Your Mother Is Hurting

True -or- False?

Things that are not living cannot change.

“There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west, and my spirit is crying for leaving. In my thoughts, I have seen rings of smoke through the trees, and the voices of those who stand looking. It makes me wonder… it really makes me wonder.”

Your mother is hurting.

I guess I was lucky that I didn’t fall tumbling down an almost sheer granite cliff like a rag doll after climbing up nearly to the top in leather-soled cowboy boots en route to Sonora Pass in the Sierras along CA 108 in October ’08. Mom & Dad would’ve been very saddened. Instead, I got to see them die. Well, almost. They were both “on their death bed” when I last kissed them both — Daddy died a few years before Mother. I saw to it 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

A Phenomenal Public Education Success Story

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Republican In Legal Peril: No mo’ Mo?

California U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell (RIGHT), a Democrat for the state’s 15th Congressional District, listens to testimony of U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn describing the Trump-led terrorist attacks upon Congress at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 as Congress was preparing to certify the election results.

The Alabama GOP Mo-ron Brooks, POS45, and his corrupt lying entourage will likely end up in prison… hopefully – if there’s any justice at all in this violently topsy-turvy world.

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In a Federal Court filing Tuesday, July 27, 2021, the United States Department of Justice served notice that they will not be representing Alabama GOP Representative Morris “Mo” Brooks-CD5 in California Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell’s-CD15 lawsuit against him, Donald John Trump, Donald J. Trump, Jr., and Rudolph Giuliani.

“Brooks submitted a request to the Department of Justice (“Department”) for certification under the Westfall Act that he was acting within the scope of his office or employment as a Member of Congress at the time of the conduct alleged in the Complaint. Brooks later petitioned this Court for a scope-of-employment certification, and the Court called for the United States to respond by July 27, 2021.”

Explaining that “If the Department certifies that

Trump Administration Making Roadway For Illegal Aliens In Desert

Dynamite raises clouds of dust above Guadalupe Canyon, near the New Mexico-Arizona border. The Diamond A Ranch, which is located next to the construction site, has sued the government, claiming the blasting has sent “car-sized boulders tumbling down onto ranch property.”
Image by John Kurc

The Trump administration is making it easier for illegal aliens to come into the United States.

The route along the U.S./Mexico border in Arizona and New Mexico has some of the most ruggedly inhospitable, and treacherous terrain in the nation. It is only barely accessible by foot, or mule, and is range for numerous wild animals, such as the jaguar, and ocelot – large cats – and a longtime wildlife migration corridor.

Construction crews using tons of explosives in a technique called “pioneering,” are leveling mountains and cliffs to make roadways for heavy equipment to access the area.

The private landowners complaint and lawsuit states that crews must first “make a level road, with the necessary grade and ability to support the weight of construction vehicles, and ultimately the wall itself.”

In a combined Federal lawsuit filed by private landowners near the Arizona-New Mexico border known as the malpais, or badlands, the owners of

Do You Eat Onions? If So, Read This

https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/outbreak-investigation-salmonella-newport-red-onions-july-2020

Red onions grown by Thomson International, Inc. of Bakersfield, CA have been ID’d as potentially contaminated by the Salmonella Newport infection.

Also recalled are all varieties of onions that could have come in contact with potentially contaminated red onions, due to the risk of cross-contamination.

Recalled products include red, yellow, white, and sweet yellow onions shipped nationwide from May 1, 2020 to August 1, 2020, sold under the following brand names:

CDC Chief OK’s FREE COVID-19 Testing for ALL

If you, your loved ones, or someone you know, needs, or wants to be tested for COVID-19, GO GET TESTED AT NO COST TO YOU!

THIS IS A MATTER OF PUBLIC HEALTH!!

And, EVERYONE IS AT RISK –  not just the elderly, infirm, or those with other health conditions – EVERYONE!

Representative Porter questioned Dr. Redfield in committee on Capitol Hill March 12, and as a long-time consumer advocate attorney, discovered the law provides that CDC Director has FULL AUTHORITY to “authorize payment for the care and treatment of individuals subject to medical examination, quarantine, isolation, and conditional release…”

See the video on her Twitter timeline.

Read 42 CFR 71.30.

§ 71.30 – Payment for care and treatment.

(a) The Director may authorize payment for the care and treatment of individuals subject to medical examination, quarantine, isolation, and conditional release, subject to paragraphs (b) through (h) of this section.

(b) Payment for care and treatment shall be in the Director’s sole discretion and

Wall Street Pete Buttigieg’s Wine Cave Fundraiser

Imagine… being seated at an exclusively small underground club, with a polished onyx table, reflecting a chandelier with 1500 Swarovski crystals, and being served some of the finest cabernet sauvignon wine which sells for $900 a bottle, with only your closest 20 to 30 billionaire and multi-millionaire friends present.

