Author: lobotero

I have been a radical, labor organizer, writer, lecturer, teacher, analyst, political activist , convention delegate and I still have my sanity--who knew?

What Happened To Civics Education?

I have been bitching here on IST about the ignorance the American people have on the subject of civics.

Everyday the news is packed full of incidences that illustrate the extent of the ignorance we have on the subject.

This article touches on this problem and some possible solutions.

The week of March 6 is Civic Learning Week, spearheaded by the civic-education network iCivics and marked by a gathering of civics educators and organizations in Washington, D.C. Not only is civics education a worthy cause — it is a critical one. Our nation depends on thoughtful and active citizenship for its very existence.

In a time when so much of our public discourse focuses on what divides us, it is worth remembering that we are all a part of the American political tradition. Left, right, and center — we would all do well to reflect on the tradition that makes us shareholders in a great, diverse, and idealistic nation, and why we should each do our part to keep this tradition alive through civic education. As a self-governing people, we must promulgate and reinforce the central ideas of America at every level of education and in every community.

Yet we have neglected civic education for a generation or more.

First, the progressive movement of the early 20th century challenged traditional American concepts of self-government. Instead, progressives celebrated the administrative state as a solution to the increasing complexity of society’s problems. Rather than solving problems through representative democracy, progressive leaders delegated problems to bureaucracies, and so there arose a professional expert class of civil servants. The knowledge of governing increasingly became a matter for specialized expertise.

Second, in the wake of these progressive innovations, schools lumped much of what was once known as civics and history under the heading of “social studies.” In the classroom, current events and issues often became more important than a deep understanding of our institutions, history, and national creed.

And third, in our haste to make students economically competent, we often overlooked the need for competence in the work of citizenship. In recent years, science, technology, engineering, and math have crowded out other subjects, including civics and history.

How We Lost Our Civics Education — and How We Can Get It Back

I feel without a knowledge of civics our whole system of government is doomed….but that is just me.

30 years ago the stage was set in stone for this wave of stupid…..

“There is a religious war going on in this country,” declared Pat Buchanan at the Republican National Convention in August 1993.   In the impassioned, game-changing speech he added, “It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as was the Cold War itself, for this war is for the soul of America.”

With that speech, Buchanan launched the current round of the culture wars three decades ago. Today, white Christian conservatism has matured into a unified religious, political and social movement exercising power at both the federal and state levels.

And “the soul of America”?  This question is, once again, being fought over.  Among those battling over the definition of America in the 21st century is those who can best identified as the new Last Ditchers.

The New “Last Ditchers”

We need to be very vigil or our beloved system will become as the dodo….and without a good knowledge of civics can save us from ourselves.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

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“No Foul Play Suspected”

Those terms come from the ME office when a death is investigated.

Then there is the report from my home state of Mississippi….

On Oct. 2, a frantic Rasheem Carter called his mother and told her “three truckloads of white men” were chasing him. She told him to call the police, and when she didn’t hear from him again, she reported him missing. A month later, his body was found in a wooded area near Taylorsville, Mississippi, where he’d been working. It had been dismembered, with his head and other body parts severed, the Washington Post reports. The local sheriff initially said there was “no reason” to suspect foul play—but now, months later and after outcry from Carter’s family, he’s changing his tune. More from the coverage:

What happened: Carter was working in Taylorsville, about 100 miles away from his home in Fayette, Mississippi, on a short-term contracting job as he saved money to reopen his restaurant, which shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic. His mother says he fled the job in October after some sort of disagreement with at least one co-worker, NBC News reports. She says he mentioned multiple people from the job as possibly threatening him. The sheriff confirms there were “a couple of verbal altercations” between Carter and at least one colleague, but hasn’t revealed what they were about.

