Alabama Crimson Tide Loses National Championship to Georgia

Every dog has its day,

and Monday was the Georgia Bulldogs’ day.

Indianapolis, Indiana – January 10, 2022: Defensive back Kelee Ringo #5 with the Georgia Bulldogs leaps to intercept a pass thrown by Heisman Trophy award winning Alabama quarterback Bryce Young #5, late in the 4th quarter, whose intended receiver was wide receiver #11 Traeshaon Holden during the 2022 CFP (College Football Playoff) National Championship Game at Lucas Oil Stadium on January 10, 2022 in Indianapolis, Indiana. After leaping perhaps at least 3 feet to intercept the ball, which some say was “thrown short,” Ringo ran 79 yards for a Bulldog touchdown, sealing the deal for the Bulldogs. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Monday night on 10 January 2022, in Indianapolis, Indiana, in Lucas Oil Stadium, the 3rd-ranked Georgia Bulldogs met the 1st-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide for the NCAA Championship game, and cleaned up with them, taking home bragging rights for the first time as national champions since 1980 when 25-year head Georgia coach Vince Dooley lead them to victory.

Conditions were dry inside Lucas Oil Stadium, but the Georgia Bulldogs rained on the Alabama Crimson Tide’s parade in the 2021 NCAA championship game, taking home their first National Championship in 41 years, 33-18. And after 7 consecutive years of losses to the Tide, the Bulldogs finally managed to pull victory from the jaws of defeat.

This year’s NCAA Championship game was a grudge match, because earlier, the Bulldogs had lost the SEC championship game to Alabama, 41-24, on December 4 in Atlanta, so this victory was “sweet revenge” for the Dawgs.

Leading up to the SEC game, the Crimson Tide had

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

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

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

Dr. Diane Ravitch, PhD

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

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

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

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

A Phenomenal Public Education Success Story

Dr. Diane Ravitch, PhD, is a Research Professor of Education at New York University, a historian of education, and author. She is an unashamedly ardent advocate of taxpayer funded public education, primarily at the K-12 level, and is the Founder and President of the Network for Public Education (NPE) — “an advocacy group whose mission is to preserve, promote, improve and strengthen public schools for both current and future generations of students.” From 1991 to 1993, she was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. Additional biographical details about her may be found on her professional website linked here.

She also maintains a blog — DianeRavitch.net — separate from her professional website, where she contributes regularly, opining primarily upon matters of education.

Seniors at Downtown Magnets High School gather inside the College Center for an information session with UC Irvine. (image by Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

The following entry is one of her most recent observations, and shares excerpted portions of a human interest news feature sharing greatly encouraging findings of phenomenal successes and accomplishments of a taxpayer-funded public school in Los Angeles, California — Downtown Magnets High School.

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Los Angeles Times:
The “Unentitled Kids”: California’s New Generation of College-Bound Stars

by Diane Ravitch
January 5, 2022
https://wp.me/p2odLa-veH

Teresa Watanabe wrote a wonderful story about kids in a public school in Los Angeles who are college-bound, despite their demographic profiles. They don’t have college-educated parents or SAT tutors. What they do have is a school — the Downtown Magnets High School — where the professionals are dedicated to their success. Read about this school and ask yourself why Bill Gates is not trying to replicate it? Why is it not a model for Michael Bloomberg or Reed Hastings or the Waltons? Why do the billionaires insist, as Bloomberg said recently, that public education is “broken”? Despite their investing hundreds of millions to destroy public schools like the one in this story, they are still performing miracles every day.

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They represent the new generation of students reshaping the face of higher education in California: young people with lower family incomes, less parental education and far more racial and ethnic diversity than college applicants of the past. And Downtown Magnets, a small and highly diverse campus of 911 students just north of the Los Angeles Civic Center, is in the vanguard of the change.

Last year, 97% of the school’s seniors were accepted to college, and most enrolled. Among them, 71% of those who applied to a UC campus were admitted, including 19 of the 56 applicants to UC Berkeley — a higher admission rate than at elite Los Angeles private schools such as Harvard-Westlake and Marlborough.

This month, the Downtown Magnets applicants include Nick Saballos, whose Nicaraguan father never finished high school and works for minimum wage as a parking valet but is proud of his son’s passion for astrophysics.

There’s Emily Cruz, who had a rough time focusing on school while being expected to help her Guatemalan immigrant mother with household duties. Emily is determined to become a lawyer or a philosopher.

Kenji Horigome emigrated to Los Angeles from Japan in fourth grade speaking no English, with a single mother who works as a Koreatown restaurant server. Kenji has become a top student and may join the military, in part for the financial aid the GI Bill would provide.

“The main thing my kids lack is a sense of entitlement,” said Lynda McGee, the school’s longtime college counselor. “That’s my biggest enemy: The fact that my students are humble and think they don’t deserve what they actually deserve. It’s more of a mental problem than an academic one.”

What the students do have is a close-knit school community, passionate educators and parents willing to take the extra step to send them to a magnet school located, for many, outside their neighborhoods.

