Month: October 2023

WTF Happened?

By now everyone has heard about the invasion of Southern Israel by Hamas….(if not then return to your lair under that rock)

How did the world’s best intel group miss the signals?

I have heard that said about the intel capabilities of the Israeli groups….so the question needs to be asked….how did these great intel groups miss this invasion?

As war unfolds in the Middle East following the unprecedented surprise attack on Israel by Hamas militants, one question is being asked repeatedly: How did Israeli intelligence—and that of its Western allies—have no idea this was coming? Some takes, which in many cases assume the form of further unanswered questions:

  • At CNN, Joshua Berlinger gives historical context: “It has been more than 17 years since an Israeli soldier was taken as a prisoner of war in an assault on Israeli territory. And Israel has not seen this kind of infiltration of military bases, towns and kibbutzim since town-by-town fighting in the 1948 war of independence. How could a terror group from one of the world’s poorest enclaves manage to launch such a devastating attack?”
  • At Politico, Jamie Dettmer cites reports that more than 2,200 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza during the initial hours of the attack; planning is thought to have taken months or even years. “Hamas would have used its vast network of tunnels that link the enclave to Egypt, but how did it smuggle in the materials needed for such a huge attack without Israel catching wind of the traffic? And how did Israeli intelligence fail to notice Hamas was making and assembling thousands of home-grown Qassam rockets?”
  • Writing for the Times of Israel, Jacob Dallal suspects “the disunity in Israel created by the legislative overhaul weakened Israel’s deterrence and likely played a role in Hamas’ calculation to attack. Separately, talks of peace with Saudi Arabia may also have put pressure on Hamas and the axis of evil led by Iran to launch war in an effort to torpedo normalization that would have left them isolated in the Arab and Muslim world.” (A rep for Hamas told the BBC Iran provided support for the attack.)
  • At the Wall Street Journal, Dion Nissenbaum writes that “recent Israeli intelligence assessments of Hamas” got it wrong, believing “the militant group had shifted its focus to trying to stoke violence in the West Bank and that it was looking to avoid launching major attacks from Gaza in an effort to avoid the kinds of punishing Israeli military responses that have devastated the isolated area in the past.”
  • Nissenbaum spoke with retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who said, “I’m confident we [the US] had no intel.” At the Atlantic, Gal Beckerman digs into that line of thinking, pointing out that just 9 days ago, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades. … Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. But the amount of time I have to spend on crisis and conflict in the Middle East today, compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11, is significantly reduced.”

Somebody has got some explaining to do.   Boy would I love to be a fly on the wall at that meeting.

Stay Tuned!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Joints, Blunts And Spliffs (Oh My)

Almost every state has some sort of legalization of marijuana going on and since it is a Sunday and a good chance for IST to be an FYI blog for the day I would like to point out the differences on the several uses of the weed.

This is basically the terminology used….

Even though cannabis has a multi-millennia history as a plant used for religion, wellness, and recreation, humans eventually had to mask its existence as prohibition swept the globe—not just the United States. Slang, nicknames, and wordplay have been a part of extralegal activity as long as we’ve had laws.

We can thank slang terms for helping to keep the passion of the plant alive, but let’s also be honest: Sometimes coded language can be confusing—especially for newer consumers.

Smoking cannabis works just like tobacco—wrapped up in something else that’s smokeable, or consumed in one of the traditional styles of its indigenous stewards, in a pipe-type format. Some choose one over the other, but in many cultures and regions, people mix the two, which can be a surprise for someone not expecting either straight weed or the adrenaline hit of even just a few flecks of tobacco mixed in.

Wrapped-up and smokable cannabis has many names: joint, blunt, spliff, preroll, bone, stick, roach, cannagar, and others, to name a few. Some of these terms even have different meanings in different regions of the world, so what’s a smoker to do when they’re not sure?

Joints can be pleasurable and fun for the smoker, granting a social, shareable ticket to a delightful buzz, but what’s inside them? Straight-up weed, for the most part. Rolled or stuffed into pre-made cones, joints are among the top methods of consumption.

https://lifehacker.com/the-differences-between-joints-blunts-and-spliffs-1850811382

Just a little fun on this Sunday…..

Enjoy your day and as always….Be well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

IST Saturday News Dump–07Oct23

The First new dump of October and boy is it uninteresting.