  • Not himself: Smith County Sheriff Joel Houston says everyone at that job has been interviewed. “They said [Carter’s] whole demeanor had changed. They weren’t sure what was going on,” he says. “They just said he kept to himself more. He usually joked around, and in the last week or so they weren’t able to do that.” The colleagues mentioned as possible threats were confirmed to have been at another job site almost 100 miles away when Carter was last seen alive.
  • Timeline: Carter did go to the police station after his last conversation with his mom, but Houston said last year that Carter did not report that he was in any sort of danger, and simply appeared to be in need of a ride back to his hotel. Carter was last spotted in the woods around 4:30pm on Oct. 2 in footage from a private landowner’s game camera, apparently alone.
  • Police theory: Houston says that “there’s no indication that someone killed him. The evidence we do have does coincide with what animals would do to a body.”
  • Family disagrees: But Carter’s family isn’t buying the idea that an animal is responsible for dismembering Carter. “There is nothing natural about this. What we have is a Mississippi lynching,” family attorney Benjamin Crump says, per the BBC. “This was a nefarious act. This was an evil act.” Carter’s mom says he was lucid when they spoke, not under the influence of any intoxicants, and that he had no history of mental health issues.
  • Sheriff’s current stance: On Tuesday, the day after a family press conference with Crump, Houston clarified that he has not ruled out the possibility Carter was murdered. “Nothing is being swept under the rug. There’s nothing to hide,” he said, adding that the investigation is ongoing and search warrants are in process.

This is not the only time this announcement was made over a death….

Just a little homespun news for my readers….get to know Mississippi.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Brokered Deal

The Middle East has been a ideological battle between the two major sects of Islam….the Sunni and the Shia….the major proponents of these sects are Saudi Arabia and Iran….these divisions have lead to some bloody confrontations like the war between Iraq and Iran in the 80s.

Finally a deal has been brokered between the two…..and it was not through the work of the US to find some sort of peace for the benefit of the region.

US arch nemesis was the culprit….China.

The agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran to resume relations, a deal mediated by China, appears to be a watershed moment in the Middle East, realigning alliances that have dominated diplomacy for decades while—at least for now—leaving the US out. The pact indicates that nations in the region are willing to move beyond rivalries that seemed permanent to find new solutions without the help of the Americans, who have been involved in peace negotiations there for most of a century but now are more focused on Ukraine and Asia, per the Wall Street Journal.

Long a minor participant in Middle East issues, China has stepped in to fill the void, hosting negotiations in Beijing before announcing the agreement Friday. One analyst said there’s no denying the importance of China’s success, which eclipses President Biden’s efforts. “Yes, the United States could not have brokered such a deal right now with Iran specifically, since we have no relations,” Amy Hawthorne of the nonprofit Project on Middle East Democracy in Washington told the New York Times. “But in a larger sense, China’s prestigious accomplishment vaults it into a new league diplomatically and outshines anything the US has been able to achieve in the region since Biden came to office.”

Israel is left out, too, after lobbying Saudi Arabia; as the US decreases its involvement, allies have grown concerned about security guarantees made in the past, per the Journal. Other analysts—and Biden aides—caution against inflating the significance of the agreement, which, at bottom, promises to reopen the nations’ embassies shut since 2016. It’s a minor step, they say, toward easing tensions. Besides, “China doesn’t have the capacity to play a bigger security role in the region,” said Sanam Vakil of Chatham House, a think tank in London. But the deal does show China’s “potential to be an appealing alternative to Washington,” she said.

The final sentence of the report says it all.

This deal should have been brokered by the US but instead we let China get the upper hand…..but an incident in 1979 precludes the US from ever doing the right thing.

Is this agreement a big deal?  Yes it is.

Iran and Saudi Arabia concluded a deal Friday to restore normal diplomatic relations and reopen their embassies within two months. The agreement came at the end of a week of Chinese-brokered negotiations in Beijing, which brought an end to the rift between the two governments that has existed ever since Saudi Arabia broke off relations in 2016.

If the agreement holds, it will be an important step forward in regional diplomacy, and it may help in facilitating progress towards a more lasting truce in Yemen. The resumption of normal relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is the result of their recognizing that the earlier intense animosity between these countries was mutually undesirable. Restoring diplomatic ties is not a panacea for all regional tensions, but it should have a stabilizing effect that is very much needed as U.S.-Iranian tensions are on the rise. 