If that sounds too far-fetched, think again.

That was a recent closed-door Pete Buttigieg fundraiser in Napa Valley, California.

No, it’s not a joke.

Here are a couple screenshot images of an Instagram posting which has now been removed which shows the South Bend, Indiana Mayor rubbing elbows with the filthy rich and powerful.

THIS was the reason “wine caves, $900-dollar-per-bottle wine, and $5000 selfies” were mentioned in the Democrat’s December debate.

And, no, it’s NOT a joke when he’s called “Wall Street Pete.”

Turns out, there’s a good reason for it.

According to Fortune magazine’s October 4, 2019 article entitled “Pete Buttigieg Takes Lead as Big Business Candidate in 2020 Field,” “Buttigieg caused controversy this week when Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that he had emailed the mayor and his team resumes for campaign positions. The pair overlapped during their time at Harvard and have a number of mutual friends.

“In Silicon Valley, the former McKinsey consultant has attended fundraisers hosted on his behalf by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Nest Labs co-founder Matt Rogers, and Chelsea Kohler, director of product communications at Uber.

“Buttigieg has also racked up donations from a number of top Facebook executives, as well as Scott Belsky, chief product officer at Adobe, and Wendy Schmidt, the wife of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. He leads the 2020 field in the amount of online donations he’s received online from California tech employees. Biden, meanwhile, didn’t crack the top five.

“Buttigieg, meanwhile, has been making himself known to the Wall Street set. The combat veteran out-raised all of his political rivals in Connecticut during the third quarter of this year, according to Federal Elections Commission filings. Connecticut is the wealthiest state in the U.S., largely because of its large concentration of Wall Street and Hedge Fund luminaries.”

At the Democrats’ December debate, which

Sparks And Laughs Fly At Democrats’ December Debate

MA Senator Elizabeth Warren – D

The Democrats’ 6th debate Thursday, 19 December 2019 at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA proved to be their best yet.

With just days before the Christmas holidays, Democrats continued their appeals to voters by touting their prospective policies, doubling down on defeating the President, and realigning core American values which have sorely suffered under the incumbent Trump.

Despite the fact that the Democratic field had been winnowed considerably from the initial 20 candidates spread over 2 nights of debate, the 7 remaining on the island were up for the match, with plenty of interaction between front-runners Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Bernie Sanders.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders -I

Candidates Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang, and Amy Klobuchar certainly had their moments, and for the most part, Steyer and Yang steered clear of any attacks directed at other candidates, while Klobuchar proved herself up to the task and took a mediator’s role to redirect candidate’s passions away from each others’ prospective policy ideas and campaign practices, and toward the Democratic party’s goal – make Donald Trump a one-term President.

All the candidates expressed a disheartening sense that there was not more ethnic, racial, and sexual diversity among them, with only 2 women, and candidate Andrew Yang being the only non-Anglo candidate on stage.

Debate participation rules established by the party included escalating demonstrations of public support as evidenced by by public polling and campaign finance contributions. Neither California Senator Kamala Harris nor New Jersey Senator Cory Booker appeared on stage, though Booker remained in the race, while Harris had announced the end of her bid in November.

Former Vice President Joe Biden – D

Much like a football game, most of the lively exchanges occurred in the last quarter of the debate, with candidates Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders, and Steyer in that order, weighing in on disagreements over campaign finance reform. Candidate Yang remained completely silent on that subject, and no moderator invited his remarks.

Bernie and Biden had their moments, as one might expect, though it was congenial, rather than adversarial.

Toward the conclusion of the debate, candidate Biden had been asked by Moderator Alberta about

What is it like to be a Woman Business Owner & Inventor Terrorized & Threatened by Right Wing Extremist Gun Owners?

More power to you!

The GOP has been hijacked by extremist elements.

It’s time to put those sorry, low-life punks in prison for collusion, terrorism and anti-American activity.

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‘Smart’ Firearm Draws Wrath of the Gun Lobby

By JEREMY W. PETERS
APRIL 27, 2014

Belinda Padilla is trying to market a new .22-caliber handgun that uses a radio frequency-enabled stopwatch to identify the authorized user so no one else can fire it.
Credit Monica Almeida/The New York Times

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Belinda Padilla does not pick up unknown calls anymore, not since someone posted her cellphone number on an online forum for gun enthusiasts. A few fuming-mad voice mail messages and heavy breathers were all it took.

Then someone snapped pictures of the address where she has a P.O. box and put those online, too. In a crude, cartoonish scrawl, this person drew an arrow to the blurred image of a woman passing through the photo frame. “Belinda?” the person wrote. “Is that you?”

Her offense? Trying to market and sell a new .22-caliber handgun that uses a radio frequency-enabled stopwatch to identify the authorized user so no one else can fire it. Ms. Padilla and the manufacturer she works for, Armatix, intended to make the weapon the first “smart gun” for sale in the United States.

