Georgia GOP Signals Difficulty Ahead

Pulitzer prize winning, nationally syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, who also happens to be a Black man, wrote recently about the moron who the Georgia GOP trotted out to represent their interests — the former footballer, wife beater, philanderer, mentally unstable liar, Herschel Walker.

Pitts’ observations are spot-on.

But moreover, what this matter speaks to, is the wretchedly miserable condition of the Georgia GOP.

The GOP only trotted out that moron because he’s Black.

Now, you tell me…

Is that not pandering to racism, and race-based politics — fielding a candidate EXCLUSIVELY because of skin color?

It’s the very height of arrogant cynicism, and an exemplary model of political “tone deafness,” to obliquely assert, and hold as true, that the only reason Black folks vote, is to vote for Black folks.

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U.S. Senator, Reverend Raphael Warnock, GA-D (wearing tie); Herschel Walker, GOP candidate for Georgia U.S. Senate

—excerpted—

“When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”
— Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou, meet Herschel Walker, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Here he is on the Inflation Reduction Act:
“A lot of money, it’s going to trees. . . . We’ve got enough trees. Don’t we have enough trees around here?”

And on school shootings:
“What about gettin’ a department that can look at

Crime In Alabama

The reader should bear in mind that, in Alabama, there are:
399 TOTAL Law Enforcement Organizations
297 Municipal PDs
67 Sheriff’s Departments
25 Community College/University PDs
7 Judicial/Drug Task Force
2 Airport PDs
1 Special Investigations (fire/explosion)

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Alabama, like many, or even most, states, likes to crow about how much they appreciate, or even revere, their Law Enforcement Officials (LEOs). And, under a Republican ultra-majority dominated legislature, executive branch, and judiciary, for well over a decade, one would imagine that by now, the controlling party, since 2011, would have gotten a firm grip on problems facing residents — to either resolve, ameliorate, or eliminate them.

They have not.

Consider crime. Often touted as a Republican talking point, e.g. being “tough on crime,” one would imagine that not only the Corrections system would have corrected and reformed those entrusted to its “corrections,” but that Law Enforcement agencies statewide would be supported, strengthened, and improved by the Republicans to protect the public, and uphold the laws, as is their charge. The state’s prison system, like the ignored metaphorical “elephant in the room,” has long teetered on a Federal takeover for overcrowding, violence, inhumane conditions, and corruption, while Alabama’s LEOs and their agencies continue failing their charge of public protection by not arresting offenders, solving crimes, and bringing swift justice for the offended victims.

And that proverbial “three-legged stool” has at least one woefully short leg. And that, is solving crimes.

In law enforcement jargon, crimes are considered “cleared,” or solved, when a suspect is arrested, and sometimes, several crimes can be cleared with one arrest. But not always. That terminology is used nation-wide at all levels of law enforcement, Local, State, and Federal.

ALEA, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, was a creation of

Unqualified Georgia GOP Senate Candidate Hershel Walker a 2022 Herman Cain Redux

History repeats itself, we’re told.

… but only if we ignore it, wrote George Santayana.

George Santayana in Rome, 1944.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

– George Santayana (1863-1952), Spanish philosopher writing in his 5-part book “The Life of Reason” Volume 1 “Reason in Common Sense,” (published 1905-1906)

One only need look at Georgia to see that GOPers are doing it again.

What are they doing again?

“It” is using the same old failed plays to win.

This time they’re using Hershel Walker like a subway token, just like they did Herman Cain.

They’re parading an utterly unqualified, out-of-touch-with-reality, ultra-wealthy individual as a candidate for high-level elected public office at the Federal level.

Hershel Walker, love him, loathe him — or ambivalent — has never held any elected office, much less held an office of public trust… just like another recent failure who retired to a palatial Florida estate which doubles as a high-priced “Members Only” club. So, why would ANYONE in their right mind imagine that Hershel Walker — in any way, shape, or form — would somehow be “qualified” to be a United States Senator from Georgia?

