Month: April 2023

GOP–Where It All Began

There are many opinions running around the internet on the GOP….most of it is all about the party for the last 15 or so years…..but how many have nay damn idea where it all began and why?

That’s right….you are in for some knowledge….I know that is a bad word these days of idiots….there is no such things as bad knowledge just morons that cannot find the time to pull their heads of of their asses to learn something.

The year is 1854…..the place was Ripon, Wisconsin…..

Trying times spawn new forces. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 divided the country at the 36° 30′ parallel between the pro-slavery, agrarian South and anti-slavery, industrial North, creating an uneasy peace which lasted for three decades. This peace was shattered in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Settlers would decide if their state would be free or slave. Northern leaders such as Horace Greeley, Salmon Chase and Charles Sumner could not sit back and watch the flood of pro-slavery settlers cross the parallel. A new party was needed.

Where was the party born? Following the publication of the “Appeal of Independent Democrats” in major newspapers, spontaneous demonstrations occurred. In early 1854, the first proto-Republican Party meeting took place in Ripon, Wisconsin. On July 6, 1854 on the outskirts of Jackson, Michigan upwards of 10,000 people turned out for a mass meeting “Under the Oaks.” This led to the first organizing convention in Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856.

The gavel fell to open the party’s first nominating convention, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 17, 1856, announcing the birth of the Republican Party as a unified political force.

The Republican Party name was christened in an editorial written by New York newspaper magnate Horace Greeley. Greeley printed in June 1854: “We should not care much whether those thus united (against slavery) were designated ‘Whig,’ ‘Free Democrat’ or something else; though we think some simple name like ‘Republican’ would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery.”

https://www.ushistory.org/gop/origins.htm

In the beginning the GOP was not all that bad….as late as 1956 their platform was something that even a hard Leftist like me could have supported.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The ‘Parents Rights’ Bill

The GOP is trying an end run on society.

They have introduced a bill in the House to ‘protect’ parent’s rights….a cutesy name that smacks of total control over our educational standards.

House Republicans on Friday narrowly passed legislation that would fulfill a campaign promise to give parents a role in what’s taught in public schools. It has little chance in the Democrat-run Senate, and critics say it will propel a far-right movement that has led to book bans, restrictions aimed at transgender students, and raucous school board meetings across the country, per the AP. GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who made the Parents Bill of Rights Act a priority during the early weeks of his tenure, said Republicans were “keeping our promise, our commitment to America, that parents will have a say in their kids’ education.” “At the end of the day, these are our children, not the government’s,” Republican Rep. Julia Letlow of Louisiana, who wrote the bill, said Thursday, per the Washington Post.

The bill would require schools to publish course studies and a list of books kept in libraries, as well as affirm parents’ ability to meet with educators, speak at school board meetings, and examine school budgets. It would also mandate that administrators at elementary and middle schools get an OK from parents before addressing a child by a different name, pronouns, or gender designation. The bill passed 213-208, with five Republicans—mostly members of the House Freedom Caucus—voting against it. The Hill names those five as Reps. Andy Biggs, Matt Gaetz, Ken Buck, Matt Rosendale, and Mike Lawler. The first four objected on the basis of wanting the federal government to stay out of local schools’ business. Lawler, meanwhile, thought an amendment added by Rep. Lauren Boebert on transgender bathroom usage “went too far” and “unnecessarily targeted certain children.”

Advocates say the bill poses a threat to LGBTQ+ students by potentially forcing them to come out to their families, which can sometimes lead to abuse or abandonment, per the AP. “It’s part of a pattern of attempts we’re seeing where the right wing of the Republican Party is really trying to marginalize LGBTQ people,” says David Stacy, the government affairs director for Human Rights Campaign. Democrats are also opposed to the bill, noting that although they favor nurturing parents’ involvement in their children’s education, this bill has been designed to kowtow to a minority of parents who want to control and politicize classrooms, including via book bans in school libraries. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed that the bill would face a “dead end,” and that it was proof the House GOP has been taken over by “hard-right MAGA ideologues.”

The only good spot in this attempt to control everything is that he will probably stall and possibly die in the US Senate.

This is what we get when idiots vote.

On a side note….an Utah parent is fighting back in the book banning craze…..