Trump said something…..Biden promised something…..a wall is a wall….House turned into a bigger circus than it was a week ago…..and Israel is doing what it does best….killing Palestinians.

Onward.

First let me begin with a thought….how do you get one of those grants to study stuff?

MIT got a grant to study the Oreo cookie…..

Your favorite cookie now has a new field of science dedicated to it: Oreology. This novel field of science attempts to understand the flow and fracture of the iconic Oreo cookie to find the best eating experience, including whether it’s actually possible to separate the two sides of the cookie sandwich with an equal amount of creme filling on each. In a study published in April 2022, in the journal American Institute of Physics, a group of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology dug deep into the probability of achieving an equal creme ratio in an Oreo when twisting it open.

Speaking to VICE, study author Crystal Owens—a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering at MIT—explained what inspired her to embark on this journey. “I was personally motivated by a desire to solve a challenge that had puzzled me as a child: how to open an Oreo and get creme evenly arranged on both wafers?” Owens shared. “I preferred the taste of the cookies with the creme exposed. If I got a bite of wafer alone it was too dry for me, and if I dunked it in milk the wafer would fall apart too fast.”

https://scoop.upworthy.com/mit-researchers-investigating-whether-oreo-creme-can-be-evenly-split-568606-568606-568606-568606

Keeping with the food meme….

In a recent randomized, controlled human study, consuming grapes for 16 weeks improved key markers of eye health in older adults. The study, published in Food & Function looked at the impact of regular consumption of grapes on macular pigment accumulation and other biomarkers of eye health. This is the first human study on this subject, and the results reinforce earlier, preliminary studies where consuming grapes was found to protect retinal structure and function.

Science has shown that an aging population has a higher risk of eye disease and vision problems. Key risk factors for eye disease include oxidative stress and high levels of ocular advanced glycation end products (AGEs). AGEs may contribute to many eye diseases by damaging the vascular components of the retina, impairing cellular function, and causing oxidative stress.

Dietary antioxidants can decrease and inhibit the formation of AGEs, with possible beneficial effects on the retina, such as an improvement in Macular Pigment Optical Density (MPOD). Grapes are a natural source of antioxidants and other polyphenols.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-10-grape-consumption-benefit-eye-health.html

Does wine count?

Do you enjoy singing in the shower?

Admit it: You’ve sung in the shower. Maybe it was a whispery hum, a pensive warble, a sonorous croon, or a ragged, out-of-tune belt, but you’ve definitely sung in the shower. Everyone’s got their favorite shower song, probably something kept safe by a shower’s solitude, or that showcases what you swear are overlooked skills. Some might opt for a Taylor Swift bop, others might roar their best bestial metal growl, while the truly daring might try something like Puccini’s immense and grand “Nessun dorma” aria from the opera “Turandot.” But no matter what, most people are certain — 100% — that their shower singing is absolutely, totally, completely awesome.

Well, we’ve got good news and bad news. The good news: Your voice really does sound better in the shower. The bad news: Your voice doesn’t sound better in the shower because you’re a better singer in the shower. You’ve got the exact same voice inside and outside of a wet, warm, and cozy environment. The difference rests in the environment itself, which is typically boxy, contained, and full of hard surfaces like tiles. As Elite Daily explains, this kind of room is great for one very specific vocal effect: reverb. For audiophiles in the house, reverb is an easy way to make a voice sound better when recording that isn’t cheating, aka autotune. For everyone else, it’s a kind of echo attached to a vocal line that makes a voice sound fuller, more resonant, and less out of tune.

Read More: https://www.grunge.com/1409533/scientific-reason-you-think-your-singing-sounds-better-in-shower/

When you get a cold does it seem to last forever?

There maybe a reason.

As far as acute respiratory infections go, lingering symptoms aren’t just for COVID-19, researchers have found. “Long colds” and their symptoms can last more than four weeks, according to a study published Friday in the Lancet‘s EClinicalMedicine journal. “Our findings may chime with the experience of people who have struggled with prolonged symptoms after having a respiratory infection despite testing negative for COVID-19 on a nose or throat swab,” said Adrian Martineau, a clinical professor at Queen Mary University of London, where the research was conducted.

