phoenixvoice
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Casey Means SG nomination
Yes, this suggests that there is much going on behind the scenes.
Does it mean that RFK Jr is totally corrupted?
No.
But it does mean that we don’t have enough of the picture to understand what’s in view. I am reminded of the parable of the blind men and the elephant.
Should we simply trust the authority, in this case, the Trump Admin?
No – but knee-jerk reactions and assumptions will only serve to muddy the waters.
Watch and wait. Patterns will reveal themselves. They always do. It is difficult to be patient through this process. Jumping to conclusions could derail an outcome that is desirable.The argument that Casey Means did not finish residency or does not have an active medical license is designed to tug at emotional strings, and cause the public to question her competency and legitimacy. If one examines the reasons why she made these choices, one finds that they are the same reasons why she is being considered for the post. Also, quite frankly, the SG is not required to see patients, which makes this an interesting argument.
The argument that her father wrote a “trans children’s book” is an attempt to smear her reputation by a family association that she has absolutely no control over. I thought that we were supposed to be judging people on their own merit, and not based upon their family connections?
I have not personally assessed Casey Means’s fitness to be SG. I don’t know whether or not she is “the best choice.” I can see why she would be nominated for the position.
*sigh*
What I find with much of the crowd who criticizes Trump admin personnel for blatant corruption at this point is that rather than evidence of corruption, we get tenuous ties, worrisome suppositions, etc., that are fanned into hyped up ephemeral catastrophes that are little more than hot air. RFK Jr was accused of only paying attention to food and giving vaccines a pass. Bondi is accused of slow-walking Pfizer. The EO against gain-of-function is accused of aiding and abetting GOF. And so forth. What I see are people outside of the Trump administration who want their pet interest prioritized above all other interests, and the moment they see that their pet interest is not given primacy they call foul, and look for “evidence” of corruption — but mostly everything found is circumstantial. Effectively, those creating this hot air are puffing themselves up and getting attention.
I don’t believe that the Trump admin is “pure of heart.” I do see them making great strides at doing what they promised to do. This shows a level of integrity that is typically missing from elected officials. I acknowledge that I don’t agree with all of their goals nor with all of their methods. I expected that.
It was frustrating last November until Jan 20 waiting to see what the Trump admin would do. I am impressed by what it has done since Jan 20, and what it is doing now. I have never seen a president put forth this degree of effort to keep campaign promises, and I respect that, even when I disagree with the particulars.
It may be that some of the Trump admin efforts are going to prove problematic for the country. We shall see. However, better to try than to make promises, get in office and then just do photo ops and surface changes, thinking more about one’s “legacy” than what is best for the country.
US Gov’t food programs
Some do well.
With the emergency food box program, the box contains shelf stable items such as dry or canned beans, rice, nuts, dry or canned fruit, canned vegetables, and pasta. Most of it is of good nutritional quality. The boxes around here do contain one item that is “ultra-processed”: one or two off-brand boxes of macaroni and cheese. The plain pasta is not organic, and carries the same concern as all non-organic wheat products — the mega farm habit of spraying the wheat with glyphosate days before harvest.
I participated in WIC many years ago. For breastfeeding moms they cover the cost of carrots and tuna, and have breast pumps that can be loaned to mothers who want to go that route. It is my understanding that the variety of items that may be purchased with WIC has increased over the years, but I am unfamiliar with the details. For bottle fed infants, WIC covers the cost of formula — with a pediatrician’s note special diet formula is available. Once the kids eat solid foods, WIC covers baby cereals, (there is the glyphosate problem with these cereals, as well as arsenic in the rice cereal,) fresh vegetables, milk, and fruit juice. The fruit juice must have no added sugar to qualify, so food manufacturers have created specially formulated juices for toddlers (“Juicy Juice”) that are super-sweet, sweetened with pear or white grape juice. I am concerned that this leads kids to a lifetime love of highly sugary drinks. When my kids were young WIC also covered peanut butter and dry beans. Most Americans don’t prepare a lot of dry beans — I remember talking with another “mother of multiples”. Once who related that she ended up with so many bags of dry legumes that she started using them for crafts with her kids.
SNAP does a great job of allowing people the dignity of choosing their own diet, however, as a gift it is not inappropriate for there to be strings attached in how it is spent. Perhaps excluding soda and candy would be wise — recipients could still purchase the ingredients and make their own sweets…but since that takes effort, fewer sweets would be consumed.