Frustrated that titles like The Bluest Eye from Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison have been removed from schools as a result of Utah’s new book-banning law, one parent is pushing to have the Bible banned. “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible … has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition,” the parent wrote in a request to the Davis County School District, which was obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune with names redacted. It cites Utah’s book-banning law, passed last year with backing from conservative parents groups, which blocks books containing “explicit sexual arousal, stimulation, masturbation, intercourse, sodomy or fondling” from classrooms and school libraries.

Among the books targeted by the groups is The Bluest Eye, in which a young girl suffers sexual abuse by her father. But “Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: the Bible,” reads the request, per Fox News. It lists the book’s topics of concern as “incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide.” It also includes several Bible quotes, including one from Genesis 19:8 in which a father asks that men do “as you wish” to his virgin daughters. The request was submitted Dec. 11. A review process usually takes 60 days. However, a district rep tells the Tribune that the case has been delayed due to a backlog.

A school policy states religious books can’t be banned but may be subject to restrictions, per Fox. However, there’s debate about how this would mesh with the law. “If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk,” according to the request, which questions the targeting of texts by and about LGBTQ people and those of color in a school district that’s been “under investigation for being racist.” A 2021 Justice Department report found Davis had intentionally ignored “serious and widespread” racial harassment, per the Tribune. The district also settled a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union in 2012 after removing a book about a child with same-sex parents, KUTV reports.

This is a bit extreme but I also understand why they are doing it.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

This Is What Happens

Does anybody remember the protests by legislators in Tennessee?

Probably not so let me enlighten your mind….

In an extraordinary act of political retaliation, Tennessee Republicans on Thursday expelled two Democratic lawmakers from the state Legislature for their role in a protest that called for more gun control in the aftermath of a deadly school shooting in Nashville. The House, where Republicans have a supermajority, voted to expel Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones. A vote to remove Rep. Gloria Johnson failed by a single vote, the AP reports. The chamber has used the punishment only a handful times since the Civil War. Most state legislatures possess the power to expel members, but it is generally reserved for lawmakers accused of serious misconduct, not used as a weapon against political opponents. In a tweet, President Biden called the expulsions “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.”

Republicans said the punishment was in response to the Democrats’ behavior last week as hundreds of protesters packed the Capitol to call for passage of gun-control measures. While demonstrators filled galleries, the three Democrats approached the front of the House chamber with a bullhorn and participated in a chant. The protest unfolded days after the shooting at the Covenant School, a private Christian school where six people were killed, including three 9-year-old children.

Apparently it is a damnable sin to protest the murder of children…..at least in Tennessee.

This seems a bit extreme considering the number of ‘violations’ some of the legislators have had in the past and still held their positions….

What violations?

The Tennessee House chamber where Republicans expressed outrage this week at a breach in decorum was filled daily, for years, by the sound of their colleague ringing a cowbell to mask the lack of applause. A lawmaker’s office chair was urinated on by a fellow Republican, a reporter who used to cover the GOP-controlled House writes in Politico. The quick expulsion of two Democrats on Thursday for supporting a protest was of a piece, Natalie Allison says. “The place has been defined by partisan vitriol, pique, scandal, racism and Olympic-level pettiness for years,” she writes. Here are other actions committed by Republican House members in the past that did not lead party leaders to remove them:

  • Lynching suggestion: In a committee hearing in March about capital punishment, Rep. Paul Sherrell asked if he might offer an amendment to include “hanging by a tree” as a method of execution; the state has a history of lynching. An uproar followed, but Sherrell has not been reprimanded or censured.
  • Sexual assault allegations: Three women accused Rep. David Byrd of sexually assaulted them when they played on a basketball team he coached. They were minors at the time. Byrd denied the accusations, but a recording captured him apologizing to one of the women without specifically saying what he was sorry for, per WSMV. GOP leaders twice blocked attempts to remove Byrd, per the Washington Post. “You have to balance the will of the voters and overturning the will of the voters,” said Speaker Cameron Sexton in 2019.
  • Historical revision: Rep. Justin Lafferty described the Three-Fifths Compromise as necessary to end slavery during a 2021 debate on the House floor. Historians were among those who objected to that interpretation.
  • Slurs: Republicans joked twice publicly in 2020 about Black people eating fried chicken. A lawmaker speaking about his bill on sanctuary cities used the term “wetback.” The chief of staff for a former House speaker texted, “Black people are idiots.” Other texts showed the speaker endorsing disparaging and sexual comments the aide made about women.
  • Mean tweets: An investigation in 2019 found that Rep. Rick Tillis was behind an anonymous Twitter account filled with gossip and criticism of lawmakers and staffers. It was his chair that eventually was soaked with urine.

