared Christian Cooper “because of his body language and screaming” when confronting him while he was walking his dog off-leash in the park, the suit said.

Nor did Franklin Templeton

Trump Indictment Imminent

WashingtonPost.com
National Security

Prosecutor In Trump Criminal Probe Convenes Grand Jury To Hear Evidence, Weigh Potential Charges

by Shayna Jacobs, David Fahrenthold
Tuesday, 25 May 2021

NEW YORK — Manhattan’s district attorney has convened the grand jury that is expected to decide whether to indict former president Donald Trump, other executives at his company or the business itself, should prosecutors present the panel with criminal charges, according to two people familiar with the development.

The panel was convened recently and will sit three days a week for six months. It is likely to hear several matters — not just the Trump case ­— during its term, which is longer than a traditional New York state grand-jury assignment, these people said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. Generally, special grand juries such as this are convened to participate in long-term matters rather than to hear evidence of crimes charged routinely.

The move indicates that District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.’s investigation of the former president and his business has reached an advanced stage after more than two years. It suggests, too, that Vance thinks he has found evidence of a crime — if not by Trump, by someone potentially close to him or by his company.

Vance’s investigation is expansive, according to people familiar with the probe and public disclosures made during related litigation. His investigators are scrutinizing Trump’s business practices before he was President, including whether the value of specific properties in the Trump Organization’s real estate portfolio were manipulated in a way that defrauded banks and insurance companies, and if any tax benefits were obtained illegally through unscrupulous asset valuation.

The District Attorney also is examining

In Praise of Natural Black Women

“Take It Off” – track 1 on his 1987 album “High Priest” – is a song sung by a White man (Alex Chilton) praising the beauty of a natural Black woman.

If you’ve given any attention to some of recent videos by Black female artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Doja Cat, Nicki Minaj, Armani Caesar, Bbymutha, et al, you’ll notice that (obviously fake) long, pointy fingernails are all the rage, as are fake eyelashes, and all the stuff Alex Chilton sings about in his 1987 version of the song… including

Transsexuals In Iran Have Governmentally-Subsidized Transition Surgery

And in America, some Banana Republican-misled states’ officials want to deny are denying transsexual people basic human rights… even denying them fundamental equal rights – American Civil Rights – guaranteed to everyone (but denied to them) by the U.S. Constitution.

Go figure.

Again, in Iran – a far right-wing religiously-run conservative state government – transsexuals have sexual reassignment surgery at government expense. And, it’s A-OK with their nation’s imams (powerful religious leaders).

But in America, Banana Republicans (Banana Republics need Banana Republicans, rights?) are the embodiment of “Just say ‘NO!'” to everything – civil rights, voting rights, equality under law, etc.

They are literally “Governmental Deconstructionists” hell-bent upon destroying government, rather than strengthening it, and by extension, as part and parcel of that grand objective, are de-funding it through various and sundry tax cuts for the wealthy.

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Iran: How Transgender People Survive Ultraconservative Rule

– Deutsche Welle, DW – 16.05.2021
by Monir Ghaedi 

Iran’s state subsidizes gender reassignment surgery while prohibiting homosexuality. A long and continuing history of activism has helped transgender people bolster their community despite the discrimination they face.

Before getting gender-confirmation surgery, Saman Arastoo had pondered all of the consequences. At the age of 40, he had built an acting career in Iranian cinema and theater as a woman. He knew that his decision would hurt his career, but he had plans to replace it. Now he spends most of his time making sure that trans boys and girls do not rush into sex-change surgery — a rather easy option in Iran.

Saman Arastoo has achieved a certain measure of success as a theater director in Iran

Despite Iran’s rigid attitudes toward sexuality, its capital, Tehran, has been dubbed one of the world’s hubs for sex-reassignment surgery. Transgender individuals live and work with no legal barriers in the country. The government even helps with the costs of hormone medicine and gender reassignment surgery for those who want it.

The procedure became legal following a transgender woman’s campaign in the mid-1980s. Maryam Khatoon Molkara met Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s religious and political leader, and told him how she had been put into a psychiatric institution and forcibly injected with male hormones. Moved by her story, Khomeini issued a decree, allowing the operation and endorsing civil rights for transgender people.

When it comes to other forms of non-heterosexual identity,

Electric Automobiles: Putting The Naysayers To Rest

A friend in Alabama, whom is the quintessential example of a Trump supporter – a White, poorly-educated, hard-shell, far right-wing, Christian Baptist Evangelical RINO – recently sent this to me.

I have no idea where he found it – I didn’t ask, and he didn’t say – though I rather suspect that, more likely than not, he found it on Facebook somewhere. (And indeed, that is the case.) So I can’t, and won’t attempt, to vouch for the claims made in the accompanying description, which is, as it’s read, but an oblique, limp, halfhearted, milquetoast denunciation of renewable energy and Electric Vehicles – and a phenomenally poor one, at that.

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“This is

Gaetz Of Hell: Joel Greenberg Cops Pleas To 6 Federal Felonies, Child Sex Trafficking, Identity Theft, Wire Fraud, Conspiracy, Etc.

No ham sandwich needed.

Solomon “Sol” Wachtler (b.1930), the former Republican Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, coined the phrase “indict a ham sandwich” in a January 1985 interview with Marcia Kramer and Frank Lombardi of the New York Daily News.

In part, the article read that:

“In a bid to make prosecutors more accountable for their actions, Chief Judge Sol Wachtler has proposed that the state scrap the grand jury system of bringing criminal indictments.