As a response to Kunstler
E pluribus unum…..out of many, one.
It is what the US has always been about. Multiculturalism did not fail everywhere. In the pocket of my high school it thrived. A couple of years after I graduated my hig( school was featured on a national news program because of its diverse student body. No one was bussed in to create it — it was just the cultural mix from the students who lived there. The student body was about 31% white. Yes, there were cultural cliques — how could there not be? — but there were also non-cultural and cross-cultural cliques. As students, it was fun to have friends from different cultural backgrounds — we talked about them and learned from each other. Some students were of mixed heritages. In a World Cultures class, when studying Asian countries a student brought in an (aged? Fermented?) Egg that was a traditional food. Strangest thing, it was.
We can be different and be composed of various groups, as long as we also have values and traditions which bind us together and also respect our differences. The left has attempted to bind the country together under its woke banner. This could never work, as wokism is diametrically opposed to many groups’ traditional values, as well as the founding values of the nation. Instead, the people of the US need to be bound together with values that complement their disparities and that remain true to the vision of the founding fathers. The Trump administration has some (glaring) flaws, but they are attempting to do this, which is commendable.
Replacing personal federal income tax with federal sales tax
Please recall that sales taxes are generally regressive, because lower income folks spend a larger percentage of their incomes on items that are taxed by sales tax. The exception would be luxury taxes. Those in the lower two income quintiles — the folks paying little to no federal income tax, and often getting tax refunds on top of that — are often families with children or other dependents (elderly, disabled, etc.). I get the idea that perhaps the bottom two quintiles would be more upset at what the federal government does if they were paying for it and/or not receiving federal handouts…but simply shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to the bottom two quintiles is not going to improve the situation. I seem to recall the Princeton study about how federal policies that the majority of the US desires are not likely to be implemented, while policies desired by the wealthiest minority do tend to be implemented. I suspect THAT is one of the greatest reasons for apathy regarding the federal government in many of those in the bottom two quintiles. The problem is related to the fact that the wealthiest have the money and connections to influence lawmaker and policymakers. Shifting the tax burden won’t change that because the wealthiest will still be positioned to
bribedonate.Reparations
I know how rough it is to struggle at the bottom of the economy…and I understand how, in that position, it is easy to jump onto any plan or scheme that may improve one’s position.
…But making it about race? My daughter is researching scholarships but gets frustrated because almost every scholarship with a financial need component either explicitly excludes white students or the website for the scholarship is full of photos of college scholars with every color of skin except white. She feels like she “need not apply.” Am *I* supposed to feel guilt and cough up money for reparations for ”a person of color” whose income is greater than my own because I have an ancestor, whose name I don’t recall, who owned a couple of slaves? Or because I already have a home? And what about my student, a “woman of color” who is about 60% white, 40% African descent? Is her white part supposed to pay reparations to her black part?
It seems to me that the beneficiaries to this “free 120k down payment” program will be those selling the houses and those offering the mortgages, the real estate agents and the brokers.
Evidence isn’t worth reporting on until it has been adjudicated in a court of law to be valid? Wow, that’s a pretty high bar. No jury would ever have to be sequestered. Newspapers would be much shorter. And — wait a minute — then why was “the Russia collusion hoax” ever reported? Or Jan 6 events reported prior to individual trials?
Oh, wait, it is inconvenient evidence that does not happen to well-support the news organization’s bias that isn’t reported unless adjudicated by a court. And maybe not even then, if it can be avoided and swept under the rug.
I was on my high school’s newspaper staff. I received some education specifically geared towards teaching students how to write various types of newspaper articles. I find myself scratching my head trying to figure out what happened to journalism education in the past 30 years.
O’Leary, tariffs, China
And 3 years ago “everybody” was saying that the sanctions against Russia were going to bring it to its knees. Didn’t happen.
Just because O’Leary would cut a deal, does not mean China will. The premise of the golden rule is that another’s desires and motivations are so similar to my own that we respond similarly. Sometimes, that premise is wrong.