Downtown Magnets High School Seniors Patricia DeLeon, 17, LEFT, and Kiana Portillo, 17, talk with college counselor Lynda McGee at the College Center at Downtown Magnets High School in Los Angeles. (image by Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Principal Sarah Usmani leads a staff mindful of creating a campus environment both nurturing and academically rigorous; she has

Merry Christmas! Will Santa bring you a gun?

This image of a c.1950’s United States family with a Christmas tree depicts a male child with a “toy” gun aiming it at his younger sister seated upon father’s lap.

Contrary to popular belief, it hasn’t been uncommon to gift children with deadly/lethal firearms around Christmastime.

And so, the mass shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township in suburban Detroit by Ethan Crumbley, whose parents James and Jennifer Crumbley gifted him with a pistol, were only doing what has for years been a rite — gifting kids with guns.

We give toys to children, and if a child abuses a baby doll, ripping off its head and limbs, burning and beating it, we would almost immediately suspect something is amiss, awry, and seriously wrong with the child who did such things to it.

But, we seem to have, or express, some faux sense of amazement, pseudo-bewilderment, disdainful incuriousity, or worse, apparently think little-to-nothing, of a mid-to-late teen who maliciously uses firearm(s) to kill people, though that is the ostensibly exclusive purpose (the “proper use”) for which they’re created.

On 30 November 2021, Ethan Crumbley, a 15-year-old sophomore student at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan, a Detroit suburb, murdered 4 students, injured 7, which included a teacher, with a high-capacity semi-automatic pistol gifted to him by his parents James and Jennifer Crumbley.

All 3 are charged with

Chrystul Blue Persuasion

Look over yonder
What do you see?
The sun is a-rising
Most definitely
A new day is coming (whoo-hoo!)
People are changing
Ain’t it beautiful? (whoo-hoo!)
Crystal Blue Persuasion

Better get ready
Gonna see the light
Love, love is the answer (whoo-hoo!)
And that’s alright
So don’t you give up now (whoo-hoo!)
So easy to find
Just look to your soul (look to your soul!)
And open your mind

Tommy James and the Shondells wrote and performed that song, which became a hit, rising to the Number 2 position on Billboard’s Hot 100 pop singles chart for 3 weeks in June 1969. And more recently, it enjoyed a resurgence in popularity as thematic music for the phenomenally popular multi-year teevee serial drama “Breaking Bad.”

Tommy explained the song this way:

“First of all, I was becoming a Christian at that time, and we never thought a thing about it. We never thought that doing something semi-religious was any big deal. We didn’t think of it as being politically incorrect or anything like that. We just did what felt right. I wrote ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion’ with Eddie Gray and Mike Vale. Eddie came up with the little guitar riff, and Mike and I did the lyrics. And it just felt very right as a sort of semi-religious poetic song, but it turned out to be one of the hardest records I’ve ever made.”

The past couple weeks, the nation’s eyes have been upon Kenosha, Wisconsin. Now, they’re turned to Brunswick, Georgia, a tiny town of 15,210 with a 55.1% Black population, and a 33.1% White population.

It was almost difficult — and perhaps still is — to go a day without seeing, hearing, or reading something about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. The talking heads, pundits, prognosticators, and their ilk were all a twitter about whether this, that, or the other, would happen, and in the process whipped their followers — whichever side of the fence they sat upon — into a frenzy.

It’s good for their ratings and corporate earnings, you see. So, yeah… it’s all about the money, and the media ~does~ have a dog in that fight. I’ll spare you the details of the matter, because by now, if you’ve been paying attention, you know it all. The media made sure of that.

That’s what the mass media these days does to us all — force feeds us a steady stream of bad news like geese fed by gavage, then harvested for their artificially enlarged fatty liver. That French delicacy is called foie gras. However, the only thing that’s changed about us, is our hearts. They become artificially hardened, calloused and insensate to the suffering of others.

But maybe you’re not affected.

Kyle Rittenhouse draws numbers randomly to select jurors in his case (L), and Chrystul Kizer (R); both cases are in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

So let me tell you about another 17-year old child, also in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who’s charged with

An Easy-Peasy, Quick-n-Easy Meal in Under 30 minutes!

Jasmine rice w celery, onions, carrots, bell peppers, cooked in leftover beef broth, with… yup — it’s SHRIMP!

Altogether, including prep time, a meal in under 30 minutes.

Like I’ve said previously… Rachel Ray ain’t got NOTHIN’ on me!

A tasty, nutritious, easy-peasy, quick-n-easy meal in <30 minutes!

Okay… so, What DO you do to make this?

1.) Get your ingredients, i.e., go grocery shopping.

2.) Select the groceries.

3.) Purchase the groceries.

4.) Go home.

5.) Unload the groceries.

6.) Fix the meal.

7.) Eat the meal.

8.) Wash the dishes.

9.) Dry the dishes.

10.) Put away the dishes.

Seriously…

Volumes/quantity are up to you. If you wanna’ fix enough to feed a small army, go for it.

If it’s just you, that’s cool, too.

Perhaps some may ask something like, “How much shrimp should I use?”

The EASY answer is… how much do you want?

The rice? What about it? How much should I use? What kind?

For Pete’s sake, PLEASE DON’T buy rice in a cooking pouch. Seriously. Just don’t. It’s just not that difficult to cook rice. I mean, if illiterate folks in jungles and their kids can cook it perfectly, you can too.