“Wachtler, who became the state’s top judge earlier this month, said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.”

A month later, the New York Times noted that Judge Wachtler believed that Grand Juries “operate more often as the prosecutor’s pawn than the citizen’s shield.”

That belief – that Prosecutors can get Grand Juries to do whatever they want them to do – may sound familiar to anyone who has read, or heard, news items of the criticisms of almost any Grand Jury in the United States.

But, of course, the adage doesn’t always true.

At least not in this instance, when the Feds have the goods on their will-plead-guilty-Monday-morning 17 May 2021 suspect – such as DNA and fingerprints – and as an unexpected by-product of the investigation are – more than likely –  working on another very closely-related suspect, who – as of yet – remains unnamed, and unindicted.

That as-yet unnamed, and unindicted suspect would be Florida’s Republican Representative for the 1st Congressional District, Matt Gaetz.

Gatez and Greenberg are each quintessential examples of a Florida Manchild. They’re each multi-millionaires from daddy’s money – Greenberg from his father’s dental clinics, and Gaetz from his father’s pharmaceutical interests – and are, as such, spoiled brats and children of privilege who think the world is their oyster.

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One “Florida Man” in the headline, of course, is Joel Greenberg, who was formerly a Tax Collector for Seminole County, Florida, and a very good buddy to the other Florida Man, the Banana Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz of the state’s 1st Congressional District in Fort Walton.

After his election to public office, Greenberg immediately began ingratiating himself to Trump supporters, and spoke at a rally in Sanford, FL in late 2016. Investigative reporting by the New York Times found that Greenberg and Gaetz had initially met one another through their support of Trump some time in 2017 and in June that year, Gaetz suggested to Greenberg that he consider campaigning for U.S. Congress. And on July 8 that year, Greenberg posted on Twitter a picture himself, along with convicted Federal felon, Nixon aficionado and political dirty-trickster Roger Stone, and Gaetz.

In this September 30, 2019, file photo, Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg talks to the Orlando Sentinel during an interview at his office in Lake Mary, Florida. As a key figure in the federal investigation of Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, Greenberg is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges next week. Joel Greenberg will appear Monday, 17 May 2021 in Federal court in Orlando, Florida for a change of plea hearing, according to court documents. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP, File)

Investigation into Greenberg’s dealings was first initiated by the Secret Service, in response to complaints that he improperly used county resources to mine Bitcoin… after cryptocurrency mining computers he’d purchased with taxpayer dollars for his private personal use caused an electrical system overload, resulting in a fire, which altogether caused over $7000 worth of uninsured damage to Seminole County property.

When the Feds wrapped up their investigation into Greenberg and his activities, they had leveled a 33 count indictment of violating several Federal laws – on charges ranging from stalking to sex trafficking, and conspiracy to fraud – so a plea deal down to 6 is a significant reduction – a very nearly 82% reduction.

David Weinstein, a former Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida said of Greenberg’s plea deal that, “His cooperation requires him to be providing truthful testimony and to provide it at the government’s request.”

As part of his plea agreement, on Monday, 17 May 2021 in Orlando at the George C. Young Federal Annex Courthouse in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Joel Greenberg will admit to recruiting women for commercial sexual exploitation, paying them over $70K from 2016 to 2018, including at least one underage girl then-aged 17, whom he paid to have sex with him, and with others, including Matt Gaetz.

Greenberg’s Plea Agreement, which he signed, and was filed Friday, 14 May 2021, states that he will plead guilty to:

Count One: Sex Trafficking of a Child – 18 USC § 1591
Count Eight: Producing a False ID – 18 US § 1028(a)(1)
Count Nine: Aggravated Identity Theft – 18 USA § 1028A
Count Fourteen: Wire Fraud – 18 USC § 1343
Count Twenty-Four: Stalking – 18 USC § 2261A
County Twenty-Six: Conspiracy – 18 USC § 371

Minimum & Maximum Penalties

Count One: Mandatory Minimum 10 years, up to life, $250,000 fine, supervised release not less than 5 years up to life, special assessment $100

Count Eight: Maximum sentence 15 years, $250,000 fine, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100

Count Nine: Mandatory Minimum 2 years (consecutive to any other conviction), $250,000 fine, 1 year supervised release, special assessment $100

Count Fourteen: Maximum 20 years, $250,000 fine or 2x gross loss caused by offense – whichever is greater, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100

Count Twenty-Four: 5 years maximum $250,000 fine, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100

Count Twenty-Six: Maximum 15 years, $250,000 fine or twice gross gain or loss caused by offense – whichever is greater, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100 – because offense was committed while on pre-trial release, and was warned about it

Federal prosecutors say that Greenberg abused his public office as Tax Collector for Seminole County, Florida not only by embezzling $400,000, but also by improperly using a statewide driver license database to “investigate” information about sexual partners, including a then-17-year old girl with whom he, and others had paid to have sex with.

He was also charged with numerous violations of the Federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, on multiple counts of producing a fraudulent identification document and creating false identification documents, along with aggravated identity theft.

Specifically, Greenberg also abused his elected office by using “his access to the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office to take surrendered driver licenses before they were shredded,” and then he “used the surrendered driver licenses that he had taken to cause fake driver licenses to be produced that had his photograph but the personal information of the victims whose driver licenses he had taken.”