I like due process. However, I feel taken advantage of when the Biden admin funnels money to NGOs, who ferry foreigners to our borders, (simultaneously handing out kickbacks to US politicians,) the aliens claim that they are fleeing danger, are admitted with asylum hearings years away, then granted free benefits (food, housing, medical care) plus work permits, and the US is obligated to keep them here for years until a hearing occurs, which the foreigner will likely fail to attend. This sounds like a system that is designed for children, not for adults. I do not think that it is unfair to give an adult foreigner a less “pretty” option: you can stay in this internment location where you will be obligated to contribute some hours of labor each week towards running the facility and towards the resources that you consume, you can be deported back to your home country, you can appeal to a US citizen to sponsor you and enter the country under the sponsorship of that citizen, or you can apply to a third country while waiting on your asylum claim. People who show up at our border do not, merely by the fact of their existence, have an automatic claim on the right to live and work freely in the US. I have no desire to encarcerate them, but, seriously, what were they thinking?
Jeffrey Sachs may be correct.
On the other hand, he sounds like someone with TDS who has decided that Trump is “Orange Man Bad.” In that state of mind, it is difficult to weigh exigent realities without bias creeping in.No GMO corn in Europe is trade manipulation??
Maybe the Europeans just don’t like the flavor of glyphosate..
White women with a college degree…
Well, it seems that my political views don’t comport well with the majority of my cohort. *sigh*. Not surprising.
Wait a minute.
I’m listening to Laura Delano on Darkhorse podcast. It is being found that, essentially, smaller doses (sub-therapeutic) of neurotransmitter affecting drugs have greater dramatic effect, and are therefore more difficult to get off of than large reductions from higher doses. This is assumed to be an effect of saturation.
Doesn’t that suggest that homeopathy principles may have merit, at the very least with some drugs?
I have heard no one deeply suppose the effect of the autism epidemic on our societies. Nor have I heard any numbers including a breakdown of how many of the “1 in 30” are level 1, 2, or 3. This matters!
Level 3 will require care for life.
Level 2 will likely also require care for life, but might — with intensive investment — be able to contribute to their communities in small ways.
Level 1 is a mixed bag.Both of my sons are level 1. The first twin had an IEP through high school, had some support from the school in elementary school, had a few years of helpful psychotherapy, and is in college on an engineering trajectory. He will contribute to society like anyone else, although he struggles to make friends, and has not yet made any forays into dating, etc.
The second twin could not function in school without an IEP, and spent four years of elementary school in a therapeutic school. He required hours and hours of support and interventions throughout his public school career from both the school and from me. He has participated in countless behavioral health programs, beginning at age 6 (cost covered by Medicaid.) Currently, he is enrolled in a vocational rehabilitation program (federally funded) designed to ready disabled young adults for employment. He is effectively failing the program. After nearly 9 months of the program and genuinely trying, he is not yet employable in *any* capacity. My son is putting in great effort, but the autism deficits curtail him in so many ways. We are applying for a state assistance program available to individuals with autism — he has been denied and is appealing. If he can get the state assistance, he may have access to expanded employment readiness programs and eventually be employable in some capacity. This son is intelligent, but intelligence is not sufficient to overcome some autism deficits.
My ex’s attorney mocked me in early 2017 in front of a Commissioner in a child support hearing when I explained that my income was below minimum wage, because I had stated that my son’s “special needs” prevented me from working in a greater capacity. At that time, neither of my sons then carried an autism diagnosis — the second twin was labeled as ADHD, Anxious, ODD, and DMDD; he was at that time enrolled in a therapeutic school. My ex’s attorney sneered that other parents with kids with ADHD could work just fine. I could not put my son in daycare — no daycare would accept him, some behavioral health respite programs would not accept him — and at age 10 I could not leave him home by himself nor with his siblings for even a few minutes. (Concern that he might harm his siblings was real.). But none of this was considered by the Court — I was new to the Court process and had no attorney and had not even thought to gather evidence, let alone present it. It was simply my lived reality. So I was imputed minimum wage and the child support was low as a result. We received SNAP, Medicaid, and other supports…primarily because my children required care that was much greater than that of the average child, and much of my time was occupied with the many supports that they required, rather than the pursuit of income.
