"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."
Archive for the ‘– My Hometown is the sweetest place I know’ Category
Mayberry, May – ber – ry! Remember when Aunt Bea and Clara wrote their song? Whose hometown isn’t the sweetest place they know? (It could be, but might not be.) But aren’t we proud of where we are?
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, April 10, 2021
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.
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.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, April 9, 2021
Tennessee’s Republican State Legislators Have Lost Their Minds
Republican-written legislation being considered in the Tennessee General Assembly would kick to the curb over 65,000 unemployed Tennesseans who have lost their jobs due to the COVID pandemic.
Republicans are seeking to cut in half the time frame for collecting unemployment benefits.
Richie Townsend, 39, an East Nashville resident and former bartender at Rolf and Daughters in Germantown, has struggled to find work after losing his restaurant job when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020.
In the time since, he’s held various unstable, low-paying jobs from which he, and others, have been fired over three times, due to no fault of his own. During those times, he has applied for, and has been granted access to his State Unemployment Compensation, a type of insurance paid for by employers, and backed by the state government, which all 50 states have.
Fortunately, he has benefits remaining, but only because of the extensions granted by Congress.
He’s recently started a new job in Franklin, but even as the state told him it is expediting his request for benefits, he’s reached out to his state House member but hasn’t gotten any payments on his latest extension.
“It sounds like an over-exaggeration by our local government to try to react to the fact that unemployment was extended for a year and a half in total,” he said.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, April 9, 2021
News reports this morning are stating that in the matter of the unionization vote at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, AL slightly over half of all ballots sent out were returned.
Of the nearly 5800 ballots mailed out to Amazon employees at their Bessemer, Alabama facility, only about 55% were returned.
Only 3,215 ballots were received by the National Labor Relations Board in the election.
There were 5,867 ballots were sent out to Amazon workers in early February – that’s a 54.798% return rate.
At 1025 CST today, unofficial results were that the “NO” votes on the question of unionization were 1,798, while the “YES” votes were 738.
Amazon challenged 505 challenged ballots, and there were 76 voided ballots.
At the conclusion of the tally, an official from the National Labor Relations Board – a Federal governmental entity – said that “Challenges are not sufficient in number to affect the results of this election.”
The Daily Beast reported that Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz sent $900 to his friend Joel Greenberg, a Federally-accused sex trafficker and former Seminole County tax collector who is cooperating with Federal authorities, in two late-night Venmo transactions – a social media mobile payment service owned by PayPal – in May 2018. Over the course of eight minutes the next morning, Greenberg used the Venmo app to send varying sums of money to three young women, which altogether, transactions totaled $900.
Joel Greenberg, LEFT, & Matt Gaetz
In the first of Gaetz’s Venmo transactions to Greenberg, the memo field was titled “Test.” In the second transaction, he wrote Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, April 8, 2021
This matter was just brought to my attention.
The figure 0.3% is 3/10ths of 1% (three tenths of one percent) – NOT “three one-thousandths” as they incorrectly wrote.
Any grade school child should be able to tell the difference.
Note the emboldened text highlighted in purple on the lower portion of the page.
And examine the dates…
NO ONE has caught that gross error since the time it was written – 2 years 4 months 20 days
or 28 months 20 days
or 124 weeks 3 days
or 871 calendar days
and updated –
1 year 7 months 26 days
or 19 months 26 days
or 86 weeks 2 days
or 604 calendar days.
If the folks working in that office are that dimwitted, or lazy – take your pick – what does that say about the rest of the state government?
Remember: Steve Marshall’s incompetency is precisely why former Governor Bentley wanted him in that office, in order to avoid prosecution.
The history of it all is utterly Machiavelian – Steve Marshall fired Matt Hart, a former Federal Prosecutor who was a tenaciously aggressive and fearsome Special Prosecutor for the State, who Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, April 3, 2021
Legalizing, taxing, and regulating cannabis is a smart move for the same reasons that legalizing, taxing, and regulating beverage alcohol was. Because Prohibition was so phenomenally successful, you know.
But here’s something else to consider: There has NEVER been one documented death from cannabis consumption. Not even one. Ever.
That cannot be said of alcohol.
There is quite a bit of truth in the remark that no government can be a “nanny state” to continuously monitor its peoples actions, and prevent anything bad from ever happening to them.
We must be afforded freedoms and liberties, and part of those freedoms and liberties include risk-taking.
But as far as risk goes, with cannabis, consumption of it has nominal risk in comparison to many other things.
And eventually, we all die, anyway.
Few have ever examined the history of cannabis prohibition, and have simply swallowed – hook, line, and sinker – propaganda from Nixon’s “War on Drugs” machine which was part and parcel of his “Southern Strategy” to win over racist Democrats, aka “Dixiecrats” who eventually became Republicans.
But the history of cannabis prohibition goes back to at least 1937 with the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act, which was passed in response to a wave of anti-Mexican sentiment that was sweeping across America, beginning on the West Coast, and moving eastward.
Harry Anslinger, who lived in that era, and is considered the first head of the Federal agency that is now the Drug Enforcement Administration (a law enforcement agency under the aegis of the Department of Justice), was a virulent racist, and as an excellent propagandist himself, he never failed to miss an opportunity to blame cannabis for every horrible, violent crime, consumption of which he claimed was the root cause of terrible things like:
“Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.”
-and-
“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”
Yeah.
There’s probably nothing more that needs to be said.
But there are some things that should be said – such as research has shown that Blacks and Whites consume cannabis at about the same rate, but Blacks are arrested at a significantly greater and disproportionate rate than Whites. That is true in all 50 states.
If unequal enforcement of law that skews against Blacks is not evidence of racism, I don’t know what is.
And with remarks like “…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races,” it’s easy to understand why Harry Anslinger is the root cause to blame.
Schumer Says Senate Will Move Ahead On Marijuana Legalization
By Celine Castronuovo, 04/03/21 12:31 PM EDT
Senate Democratic Majority Leader Charles Schumer of New York has vowed to move forward with legislation to federally legalize marijuana, even if President Biden resists such a move.
Kinda’ “ironic,” wouldn’t you say, that the QAnon conspiracy theory folks who wrongly thought, and therefore targeted the Democrats for alleged involvement in some global child sex-trafficking cabal have sided with the exact ones who are actually participating in that very activity… Republicans.
Remember: Psychological projection – accusing others of the thing you’re guilty of – is a tool/technique extensively employed not only by the GOP, but in droves by the 45th President.
BTW… Matt Gaetz’ official actions as a Member of Congress are rather peculiar.
Matt Gaetz then…
In 2017, Representative Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Fort Walton Beach representing FL’s 1st CD, was the ONLY member of Congress to vote “NAY” on a law that gave the Federal government more power and money to fight human trafficking – S.1536 – Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1536
THE ONLY ONE.
Vote Question: On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass
Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act
Matt Gaetz now – with a slicked-back pompadour, cuff links, and snazzy suit.
Gaetz Republican Florida Nay
S.1536 – Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act
Roll Call Vote 695, December 19, 2017, 4:56PM ET
115th Congress, 1st Session
418 YEAS
1 NAY
12 NOT VOTING
NOT VOTING
Bridenstine Republican Oklahoma Not Voting
Brooks (AL) Republican Alabama Not Voting
Cummings Democratic Maryland Not Voting (was sick & getting treatment)
Kennedy Democratic Massachusetts Not Voting
Loudermilk Republican Georgia Not Voting
Messer Republican Indiana Not Voting
Napolitano Democratic California Not Voting
Pocan Democratic Wisconsin Not Voting
Renacci Republican Ohio Not Voting
Scalise Republican Louisiana Not Voting
Smith (TX) Republican Texas Not Voting
Thompson (MS) Democratic Mississippi Not Voting
Note this: Gaetz tweeted that his father was wearing a “wire” by the FBI.
Why would he broadcast that information, thereby spoiling the investigation?
…and my father has even been wearing a wire at the FBI’s direction to catch these criminals. The planted leak to the FBI tonight was intended to thwart that investigation.
No part of the allegations against me are true, and the people pushing these lies are targets…
Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, age 38, a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump, is being investigated by the United States Department of Justice over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him, according to three people briefed on the matter, who also said that Federal officials are investigating whether, or not, Mr. Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, March 28, 2021
Should government exercise control over its citizens to the extent that:
a.) Certain types of private health care is illegal;
b.) Certain people are denied care?
Should your neighbors (aka “the government”) have the right to tell you, and/or your family, what you can, or cannot be treated for by a licensed healthcare professional?
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, March 25, 2021
Yesterday, Cindy Hyde-Smith, a White Banana Republican United States Senator from Mississippi made some genuinely STUPID remarks in a Senate Rules Committee hearing.
She’s the same Cindy Hyde-Smith who not too long ago infamously said “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row,” in Tupelo, MS after Colin Hutchinson, cattle rancher, praised her on November 11, 2018.