Sure, the Constitution states that the only qualifications to be Senator are as follows:

“No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”
[U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 3, clause 3]

That bar is low enough that anyone — literally, anyone — could be a U.S. Senator. And according to that low standard, even a convicted felon still imprisoned could be a U.S. Senator. How preposterously absurd is that?!? Hershel Walker, as most anyone who’s been paying attention for the past several years, ought to know that

Concerning the Supreme Court, Truth is Stranger than Fiction

Who Wrote This?

“…the woman contemplating a first trimester abortion is given absolute and nonreviewable authority over the future of the fetus.”

. . .

“Roe took from state lawmakers the authority to make this choice and gave it to the pregnant woman.”

READ THAT AGAIN.

“…the woman contemplating a first trimester abortion is given absolute and nonreviewable authority over the future of the fetus.”

-and-

“Roe took from state lawmakers the authority to make this choice and gave it to the pregnant woman.”

Imagine the utterly unmitigated gall, total temerity, and absolute audacity of anyone who would take “from state lawmakers the authority,” the “absolute and nonreviewable authority” — otherwise known as rights under law — and give it to We The People… and to women, at that! Such brazenness! (The reader should detect STRONG sarcasm.)

Again, who wrote that?

Here are some identifying details.

It was authored by

Fetterman v Oz

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

It has always been ugly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Its greatest single benefit?

It helps avoid taxes.

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

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

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

While as a retired cardiologist Oz knows about Afib,

A Sad American First: Two Years After Trump Negotiated with Terrorist Taliban

Once, a long time ago… (Isn’t that how fairy tales start out?)

Two years is almost like forever when it comes to matters politick. But it should be noted, that the overall conditions for diplomatic talks with international terrorists is a definite first in American history. Just as much as having a POTUS work against you by every boastfully callous public remark he makes. Never before has the Department of State and the Office of the President been at odds with one another.

That is, until that maladministration of Mr. I-know-more-than-the-generals-do.

And, it’s mostly true that each new administration has some degree of “learning curve” to move beyond the lingering effects of the prior administration.

And in this case, it was two years.

No one drives forward while gazing in the rear-view mirror.

That’s NOT what rear-view mirrors are for.

Rear-view mirrors enable drivers to briefly scan behind them to see if there’s anything of which they need to be aware. Is a rapidly-approaching vehicle in your lane of travel, or not? Is an emergency services vehicle needing right-of-way? In short, rear view mirrors enable drivers to be alert for changes they may need to make in response to activity behind them.

And in a very similar manner, that’s the purpose of a retrospective — to determine what was good, and what could have been better.

It’s been two years since the Biden administration began. There’ve been some hiccups, some failures, and now, there are signs of success. But it’s taken two years just to get out of the mess the previous administration made and left for the next.

So, how accurate is that remark?

Let’s look in the rear-view mirror!

In an article published November 18, 2020 in The Diplomat, freelance journalist Sohrab Azad, who covers Afghanistan, is based in Erbil, Iraq, and founder of Advocates for a Prosperous Afghanistan, an advocacy group in Washington, DC, wrote in part, that,

Do Doctors have First Amendment Protection from Anti-Abortion Laws?

Are Physicians Protected by the First Amendment?

Are Patients protected by HIPAA, the Patient Privacy Law?

Can just anybody, or even the state, sue, or arrest and charge with a crime anyone who discussed abortion, was referred for, or had an abortion — even if it was out of the state of the patient’s residence?

How “long” is the “long arm of the law,” and can it actually investigate, charge, prosecute, and punish physicians and/or patients for receiving private healthcare advice and/or services?

Suddenly! Yes, suddenly — as in acutely, and even cataclysmically-like-an-earthquake so — physicians and other healthcare professionals seem to find themselves between a proverbial rock, and a hypothetical hard place.

The reason why, is because 6 GOP-nominated radicals on the still-9-member Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) {Those justices are: Alito, Thomas, CJ Roberts, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett.} have completely ignored judicial precedent — which is the “holy grail” of jurisprudence that helps form the foundation of law itself, and thereby give stability to civil society — and overturned at least TWO rulings of an earlier court — Roe v Wade (1973), and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) — in their 6-3 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022).