Prosecutors also say that Greenberg’s corrupt house of cards began to crumble with a series of falsified letters which Greenberg had crafted and mailed [fraudulent use of U.S. Mail] which purported to be from a non-existent “very concerned student” enrolled at a private prep school where Brian Beute – a Republican candidate for Tax Collector and political opponent – taught music, and falsely alleged that the music teacher (Greenberg’s political opponent) had engaged in sexual misconduct with another student.

As part of that Roger-Stone-initiated ruse, he also created fake social media accounts in order to pose as Beute, or others, in an attempt to discredit him.

But his problems began in earnest last summer when he was arrested on charges of stalking his political opponent.

Republicans excel, are expert in, and frequent users of, the tactic of psychological projection – falsely claiming that an opponent is engaging in the very activities which they (the accuser) are/have engaged in.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg III testified in court that investigators found Greenberg’s fingerprints and DNA on the letters, and traced the fake social media accounts to his computer’s IP address.

Prosecutors say that Greenberg initially met the under-age girl through

Insurrectionist Writes Jailhouse Letter

In Exclusive Jailhouse Letter, Capitol Riot Defendant Explains Motives, Remains Boastful

The material obtained by ProPublica sheds light on the radicalization of a January 6 defendant whom prosecutors have characterized as a “serious danger … not only to his family and Congress, but to the entire system of justice.”

by Joshua Kaplan and Joaquin Sapien
May 11, 12:30 p.m. EDT

https://www.propublica.org/article/in-exclusive-jailhouse-letter-capital-riot-defendant-explains-motives-remains-boastful

In a letter sent from behind bars, a key defendant in the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol said he and fellow inmates have bonded in jail, and boasted that those attacking the building could have overthrown the government if they had wanted.

The letter is signed “the 1/6ers” and expresses no remorse for the assault on the Capitol, in which five people died. While no names appeared on it, ProPublica was able to determine, through interviews with his family and a review of his correspondence from jail, that it was penned by Guy Reffitt, a member of the Three Percenter right-wing militant group accused of participating in the riot. The letter said the inmates arrested for their role in the attack regularly recite the Pledge of Allegiance inside the Washington, D.C. jail and sing the national anthem “all in unison, loud and proud most everyday.”

“January 6th was nothing short of a satirical way to overthrow a government,” said the letter, written by hand on lined yellow paper. “If overthrow was the quest, it would have no doubt been overthrown.”

The letter sent to ProPublica is believed to be one of the first public statements from a January 6 rioter currently in detention. ProPublica also obtained text messages with Reffitt’s family and was able to ask a few questions of him via text from the D.C. Jail, with his wife, Nicole Reffitt, acting as a relay. Guy Reffitt declined to participate in a fuller interview on the advice of his lawyer, his wife said.

Reffitt faces a variety of charges, including obstructing an official proceeding, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. He is awaiting trial and has pleaded not guilty. In text messages he sent last month to his wife, Reffitt said he was resigning from the Texas Three Percenters.

An excerpt of a letter witten by Guy Reffitt, sent to ProPublica from jail.

Last week, Reffitt told ProPublica via his wife that more than 30 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack had discussed the letter while in custody. He said that the “1/6ers” are “not organized” and that there are “no leaders,” just “people chatting about things” because they are “stuck here together.”

Reffitt said that the suspects communicate with one another with what are known as “kites,” jailhouse slang for messages passed from cell to cell. They are also able to socialize during the two hours a day they’re let out of their cells. The Department of Justice declined to comment.

Those detained in connection with the Capitol siege have been treated by D.C. officials as “maximum security” prisoners and kept in restrictive housing, according to media reports. Three defendants that Nicole Reffitt said she understood to be parties to the letter denied any knowledge of it when contacted by ProPublica. One of them said he became friends with Guy Reffitt inside the D.C. Jail, but had been moved to another unit by the time the letter was penned.

Nicole Reffitt said she helped her husband write the letter and solicit support through phone calls and a jailhouse messaging app inmates are allowed to use periodically to communicate with the outside world. The D.C. Jail has held dozens of defendants in connection with the riot, on charges ranging from obstructing an official proceeding to assaulting a police officer with a dangerous weapon.

The letter counters the notion that

Ravi Zacharias International Sexual Predator Evaded Detection for Years as Christian Minister

RZIM, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, headquartered in the metro Atlanta, Georgia area, was stunned to learn that the ministry’s late founder and namesake, Ravi Zacharias, after intensive independent investigation, was confirmed to have been a long-term sexual predator who craftily and skillfully covered his tracks by using the ministry as a front for his sexual predatory and criminal behaviors on a global scale.

Zacharias, who for 40 years was previously held in high esteem in Christendom as an apologist – one who gives a reasoned, rational, and logical defense of the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Nazareth as the sinless resurrected son of God, miracle worker, etc. – died 19 May 2020 of a rare form of bone cancer located in his spine. It was an altogether ironically telling end to his life, that the foundation upon which he built his religious empire was a corrupted, and diseased fraud, just like the cancer in his spine.

Ravi Zacharias () was a liar, fraudster, international sexual predator, swindler, and all-around miserable scumbag who got away with his crimes by using a front as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Nazareth

During his lifetime, there were unverified rumors – scuttlebutt – of things possibly amiss and awry, and some of his claims about his academic accomplishment and achievements were not merely questionable, but entirely fabricated, and fully false, as well as the existence of hushed rumors of possible sexual impropriety. But none of them were ever fully investigated because of his stature, until after his death at age 74.

Some skeptics who continued a vigilant watch over his ministry were the proverbial “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” albeit were largely – if not fully – discounted by the religious Christian community precisely because the claims and investigations were made by atheists.