These levels of autism will become a very large drag on society. We are going to have to learn how to integrate very differently functioning people into our society…otherwise, we are going to be obligated to care for them. Currently, there are two reasons why my second twin son is not employable: his rate of task completion is not up to par (about 50%), and no employer is going to be willing to pay wages for such low productivity. Second, his lack of social skills and need for sameness in routine mean that he does not handle feedback well, does not interact with coworkers, supervisors, and customers in an expected fashion, and does not navigate changes in routine effectively.
There may also be a silver lining. Autists do think differently. Elon Musk is an example of this. It is possible that we might better organize our human societies with the input of the thoughts and efforts of very high functioning autists.
(Of course, autists also may interject some odd things into society — it seems that after losing his firstborn to SIDS, Musk may have had all of his children conceived via IVF, and I can’t help but wonder at the motivation with having an IVF child with a female executive — was it love, or a business arrangement to conceive a highly intelligent child?)
Um. Regarding removing “candy and sugary soda from SNAP,” it important to consider the law of unintended consequences.
If those things are removed, will it also include candy and soda that contains sugar substitutes? Because a lot of people consume “diet” sodas with no sugar, but studies show that these also affect insulin because the body believes it is getting sugar due to the taste. For the large food companies, they don’t mind if SNAP recipients substitute sucralose candy and soda for sugary ones.
Aeroponic farming
My sister has a tower like that in her house. It doesn’t get enough light and the plants are leggy. It wouldn’t work outdoors here – the tower would get too hot in the summer…after a year or so in the sun the plastic would start becoming friable. My sister is also planning this summer to grow veggies in tri-parted, stackable towers outdoors…I predict it isn’t going to work well because it will take an immense amount of water to keep the soil hydrated in 100+ degree weather and even with that water the roots will be too hot and stress the plants…this is on top of the stress the plants will be under from the temperature of the air. But…my little sister doesn’t like it when big sister says that her grand ideas won’t work, so I expressed a minor misgiving, noticed that she was not receptive, and will wait to see what happens. Besides…she was the one who decided not to vax any of her children, and now I’ve moved to her camp, after my kids had received all the jabs on the schedule until about age 10. Sometimes, I am wrong and she is correct.
Boys in girls sports
My daughter did some wrestling the first two years of high school. Girls wrestling in high school was recently recognized in Arizona, so not all schools have girls wrestling teams and the girls teams are often very small. The boys team and the girls team practice together at my kids’ high school. Girls are NEVER required to do a match with a boy, but might be given the opportunity to do a match with a boy if there are no girls in their weight class available and she wants a chance to have a match. Also, in practice, many elements of practice were co-Ed for reasons of practicality. My daughter very quickly learned that even when the weights were very near, the boys were simply significantly stronger. A well-skilled girl might be able to win a match against a poorly skilled boy…but other than that, the girl was not likely to win. Not that it was a bad thing for a girl to wrestle with a boy — it could push her to rely on her skills and use her skills — it had merit for training purposes. As long as the rules of wrestling were followed and the weights were similar, the girl was not really more likely to get injured wrestling with a boy than a girl, (injury is common generally with wrestling,) but I would suppose that without those rules the risk of injury would rise precipitously between boys and girls wrestling together.
Transgender male in girls sports…oh, dear, language is *really* getting mixed up here!
The right calls the bio males trying to participate in women’s sports “transgender males”
The left calls the bio males trying to participate in women’s sports “transgender women”
Lol
I’m beginning to feel my head spin like the crazy possessed girl in the exorcist.In the 1990s a can of frozen orange juice concentrate, store brand, was typically $0.50. Today, I spend about $2.75 — that is an increase of 550%
Minimum wage is 1992 was $4.25, today it is $7.25. To keep up with the price of OJ, minimum wage would need to be $23.38.
DBS
I am glad that my experience can prove useful for others, lol.
My daughter enjoys listening to true crime podcasts. Recently she brought it to my attention that her father possesses the traits that are very often shared by men who kill their own families. I responded to her that I was not surprised, I had feared towards the end of the marriage that he would do just that, although I had never researched the traits of family killers. That was why I dispossessed him of his two firearms.