“In the Senate today, during the Rules Committee’s big hearing on HR1/S1, the “For The People” Act, which among other things would protect the right to vote for ALL eligible Americans, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican from Not Georgia, let us know why she thinks people shouldn’t be able to vote on Sundays, and definitely not in Mississippi.”
First of all, she’s a Banana Republican.
Secondly, she attended a segregated, Whites-only High School.
Thirdly, she’s from Mississippi.
Fourthly, she’s a Trump sycophant.
Need I continue?
But ANYONE can view her remarks in context in the links below. Also, her remarks are transcribed as follows.
Her remarks begin at 2:46:10 as Committee Chair Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar acknowledges Mississippi Senator Hyde-Smith, who then states, “Before we start, I have a question for the Chair,” addressed to Chair Amy Klobuchar, which Chair Klobuchar acknowledges, and bids her to continue, which she does, as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, March 19, 2021
This is some of the first proven and confirmed evidence that what we have been told by the experts is 100% accurate and true.
“Typhoid Mary” Mallon (1869-1938), was an impoverished, illiterate Irish emigrant to the United States who worked primarily as a cook, and who became infamous for spreading typhoid fever, which at the time was an incurable, easily-spread, often deadly disease, for which no vaccination existed.
People who DO NOT KNOW THEY ARE INFECTED ARE SPREADING THE DISEASE BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE SYMPTOMS.
It is a REPEAT of the classic example first shown by “Typhoid Mary” Mallon (1869-1938), an Irish emigrant to the United States who worked as a cook (one of the highest paying jobs at the time), and was actively infected with typhoid fever, yet NEVER – NOT EVEN ONCE – showed any signs of infection.
Tragically, however, as was common in the era in which she lived, she had low education and was practically illiterate, and her refusal to heed the advice of experts, and her insistence upon working in kitchens, resulted in the deaths of many people whom she thereby infected with typhoid fever because of her deliberately wanton disregard of advice, and disobedience to the order of law. She, however, claimed that she was being persecuted for being Irish and poor.
And throughout the remainder of her life, and up to the time she died, she never – not even once – ever showed signs of typhoid fever infection. And she did not die of typhoid fever. She died of Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Yes, we all know that they’re jerkwads.
They also believe that the moon is made of green cheese, and that POS45 won re-election. That’s why he’s not in the White House – he’s on permanent vacation pooping into one of his golden toilets at his Palm Beach, FL resort, and playing golf. Because that’s what winners do, right?
And lie about practically everything. He’s a liar, so that almost goes without saying.
He deceived the American public – or, at least attempted to deceive the American public – about getting a vaccination against COVID-19 before leaving the White House.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, March 16, 2021
“We have raised our GDP forecast to reflect the latest fiscal policy news and now expect 8% growth in 2021 (Q4/Q4) and an unemployment rate of 4% at end-2021 — the lowest among consensus forecasts—that falls to 3.5% in 2022 and 3.2% in 2023.”
Goldman Sachs lifted its 2021 US growth forecast to 8% from 7.7%, citing new stimulus for the boost.
The bank also expects Biden and Democrats to pass at least $2 trillion in infrastructure spending.
That sum could hit $4 trillion if the deal includes education, child-care, and health-care spending.
Goldman Sachs joined its Wall Street peers in revising its US economic outlook on Saturday, pegging an increasingly bullish forecast to Democrats’ latest stimulus package.
The team led by Jan Hatzius now expects US gross domestic product to grow 8% in 2021 on a fourth-quarter-to-fourth-quarter basis, according to a note published Saturday. That’s up from the previous estimate of 7.7%. The bank’s full-year growth estimate climbed to 7% from 6.9%.
The current-year projection largely hinges on President Joe Biden’s stimulus plan, as Goldman had initially expected a $1.5 trillion deal to reach Biden’s desk. The $1.9 trillion plan signed by the president on Thursday will accelerate the nation’s economic recovery through Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, March 16, 2021
True -or- False?
1.) Approximately 70% of adult wage earners in households that received SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly known as “Food Stamps”) and/or Medicaid worked full time hours (defined as 35+ hours weekly), and about 50% worked full time hours yearly.
2.) 90% of wage-earning adults participating in either SNAP or Medicaid worked in the Private Sector, compared to 81% of non-participants.
3.) When compared to adult wage earners not participating in SNAP or Medicaid, wage-earning adults in either or both programs were more likely to work in the Leisure and Hospitality industry, and in Food Service occupations.
4.) The single largest majority of adult wage earners who participated in SNAP and/or Medicaid worked for employers with Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, March 1, 2021
This morning, bright and early around 0300 (that was the timestamp upon it, I was blissfully asleep then), I received an email from a friend and his better half whom are expats in Kitahiroshima on the island prefecture of Hokkaido, in northernmost Japan, near where her parents reside.
He wrote in part that “Vaccinations for coronavirus have started here but only for those with the highest priority (which makes sense).”
In that message, he also included a copy of an email communique from the United States Department of State which read in part, “The United States Government does not plan to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to private U.S. citizens overseas.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, February 22, 2021
(L-R ) Congresswomen Sheila Jackson Lee, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sylvia Garcia help distribute food at the Houston Food Bank on February 20, 2021 in Houston, Texas. – Texans are in need of aid after an unprecedented and deadly “polar plunge” burst pipes and left millions in the US state shivering without power or clean water for days. (Photo by Elizabeth Conley / POOL / AFP)
You KNOW things’re bad when a renown New York City Progressive Democrat has more chutzpah, and gets more things done for Texans than does their ne’er do well, out-of-touch privileged U.S. Senator Ted “Cancun” Cruz.
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 3:51 PM ET, Monday February 22, 2021
(CNN) – Last Thursday, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) announced her plan to raise money to help victims of the extreme weather — and power grid failure — in Texas.
Obviously, the most important thing here is that millions more dollars will go to Texans still struggling to find potable water and deal with the damage from last week’s deep freeze. (Ocasio-Cortez also traveled to the state over the weekend to see the situation firsthand.)
“It would not be too far-fetched to imagine (unless the Texas State Legislature asserted otherwise, and chose not to protect the people, but industry instead), that in the future, if such deliberate failures to act to prevent catastrophic loss in Texas – primarily as loss of human life, but property loss, as well – would be subject to litigation by others against the offenders – that being the entire spectrum of participants, ranging from Power Generators, Investor-Owned Utilities aka Retail Electricity Providers, and ERCOT as the esrtwhile ne’er do well pseudo-manager, and perhaps even the Public Utility Commission of Texas for allowing it all to happen under their watchful eyes.
“Ultimately, of course, the responsibility lies with Texas politicians who have horrifically and bitterly failed their constituents… again, and in magnificently resplendent fashion – making this catastrophic fiasco their magnum opus of failure.
“And there is precedent for the same. Pacific Gas and Electric (PGE), the primary electrical utility and NatGas service provider for California, was sued recently, and consequently filed bankruptcy because of the sheer volume of lawsuits filed citing PGE’s deliberate failures to act in a preventative manner to secure their power lines to prevent fire, which in turn caused massive wildfires in the state. To assert that affirmative corporate responsibility is somehow tortuous or onerous to justice or jurisprudence is beyond the scope of the pale. And ERCOT is a well-known name in Texas.”
And, have you noticed?
The ERCOT website, ERCOT.com has remained off-line for several days, and at last check, moments ago, remained off-line.
Fortunately, however, there is a thing called the “Internet Archive” which has a “Wayback Machine” that caches and “makes images” (copies) of websites worldwide. So the ERCOT website isn’t truly gone… even though they might wish it to be.
But ERCOT and Entergy… deserve to be punished for their failures.
The buck stops here.
$100M Lawsuit Alleges Negligence By Power Company, Grid Operator Led To Texas Boy’s Death During Winter Storm
The family of an 11-year-old boy who died in the freezing Texas weather last week has filed a lawsuit against the state’s grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and power company Entergy, alleging that gross negligence led to the child’s death.
The lawsuit alleges gross negligence by the power grid operator and the electricity provider, saying it led to the death of 11-year-old Christian Pavon.
The boy died Tuesday after spending the night in his frigid mobile home that lost power.
The lawsuit says Christian died of hypothermia, and the family is asking for more than $100 million in damages.
Medical examiners have not yet released his cause of death.
Entergy released the following statement on the lawsuit:
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of life in our community. We are unable to comment due to pending litigation.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, February 19, 2021
Imagine for a minute, if you can, what it would be like for your elected Representatives and Senators, at either the State, or Federal level to literally “undo,” or attempt to “undo,” an election that was in every way conducted properly (meaning ethically, honestly, and openly, in accordance with all applicable laws), simply because they didn’t “like” the way The People voted – the results or outcome of the election wasn’t to their suiting, or liking.
The Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney and the Georgia State Attorney General’s Office are both investigating that matter in order to determine what, if any, election-related laws were broken in the course of that phone call, which may include “the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”
The audio taped recording of the Trump-Raffensperger phone call is quite likely much worse than any of the numerous covert so-called “smoking gun” audio tapes of Richard Nixon’s presidency. Nixon’s numerous recorded conversations with staff, and others, including of his phone calls, which detailed his involvement in the numerous crimes of the Watergate burglary/break-in, also revealed him to be paranoid.
