The Right To Bear Arms

A distinguished citizen takes a stand on one of the most controversial issues in the nation

By Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States (1969-86)
Parade Magazine, January 14, 1990, page 4

[NOTE: Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (1907-1995), was first nominated by POTUS EISENHOWER January 12, 1956 to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (often called the “Mini Supreme Court”) to fill the position created by the death of Judge Harold M. Stephens, was confirmed by the Senate 28 March that year, and on 23 June 1969 was nominated to be Chief Justice of the SCOTUS by POTUS NIXON following the resignation of CJ Earl Warren, who was also nominated by POTUS EISENHOWER, and  presided over numerous landmark Constitutional law cases and wrote the majority opinion in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Reynolds v. Sims (1964), Miranda v. Arizona (1966) and Loving v. Virginia (1967). CJ Warren also led the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of POTUS KENNEDY, was Governor of California from 1943-1953, and widely considered one of the nation’s most influential Chief Justices. CJ Burger was known more for his administrative acumen than for his intellect, and in 1974 authored the unanimous decision in United States v. Nixon, which rejected POTUS NIXON’s claim of Executive Privilege in the midst of the Watergate crimes, and eventually chose to resign, rather than face certain impeachment, thereby becoming the first POTUS to ever resign from office.]

Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice, United States Supreme Court, official portrait

Our metropolitan centers, and some suburban communities of America, are setting new records for homicides by handguns. Many of our large centers have up to 10 times the murder rate of all of Western Europe. In 1988, there were 9000 handgun murders in America. Last year, Washington, D.C., alone had more than 400 homicides — setting a new record for our capital.

The Constitution of the United States, in its Second Amendment, guarantees a “right of the people to keep and bear arms.” However, the meaning of this clause cannot be understood except by looking to the purpose, the setting and the objectives of the draftsmen. The first 10 amendments — the Bill of Rights — were not drafted at Philadelphia in 1787; that document came two years later than the Constitution. Most of the states already had bills of rights, but the Constitution might not have been ratified in 1788 if the states had not had assurances that a national Bill of Rights would soon be added.

People of that day were apprehensive about the new “monster” national government presented to them, and this helps explain the language and purpose of the Second Amendment. A few lines after the First Amendment’s guarantees — against “establishment of religion,” “free exercise” of religion, free speech and free press — came a guarantee that grew out of the deep-seated fear of a “national” or “standing” army. The same First Congress that approved the right to keep and bear arms also limited the national army to 840 men; Congress in the Second Amendment then provided:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

In the 1789 debate in Congress on James Madison’s proposed Bill of Rights, Elbridge Gerry argued that a state militia was necessary:

“to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty … Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia in order to raise and army upon their ruins.”

We see that the need for a state militia was the predicate of the “right” guaranteed; in short, it was declared “necessary” in order to have a state military force to protect the security of the state. That Second Amendment clause must be read as though the word “because” was the opening word of the guarantee. Today, of course, the “state militia” serves a very different purpose. A huge national defense establishment has taken over the role of the militia of 200 years ago.

Some have exploited these ancient concerns, blurring sporting guns — rifles, shotguns and even machine pistols — with all firearms, including what are now called

CDA Section 230 violates Equal Protection Clause & threatens National Security

There’s been a significant amount of handwringing over remarks made by so-called “free speech” advocates who assert that anyone can say anything online “because it’s ‘free’ speech,” and ostensibly protected by the First Amendment.

I demur.

Facebook, Instagram (owned by FB), and Twitter, which are the “Big Three” online Social Media (SoMe) corporate megaliths (that is, if Twitter survives Elon Musk, if not, then TikTok may take Twitter’s place), have increasingly come under fire in the past several years — justifiably so — for turning a blind eye to bad behavior, “speech” in particular (as writing and/or video, both mediums posted on the services), thereby, in essence, becoming purveyors of lies, complicit by their inactions, in aiding and abetting actions of bad actors, consequently harming our nation — a significant portion of which continues originating in nations hostile to American national interests.

Writing in the Global Security Review, June 10, 2019, in an article entitled “Facebook, Compromised: How Russia Manipulated U.S. Voters” — the second of a four-part series — Sophia Porotsky detailed how Russia, as a malign foreign actor, sought, and continues seeking, the downfall of the United States.

“Russian Information Warfare content on social media attempts to subvert Western democracies in five ways:

1.) Undermine public confidence in democratic government;
2.) Exacerbate internal political divisions;
3.) Erode trust in government;
4.) Push the Russian agenda in foreign populations, and;
5.) Create confusion and distrust by blurring fact and fiction.

Russian propaganda on social media can be divided into four themes:

1.) Political messages intended to foster distrust in government (e.g. allegations of voter fraud, corruption);
2.) Financial propaganda (i.e. create distrust in Western financial institutions);
3.) Social issues (e.g. ethnic tensions, police brutality), and;
4.) Doomsday-style conspiracy theories.

“Information warfare content is generated and disseminated through channels that fall into three attribution categories:

1.) White (overt);
2.) Grey (less-overt), and;
3.) Black (covert) channels.

They propagate a blend of authentic, manipulated, and fake stories and they feed off of and reinforce each other.”

Among the numerous sources cited was “Russia’s Approach to Cyber Warfare,” a paper written by Michael Connell and Sarah Vogler published March 2017 by the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) — an 80-year, independent, nonprofit research and analysis organization dedicated to the safety and security of the nation that informs the decisions of Navy, Marine Corps and DOD leaders as the Department of the Navy’s federally funded research and development center — which stated that,

“Russia views cyber very differently than its western counterparts, from the way Russian theorists define cyberwarfare to how the Kremlin employs its cyber capabilities.” Part of that difference is that the Russians “conceptualize cyber operations within the broader framework of information warfare, a holistic concept that includes computer network operations, electronic warfare, psychological operations, and information operations.”

And as part of their overall operations in that realm, not only does Russia “employ cyber as a conventional force enabler,” they integrate cybercriminals, hacktivists, and other nefariously malign non-state actors into their overall operations scheme, a practice also undertaken by “China, Iran, North Korea, and other cyber adversaries.”

That information is further borne out by the writings of Professor Dr. Mark Galeotti, PhD, who in June 2022 was recently banned from travel to Russia, wrote an OpEd in the independent news journal The Moscow Times, published December 22, 2017, that, “It is hard to sustain a serious claim that NATO tanks are about to surge eastwards – though some of the Kremlin’s more fanciful propagandists do try – but the virtues of the “secret battlefield” of intelligence work is that it is precisely covert.”

Dr. Galeotti is an internationally-recognized expert in security politics, intelligence services and criminality of modern Russia, is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow of the Institute of International Relations Prague, an Associate Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy, Honorary Professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, Honorary Professor at University College London, and Executive Director and principal in Mayak Intelligence, a London-based consultancy specializing in, and primarily focusing upon understanding organized and transnational crime, war, politics and history in Russia. Dr. Galieotti is also a contributing member of the Network of Experts of the independent civil-society organization Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

The root cause of such problems, wrote David J. Smith in “How Russia Harnesses Cyber Warfare,” published in Defense Dossier, American Foreign Policy Council (August 2012: Issue 4), 9,” is inherently based in, and the natural outcome of,

Laws That Don’t Apply To Wealthy People

Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder. He looked round. It was Clover. Her old eyes looked dimmer than ever. Without saying anything, she tugged gently at his mane and led him round to the end of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written. For a minute or two they stood gazing at the tatted wall with its white lettering.