Just remember: Rice requires

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

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

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

What a crock!

“Sustainability” my ass!

You wanna’ know what’s “unsustainable”?

Life without water. Life without food.

Besides… the fucking avocados are Hecho en Mexico.

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

NOT ‘Murka.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Critical Race Theory

If your skin is White, you’re not a bad person. If your skin is Black, you’re not a bad person. If your skin is Brown, you’re not a bad person. if your skin is Yellow, you’re not a bad person. If your skin is Red, you’re not a bad person.

Skin color doesn’t make a person bad.

The way people act makes them bad.

And it just so happens, that I know of, the ONLY Black member of the KKK was Dave Chappelle’s fictitious character in the skit “Clayton Bigsby, the World’s Only Black White Supremacist.”

Other’n that, all KKK members have been White, as have all neo-Nazis, and other such bigots.

And, to teach the truth about that matter, and that grotesque spectre in our nation’s history, that governments — Federal, State, and Local — have historically, and systematically discriminated against Blacks, is nothing new. It’s been going on since Black people were forcibly placed on this nation’s shores.

The 1999 Class Action Lawsuit against the USDA in Pigford v Glickman (Pigford as an individual, representing a class of people v Dan Glickman in his capacity as Secretary of the USDA) claimed that the agency had discriminated against Black farmers on the basis of race and failed to investigate or properly respond to complaints from 1983 to 1997.

• Pigford v. Glickman class action racial discrimination lawsuit against USDA 1999

And Pigford #2 is the name used to identify an expanded case that includes more victims, including African-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, and females, which grew out of the fact that thousands of claimants missed the original Pigford #1 filing deadline of October 12, 1999 to be included as member of the class in that suit.

So yeah, racism is alive and well in our nation, and in our government — EVEN IN THIS MODERN AGE.

Few Blacks/Negroes ever came to these shores of their own free will. Most who came here were enslaved, bound in chains, and sold as property. Them, and their children, and their children’s children. And beyond.

History is NOT Critical Race Theory.

Critical Race theory simply asks two questions:

First,

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

And second,

White Tennessee Residents In A Slave Trade Town Oppose Teaching Slavery History

In a small Tennessee town with a population of 83,454 — comparatively, Huntsville, AL has 100,000 more — where, in the public square, in front of the county courthouse, from which numerous lynchings occurred, on the site of a former slave trading market, stands a statue known by locals as “Chip,” so nicknamed for the chip in his hat.

“Chip” has been around since 1899, and, in a sense, could be thought of as a relative “newcomer” to the community, per se — which was founded 1799 — though an enduringly stalwart one, at that.

“Chip” is made of the finest Italian marble, and, according to the United States Geological Survey, which measured, calculated, and installed a marker upon its base in 1931, stands 648.82 linear feet above sea level. Nearby Nashville is only slightly more elevated at 1160 feet above sea level.

While “Chip’s” maker is largely unknown (though it is thought to be one of many such replicas installed), what is known about him is who commissioned him — the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

You see, “Chip” is homage to the Confederacy, and to Confederate soldiers.

Upon its base is enscribed the following:

ROLL TIDE! Alabama Does It Again!

Only thing is, this “First Place award” is nothing to be proud of.

According to figures collected by the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), public health officials found that in 2020, for the FIRST TIME IN RECORDED HISTORY, more people DIED in Alabama of COVID-19, than were born in Alabama that same year.

Dr. Scott Harris, MD, State Health Officer made the announcement at a press conference September 17, 2021, and said in part, that “Our state literally shrunk.”

Dr. Harris pointed to preliminary statistics which show that 64,714 died last year in the Yellowhammer State, while only 57,641 were born there.

The practically exclusive culprit?

COVID-19.

The disease has ravaged the nation, particularly among politically conservative, and rural hold-outs, many who have steadfastly refused — for whatever false, or malign reason — to receive any of the the THREE FREE vaccines. Furthermore, those same individuals similarly steadfastly refuse to don nose/mouth coverings to protect themselves from others, or others from themselves, falsely claiming that their “freedoms” are at risk if they “take the jab,” or don the mask.

Nobody makes them wear condoms, either. Yet we know that condom use benefits public health by lowering rates of infection with sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, among those whom are sexually active without benefit of a mutually monogamous partner.

Parents have “raised cane,” and pitched “hissy fits” in public places, threatening public officials — school board officials, and others — at public meetings of the schools boards. Some officials have required police protection from the fearsome crowds, some of whom have brandished weapons, including firearms, in their threats. The events have been verging upon being riotous, and not in a good way, which in some cases have become more than mere “civil disturbances.”

The excuses people conjure up to not get a FREE LIFE-SAVING VACCINE are as varied as people themselves. And ALL of them — WITHOUT EXCEPTION — are lies. ALL. OF. THEM.

It’s purely nonsense, and one of the worst public displays of ignorance that one could possibly imagine. And yet, the more ignorant they are, the louder they holler. It certainly seems to be

Another One Bites The Dust: Healthy 36yo Alabama Man Didn’t Last 30 Days Against COVID-19

COVID-19 wins again!