And cockamamie conspiracy theories aside – especially and particularly the one of “The BIG Lie,” as told by the former President – NO ONE made any overt, or clandestine effort or attempt to “steal” any election from anyone. PERIOD.
But the point of the matter is this:
There are
GENUINELY
now-ongoing efforts
to literally “undo”
the results of honest elections
in the United States.
No, this is NOT a joke… and, NO this is NOT a conspiracy theory.
It is a documented fact.
What does it say for democracy and the democratic process if the expressed will of the people is somehow, overridden, undone, or cancelled?
Yeah… it’s that “cancel culture” thing.
And it is Republicans who are doing it.
Remember the thing about “psychological projection” – a morbid behavior in which people deny or defend in themselves the very characteristic or behavior they abjure and detest in others? It’s a type of “blame shifting,” and a refusal to accept either reality or responsibility.
Read for yourself the following 2 news items to learn what GOP-Banana Republican types are doing in some states.
Marijuana Foes Deploy New ‘Playbook’ To Thwart State Legalization, Upend Election Results
Efforts to thwart voter-approved marijuana legalization in Mississippi, Montana and South Dakota are evidence of a “playbook” that reflects new legal strategies and greater willingness among local government officials to nullify election results, experts say.
Those efforts – led by anti-marijuana politicians and other opponents – threaten to stop or delay the implementation of new medical and recreational cannabis markets that would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in sales a year.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, February 17, 2021
“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis. It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary.”
The chart below, from the United States Energy Information Administration, shows that in Texas, Natural Gas-Fired electricity generation is BY FAR – by at least TWICE – the SINGLE LARGEST SOURCE of electrical power in Texas.
It is NOT Nonhydroelectric Renewables, which supplies only 8679 thousand MWh while Natural Gas which supplies 19,890 thousand MWh.
Yeah.
But wind turbines are the problem – according to Governor Abbott and other nuts.
It happened on YOUR watch, Governor Greggy-poo. Therefore, it’s YOUR fault.
It’s YOUR FAULT
because
YOU DID NOTHING
TO
PREVENT IT FROM HAPPENING.
Simply put, you did NOT look out for the welfare of your state’s citizens.
You FAILED.
In a series of Tweets, Dan Crenshaw, Texas Republican U.S. Representative for CD2-Houston stated what many agreed is the problem – there’s no insulation in natural gas pipelines in Texas. Thus, they were freezing up, and creating problems.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, February 8, 2021
The transcript of then-President Trump’s hour-long call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is too lengthy to duplicate here, per se, but suffice it to say, it all boiled down to this oft-repeated remark by Trump during the call:
“The ballots are corrupt, and they’re brand new, and they don’t have seals, and there’s a whole thing with the ballots. But the ballots are corrupt. And you are going to find that they are — which is totally illegal — it is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know, what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.
“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”
The call, which occurred on a Saturday afternoon, January 2, 2021, is a classic example of a shakedown.
In common parlance, the term “shakedown” refers to a criminal activity, describing extortion of money, as by blackmail. It is the preferred and primary definition in most reputable, and modern dictionaries.
Even the “Urban Dictionary,” a repository of modern colloquial use acknowledges similarly, but takes it at least one step further, by also acknowledging context of usage by writing that shakedown is,
“Another word for extortion/blackmail, or the obtaining of a good or service through means of force, threats/intimidation, or abuse of power.
Only one other dictionary acknowledges that capacity by writing that shakedown refers to “extortion, as by blackmail or threats of violence.”
Merriam-Webster defines it as “to rob by the use of trickery or threats.”
The Online Slang Dictionary finds similarly, by writing that it means “to extort. That is, to obtain something via force, threats, intimidation, abuse of power, etc.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, February 8, 2021
There’s a segment of society that’s cool with totalitarianism, and authoritarianism.
They’d be happy as a lark to live in a prison, with security cameras at every corner watching everything they do 24/7/365, complete with concertina wire-topped electric fences, armed guards, and people telling them what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and when and where to go – complete with patdowns and searches for contraband. Every moment of their life would be under scrutiny and available for public consumption.
Those are the Banana Republicans – people who have so little confidence in the government that they’ve helped to destroy since 1980, that they feel like they have to carry firearms and other weapons, openly and clandestinely, in order to protect themselves. People who say hate is love, and war is peace, and slavery is freedom all while doing their damnedest to convince the ignorant and fearful that the GREAT BIG BOOGEYMAN OF BIG GOVERNMENT IS COMING TO EAT YOUR BABIES!
Boo!
AP-NORC Poll: Few In U.S. Say Democracy Is Working Very Well
By Steven Sloan and Thomas Beaumont
Monday, Feb ruary 8, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) — Only a fragment of Americans believe democracy is thriving in the U.S., even as broad majorities agree that representative government is one of the country’s bedrock principles, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Just 16% of Americans say democracy is working well or extremely well, a pessimism that spans the political spectrum. Nearly half of Americans, 45%, think democracy isn’t functioning properly, while another 38% say it’s working only somewhat well.
Only 16% Of Americans Say Democracy Is Working Very Or Extremely Well
A new AP-NORC poll finds Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to say democracy is working at least somewhat well. Few Republicans or Democrats say it is working very or extremely well.
How well would you say democracy is working in the United States these days?
CAPTION: Results based on interviews with 1,055 U.S. adults conducted Jan. 28-Feb. 1. The margin of error is ±3.8 percentage points for the full sample.
Source: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research Graphic: Kati Perry
“At every turn, it’s gotten worse and worse,” said Curtis Musser, a 55-year-old Republican-leaning independent in Clermont, Florida, who didn’t vote for Trump. “You could see it brewing even before the election. And everything just kept spiraling downward from there.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, February 8, 2021
James A. Garfield
It’s always interesting to see how our forebears thought about certain fundamental matters to our nation’s governance. We have historians to guide us, who make it their life’s work to study, and investigate the men, women, and circumstances of their lives, and the times in which they lived. We can, and should be grateful to, and for, them; for they bring to life those things which, though they may seem dead, are still often, very much alive.
Following is an excerpt in whole, as found in the Congressional Record – a verbatim record of remarks made on the floor of the House of Representatives – of a statement made by then-Ohio Representative James A. Garfield, from the 19th Congressional District, who later became President of the United States, and was also, at age 50, ingloriously, the second President assassinated.
Interestingly, he survived being shot on July 2, but eventually succumbed to infection September 19, which was introduced by doctors who frequently inserted their unsterile hands into the wound in efforts to remove the bullet. Today, unless a bullet is lodged near a vital organ, or blood vessel, and is thought to possibly migrate, they’re left in situ (in place) because, the theory being, that the heat generated by firing kills any bacteria which may be introduced, and sometimes, cauterizes the wound.
Mr. GARFIELD. I desire in a very few words, not to argue the merits of this case but to give the ground on which the Committee on Appropriations made their recommendation. Having stated that ground, I shall leave the question to the discretion of the House.
I agree with everything that the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. E. R. Hoar] has said about Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, February 8, 2021
See how insane that headline is?
The fact of the matter is, that 43-year old quarterback Tom Brady led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Super Bowl 55 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9 in Tampa, Florida’s Raymond James Stadium.
And like the 2020 General Election, it too was seen worldwide. There was no “Deflate-Gate,” there were no biased referees, there were no ineligible players on field, there were no players on either side using performance enhancing drugs, and there were no changes to the goal lines, or hash marks.
It was a 100% fair game.
Just like the 2020 November General Election.
Maybe in the interim, before the next season starts, for the benefit of future games, and in order to restore confidence in the game, the Kansas City Chiefs can get some rules changed to help them win next time.
Remember: Denial is not a river in Egypt.
States’ Republicans Weigh New Laws Making It Harder To Vote
After an election that saw record voter turnout, with many of those voters casting their ballots early and by mail, some Republican state lawmakers are proposing a wave of new voting laws that would effectively make it more difficult to vote in future elections.
The proposals come in the aftermath of the unprecedented onslaught of disinformation about the conduct of the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump and some of his allies in the Republican Party.
“Some folks bring these proposals forward and say, ‘Well, we just need to address confidence in our election systems,’ when it’s some of those very same people, or at least their allies and enablers, [who] have denigrated our election system by either telling lies or at least leveraging or relying on other people’s lies to justify some of these policies,” said Steve Simon, Minnesota’s Democratic Secretary of State, at a news conference organized last week by the Voter Protection Program.
A recent analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice found that 106 bills have been filed by Republican lawmakers in 28 states that would restrict voting (the group also found 406 bills in 35 states that would expand voting access). Many of the bills would limit voting by mail, add new voter ID requirements, make it more difficult to register voters and give states greater leeway to purge voter files if voters don’t consistently cast ballots in every election.