One such investigator is a fellow named Steve Baughman who owns the website RaviWatch.com, is an attorney, and describes himself as a “part-time lawyer, part-time touring and teaching musician, part-time philosophy student, and full-time dilettante.”

On the “about me” page of the site, he wrote that “The Ravi Zacharias project fell into my lap most unexpectedly in 2015 when I was seeking the best and brightest defenders of the Christian religion. I began earnestly to look into his work and quickly found a scoundrel behind the smiling erudition.”

The front page of the RaviWatch.com website has a detailed narrative about the numerous extensive false claims made by Zacharias, and show a trend of changes to the RZIM website in response to the discovery of false claims made by Mr. Zacharias, most notably those being pertaining to educational achievement, and academic appointment at prestigious educational institutions such as Cambridge, Oxford, and others.

A video by Mr. Baughman published November 26, 2017 on the YouTube website, which link is posted below, gives significant detail about his findings of Ravi’s continued deliberate defrauding and lies about himself, and about his long-term online sexual relationship with “Lori Anne Thompson, a woman with whom he had maintained an online friendship for several years.”

“In April of 2017, Mr. Zacharias received a demand letter from Mark P. Bryant, of the Bryant Legal Center in Paducah, KY, who represented Lori Anne Thompson, which demanded $5 million in what can only be characterized as hush money. The letter accused Ravi of using Ms. Thompson for his sexual gratification, in violation of his duties as a minister.”

“The letter is not legally persuasive. But it makes an explosive claim. Mr. Bryant claims to have an email from Mr. Zacharias in which he threatened to commit suicide (“bid this world goodbye”) if Ms. Thompson told her husband about their relationship. (Mr. Zacharias does not deny this in his court filing but he remains free to do so as litigation proceeds. I am attempting to procure a copy of the email.)

“On July 31, 2017, Mr. Zacharias responded by filing a federal lawsuit against Ms. Thompson and her husband, Bradley Thompson, accusing them of carrying out an extortion scheme against him. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

“Looking only at the evidence presented by Mr. Zacharias we learn that he had indeed carried on an online relationship with Ms. Thompson, one that involved her sending him nude photos of herself. (There was no physical sexual contact between them.) After Bradley Thompson learned of this relationship, he emailed Mr. Zacharias and asked “why would you ask her to send you photos of herself?”

“Five days later, on January 21, 2017, Mr. Zacharias replied to Mr. Thompson. He denied soliciting such photos from Ms. Thompson but said that he did not want to risk “seeming to avoid the full force of the responsibility.” Mr. Zacharias admitted that “the blame is real and inescapable” and revealed that he had avoided meeting Ms. Thompson in person “so as not to continue what was wrong.”

“In his complaint Mr. Zacharias also reveals that when he learned that Ms. Thompson was coming to visit him from her home in Canada he deliberately left town to avoid meeting her.

“Curiously, while the complaint claims that at various times Mr. Zacharias attempted to block further messages from Ms. Thompson, it also says that he “remained amicable out of fear for his family’s safety and of potential damage to his professional reputation if he upset the Thompsons.”

“So it appears undisputed that, at very least, Mr. Zacharias continued for some time to receive sexual photos from Ms. Thompson even when he could have attempted to terminate contact with her, reported her behavior to his Board of Directors and gone about his business with no fear of reputational damage. It is also undisputed that something significant enough was going on between Ravi and Lori Anne that he deliberately left town when he knew she would be arriving.”

Mr. Baughman wrote that, “Ravi was a sexual predator, an academic fraud, and a man who led a double life. He made false claims on his book covers about his credentials, deceived tens of millions of Christians about his education, led trusting minds to believe there were simple answers to complex questions about God, operated two massage spas, and sexually abused massage therapists in the U.S. and across Asia. Ravi was also a vicious man who brutalized those who threatened to expose him. This is all confirmed now.”

On the RZIM website, there is posted an “Open Letter from the International Board of Directors of RZIM on the Investigation of Ravi Zacharias” which details in part the efforts the organization has undertaken to investigate the claims made by others about Ravi’s sexual predatory behavior. They wrote in part that,

Gun Control Now A Matter Of National Security

Why Gun Control Is Now a Matter of National Security

Opinion
By Steven Simon, Jonathan Stevenson
04/22/2021 06:30 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/22/why-gun-control-is-now-a-matter-of-national-security-484323

Steven Simon, an International Relations Professor at Colby College, served on the National Security Council during the Clinton and Obama administrations, including as Senior Director for Counterterrorism.

Jonathan Stevenson, a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and Managing Editor of Survival, served on the National Security Council as Director for Political-Military Affairs, Middle East and North Africa, from 2011 to 2013.

For all the tragic mass shooting headlines this year, the American gun control debate seems permanently stuck. Last week, nine people were killed by AR-15 fire in Indianapolis; before that, 10 died in Boulder, and eight in Atlanta. Despite the anguish over the past month — and despite a push by President Joe Biden — Congress looks unlikely to take any immediate action.

We share Biden’s view that the level of U.S. gun violence is a “national embarrassment.” But as National Security Council veterans who have specialized in counterterrorism — with direct experience involving far-right American terrorism, burgeoning jihadism, and Northern Irish extremism in the 1990s — we also see a new threat rising, one that has the potential to change the urgency of the debate: the growing, and heavily armed, American militia movement, which made a show of force on January 6.