“My sight is failing,” she said finally. “Even when I was young I could not have read what was written there. But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?”

For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters. It did not seem strange to learn that the pigs had bought themselves a wireless set, were arranging to install a telephone, and had taken out subscriptions to John Bull, TitBits, and the Daily Mirror. It did not seem strange when Napoleon was seen strolling in the farmhouse garden with a pipe in his mouth-no, not even when the pigs took Mr. Jones’s clothes out of the wardrobes and put them on, Napoleon himself appearing in a black coat, ratcatcher breeches, and leather leggings, while his favourite sow appeared in the watered silk dress which Mrs. Jones had been used to wear on Sundays.
— excerpt from Animal Farm (1945), chapter X, George Orwell’s (1903-1950) novel

John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 2005 Official Portrait

Today, Tuesday, November 1, 2022, United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order that

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

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

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

Working Toward A Change In American Foreign Policy

As you read this OpEd, initially, it seems to move toward the idea of nation building, but then, directs itself toward more direct involvement Congressional management and oversight of foreign policy, the constitutionally-mandated Separation of Powers, encourages a SCOTUS decision on the extent of Presidential War Powers, and curtailing the use Executive action to enact foreign policy by skirting such oversight, asserting that Executive diplomacy is not a formal treaty, and therefore not subject to Congressional oversight.

In short, while illustrating problems in American foreign policy through Executive action, it places the onus of responsibility upon Congress, where it rightfully belongs, and relegates the President’s role to primarily one of public persuasion in such matters.

Ours is a constitutional democratic republic, and we should act like it, rather than falling prey to “the grandiose belief” … of the “irresistible the siren call of personal diplomacy” by Presidents.A

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What Trump’s Disgraceful Deal With the Taliban Has Wrought

by Dr. Kori Schake, PhD
August 28, 2021

Dr. Schake is Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, and Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Before joining AEI, Dr. Schake was the Deputy Director-General of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. She has had a distinguished career in government, working at the US State Department, the US Department of Defense, and the National Security Council at the White House. She has also taught at Stanford, West Point, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, National Defense University, and the University of Maryland.

The American Enterprise Institute is an independent, non-profit, public policy think tank dedicated to defending human dignity, expanding human potential, and building a freer and safer world.

The work of their scholars and staff advances ideas rooted in their belief in democracy, free enterprise, American strength and global leadership, solidarity with those at the periphery of our society, and a pluralistic, entrepreneurial culture.

AEI scholars are committed to making the intellectual, moral, and practical case for expanding freedom, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening the free enterprise system in America and around the world. Their work explores ideas that further those goals, and AEI scholars take part in this pursuit with academic freedom. AEI operates independently of any political party and has no institutional positions. Their scholars’ conclusions are fueled by rigorous, data-driven research and broad-ranging evidence.

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Believing you’re uniquely capable of bending things to your will is practically a requirement for becoming president of the United States. But too often, in pursuit of such influence over foreign policy, presidents overemphasize the importance of personal diplomacy. Relationships among leaders can build trust — or destroy it — but presidents often overrate their ability to steer both allies and adversaries.

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev had built such a solid relationship that during the Reykjavik summit most of Reagan’s administration worried he would agree to an unverifiable elimination of nuclear weapons. Bill Clinton believed his personal diplomacy could deliver Palestinian statehood and Russian acceptance of NATO expansion. George W. Bush believed he looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and saw his soul, and Barack Obama believed he could persuade Mr. Putin it wasn’t in Russia’s interests to determine the outcome of the war in Syria.

But in both hubris and folly, none come close to matching Donald Trump. For someone who prided himself on his abilities as a dealmaker and displayed an “I alone can fix it” arrogance, the agreement he made with the Taliban is one of the most disgraceful diplomatic bargains on record. Coupled with President Biden’s mistakes in continuing the policy and botching its execution, the deal has now led to tragic consequences for Americans and our allies in Kabul.

Mr. Trump’s handling of Afghanistan is an object lesson for why presidents of both parties need to be

Bacon Dangerous? More Than You Probably Wanted To Know.

NOTE TO THE READER: It’s almost impossible to discuss food and its preparation these days without getting into history, and business ethics practices. But before you go off half-cocked, know for a certainty that in NO WAY am I opposed to the consumption of pork, nor of bacon, neither of the flesh of any animal. Presumably, because you’re now more curious, you must read further to more precisely determine what is meant by the headline — especially, and particularly if you enjoy bacon.

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Earlier, I had replied to a friend who complained about having eaten “a cheeseburger for lunch and was tired and sleepy for most of the afternoon.”

My initial thought and response was “carbohydrate-induced somnolence,” and I wrote that “the meat patty was the only source of protein in the meal – if all you had was a cheeseburger. If you had fries with them, [that was] more simple carbs.”

Giving a rather simple analogous explanation, I stated that, “the (most likely highly-processed white) bread: Simple carbs – they burn quickly – like a bottle rocket. Up quick, burns out just as quickly.”

And from there, I wrote further about the addition of cheese on the burger, by writing “Cheese: Most likely “American” which is not genuinely cheese.”

From Cheese.com:
“American cheese is processed cheese made from a blend of milk, milk fats and solids, with other fats and whey protein concentrate. At first, it was made from a mixture of cheeses, more often than not Colby and Cheddar. Since blended cheeses are no longer used, it cannot be legally called “cheese” and has to be labelled as “processed cheese,” “cheese product,” etc. Sometimes, instead of the word cheese, it is called “American slices” or “American singles.” Under the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, American cheese is a type of pasteurised processed cheese.”

From TasteOfHome.com:
“… it’s not actually cheese—at least, not legally. The FDA calls it “pasteurized processed American cheese product.” In order for a food product to be a true “cheese,” it has to be more than half cheese, which is technically pressed curds of milk. Each slice of American contains less than 51% curds, which means it doesn’t meet the FDA’s standard.”

And, here’s the Code of Federal Regulations on the matter:
Title 21, Volume 2 — 21CFR133.169 — Revised April 1, 2020.
PART 133 — CHEESES AND RELATED CHEESE PRODUCTS

Subpart B – Requirements for Specific Standardized Cheese and Related Products

Sec. 133.169 Pasteurized process cheese.

Food — it’s production, variety, growing, farming, harvesting, preparation, etc. — is an interest of mine, and like many others, I enjoy not only a good meal, but also have an interest in some understanding about the whys and wherefores of a particular dish’s origins — its history — which also give greater, and a more full understanding to us in numerous ways.

Nitrite-free, dry cured, air dried, pork bellies which will become bacon.
Image by The Elliott Homestead.

For example, the simple, almost ubiquitous dish of beans and rice is a fully complemented dish, meaning that it has a full and complete range of proteins. Beans, by themselves have very little protein, and are primarily carbohydrates, and the same holds true for rice – very little protein, and is primarily a carbohydrate. And the proteins that each separate food has – the rice and the beans – are not “complete” proteins, meaning that individually, they do not contain the 9 essential amino acids which are found in “complete” proteins, and which are necessary in order to build and repair protein tissues (muscles) in the body.