This situation is pathetic…is this what has become of our so-called democracy?

I weep for this country.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

UN Gets New President

This is one for the “Got to be kidding” file.

Within the United Nations there is the ever powerful Security Council and recently Russia has become the president of the Council…..

Russia is once again the head of the UN Security Council, a body tasked with ensuring international peace.

The last time that Russia held the position of president — in February 2022 — it invaded Ukraine, the BBC noted.

The UN Security Council is made up of 15 members, 10 of which are voted in for two-year stints. The other five are permanent members and have veto power. They are the United States, France, the UK, China, and Russia.

The 15 members rotate the presidency every month. The president of the Security Council is considered the face of the body and represents it in front of the larger United Nations.

While Ukraine protested Russia’s term as president, as a permanent member, there is little any of the other members can do. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-is-again-the-president-of-un-security-council-2023-4

There is the whole problem in a nutshell…..5 permanent members that have veto power…..nothing can be accomplished as long as the idiots in the US, Russia, France, England and China have the power to stop any progress dead in its tracks.

Since the last time Putin was in charge Russia invaded Ukraine….how will this play out in the social media BS?

What was said from the White House?

From the White House podium on Thursday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that a country that “flagrantly violates the U.N. Charter” and invades its neighbor has no place on the council, but there is “no feasible international legal pathway” around that.

“As unpalatable as it may be to see Russia presiding over the council, the reality is this is a largely ceremonial position which rotates to council members month by month in alphabetical order,” she said, adding that the U.S. encourages Russia to conduct itself professionally so the council can carry out its work.

“Russia is a permanent member,” said one council diplomat. “While they are misbehaving gravely on Ukraine and just tearing the [U.N.] Charter apart, my expectation is they will do this presidency in a professional manner.”

Thoughts?

Enough is enough.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Leak Heard Around The World

Over the Easter weekend a batch of so-called classified documents were released over the internet…..and the War Department went to CYA….

The leak of US classified documents concerning Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion has done more than reveal information that could help opposing nations on the battlefield. The files also provide a detailed look at US intelligence operations, including whom the US is spying on and how, the Washington Post reports. That has American officials, as well as allies, racing to measure and contain the damage. In the meantime, the Pentagon has restricted access to intelligence. And the Justice Department is investigating how the information became public, per the Post.

After a batch of files showed up Friday on social media, Russian and Ukrainian officials were among those expressing skepticism about whether they were legitimate. Some, including John Sullivan, a deputy secretary of state, suggested the leak was part of a Russian disinformation campaign, per NBC News. But officials said they’re treating the documents as genuine, after realizing Thursday they were available to read on a public server. “They look real,” a US official told CNN. Beyond data about such war-related matters as analysis of Ukraine’s fighting capacity, the posts uncover details about US spying practices.

The revelations include where the CIA has recruited agents to report the private talks of world leaders and other eavesdropping, and the technology the US uses to track Russian troop movements. The 50 pages seen by the Post detail intelligence operations by the CIA, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, and law enforcement agencies. There’s information about Canadian and UK operations, too. “We need to manage this well both internally and externally,” a Defense Department official said. “There are lot of institutions and agencies involved.”

The documents, which appear to have come at least in part from the Pentagon and are marked as highly classified, offer tactical information about the war in Ukraine, including the country’s combat capabilities. According to one defense official, many of the documents seem to have been prepared over the winter for Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior military officials, but they were available to other U.S. personnel and contract employees with the requisite security clearances.

More info available….

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/intelligence-leak-exposes-us-spying-on-adversaries-and-allies/ar-AA19DplU

War Department is saying it is a Russian false flag (I would expect this …..trying to deflect any damage the leak could have if they are true)

Some say the documents may have been doctored….others say they are true to the letter.