Armed demonstrators protest outside of the Michigan State Capitol on January 17, 2021 in Lansing. – Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

Increasingly, as militias acquire and stockpile weapons, they’re turning guns from a public-health concern into a threat to national security. And it’s possible that if proponents of reform — including advocacy groups, congressional leaders and Biden — began addressing it that way, they’d have a chance of energizing the debate against the National Rifle Association and its allies. Indeed, the shock of the insurrection has increased the political burdens of an NRA in internal disarray and offered a new perspective on the need for significant gun control legislation.

As America learned on January 6, anti-government militia groups are more than willing to jump walls, break doors and disrupt the underpinnings of our democracy. These groups, with transnational ties, also enjoy easy access to high-power, high-capacity, small-caliber semiautomatic weapons—many of which can be converted to fully automatic. The concern isn’t that these weapons will somehow enable militias to challenge the U.S. military on the battlefield, which they certainly will not. It is that they make mass casualty attacks against political or cultural adversaries both easy to carry out, and easy to frame as inspirational events of the kind that mobilize insurrection.

The executive orders Biden issued earlier this month imposing restrictions on gun kits and devices that turn pistols into rifles are marginal safeguards and rather thin gruel overall. But his call for reviving the federal ban on assault weapons is more promising and an acknowledgment that serious action is required. An important additional measure would be more rigorous required background checks. At least one key Republican senator, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, has expressed openness to working with Biden on a gun bill.

Generating bipartisan consensus for an effective crackdown on firearms will always be difficult. While gun control is now unlikely to lose existing supporters, it is also unlikely to win many new ones. But reframing the issue as a national security imperative could galvanize passive backers now focused by the assault on the Capitol on maintaining political stability in the United States. A plausible objective would be to

Didn’t Feel The Bern? It Was Because Of Hillary.

Donna Brazile, publicity photo

There are probably plenty of reasons to dislike Donna Brazile, the twice-former interim DNC Chair – not the least of which was the discovery that, following a WikiLeaks email dump, she’d been sharing debate questions with Hillary, and subsequent to a second release of the tranche, she resigned in shame from her position at CNN as a political commentator/pundit.

Perhaps she was trying to redeem herself, or, maybe she was trying to hold a light illuminating the damning evidence of HRC’s unethical behavior and corruption (though not illegal), or maybe she was hoping to drive another nail into Hillary’s political coffin, or “throw some others under the bus,” and even if it was a cathartic political “kiss and tell,” her motivation for what she wrote is not the question.

It is ~what~ she wrote in her book “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns that Put Donald Trump in the White House” that tells the story.

She discovered that because of the party’s fiscal indebtedness, a backroom deal had been struck with Hillary and the DNC in August 2015, just

Banana Republicans Go Off Half-Cocked

The idiom to “go off half-cocked” came from incidents in which a flintlock or matchlock gun would fire prematurely, before the trigger was pulled.

As used in modern context, it means:

• to take a premature or ill-considered action; to act too soon, prematurely, or without reflection;

• to do or say something without preparing for, or thinking about it;

• to go into action too early, or without thinking.

That certainly seems to be the case with several Banana Republicans recently. Banana Republicans lead Banana Republics, right?

An article published last week by the notoriously unreliable British tabloid “The Daily Mail” – which is infamous for habitually and recklessly publishing sensationalistically inaccurate fear-mongering stories – stated a deliberate lie which falsely claimed that President Joe Biden’s climate proposals would deliberately limit Americans’ red meat consumption.

Shortly after that scurrilously false story was published, numerous

Telling Tall Tales: Shared Mythology in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Today I happened upon a description of a beer made by Cigar City Brewing of Tampa, FL – Double Barrel-aged Hunahpu’s – which is a 2016 release of an Imperial Stout, aged in rum barrels & apple brandy barrels and blended together.

As rated and ranked by the crowd-sourced beer enthusiast’s website BeerAdvocate, where reviewers rate beers according to various measures of quality, not upon “popularity” based upon sales volume, per se, Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout was graded 100, which is a perfect score, and was ranked 2nd within the category of Imperial Stouts, had a 3rd overall weighted rank, while the website’s contributors gave it an overall rating of 4.78 out of 5 truncated mean for all beers on the site. Its flavor notes read “Stout aged on Peruvian cacao nibs, ancho and pasilla chiles, cinnamon and Madagascar vanilla beans aged in apple brandy and rum barrels before being blended together.”

After having read the review notes, I navigated over to the Cigar City Brewing site to see the brewery’s page for the brew, to see what they said about it, and read that they describe it as being:

“Extremely dark in color with a brown head with notes of big notes of chocolate and espresso, moderate notes of vanilla and cinnamon and mild notes of tobacco and chilis. Flavor opens with a big blast of chocolate and moderate espresso with notes of dark toffee and interjecting notes of vanilla with lingering hints of cinnamon and tobacco and chili notes with a mild Scoville heat in the finish. Extensive aging in both rum and apple brandy barrels adds candied apple, allspice, vanilla and oaky tannic qualities to this rare and complex stout.”

I also found the following about the beer’s curious name:

Did you know?

In Mayan mythology, Hun Hunahpu was the father of the Mayan hero twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Hun Hunahpu, along with his brother Vucub Hunahpu, was tricked by the Dark Lords of the underworld and slain. Hun Hunahpu’s corpse morphed into a cacao tree, his head becoming a cacao pod, which in typically awesome mythology fashion, spit upon the hand of a young maiden named Xquic who promptly became pregnant with the hero twins. The twins would ultimately grow up to avenge their father and uncle and defeat the Dark Lords and ascend the heavens to become the moon and sun.