Without exception, ALL animal-based food — regardless of the origin/source — contain complete proteins, and that includes eggs, as well as muscle and organ tissue, though it does not include fat. Fat, however, is never found outside the presence of protein. Fats and proteins could be thought of as “kissing cousins,” because they’re ALWAYS found in combination with each other. They are NEVER apart. Where there’s fat, there’s protein. As an example, consider natural peanut butter — that is, peanut butter which only added ingredient is salt. Peanuts and salt SHOULD BE the ONLY ingredients in peanut butter, and technically, as well as legally, they are, but so many other products are mistakenly called “peanut butter” when they’re actually “peanut butter spread” or something else entirely different.

A simple, even cursory, examination of the labels of Jif®, Skippy®, Peter Pan®,  and other brands – including their websites – demonstrates that in the exceeding majority of cases, their most well-known, and most widely-sold products are NOT authentically genuine peanut butter. Each of those, and others’, products labels and websites state that their products are “peanut butter spreads,” rather than being “peanut butter.”

Peter Pan® brand is manufactured and distributed by Conagra Brands, while Jif® is owned by The J.M. Smucker Company, and Skippy® is owned by Hormel Foods, LLC.

The previous citations were necessary in order to understand what follows, to demonstrate that just because people call a thing by some name, the name by which they call it is not necessarily the proper term. A four-legged animal with hooves and horns could be a bull, a boar, a ram, or a buck, and are all males of the species of cattle, hogs, sheep, goats, and deer. But they’re not females.

And while we’re continuing on the topic of food…

I have come to loathe most commercially-available “bacon.”

Why?

Not only does it taste retched, but also because in the classic, traditional sense, it is NOT bacon.

Yes, it comes from a hog – and not always pork bellies – but the method in which it’s made (“processed,” would be a much more accurate term) bears little resemblance to traditional bacon. Modern “bacon” is flash-smoked, pressure-processed with nitrites, salt-cured, and hustled out the factory door just as quickly as possible in order to continue reaping corporate profits for their Wall$treet masters.

See: USDA Food Safety Inspection Service circular, “How is bacon made?” –and– “What are the methods of curing bacon?” –and– “What are nitrosamines and what cooking methods minimize their formation?” –and– “Can bacon be made without the use of nitrite?”:
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/meat/bacon-and-food-safety

Traditional, original “Old Skool” bacon was/is often smoked in a smokehouse, which not only imparts unique flavor and aroma, but is an important part the preservative curing process – the main intent of which was/is to retard the spoiling process – or turned rancid, the term applied to fats and oils which have spoiled – “spoilage” being oxidation, including discouraging growth of

Conservative Oklahoma Shows States How To Run Medical Marijuana Program

Oklahoma State Representative Scott Fetgatter (R-16)

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

– Oklahoma State Representative Scott Fetgatter (R-16)

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

Another benefit of minimal regulation, is reduced criminal activity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Published June 28, 2021 
By John Schroyer

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

It’s politically conservative Oklahoma.

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

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

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

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

Today, business is booming.

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

Oregon US Representative Earl Blumenauer Introduces Blueprint to Legalize Marijuana

PREDICTION:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It stated further that,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apparently, at least 50 years.

We learned much more quickly with beverage alcohol.

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The War On Drugs: 50 Years Later

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His own family was scarred by addiction.

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

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

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

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

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

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

During a press conference this week, he said,

America Invented Global Narcotraffickers

Make no mistake, I openly advocate for the wholesale legalization, taxation, and regulation of cannabis similarly as is done for beverage alcohol — though I have not always. And yet, as a licensed healthcare professional, I am under no misguided notion that there are genuine scientific considerations to be had.

Like many others, this is not a simple matter, per se — it is as complex as we human beings, with myriad matters which “Just Say ‘NO!’” has never, nor will ever, satisfy. Science and understanding is not advanced by the word “NO!”

Similarly as well, there is practically no disagreement that historic American jurisprudence on the matter not only had its genesis with deep roots in racism – which remains to this day – but has almost single-handedly created the global criminal cabal of narcotrafficking enterprises that have now become international terrorist organizations. It has now become a matter of national security, and not just for the United States. Global security is predicated upon addressing these concerns.

Jesus Malverde is a mythical figure, allegedly born as Jesús Juárez Mazo on December 24, 1870, just outside Culiacán, the state capital of Sinaloa, whom is said to be the “patron saint” of “narcotraficantes” (drug traffickers), and is known by his devotees as “el ángel de los pobres” (the angel of the poor).
According to legend, he was a lifetime resident of Sinaloa, an historically poverty-stricken area which is now recognized as the de facto headquarters location for a bloodthirsty global narcotrafficking cartel bearing the state’s name, which is infamous for their nefarious misdeeds, cold-blooded murders, and other heinous acts.
The legends, which vary widely, typically assert that Malverde was a “Robinhood” type character, who stole from the wealthy and distributed to the poor. In reality, narco-money has significantly revitalized Sinaloa, and to a large extent, reinforced ancient customs, including the veneration of folk saints as Jesus Malverde.

It is, in fact, fueling the civil sociopolitical upheaval in Central American nations such as

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

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

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

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

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

But now, reality is about to set in.

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

Superficially, the “compassion act” sounds good.

That’s where it stops.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Research: Most Religious Americans Support Broad Cannabis Legalization

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

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

NYC Bird-Watcher Case NOT What It Seems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• JUDGE: Ronnie Abrams
• COMPANY INFO: Franklin Templeton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nor did Franklin Templeton

A Radicalized Supreme Court

Democratic senators say if the Supreme Court strikes a blow against Roe v. Wade by upholding a Mississippi abortion law, it will fuel an effort to add justices to the court or otherwise reform it.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority this week agreed to hear the Mississippi case, which could dramatically narrow abortion rights by allowing states to make it illegal to get an abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

“It will inevitably fuel and drive an effort to expand the Supreme Court if this activist majority betrays fundamental constitutional principles,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“It’s already driving that movement,” he added.

Senator Blumenthal said it doesn’t mean that a Congress led by Democrats would immediately be able to add justices to the court, but he suggested it would add momentum to reform efforts at a minimum.

“Chipping away at Roe v. Wade will precipitate a seismic movement to reform the Supreme Court. It may not be expanding the Supreme Court, it may be making changes to its jurisdiction, or requiring a certain numbers of votes to strike down certain past precedents,” he said.

No one knows for sure when the Supreme Court will hand down its decision on the Mississippi abortion law, but it is widely expected to hear arguments after it convenes in October. That could set up a decision next year.

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D), another member of the Judiciary Committee, said the court’s review of the Mississippi law raises serious concerns.

“It really enlivens the concerns that we have about the extent to which right-wing billionaire money has influenced the makeup of the court and may even be pulling strings at the court,” he said.

“We’ve got a whole array of options we’re looking at in the courts committee,” Senator Whitehouse said of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, which President Biden established by executive order in April.

Senator Whitehouse said even if

Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Green, and other House GOPers, Seek to Defund Police

Banana Republicans are 100% pure hypocrites.

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Matt Gaetz

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz (CD-1) and a group of other House Republicans on Friday, 30 April 2021 introduced legislation to defund the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, a law enforcement and investigative arm of U.S. Postal Service.

The legislation, “H.R.2921 – To prohibit funds from being used to implement the Internet Covert Operations Program under the United States Postal Inspection Service, and for other purposes,” was in response to a March bulletin distributed by the Postal Service’s Inspection Service’s Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP), and reported by Yahoo News earlier this month. The bulletin cited the Postal Inspection Service’s concerns about potential “significant” likely violent protests planned for March 20 based upon “online inflammatory material,” and possible threats to the integrity and security of the U.S. Mail System, in conjunction with posts on radical right-wing social media platforms Parler and Telegram.