We, the peasants, may never know the real story….so draw your own conclusions.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Wolves In Priest Clothing

One of the biggest stories this past week was abuse cases in Baltimore.

Yet another scandal involving the Catholic Church…..sexual abuse, in cased you were confused….

This time it is the archdiocese of Baltimore and the number of cases is greater than 500….

Maryland’s attorney general released the results Wednesday of a four-year state investigation into the sexual abuse and torture of children by clergy members and employees of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The report covers the totality of 80 years of mistreatment, during which it says 156 members of Catholic clergy abused at least 600 children, CNN reports. From the 1940s through 2002, the report says, they “engaged in horrific and repeated abuse of the most vulnerable children in their communities while Archdiocese leadership looked the other way.” At a news conference, Anthony Brown pronounced Wednesday “a day of reckoning and a day of accounting.”

The investigation found that one deacon admitted abusing more than 100 children, the Baltimore Sun reports. Even after the Rev. John Joseph Mike pleaded guilty to abusing a boy, he was assigned to a parish in Clarksville. A victim wrote in his diary that Mike tied him up, suspended him from a basketball backboard in the parish gym, and whipped him 150 times. Hundreds of abuse survivors were interviewed for the investigation; the state report called the scope of the abuse “astonishing.” Brown met with advocates and survivors Wednesday to hear their accounts. “What was consistent throughout the stories was the absolute authority and power these abusive priests and the church leadership held over survivors, their families and their communities,” he said.

In many cases, the report says, the archdiocese knew of the abusers but did little to stop them. They often were transferred to new jobs, even after admitting to abuse, where they mistreated more children. When looking into abuse, the report said, police, prosecutors, and local news media often treated church leaders with deference. The attorney general said many of the abusers have since died or can’t be prosecuted because of statutes of limitations. “While it may be too late for the survivors to see criminal justice served, we hope that exposing the archdiocese’s transgressions to the fullest extent possible will bring some measure of accountability and perhaps encourage others to come forward,” Brown said.

When will the church start making these perverts pay for the crimes?

After all these religious types are sexual predators….plain and simple.

Warning:  Keep your children away from youth ministers.

Happy Easter

Enjoy your day….be well and be safe.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Your IST Saturday News Dump

The Easter weekend begins and there are a couple of stories in the news that deserve further scrutiny from my mentally superior readers.

My regular readers know that I am a canine person.   MoMo my Coon Hound is e4 years old and I am too old to ruff house with her so Sue and I adopted a 7 month old Jack Russel as a playmate….that plan worked wonderfully….the ad world needs to replace the “Energizer Bunny” with a Jack Russell….there is more energy in a 7 month old than the “Bunny” could ever possibly muster.

Sorry I got off subject….I recently read an article about the dogs around Chernobyl……

New research has studied hundreds of the free-wheeling dogs that roam the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and found that exposure to radiation may have made them genetically distinct from other dogs elsewhere in the world.

Following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on April 26, 1986, around 120,000 people living in the surrounding area and the nearby city of Pripyat were forced to evacuate and abandon their homes. This included many pet dogs who, against all odds, managed to establish a sturdy population that still lives in the irradiated land that surrounds the decaying power plant. 

In a new study, scientists looked to gain a deeper understanding of the unusual dog populations living around Chernobyl in light of the harsh environmental contamination that many are exposed to on a daily basis. 

With the help of blood samples collected from the stray animals between 2017 and 2019, they genetically analyzed 302 dogs from populations living within the power plant itself, as well as those 15 to 45 kilometers (9.3 to 27.9 miles) from the disaster site. 

https://www.iflscience.com/dogs-of-chernobyl-are-now-genetically-different-to-others-in-the-world-67810

Are Genes, brain characteristics and intelligence connected?

I am glad you asked.

Intelligence is partly heritable. There are studies that show that certain genetic variations are linked to better performance in intelligence tests. Other studies show that a variety of brain characteristics, such as network efficiency, are related to intelligence. For the first time, researchers have now studied all three parameters—genes, different brain characteristics and behavior—simultaneously. Using gene analyses, magnetic resonance imaging and intelligence tests, the team demonstrated which brain characteristics form the link between genes and behavior.