On July 20, Josh Tidmore, an otherwise healthy 36-year-old Alabama man, came home from work with “a slight cough” and at the time, thought it was just “sinus trouble.”

By August 11 — a mere 23 days later — he was dead.

He leaves behind a 35-year old widow, Christina, and 3 orphaned children.

Josh Tidmore, an otherwise heathy 30-year old Alabama man didn’t last 30 days against COVID-19

Josh believed the lies he read on Facebook about the coronavirus, and unwisely thought he was “healthy enough” to overcome it. Christina said that neither one of them “knew anyone who got real sick from COVID, and figured we would be ‘OK.'”

Was she ever wrong.

Deadly wrong.

Christina explained their reluctance to get vaccinated, in part, by saying,“It wasn’t a political thing, we didn’t want to because we didn’t want to; and the information is such a fight right now, and we thought we were young and healthy it will be okay, and we will wait to see if there is better information.”

There wasn’t.

Christina, who was neither vaccinated, had earlier contracted COVID and recovered. Josh wasn’t so lucky.

Christina and Josh both tested positive for COVID-19 on July 26, and then quarantined for two weeks.

A few days later, Josh was admitted to Marshall Medical Centers South, in Marshall County, AL, and from there, he only got worse.

Christina’s traumatic “wake-up call” came at the hospital when she witnessed Josh die from cardiac arrest, directly caused by the deterioration of his lungs from the COVID-19 infection.

Christina saw and heard Dr. Jenna Carpenter, MD, a Critical Care Pulmonologist who, with her team was caring for Josh, “run a ‘code'” on Josh — medical parlance for ‘his heart stopped beating, so we’re going to pound on his chest until his ribs break, inject strong chemicals into his veins to irritate his heart, and then shock the beejeebers out of him… all in the hope that his heart will decide to start beating once again.’

It didn’t.

Another One Bites The Dust x2: Alabama Couple Dies of COVID Shortly After 30th Wedding Anniversary

Alabama Couple Dies Of COVID Just Weeks After 30th Wedding Anniversary
https://www.al.com/news/2021/09/alabama-couple-who-worked-at-chick-fil-a-and-died-of-covid-made-our-world-just-a-bit-better.html

Jerry and Deborah Watson died just days apart from COVID-19. The two were longtime fixtures at the Gadsden Chick-fil-A restaurant.

Jerry and Deborah Watson, who lived in Gadsden, AL and worked together at a local Chick-fil-A restaurant for many years died just days apart from each other of COVID-19.

Debbie was the store’s General Manager, and with her husband Jerry had celebrated

Dear Congress, When Will You Ever Learn?

On July 20, 1969, the engineers in Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas breathed a collective sigh of relief combined with exuberant joy at 1618 that afternoon when Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong made the following transmission:

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.“

Like NASA’s Eagle, the Lunar Module moon landing spacecraft of so many years ago, Hurricane Ida — a category 4 storm with devastating 150mph winds, catastrophic storm surge, and life-threatening flooding combined with widespread power outages, and more destruction yet to be discovered — has landed, exactly 16 years to the day that Hurricane Katrina devastated the Pelican State.

And like a salmon returning to its spawning spot, Ida came ashore at the exact same location as Katrina – New Orleans.

But with this landing, there is no joy in Mudville. There is no collective sigh of relief. There’s only Heartache v2.0, and even more tragically, with apparently little-to-no lessons learned.

Now, as our nation is on the precipice of some modicum of advancement, with massive spending on sorely-needed national infrastructure, both hard and soft, there seems to be absolutely no discussion of amelioration of either storm damage, or other environmental disaster associated with global climate change.

And sadly, there’s been no discussion of purchasing, designing, or creating a fleet of aerial supertankers to extinguish forest fires which have occurred with regular and increasing frequency in the west.

It’s not as if it can’t be done, for the Dutch embarked upon such a plan following a particularly disastrous North Sea Storm the night of Saturday, January 31 – Sunday, February 1, 1953 in which flooding over 18 feet above mean sea level devastated the Netherlands, wreaking death and destruction
• flooding 9% of total Dutch farmland,
• drowning over

Understanding Morons

NOTE:

Readers of this blog are free to respond to anything they read herein, or elsewhere, and little-to-no effort has ever been made, nor will be made, to restrain their expressions, nor to prohibit, or “censor” their ideas. Further, email addresses stay within the confines of this blog, exclusively, and are NEVER sold, bartered, traded, given away, or divulged in any manner or form whatsoever – nor have they ever been. We do not employ the practices of FaceBook/Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter/Jack Dorsey, or other social media maven/multi-billionaires which make a fast buck off selling their readers private information, or online habits – as do most other corporate/commercial sites, Internet Service Providers, including Alphabet, Inc., parent firm of Google/YouTube, etc., and its founders Larry Page, and Sergey Brin.

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Recently, a reader responded to an entry about Afghanistan, writing in part, that, “Calling them “morons” for not being educated on this in a country that is still partly stuck in the stone age seems a tad bit inappropriate.”