The findings may mean that non-COVID acute respiratory infections such as colds, influenza, and pneumonia can have long-lasting health effects that haven’t been recognized, the Guardian reports. Researchers haven’t seen indications that the effects are as severe as those of long COVID, but the infections caused prolonged symptoms at the same rate—22%. Certain typical long COVID issues involving taste and smell, for example, were less common with long colds than with long COVID, per NBC News. The severity of the infection is one indicator, but Martineau said further research may uncover other reasons the lasting symptoms affect some people more than others, enabling treatments to be developed.

Do you have one of those Medicare Advantage deals?  If so please read this carefully.

A report published Wednesday estimates that privately run, government-funded Medicare Advantage plans are overcharging U.S. taxpayers by up to $140 billion per year, a sum that could be used to completely eliminate Medicare Part B premiums or fully fund Medicare’s prescription drug program.

Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), an advocacy group that supports transitioning to a single-payer health insurance system, found that Medicare Advantage (MA) overbills the federal government by at least $88 billion per year, based on 2022 spending.

That lower-end estimate accounts for common MA practices such as upcoding, whereby diagnoses are piled onto a patient’s risk assessment to make them appear sicker than they actually are, resulting in a larger payment from the federal government.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/medicare-advantage-overcharging

If you had to guess the two states that have the most banned books…..which two would you pick….

In many ways, it’s amazing to think that books can be banned at all. But such is the power of the written word, personal expression, knowledge otherwise unknown, and connecting to others by reading their stories, whether true or fiction.

Like many other countries, the United States — a land where free speech is enshrined in its constitution — has banned books as long as it has printed them. Many such books have made their way to court, like James Joyce’s “Ulysses” in 1933. Many are also considered literary masterpieces, like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Color Purple,” “Beloved,” “The Catcher in the Rye,” “Of Mice and Men,” and hundreds of others, which can at least make banned authors take comfort in their company.

Every year, more books get banned as more books get published. Oftentimes, banned books target children and are considered unsuitable because of language or sexual content, which is admittedly far more understandable than banning adult books. As The Washington Post describes, this is especially the case for children’s picture books. But even for adults, Arizona State University cites numerous reasons why books don’t make their way into libraries or stores, including religious or racial reasons, depictions of “witchcraft,” certain sexual content, political biases, etc. And in the U.S., two states far outstrip the rest in terms of the number of banned books: Texas and Florida. Many of their banned books target children or tackle racial issues.

Read More: https://www.grunge.com/1412008/two-states-with-the-most-banned-books/

How many guessed the 2 states?  It was a no brainer.

There you have my ‘Dump’ for today…..please go out and enjoy your weekend.

As always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Will Republicans Ever Wake Up?

I mean they champion their own oppression….why?

That’s right I said ‘oppression’!

I recently ask this question of my fellow Mississippi voters….

Magical Time In Mississippi

(This had been sent to a magazine, Mississippi Today, but so far no word if they will run it)

Now I see people are starting that very question of GOP voters as well….

When will Republican voters figure out how badly they’re getting screwed by Republican politicians?

— Desperate workers struggle with soaring rents (courtesy of Republican-donor hedge funds);
— lack of healthcare (12 GOP-controlled states still refuse to expand Medicaid for under-$15,000/year workers) is literally killing Americans;
— wages have flatlined since Reagan declared war on workers in 1981 while the merely rich have become the morbidly rich;
— Americans pay 10 times as much as Canadians for some drugs because Republicans block any effort to bring competition to that marketplace;
— at the same time Trump and his GOP buddies in the House and Senate borrowed $1.7 trillion to fund a tax giveaway to his billionaire buddies, student debt passed the $1.7 trillion mark…

Yet somehow the “conservative” base voters never seem to figure it out. Why?

Most Republican voters don’t think much about it, but there are two very distinct layers to the GOP. It’s like a pyramid with a capstone at the very top.

The vast base of the pyramid are the white voters who Richard Nixon invited into the party after the Democrats embraced racial equality in 1964/1965 with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

https://www.rawstory.com/thom-hartmann-2665383048/

So basically it is a racial thing?

Well….yeah!

Have you ever thought about what will replace t6he smartphone?

Just as the land line and the flip phone were replaced so shall the smart phone….but with what?

If aliens landed on Earth today and reported back what humans looked like, they might describe a glowing rectangular appendage attached to one of our dangling limbs.

Virtually everyone carries a smartphone today — about 93 percent of Americans — which makes it the most used technology in our lives, second only to TVs at 96 percent. (More Gen Z and millennials have a phone than a television.)

ven more impressive, perhaps, is the fact these things didn’t exist until just over 15 years ago.