American intelligence agencies have debriefed Congress and issued reports about the serious threat to national security posed by domestic terrorists, particularly White supremacists, neo-Nazis and other racist groups such as Proud Boys, and others, following their concerted attack upon Congress on January 6, 2021 as they were performing their Constitutionally-mandated duties by certifying election results. Those groups, and others sympathetic with them, primarily used the radical right-wing social media platforms Parler and Telegram to coordinate their efforts, and attack.

Louie Gohmert-TX 1

Paul Gosar

“iCOP analysts are

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

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

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

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

Houston Methodist Hospital

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

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

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

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

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

New Mexico Passes Adult Recreational Cannabis Use Law

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Alabama Attorney General’s Office Has IDIOTS Working There

This matter was just brought to my attention.

The figure 0.3% is 3/10ths of 1% (three tenths of one percent) – NOT “three one-thousandths” as they incorrectly wrote.

Any grade school child should be able to tell the difference.

Note the emboldened text highlighted in purple on the lower portion of the page.

And examine the dates…

NO ONE has caught that gross error since the time it was written – 2 years 4 months 20 days
or 28 months 20 days
or 124 weeks 3 days
or 871 calendar days

and updated –
1 year 7 months 26 days
or 19 months 26 days
or 86 weeks 2 days
or 604 calendar days.

If the folks working in that office are that dimwitted, or lazy – take your pick – what does that say about the rest of the state government?

Remember: Steve Marshall’s incompetency is precisely why former Governor Bentley wanted him in that office, in order to avoid prosecution.

The history of it all is utterly Machiavelian – Steve Marshall fired Matt Hart, a former Federal Prosecutor who was a tenaciously aggressive and fearsome Special Prosecutor for the State, who

Yes, Georgia’s New Republican Vote Restriction Law Makes Illegal Giving Water Or Food To Voters

Many questions have arisen, and comments have been made, about Georgia’s new voting restrictions law.

Republican state legislators who wrote, passed, and signed the bill into law (Republican Governor Brian Kemp was formerly Secretary of State when he campaigned for the Governor’s office… and as a state official, oversaw his own election… nope, no conflict of interest there, eh?) continue to claim that the “integrity” and “security” of the voting systems in Georgia should be strengthened – as if they were insecure to begin with.

They were not.

The essence of what has happened, as many have observed and stated, is that since Republicans lost in the national election for President, and in the Senate election, they’re changing the rules in order to make it easier for them to win next time.

There was NO fraud, NO irregularities, NO insecurity in the Georgia election, nor in any election in the nation. Period.

So, here for your perusal, is the word-for-word reading of the law, including a screenshot of the law as passed, and

Texas Prosecutes Black Woman Who Made An Honest Mistake

One of the tenets of law is intentionality, which is the foreknowledge of, and intent to willfully disobey, or violate, law, and often includes recklessness as an element of intent. Intent is part and parcel of motive, and in context, often accompanies an evil, or malicious motive. In law, typically, a person cannot be convicted of a crime if there is no intent. Motive, however, is different from intention, and is irrelevant in determining liability.

Sometimes it’s said that “ignorance is no excuse for the law,” but that’s a mere colloquialism which itself has no basis in law. It’s nothing but a hollow saying, for it has no support in any way. There is such as thing as “willful ignorance,” which is an intentional, and therefore deliberate, act. And, the classic Steve Martin comedy sketch in which he presents his defense to a “foul crime” as “I forgot” is funny precisely because there are crimes which are so inherently gross in their violation – rape, murder, armed robbery, arson, etc. – that no reasonable, or sane person could ever assert that they forgot it was illegal.

Negligence is similar, insofar as there is a risk which is assumed by the offending party, which has the potential to harm another person, or property. Negligence occurs when it is likely that harm will occur from the offending party’s conduct, and knowingly engages in the risk. Again, a deliberate action.

Recklessness requires determining that the offending party should have known they were taking a risk, but the difference between recklessness and negligence is not always clear. An example of recklessness would be DUI – the offending party clearly knows they were taking a risk, and continued with the conduct. Once again, a deliberateness is evident.

However, there are crimes that are not inherently, or morally wrong, and it is impossible for any one person to know all laws. Furthermore, many laws are intricately complex, which further adds to the confusing calculus. Because of that, it puts even the most circumspect and conscientious people at risk of violating laws for which many – including legislators, legal experts, jurists, attorneys, and others – are unaware of their requirements. And in that sense, the traditional protection afforded by determining culpability before conviction is dismissed.

Most folks would agree, I’m certain, that it’s probably not too uncommon for anyone to violate a law unknowingly. And, when such a thing occurs, and someone is arrested for the same – for unknowingly violating a law – when the time for prosecution comes around (if it does), because often, such cases are rapidly dismissed by the state (government) because intentionality is missing.

The state has a responsibility to its citizens to make them aware of the law, so that they can abide by it.

But, in Texas, there is presently a case which will undoubtedly be heard by that state’s Supreme Court (though it must first be heard by the TX Court of Criminal Appeals) which raises that very question:
Can a citizen be held to account for unintentionally violating a law, when the state had a responsibility – which they admittedly failed to do – to notify the citizen of their circumstances before the law, and liability to it?

Crystal Mason

A Fort Worth, TX woman – Crystal Mason – who happens to be Black, was on supervised release for a Federal felony conviction related to tax fraud, when she cast a provisional ballot in 2016. She had been released from prison the previous year. She and her former husband had owned a tax preparation business, and was accused of inflating tax deductions on some returns which they prepared for clients, and eventually plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the government, and was sentenced to 5yrs in prison, and 3yrs supervised release. She was placed on probation for 2 of 3 other felonies, and received deferred adjudication for the 3rd.

Neither state, nor Federal authorities notified her that she was, by Texas state law, ineligible to vote until the entire term of her punishment was fully completed.

Officials who were overseeing her supervised release testified at her trial that they never informed her that she was ineligible to vote under Texas state law.

She was urged by

Matt Gaetz: Another Drowning Rat From Trump’s Sunken Ship

He’s a “Florida Man” to be certain, and his Twitter bio states as much. He’s the moral equivalent of Jeffrey Epstein. His “NAY” vote was the EXCLUSIVE – the SOLITARY – the ONLY vote against a human sex trafficking bill. And his flimsy “excuse” or rationale why, is as weak as water. He’ll be out soon as just another worthless, hypocritical, flash-in-the-pan piece of GOP garbage.

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Matt Gaetz, On The Ropes From Juvenile Sex Trafficking Investigation, Finds Few Friends In The GOP

by Juliegrace Brufke & Mike Lillis
03/31/21 05:33 PM EDT

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/545850-gaetz-on-the-ropes-finds-few-friends-in-gop

In four years on Capitol Hill, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has experienced a meteoric rise to national prominence — one fueled by a close alliance with former President Trump, a penchant for political theatrics and a no-apologies brand of conservatism that’s made him a darling of the right-wing cable outlets.

Matt Gaetz now – with a slicked-back pompadour, and snazzy suit.

Yet this week, facing a federal investigation into allegations of a sexual relationship with an underage girl, Gaetz is finding himself in an unusual spot: On the ropes and virtually alone.