That’s quite a tale, to be certain, and as I read it, the preposterous absurdity of it all was reminiscent of another well-known fairy tale told by observant Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.

Artist’s depiction of the Hebrew exodus

That tall tale is of Moses, regarded as

Missouri Republican Lawmaker Ousted For Child Sex Abuse Of Adult Daughters

Once again, Banana Republicans are caught with their pants down.

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ajc.com

Republican Missouri Lawmaker Expelled Over Child Sex Abuse Charges By Adult Daughters

Rick Roeber expelled after GOP House-led investigation

By Tim Darnell, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday, 24 April 2021

The Missouri House of Representatives voted Wednesday to expel a suburban Kansas City lawmaker over allegations he sexually abused two of his children years ago.

By an almost-unanimous vote, the GOP-led House expelled Rick Roeber, a Republican who was elected in November to represent the Lee’s Summit community.

Republican child sex abuser Rick Roeber of Missouri State House

The vote came after an ethics committee report on Monday that formally accused Roeber of sexually abusing two of his now-adult children when they were 5 and 9. The committee found their allegations credible.

The expulsion was the first time the Missouri House had expelled a member in more than 150 years.

No one opposed Roeber’s ouster, though one lawmaker voted “present” to sidestep taking a position.

“It is unacceptable what he has done to the home life of these children,” GOP House Speaker Rob Vescovo said, according to The Associated Press, during a speech from the chamber floor. “And I find him in the worst capacity to represent the people, and more specifically represent the children, of the 34th District or the children of the state of Missouri.”

Roeber previously told the committee that he didn’t sexually abuse his children.

Several of Roeber’s children testified to House investigators this year he also frequently beat them with a belt, choked them and once drowned a litter of puppies.

One child who said Roeber was sexually abusive told investigators that

On The Dole: Marjorie Taylor Greene Profits From Low-Income Federal Subsidy Program

Is Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Green Pretending?

Cue Eric Clapton’s 1989 hit “Pretending.”

Clay Bennett is a native Alabamian, and Pulitzer prize-winning, long-time political cartoonist for the Chattanooga Times-Free Press.

While Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed business success credentials as a candidate for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District – while spouting the bizarre lies and not-even-specious rhetoric as part of the QAnon conspiracy – what she has NOT said is that Federal subsidy of low-income housing, and Federal tax credits associated with them, has played a significant role in that “success.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently published an investigative article about Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican QAnon conspiracy theory supporter who moved her campaign headquarters from the state’s 6th to the 14th Congressional District exclusively in order to campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. The Constitution does not require a Member of Congress to reside in the district they represent, only the state.

The 14th CD is located in the state’s uppermost northwest corner, bordering Alabama and Tennessee, a portion of which is considered part of the Chattanooga, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Located slightly north of the state’s capitol city, from 1992-2018, GA’s 6th CD has, until recently, been a largely Republican-dominated suburb of the Atlanta MSA which has produced the likes of Newt Gingrich, Johnny Isakson, and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price.

Georgia’s 14th CD includes Dalton, which has long been known for the numerous carpet and floor covering firms which supply a significant portion of all carpet sold domestically and internationally, and with at least 150 factories, is colloquially known as the “Carpet Capitol of the World.”

It is in that region that Marjorie Taylor Greene projected herself to district 14 voters not as a “carpetbagger,” nor as a “scalawag” – even though she is an opportunist Republican profiteering from Federal poverty programs – but as a business owner/entrepreneur alongside her spouse, Perry.

The term “carpetbagger” refers to:

“a traveler who arrives in a new region with only a satchel (or carpetbag) of possessions, and who attempts to profit from or gain control over his new surroundings, often against the will or consent of the original inhabitants.”

While scalawag refers to:

“White southerners who, for various reasons, saw more of an advantage in backing the policies of Reconstruction than in opposing them.”

And in an ironic video she recently shared with her supporters, she attempted to cast aspersions upon, and belittle fellow Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York’s 14th CD with whom she indicated that she’d spoken, and challenged her to a debate on her “Green New Deal” saying that “she just has a government job” – the same type job Greene has.

“2. As a business woman in the construction industry, I’ve spent the last two decades alongside my husband, Perry, building our company and creating in jobs. The politicians in DC and really at all levels of government have let us down.”

2. As a business woman in the construction industry, I've spent the last two decades alongside my husband, Perry, building our company and creating in jobs.

The politicians in DC and really at all levels of government have let us down.

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) December 15, 2019

The top of her campaign platform was

TN GOP Governor Bill Lee Expected To Sign “Show Us Your Genitals” Law

50th Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R)

It makes me wonder… why are Banana Republicans so interested in others’ genitals – especially CHILDREN’S GENITALS?

Sounds VERY creepy to me.

In fact, it sounds very much like something a pedophile would do, or support.

What’s the possibility, eh?

Now, I’m not suggesting that the bill’s authors are pedophiles, but “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck,” it’s probably a cow… right?

Maybe a pedophile influenced, or wrote the bill, eh?

But then, why are Tennessee’s GOP legislators listening to pedophiles, eh?

Of couse, this sounds very much like a remedy in search of a problem, rather than vice versa. Seriously. I mean, how “bad” a problem is the so-called “problem” it purports to remedy?