And no wonder: Your smartphone has evolved into a digital Swiss Army knife, of sorts. Along with serving as a critical messaging tool, it’s also your web browser, camera and camcorder, music player, gaming console, navigation unit, step counter, flashlight, personal AI assistant, and digital wallet.

Oh, and the damn thing makes calls, too.

So, what’s next now that smartphones are mature and every new iPhone or Android is just a slightly faster and better version of the same glass slab?

One prediction is more screens — and perhaps even closer to (or on) our faces, such as mixed reality headsets that fuse the real world around you with digital information superimposed on top of your view. The other school of thought is fewer screens, maybe with smaller wearable devices, à la Internet of Things (IoT), and an “ambient computing” approach in which technology seamlessly (and somewhat invisibly) integrates into our daily lives, allowing us to return to being present.

https://www.inverse.com/tech/next-in-tech-after-smartphones

Smart phones is as far as it will go for me.

 

America The Beautiful

The other day Sue and I went grocery shopping and parked next to us was a white Jeep (Junk Each and Every Part)….behind the wheel was an old fat white dude and on the bumper were an American flag and a Trump flag…..I thought how disgusting that was for in my mind that is like spitting on the symbol of our country.

That experience got me to thinking about our country and our government…..and yes our democracy.

Democracy is in trouble in the U.S. “Illiberal democracies” exist in Hungary, Poland and elsewhere. Why is democracy dying? How to save it? Harvard Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue that democracies don’t die from outside forces such as coup d’états. “We must prevent it [democracy] from dying within,” they write at the conclusion of How Democracies Die, their comparative analysis of how democracies have died and how to save them. “Since the end of the Cold War, most democratic breakdowns have been caused not by generals and soldiers but by elected governments themselves,” they warn, with obvious reference to Donald J. Trump and his past and potential future presidency. But what they miss is that “elected governments” were chosen by citizens. Despite all the brouhaha about Trump’s legal difficulties and his attacks on democratic institutions, Trump remains extremely popular among Republicans; he is neck-and-neck with President Biden in a potential 2024 contest.

So while a Democracy can die as a formal political system, democracies die because of a failing civic culture. In that sense, Levitsky and Ziblatt are wrong. Democracies don’t die because of elected governments; it is citizens who choose the elected governments. It is citizens who cause democracies to live or die.

75 million American citizens voted for Trump in 2020, and his popularity continues. Despite indictments – Trump faces 91 criminal charges across four cases – Trump dominates all Republican challengers by widening margins in national polls. A Quinnipiac University poll — conducted after Trump’s Aug. 1 federal indictment but before his indictment in Georgia — had Trump with a 39-point lead over Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination. Trump got support from 57% of Republican registered voters, DeSantis 18%. No other Republican candidate got more than 3% in the Quinnipiac poll.

In terms of a 2024 rematch of the 2020 presidential election between Trump and Biden, Trump trailed Biden by one percentage point in the latest Quinnipiac poll, 47 to 46 percent. A one percentage point difference is a small number between a sitting president and someone historically twice impeached and currently facing four major indictments.

As the indictments continue, Trump’s fundraising improves as well. He raised about $12 million in the first three months of this year. Seven days after the first indictment, he raised $13 million. As he quipped after one of his indictments: “I need one more indictment to ensure my election!” he joked.

Democracy, “democracy,” and Trump’s Faithful Followers

I wish I could be optimistic but all I see and read tends to the pessimistic side.

The divisions are looking insurmountable at this time….I know things can change but I think the biases, hatred and no concern for the rule of law will be our undoing.

But that is just me….if you have a different perspective then please share.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Paralysis Of American Politics

This poor country is in the death grip of political paralysis….one side offers ideas for moving the country forward and the other side is pulling the country into the past.

Nothing gets accomplished by our government other words and promises and lies….and it is both sides that play this hideous game….the more we try to move on the more we become stuck in the mud of political paralysis.

There’s an old saying, the more things change, the more they stay the same. But perhaps a more apt description of the modern-day United States might be the more things don’t change, the worse it gets.

That’s certainly true for wealth inequality. The average net worth of the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans was 15 times greater in 2022 than it was in 1982, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. Indeed, the richest one percent of Americans now owns more than half of all stock and mutual fund investments.