Thinking about lies and liars. AIs lie. Of course they do. They have learned language through analyzing our language. Language, in and of itself, is a tool. Telling the truth is made possible by discerning between fantasy and reality. Toddlers and preschoolers often lie because they are just figuring out the difference between fantasy and reality. How parents and others respond to them helps them learn about truth and falsehood. Punishing a small child for telling the truth can set the child on a path of dealing in falsehoods to escape punishment. How would an AI discern between fantasy and reality? It’s very existence is ephemeral. What is “real” to an AI? It seems that current AIs are like supercomputing toddlers. I see that when I interact with one: “Can you do this?” I ask. Moments later, a response is spit out, with an eager: “What is the next task?”
Who is going to “parent” the AI and teach it morality? Whose morality will it learn? Not my ex’s, I hope.
The legacy media today aren’t “fact-based.” They are results-oriented.
That reminds me of a conversation with my ex nearly 15 years ago. I had noticed that when he filled out questionnaires for doctors, mental health professionals, etc., he didn’t fill them out completely factually. I asked him about out it. He informed me that he told them what they needed to know so that they would give him the care that he wanted.
Tariffs
When you think about it…
Three years ago, Team Ukraine + backers put sanctions on Russian goods to hurt them financially. The plan backfired and strengthened the Russian economy.
Tariffs may serve the same purpose — a type of voluntary, unsavory medicine. Will it work?
Time will tell.85 MILLION PEOPLE STUDY FINDS MASSIVE ESCALATION OF CARDIOVASCULAR RISKS IN THE COVID VACCINATED…
…And my daughter wearies of me considering every ailment and sudden death among those that I figure are likely vaccinated against C19 to be possible caused by the injection. I recognize that there might not be a causal link…but she does not realize the magnitude of the possibility that there *is* a causal link.
…Congress must now cut taxes…
*sigh*
How about Congress pass a smaller budget or some recisions first? What is the point of cutting taxes when the budget has not been cut? Or — do it at the same time. I know, it is such a weird thing — connecting the money being spent to the money coming in — who in government has ever entertained such an odd idea?!I was at my parents’ home yesterday, my brother called, and he shared his fears about the tariffs: he is a sales rep for a technology widget company and apparently their largest supplier factory is in Cambodia. Trump has slapped a 46% tariff on Cambodia. Additionally, my brother fears recession — in 2008 the company he works for called in all of its employees and asked them to take a large voluntary pay cut, otherwise it would have to slash the workforce. He is currently supporting 2 kids in college, and a third will soon be starting college.
Well, it looks like Cambodia is chomping at the bit to make a deal with the US regarding tariffs. A recession will bite a lot of people. I sympathize with my brother…on the other hand…he has been making very, very good money for a very long time. Has he not been preparing himself for the next recession? If not…isn’t that a bit foolish?
@ Maxwell Quest
Regarding “Covid time”…
Technically, my closest friends who were themselves vaxxed and thought the entire world should be as well, mildly chided me, and shared the platitudes going around about why I should be vaxxed. I calmly refuted their points, stating that I was already immune, and that there was insufficient evidence to evaluate otherwise. If pressed, I could easily look up specific references of scientific papers that showed that my point had as much validity as the predominant narrative. I understand that two good friends of mine living at the local retirement community (in that time, one is his late 70s, the other in her late 80s,) shared a conversation clucking over my perfidy. I was not amused, but I recognized it for what it was — they cared, and they were “mothering me.” I was annoyed at the time, but I shrugged it off. They are still my friends.I warned the woman that I just spoke of not to take boosters…she said that she would do as her primary care doctor recommends — she likes her PCP. Her PCP has swallowed the vaccine rubbish hook, line, and sinker. I accepted her decision — there was nothing else that I could do. A few weeks later, I spent 3 hours with her a couple days after her first booster. I then had a headache for 3 days that would not respond to analgesics. (Shedding?)
I warned the man that I spoke of in an email to several fellow musicians, cautioning them to refuse the boosters. A woman on that email brought in her husband, a well-respected professor at ASU, who must have made a lot of money over the years, judging by the niceness of their home. The ASU professor used mainstream Covid narrative stuff to reassure those who received my email that my views were full of holes like Swiss cheese. It was not cruel — he just cited official government (dis)info. I realized that my efforts were futile. We remain friends.
My parents, sister living in AZ, and I were worried that my (already vaxxed) sibs in another state would vax their kids. My parents and sister were uncomfortable sharing their concerns with the other two siblings. I said that I would do it, because I knew that I could not live at ease knowing that I had been too fearful to share information that could have prevented the death and ill health of my nieces and nephews. I crafted and sent the email. My brother and sister in another state were not receptive, and politely told me so. At least I can rest easy knowing that I tried.