I’ve yet to read any news items about any such matters. You know… something like “Man Shoots Trangendered Victim In Public Toilet,” or “Teacher Shoots Transgendered Teen In Lockerroom” something else patently and absurdly similar. After all, we’re assaulted daily, 24/7 with

Houston, TX Hospital System To Fire Employees Who Refuse COVID-19 Vaccination

Houston Methodist Hospital, a not-for-profit 8-hospital system – 4 of which are ANCC Nursing Magnet status accredited – and academic medical center, with over 2502 beds in the Houston, Texas metro area, has publicly announced that they will fire any employee who refuses to get a COVID-19 vaccination.

The Houston Press and Houston Chronicle reported today, Thursday, 22 April 2021, that Bob Nevens, the hospital chain’s Director of Corporate Risk and Insurance, and Jennifer Bridges, a Houston Methodist Registered Nurse at the system’s Baytown facility, are on schedule to be fired soon if they don’t comply by obtaining a COVID-19 vaccine within the hospital system’s deadline of June 7, 2021.

Dr. Marc L. Boom, MD, the hospital system’s CEO, had the idea to require all employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to keep their jobs, and offered $500 incentive bonuses to any employee who demonstrated proof of vaccination. Houston Methodist was the first hospital system nationally to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for employees.

Houston Methodist Hospital

And to this point, a clear majority – 84% – of the hospital system’s 26,000 employees have received at least 1 COVID-19 vaccine dose as of Tuesday this week, according to Houston Methodist’s Director of Public Relations Stefanie Asin.

Houston Methodist’s Human Resources Department has stated that the hospital system will consider requests from employees who don’t want to be vaccinated for medical or for religious reasons.

However, neither Mr. Nevens nor Nurse Bridges are refusing COVID vaccination on those grounds. And neither Mr. Nevens, who is a 10-year hospital system employee, nor Nurse Bridges, who is a 7-year employee, consider themselves “anti-vaxxers,” and both have for many years received the annual influenza vaccine.

Mr. Nevens and Nurse Bridges have both said that their reluctance to receive COVID-19 vaccinations arises fromtheir concerns with the vaccines’ emergency approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, rather than the more well-known and much lengthier standard, traditional, and much more well-known approval process.

Nurse Bridges said that as a Registered Nurse, “I’ve taken every vaccine you’re ever supposed to take. We just want more

Prediction: South Dakota GOP Governor Kristi Noem Will Report COVID-19 Infection Soon

Why?

She and Ted Nugent were snuggling together on the same aircraft for several hours while Ted was COVID-19 positive.

The backstory:

The once-and-former rocker, “Jailbait” singer/songwriter, and Motor City Moron Ted Nugent recently announced that he had become infected with the COVID-19 virus.

LEFT to RIGHT: Donna Mosing, spouse of Greg Mosing; Kristi Noem; Ted Nugent, spouse of Shemane Nugent.

However, a week before he made that announcement, Nugent’s wife Shemane posted a photo on Instagram which cross-posted to Twitter, of them standing with South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem and Republican donor Greg Mosing and his wife, Donna, alongside a private jet aircraft. None of them were wearing any type of protective nose/mouth covering.

She wrote: “Thank you for a great trip with Governor Kristi Noem, on Rockstar One (think Air Force One!).”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNoaOJ3MyFj/

Thank you Greg & Donna Mosing for a great trip with Governor Kristi Noem on Rockstar One (think Air Force One!) #adventure #adventuretime https://t.co/xjoFybKYHc

— Shemane Nugent (@ShemaneNugent) April 14, 2021

Publicly available data for the aircraft – N131GM – shows that

Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin Pardons 15,000 Cannabis Offenders On 420

Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Randall Woodfin has used the executive authority of the mayor’s office to issue blanket pardons for all misdemeanor marijuana-related offenses issued by the city from 1990-2020.

His actions were on April 20th, a day adopted by cannabis advocates as their celebratory day, and he Tweeted that,

“Today, I issued a pardon of 15,000 people convicted of marijuana possession in Birmingham between 1990-2020. These pardons are

What Is Inflation?

An inflation is defined as when prices in general go up. Not every price, and not each price the same amount, but a general rise in prices is all that the word “inflation” means. Goods and services, in general, go up in price. Number one.

Number two: Simple. The people who decide on prices are employers – the people who own and operate businesses – ’cause that’s where most goods and services come from. And under a private enterprise system, the individuals who set the prices are the owners, operators, chief executives of corporations. So the first question to understand, first point, is that, if you have a general rise in prices, it’s the business community that’s doing that.

Now, the next question: Why would the business community do it?

Well, the first answer again, is simple – is because it’s profitable. It’s the easiest, quickest, and best way to make more profits – which is to take whatever it is you’re producing, and charge more for each unit of it that you sell. In other words, to raise the price. So in many cases, there’s an inflation because businesses are raising prices to make more profits.

But of course, business

Ted Nugent Has COVID-19

After denying its existence, the washed-up once-upon-a-time rock musician, pedophile, and Motor City Moron

Ted Nugent has announced that he has become infected with COVID-19.

Not COVID 18, COVID 17, COVID 16, COVID 15, but COVID-19.

Perhaps this is Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, v2.0, eh?

Y’know, deep within, I had a feeling that it would only be a very short matter of time before he changed his tune… after becoming infected.

And sure ‘nuff… that’s what happened!

Musician Ted Nugent said yesterday, Monday 19 April 2021, that he tested positive for COVID-19 and had been experiencing intensely severe symptoms, even though he called the pandemic a “hoax” in the recent past.