The Roberts Court, April 23, 2021
Seated from LEFT to RIGHT: Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor
Standing from LEFT to RIGHT: Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Photograph by Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

Of course, overturning even century-old precedent has been the characteristic hallmark of the Roberts Court. Since becoming Joker in Chief Justice in September 2005, he has presided over 20 reversals of well-established precedented opinion, some dating as far back as 1911. If, in the law, nothing is TRULY ever settled, and any court now, or in the future, can simply overturn any law or decision with which they disagree — regardless of how long it’s been in effect, and regardless of what their confirmation testimony was — then our nation’s foundation is insecure.

There are numerous Constitutional problems with the 6 radicalized jurists’ decision, not the least of which is that, by returning to the states the ability to decide abortion law (or any other law over which Federal law has presided), it completely ignores undermines and usurps the essential tenet of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which is that Federal law has ultimate authority over any other law by a state, or locality.

To add insult to injury, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas — long known as “The Silent Justice,” because from Wednesday, February 22, 2006, until Monday, February 29, 2016 — 10 years — he NEVER spoke one word at hearings — wrote in Dobbs that judicial activists could also overturn other recent cases such as Griswold v. Connecticut, Obergefell v. Hodges, Lawrence v. Texas, and other decisions with which they personally disagree.

On page 3 of his opinion (page 119 of 213 of the entire document), he wrote in part that,

“…in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 7), we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents, Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (slip op., at 9). After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated. For example, we could consider whether any of the rights announced in this Court’s substantive due process cases are “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Justice Thomas continued in part by writing,

“That 50 years have passed since Roe and abortion advocates still cannot coherently articulate the right (or rights) at stake proves the obvious: The right to abortion is ultimately a policy goal in desperate search of a constitutional justification.”

He predicates his entire opposition to the ruling in Roe upon but one idea: His distaste for the term

WIN Failed, But Government Cheese Won

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

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

 

It was a failure.

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

• Congress first enacted a WPT in 1917 which ranged from

GOP Grooming

“Grooming” is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days; from serial sexual abuse to personal hygiene, “grooming” has become a favorite Word of the Day by the GOPT — Grand Old Party of Trump.

And well it should, because that party specializes in projection, an abusive manipulative psychological distraction technique that casts blame for a problem upon one’s opponent, or enemy, claiming that they are the ones doing the very thing the accuser is doing.

By blaming another, it keeps observers distracted from what the accuser actually is doing, by busying themselves with investigating whether, or not, the one being accused is genuinely guilty as charged by the accuser, or not.

As a longtime and ardent observer of matters political, I have absolute certainty that you’re keenly aware of such actions.

Of course, existence of a former chargé d’affairs of a

Voting Rights as a Constitutional Amendment

The United States Constitution has been amended 27 times.

Of those 27 amendments, there is but one solitary matter which has consistently appeared over the years.

And similarly, there is but one matter which has consistently been problematic for the United States.

That solitary matter has been addressed in the Constitution, to be affirmed, confirmed, and reaffirmed, time, and time, and time again.

And that single, solitary matter, is voting.

Exactly 5 of the 27 amendments — or 18.5% — to the U.S. Constitution have dealt with matters related to voting. If by the number of instances in which the matter is addressed is any indication of its importance, there is NO MORE greater matter to civil society, and by extension, to our democratic republic, than voting.

And yet, as evidenced by the corollary to those same amendments, voting has been, and continues to be, the single most abused, and misused tool of those who attempt to wrest power AWAY FROM the people, and accumulate it to unto themselves, and/or their favored political party.

Voting gives POWER TO THE PEOPLE; and that is precisely why some do NOT want We The People to have power, as our Constitutional Democratic Republic mandates.

Here are the amendments to the Constitution, as they read, which have all dealt with matters of voting.

Beginning with the:

Corrupt SCOTUS Radicals’ Roots Go Through Reagan Directly To Nixon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why?

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

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

South Dakota GOP Governor Kristi Noem: “Every life is precious.”

When asked today (Sunday, 03July2022) by Dana Bash, CNN News Anchor, and Chief Political Correspondent about the matter excerpted and linked below, South Dakota’s GOP Governor Kristi Noem refused to answer a direct question about a real-life situation, if it were to have occurred in South Dakota.