China’s mediation is an example of the constructive role that other major powers can sometimes have in the Middle East. It also shows how much more effective diplomacy can be when a major power has not ensnared itself in the region’s rivalries. China enjoys reasonably good relations with both governments, and that put it in a position to broker a deal that the U.S. likely could never have managed to get. As the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi observed, “By not taking sides, China has emerged as a player that can resolve disputes rather than merely sell weapons.”

Why the Iran-Saudi agreement to restore ties is so big

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–15Mar23

There is a global majority approaching….and it is not what you think.

The planet is becoming overweight (polite term for FAT) or obese…..

In a little more than a decade, obese people will be the majority around the world. More than half of the world’s population, or more than 4 billion people, will be overweight or obese by 2035, according to the World Obesity Federation, which is warning countries to act now to prevent “serious repercussions” at a cost of $4.3 trillion globally—or 3% of the global Gross Domestic Product. That’s “comparable to the economic damage wrought by Covid-19,” per the Guardian. It notes 38% of the world’s population is already overweight (with a body mass index of at least 25) or obese (BMI of 30 and up). About one in seven people are now obese, though that’s expected to rise to one in four by 2035.

A new report from the federation finds the fastest rising rates of obesity in children, with rates among boys and girls expected to double from 2020 figures, per the BBC. The expected rate among girls is slightly higher than boys at 125%, per the Guardian. That’s a “particularly worrying” finding, says Louise Baur, the federation’s president. She adds “governments and policymakers around the world need to do all they can to avoid passing health, social, and economic costs on to the younger generation” by assessing “the systems and root factors” that contribute to obesity, which is known to raise one’s risk of heart disease, cancer, and other ailments.

Nine of the 10 countries expected to experience the greatest increases in obesity by 2035 are low or lower-middle income nations in Africa and Asia—”often the least able to respond to obesity and its consequences,” according to the report. This is owing to a shift toward sedentary behavior, more highly-processed foods, weaker food control policies, and lacking health care services related to education and weight management. The federation—made up of health, scientific, research and campaign groups that work closely with global agencies—recommends taxes and restrictions on food marketing be used to push people away from high-fat, high-sugar foods. It also calls for healthier foods in schools.

Come on people!

Get some exercise and eat a better diet and all this can be avoided.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ukraine: How It All Began

I wrote this before and it was not popular basically because the MSM has not given this information to the gullible public…..so few bothered to see what lead to this situation in Ukraine.

How It All Began

So once again I will try to help people see what happened to make Russia make the move to invade….there is more to the events than just Putin wanting to re-invigorate the old USSR.

It all basically began in 1998 with Pres. Clinton…..

1. 1998 – Beginning of NATO expansion – Bill Clinton

Many prominent former US government officials, members of Congress, diplomats, and foreign policy experts have objected to this expansion. “We’ll be back on a hair-trigger,” said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, during the debates in the Senate. Moynihan continued: “We’re talking about nuclear war. It is a curiously ironic outcome that at the end of the Cold War we might face a nuclear Armageddon.”

Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware), while calling Moynihan “the single most erudite and informed person in the Senate,” said he disagreed with him, and pushed for NATO’s expansion.

2.  2004 – Abrogation of ABM treaty – George W. Bush

This is what Bush said in November 2001 following Putin’s support for the Afghan operation a month earlier:

“A lot of people never really dreamt that an American President and a Russian President could have established the friendship …. to establish a new spirit of cooperation and trust so that we can work together to make the world more peaceful….I brought him to my ranch because, as the good people in this part of the world know, that you only usually invite your friends into your house…. a new style of leader, a reformer, a man who loves his country as much as I love mine…. a man who is going to make a huge difference in making the world more peaceful, by working closely with the United States.”

What a spirit of sanity from a man who would oversee a disastrous two terms in office which included the war in Iraq and an abrogation of one of the most strategic anti-nuclear war treaties.

3.  2008 – Push to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO – George W. Bush again

As Professor John Mearshimer stated in New Yorker “I think all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand.”