“Some of them are for show; some of them have to be taken more seriously,” said Trey Grayson, a former Republican Secretary of State in Kentucky, at the same news conference.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, February 6, 2021
The Number 1 smash hit popularized by Atlanta, Georgia-based family band of Gladys Knight and the Pips in October 1973 was the work of a native Mississippian from Pontotoc named Jim Weatherly.
His family reported that Jim died recently at his residence in Brentwood, Tennessee, a tony suburb of Nashville, of natural causes, aged 77.
Weatherly wrote two additional tunes that became hits for Gladys Knight and the Pips: “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)” and “Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me” – which was originally recorded by country singer Ray Price.
A star quarterback for the University of Mississippi, aka “Ole Miss,” in the 1960s, after graduation, Weatherly, who had already formed a band with some classmates, moved to Nashville where he hoped to find his fortune. Nashville, however, long known as a very cliquish town musically, rejected him. So he and his band moved to the Los Angeles area where he became a songwriter in that area’s then-hot music scene. It was a “training ground” for many musicians who later became immensely popular, super-star caliber artists, including Glen Campbell, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Brian Wilson, Beck, and many others who populated the Laurel Canyon area – a mountainous canyon region in LA’s Hollywood Hills West district, in the Santa Monica Mountains.
Although Laurel Canyon is a rocky, arid, and largely agriculturally inhospitable area, it was fertile ground for artists like Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young, Linda Ronstadt, The Byrds, Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison, Buffalo Springfield, Love, Michelle and John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman, J. D. Souther, Judee Sill, Carole King, the Eagles, Richie Furay (of Buffalo Springfield and Poco) and many, many more, almost too numerous to mention.
But, lesser known is the backstory of Jim Weatherly’s first hit song for Gladys Knight and the Pips.
After his college football days ended, Weatherly worked in Los Angeles as a songwriter.
During his off-time in LA he often played flag football with other creative types who had athletic backgrounds – among them, Lee Majors, who himself was a former college football player and was then starring in The Big Valleyas Heath Barkley, alongside the lead and central character Victoria Barkley, played by renown actress Barbara Stanwyck. The Big Valley was a unique western television serial whose central character was a woman (Stanwyck), who had taken Heath as her own, though he was the illegitimate son of her character’s late husband Thomas Barkley, following his death.
Jim Weatherly was inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame at their 45th Annual Induction and Awards ceremony at the Marriott Marquis Theater on June 12, 2014 in New York City.
Nearly three years before Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd as he cried out that he couldn’t breathe last May, Zoya Code found herself in a similar position: Handcuffed facedown on the ground, with Chauvin’s knee on her.
The officer had answered a call of a domestic dispute at her home, and Code said he forced her down when she tried to pull away.
“He just stayed on my neck,” Code said, ignoring her desperate pleas to get off. Frustrated and upset, she challenged him to press harder. “Then he did. Just to shut me up,” she said.
Last week, a judge in Minnesota ruled that prosecutors could present the details of her 2017 arrest in their case against the former officer, who was charged with second-degree unintentional murder in Floyd’s death.
The Face of Evil An undated photo provided by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, who was fired from the force, and charged with second-degree unintentional murder and second-degree manslaughter after kneeling on George Floyd’s neck until he was dead. (image from Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office via The New York Times)
Code’s case was one of six arrests as far back as 2015 that the Minnesota attorney general’s office sought to introduce, arguing that they showed how Chauvin was using excessive force when he restrained people — by their necks or by kneeling on top of them — just as he did in arresting Floyd. Police records show that Chauvin was never formally reprimanded for any of these incidents, even though at least two of those arrested said they had filed formal complaints.
Of the six people arrested, two were Black, one was Latino and one was Native American. The race of two others was not included in the arrest reports that reporters examined.
Discussing the encounters publicly for the first time in interviews with The Marshall Project, three people who were arrested by Chauvin and a witness in a fourth incident described him as an unusually rough officer who was quick to use force and callous about their pain.
The interviews provide new insight into the history of a police officer whose handling of Floyd’s arrest, captured on video, was seen around the world and sparked months of protests in dozens of cities.
Chauvin, who was fired, has said through his attorney that his handling of Floyd’s arrest was a reasonable use of authorized force. But he was the subject of at least 22 complaints or internal investigations during his more than 19 years at the department, only one of which resulted in discipline. These new interviews show not only that he may have used excessive force in the past, but that he had used startlingly similar techniques.
All four people who told of their encounters with Chauvin had a history of run-ins with law enforcement, mostly for traffic and nonviolent offenses.
Code’s arrest occurred June 25, 2017. In a court filing, Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric J. Nelson, said the officer acted properly in the case, responding to “a violent crime in a volatile situation.” He said that “there was nothing unreasonable or unauthorized about Mr. Chauvin’s actions.”
Code’s mother had accused her of trying to choke her with an extension cord, according to the arrest report. Code said in an interview that her mother was swinging the cord around, and that she merely grabbed hold of it.
She said she had left the house to cool off after the fight and when she returned, Chauvin and his partner had arrived. In the prosecutors’ description, based on Chauvin’s report and body-camera video, Chauvin told Code she was under arrest and grabbed her arm. When she pulled away, he pulled her to the ground face first and knelt on her. The two officers then picked her up and carried her outside the house, facedown.
There, prosecutors said, Chauvin knelt on the back of the handcuffed woman “even though she was offering no physical resistance at all.”
Code, in an interview, said she began pleading: “Don’t kill me.”
At that point, according to the prosecutors’ account, Chauvin told his partner to restrain Code’s ankles as well, even though she “was not being physically aggressive.”
As he tied her, she said, she told the other officer, “You’re learning from an animal. That man — that’s evilness right there.”
Misdemeanor domestic assault and disorderly conduct charges filed against Code were ultimately dropped.
“You’re Choking Me!”
The earliest incident in which prosecutors said Chauvin used excessive force took place February 15, 2015, when he arrested Julian Hernandez — a carpenter who was on a road trip to Minneapolis to see a band at the El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub. Chauvin worked as an off-duty security officer there for almost 17 years.
What We Learned from Trump’s Effort to Overturn the 2020 Election Results
by Matthew Rosenberg, Jim Rutenberg
February 1, 2021
The January 6, 2021 rally/riot of MAGA Trump supporters before their assault on the Capitol. Nina Berman/NOOR, via Redux Pictures
An examination by the New York Times of the 77 days between election and inauguration shows how a lie the former president had been grooming for years overwhelmed the Republican Party and stoked the assault on the Capitol.
For 77 days between the election and the inauguration, President Donald J. Trump attempted to subvert American democracy with a lie about election fraud that he had been grooming for years.
A New York Times examination of the events that unfolded after the election shows how the president — enabled by Republican leaders, advised by conspiracy-minded lawyers and bankrolled by a new class of Trump-era donors — waged an extralegal campaign that convinced tens of millions of Americans the election had been stolen and made the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol almost inevitable.
Interviews with central players, along with documents, videos and previously unreported emails, tell the story of a campaign that was more coordinated than previously understood, even as it strayed farther from reality with each passing day.
Here are some key takeaways:
As some lawyers on Trump’s team pulled back, others were ready to press ahead with suits skating the lines of legal ethics and reason
Within 10 days of the election, even as Mr. Trump and his supporters promoted allegation after allegation of voter fraud, his team of election lawyers knew that the reality was the inverse of what Mr. Trump was presenting: They were not finding substantial evidence of malfeasance or enough irregularities to overturn the election.
That reality was hammered home on November 12, when final Arizona results showed Joseph R. Biden Jr. with an irreversible lead of more than 10,000 votes that rendered the legal team’s main lawsuit in that state — which had identified 191 ballots to contest — moot.
At an Oval Office meeting that day, the election lawyers squared off against the president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, over Mr. Giuliani’s embrace of questionable legal tactics and conspiracy theories like one that Dominion voting machines had transformed Trump votes into Biden votes.
Ultimately, Mr. Trump decided to give Mr. Giuliani leadership of the entire legal strategy, making November 12 the day when Mr. Trump’s effort to reverse his loss in the courts became an all-out, extralegal campaign to disenfranchise millions of voters based on the false notion of pervasive fraud.
Voting-machine conspiracy theories became intertwined with a supercomputer story pushed in conservative media
The Dominion conspiracy theory taking root among the president and many of his supporters had been weeks in the making. In late October, an obscure conservative website, The American Report, was pushing stories about a supercomputer called The Hammer that it said was running software called Scorecard to steal votes from Mr. Trump.
The theory found amplification the day before the election on the podcast of Mr. Trump’s former political strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who Read the rest of this entry »
Prescription drug prices in the United States are significantly higher than in other nations, with prices in the United States averaging 2.56 times those seen in 32 other nations, according to a new RAND Corporation report.
The gap between prices in the United States and other countries is even larger for brand-named drugs, with U.S. prices averaging 3.44 times those in comparison nations.