The matter is a very real one, and it is the tragic sexual abuse of a 10-year old girl who became pregnant as a result of that abuse, and was referred by a Child Abuse physician in Ohio to an OBGYN colleague in Indiana.

These matters, while previously in the realm of the fictitiously surreal, as in “The Handmaid’s Tale” — a dystopian 1985 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, in which a militaristic totalitarian theocracy has overthrown the United States government, as the story’s plotline explores themes of the women subjugated by the extremist, oppressive government, and the various ways by, and through which they gain agency in that society — sadly, have now become reality.

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

史密斯菲尔德食品

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

Chinese translated as “Smithfield Food”

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

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

Consider food.

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

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

THAT is why fuel prices are sky high.

There is NO OTHER REASON.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BIG OIL companies are doing BOTH.

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

“Praise God!” -OR- “God Damn!”? You be the judge.

Today (June 26, 2022), the much-expected, leaked Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (19-1392) was publicly released on the Supreme Court’s website [see: https://www.SupremeCourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf], which the unjust Justice Samuel Alito summarized thusly:

“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, are overruled; the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

The 6 right-wing radicals similarly ignored the Constitution’s 9th Amendment, which is the statement that unenumerated rights exist:

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Six Justices, including the Joker in Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and ultra-right-wing radical extremists Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett — all whom were nominated by Banana Republicans — overturned a very-nearly 50-year precedent.

By so doing, they made themselves out as liars, because ALL of the 6 in public testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, asserted that Roe v. Wade, a decision issued on January 22, 1973, was “settled law.”

• In 2020, Amy Coney Barrett was asked

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grim Reaper statue, Cathedral of Trier, Trier, Germany

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

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

Big Brother is NOT the Government, it’s CORPORATIONS

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

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

BUT!

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

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

Yeah.

You see,

Common Sense Gun Reform Laws

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

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

But, exactly WHAT IS “common sense”?

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

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

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

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

Quite possibly, yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why not?

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

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

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

Marsha Blackburn + Josh Hawley = Kennelmates

Needing an election-year straw-man punching bag, numerous Republicans, including Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Josh Hawley of Missouri — who had three times previously approved Judge Jackson’s three earlier Federal judicial nominations, most recently in April last year to the D.C. Circuit — suddenly falsely accused the judge of being lenient toward child sexual abusers, in effect, not merely being an ideological moral equivalent, but much worse, as a promoter of such crime. Fact-checkers say such malicious slurs are not only fictitious, but deliberately misleading, and that Judge Jackson’s sentencing decisions were 100% in line with her peers on the Federal bench.

Hawley is Blackburn’s kennelmate, her own in-bred ideological offspring.😎🤣🧐😳

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Full Senate Approves Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the 116th Supreme Court justice.

The Senate voted 53 to 47 to confirm her nomination to the United States Supreme Court, primarily

Let’s Talk Taxes!

We have a crazy economy, for sure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What hasn’t increased?

Their generosity.

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

Imagine that, eh?

I got mine, good luck getting yours.

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

What an attitude, eh?

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

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

NOTE To The Reader:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile… VUMC got off SCOT-FREE.

Not even a 10¢ fine.

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

WHERE is the JUSTICE in that!?!?

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

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

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

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

Gas prices got you feeling pinched?

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

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Yeah.

Bupkis.

Nada.

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

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

That’s NOT a joke.

Or, is it?

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

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

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

Yeah.

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

That’s because YOU ARE.

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

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

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

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

“Well, you know, we’re paying

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

WHY would

U.S. Senators:

• Richard Shelby – R, AL

• Jerry Moran – R, KS

• John Kennedy – R, LA

• Steve Daines – R, MT

• John Hoven – R, ND

• John Thune – R, SD

• Ron Johnson – R, WI

-and-

U.S. Representative

• Kay Granger – R, TX-12

ALL GO TO RUSSIA on July 4, 2018?

Oh… wait… here’s the answer:

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

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

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

• By RFE/RL

(with video)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With reporting by Reuters, AP, CNN, and TASS

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

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

Why Russian Oil Should Be Sold Worldwide

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

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

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

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

Why?