The reader’s thoughts were duly noted, and had some bearing upon a portion of the entry – the introduction. That individual could have written a recipe for spongecake in response, and it likely would have been published. But, a thoughtful, intelligent, cogent, somewhat compelling, and expansive argument was made in response to the commentary – which is more than can be said for some other sites, where diatribes, thoughtless, mindless jibber-jabbering, and provocative commentary is sad par for the course.

But it was the word “moron” that aroused my curiosity, so to be certain, I sought to investigate further the origin, derivation and historical use of the word – its etymology. Here’s what I found about the word “moron” on the EtymologyOnline website:

moron (n.)

1910, medical Latin, “one of the highest class of feeble-minded persons,” from Greek (Attic) mōron, neuter of mōros “foolish, dull, sluggish, stupid,” a word of uncertain origin. The former connection with Sanskrit murah “idiotic” (see moratorium) is in doubt. Latin morus “foolish” is a loan-word from Greek.

Adopted by the American Association for the Study of the Feeble-minded with a technical definition “adult with a mental age between 8 and 12;” used as an insult since 1922 and subsequently dropped from technical use. Linnæus had introduced morisis “idiocy.”

The feeble-minded may be divided into: (1) Those who are totally arrested before the age of three so that they show the attainment of a two-year-old child or less; these are the idiots. (2) Those so retarded that they become permanently arrested between the ages of three and seven; these are imbeciles. (3) Those so retarded that they become arrested between the ages of seven and twelve; these were formerly called feeble-minded, the same term that is applied to the whole group. We are now proposing to call them morons, this word being the Greek for “fool.” The English word “fool” as formerly used describes exactly this grade of child—one who is deficient in judgment or sense. [Henry H. Goddard, in “Journal of Proceedings and Addresses” of the National Education Association of the United States, July 1910]

• The Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, Seventh Edition, defines “moron” as, an “obsolete term for a person with the highest grade of mental retardation, equivalent to the modern classification “mild mental retardation.”

• Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary states that “This outmoded and imprecise term is best avoided in medical speech and writing because of its pejorative lay connotations.”

• Segen’s Medical Dictionary, writes this of the word, stating that it is “An obsolete term formerly used for an individual with mild mental retardation (IQ 50–69). Vox populi – A derogatory term used indiscriminately for an obtuse person, regardless of that person’s tested IQ.”

Of course, I have often said, “There’s no moron like an oxymoron.”

And you can quote me on that.

But the term, now often considered a pejorative, has fallen out of favor with the “influencers” of society, social media platform morons who

Phil Valentine Has Died

“Yes, the rumors are true. I have COVID. Unfortunately for the haters out there, it looks like I’m going to make it. Interesting experience. I’ll have to fill you in when I come back on the air. I’m hoping that will be tomorrow, but I may take a day off just as a precaution. It’ll be a game time decision.”
– Phil Valentine’s July 11, 2021 message on Facebook shortly after his positive diagosis with COVID-19

Phil Valentine is dead.

Nashville-based talk radio show host Phil Valentine has died of COVID-19.

https://www.wkrn.com/news/conservative-talk-show-host-phil-valentine-dies-after-covid-19-battle/

During a live broadcast today (Saturday, 21 August 2021) at 4:15PM on SuperTalk 99.7 WTN, several of Phil Valentine’s coworkers & close friends announced they had spoken with his brother Mark, who confirmed the 61-year-old had died earlier in the afternoon.

Following his infection with COVID-19, Mr. Valentine had been hospitalized at Williamson County Medical Center, in nearby Franklin, TN, a tony suburb south and sightly west of Nashville, since July.

On July 11th, mere days after his positive diagnosis, he

The Real Questions On Kabul’s Rapid Fall

Lawmakers unwilling to admit their own errors, claim to be shocked at the Taliban’s rapid coup of Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul, its capitol city, and a very public takeover of the nation’s presidential palace, are feigning dismay at what they blame as “failures” either by/from the intelligence community, or military, or both.

The “Blame Game” is a long-running, well-known, and popular political pastime among the Beltway insiders crowd. And, if you’re an elected official, regardless your party affiliation, lack thereof, or political philosophy, you’re a Beltway Insider.

As I opined in a previous entry,

I applaud POTUS BIDEN for ceasing the 20-year failed social experiment of the sociocultural-political elites – those with high-powered degrees from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, and others (no disrespect to the institutions, or to education) — who built their careers, increased their fortunes, and padded their CV’s playing “nation building” with practically unlimited American tax dollars (we’ve burned a TOTAL of at least $2.6 TRILLION on that good-for-nothing wasteland hell-hole — money that COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER SPENT HELPING OUR NATION, OUR PEOPLE), using the “expendable” lives of men and women from rural America and elsewhere far removed from the ivory-towered intelligentsia, all in the erstwhile hopes that somehow, they could foist upon a people a liberal democracy — by force, if necessary — who have no interest in such a type of government.

Our nation is upon a dangerous precipice, of having fallen sway to the narrow handful of ivory-towered Ivy-Leagued sociocultural-political elites who have

Dumbing Down Our Kids: Censorship is Alive and Well

Many make the mistake thinking that anti-censorship laws – the First Amendment, most notably – apply to business. They do not. Anti-censorship laws apply ONLY to government.