The RAND study found that prices for unbranded generic drugs—which account for 84% of drugs sold in the United States by volume but only 12% of U.S. spending—are slightly lower in the United States than in most other nations.
“Brand-name drugs are the primary driver of the higher prescription drug prices in the United States,” said Andrew Mulcahy, lead author of the study and a senior health policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. “We found consistently high U.S. brand name prices regardless of our methodological decisions.”
The RAND analysis is based on 2018 data and provides the most up-to-date estimates of how much higher drug prices are in the United States as compared to other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Researchers calculated price indexes under a wide range of methodological decisions. While some sensitivity analyses lowered the differences between U.S. prices compared to those in other nations, under all the scenarios overall prescription drug prices remained substantially higher in the United States.
Prescription drug prices in the United States are, on average, 2.56 times higher than the prices in 32 other countries. That’s according to a new RAND report.
Brand-name drugs are the primary driver of America’s higher prescription drug prices: For branded drugs, U.S. prices averaged 3.44 times higher than those in other nations. Prices for generic drugs, on the other hand, are slightly lower in the United States than in most other countries.
“The mob assault on the U.S. Capitol was predictable. Fortunately, democracy held. But security failed spectacularly.
“In short, the failure of planning is incomprehensible. We’re lucky this wasn’t a massacre. The intruders could’ve taken elected officials hostage; it was only in October that the FBI thwarted a plot by right-wing extremists to kidnap the governor of Michigan.
“January 6th is now a day to be remembered on the calendar of violent resistance to the federal government. Emerging from the deadly debacle are diehards whose fantasies of a stolen election are still being fueled.
“These extremists could now be emboldened by their successful confrontation last week. A continuing deep sense of injury coupled with an unrealistic assessment of their own power is always a bad combination.
“Defiance is not easily put back in the box. The siege may cause some previously inflammatory politicians to sober up. But to the rioters, any weak denunciations by such politicians may only feed their sense of betrayal and harden their resolve.
“Extremist activity during the inauguration or the SOTU address is possible in the near term. But I worry more about terrorist plots by right-wing extremists over the horizon.”
Domestic Violent Extremists Will Be Harder To Combat Than Homegrown Jihadists
Brian Michael Jenkins, Senior Adviser to the RAND President, Michael D. Rich.
By Brian Michael Jenkins
01/31/21 05:00 PM EST
Brian Michael Jenkins is a Senior Adviser to the President of the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. He is a former Captain in the Green Berets, initiated RAND’s Terrorism Research program in 1972 and has been researching terrorism for RAND since. He is a Fulbright Fellow, University of San Carlos in Guatemala, has served in several administrations in various capacities related to security and terrorism, authored numerous books, articles, and reports published worldwide, and is a Vietnam Veteran.
The Biden administration has said it will take steps to combat domestic violent extremism. While the move comes close on the heels of the January 6 attack on the Capitol Building, the nation has witnessed recent acts of violence stemming from both far left and far right extremists.
The announced actions – conducting a comprehensive threat assessment, coordinating intelligence sharing, disrupting networks, trying to prevent radicalization – might have a familiar ring. They’re similar to the post-9/11 response to thwart terrorist attacks launched from abroad, and later, homegrown jihadists, which have been largely successful. While these are solid steps, for a variety of reasons shutting down domestic extremists will prove far more difficult than combating homegrown jihadists.
Larger constituencies.
Jihadist ideology, with few exceptions, gained very little traction in America’s Muslim communities. In contrast, the beliefs driving today’s domestic extremists are deeply rooted in American history and society. Precisely for that reason, some law enforcement officials argue against coming down too hard on those involved in the 1/6 assault, perhaps fearing that doing so might provoke the kind of bloody confrontations witnessed in the early 1990s.
The jihadists never had a supportive constituency in the U.S. They responded as individuals to exhortations from groups abroad. Indeed, many of the tips that led to arrests reportedly came from within the Muslim community. There were no continuing terrorist campaigns. Plots and attacks were one-offs. But domestic extremists have a sympathetic base.
Domestic extremists are better organized.
Hindered by FBI infiltration, far right extremists long ago adopted a strategy of “leaderless resistance,” avoiding a hierarchical structure and instead relying on local autonomous cells to carry out attacks on behalf of the cause. What is new about today’s domestic extremists is Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, January 31, 2021
The answer to the question below is an unambiguously, and resounding: “YES!”
There is an overwhelmingly abundance of evidence that shows he did, most all of which was plastered across social media by the man himself – particularly on Twitter.
Did Trump know what was about to happen January 6?
By Donald Ayer and Dennis Aftergut
Donald Ayer served as Deputy Attorney General under George H.W. Bush and as a U.S. Attorney and Principal Deputy Solicitor General in the Reagan administration.
Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor and Supreme Court advocate, currently a Lawyers Defending American Democracy steering committee member.
President Trump speaks to his rioters before they breached the Capitol.
Photo: Carol Guzy/Zuma Press
That close call should compel robust criminal investigations — not only to hold accountable all those who entered the Capitol but also to tell us exactly what Trump knew when he gave his speech that morning inciting the rioters.
The facts already known do not cast Trump in a good light.
Consider the context: Trump’s increasing desperation on January 6 as the walls closed in on his prospects for holding power.
• More than 60 courts had rejected Trump’s unfounded legal attempts to overturn the election.
• On January 2, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had refused, in an hourlong phone call, to knuckle under to Trump’s pleas to alter the Georgia vote count.
• On January 3, Trump was stopped from replacing then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, an assistant attorney general working with Trump to overturn Georgia’s election. A threat from the rest of the Justice Department leadership team to resign en masseforced Trump to back down.
• On January 5, the U.S. Attorney in Georgia resignedrather than collaborate in Trump’s attempts to overturn a state election result affirmed in three recounts.
These facts — along with Trump’s January 6 speech in which he told supporters, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” “You’ll never take back our country with weakness” and “When you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules” — ought to be evidence enough, we think, to convict him in his imminent impeachment trial.
What is already known to prosecutors is likely also sufficient to indict Trump for his willful efforts to deny Americans’ civil rights by subverting our democracy.
But more is needed.
History — as well as competent prosecution — demands that we establish Trump’s knowledge and intent on January 6 so that he is held accountable and Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, January 29, 2021
So… today, this morning, I spent about $10 with Krispy Kreme.
If you’re a Southerner reading this, you know what that means.
If you’re not a Southerner, or are otherwise uninformed, Krispy Kreme is the North Carolina-heeadquartered company that has for years made the most delightfully light, fluffy, airy doughnuts.
They’re NOT at all like Dunkin’ Doughnuts, which are heavy, doughy, bread-cake like doughnuts. There is NO comparison whatsoever.
It’s like the difference between a Model-T, and a F1. Even though they’re both cars, they’re worlds apart.
But what I wanted to focus upon is a portion of the brief, pleasant exchange I had with the clerk in the store.
I had decided to stop in as I was returning home from taking Queenie to the veterinarian’s office for ACL surgery today. As I was nearing the area, the thought “doughnuts” occurred to me, and I knew the KK was nearby. As I drew closer, another thought occurred to me: The locally-owned-and-hometown-operated doughnut shop a little further down the road.
Not wanting to drive any further, even though it wasn’t far, per se, I opted for the nearest shop, which was the KK.
Even though I’m not a “shopaholic,” nor adherent, nor promoter of “retail therapy,” I’m fortunate to live in an area that’s conveniently located to many different shops and retailers. Some folks have to drive quite a distance to do so almost anything, whereas I do not. So, I count my blessings, in a manner of speaking.
I had donned a facemask before I walked in, looked around briefly – I was the only customer present – and Read the rest of this entry »
10,252,500 unemployed people
x $40,000 = $410,100,000,000 ($410 billion)
That’s MUCH LESS than the $1.9 TRILLION proposed.
Plus, the $10,000 FICA/SECA money would be for their employers, a $10,000 tax deduction!
Why do something like that?
First, it puts a significant amount of money (delivered in a lump sum) into the hands of hurting people. And they need that help DESPERATELY. It keeps them from being evicted/foreclosed upon, it keeps the lights turned on, and water and gas turned on, etc.
Second, it significantly helps employers, many which are also hurting, and need help. In the case of small businesses, many owners are employees of their companies, so they would also get $30,000 checks. PLUS, they would also get $10,000 checks (per se), which would be credited to the company’s books as a deduction in operating expenses, thereby increasing their profit (perhaps they’ll use it to pay down long-term debt). How they use the value of the deduction is entirely up to them, but it (the money) MUST BE PAID TO THE EMPLOYEE’S FICA ACCOUNT. In fact, the mechanics of the transaction are Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, January 28, 2021
If you cant win honestly, the next step is using dishonesty.
And that’s EXACTLY what Georgia Banana Republicans are doing – changing the rules in the middle of the game when it becomes apparent that they’re starting to lose favor with The People.
Lying, corrupt, sons of bitches, and bastards… every god-damned one of ’em.