But shortly after Armatix went public with its plans to start selling in Southern California, Ms. Padilla, a fast-talking, hard-charging Beverly Hills businesswoman who leads the company’s fledgling American division, encountered the same uproar that has stopped gun control advocates, Congress, President Obama and lawmakers across the country as they seek to pass tougher laws and promote new technologies they contend will lead to fewer firearms deaths.

Lately, there has been little standing in the way of the muscle of the gun lobby, whose advocates recently derailed Mr. Obama’s nominee for surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, a Boston doctor who has expressed alarm about the frequency of shooting deaths.

And despite support from the Obama administration and the promise of investment from Silicon Valley, guns with owner-recognition technology remain shut out of the market today.

“Right now, unfortunately, these organizations that are scaring everybody have the power,” Ms. Padilla said. “All we’re doing is providing extra levels of safety to your individual right to bear arms. And if you don’t want our gun, don’t buy it. It’s not for everyone.”

In Georgia on Wednesday, Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law a bill that allows people to carry guns in bars, government buildings and even some churches. The National Rifle Association called the measure historic.

In West Virginia, one of several

Historical Audio: Reagan supported increased wages & labor protection

Seems as if everything old is news again.

Of course, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

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GOP Panics As Audio Emerges Proving Their Hero Reagan Would Oppose Current GOP Policies

Author: Rika Christensen April 9, 2014 6:49 pm

A 1948 audio recording of Ronald Reagan shows that he would have opposed the GOP’s policies today. In fact, if the GOP actually knew anything about Reagan’s history, they’d wonder how he even ended up in the party to begin with. The right-wing lunatic fringe runs today’s GOP. Back when this recording was made, Ronald Reagan sounded far more like one of today’s liberal Democrats than a Republican. The difference is astonishing.

Ronald Reagan on the 1946 GOP’s plan to increase people’s real incomes:

“The profits of corporations have doubled, while workers’ wages have increased by only one quarter. In other words, profits have gone up four times as much as wages. And the small increase workers did receive was eaten up by rising prices, which also bored into their savings.”

Gee, that sounds an awful lot like what’s happening now. Soaring corporate profits should mean that workers’ wages go up, also. Instead, more people than ever live paycheck to paycheck, and fewer have any savings to speak of, let alone enough to pay six months of living expenses in case of an emergency. But the stock market has reached record highs several times. So everything’s cool, at least as far as the GOP is concerned.

Ronald Reagan on the “free market” and rising prices:

“High prices have not been caused by higher wages, but by bigger and bigger profits. The Republican promises sounded pretty good in 1946. But what has happened since then? Since the 80^th Congress took over? Prices have climbed to the highest level in history, although the death of the OPA was supposed to bring prices down through ‘the natural process of free competition.’”

So, even back then, the Republican ideal of the free market didn’t work the way they insisted, and Ronald Reagan could see that. These days, they still want the government to stay out. They want competition to work for lowering prices and creating jobs. However, the so-called “free market” that they want tends toward monopolies and/or price collusion, which both drive prices up. These two situations prevent new businesses from entering the market to compete, and hurt consumers and workers, while driving profits sky-high.

Ronald Reagan on working Americans:

Photography as therapy

The gentleman who owns VocalCoach.com shared with me that photography is “where I get my peace.” His name is Chris, and I met him today while

We promised to pay your retirement pension, but now, we won’t. Sosumi… you bastards!

For those “in the know,” “Sosumi” is the name of a computer sound which Apple Computer of Cupertino, CA created and has used for quite some time.

I love Apple Computer, well, not genuinely “love,” but have always believed them to be the best – bar none – computer operating system, superior in every way to Microsoft’s Windows OS. Folks used to say, “Oh, the Mac is good for graphics,” and other such nonsense, even when the Mac OS was in v7.x.

Today, I ask folks, “What’s the Internet all about?” Graphics, graphics, graphics, and media, media, media.

And still, some folks continue to use the infection-prone Windows. Oh well. Some folks never learn.

On to Sosumi.

If you’ve ever heard of the “Beatles,” (and who hasn’t?) you should be aware that

Tattooed Ladies & Trader Joe’s

I just got back from a brief rendezvous with Trader Joe’s. It’s a grocery store chain out of Monrovia, CA. That would be California for those unfamiliar with the Postal Service abbreviations for the 50 states. (I still haven’t figured out why the newspapers continue to abbreviate Alabama “Ala.,” Massachusetts “Mass,” or Vermont “Ver.”)

Anyway, I wanted some sourdough bread, brie and a bottle of wine. Eat and relax, you see. Because by this time, of course, I was already off work and back in Santa Rosa.

Before I arrived home,