Instances of such mistaken thought have been on display of late, particularly with respect to some of the foolish remarks made by certain Congressional Representatives, and Senators, while in Committee hearings with the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook pursuant to their banning, or temporarily blocking certain high profile users of their service in the dissemination of lies, which were not merely false, but disruptive, tended toward incivility, and inciting public unrest.

Censorship is sometimes called “prior restraint,” because it prohibits an action, in this case, speech or other First Amendment rights, from occurring, or being exercised. It is not done after the fact. It is ALWAYS done beforehand.

But, with respect to private enterprise, non-governmental entities, businesses and such, they are free to their heart’s delight to censor. There is NO LAW prohibiting them from exercising that prerogative.

On May 10, 1933, university students in Opera Square in Berlin and elsewhere throughout Nazi Germany burned thousands of books in an ominous cleansing of anything considered un-German from the national culture. (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, National Archives and Records)

When it comes to matters of education, the ideological equivalent to censorship is banning books, and book burning – both practices which have historically been employed by authoritarian, totalitarian regimes, and not just in modernity.

Historians of

Marsha Blackburn: Liar, Idiot, Moron, Fool

Sometimes, you just have to wonder:
Are people born permanently stupid, or, are they made that way (over time)?

There’s no question that we’re all born stupid, but whether we stay that way, or not, is largely of our own choosing.

It’s the classic “Nature versus Nurture” argument.

And frankly, while there’s evidence both ways, there is at least ONE thing we are absolutely certain of, which is that education cures and eliminates ignorance. So, score one for the “Nurture” column.

And, if you’ll recall, there were at least two (and, perhaps more) hit comedy motion pictures which played upon that theme: One in 1983 called “Trading Places,” starring the inimitable clown-men Eddie Murphy, and Dan Akroyd, supported by Don Ameche, Ralph Bellamy, and the ever-lovely and talented Jamie Lee Curtis; then in 1985 a motion picture with an obliquely similar theme entitled “Brewster’s Millions,” starring late funnyman Richard Pyor, and John Candy, supported by Hume Cronyn, Jerry Orbach, and Yakov Smirnoff; and yet another, although somewhat-lesser-known — though certainly with no less star power — in the 2014 title “Breaking the Bank,” staring Kelsey Grammer, supported by Susan Fordham, Richard Cordery, and Pearce Quigley.

In all three motion pictures, the protagonist is placed in an unexpected predicament by either the sudden presence, or lack of, abundant wealth. What they do with their lives in those stories, is comedic – though no less authentic examples of – nurture, combined with a healthy dose of nature.

And we can certainly see real-life examples of such stories in those who win phenomenal sums in lottery. Late West Virginia businessman Andrew “Jack” Whittaker, Jr. (1947-2020) is perhaps the most notable real-life example of a tragic, everything-goes-wrong-after-winning-the-lottery life story. A self-made construction business millionaire worth at least $17 million, on Christmas night 2002, then-aged 55, he purchased a winning Powerball lottery ticket which at the time was the single-largest lump-sum payout in U.S. lottery history — $315 million, which after taxes was valued at $113.4 million. In later years, he was very public about his sorrow at winning, and in a 2007 interview, stated that he wished that he’d torn up the ticket, saying,

“I’m only going to be remembered as the lunatic who won the lottery. I’m not proud of that. I wanted to be remembered as someone who helped a lot of people. I’ve had to work for everything in my life. This is the first thing that’s ever been given to me. Since I won the lottery, I think there is no control for greed. I think if you have something, there’s always someone else that wants it. I wish I’d torn that ticket up.”

But more to the point — the point being, stupidity on very public display.

In an emailed communique recently, Tennessee Banana Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn wrote the following, and shared YouTube video of her ignorant remarks which she made from the U.S. Senate floor about the House, no less.

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From an email communique from Republican Marsha Blackburn, U.S. Senator for Tennessee:

MASK MANDATES ARE ABOUT POWER

Washington elitists are willing to do whatever it takes to keep the American people under their control. The new guidance from the CDC doesn’t follow the science and puts the wellbeing of children in K-12 schools at risk. There is no valid reason to require a vaccinated person to wear a mask. Mask mandates and lockdowns are all about power.

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What she DELIBERATELY does is couch “freedom” as being able to do any damned old thing that you want, WITHOUT regard for anyone else.

That is NOT “freedom.”

That is selfishness and stupidity.

Musician/singer/song-writer Eric Johnson, in his song “Sad Legacy” from his 2005 album entitled “Bloom,” wrote in part that,

“There’s no such thing as freedom
Without some responsibility.
All this shock and surprise…
But we’ve been throwing out a mean boomerang,
And now it’s coming back at us.”

As has oft been stated, “your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.”

Furthermore, in her remarks, she deliberately DENIES the scientific facts.

And to be certain, despite her claims otherwise, the former President did NOT

“It was an attempted coup that happened that day.”

— Aquilino Gonell, U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant partial testimony before the January 6th Select Committee, about the 2021 domestic terrorist attacks upon our nation’s government at the U.S. Capitol.

In their testimony today, Tuesday, 27 July 2021, the U.S. Capitol police have made NO MISTAKE describing what the Trump supporters are who attacked our U.S. Congress at the Capitol Building that day —

TERRORISTS.