Few of Gaetz’s GOP colleagues are coming to the defense of the third-term Floridian following a New York Times report that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating allegations of sexual misconduct with — and interstate trafficking of — a minor roughly two years ago. And a number of Republicans, while warning against jumping to premature conclusions about Gaetz’s conduct, also suggested they wouldn’t miss him if he were gone.

“I don’t know anything about this situation other than to say he has certainly made enemies and painted a bull’s-eye on his back,” said one Republican lawmaker, who requested anonymity to speak freely on a sensitive topic. “This appears to be a self-inflicted wound.”

Gaetz has vehemently denied that he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old-girl — the central allegation of the Justice Department probe, which was launched under the Trump administration. Gaetz contends that he and his family have been targeted by a former DOJ official in an extortion scheme seeking millions of dollars to have the allegations vanish.

In a series of tweets, statements and media interviews Tuesday evening, he maintained that

Alabama GOP Politicians Meddle In Healthcare To Deny Treatment

Should government exercise control over its citizens to the extent that:
a.) Certain types of private health care is illegal;
b.) Certain people are denied care?

Should your neighbors (aka “the government”) have the right to tell you, and/or your family, what you can, or cannot be treated for by a licensed healthcare professional?

Suppose someone said, “Well… I don’t think you need to be treated for

Research Study Finds COVID-19 Numbers Vastly Underestimated

This is some of the first proven and confirmed evidence that what we have been told by the experts is 100% accurate and true.

“Typhoid Mary” Mallon (1869-1938), was an impoverished, illiterate Irish emigrant to the United States who worked primarily as a cook, and who became infamous for spreading typhoid fever, which at the time was an incurable, easily-spread, often deadly disease, for which no vaccination existed.

People who DO NOT KNOW THEY ARE INFECTED ARE SPREADING THE DISEASE BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE SYMPTOMS.

It is a REPEAT of the classic example first shown by “Typhoid Mary” Mallon (1869-1938), an Irish emigrant to the United States who worked as a cook (one of the highest paying jobs at the time), and was actively infected with typhoid fever, yet NEVER – NOT EVEN ONCE – showed any signs of infection.

Tragically, however, as was common in the era in which she lived, she had low education and was practically illiterate, and her refusal to heed the advice of experts, and her insistence upon working in kitchens, resulted in the deaths of many people whom she thereby infected with typhoid fever because of her deliberately wanton disregard of advice, and disobedience to the order of law. She, however, claimed that she was being persecuted for being Irish and poor.

Her case was the first, and a prime example of the dangers of ignoring sound expert medical and scientific advice. As well, her case demonstrated the differences in attitudes toward public health between now, and then, because she filed lawsuits against the governmental authorities that detained her, and forbade her from either working, or being in public, and quarantined her. At the time, there was no vaccine against typhoid.

And throughout the remainder of her life, and up to the time she died, she never – not even once – ever showed signs of typhoid fever infection. And she did not die of typhoid fever. She died of

Idiots Abound

Idiots abound.

They can be found everywhere. And lately, they’ve been popping up as radicalized right-wing nut jobs.

Remember a dude named “Cliven Bundy”?

He’s the asshole from Nevada who owed the United States government tons of money in back-owed grazing fees and in 2014 instigated an armed standoff with Federal agents and other Federal Law Enforcement Authorities in Bunkerville, Nevada where he resided, who sought his detention over his passive-aggressive response to the matter… along with his failure to pay the Bureau of Land Management the contractually agreed-upon fees for the privilege of allowing his cattle to graze upon BLM land.

Cliven Bundy

He had been illegally grazing his cattle herd on public land since 1993.

Later, he was arrested by the FBI at the Portland International Airport while he was on his way to the Malheur fracas. He had become a patsy for the right-wing extremist movement because of Fox News incessant telecasting of the matters surrounding him, and his movements.

Yeah… THAT’s the Bundy we’re talking about. Apparently, he’s no relation to the mass murderer Ted Bundy, or of the fictional teevee character “Al Bundy” of “Married… with Children.” Though, he could be.

Turned out, he’s at least two bricks shy of a load, as well, and made this incredibly racist, bigoted remark at one of is daily “press conferences” whih was picked up by the New York Times.

Mr. Bundy recollected once driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas several years ago and at the “press conference” said:

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro… and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do. And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Bundy has a stable of kids, 14 in fact, all of whom are adults. The eldest is a son named Ammon. He’s an asshole just like his father. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, you know.

Ammon Bundy

Seems that Ammon has gotten himself into more trouble.

Naturally, he’s a

Two Simple Questions

Simple questions deserve simple answers.

So, here are two sets of questions about two matters.

Each matter has two options.

Choose either a.), or b.) for each of the two matters.

1.) Pertaining to Voting:

a.) Should voting be made easy and uncomplicated as possible?

–or–

b.) Should voting be made difficult and complicated?

–AND–

Should there be a law… v2.0

More questions!

In our last installment – “Should there be a law… ” – we asked 14 questions.

This time, we’re asking a few more.

Actually, 3.4285 times more.

And, that’d be 48.

We’re asking 48 questions this time.

So… what do you think?

Should there be a law (or laws) that addresses these matters?

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1.) Should cash transactions involving United States real estate be subject to anti-money laundering laws?

2.) Should Congress examine the money laundering and terrorist financing risks in the real estate market, including the role of anonymous parties, and review legislation to address any vulnerabilities?

3.) Should Congress examine the methods by which corruption flourishes and the means to detect and deter the financial misconduct that fuels that driver of global instability?

4.) Should Congress monitor government efforts to enforce United States anti-corruption laws and regulations?

5.) Should United States elections be free of interference from foreign governments, including any contribution, donation, expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication by a corporation, limited liability corporation, or partnership, and should they file with the Federal Election Commission, under penalty of perjury, a statement that a foreign national did not direct, dictate, control, or directly or indirectly participate in the decision making process relating to such activity?

6.) Should foreign nationals be forbidden from participating in any way in the decisionmaking processes of Corporate PACs and Super PACs?

7.) Shall the Federal Election Commission conduct an audit after each Federal election cycle to determine the incidence of illicit foreign money in such Federal election cycle?

8.) In order to prevent money laundering, and improper spending, should corporations, labor organizations, and certain other entities be required to report campaign-related disbursements aggregating more than $10,000 in an election reporting cycle, and not later than 24 hours after each disclosure date file a report of the same with the Federal Election Commission?

9.) Should that report identify each such legal entity and each such beneficial owner who will use that other entity to exercise control over the entity, and the name and address of each person who made such payment?

10.) Should commercial transactions in the ordinary course of any trade or business conducted by the covered organization be exempted from such reports?

11.) Should the integrity of American democracy and national security be enhanced by improving disclosure requirements for online political advertisements in order to uphold the Supreme Court’s well-established standard that the electorate bears the right to be fully informed?

12.) Should regulations on political advertisements provide sufficient transparency to uphold the public’s right to be fully informed about political advertisements made online?

13.) Should transparency of funding for political advertisements be essential to enforce other campaign finance laws, including the prohibition on campaign spending by foreign nationals?

14.) Should digital or online political advertising clearly state who paid for it?

15.) In order to prevent fraud, deceit, and money-laundering, should platforms that sell political advertising be required to maintain records of transactions?

16.) When political advertising is paid for with a credit card by a citizen of the United States who is living outside the country, should they be required to be identified as a United States citizen to the seller by providing the United States address they use for voter registration purposes?