The results are described by a team around Dorothea Metzen from the Department of Biopsychology at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and Dr. Erhan Genç, formerly at Ruhr University, now at the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors in Dortmund (IfADo), in the journal Human Brain Mapping.

In addition to the IfADo and various institutions of Ruhr University, the Humboldt-Universität Berlin, the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, the Medical School Hamburg and the University of Luxembourg were involved. At Ruhr University, the biopsychology, and genetic psychology teams cooperated.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-genes-brain-characteristics-intelligence.html

We have a new epidemic sweeping the country….the epidemic of banning books….

Librarians from across the United States released a report showing that pro-censorship groups’ efforts to ban books with LGBTQ+ themes and stories about people of color have driven an unprecedented rise in the number of book challenges, with right-wing organizers pushing library workers to remove works ranging from the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale to children’s books about foods enjoyed in different cultures.

According to the American Library Association (ALA), a record-breaking 2,571 unique titles were challenged in 2022, a 38% increase from the previous year.

The organization recorded 1,269 demands to censor books from various groups and individuals, compared to 729 challenges counted in 2021.

“Each attempt to ban a book by one of these groups represents a direct attack on every person’s constitutionally protected right to freely choose what books to read and what ideas to explore,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. “The choice of what to read must be left to the reader or, in the case of children, to parents. That choice does not belong to self-appointed book police.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/ala-banned-books

Kansas has passed a bill that proves (To me) that the lawmakers are “perverts”…..

Kansas’s GOP is advancing one of the country’s most shocking anti-transgender bills to date.

As Newsweek reported, the state legislature has passed HB 2238, which bans trans athletes from participating on school and college sports teams that align with their gender identity. When asked in a previous legislative session how the bill would be enforced, one of its proponents suggested a mandatory “sports physical,” which would include an inspection of an athlete’s genitals to prove their gender.

Yes, you read that correctly: Anti-trans lawmakers want to subject school-age children to invasive genital exams. It’s even more ludicrous considering there are only three openly trans athletes playing on school sports teams in the entire state.

HB 2238 was previously vetoed by Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, earlier this month. However, the legislature was able to override Kelly’s rejection with a vote. The legislation will now take effect on July 1.

https://www.sheknows.com/health-and-wellness/articles/2748099/kansas-anti-transgender-sports-bill-genital-exams/

Seriously?  Strangers will be able to examine kids genitalia…..and that sounds okay for you?

Like I said “PERVERTS”!

Finally….I watch the happenings in my state of Mississippi and once again we made the top of a list…the most stressed state…..

Need to squeeze one of those stress balls more than you used to? It could have something to do with where you live. WalletHub looked at all 50 states to see which ones were the most afflicted by anxiety and tension, examining more than three dozen metrics across four main categories: stress related to work, family, money, and health and safety. Everything from median income and the average number of hours worked to the amount of sleep people get and separation and divorce rates were taken into account, with Mississippi emerging as the most stressed state in the nation.

Most Stressed

  1. Mississippi (No. 1 in “Money-Related Stress” category)
  2. Louisiana
  3. New Mexico (No. 1 in “Family-Related Stress” category)
  4. West Virginia
  5. Nevada
  6. Arkansas (No. 1 in “Health and Safety-Related Stress” category)
  7. Alabama
  8. Kentucky
  9. Texas
  10. Oklahoma

That is the best I can do on this Saturday…..Please enjoy your Easter weekend….be well and be safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Eggs-actly What We Need

Awhile back we were hit in the pocket book by the rapid rise of egg prices….the excuse for the price increases was that because of avian flu many egg layers had to be killed.

Of course I felt I needed to inject my humble opinion on the price of eggs….read it here…

Is It Price Gouging?

Now there is a wave of dissent against big ag…..

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders this weekend renewed his call to break up agricultural monopolies after the nation’s largest egg producer reported that its quarterly profits soared more than 700%.

Cal-Maine Foods, which controls about 20% of the U.S. egg market, announced last week that its revenue for the quarter ending February 25 rose 109% to $997.5 million, while profit for the same period skyrocketed 718% to $323.2 million.

In a statement, Cal-Maine president and CEO Sherman Miller attributed the company’s soaring profits to “the ongoing epidemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza which has significantly reduced the nation’s egg-laying capacity.”