A Georgia Republican is introducing a bill requiring voters to send copies of their photo ID to election officials two times before being permitted to cast an absentee ballot.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, January 26, 2021
Monday night, 25 January 2021, a tornado swept across north central Alabama in the small Jefferson county town of Fultondale, a bedroom community adjacent to and north of Birmingham, the state’s most populous city.
Long considered part of the state’s “Tornado Alley,” residents were struck around 10:30 PM when a category EF-2 storm with winds in excess of 135 mph (217 kph), twisted a quarter-mile wide swath of destruction after touching down near Interstate 65 and mowed a 10-mile path from Fultondale to Center Point in the same area destroyed by another, larger tornado some years earlier.
Patti Herring sobs as she sorts through the remains of her home in Fultondale, Ala., on Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021, after it was destroyed by a tornado. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)
Fultondale residents haven’t forgotten about April 27, 2011 when they were struck by the tail end of an EF-4 tornado that wreaked a devastating path from the college town of Tuscaloosa south and west of Birmingham, though northern Jefferson County killing 65, and injuring 1500. The National Weather Service said that storm was over 80 miles (130 kilometers) long.
Last night’s search and rescue efforts were hampered by darkness, and indiscriminate wreckage which was strewn about like so much flotsam and jetsam. First Responders and rescuers from throughout the county sifting through the rubble were weary by daybreak, but kept up their efforts, hoping to find people, instead of bodies. Their hopes were Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, January 25, 2021
WashingtonMonthly.com
Can Trump’s Pardons Be Reversed?
by Holly Brewer and Timothy Noah
President Ulysses S. Grant did it, and George W. Bush, and the Constitution would seem to encourage it.
January 22, 2021
2:07 PM
We’ve seen a lot of hand-wringing about President Donald Trump’s eleventh-hour marathon of glaringly unethical pardons, but only a little consideration (see 1-here, 2-here, 3-here, 4-here, and 5-here) about whether the Constitution permits them. A decent case can be made that it does not—and that at least some of these pardons can be reversed.
The relevant passage is Article II, Section 2, in the so-called “Commander-in-chief clause.” The president, it says, “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Nobody knows precisely what that means, but Trump has been under impeachment and awaiting Senate trial — for the second time — since January 13, 2021.
The most interesting real-life precedent for restricting a president’s right to issue pardons concerns President Andrew Johnson, who in March 1868 became the first of three presidents to be impeached by Congress, and two months later became the first to win Senate acquittal.
In March 1869, Johnson, on his last full day in office, pardoned Jacob and Moses Dupuy, who’d been convicted of defrauding the Internal Revenue Department, and Richard C. Enright, who’d been convicted of conspiracy to defraud the government. On assuming office, Johnson’s successor, President Ulysses Grant, reversed all three by calling back the U.S. marshals out delivering the pardons. A fourth pardon that Grant meant to reverse, to one James F. Martin, was permitted to stand because Martin had it already in hand, according to the late P.S. Ruckman, Jr., a political scientist at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois. Grant’s reversal of Moses Dupuy’s pardon was challenged in court and upheld on the technical grounds that Dupuy never received it. (Ruckman, an expert on presidential pardons, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, January 20, 2021
While I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of any political party, I am completely simpatico with Senator Sasse’s observations, and remarks.
Competition is good, wholesome, and healthy, and strengthens each competitor. So in a very real way, it would be disastrous for our political system – which for all practical purposes, is comprised of but two political parties – to suffer the loss of one. Instead, we should be seeking to increase the number of viable competitors.
The GOP’s problems are myriad, not the least of which are cowardice, and failure to stand for truth, and oppose lies, no matter their source, or who promulgated them. As evidenced by what they did the past 4 years, if the party cannot will not stand for “truth, justice, and the American way,” what will they fall for?
As the colloquial saying – and song by the same name – goes, “you’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.”
Sadly, the GOP has already fallen.
The following article contains abbreviated excerpts of the original, which may be found linked at the conclusion.
QAnon Is Destroying the GOP From Within
Until last week, too many in the Republican Party thought they could preach the Constitution and wink at QAnon. They can’t.
Eugene Goodman is an American hero. At a pivotal moment on January 6, the veteran United States Capitol Police officer single-handedly prevented untold bloodshed. Staring down an angry, advancing mob, he retreated up a marble staircase, calmly wielding his baton to delay his pursuers while calling out their position to his fellow officers. At the top of the steps, still alone and standing just a few yards from the chamber where senators and Vice President Mike Pence had been certifying the Electoral College’s vote, Goodman strategically lured dozens of the mayhem-minded away from an unguarded door to the Senate floor.
…
If and when the House sends its article of impeachment against Trump to the Senate, I will be a juror in his trial, and thus what I can say in advance is limited. But no matter what happens in that trial, the Republican Party faces a separate reckoning. Until last week, many party leaders and consultants thought they could preach the Constitution while winking at QAnon. They can’t. The GOP must reject conspiracy theories or be consumed by them. Now is the time to decide what this party is about.
The newly elected Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. She once ranted that “there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.” During her campaign, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a choice: Disavow her campaign and potentially lose a Republican seat, or welcome her into his caucus and try to keep a lid on her ludicrous ideas. McCarthy failed the leadership test and sat on the sidelines. Now in Congress, Greene isn’t going to just back McCarthy as leader and stay quiet. She’s already announced plans to try to impeach Joe Biden on his first full day as president. She’ll keep making fools out of herself, her constituents, and the Republican Party.
If the GOP is to have a future outside the fever dreams of Internet trolls, we have to call out falsehoods and conspiracy theories unequivocally. We have to repudiate people who peddle those lies.
…
America’s Junk-Food Media Diet
The way Americans are consuming and producing news—or what passes for it these days—is driving us mad. This has been said many times, but the problem has worsened in the past five years. On the supply side, media outlets have discovered that dialing up the rhetoric increases clicks, eyeballs, and revenue. On the demand side, readers and viewers like to see their opinions affirmed, rather than challenged. When everybody’s outraged, everybody wins—at least in the short term.
This is not a problem only on the right or only on obscure blogs. The underlying economics that drive Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Democratic Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you.
Perhaps you’ll recognize the opening words of Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, delivered March 4, 1861. There is one very minor, only slight change, however, and it is the substitution of the word “Democratic” for the word “Republican.”
That is purposeful, and deliberate, to illustrate a case in point.
Photograph shows participants and crowd at the first inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln, at the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. Lincoln is standing under the wood canopy, at the front, midway between the left and center posts. His face is in shadow but the white shirt front is visible. (Source: Ostendorf, p. 87) “A distant photograph from a special platform by an unknown photographer, in front of the Capitol, Washington, D.C., afternoon of March 4, 1861. ‘A small camera was directly in front of Mr. Lincoln,’ reported a newspaper, ‘another at a distance of a hundred yards, and a third of huge dimensions on the right … The three photographers present had plenty of time to take pictures, yet only the distant views have survived.” (Source: Ostendorf, p. 86-87)
Slave Southern states nowadays are largely Republican political strongholds.
That is not accidental. It is deliberate, and has been an ongoing effort in the Republican party since at least 1964, or, perhaps even earlier.
States below the Mason-Dixon line – a surveyor’s line of demarcation delineating primarily the southern border of Pennsylvania, and the western border of Delaware, from Maryland – sometimes also known as, or referred to as “slave states,” i.e., states where slavery as an institution was considered not only legal, but morally upright, ethical, and good – were once largely Democratic strongholds until around the mid-1960’s, or thereabouts.
The tables, however, were largely turned, and the tide began to shift in earnest beginning with the candidacy of Arizona United States Senator Barry Goldwater, who was the failed Republican candidate for President in 1964, opposite President Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas, who as Vice President, succeeded to the Presidency upon the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.
At the GOP National Convention that year, New York’s Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller ominously warned of the invasion of the GOP by radicalized elements from the South, which included members of the Ku Klux Klan, John Birch Society, Communists, and other domestic terrorists. In his address to the party’s delegates at the July 1964 Republican National Convention at Cow Palace in Daly City, California, he was given 5 minutes to address the delegates, and was booed for over 16 minutes. He was requesting adoption of a resolution to the 1964 official party platform condemning those groups and individuals whom belonged to them, who had infiltrated the Republican party, and sought to include the following language: “The Republican Party fully respects the contribution of responsible criticism, and defends the right of dissent in the democratic process. But we repudiate the efforts ofRead the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, January 13, 2021
The actions of Banana Republicans in the House that did NOT vote to impeach President Donald J. Trump a SECOND time, are simply mind-numbing.
Here, we have a President ON VIDEO TAPE who:
1.) Encouraged and invited rioters to come to Washington, D.C. SPECIFICALLY on January 6, 2021 in order to “stop the steal” writing on Twitter December 19, 2020 that “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
-AND-
2.) Though his deliberately provocative rhetoric, incited a riotously violent insurrection in which the thousands upon thousands of Trump2020 mobsters there present stormed and laid siege to the Capitol Building and deliberately disrupted a Joint Session of Congress in which the Electoral College Votes were being counted to certify Joseph R. Biden as the President-elect
As fallout continues from the deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol, Ed Stetzer, head of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, has a message for his fellow evangelicals: It’s time for a reckoning.