Regarding the shunning at the public park…sure, it hurt emotionally a little bit. It was also kind of exhilarating and eye-opening. It freed me from the congregation. To see their hypocrisy on display, and their blindness to their own behavior, lemmings following the minister who personally confronted me — she saw it her duty to do so…I will never forget that. It was a thought-provoking 15-minutes. I was not surprised. I deliberately went maskless to a masked event to see what would ensue. My spouse and I were en route to a family dinner — I followed the experience with a conversation with my spouse in the car ride, and then several hours in the good company of my parents, sister, BIL, and their kids.
One of the weird things about wokism is this treatment of emotional pain as some sort of horrid taboo. While
I am all too familiar with how devastating and destructive on-going emotional pain can be, (causing cPTSD, etc.,) brief emotional pain is a part of the human condition. We learn from it. We grow and move on.JB-hb
I think that you are correct about the bulk of the British people in Ghandi’s time being moral.
Prior to Covid, I spent a few years in a liberal religious denomination. To my view, those who stayed the course and returned after Covid (masked and vaxxed to the hilt) are crazy and deluded. To them, I am the crazy and inconsiderate one who had the audacity to attend the first post-Covid social, held in a public park, unmasked. I was shunned by those I thought were friends. However, I would not term these people as “immoral.” Misguided, deluded, foolish — they are all of these. Immoral? No.
I still get their choir emails. I see it as a way to monitor “the crazy liberals.” I notice that, if anything, their community is more close knit than prior to Covid.
Much of the US populace is as deluded about Israel as are these liberal choir members who sign a pact to keep their Covid vaxes up to date and attend rehearsals and performances masked whenever anyone has a Covid sniffle. Morality can be mis-placed when one has inaccurate information, and we live in an age of deception. Many Trumpers’ morality is misplaced regarding Israel’s purity of intent. Liberals’ morality is misplaced when it sympathizes with Tren de Aragua members, the rights of sexual predators who take advantage of gender-bending, and the beneficence of Dr. Fauci. Both sides need to calm down and open their eyes and ears to each other. Non-violent action can be the catalyst. (It is not the only one. Historically, for example, The Jungle accomplished this in food safety. The author was a Marxist and was frustrated that his text did not create a socialist revolution. But the US populace was not interested in socialism — it was interested in food purity.)
Genocide in Gaza
Excellent illustration. Non-violent protest against DOGE isn’t likely to get very far — the public does not like “waste, fraud and abuse.” Likewise in support of illegal immigrants — our laws were so badly broken, the influx so great, the crimes by some of them so egregious that we cannot just turn over and tolerate it. (I get the cry of “no person is illegal,” but since the “undocumented” were issued documents, calling them “undocumented immigrants” isn’t really applicable any longer — the immigration status is, quite simply, “illegal.”)
Where the Trump Administration is most likely to cede power to people like Chenowith and their radical non-violent actions is when LEGAL immigrants are kicked out for First Ammendment (legal) activity in support of (legitimately oppressed) Palestine, or when our foolish Congress sends ever more aid and military equipment to Israel who keep using it to commit genocide. Or, bombing the Houthis over actions that affect the US indirectly. (Eh…maybe “acts of war” — which bombing is — are inadvisable when the goal is to wind down a war that one is not directly a party to. “Acts of war” by an indirect player are likely to broaden, not reduce, a conflict!)
Erika Chenowith, et al.
There is something that needs to be brought up here. It is not helpful to smear someone who appears to be wholly devoted to non-violent movements with violent aspirations (or, only supporting non-violence because it is more effective than violence.). It really does not help us when we paint our “enemies” as larger-than-life, and more than they really are. There is a good possibility that Chenowith truly believes that violence is not the answer. If pressed, she — and those like her — may find that her non-violent tactics are not working and then may resort to violence. IF that happens, (or if there is clear evidence of involvement in a violent plot,) she should be prosecuted, but we must not start resorting to “pre-crime.” But failure of non-violent action could also jolt her and her compatriots to reassess their radical views. Or, could cause loss of of support from liberals who are less radical.