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

Putin, Zelenskyy, and Biden Walk Into a Bar…

Putin, Zelenskyy, and Biden walk Into a bar.

Putin orders a Ukrainian invasion.

Biden says, “I’ll have the same.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a stunningly hypocritical move this afternoon

Here’s What POTUS BIDEN Should Do Regarding Putin

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

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

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

1.) Morons.

2.) Morons.

3.) Morons.

4.) Morons.

5.) Morons.

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

I do.

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s what I found.

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

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

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

Our “Privacy” Policy

Policy is NOT law.

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

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

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

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

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

They do not.

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

Seriously.

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

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

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

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

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

How about THEM apples, eh?

Yeah.

THAT is what’s going on.

Why?

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

Or Japan.

The Fourth Amendment of our Constitution states, verbatim:

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

That amendment is NOT limited to the government, because

Tennessee GOP Governor Bill Lee Gives Insipidly Milquetoast State of the State Address

If you want to see, and hear, what an insipidly milquetoast governor Bill Lee is for Tennessee, simply watch a few minutes of his disgustingly loathsome address, delivered to the General Assembly, Monday, 31 January 2022.

It is weak, weak, weak.

As the namby-pamby, weak-kneed, say-little-do-nothing Republican Governor Bill Lee gave his State of the State address today, I thought his knees would buckle under the weight of his featherweight words.

His was a vapidly bland address, delivered in a monotonic voice, devoid of fervor or passion, full to overflowing with the null set of simply maintaining the status quo. Nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing life-changing… a real snooze-fest.

He said NOTHING about

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

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

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

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

Families First Coronavirus Response Act: Employee Paid Leave Rights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You see, freedom has responsibilities.

In practice, that means you can’t

Lessons Learned, and Not Learned

What lessons could we learn from nicotine chewing gum?

You might be surprised.

Read on.

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Having never been addicted to anything (or, anyone), the craving for a substance, other than food & water for sustenance, it interests me to understand the strong cravings that some have for non-food substances, including, for example, tobacco, spiritous beverage, or narcotics abused, or other illicit substances, including cocaine, methamphetamine, etc.

For years, I have, on a personal level, maintained that addiction was not what many were saying that it was, some years ago. And in the interim, from then until now, indeed, the definition, and our understanding of addiction has substantially changed, precisely because of our increased understanding of physiology, in conjunction with improved recognition of cause-and-effect patterns of human behavior.

For example, with smokers, they almost always fall into habituation through association with routine. Wake up, toilet, smoke, bathe, smoke. Drink coffee, smoke. Drive to work, smoke. Work a couple hours, smoke break. Work a few more, lunch break, smoke. Work a bit, smoke break. Off work, drive home, smoke. Get cleaned up, smoke. Watch teevee, smoke. Eat supper, smoke. Have cocktails/nightcap, smoke. And it all repeats itself the next day. That’s significantly serious behavioral reinforcement.

Those who make effort to quit, frequently forget the association of routine with smoking, and when determined to quit, they sometimes

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

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

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

Dr. Diane Ravitch, PhD

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

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

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

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

Why is America Subsidizing Communism?

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

And what might the cause of that pain be?

Joblessness, homelessness, hopelessness.

Why don’t they have a job?

Ask Congress.

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

Yeah.

Right.

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

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

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

But you can’t sue Congress.

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

Every goddamn one of ’em.

ALL Republicans, ALL Democrats, ALL Independents.

ALL OF THEM.

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

Yeah. What a guy, eh?

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

It was on September 4, 2009 when

The Elderly: Things we throw away?

The REAL question is, “Do we care for ourselves… or not?”

If so, it’s time to put our money where out mouth is.

A society can be easily, and readily judged by how they care, or not, for their elderly.

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prospect.org

The Care Crisis Isn’t What You Think

By Dr. Laura Mauldin, PhD
January 3, 2022

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On a recent visit with research participants for my book on spousal caregiving, I sat with a man who had a stroke three years ago, at age 59. He can only use one side of his body, rendering him unable to work; his wife serves as his caregiver. He told me about how much he hated himself. “All I do is take resources. I don’t contribute anything.” Tears streamed down his cheeks.