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, “U.S. egg inventories were 29% lower in the final week of December 2022 than at the beginning of the year,” while “more than 43 million egg-laying hens were lost to the disease itself or to depopulation since the outbreak began in February 2022.”

Sanders (I-Vt.)—who took on agricultural monopolies while campaigning for president in 2016 and 2020—questioned Cal-Maine’s narrative in a tweet arguing that “we must break up Big Ag and enact a windfall profits tax.”

Sanders wasn’t the only congressional critic of Cal-Maine’s latest profits.

“While working families paid record prices for eggs, Cal-Maine raked over 700% more in profits—without reporting a single case of avian flu,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted on Thursday. “We need to crack down on corporate price gouging to provide Americans with relief at the grocery store.”

Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), who is running for U.S. Senate, wrote on Twitter last week that “corporate greed is driving inflation.”

“We need more competition to drive down prices,” she added. “In the meantime, I’m demanding answers from Cal-Maine directly.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/why-are-egg-prices-so-high

Granted the prices have come down a bit but they are still high and I will back Bernie on his crusade.

This is an all too familiar situation…price gouging that few ever pay a price for screwing the public.

I will watch to see how quick this investigation is thrown into the dust bin.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Thomas: Corroding Public Trust

For years I have been writing about Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, for years and the antics of his wife and her endorsements of far right ideas.

Just yesterday a more damning report of Thomas and his billionaire benefactor……

Clarence Thomas has a very, very rich friend. This friend, billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow, has for two decades let the Supreme Court justice and his wife travel around the world to exotic locales at his expense, reports ProPublica. The story by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski notes that Thomas has never reported these vacation flights on financial disclosures, which “appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress, and federal officials to disclose most gifts.” The ethics law experts they interview also say Thomas should have reported his multiple trips on Crow’s superyacht. However, the legalities are murky because the story also points out that the Supreme Court “is left almost entirely to police itself” on such matters. Regardless, “the extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history” of the court, per the story.

“When a justice’s lifestyle is being subsidized by the rich and famous, it absolutely corrodes public trust,” says Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer who has served in the administrations of both parties. “Quite frankly, it makes my heart sink.” Crow tells the outlet the two never discuss cases, and the story makes clear that Thomas has never ruled on a case in which Crow’s company was involved. However, the court does hear cases that affect the real estate industry in general, and Thomas meets other prominent conservatives and business executives on the trips. The vacations—including one to Indonesia in 2019 that would have cost Thomas about $500,000 had he paid himself— appear to stand in contrast to comments the justice once made in a documentary (financed by Crow) about how he likes to travel. “I prefer the RV parks,” he said. “I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer that.”

Read the full story.

Let’s look at this situation a bit deeper….

either Clarence Thomas himself nor the Supreme Court has responded to ProPublica’s report detailing how the justice has received lavish vacations and gifts from a prominent GOP donor for 20 years without disclosing them. Democrats, on the other hand, have plenty to stay about Thomas’ relationship with real estate magnate Harlan Crow:

  • AOC: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Thomas to be impeached. “This is beyond party or partisanship. This degree of corruption is shocking—almost cartoonish,” she wrote. Attached to the tweet is an image from the story, a painting (based on a real-life photo) of Thomas at Crow’s Adirondack resort smoking a cigar while with Crow with three other prominent conservatives.
  • Durbin: Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin said his panel “will act” in the wake of the report, per the Hill. “The highest court in the land shouldn’t have the lowest ethical standards,” he said in a statement. “Today’s Pro Publica report reveals that Justice Thomas has for years accepted luxury travel on private yachts and jets and a litany of other gifts that he failed to disclose. This behavior is simply inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any public servant, let alone a Justice on the Supreme Court.”
  • Sen. Whitehouse: “This cries out for the kind of independent investigation that the Supreme Court—and only the Supreme Court, across the entire government—refuses to perform,” wrote Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who sits on the Judiciary Committee.
  • Others: Semafor rounds up the reaction of other angry Democrats here.
  • The rules: Here is how the AP lays things out: Supreme Court justices must file an annual financial disclosure report listing gifts they have received, and it’s unclear why Thomas failed to do so. Under a judiciary policy guide seen by the AP, “food, lodging or entertainment received as ‘personal hospitality of any individual’ does not need to be reported if it is at the personal residence of that individual or their family. That said, the exception to reporting is not supposed to cover ‘transportation that substitutes for commercial transportation’ and properties owned by an entity.” Thomas traveled on Crow’s superyacht and on his private aircraft. As ProPublica notes, the Supreme Court largely polices itself on such matters, something critics say must change.
  • Crow’s statement: ProPublica has provided Crow’s full statement, in which he says nothing improper transpired. He said he has extended “hospitality” to the Thomases “over the years” but that the couple “never asked for any of this hospitality.” He said they did not discuss matters before the court. “We have never asked about a pending or lower court case, and Justice Thomas has never discussed one, and we have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue,” Crow said. “More generally, I am unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence Justice Thomas on any case, and I would never invite anyone who I believe had any intention of doing that. These are gatherings of friends.”