The only mistake that the U.S. Capitol Police made that day, is that…

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

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

Texas and Delaware Compared -or- Why Greg Abbot is a Moron

The Texas Governor, a wheelchair bound cripple (that itself is an enlightening story revealing his sadly hypocritical character), has attempted to compare Texas with Delaware by noting that TX has Early Voting, whereas DE, nicknamed “The First State,” does not.

His attempt is a poor false equivalency (“when someone incorrectly asserts that two or more things are equivalent, because they share some characteristics, despite the fact that there are also notable differences between them“).

I would imagine that most Texans with any sense of pride in the Lone Star State would be insulted by such a benighted attempt to compare the picayune Delaware to the formidable Texas.

By so doing, Greg Abbott and other Banana Republicans demonstrate what utter morons they are by daring to compare Texas with Delaware.

Why not compare the USA with Chile? Guatemala? Sri Lanka?

It ought to be self-evident to even the most dense person why there’s practically no genuine comparison.

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

Irony: UAH Shooter Killer Amy Bishop’s Son Shot & Killed

Ironic, isn’t it, how nature has a way of meting out its own justice?

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Seth Bishop (LEFT B&W), age 18, younger brother of Amy Bishop Anderson; Seth Anderson, son of Amy Bishop Anderson, 20.

Former University of Alabama at Huntsville killer Assistant Professor Amy Bishop Anderson — whose son Seth was named after her younger brother, whom also Braintree, Massachusetts authorities believe she killed December 1986 when she was then 21-years-old — himself became a fatal shooting victim Monday, 20 April 2021, in Huntsville.

Huntsville Police issued a public statement that same day, that reckless murder charges had been filed against 18-year old Vincent Harmon, after a shooting victim with life-threatening injuries was admitted to Huntsville Hospital emergency services around 8PM Monday, 20 April 2021, and later died.

Harmon Vincent, age 18, shot & killed Seth Anderson, 20, son of convicted UAH killer Amy Bishop Anderson, in Huntsville, Alabama.

Authorities had not initially named the victim because the next of kin had not yet been notified, but

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,

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

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.

---

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

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.”

---

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,

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

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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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

Research: 550,000+ Firearm-Related Hospitalizations 2000-2016

States in the Deep South lead the nation in average per capita firearm-related hospitalizations.

Average Firearm Injury Hospitalization Rate per 100,000, 2000–2016

1.) Louisiana – 24
2.) Tennessee – 18
3.) Alabama – 16
4.) Missouri – 16
5.) Maryland – 16
6.) Michigan – 14
7.) Illinois – 13
8.) North Carolina – 13
9.) South Carolina – 13
10.) Mississippi – 13
11.) Arizona – 13
12.) Arkansas – 12
13.) Delaware – 12
14.) Pennsylvania – 12
15.) Nevada – 12
16.) California – 12
17.) Oklahoma – 11
18.) Texas – 10
19.) Kansas – 10
20.) Indiana – 10
21.) Ohio – 10
22.) Kentucky – 9
23.) Virginia – 8

The national average is 10.

Ongoing and recently updated research by the RAND Corporation – a nonprofit, nonpartisan, research organization working in the public interest to develop solutions to public policy challenges to improve communities nationally, and worldwide by making them healthier, and more prosperous, safer, and more secure – showed that nationally:

“In 2018, 39,740 individuals in the United States were killed by firearms, making firearm violence the second leading cause of injury death in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], undated).

“As part of the Gun Policy in America initiative, RAND researchers developed a longitudinal database of state-level estimates of inpatient hospitalizations for firearm injury between 2000 and 2016. This database was first released in 2021 and is free to the public.

RAND researcher Dr. Andrew Morral, PhD who is the Senior Behavioral Scientist, and Director of the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research there, tweeted recently (April 28) that:

“Why are firearm hospitalizations not correlated with gun ownership in observed state hospitalization data or our estimates? Because they chiefly result from criminal assaults (vs. suicides) and these are not correlated with household gun ownership.”

Why are firearm hospitalizations not correlated with gun ownership in observed state hospitalization data or our estimates? Because they chiefly result from criminal assaults (vs suicides) and these are not correlated with household gun ownership https://t.co/pqVOh9t4bT

— Andrew Morral (@AndrewMorral) April 29, 2021

This type of research is a phenomenally difficult proposition, and highly complicated undertaking, and the entirety of the paper is spent detailing and explaining their methodology, and sources, because not every state provides information to, or participates in HCUP, the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.

As well, data had to be compared and cross-referenced with other similarly related databases, such as the FBI’s annual UCR – Uniform Crime Report.

And then, they get into the math – the statistical analysis – and explain the formulae used, which then has to be checked with other external mathematical models to determine, and ensure a high level of accuracy. In short, this is not “relaxing reading” by any stretch of the imagination – it is highly technical explanations of phenomenally difficult work, which only indirectly points to the significance of their findings.