President Biden’s signature Build Back Better bill, which includes funding for long-neglected social programs like Medicaid’s home and community-based services (HCBS), is facing an uncertain future. An upgraded HCBS program would allow millions of people currently stuck on wait lists to receive care at home, rather than in congregant settings. But facing questions from the likes of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) about cost, the new investments in HCBS may not become law.

Read more about Health & Social Policy

What my research participant made clear to me that day is that the lack of robust and accessible social programs for long-term care is merely a symptom of a deeper, more poisonous problem: Disability is a part of life, and we hate it. Literally.

Here’s what we don’t talk about when we talk about the care crisis. When it comes to disability, we devalue care (both caregiving and paid care work) because we devalue the people who need it. It’s why we position care as a response to a horrible disaster. It’s why we refuse to adequately fund home care and fairly pay care workers. It’s why we rely on the 53 million (and climbing) unpaid family caregivers across the U.S. to provide care for free. It’s why disabled people internalize the idea that they are worthless “takers.” We tell people we don’t care about them when we refuse to provide the means for them and those who care for them to live well.

Euphemisms like “silver tsunami” let the idea of disaster stand in for disability.

In the lead-up to the BBB bill, there have been

Merry Christmas! Will Santa bring you a gun?

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

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

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

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

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

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

All 3 are charged with

Alabama 3rd Most Foreign-Owned Farmland in USA

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

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

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

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

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

For more information see: WH-Group.com

For more information see: Shuanghui.net

For more information see: SmithfieldFoods.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Polly want a cracker?

How about a cookie, instead?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But not in the USA.

Again, whyzat?

Congress.

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

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

That’s NOT a joke.

Just think of it this way:

STALKING.

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

And THAT’s the whole point.

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

Nose/Mouth Protection Was Once Popular Among Right Wingers

The now-defunct Moral Majority was a far-right-wing, extremist political arm of a primarily Protestant Christian Fundamentalist organization founded by the now-late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr. (1933-2007), Founding Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, in Lynchburg, VA, who infamously filed, and lost, a defamation of character lawsuit against pornographer Larry Flynt (1942-2021), Founder of the Hustler magazine empire, which was ultimately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Based upon First Amendment principles, the SCOTUS found that Flynt’s plainly-marked parody depiction of Falwell fell under protected speech, holding that “the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit public figures and public officials from recovering damages for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress by reason of the publication of a caricature…” and noted that “the State’s interest in protecting public figures from emotional distress is not sufficient to deny First Amendment protection to speech that is patently offensive and is intended to inflict emotional injury when that speech could not reasonably have been interpreted as stating actual facts about the public figure involved.”

Moral Majority Report, July 1983, AIDS

In other words, the First Amendment protects parodies of celebrities or other public figures, even if they are intended to cause distress to the subjects depicted/portrayed.

Such a matter is now ongoing and involving soon-to-be-former U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican who has represented California’s 22nd Congressional District since 2003. CD 22 is in the state’s fertile San Joaquin Valley farmland area, and encompasses parts of Fresno, and Tulare counties, which includes portions of the cities of Fresno, and all of the cities of Clovis, Tulare, and Visalia.

Nunes is infamously litigious, and as some would characterize it, is thin-skinned, and becomes very “butt-hurt” when he is mocked, satirized, or parodied publicly, which has occurred regularly on Twitter, where the satire account “Devin Nunes Cow” (Nunes has interests in dairy farming in the district), and several other parody accounts, including some naming his mother, regularly poke fun of him.

Ironically, the two men Falwell and Flynt, later became good friends, and frequently appeared together in several public venues on college & university campuses, including on the Larry King Show.

Dr. Heather Murray, PhD, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Ottawa, Canada, (see her faculty page here) recently wrote the following, in part, about the matter of the far-right-wing now refusing to wear protective nose/mouth coverings (aka “face masks”) during the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus (aka COVID-19) pandemic, whereas once, they were gung-ho to wear them, despite the fact that

Poll: White Texas GOPers Willing To Die For COVID -AND- Sacrifice Their Kids To COVID

There’s nothing quite like the truth, is there?

It’s 6 of one, and half a dozen of the other. Same thing, just expressed differently, right?