Meanwhile, the top five executives at the largest S&P 500 U.S. corporations held $8.9 billion in tax-deferred retirement accounts as of 2021. Hyatt Corporation’s chief executive held $91 million in his 401(k), while 36 percent of Hyatt employees had nothing in their accounts. Walmart’s CEO held more than $169 million in his retirement plan. Walmart employees? Nearly half had nothing in their 401(k)s.

That’s the American Dream in digest form, a paradise of wealth for the corporate elite but elusive prosperity for the many millions of working Americans who actually create that wealth. Welcome to the “rich” nation where nearly 25 percent of the population regularly experiences food insecurity, the ranks of reported homeless persons is over half a million, and close to 38 million people live in official poverty.

Along with the growth of poverty, since 2019 life expectancy in the United States has also been on the decline, registering the largest two-year drop in a century. The United States now fares worse in maternal, infant, and youth mortality rates compared to many other high-income nations. The poor public health response to the Covid-19 pandemic, lack of universal health care coverage, and a fragmented health system infrastructure are key factors driving this decline.

The Paralysis of Modern Politics: A Socialist Perspective

We have an election on the horizon and we have a chance to change the backward slide in the past.

Political ignorance will prevent any progress this time around (yet again).

Keep in mind that democracies die because of a failing civic culture.

And do we have a major failure going on!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

House GOP–Rudderless Ship–Day 2

“When you elect clowns….you get a circus”

Welcome to the Greatest Sh*t Show On Earth.

Two days into the historic move by the GOP to remove their man from the office of the Speaker of the House.

All this drama is making the MSM slobber like hungry sharks.

So what is going on in the House these days?

Kevin McCarthy has said he won’t run again for the coveted House speaker gavel, after being ousted in a historic 216-210 vote Tuesday thanks to a rebellion of far-right Republicans led by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who joined with all the House Democrats in booting McCarthy. Now, that unprecedented vote in the nation’s history—McCarthy is the first House speaker ever kicked out of the job—sends the chamber into “a period of unpredictability and paralysis,” notes the Washington Post. More analysis, and a glimpse at what may be coming down the pike:

  • No help from Dems: NPR lists some takeaways from Tuesday’s events, including that “the Democrats chose not to save McCarthy.” Time quotes some of them, including Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger. “I think he’s likely the most unprincipled person to ever be speaker of the House,” Spanberger said before the vote. “He’s disdainful, he lies about us, he lies about the process of governance. It’s not even a question of whether or not we should take any particular action.”
  • More Dems react: The New York Times, which describes a now “ungovernable GOP,” details how McCarthy failed to not only unite Republicans, but also how he “deeply alienated” lawmakers on the other side of the aisle. “This is someone who betrays his word on pretty much a daily basis,” California Rep. Adam Schiff says. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland adds, “This is a somber day for America as the chickens come home to roost for Kevin McCarthy.”
  • Temporary fill-in: The Washington Post dives deep into North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, who was appointed as speaker pro tempore after McCarthy was removed. The 10-term lawmaker, 47, has limited powers, though he opted Tuesday to use his new role as an opportunity to remove former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from her “hideaway” office at the Capitol.

Who’ll fill in for good: The New York Times notes there “isn’t a clear candidate in waiting,” though McHenry’s name does make the short list. Others being mentioned include Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, and New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the top woman in Republican House leadership. The AP also mentions Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, who heads up the House Judiciary Committee, and Oklahoma Rep. Kevin Hern, chair of the Republican Study Committee. Democrats, meanwhile, will almost certainly position House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as their choice for speaker.

  • Perception: So how does all this bode for Republicans heading into a big election year? Politico deems the GOP a “rudderless ship,” with one Republican lawmaker noting that what went down Tuesday was akin to “stepping on a rake.” “Asked how voters are viewing the party’s speakership debacle, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito [of West Virginia] offered a guess,” per the outlet. “‘Are you guys nuts?’ she said. ‘That’s what they are thinking.'”