17.) Should broadcast stations, providers of cable and satellite television, and online platforms be required to make reasonable efforts to ensure that political communications made available by such station, provider, or platform are not purchased by a foreign national, directly or indirectly?

18.) Should pre-recorded telephone and video calls made for political purposes announce the political nature of the call at the beginning of the call?

19.) Should shareholders of corporations have the right to know that their money is being spent for political campaigns, and the details of them?

20.) Should Presidential Inaugural Committees be prohibited from soliciting and accepting money from corporations and foreign interests, i.e. should the obtain money or funds from United States citizens only?

21.) Should Inaugural Committees shall file with a report with the Federal Election Commission disclosing any donation by an individual to the committee in an amount of $1,000 or more not later than 24 hours after the receipt of such donation?

22.) In order to protect the integrity of democracy and the electoral process, and to ensure political equality for all, should

Should there be a law…

Let’s talk a few minutes about what should, and what should not be.

For example…

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1.) • Should there be, and should Federal Judges abide by, “a code of conduct, which applies to each justice and judge of the United States”?

2.) • Should there be a DEDICATED ENFORCEMENT UNIT “within the counterespionage section of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice for the enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938”?

3.) • Should it be illegal “for any person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, to corruptly hinder, interfere with, or prevent another person from registering to vote or to corruptly hinder, interfere with, or prevent another person from aiding another person in registering to vote”?

4.) • Should “a State motor vehicle authority require each individual applying for a motor vehicle driver’s license in the State to indicate whether the individual resides in another State or resided in another State prior to applying for the license, and, if so, to identify the State involved; and to indicate whether the individual intends for the State to serve as the individual’s residence for purposes of registering to vote in elections for Federal office”?

5.) • Should it be illegal for a political party or another partisan organization to send mail to addresses of registered voters whom they have identified as likely to be unfriendly to their candidate, and then use all the undeliverable returned mail to make what is called a caging list to challenge voters when they show up at polls to vote?

6.) • Should the right of an individual who is a citizen of the United States to vote

Georgia Crackers & Banana Republicans Waffle Again

So they got their clocks unexpectedly cleaned in the November General Election, and now, they don’t like it.

And what do they do?

Change the rules, because they don’t like them any more.

That’s right!

Where, or in what sport does that ever occur – that the losing team seeks rule changes after a loss, because they lost?

None.

Why?

Because respectable teams understand that their losses are exclusively because of poor playing skills, including faulty strategy, bad tactics, and nothing more. And in politics, it boils down to the questions how well have you treated the people? What have you done FOR them to help, and benefit them?

Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling, pictured in November 2020, pushed back on false claims about voter fraud. But he supports some Republican initiatives to change voting laws, saying it could help elections administrators.

It’s only been 16 years since Republicans last changed the voting rules in Georgia, and… well, read this article by Georgia Public Broadcasting about the matter -AND- the article by NPR in which Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s Chief Operating Officer for the Secretary of State’s office, is interviewed.

“In 2005, the year that Republicans gained control of state government after decades of Democratic domination, HB 244 was a 59-page bill that contained nearly 70 revisions of state election code, including two major changes: adding a photo ID requirement for in-person voting and allowing Georgians to vote by mail without an excuse, and without an ID.

“At the time, Democrats and voting rights groups adamantly opposed both measures. Lawmakers compared the photo ID requirement to Jim Crow laws and warned that Georgia would have some of the country’s most restrictive voting procedures. The addition of no-excuse absentee voting did not reassure Democrats, either. In an eerie inversion of today’s positions, they argued that it would introduce a system ripe for abuse.

““By removing restrictions related to mailed absentee ballots, HB 244 opens a greater opportunity for fraud,” former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, then a Democratic state senator, wrote in an op-ed. “Skeptics might point out that absentee voters have historically voted for Republicans in higher numbers.”

“Among the lawmakers who voted for the bill were Gov. Brian Kemp (then a state senator), House Speaker David Ralston, Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones, Majority Leader Jon Burns, Senate Rules chairman Jeff Mullis, Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer (then a state senator) and Reps. Terry England, Sharon Cooper, Ed Setzler, Lynn Smith and Barry Fleming, author of the current House omnibus which is one of the bills that would add an ID requirement to absentee ballots and applications.

“Democrats who opposed the 2005 bill included current Sen. Minority Leader Gloria Butler, Sens. Ed Harbison, Horacena Tate, Kasim Reed and Reps. Debbie Buckner, Roger Bruce, MARTOC chair Mary Margaret Oliver, and Calvin Smyre, currently the longest-serving member of the House, among others.

“Democrats said at the time that requiring photo ID to vote in person would disenfranchise lower-income, older and non-white voters, while pressing the idea that expanded no-excuse absentee voting without an ID requirement was an invitation to fraud.

““This bill would actually open the door wide to opportunities for voter fraud because it allows voting by mail where you present no identification whatsoever,” Democratic Secretary of State Cathy Cox said in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article. “So those parts of the bill really don’t jive in my mind in terms of any real effort to crack down on what someone perceives to be voting fraud.”

“Fast forward to 2021: There has been no evidence of widespread fraud with absentee-by-mail voting and, until the 2018 governor’s race, the relative few voters that used absentee ballots skewed older, whiter and more Republican.

“A record number of Georgians participated in the November general election thanks in part to expanded voting rules and procedures pushed by Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Demographic changes and a surge in automatic voter registrations have shifted statewide politics to razor-thin margins, and Democrats took advantage of no-excuse absentee voting to flip the state’s electoral votes and both U.S. Senate seats.

“In the elections debate following the 2020 presidential race, the arguments might sound familiar. Former President Donald Trump and other top Republicans have questioned the security of the more than 1.3 million absentee ballots cast by Georgians in the November election, claimed that the state’s method of matching signatures to verify absentee ballots opened the door to fraud, and proposed sweeping changes to fix the system.

“Raffensperger told GPB News that adding an ID requirement to absentee ballots seemed like a logical solution given the complaints from both sides of the aisle.

““A year ago we were being sued by the Democrats,” Raffensperger said in the interview. “They did not like signature match, they said it was unconstitutional and now the Republicans are saying the same thing. Well, you guys are both singing off the same song sheet now, so maybe now we need a verifiable photo ID component with the absentee ballot process.”

“Gov. Brian Kemp supported no-excuse absentee voting in 2005, and by the end of his run as secretary of state in 2018, touted Georgia as a national leader in election law because of the state’s absentee rules, automatic voter registration and at least 16 days of in-person early voting — a distinction that his successor Raffensperger touts at the bottom of every press release.

“But other Republican legislators have changed their stances on the state’s election laws over the past decade-and-a-half.”
–––MORE–––

Georgia is recognized as a national leader in elections. It was the first state in the country to implement the trifecta of automatic voter registration, at least 16 days of early voting (which has been called the “gold standard”), and no-excuse absentee voting. Georgia continues to set records for voter turnout and election participation, seeing the largest increase in average turnout of any other state in the 2018 midterm election and record turnout in 2020, with over 1.3 million absentee by mail voters and over 3.6 million in-person voters utilizing Georgia’s new, secure, paper ballot voting system.

See: https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/state_election_board_invites_dominion_voting_systems_to_discuss_2020_statewide_voting_system_implementation

See: Georgia Senate Republicans Pass Bill To End No-Excuse Absentee Voting
by Stephen Fowler
March 8, 2021; 6:07 PM ET
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/08/974985725/georgia-senate-republicans-pass-bill-to-end-no-excuse-absentee-voting

Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling gained national attention a few months ago by pushing back against former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. 