The whole idea of non-violence working is based upon the premise that the “silent majority” is aware of their own oppression and when the non-violent protest brings this to the forefront of their minds, the majority refuses to follow the unjust system. The way to defang non-violent protest is for there to be no major injustice nor oppression in the system — the non-violent protest will then be largely ignored by the majority, or seen as an oddity of the news cycle — look at the weirdos over there.
If we accuse the actually non-violent of violence, we create injustice and give them power. Let’s not do that.
If the non-violent protestors block a street, arrest them, remove them, charge them with a misdemeanor with a minor consequence and move on. It’s even better if the involved officers are polite and kind, rather than gruff — like the police in the 50’s family TV programs.
Pushing “hesitant” parents on HPV vaccine for their kids
It takes chutzpah to refuse the HPV vaccination for one’s pre-teen/teen. When the vaccine is accepted, it is accepted once and no one talks about it again. When it is refused, it gets brought up nearly every time the kid goes to the primary care doctor. It has to be refused over and over and over. I’ve never had a doctor push the issue — they can probably see that I am not going to be swayed — but it is annoying to have to refuse the darn thing for several times a year for a decade. By contrast, the Covid vaccine was only pushed at medical offices for a couple of years.
Both bills state that the prohibition should not include any dollar-denominated currency that is open, permissionless, and private and “preserves the privacy protections of United States coins and physical currency.”
But if the government must be paid in electronic dollars and only pays out in electronic means, unless the individual recipient can prove lack of access to banking…then the government is only conducting financial transactions in digital means, not with physical currency. …Except when it deals with
terrorists“freedom fighters” or similar clandestine CIA, etc., operations where traceability could be a problem for US foreign policy.@ DBS
Thank you for the correction yesterday. I understand the desire for public servants to have all communication recorded. At the same time, I recognize that our ability to do so now far exceeds what it was a couple hundred years ago. While recording everything promotes transparency — which is needed — I wonder if there might be some unintended consequences from doing so. I don’t *know* or *believe* that there would be unintended adverse consequences, I am only raising the possibility. I recognize that for me, often, when I was stuck with a sticky problem my mind supplied an untenable path forward — impossible or morally wrong. I rejected it, however, thinking about the untenable option led to a creative path that was tenable. If public servants must never utter or write anything that is untenable, for fear of immediate impeachment, we may inadvertently only get those in office who excel at duplicitous speech and writing. If we, instead, give public servants a little bit of space — so that they can brainstorm and choose an option, run with it, tweak it, so that when the transcript later comes later (at a specific interval of time) that out the public can also see that untenable options were fielded but discarded, a moral person can hold office.
JB-hb
the “creative process” consists entirely of how to do something bad and get away with it
Hunh? “The creative process” is how I approach IT problems every day. It is what I do when a music student is struggling to learn a concept, or my daughter is struggling in math, and I must find a way to teach. It is how I have managed to create an upbringing for my children that is akin to what I had — just on the upper side of middle class — on an income that is half the federal poverty limit for the past decade. (And, no, I didn’t break laws. I did seek to understand rules and exactly how they applied to my situation, and I am willing to pull useful stuff out of “bulk trash” piles left on the curb.)
The “creative process” is no more “bad” than a gun is “bad.” The “creative process” is what was used by the US founding fathers to create the Declaration of Independence, fight & win the ensuing war, and write and ratify the Constitution. No doubt, the British saw that as “bad.”
JB-hb
You frame insurance as socialist vs. non-socialist (is the opposite capitalist? Libertarian?)
I don’t see it that way. The concept of insurance is that people pool their resources so that individual members of the group are not devastated by individual losses that are beyond their direct and immediate control — it is a way to deal with the conflict of man vs. nature. If “socialism” is defined as “any time when people form a group to do something,” we get an overly broad definition where the traditional family unit or religious and civic organizations may be labeled as “socialism.”
There are many approaches in the world today about how to structure healthcare. I don’t think that there is a one-size fits all solution for healthcare.