During a FaceBook Live broadcast yesterday he said, “I was tested positive today. Everybody told me I should not announce this, but can you hear it, I have had flu symptoms for the last 10 days and I thought I was dying. I got the Chinese shit. Just a clusterfuck. I got a stuffed up head, body aches… oh my god, what a pain in the ass. I literally can hardly crawl out of bed, the last few days but I did. I crawled.”

[When faced with stark reality, suddenly, his tune changed. Fascinating.]

He also expressed

Former Vice President Walter “Fritz” Mondale Has Died

Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, photographed at his Mill District condo on April 30, 2019, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In 2007, former-Vice President Walter “Fritz” Mondale (1928-2021) was asked to describe his proudest accomplishment in President Jimmy Carter’s administration.

He said, “We told the truth, we obeyed the law, and we kept the peace. It may not sound like much, but if you’ve got that, you can handle the rest.”

Fritz Mondale died peacefully in his sleep, April 19, 2021, of natural causes, surrounded by family, at his Minneapolis, Minnesota home, aged 93.

President Biden acknowledged Mondale’s passing in remarks made from the White House, and said in part that,

“Through his work as a Senator, he showed me what was possible. He may have been modest and unassuming in manner, but he was unwavering in his pursuit of progress; instrumental in passing laws like the Fair Housing Act to prevent racial discrimination in housing, Title IX to provide more opportunities for women, and laws to protect our environment. There have been few senators, before or since, who commanded such universal respect.

“He not only created a path for himself, he helped others do the same. Walter Mondale was the first presidential nominee of either party to select a woman as his running mate, and I know how pleased he was to be able to see Kamala Harris become Vice President.

“In accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for President, he described the values he was taught to live by: “to play by the rules; to tell the truth; to obey the law; to care for others; to love our country; to cherish our faith.”

“As a Senator, an Ambassador, a Vice President, and a candidate for President, he lived and spread those values.”

Then-former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, LEFT, and Vice Presidential running mate Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale celebrate Democratic primary victories at Mondale campaign headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on March 13, 1984.

Walter Mondale made history by being the first candidate of any party to name a female as a Vice Presidential running mate.

He chose

Banana Republicans Are Liars

U.S. Banana Republican Representative for Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District Jim Banks – just look at the smirking smug look on that mofo’s face.

Banana Republicans are liars.

Period.

Full stop.

They will say, or do, anything to get, and retain, power.

Their last leader was a Liar of the First Order. Nothing he said could be believed.

Nothing.

Ever.

Nothing that he and his über-wealthy multi-millionaire henchmen – also known as his cabinet and administration – did ever benefited the working families of America.

Nothing.

Ever.

They don’t give a shit about you, until something happens to them.

Look at Kentucky U.S. Representative Andy Barr, a Banana Republican who ostensibly represents the 6th Congressional District in that state. His wife died aged 39 of MVP – Mitral Valve Prolapse – after being diagnosed with it some years earlier. Sure, that’s a sad thing to have happen. And it happens much more frequently than one would imagine. But, this is the VERY first time that a Banana Republican has done any goddamn thing about it.

Why?

Because it affected them, not you.

They’re inherently selfish bastards.

So now, Banana Republican Andy Barr of Kentucky has written a bill that has bipartisan support – H.R.1193 – Cardiovascular Advances in Research and Opportunities Legacy Act, aka the CAROL Act, after his late wife’s name – that would provide funding for research into heart valve diseases. How thoughtful, of him, eh?

He didn’t give a rat’s rip until it affected him. And then, it’s WE MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS HORRIBLE PROBLEM!

What we need to do is eliminate the hypocritical Banana Republicans.

Just look at the miserable POS Wilbur Ross, the lying asshole who was his Secretary of Commerce, who sought to exclude counting people in the Census, and actually went to a Supreme Court fight to attempt to shaft Americans.

Fortunately, the SCOTUS said “NO,” to his illegal, and anti-Constitutional ideas.

And then, there’s the scumbag who was POS45’s Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, who aided and abetted

Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee Has Lost His Mind

A gun in every pocket.

Not a chicken in every pot.

No pot there, either.

Not even medical.

The state wants people to kill each other.

But not in the womb.

That’d be wrong.

Shooting people to kill them, is A-OK.

Shooting pregnant women is not.

Might harm the unborn, you know.

Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Lee has signed NRA-written legislation that allows any adult aged 21, or older, to carry a handgun either openly, or concealed without any special training, education, or permit. Active duty Military Service Members aged 18 to 21 are excepted.

Tennessee’s Law Enforcement Agencies throughout the state, including the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, have told the Governor that they thought his idea was poor policy, but he ignored them, and signed into law a bill that removes restrictions on carrying firearms, either concealed, or openly.

Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee (RIGHT) signs HB786 as the bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative William Lamberth of Portland, District 44, observes.

Despite law enforcement’s opposition to his legislation that would end gun permits in Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee told a gathering from the National Rifle Association that his legislation would “make Tennessee safer.” However, he failed to mention how it would.

A spokesman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation told a Senate committee, “The bureau has been consistent [in opposition] on this from a public safety standpoint.” The TBI and Tennessee Sheriff’s Association oppose eliminating requirements for concealed carry gun permits.

Governor Lee’s Press Secretary Casey Black said, “The ‘Constitutional Carry’ legislation is a key priority in the governor’s public safety package, which is focused on protecting law-abiding Tennesseans’ Second Amendment rights, while also significantly increasing penalties for criminals who steal firearms.”

Advocates point to permitless carry which is often misnomered as