The article from which these observations were made is linked at the bottom. And while the ideas expressed are from the article, the rephrasing is unique.

For example, The Hill wrote that:

“Almost one-quarter of Texans are unwilling or unlikely to get the COVID-19 vaccine, a new poll from The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler found.

“The poll found 5 percent are unlikely and 18 percent unwilling to get the coronavirus vaccine as vaccine mandates are becoming more popular in the country.

“The percentage of parents who will not get their children vaccinated is even higher, with 9 percent saying they probably won’t get their children vaccinated and 28 percent saying they will not.”

It has been ACCURATELY REWRITTEN AS:

A new poll conducted jointly by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler found that almost 1 in 4 Texas voters are willing, or likely, to die from COVID-19.

The poll, conducted among 1106 registered voters November 9 – 16, 2021, found that 5% are likely and 18% are willing to die from coronavirus disease, even though vaccines are free, and have been proven significantly helpful against infection, and severe disease.

The number of parents who are willing to sacrifice their children to coronavirus disease is even greater, with 9% saying they probably will sacrifice their children to coronavirus disease, and 28% saying they definitely will.

We know, for a hard-cold fact that unvaccinated folks are at a SIGNIFICANTLY GREATER risk of becoming infected with COVID-19 –AND– of dying from the disease. And, it is unvaccinated folks who are clogging up hospitals, and using a disproportionate share of healthcare resources.

Think about it: Would it really matter if

Chrystul Blue Persuasion

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

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

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

Tommy explained the song this way:

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

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

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

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

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

But maybe you’re not affected.

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

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

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

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

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

What a crock!

“Sustainability” my ass!

You wanna’ know what’s “unsustainable”?

Life without water. Life without food.

Besides… the fucking avocados are Hecho en Mexico.

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

NOT ‘Murka.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Critical Race Theory

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

Skin color doesn’t make a person bad.

The way people act makes them bad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

History is NOT Critical Race Theory.

Critical Race theory simply asks two questions:

First,

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

And second,

SC’s Miss Graham: “We give you guns for a reason. Use them!”

The Capitol Hill Police only made one mistake:

They
should have used flame throwers,
and
turned
every goddamned one
of
those sons of bitches
into
burnt toast
&
crispy critters.

So, more power to Lindsey Graham, at least on this matter.

If those bastards are not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and convicted, it will be a travesty of justice.

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As lawmakers were being evacuated from the Capitol on January 6, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms to use the firearms they had been authorized to use, in order to stop the insurrectionists who had breached the building to threaten Congress.

According to a long-form piece published by The Washington Post on Sunday, the Senator was furious that lawmakers were being forced to evacuate and yelled at the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms,

“What are you doing? Take back the Senate! You’ve got guns. Use them! We give you guns for a reason. Use them!”

The Senator also called former POTUS Trump’s daughter Ivanka, and told her what her daddy should say to the rioters to calm them, and have them vacate the Capitol.

“You need to get these people out of here. This thing is going south. This is not good. You’re going to have to tell these people to stand down. Stand down.”

The Senator was

Dog Came to Me in a Dream and Said…

…and Dog said, “Don’t get the vaccine.”

I was going to vaccinate Dog against rabies.

So, I asked Dog, “Dog, do you want to get the vaccine?”

Dog said, “I’m worried that it’ll make me sterile.”

I reminded Dog that she’d been spayed since shortly after she adopted me, about 5ive years.

Dog then said, “I need to be free to make my own decision.”

I reminded Dog that

A Common Sense Approach To Lowering Medical Bills

Common sense approaches work well.

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

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Why Medical Bills Can Be Lower in Maryland

Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, MD

October 24, 2021

Guest Essay

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

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

Illustration by Alvaro Dominguez

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In subsequent decades,

Contradicting Adam Parkhomenko

Adam Parkhomenko recently wrote a brief political Opinion piece which was published on the website Today’s Big Stuff dot com and entitled “This might be our last chance to listen to Hillary.”