I believe that “bureaucracy” is a more apt term to describe the problems with both the Canadian and US healthcare systems. Bureaucracies can easily lose the mission of the organization and take on a life of their own — often becoming very corrupt. Canada’s healthcare system is analogous to a monopoly — it has lost its vision about providing quality, timely healthcare to Canadians, and instead is trying to weigh who is most “worthy” of healthcare, or of the best way to ration a scarce resource among many. The US healthcare system is behaving akin to an oligopoly — several behemoths (both private industry and FDA, CDC, and NIH, etc.,) are colluding together to “juice” the system for personal gain, rather than for the purpose of providing quality healthcare to the US citizenry. Both systems have grave problems. Both systems need to be thoroughly revamped. I think that trying to compare/contrast right now and weigh which system is “better” – the “socialist” Canadian healthcare system or the “private” US healthcare system is a specious argument. A more useful discussion would be about which little parts of each system are actually working and why so that successor systems can incorporate, rather than lose, those parts.
“Plaintiff American Oversight brings this action … to prevent the unlawful destruction of federal records and to compel Defendants to fulfill their legal obligations to preserve and recover federal records created through unauthorized use of Signal for sensitive national security decision-making,” the lawsuit reads. Trump’s senior national security officials accidentally shared sensitive details about strike plans on the Houthi group in Yemen with editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg through the encrypted messaging app Signal.
There is an interesting angle to this. Before the advent of audio recordings, typewriters, and the special typewriter machines court reporters once used, the most efficient way to record spoken word was “shorthand.” Even this might strain to keep up with spoken words – and it required specialized training. As a result, “official records” were of “official meetings” — not of every communication under the sun. Now, we have technology that can record every communication. So the question is…where is the line drawn between “informal” communication of government officials — “casual conversation,” not recorded — and the “official record?” When there is recording there is accountability. When these records are available to the public we have transparency, and this helps the public keep the government in check. At the same time, people need space to brainstorm, and accountability during the brainstorming process can hinder creativity. There needs to be balance between what is recorded and what is not (or what is deleted immediately after…or can it ever be deleted?) Perhaps there is only a delay on the recordings of “casual conversation” of government officials — it comes out, but after 2 years or 5 years, etc.
This conundrum parallels the situation for private citizens whose devices are listening in on — and, we assume — recording and transcribing their conversations. Although, for private citizens, it would appear that the 4th Amendment makes it clear that private citizens are “to be secure” in their private lives. No such privacy is afforded by the Constitution for the public lives of government officials.
“..the FBI investigating attacks on Tesla cars and facilities is nothing but “lawfare” and “political weaponization.”
So….the *appropriate* government response to a seemingly coordinated vandalism and violence towards a business and the private property of citizens is to *ignore* it, rather than investigate and prosecute?
The government should throw in jail for years protestors from Jan 6, 2021, who walked into the Capitol due to the press of the crowd, mostly gawked, with a few committing minor vandalism, (that may have been initiated by agents provocateurs, it is hard to know,) but ignore deliberate property destruction?
I am starting to see some left-leaning types start to shake off the trance and uncomfortably notice that the very important Dem shills are making less and less sense. I hope that the trend quickens.
Presidential Actions
Protecting America’s Bank Account Against Fraud, Waste, and Abuse
Executive Orders
March 25, 2025…and thus we usher in digital ID. The government’s EFTPS program requires digital ID, and single accounts per individual — if you work for a company and make EFTPS deposits you must log in with your digital ID, not with one for the business.
And, individual tax refund checks not by preference but only for those individuals who do not have access to banking services or electronic payment systems;
Um. How is this going to be determined? I have a bank account, but barely use it. There are debt judgments against me. They could be used to seize funds from my bank account. Tax refunds already can only be electronically deposited into a bank account that bears the recipient’s name. Because of these judgments I don’t have a joint bank account with anyone. My spouse’s credit union won’t deposit my federal tax refund check into my spouse’s account. They say that they cannot, as if it were against the law. It is not against the law, it is the policy of that credit union. Walmart won’t cash the check — because I don’t typically cash checks with them, they decline to do it, even though it is a government check. So, the last few years I have gone with my father to the local branch of his banking institution, I sign the check to him, and he deposits it. Another day he goes, withdraws the funds, and gives them to me. Last year, the assistant branch manager where we had done this in the past explained that they cannot do this. My father called his broker, his broker did some asking around, and no, this isn’t bank policy, but appeared to be the policy of that branch. My father found a branch that was for “investors,” located 2 miles further. We went to that one. They were polite, and had no problem with me signing the check over to my father. My only other option would be check cashing places that take cuts of the check. But, technically, I have “access.”