4.  2014 – Western backed and US coordinated Coup in Ukraine sets up the cornerstone of the current crisis – overseen by the duo of Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland

After two decades of eastward NATO expansion, this crisis was triggered by the West’s attempt to replace the democratically-elected President Yanukovich and his administration who were against Ukraine joining NATO with the new anti-Russia team that will be for it.

5.  2015 – Minsk Peace Accords are supported by the UN Security Council but sabotaged by the US, EU, and Ukraine – Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the EU leadership.

As was discovered years later, the premise of the accords was designed as a dishonest fraud to buy time to arm Ukraine and prepare for the future war with Russia.

(antiwar.com)

Now that it has begun is support waning?  (According to my comments I say no it is not waning)

Recent public opinion surveys regarding the extent of domestic backing for Washington’s Ukraine policy provide a decidedly mixed picture. A majority of Americans still support the Biden administration’s efforts to assist Kyiv’s war effort through financial and military aid and the sharing of military intelligence information.

However, the levels are down even from polls taken in late 2022, and they are down substantially from the extremely high support levels that existed immediately following Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

American public opinion appears to be following the downward trajectory that marked previous U.S. war campaigns since World War II. However, this time the decline in support is taking place even though no US forces are directly involved in the fighting, much less have incurred casualties. The growth of war weariness barely one year into the Ukraine conflict should be a warning signal to the administration that public support for Washington’s policy may be very fragile.

Is Weakening Support for Ukraine War Following a Historical Pattern?

There is always more to a story than the MSM allows to go forth…..and the sad part is no one wants to know the ‘rest of the story’ then prefer to hold into some convoluted tale of woe.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Wounded Knee–50 Years On

Yep a little slice of American history that most young people have NO idea ever occurred.

50 years ago last month the Native Americans started their protest at Wounded Knee, the site of a US cavalry massacre of American natives….

The 1973 Siege at Wounded Knee is the longest “civil unrest” in the history of the US Marshal Service. For 71 days, the American Indian Movement (AIM) and members of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) nation were under siege in a violent standoff with the FBI and US Marshals equipped with high powered rifles and armored personnel carriers.  Two people were killed, over two dozen wounded.  At stake, sovereignty and self-determination guaranteed through treaty rights.

Fifty years have passed but for American Indians the struggle for recognition of the nation-to-nation treaties continues to be seen as survival.  At the end of February, young Indian leaders joined older activists to gather at Wounded Knee to commemorate the violent events that began on February 27, 1973, and renew their call for self-determination and recognition of their treaties.

For older Wounded Knee veterans, this Fiftieth Anniversary year is a time for a ritual passing on of the struggle.  “You are the seventh generation. It’s your time to stand up and protect your water, defend your land,” proclaimed Vic Camp, son of Wounded Knee AIM leader Carter Camp, “Remember your treaty rights, protect those treaties . . .  we have to remind the United States government that this is our land.”

Bill Means, a veteran of the 1973 siege urged people to be clear on the purpose, “Remember, we came here for the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty. We didn’t come here just to raise hell. We had to make a statement, to tell the world that Indians are still alive, that this is still our land, and the Black Hills are not for sale!”

For the Lakota this fight for self-determination, the preservation of their nation and its land, were the central demands of the siege at Wounded Knee.  It was a fight for survival. During the negotiations in 1973 the local Oglala leaders were frustrated with the Justice Department’s refusal to grasp the central issue of the Treaty.  Gladys Bissonette, a revered Oglala elder admonished the Government negotiators, “In the past there were a lot of violations of the sacred treaties . . . This is real. We’re not playing here. So all you people that go back to Washington, think real good, because our lives are at stake. It concerns our children’s children, the unborn.”

Much has been written about the aftermath of the 1973 siege, including the murders of 60 AIM sympathizers and activists in the following year, known as the Reign of Terror, carried out by a local vigilante group self-titled “Goons” (Guardians of the Oglala Nation). U.S. District Court Judge Fred Nichols viewed this as the FBI colluding with vigilantes to target AIM sympathizers. The continued imprisonment of Leonard Peltier despite universal calls for clemency – even by the prosecutor – demonstrates the truth of the FBI’s intent to eliminate Indian activists even at the cost of truth.