Evangelicals, he says, should look at how their own behaviors and actions may have helped fuel the insurrection. White evangelicals overwhelmingly supported President Trump in the 2020 election.
Some in the protest crowd raised signs with Christian symbolism and phrases.
“Part of this reckoning is: How did we get here? How were we so easily fooled by conspiracy theories?” he tells NPR’s Rachel Martin. “We need to make clear who we are. And our allegiance is to King Jesus, not to what boasting political leader might come next.”
Members of the audience react as U.S. President Trump delivers remarks at an Evangelicals for Trump Coalition Launch at the King Jesus International Ministry in Miami, Florida, U.S., January 3, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
In the interview, Stetzer also laments that evangelicals seem to have changed their view of morality to support Trump.
“So I think we just need to be honest. A big part of this evangelical reckoning is a lot of people sold out their beliefs,” he says.
Here are excerpts from the Morning Edition conversation:
You write that “many evangelicals are seeing Donald Trump for who he is.” Do you really think that’s true? There have been so many other things that Trump has said and done over the past four to five years that betray Christian values and their support didn’t waver. You think this time it’s different?
I think it’s a fair question, and I’ve been one for years who was saying we need to see more clearly who Donald Trump is and has often not been listened to. But I would say that for many people, the storming of the Capitol, the desecration of our halls of democracy, has shocked and stunned a lot of people and how President Trump has engaged in riling up crowds to accomplish these things. Yeah, I do think so. I think there are some significant and important conversations that we need to have inside of evangelicalism asking the question: What happened? Why were so many people drawn to somebody who was obviously so not connected to what evangelicals believe by his life or his practices or more.
You write that Trump has burned down the Republican Party. What has he done to the evangelical Christian movement?
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, January 12, 2021
For all the hoopla being raised by Banana Republicans parading as GOP types, including the Loser in Chief, about the decision Twitter made to cut him (and others) off from their private non-governmental service, and who are calling it “censorship,” the United States Supreme Court has some news for you:
Censorship laws DO NOT apply to the Private Sector.
Period.
If you don’t like it, take it up with those who decided it: KAVANAUGH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, ALITO, and GORSUCH, JJ., joined. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and KAGAN, JJ., joined.
In a Certiorari to The United States Court Of Appeals For The Second Circuit, No. 17–1702, the court ruled that “The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment prohibits only governmental, not private, abridgment of speech,” and held that MNN (private nonprofit corporation, petitioner Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN)) was not a state actor subject to the First Amendment.
The court wrote further, that, “A private entity may qualify as a state actor when, as relevant here, the entity exercises “powers traditionally exclusively re-served to the State.” The precedent for that decision was rendered in the case Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 352.
“The Court has stressed that “very few” functions fall into that category. Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S. 149, 158.”
In the decision, the court wrote in part that,
“Under the state-action doctrine as it has been articulated and applied by our precedents, we conclude that operation of public access channels on a cable system is not a traditional, exclusive public function. Moreover, a private entity such as MNN who opens its property for speech by others is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor. In operating the public access channels, MNN is a private actor, not a state actor, and MNN therefore is not subject to First Amendment constraints on its editorial discretion. We reverse in relevant part the judgment of the Second Circuit, and we remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
The background facts of the case which formed the basis of the suit are fairly straight-forward, and reads as follows:
“DeeDee Halleck and Jesus Papoleto Melendez produced public access programming in Manhattan. They made a film about MNN’s alleged neglect of the East Harlem community. Halleck submitted the film to MNN for airing on MNN’s public access channels, and MNN later televised the film. Afterwards, MNN fielded multiple complaints about the film’s content. In response, MNN temporarily suspended Halleck from using the public access channels. Halleck and Melendez soon became embroiled in another dispute with MNN staff. In the wake of that dispute, MNN ultimately suspended Halleck and Melendez from all MNN services and facilities. Halleck and Melendez then sued MNN, among other parties, in Federal District Court. The two producers claimed that MNN violated their First Amendment free-speech rights when MNN restricted their access to the public access channels because of the content of their film.
“MNN moved to dismiss the producers’ First Amendment claim on the ground that MNN is not a state actor and therefore is not subject to First Amendment restrictions on its editorial discretion. The District Court agreed with MNN and dismissed the producers’ First Amendment claim.
“The Second Circuit reversed in relevant part. 882 F. 3d 300, 308 (2018). In the majority opinion authored by Judge Newman and joined by Judge Lohier, the court stated that the public access channels in Manhattan are a public forum for purposes of the First Amendment. Reasoning that “public forums are usually operated by governments,” the court concluded that MNN is a state actor subject to First Amendment constraints. Id., at 306–307. Judge Lohier added a concurring opinion, explaining that MNN also qualifies as a state actor for the independent reason that “New York City delegated to MNN the traditionally public function of administering and regulating speech in the public forum of Manhattan’s public access channels.” Id., at 309.
“Judge Jacobs dissented in relevant part, opining that MNN is not a state actor. He reasoned that a private entity’s operation of an open forum for speakers does not render the host entity a state actor. Judge Jacobs further stated that the operation of public access channels is not a traditional, exclusive public function.
“We granted certiorari to resolve disagreement among the Courts of Appeals on the question whether private operators of public access cable channels are state actors subject to the First Amendment. 586 U. S. __ (2018). Compare 882 F. 3d 300 (case below), with Wilcher v. Akron, 498 F. 3d 516 (CA6 2007); and Alliance for Community Media v. FCC, 56 F. 3d 105 (CADC 1995).”
Certiorari [pronounced “sir-sha-rar-ee”] is a writ [a written order issued by a court]seekingreview of a lowercourtdecision by a highercourt.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, January 8, 2021
The Trump presidency, and the White Supremacist social unrest during his administration were exclusively caused by Russian KGB Chief Vladimir Putin.
It should be noted that the KGB has changed names several times, and has also been known as the GRU, and FIS, FSB, FSS, or SVR – by whatever name it’s called itself, it’s a Russian intelligence agency – a rose by any other name, you know. But otherwise, all the same old folks during Russia’s communist era are still in power. And Putin, who relatively recently was allegedly “approved” by about 75% of the Russian population who voted (We know how they vote, right? Ballot box stuffing.), Ol’ Vlad is now effectively “President for Life,” and will remain in power until 2036, at which time he’ll be the ripe old age of 84. So much for “reform,” eh?
Some, most notably Republicans, have hailed the alleged “demise” of “the former Soviet Union” in favor of whatever government is now in place in Russia, under whatever banner they may fly over themselves at any given time.
We’ll be fighting in the streets With our children at our feet And the morals that they worship will be gone And the men who spurred us on Sit in judgement of all wrong They decide and the shotgun sings the song
I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I’ll get on my knees and pray We don’t get fooled again
…
Meet the new boss Same as the old boss
“Meet the new boss… same as the old boss.”
Again, a communist by another other name.
But let’s get one thing ABSOLUTELY straight: Russia has NEVER been America’s friend, nor our ally at any time in history. NOT EVER! Not even during WWII when Stalin, FDR, and Churchill sat together for an outdoor photograph at The Tehran Conference: November 28 – December 2, 1943, the subsequent Yalta Conference, and the final Potsdam Conference during which representatives from the 3 nations (United States, United Kingdom, and Russia) strategized for the defeat of Hitler’s Nazi Germany forces during WWII. Perhaps the oft-repeated adage that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” may seem apropos in such a case. While it doesn’t necessarily indicate friendship, per se, it merely illustrates cooperation for a mutually beneficial cause.
But more to the point… the conclusion arrived at by our nation’s intelligence agencies, their analysts, and the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, is that Russia interfered in our 2016 election, preferred Donald Trump as their candidate to win, and made significant effort toward ensuring that he was elected.
Why?
Because Russian intelligence had long known about Trump’s myriad weaknesses as a “leader,” about his corrupt practices as a “businessman,” of his well-known penchants for aggrandizing and narcissism, his numerous personal failures as a human being, and every possible weakness he had… and they exploited it to the hilt for THEIR own benefit, because they KNEW that he was a patsy, a pussy, a weakling, a bully, an idiot, an ignoramus, and worse -and- that he could be easily manipulated. Trump was, for the Russians, a tool to be used to achieve their means, and they worked tirelessly to ensure his election.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, January 7, 2021
The two Democrats challenging Georgia’s incumbent Republican Senators, David Perdue, and the appointed Kelly Loeffler, have won.
A full 100% of Georgia’s 2652 precincts have reported, and their votes tallied.
Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has certified the results.