HCUP is the Nation’s most comprehensive source of hospital care data, including information on in-patient stays, ambulatory surgery and services visits, and emergency department encounters. HCUP enables

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

FBI Data: Marijuana Arrests STILL Number 1 Nationally

The Federal Bureau of Investigation annually publishes a UCR, or Uniform Crime Report. It’s a statistical overview of crime and arrests in the United States compiled from reports from the Local, State and Federal Law Enforcement Agencies. Because of the vast volume of data, it takes quite a bit of time and concerted effort to organize the data into comprehensible form. Typically, such reports are at least a year behind. For example, the most recent year for which complete UCR data is available is 2019.

“The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program counts one arrest for each separate instance in which a person is arrested, cited, or summoned for an offense. The UCR Program collects arrest data on 28 offenses, as described in Offense Definitions.

“Nationwide, law enforcement made an estimated 10,085,207 arrests in 2019. Of these arrests, 495,871 were for violent crimes, and 1,074,367 were for property crimes.

“The highest number of arrests were for drug abuse violations (estimated at 1,558,862 arrests), driving under the influence (estimated at 1,024,508), and larceny-theft (estimated at 813,073).“

– from “Crime in the United States, 2019” the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report

Other similarly-related substance misuse/abuse arrests, and their figures are

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

Topsy Turvy America

In America, you can get arrested for drinking a beer in public.

In Germany, one can legally walk around in public while drinking a beer. To do so is neither illegal, immoral, or unethical.

Of course, illegality, immorality, and unethical behavior are three entirely separate, and unique things. Suffice to say, they’re not the same.

In America, one cannot walk around in public while drinking a beer, or any other alcohol-containing beverage. In many, if not most, places, it’s illegal to do so – save, perhaps, for a few specially-designated areas, or upon certain occasions in those areas.

For example, it’s not uncommon to see pictures, or read news stories of college-aged students who can otherwise legally consume alcoholic beverages (being aged 21, or older), and even adults, who while enjoying almost any public beach in America, are accosted by local law enforcement authorities who either confiscate, or demand that the beer owner(s) destroy those ice-cold beverages by pouring them out, and sometimes, even arrest them, haul them off to jail, where they’re fingerprinted, photographed, and incarcerated, however briefly, as if they’re genuine threats to society, or had committed some grievously atrocious felony.

Of course, it almost goes without saying, that if anyone, anywhere in America was walking around in their local Wal-Mart, shopping while drinking a beer, the police would be called to the scene, and doubtlessly, the shopper/drinker would be arrested, and the story of it published on the worldwide web of the Internet for all the world to see.

Typically, in most all such instances, those individuals would be violating so-called “open container” laws, which forbid the public consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Yet interestingly enough, morbidly obese people can walk around in public eating hot dogs, doughnuts, and junk foods of seemingly innumerable variety and type, wash it all down with gallons of soda pop, and it’s not illegal to watch them commit their slow suicide in public, and no one dares think about calling the cops on them.

While it might seem that

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

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

Child Abuse & Neglect Cost Alabama $3.7B in 2018

Direct economic losses attributable to child abuse and neglect cost the State of Alabama $3.7 billion in 2018, according to a study conducted by The University of Alabama College of Human Environmental Sciences and The University of Alabama Center for Business and Economic Research.

Researchers found that “the tangible cost of child maltreatment (or child abuse and neglect) to the Alabama economy in 2018 is conservatively estimated to be $3.7 billion.”

The report entitled “The Cost of Child Maltreatment to the Alabama Economy” found that figure is the direct cost which the state bears if only the child victims are considered, and does not include associated costs to families (including extended ones) and communities that are known to occur.

The research which was conducted in collaboration with the Alabama Department of Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention and The Children’s Trust Fund, found that cost of lost worker productivity of victims was the single greatest financial cost – $2,629,685,802, while costs to the state child welfare system exceed $281,886,848, and Adult Criminality costs were conservatively found to be $109,469,664.

Child maltreatment causes preventable infant mortality and low birthweight, chronic health and mental health problems, developmental and educational delays, lower work productivity, and higher involvement with the criminal justice system.

The cost to the state is

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

New Mexico Passes Adult Recreational Cannabis Use Law

The State of New Mexico has become the latest state to legalize cannabis for Adult Recreational Use (ARU). There are now 18 states, 1 locality (District of Columbia), and 2 protectorates (Guam, Northern Mariana Islands) that have done so, for a total of 21 governmental entities in the United States jurisdiction which have legalized ARU.

The GRAND TOTAL of people who reside in those areas is: 139,471,628.

The United States Census Bureau estimates U.S. population to be slightly above 330,200,000. That’s around 42.23% of the total estimated population. Guam is an American protectorate, and its residents, and the residents of the Northern Mariana Islands, are American citizens.

Many more states have legalized cannabis for medical use (MMJ), and/or have decriminalized possession to either a civil violation equivalent to a traffic ticket, or as a misdemeanor offense. One state – Oklahoma – has so liberalized their Medical Marijuana program that it is now viewed as a de facto legalization, which has in turn garnered the Sooner State the nickname “Tokelahoma.”

There are only 14 states in which cannabis is not legal for medical use. They are: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Cannabis or its products in any form is 100% illegal in the territory of American Samoa, while Puerto Rico has a Medical Marijuana law, as does the American Virgin Islands.

It’s very likely only a short matter of time before cannabis is legalized at the Federal level.

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