Siege at Wounded Knee 50 Years Later: the Fight for Self-Determination Continues

I remember those days and thinking ahead…..the Native Americans are still trying to gain some sort of respect from this government and the nation at large….slow go and little has changed…..they still do not get the respect they deserve from either the government or the nation at large.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

The Day After

I would like to state for all to read….I by no means think that Putin is anything other than a power mad prick and that Ukraine has every right to defend itself from invasion….I make this statement because according to several commenters seem to think that I may have sympathies for Putin and Russia….plus maybe now the questions asked will be answered and the inevitable support for Ukraine can be taken off the table….but we will see.

This post poses the question…..what will happen if and when a peace agreement is settled between Ukraine and Russia? (I know I know Putin is a prick….long live Zelensky….blah…blah….blah)

What does the situation hold when it is declared over?

Allies do not agree on what comes next….

In nearly a year of war in Ukraine, NATO allies have tried to present a united front.

“It is in our security interest to support Ukraine,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told NPR last month at the organization’s headquarters in Brussels. “If you look across the alliance, there’s a strong, continued support on both sides of the Atlantic.”

That’s true. There are also some big divisions. The most obvious is disagreement over what kind of weapons to send Ukraine. But there are also differences over how the conflict should end and what role — if any — Russia should play in a post-war Europe.

In December, French President Emmanuel Macron made waves when he said NATO would eventually have to address Russia’s security concerns.

“How do we protect our allies and member states?” Macron said in an interview on French TV. “By giving guarantees for its own security to Russia the day it returns to the table.“

For NATO allies in Eastern Europe, the notion of making security pledges to a nation that has relentlessly shelled Ukrainian cities is stomach-churning. It’s also personal. They spent decades under Soviet domination.

“This kind of rhetoric coming from the Western leaders plays into the Kremlin’s narrative,” says Linas Kojala, who runs the Eastern Europe Studies Centre, a Lithuanian think tank.

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/23/1158152004/ukraine-russia-war-nato-europe

This situation brings me back to my question from day one….What does the US hope to get for its massive and blind support for Ukraine?  I believe Ukraine had that since 2014.

There is so much more to this conflict that anyone is willing to ask about for their views are given them by the MSM that they refuse to look any further.

As I have stated cracks in the situation are starting to form….

Over one year since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, there are growing differences between Washington and Kyiv on how to move forward in the conflict,POLITICO reported Sunday.

One issue is over Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city where Russian and Ukrainian forces have been locked in battle for over eight months. Biden administration officials think Ukraine has expended too many resources defending Bakhmut and worry it will impact their ability to launch a counteroffensive this spring, but officials in Kyiv have decided to keep fighting for the city.

Another point of contention is over Crimea as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insists they will retake the peninsula, which has been under Russian control since 2014 and is populated by people who are happy to be part of the Russian Federation.

US-Ukraine Unity Is Cracking Apart

Let us say the war ends….will Ukraine return to its former glory?  Before you answer think about other US involved wars…Haiti, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq….have any of them been improved by our involvement?

America’s twenty-year involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated that nation building is often more expensive, prone to failure, and politically unpopular than expected at the outset. The State Department’s Afghan Stabilization Assistance Review acknowledged the difficulties nation building poses and found that there was no appetite in the American public for such ventures in the future. Yet today, less than two years after the Afghan withdrawal, the United States and its European allies are faced with a nation building exercise more expensive and at least as extensive as those of the past two decades.

NATO’s pursuit of the long war risks pushing Ukraine past a tipping point beyond which it’s economy may never recover. Revitalization of the Ukrainian economy would even have been difficult had the war ended in 2022. Continuation of the fighting and the introduction of more destructive and lethal Western arms risks making Ukraine a permanent economic vassal state of the United States and the EU.