The Reverend Doctor Raphael Warnock, pastor of Atlanta’s famed Ebenezer Baptist Church, the spiritual home of the late Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., has been declared the winner in his race against Kelly Loeffler, with 50.84%, or 2,259,769 votes, to 49.16%, or 2,185,063 votes, for Kelly Loeffler. Loeffler was temporarily appointed by Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp to fill the unexpired term of Republican Johnny Isakson, who announced his retirement effective 31 December 2019 to care for his health following a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease. The Reverend Doctor Warnock has made history by being only the 11th Black person to have been elected to the United States Senate.
In the other Senate race, Jon Ossoff has been declared victorious over incumbent David Perdue with 50.41%, or 2,240,822 votes, to 49.59%, or 2,203,958 votes for Perdue. Aged 33 years, Mr. Offoff will become the youngest United States Senator ever elected.
Jon Ossoff LEFT and Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock RIGHT in a joint campaign event.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, January 6, 2021
“To those Republicans, many of which may be voting on things in the coming hours: You have an opportunity today.You can be a hero, or you can be a zero. And the choice is yours. But we are all watching. The whole world is watching, folks. Choose wisely.”
“These guys better fight for Trump. Because if they’re not, guess what? I’m going to be in your backyard in a couple of months!”
– Donald Trump, Jr., in a meandering, expletive-filled speech delivered almost entirely in shouting, to the mob gathered for the “Save America March” assembled on the White House Ellipse, suggesting that he would support primary campaigns against Republicans who did not side with his father on confirmation of the state’s certified Electoral College vote results. After a speech given by the President, the exclusively White mob later rioted, became insurrectionist, and violently overthrew the Capitol Building, rampaging, looting, destroying, and wreaking havoc, and mayhem.
Donald Trump Jr. speaks Wednesday, January 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C., at a rally in support of President Donald Trump called the “Save America Rally.” The “rally” was a mob in waiting, which later rioted, becoming insurrectionists, and violently overthrew the nation’s Capitol Building. image by Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, January 5, 2021
“Truth matters.”
Hmm… where have we heard that before, eh?
ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America”: “David Worley, a Democrat member of the State Election Board, which you chair, has asked you to open an investigation into the call. Will you open that investigation?”
Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos, ABC News Chief Anchor on “Good Morning America” Monday morning, January 4, 2021 following Sunday’s news that President Trump and his team had called the Georgia Secretary of State and asked him to “find” enough votes to overturn the official results and throw the election to Trump.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger: “I believe that – because I had conversation with the President, also he had conversation with our chief investigator after we did the signature match audit of Cobb County last week – there may be a conflict of interest.
“I understand that the Fulton County District Attorney wants to look at.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Blessed are those who have, for they shall be given more.
That’s not a genuine Bible verse, by the way. And if you’re any kind of decently well-read individual, with more than a perfunctory, or minimal knowledge of the Judeo-Christian collection of holy writings collectively known as the Bible, you would know that already.
And by that same token, of being any kind of decently well-read individual, you would also know that there is an eerie parallel to a saying that Jesus of Nazareth made about a related matter – the Parable of the Talents – as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. A parable, of course, is a moralizing tale, a story meant to illustrate some matter, and to point out a wrong doing, or type of injustice in an unobtrusive, easy-to-understand manner.
We’re going to get to Georgia’s appointed Republican Senator whose net worth of $500M is BY FAR the wealthiest member of Congress in just a moment, but first you need some background for understanding.
Woodcut from Historiae Celebriores Veteris Testamenti Iconibus Representatae — dated to 1712 — depicts the Parable of the Talents as told by Jesus of Nazareth, in Matthew 25:14–30. Two men bring the money that was entrusted to them back to their master, while a third man searches for his money outside.
The story states that, in preparation for a journey of some duration, an owner/master entrusted and distributed his money to his 3 servants. The unspoken hope, or expectation those days, is that, upon his return, they would have increased the portion with which they were entrusted and charged.
To one, he gave he gave 5 talents (a monetary measurement), to another he gave 2, and to the third, he gave 1 talent. Upon his return, the first two who received 5, and 2, respectively, reported that they’d doubled the money. The third did not, and rather, reported that he buried the money in the ground, and had not gained anything. Upon hearing that news, the owner became enraged, called that servant lazy and wicked, fired him, then ordered that single talent to be taken from him and given to the one with 10.
That’s an important point, which you’ll see later, why.
Jesus of Nazareth, who was telling the story, made a moral assessment, and drew a conclusion based upon the actions of that one who did not return a profit, and reportedly said, “For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”
While the story is simply told, the meaning behind it is uncertain, though there have been many sermons preached about the tale. And yet, the audience hearing that parable then, in the era in which is was told, would have interpreted it quite differently from today’s audience, according to Dr. Richard L. Rohrbaugh, STD, Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Religious Studies at Lewis and Clark College, whose primary scholarly pursuit was establishing proper historical and cultural contexts for Biblical texts.
Dr. Rohrbaugh said that, in the era in which the story was first told, the audience would have understood that the “profit” was made through the exploitative abuse of others, and that the third servant was the one which would have been considered honorable by the standard of the day. Thus, that interpretation of the parable, would mean that the first two servants were shameful, instead of the third. When asked about the matter, Dr. Rohrbaugh said in part that,
“[G]iven the “limited good” outlook of ancient Mediterranean cultures, seeking “more” was considered morally wrong. Because the pie was “limited” and already all distributed, anyone getting “more” meant someone else got less. Thus, honorable people did not try to get more, and those who did were automatically considered thieves: To have gained, to have accumulated more than one started with, is to have taken the share of someone else.”
As he explained in the Biblical Archaeology Society, “In the ancient world, greedy people who did not want to get accused of profiting at someone else’s expense – which was considered shameful – would delegate their business to slaves, who were held to a different standard.” Dr. Rohrbaugh explained that the reasoning was that, “Shameful, even greedy, behavior could be condoned in slaves because slaves had no honor nor any expectation of it.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, December 28, 2020
Undated image of deceased Nashville bomber Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, of 115 Bakertown Road, Antioch, Tennessee, whom authorities have identified using DNA testing from remains found on-scene from the blast site, as the perpetrator of the Christmas Day bombing of the AT&T distribution building in downtown Nashville.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, December 23, 2020
“You’re known by the company you keep,”
is a well-known maxim.
In which case, Kelly Loeffler obviously has a penchant favoring White Supremacists.
LEFT to RIGHT: Georgia’s appointed Banana Republican U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler, Joshua Motes, Arkansas Banana Republican U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, at a Loeffler campaign event September 3, 2020 in Gilmer County, GA
Even her newly-elected U.S. Representative Georgia conspiracy theorist QAnon nutty buddy Banana Republican Marjorie Taylor Green (14th CD) knew who Chester Doles was, and booted him from one of her campaign events.
But Loeffler, whose personal net worth of well over $500 million makes her, by far, the wealthiest Member of Congress, can’t be bothered to hire staff that’s worth a hoot in hell to ID bad apples.
Or, maybe she actually likes them.
Jewish Progressive action group Bend the Arc: Jewish Action recently posted this image to Twitter, and later provided it to HuffPost, which shows Joshua Motes standing between Banana Republicans Kelly Loeffler, and Tom Cotton at a Loeffler campaign event in Gilmer County, Georgia this past September 3, 2020. The image was originally posted by Chester Doles to the Russian social media site VK, a well-known haven for White Supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other right-wing radicals who have been kicked off Facebook, Twitter, and other American-based social media.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, December 21, 2020
“For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
“Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth.
“Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.
“The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.
“Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
“That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.
“It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America.
“This is your day. This is your celebration.
“And this, the United States of America, is your country.
“What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.
“January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”
Contrary to what the Liar in Chief said, neither he, nor the Banana Republican Party, have made America great again.
Of course, the logic of his campaign slogan – “Make America Great Again” – is illogical, and inherently contradictory, because Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, December 21, 2020
Look at the money in your pocket… the paper currency and the coinage.
Where was it made, and who made it?
Chances are, you’d say the United States government made it at one of their mints. And if you did, you’d be correct. The currency was printed on government owned paper, with government owned ink, on government owned presses.
“Show me a Roman coin. Whose picture and title are stamped on it?”“Caesar’s,” they replied. “Well then,” he said,“give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.” – Jesus of Nazareth, as recorded in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 20, verses 24, and 25
Same thing for the coins. They were made with government owned metals, on government owned dies, on government owned machines.
But you can’t own it. You can’t own the money.
At least not in the narrow sense, in that it belongs to the government, anyway, since it was issued by them, using their materials.
In the broad sense, it’s entrusted to you.
But again, it’s government property, and that’s why it’s illegal to deface or destroy currency. It doesn’t belong to you.
So you might think that’s an example of the dread “socialism.” And if you did, you’d be wrong.
Why?
Because ALL of it – the ink, the paper, the metals, the presses, the dies, the machines – ALL of it came from the Private Sector via publicly bid contract.
Yeah.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it for a little while.
Even the healthcare we give our Military Service Members – AND their first-degree family members (spouse and children) – is not an example of socialism, because Read the rest of this entry »