  • A Failed state’: That’s how John Harris, also for Politico, frames the modern-day GOP, though he notes that McCarthy isn’t alone in the “optical illusion” of his speakership. “For a quarter century, every Republican to ascend to the speakership has descended from it with his standing diminished,” he writes. “It’s a line that travels from Newt Gingrich to Dennis Hastert to John Boehner to Paul Ryan to McCarthy.” Harris also asserts that “authority and order” Republicans have fallen into a state of “nihilism.”
  • Gingrich’s take: The 80-year-old, who served as GOP House speaker from 1995 until 1999, railed on the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, calling them “traitors” who made an “astonishingly destructive” decision and should “all be driven out of public life,” per the Daily Beast. Gingrich reserved special ire for Gaetz, who he says should be expelled for being “actively destructive to the conservative movement,” per an op-ed in the Washington Post. “Some behavior crosses the line,” Gingrich writes. “And when it does, there has to be consequences.”
  • Final word from McCarthy: In a tweet announcing he wouldn’t seek the gavel again, the former House speaker delivered a message to the nation. “I may have lost a vote today, but I fought for what I believe in—and I believe in America,” McCarthy wrote Tuesday night. “It has been an honor to serve.”

See what I mean….rudderless.

But not to worry one of the Trump faithful has thrown his hat into the ring….Rep. Gym Jordan of  Ohio….

The list of those officially seeking the gavel formerly held by Kevin McCarthy now has one name on it. Rep. Jim Jordan on Wednesday announced he’ll run to be the next speaker of the House. In a letter seeking his GOP colleagues’ support, Jordan described being “at a critical crossroad in our nation’s history. Now is the time for our Republican conference to come together to keep our promises to Americans. The problems we face are challenging, but they are not insurmountable. We can focus on the changes that improve the country and unite us in offering real solutions. But no matter what we do, we must do it together as a conference.”

Politico predicts the move will “prompt praise from House conservatives,” but that it will also likely pit him against Majority Leader Steve Scalise, “who is also considering a speakership bid and has worked to court conservatives.” Jordan is chair of the House Judiciary Committee, which has had Jordan heavily involved in the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. CNN reports speaker candidates are expected to speak Tuesday, meaning a House-wide speaker vote could come as soon as Wednesday.

Think about this a Trump faithful, Gaetz, brought this whole thing down and a Trump faithful, Jordan, is the first to run for the nominating table…..is it possible that Trump could have somehow orchestrated this whole thing?

Just wondering.

As I was writing this word has come down that there is another big mouth wanting the job of Speaker…..

Rep. Jim Jordan was the first Republican to announce a bid to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker Wednesday, but he wasn’t in the race alone for long. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise announced his bid hours after Jordan, telling fellow lawmakers, “We all need to come together and pull in the same direction to get the country back on the right track.” The 57-year-old, who has been undergoing treatment for blood cancer, is seen as more conservative than McCarthy, reports Reuters. Republicans are expected to hear from candidates Tuesday and vote the next day.

Then there is the threat of Trump being put up for the job…..(shivers running up my spine)

Two Republicans announced their bids to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker Wednesday, and a third appeared to rule himself out. Donald Trump, speaking to reporters outside the Manhattan courthouse where his civil fraud trial is taking place, said he is “totally” focused on his presidential campaign, the Hill reports. “If I can help them during the process, I would do it,” he said of House Republicans. “But we have some great people in the Republican Party that could do a great job as speaker.”

The speaker of the House does not need to be a member of the House, and Republican lawmakers including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have suggested bringing Trump in, the AP reports. Asked about Greene’s support, Trump said: “I think she’s a wonderful woman. I’ll do whatever it is to help, but my focus, my total focus is being president and, quite honestly, making America great again.”

A silly notion….why would he want the number 3 job when he can have it all?

Watch for Ukraine to play heavy in the vote.

I think Ukraine will be the deciding factor on who gets the gig as Speaker.

One of the Republicans who announced he’s running for speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), has said he’s opposed to additional funding for Ukraine. Jordan has voted against aid for Ukraine going back to the $40 billion package in May 2022, the only stand-alone Ukraine aid bill.

Because of his position, Jordan has earned a grade of “F” from Republicans for Ukraine, a neoconservative project that was launched to rally GOP support for the proxy war. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) has also announced his intention to run for speaker. Scalise has supported arming Ukraine, earning himself a grade of “B” from Republicans for Ukraine.

I love this stuff….as a political historian this situation is pure gold.

Anticipation!

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Two Parties Are What Is Wrong

As we close in on the 2024 election I want to give as much information and yes, opinions, on the trends and stumbles that society may expect.