Even the hawkish Rand Corporation in their review of the costs and benefits of the long war acknowledged the tradeoff between continued fighting and the additional cost and difficulty to revitalize the Ukrainian economy post-war.

Existing estimates of reconstruction costs are enormous. The National Recovery Plan that Ukraine’s National Recovery Council put forth in July 2022 carried a $750 billion price tag. In January 2023, Ukraine President Zelensky put the cost to rebuild Ukraine at $1 trillion. These estimates are several times that of the $150 billion in all forms of aid that the West has extended to date. They also exceed by a factor of five or more the size of the post-World War II Marshall Plan, $150-160 billion in today’s dollars, and the $145 billion that the U.S. government spent on rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan.

What if the West Can’t Put Ukraine Back Together?

Maybe Einstein was on to something.

And do you presume we will field most of the cost?

Did the US and its handlers really just make an addict to US funds?

From the time Ukraine declared independence on August 24, 1991, until the Maidan coup of February 2014, Ukraine was essentially a binational kleptocracy that used its position as a buffer state, particularly in its role as a transit hub for Russian natural gas to Europe, to the advantage of its kleptocratic elite—a coterie of deeply compromised politicians and former Soviet-era functionaries-turned-oligarchs

The tension between the Russian East and Galician West came to a head during the Maidan protests when then-president Viktor Yanukovych, a politician from eastern Ukraine, sought to leverage Ukraine’s unique geographic position during the country’s E.U. accession bid—a bid against which Russia, with long and deep economic ties to Ukraine, furiously objected.

Ukraine’s Endgame

Maybe that answers my original question of oh so many months….what will the return on investment for the US?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Another One Bites The Dust

For the past week or so there has been the failure of a couple of banks…..something not happening since 2008 and Lehman Bros. Well a 3rd bank has failed.

The government has taken what the AP calls “extraordinary steps” to avert a potential banking crisis in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure, with the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, and FDIC issuing a joint statement Sunday assuring SVB clients they would all be protected and that depositors, starting Monday, will be able to access their money, even if their holdings exceed the FDIC’s $250,000 insurance limit. The statement also notes that “no losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.” As the AP points out, there has been no bailout of the actual bank—banks, actually; more on that below:

Another bank fails: Signature Bank, which is based in New York, also failed and was being seized Sunday, regulators announced. The feds’ statement says “a similar systemic risk exception” will apply to Signature Bank: “All depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer.” It’s the third-largest bank failure in the nation’s history at more than $110 billion in assets (SVB was the nation’s second-largest ever). It’s also the third bank failure in recent days after Silvergate Bank and then SVB.

  • Shoring up other banks: The feds’ statement said “additional funding” will be available “to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors,” and First Republic Bank has already announced it’s getting access to that funding as well as funding from JPMorgan Chase. The Wall Street Journal has more on that.
  • Emergency lending program: The Fed also announced an emergency lending program Sunday, under which banks that need to raise money to pay depositors can borrow it from the Fed instead of dumping Treasuries or other securities, as SVC was forced to do at a loss to cover customer withdrawals. MarketWatch has more on the program.
  • Who’s not protected: The feds’ joint statement notes that “shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed.” Axios reports that SVB had reportedly paid out bonuses to some US employees hours before it was seized.
  • Biden comments: Speaking as he boarded Air Force One Sunday on his way back to Washington, Biden said he was “firmly committed to holding those responsible for this mess fully accountable and to continuing our efforts to strengthen oversight and regulation of larger banks so that we are not in this position again.” He said he’d address the situation in further remarks Monday.
  • What will Monday look like? Analysts predicted financial markets would be soothed a bit by Sunday’s moves. “Monday will surely be a stressful day for many in the regional banking sector, but today’s action dramatically reduces the risk of further contagion,” economists at Jefferies, an investment bank, said in a research note.

Is this the beginning of another economic crisis?

Shades of 2008!

You might want to keep an eye on your accounts in these large banks….you may be in line for a problem.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Far Right Demands

Let’s start the week with some outrageous Right wing demands.