This is just another nail in the case for doing some reform…..these so-called ‘Associates” have had their hands out for decades which flies in the face of proper justice from the “referees” of our democracy.

Impeach and Reform Now!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

To Capture The Hearts And Minds

The whole country has fallen prey to the warmongering tools of the M-IC….it has wormed it’s way into Congress and even into our higher education….

I can attest to the power that the War Department has over higher education….I was head hunted in college to work for a think tank that was majorly funded by the War Department….I chose another route for my education….as an antiwar person I refused their offer for I would not work for a group that justified war of any type.

But the M-IC is heavily involved with higher education…..

Throughout history, most academics have been the witting or unwitting servants of power. Socrates was accused of failing to honor the gods of Athens and corrupting the youth with his ideas. He was canceled in the ultimate way: sentenced to die. Aristotle, by contrast, tutored the young Alexander the Great, future King of Macedonia, which at the time was occupying Athens. During the rebellion, Aristotle fled to save his skin.

Today, some academics refusing to toe the line are also threatened with death. Chicago University’s John Mearsheimer was placed on the US-funded Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation’s blacklist, where he and others, including myself, were accused of committing “informational terrorism” by expressing fact-based opinions about the war with Russia. At the same time that Ukrainian fascists were placing me on their list, a cabal of liberal staff at my military-funded institution, the University of Plymouth (UK), terminated my position without warning or right of reply.

If we look at the US imperial apparatus, we see that higher education plays a major role.

The Military-Intelligentsia Complex: How Higher Education Enables US Militarism

Then there is the fact that the M-IC wholly owns our do-nothing Congress (do nothing in the sense that the country goes to Hell while they enable war and denies help to the people of the country)

It’s important to note that the $842 billion proposed price tag for the Pentagon next year will only be the beginning of what taxpayers will be asked to shell out in the name of “defense.” If you add in nuclear weapons work at the Department of Energy and small amounts of military spending spread across other agencies, you’re already at a total military budget of $886 billion. And if last year is any guide, Congress will add tens of billions of dollars extra to that sum, while yet more billions will go for emergency aid to Ukraine to help it fend off Russia’s brutal invasion. In short, we’re talking about possible total spending of well over $950 billion on war and preparations for more of it — within striking distance, in other words, of the $1 trillion mark that hawkish officials and pundits could only dream about a few short years ago.

The ultimate driver of that enormous spending spree is a seldom-commented-upon strategy of global military overreach, including 750 U.S. military bases scattered on every continent except Antarctica, 170,000 troops stationed overseas, and counterterror operations in at least 85 — no, that is not a typo — countries (a count offered by Brown University’s Costs of War Project). Worse yet, the Biden administration only seems to be preparing for more of the same. Its National Defense Strategy, released late last year, manages to find the potential for conflict virtually everywhere on the planet and calls for preparations to win a war with Russia and/or China, fight Iran and North Korea, and continue to wage a global war on terror, which, in recent times, has been redubbed “countering violent extremism.” Think of such a strategic view of the world as the exact opposite of the “diplomacy first” approach touted by President Joe Biden and his team during his early months in office. Worse yet, it’s more likely to serve as a recipe for conflict than a blueprint for peace and security.

Congress Has Been Captured by the Arms Industry

All this just proves my point that Congress and the White House are owned by the defense industry….and that does not bode well for the poor or the needy in this country.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”