But Republican state lawmakers in Georgia, inspired by those falsehoods, have introduced a handful of bills that would increase barriers to voting for some people.

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Georgia Elections Official Gabriel Sterling Responds To Bills That Make Voting Harder

March 9, 2021; 5:04 AM ET

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/09/974948010/georgia-elections-official-gabriel-sterling-responds-to-bills-that-make-voting-h

Georgia is among 43 states that are considering similar legislation, according to the Brennan Center.

Sterling, a Republican who is now the chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, says some of the measures backed by Republican Georgia state lawmakers go too far. 

But he argues that many of the proposals could end up helping elections administrators.

There was no widespread fraud in Georgia, he says, but there were small numbers of double voting, out-of-state voting and felons voting. Rules involving photo IDs could make things easier for elections workers, he says.

“In a state like Georgia, where the election is getting closer and closer, every vote’s going to count,” Sterling says. “And anything we can do to make the system more secure and provide confidence to everybody, that’s the kind of things that we need to be focusing on.”

Sterling talked with NPR’s Scott Detrow on Morning Edition about the proposals under consideration and why he opposes the Democrat-backed voting rights bill that passed the U.S. House last week.

Here are excerpts of the interview:

One proposal would eliminate no-excuse absentee voting and add voter ID requirements for absentee voting. This is being characterized by many voting rights groups as nothing more than a response to the fact that Democrats won Georgia Senate races and the presidential race last year and that Democrats used absentee voting more than Republicans. Are they wrong?

––MORE––

Feel Like Overturning A Few Elections? Here’s Where It’s Now Happening.

Imagine for a minute, if you can, what it would be like for your elected Representatives and Senators, at either the State, or Federal level to literally “undo,” or attempt to “undo,” an election that was in every way conducted properly (meaning ethically, honestly, and openly, in accordance with all applicable laws), simply because they didn’t “like” the way The People voted – the results or outcome of the election wasn’t to their suiting, or liking.

There was such an attempt at the State level by the former President – the most notably infamous one being an hour-long phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, of which there is a publicly available audio recording of the entire call (transcript of entire call here), in which the former President said numerous times “I just want to find 11,780 votes” (Joe Biden won Georgia by a margin of 11,779 votes) – trying to enlist Secretary Raffensberger’s assistance in his effort to “find” votes which would dishonestly, unjustly, inequitably, and illegally “throw” the election to himself.

The Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney and the Georgia State Attorney General’s Office are both investigating that matter in order to determine what, if any, election-related laws were broken in the course of that phone call, which may include “the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”

The audio taped recording of the Trump-Raffensperger phone call is quite likely much worse than any of the numerous covert so-called “smoking gun” audio tapes of Richard Nixon’s presidency. Nixon’s numerous recorded conversations with staff, and others, including of his phone calls, which detailed his involvement in the numerous crimes of the Watergate burglary/break-in, also revealed him to be paranoid.

And cockamamie conspiracy theories aside – especially and particularly the one of “The BIG Lie,” as told by the former President – NO ONE made any overt, or clandestine effort or attempt to “steal” any election from anyone. PERIOD.

But the point of the matter is this:
There are
GENUINELY
now-ongoing efforts
to literally “undo”
the results of honest elections
in the United States.

No, this is NOT a joke… and, NO this is NOT a conspiracy theory.

It is a documented fact.

What does it say for democracy and the democratic process if the expressed will of the people is somehow, overridden, undone, or cancelled?

Yeah… it’s that “cancel culture” thing.

And it is Republicans who are doing it.

Remember the thing about “psychological projection” – a morbid behavior in which people deny or defend in themselves the very characteristic or behavior they abjure and detest in others? It’s a type of “blame shifting,” and a refusal to accept either reality or responsibility.

Read for yourself the following 2 news items to learn what GOP-Banana Republican types are doing in some states.

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Marijuana Foes Deploy New ‘Playbook’ To Thwart State Legalization, Upend Election Results

By Jeff Smith
Published February 18, 2021
https://mjbizdaily.com/marijuana-legalization-foes-aim-to-overturn-election-results/

Efforts to thwart voter-approved marijuana legalization in Mississippi, Montana and South Dakota are evidence of a “playbook” that reflects new legal strategies and greater willingness among local government officials to nullify election results, experts say.

Those efforts – led by anti-marijuana politicians and other opponents – threaten to stop or delay the implementation of new medical and recreational cannabis markets that would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in sales a year.

In Idaho, some state lawmakers are

Impeachment v2.0 Day 3: The Devil Made Me Do It

“Trump told us to do it.”

Trump’s MAGA supporters rioter-insurrectionists who were assembled at the White House Ellipse Park January 6, 2021 quickly became violent exclusively because they believed that Trump was asking them to do so – that they were doing his bidding.

“He said, ‘Be there.’ So I went and I answered the call of my president.”

House Impeachment Managers cited social media posts, recorded video, and court documents which reflected as much.

“I Answered the Call of My President.”

Impeachment Managers also extensively documented that several months BEFORE the election, Trump was laying the groundwork for convincing his cult of followers that the November presidential election was fixed, and that his victory was stolen because of

Kansas City Chiefs Win In Super Bowl LV Shutout

See how insane that headline is?

The fact of the matter is, that 43-year old quarterback Tom Brady led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Super Bowl 55 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9 in Tampa, Florida’s Raymond James Stadium.

And like the 2020 General Election, it too was seen worldwide. There was no “Deflate-Gate,” there were no biased referees, there were no ineligible players on field, there were no players on either side using performance enhancing drugs, and there were no changes to the goal lines, or hash marks.

It was a 100% fair game.

Just like the 2020 November General Election.

Maybe in the interim, before the next season starts, for the benefit of future games, and in order to restore confidence in the game, the Kansas City Chiefs can get some rules changed to help them win next time.

Remember: Denial is not a river in Egypt.

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States’ Republicans Weigh New Laws Making It Harder To Vote

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/07/964598941/after-record-2020-turnout-state-republicans-weigh-making-it-harder-to-vote

After an election that saw record voter turnout, with many of those voters casting their ballots early and by mail, some Republican state lawmakers are proposing a wave of new voting laws that would effectively make it more difficult to vote in future elections.

The proposals come in the aftermath of the unprecedented onslaught of disinformation about the conduct of the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump and some of his allies in the Republican Party.

“Some folks bring these proposals forward and say, ‘Well, we just need to address confidence in our election systems,’ when it’s some of those very same people, or at least their allies and enablers, [who] have denigrated our election system by either telling lies or at least leveraging or relying on other people’s lies to justify some of these policies,” said Steve Simon, Minnesota’s Democratic Secretary of State, at a news conference organized last week by the Voter Protection Program.

A recent analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice found that 106 bills have been filed by Republican lawmakers in 28 states that would restrict voting (the group also found 406 bills in 35 states that would expand voting access). Many of the bills would limit voting by mail, add new voter ID requirements, make it more difficult to register voters and give states greater leeway to purge voter files if voters don’t consistently cast ballots in every election.

“Some of them are for show; some of them have to be taken more seriously,” said Trey Grayson, a former Republican Secretary of State in Kentucky, at the same news conference.

Some of the most sweeping proposals come in Arizona and Georgia, where

“Just say ‘NO’” has never worked. Here’s what does.