These are the demands being made by House far righters, the Freedom Caucus, (love the name it is anything but about freedom)….

The debt ceiling debate is about to begin and these are the demands from the far right for that debate.

A cadre of far-right Republicans announced Friday that they may only vote to raise the debt ceiling if Congress agrees to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in social spending, limit federal agencies’ future budgets, and abandon progressive elements of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda.

Since Washington’s arbitrary and arguably unconstitutional borrowing limit was breached in January, the Treasury Department has implemented “extraordinary measures” enabling the U.S. government to meet its obligations for a few additional months. Unless the Biden administration takes unilateral action to disarm the debt ceiling, Congress has until sometime between July and September to increase or suspend the nation’s borrowing cap. If Republicans refuse to do so, the U.S. is poised to suffer a catastrophic default.

Led by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the House Freedom Caucus said Friday in a statement that its 45 members would “consider voting” to raise the debt limit if their colleagues in the House and Senate agree to:

  • Eliminate Biden’s $400 billion student debt cancellation plan;
  • Rescind unspent Covid-19 relief funds;
  • Nix nearly $400 billion worth of clean energy investments approved in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA);
  • Repeal the IRA’s roughly $80 billion funding boost for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS);
  • Restore Clinton-era work requirements on welfare recipients;
  • Require congressional approval before any major federal regulations can take effect;
  • Cap future federal spending at 2022 levels for the next 10 years; and
  • Find “every dollar spent by Democrats that can be reclaimed for the American taxpayer.”

This is the official release from the Caucus…

Image

I see lots that will effect the common voter and very little about actually decreasing the “reach” of government.

I love these ‘small government’ conservatives and their alt-right blowhards.

What crap!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

What’s Better Than Sliced Bread?

Did you remember to ‘spring forward’?

A worthless social exercise that serves NO purpose….and the people think as I do….

A 2021 poll found that most people in the United States want to avoid switching between daylight saving and standard time, though there is no consensus behind which should be used all year. The poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found only 25% of those questioned said they preferred to switch back and forth between standard and daylight saving time. Forty-three percent said they would like to see standard time used during the entire year, while 32% preferred that daylight saving time be used all year

Another indication how no one in DC listens to what us mere mortals have to say.

Let’s move on shall we?

It is a Sunday and what better day to throw some history your way?

I have become interested in baking especially bread….so I have been reading about the art and of course the history.

Sliced bread has become something we do not even think about these days….but did you know there was a time in our history when the loaf of sliced bread was banned?

The year was 1943, and Americans were in crisis. Across the Atlantic, war with Germany was raging. On the home front, homemakers were facing a very different sort of challenge: a nationwide ban on sliced bread.

“To U.S. housewives it was almost as bad as gas rationing—and a whale of a lot more trouble,” announced Time magazine on February 1, 1943. The article goes on to describe women fumbling with their grandmothers’ antiquated serrated knives. “Then came grief, cussing, lopsided slices which even the toaster refused, often a mad dash to the corner bakery for rolls. But most housewives sawed, grimly on—this war was getting pretty awful.”

The ban on sliced bread was just one of many resource-conserving campaigns during World War II. In May 1942, Americans received their first ration booklets and, within the year, commodities ranging from rubber tires to sugar were in short supply. Housewives, many of whom were also holding down demanding jobs to keep the labor force from collapsing, had to get creative. When the government rationed nylon, women resorted to drawing faux-nylon stockings using eyebrow pencils and when sugar and butter became scarce, they baked “victory cakes” sweetened with boiled raisins or whatever else was available.

So by January 18, 1943, when Claude R. Wickard, the secretary of agriculture and head of the War Foods Administration, declared the selling of sliced bread illegal, patience was already running thin. Since sliced bread required thicker wrapping to stay fresh, Wickard reasoned that the move would save wax paper, not to mention tons of alloyed steel used to make bread-slicing machines.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/america-banned-sliced-bread

There are many of these little historical tidbits……and they will be forthcoming. (Be warned, LOL)

Have a good Sunday.

Be well and be safe

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”