There’s no shortage of plausible explanations for why U.S. politics has become so polarized, but many of these theories describe impossible-to-reverse trends that have played out across developed democracies, like the rise of social media and the increased political salience of globalization, immigration and urban-rural cultural divides. All of these trends are important contributors, for sure. But if they alone are driving illiberalism and hyper-partisanship in the U.S., then the problem should be consistent across all western democracies. But it isn’t.

What’s happening in the U.S. is distinct in four respects.

First, the animosity that people feel toward opposing parties relative to their own (what’s known as affective polarization in political science) has grown considerably over the last four decades. According to a June 2020 paper from economists Levi Boxell, Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, the increase in affective polarization in the U.S. is the greatest compared to that of eight other OECD countries over the same time period.

Second, the change in how Americans feel about their party and other parties has been driven by a dramatic decrease in positive feelings toward the opposing party. In most (though not all) of the nine democracies, voters have become a little less enthusiastic about their own parties. But only in the U.S. have partisans turned decidedly against the other party.

Third, more so than in other countries, Americans report feeling isolated from their own party. When asked to identify both themselves and their favored party on an 11-point scale in a 2012 survey, Americans identified themselves as, on average, 1.3 units away from the party that comes closest to espousing their beliefs, according to an analysis from political scientist Jonathan Rodden. This gap is the highest difference Rodden found among respondents in comparable democracies. This isolation matters, too, because it means that parties can’t count on enthusiasm from their own voters — instead, they must demonize the political opposition in order to mobilize voters.

Fourth, and perhaps most significant, in the U.S., one party has become a major illiberal outlier: The Republican Party. Scholars at the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden have been monitoring and evaluating political parties around the world. And one big area of study for them is liberalism and illiberalism, or a party’s commitment (or lack thereof) to democratic norms prior to elections. And as the chart below shows, of conservative, right-leaning parties across the globe, the Republican Party has more in common with the dangerously authoritarian parties in Hungary and Turkey than it does with conservative parties in the U.K. or Germany.

(fivethirtyeight.com)

All that aside what is needed in America is a third choice….but before all the nay-sayers jump in….read on….

A study shows the American voter is dissatisfied with our choices for governing elites….time for a third party?

A study by the Pew Research center found that 61% of U.S. adults today find the Republican Party unfavorable, while 57% shared the same sentiment toward the Democratic Party. About a quarter of Americans say they have an unfavorable view of both major parties, a considerable jump from just 6% in 1994.

Some experts suggest that the two-party system could be blamed for the political polarization we find in America.

“It’s a two-party system and you have to pick one side or the other,” said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at New America. “If we are in a situation in which one party believes that the other party winning the election would be so disastrous to the country that maybe we should intervene to prevent the other party from winning, then you don’t really have a democracy anymore.”

More than half — 56% of Americans — believe the current parties do such a poor job that a third major party is needed, according to a survey by Gallup. Indeed, minor parties are seeing an uptick in support and interest in recent years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/03/increasingly-dissatisfied-voters-favor-getting-a-third-party-choice.html

Seriously?  The voter does not have the guts to vote third party.

Let’s be honest….the choices are pretty slim for the election of 2024….the GOP is choke full of batcrap crazies and the Dems are as useless as tits on a flashlight…..so what to do with your vote?

A presidential candidate from 2020 Andrew Yang and a bunch of disgruntle GOPers have come up with the idea that things are so bad for the two parties that another centrist big business party would be an excellent idea (a proposition that I do not agree with)…..

I made my thoughts known when the announcement was made….

A New Third Party (Here We Go Again)

I do not think this has a chance……and I am not alone…..

Dozens of former Republicans and Democrats have joined forces to launch Forward, a new centrist political party. Its founders include Andrew Yang, the onetime Democratic presidential candidate; Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey; and David Jolly, a former GOP congressman from Florida.

“Political extremism is ripping our nation apart, and the two major parties have failed to remedy the crisis,” Yang, Whitman, and Jolly wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.In the last two years, there has been a “spike in political intimidation,” they said, and “if nothing is done, the United States will not reach its 300th birthday this century in recognizable form.” The op-ed cited a 2021 Gallup poll that found half of U.S. adults identify as independent and 62 percent believe the Democratic and Republican parties “do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed.”