Freedom.

What a concept, eh?

The very idea that you have a brain, and therefore, can think independently to decide FOR YOURSELF what you want, or ought, to do, continues to frustrate others who think that they know better than you do what personal decisions you should make for yourself!

It’s an adult decision.

Why, it’s nothing short of… LIBERTY!

ENOUGH! of the “Nanny State”!

Take your religion home, and GET IT OUT OF GOVERNMENT!!

Practice it PRIVATELY, with your family, friends, and other like-minded individuals. STOP forcing your PRIVATE religious ethics and morals upon others by writing public laws that mirror your private interpretation of your religion.

Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists that cited the establishment clause of our nation’s Constitution, which as he wrote, erected a “a wall of separation between Church & State,” or as we now say, between government, and religion.

Religious nuts have been trying to tear it down, ever since.

And they’re STILL TRYING TODAY!

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‘Drug Use For Grown-Ups’ Serves As An Argument For Personal Choice

If you grew up scared of what illicit drugs could do to you — hearing about all the horrors that could befall you from everyone from Nancy Reagan to your parents — the threat may have felt very real: If you actually took a puff off that joint that the kid who slept through math class offered you, it could lead to failed relationships, chronic unemployment, self-destruction.

The shame would outlive you.

But drugs are a more complicated matter than they’ve been made out to be, according to Dr. Carl L. Hart. In his new book Drug Use for Grown-Ups, the Columbia University professor of psychology and psychiatry zealously argues that drug use should be a matter of personal choice — and that, in more cases than not, personal choice can lead to positive outcomes. His positions may seem quite extreme to some but they also, by and large, make a lot of sense — and are backed up by ample research.

A major reason drugs have such a negative public image, Hart asserts, is racism. He notes that after the Civil War, some Chinese railroad construction workers smoked opium and, sometimes, established “opium dens” to do so. Over time, more and more white Americans visited these dens to smoke opium too. That in turn led to broader, bigoted social fear among whites, like, for example, the sentiments captured in H.H. Kane’s 1882 report:

“The practice spread widely…Many women and young girls, as also young men of respectable family, were being induced to visit the dens, where they were ruined morally and otherwise.”

Then there was the post-Civil War use of cocaine among some Black day laborers, something Hart writes was at first encouraged by white employers because of the productivity it could promote. Soon enough, however, articles appeared widely that tried to make a connection between African American cocaine use and criminality. One particularly egregious article in The New York Times in 1914, cited by Hart, even reported that some police in the South “who appreciate the vitality of the cocaine-crazed” were switching to higher-caliber weaponry capable of “greater shocking power for the express purpose of combating ‘the fiend’.”

But horrifying history aside, one of the book’s most eye-opening aspects is its challenge of the long-running association between drugs and addiction. First the basics: Addiction, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM – 5), must be a source of distress for a drug user. It must also interfere with a person’s job, parenting or personal relationships. Other indications of addiction may be

Anti-Censorship Laws DO NOT Apply To Private Enterprise

For all the hoopla being raised by Banana Republicans parading as GOP types, including the Loser in Chief, about the decision Twitter made to cut him (and others) off from their private non-governmental service, and who are calling it “censorship,” the United States Supreme Court has some news for you:

Censorship laws DO NOT apply to the Private Sector.

Period.

If you don’t like it, take it up with those who decided it: KAVANAUGH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, ALITO, and GORSUCH, JJ., joined. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and KAGAN, JJ., joined.

The case was Argued February 25, 2019 — Decided June 17, 2019, and named Manhattan Community Access Corp. et al. v. Halleck et al.

In a Certiorari to The United States Court Of Appeals For The Second Circuit, No. 17–1702, the court ruled that “The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment prohibits only governmental, not private, abridgment of speech,” and held that MNN (private nonprofit corporation, petitioner Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN)) was not a state actor subject to the First Amendment.

The court wrote further, that, “A private entity may qualify as a state actor when, as relevant here, the entity exercises “powers traditionally exclusively re-served to the State.” The precedent for that decision was rendered in the case Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 352.

“The Court has stressed that “very few” functions fall into that category. Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S. 149, 158.”

In the decision, the court wrote in part that,

“Under the state-action doctrine as it has been articulated and applied by our precedents, we conclude that operation of public access channels on a cable system is not a traditional, exclusive public function. Moreover, a private entity such as MNN who opens its property for speech by others is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor. In operating the public access channels, MNN is a private actor, not a state actor, and MNN therefore is not subject to First Amendment constraints on its editorial discretion. We reverse in relevant part the judgment of the Second Circuit, and we remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

The background facts of the case which formed the basis of the suit are fairly straight-forward, and reads as follows:

“DeeDee Halleck and Jesus Papoleto Melendez produced public access programming in Manhattan. They made a film about MNN’s alleged neglect of the East Harlem community. Halleck submitted the film to MNN for airing on MNN’s public access channels, and MNN later televised the film. Afterwards, MNN fielded multiple complaints about the film’s content. In response, MNN temporarily suspended Halleck from using the public access channels. Halleck and Melendez soon became embroiled in another dispute with MNN staff. In the wake of that dispute, MNN ultimately suspended Halleck and Melendez from all MNN services and facilities. Halleck and Melendez then sued MNN, among other parties, in Federal District Court. The two producers claimed that MNN violated their First Amendment free-speech rights when MNN restricted their access to the public access channels because of the content of their film.

“MNN moved to dismiss the producers’ First Amendment claim on the ground that MNN is not a state actor and therefore is not subject to First Amendment restrictions on its editorial discretion. The District Court agreed with MNN and dismissed the producers’ First Amendment claim.

“The Second Circuit reversed in relevant part. 882 F. 3d 300, 308 (2018). In the majority opinion authored by Judge Newman and joined by Judge Lohier, the court stated that the public access channels in Manhattan are a public forum for purposes of the First Amendment. Reasoning that “public forums are usually operated by governments,” the court concluded that MNN is a state actor subject to First Amendment constraints. Id., at 306–307. Judge Lohier added a concurring opinion, explaining that MNN also qualifies as a state actor for the independent reason that “New York City delegated to MNN the traditionally public function of administering and regulating speech in the public forum of Manhattan’s public access channels.” Id., at 309.

“Judge Jacobs dissented in relevant part, opining that MNN is not a state actor. He reasoned that a private entity’s operation of an open forum for speakers does not render the host entity a state actor. Judge Jacobs further stated that the operation of public access channels is not a traditional, exclusive public function.

“We granted certiorari to resolve disagreement among the Courts of Appeals on the question whether private operators of public access cable channels are state actors subject to the First Amendment. 586 U. S. __ (2018). Compare 882 F. 3d 300 (case below), with Wilcher v. Akron, 498 F. 3d 516 (CA6 2007); and Alliance for Community Media v. FCC, 56 F. 3d 105 (CADC 1995).”

Certiorari [pronounced “sir-sha-rar-ee”] is a writ [a written order issued by a court] seeking review of a lower court decision by a higher court.

The court wrote also that,

We’ll End Up Thanking Trump For What He Did

I suppose, in a somewhat oblique manner, we can thank Trump for making America “great again.”

And, I do mean that in all sincerity.

I never voted for, nor supported his candidacy, nor his Presidency, nor practically anything done during his maladministration.

So, how could we The People possibly stoop to such a level as to actually “thank” him for what he did?

Perhaps in much the same way that we could thank