Full Disclosure: Mr. Parkhomenko is a 30-something political consultant/strategist who has an extensive record of support for Hillary Clinton, worked briefly on the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008 as an Assistant Campaign Manager during the Democratic primary, and in 2003, while then a 17-year-old student at Northern Virginia Community College, established the candidate-unaffiliated website VoteHillary.org, an in an effort to convince voters to support her 2004 campaign to be the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee. He promoted his piece on Twitter, writing that, “I haven’t written about Hillary Clinton in a few years but I hope you will take three minutes and read this and retweet to pass it on. I worked for her for over a decade and I think what she’s saying is important and we should listen to.”

Young Mr. Parkhomenko’s ardor for his preferred candidate could be understood in the light of his obvious zeal for her, and overlooked, or even forgiven, since such eagerness often overlooks another’s flaws, because often, when in love, “the object of one’s desire can do no wrong.”

Mr. Parkhomenko couches the introduction of his threadbare piece as Hillary being a political prophetess or seer by using metaphoric imagery such as “time machine,” “villagers,” and “danger that was coming.” Naturally, that presupposes that the “villagers” are morons, or at least seriously daft in some manner.

Of course, one could suppose where he was headed with such colorful descriptors, which is the shaming “but they didn’t listen,” the I-told-you-so taunt of “it turned out she was right,” along with a repeat of the earlier “and the villagers are ignoring her again.”

Next, he takes square aim at blaming external factors, rather than a flawed candidacy, by writing pointedly, “first of all because she’s a woman. And second of all because her name is Hillary Clinton.”

I suppose her name could have been “Rapunzel,” or “Juliet” and she would have been blamed for cakes and biscuits not rising, or any other such nonsensical tripe. That’s not to say that women have not been subjected to some type of sex-based discrimination, for they have. But to blatantly assert or claim, that she was “repeatedly invited by the national media to just go away despite,” he further attempts to spread blame so thinly that it’s quite easy to see through.

It also reminds one a childhood moralistic tale entitled, “The Remarkable Story of Chicken Little,” in which the protagonist, a hen character named “Henny Penny,” had an acorn to fall on her head, and then loudly, though erroneously, warned exclaiming that, “THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!”

Mr. Parkhomenko seems to express bafflement, and befuddlement that his favorite candidate never won the nation’s highest political office, and quoted her, writing that “I’m astonished that more people don’t see, or can’t face…” That quote, of course, was a statement made in agreement by Ms. Clinton in a non-challenging, puff-piece interview with Jennifer Senior, a staff writer at The Atlantic during the Atlantic Festival, where she appeared “virtually” live, Thursday, September 30, at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Mr. Parkhomenko added his own remarks which echoed a similar sentiment by writing “why in the world would the villagers ignore someone who…,” and similarly “why would they ignore someone who…”

So let’s examine just a few things, as he has, in order to allow him – or, anyone else – to more clearly see a picture which apparently, has not yet emerged.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Though I loathed her, and still do, I voted for Hillary Clinton over the Republican candidate, because: 1.) She had some experience in politics, and was 2.) “The devil you know,” whereas the Republican candidate was utterly inexperienced politically, and was “the devil you didn’t know.”

First, like it, or not, Hillary is a lightning rod. And to remind our readers, a lightning rod is a metal stick placed vertically atop elevated structures in order to DRAW lightning, and thereby allow it to be run (conducted) to ground through circuits and conduits in order to prevent damage to the structure. Again, a lighting rod attracts lightning, which is a powerful, and natural destructive force. And that describes Hillary to a ‘T’ — a lightning rod.

To be characterized as a “lightning rod” – a thing which draws powerful, troubling and destructive forces – is not a good thing.

Swing Voters Hold Key To United States Future

GOP Voters Did NOT Want A Second Helping Of Trump

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

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

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

It’s inevitable.

PROGRESS WILL OCCUR.

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

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

Time marches on.

Recall the adage,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do we need change in our nation?

You bet your sweet bippy we do!

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

Consider our income tax system.

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

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

What angers me particularly, is that,

Let’s Talk About… Critical Race Theory

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

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

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

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

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

Everything Old Is New Again

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

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

So… what about Critical Race Theory?

What is it?

Where’d it come from?

Who invented it?

What does it say, do, or advocate?

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

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

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

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

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

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