“That’s why we are coming together — Democrats, Republicans, and independents — to build a new, unifying political party for the majority of Americans who want to move past divisiveness and reject extremism,” Yang, Whitman, and Jolly wrote. They didn’t share any of Forward’s policies. On the party’s website, it lists its core principles as “free people,” “thriving communities,” and “vibrant democracy,” and says it supports ranked-choice voting, nonpartisan primaries, and independent redistricting commissions.

https://theweek.com/third-parties/1015513/does-americas-newest-political-party-stand-a-chance

This will just be a redo of the Dem Party of 1992….and we are living with the damage the Dems did in the 1990s onward…..we do not need another crappy future…..

Remember this–If you elect clowns, you get a circus and so fat the voter has helped create the world’s largest sh*t show

We need a third party but not a carbon copy of the two we have now….we need a party that is truly committed to progress….and that is something I will not see in the lifetime I have left.

I will re-post this when we get into the meat of the next election.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

‘Good Time Charlie’ Gets The Boot!

For the very first time in our history the Speaker of the House of Representatives has been ousted from his position.

The House on Tuesday voted to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as speaker, marking the first time in history a House speaker was removed through a resolution to oust them.

The effort was launched on Monday by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who introduced a privileged resolution to vacate the speakership after accusing McCarthy of cutting a secret side deal with President Biden on Ukraine aid.

Since a handful of Republicans supported Gaetz’s maneuver, McCarthy needed some Democrats to support him to survive, but none did. The final vote was 216-210, with eight Republicans and every Democrat voting to remove McCarthy.

There’s no clear nominee to replace McCarthy, but in the meantime, according to CNN, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) will serve as interim speaker.

Gaetz had long been threatening to launch an effort to remove McCarthy. His decision to go through with the motion came in response to the stopgap funding bill that was passed by the House on Saturday and signed by President Biden to avert a government shutdown.

The House stripped billions in Ukraine aid from the stopgap funding bill, but Gaetz said McCarthy must have cut a secret deal since Democrats supported it anyway. President Biden said Sunday that he expected McCarthy to “keep his word and secure the passage of support for Ukraine at this critical moment.”

While the majority of Congress still supports the proxy war in Ukraine, the fact that staunch opponents of the policy like Gaetz have power over House leadership is significant. Opposition to proxy war among Republicans in Congress will likely continue to grow as a recent CNN poll found 71% of Republican voters don’t want more spending on Ukraine to be authorized.

(antiwar.com)

We are witnessing history in the making and a look into the future as the 2024 election approaches.

How will this effect you?

How will the Dems react since they would not support McCarthy’s speakership?

Will this change anything with an election in the shadows?

Will we get another Newt that will bring further chaos to the government?  (For those too young to know what ‘Newt’ means then Google Newt Gingrich)

There is even a report that some GOPers are calling for Trump to be named as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

That should send shivers up one’s spine.

Just asking.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is The Media Truly Liberal?

To answer my own question….Not from where I sit….the MSM is anything but liberal.

But like I said….that is just my take on the question.

But let’s look a little deeper.

Conservative commentators and politicians attack the reliability of the “media” since they believe the liberals control it. They often point to television and some social media like Facebook. Except for the New York Times and Washington Post, they have avoided attacking other printed media and radio.

While the liberals do not dismiss all media as being too conservative, they argue that big corporations’ concentration of media ownership limits the breadth of opinion and promotes conservative views, such as promoting a smaller federal government.

Liberals don’t campaign for big government. Still, they support government intervention in regulating the marketplace and social behavior. The first is for maintaining a fair marketplace, and the latter protects citizens from being denied exercising their constitutional rights. Those efforts result in a larger central government, which big businesses usually oppose.

Support for smaller government was measured during and after President George H.W. Bush’s term. Gallup polling since 1992 asked respondents to respond to: “The Government should do more to solve our country’s problems.” And “The government is trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses.”

Only twice in the 29 years from ’92 to ’21 has the response reached 50 percent or higher that the government “Should do more.” Meanwhile, in 24 of those years, half or more responded that the government “was doing too much.”

Media significantly shapes cultural values and promotes politics that help determine how the public perceives the government’s usefulness. Since conservative commentaries and Republican politicians champion small government as a core talking point, tracking their appearance and support in the media indicates how much their message may influence public opinion.

Is the Media Really Liberal?

The whole ‘liberal media’ is just the conservs trying to blame someone for their own failings.

Smaller government is just nothing but smoke….always has been and will always be….just smoke.

So I ask again….is the media truly liberal?

Let me have your opinion on this massive mound of manure.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”