Memorial Day–2023

Memorial Day Images Free Download And Quotes 2023 - Sapelle.com

Today is the day we set aside to remember those that gave their all for country…..I will be doing what I have done every Memorial Day since 1970…..I remember all my comrades that did not return from Vietnam…..

There are a few things that should not be done on this solemn day…..

5 things not to do on Memorial Day
  • Don’t wish anyone a “Happy Memorial Day” There are dozens of ways you can honor America’s fallen this Memorial Day.
  • Don’t thank the current troops. …
  • Don’t disregard its importance. …
  • Don’t forget it exists. …
  • Don’t let politics keep you from rendering respect.

While this is to commemorate our fallen soldiers it is good to remember that during war there are more victims than just the military….as a supporter of Veterans For Peace I wish to pass on their statement for Memorial Day…..

This Memorial Day we remember allwho have died in war and understand that no one wins in war. Many of us have been personally touched by war. But we must also extend that mourning. We remember the civilian victims, and their families. Honoring and remembering some deaths while ignoring others not only perpetuates war, but also ignores the moral injuries of war, a significant cause of veteran suicide.

Veterans For Peace is made up of military veterans, family members and friends who are joined by our pledge to serve the cause of world peace and abolish war. We bring a different message to Memorial Day than the themes usually promoted by popular media, the government and traditional veterans’ organizations.

We do not seek to glorify either warriors or war. Rather, Veterans For Peace seeks to educate the public about the folly of war and the costs of war – human, economic, political, environmental/climate. On Memorial Day, VFP members march in parades, lay wreaths, give talks and speeches, recite poetry, and vigil to honor U.S. service members who died in and as a result of war, as well as all the civilian victims of war.

There are people who profit from war, mainly those who invest in the war industry or the oil sector. But the veterans and civilians who survive war suffer for the rest of their lives. And the entire society is robbed of trillions of tax dollars which could be spent on jobs, education, healthcare, infrastructure and renewable energy.

Veterans For Peace has commemorated Memorial Day every year to remember the true costs of war.

Please take a few minutes out of your day and remember those people that paid the ultimate price for war.

Have a good day…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

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A Deal For Our Time

Over the weekend the drama of the negotiations for the deal to handle the debt came to an end…..Biden, Dems and GOP have cut a deal…

President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have reached an agreement in principle to increase the nation’s borrowing authority and avoid a default. Negotiators are now racing to finalize the bill’s text. McCarthy said the House will vote on the legislation on Wednesday, giving the Senate time to consider it ahead of the June 5 deadline to avoid a default. While many details are unknown, both sides will be able to point to some victories, per the AP. Some details, based on what’s known so far:

  • Two years: The agreement would keep non-defense spending roughly flat in the 2024 fiscal year and increase it by 1% the following year, as well as provide for a two-year debt-limit increase—past the next presidential election in 2024. That’s according to a source familiar with the deal who provided details on the condition of anonymity.
  • Veterans: The agreement will fully fund medical care for veterans at the levels included in Biden’s proposed 2024 budget blueprint, including for a fund dedicated to veterans who have been exposed to toxic substances or environmental hazards. Biden sought $20.3 billion for the toxic exposure fund in his budget.
  • Work requirements: The agreement would expand some work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. The agreement would raise the age for existing work requirements from 49 to 54, similar to the Republican proposal, but those changes would expire in 2030. And the White House said it would at the same time reduce the number of vulnerable people at all ages who are subject to the requirements.
  • Energy projects: The deal puts in place changes in the the National Environmental Policy Act that will designate “a single lead agency” to develop environmental reviews, in hopes of streamlining the process.
  • Student debt: Republicans had sought to repeal Biden’s efforts to waive $10,000 to $20,000 in debt for nearly all borrowers who took out student loans. But the provision was a nonstarter for Democrats. The budget agreement keeps Biden’s student loan relief in place, though the Supreme Court will have the ultimate say on the matter.

No one will be happy with the plan….the markets ought to open higher come Tuesday…..so some will be happy….t least the VA got a small victory just in time for Memorial Day.

I had a problem with the role that the media played in the coverage of this issue…..there are a couple of ‘notions’….

“First, the notion that ‘modest cuts’ to spending are inconsequential.”

Second is the role of inflation,” Hauser continued, charging that the brewing potential deal between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) “would be a catastrophe for government capacity, and coverage that ignores the role of inflation (hardly a low profile issue in 2023!) is wildly and indefensibly misguided.”

“Third, the notion that the president was trapped under the gun of McCarthy is ridiculous,” he added. “Because the debt ceiling is an unconstitutional, incoherent excuse for a law and because there is an active lawsuit from the National Association of Government Employees [NAGE], Biden’s status as a hostage merely reflects an advanced case of Stockholm Syndrome.”

Given arguments that the president “has a wide number of ways out from the debt ceiling and no legal way to implement it,” Hauser asserted, “the media needs to quit deferring to the debt ceiling’s political theater and engage more with the essentially uncontroverted legal experts pointing out that it cannot be implemented in a constitutional manner.”

(commondreams.org)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Changing Religious Landscape

It is a Sunday and time to look at the trends in our society.

I am always interested in how Americans choose to embrace their religious affiliations. Not because I am a religious person but rather how the times are changing and so is the religious beliefs of our people.

This is a study made along those lines….

A growing number of Americans are switching religions, Axios reports. According to a Public Religion Research Institute Poll, almost a quarter of Americans follow a different denomination or tradition than the one they grew up in, including those who switched to no religious affiliation. This trend is supported by a 2022 Pew Research Center study, which projects that religious switching will continue to reshape the American religious landscape in the years to come. With a variety of factors contributing to this shift, such as changing personal beliefs, dissatisfaction with religious institutions, and the influence of friends and family, the landscape of religious affiliation in the United States is transforming rapidly. As the Religion News Service reported in 2014, the reasons behind this trend are complex.

Certain elements in making such changes are common: People often change churches, switch faiths, or leave religion altogether due to personal experiences, evolving beliefs, or dissatisfaction with the way religious organizations handle social issues. And as individuals encounter new communities and ideas, their religious perspectives may adapt accordingly. This shift in religious affiliations has significant implications for faith-based organizations, as they must adapt to the changing needs and expectations of their congregations to remain relevant and maintain membership. As this trend continues to evolve, the American religious landscape will undoubtedly face new challenges and opportunities in the coming years.

It will be fascinating to see just how the major religions handle a changing climate for religion.

This survey could answer some of the questions…..

This is an interesting snapshot on the state of religion in America: As of 2022, not quite half of Americans have no doubt that God is watching over them, which is a little startling in that that number topped 60% in 2008, just 15 years ago. As the Hill reports, citing the General Social Survey conducted by the University of Chicago’s NORC research group, about a third of Americans—34%—never go to church, but about three-quarters of Americans classify themselves as spiritual and believe in things like life after death. Not surprisingly, churches, in terms of membership and attendance, took a hit during the pandemic—as did belief in a higher power. Findings from a recent study by the Public Religion Research Institute also add some interesting findings. Highlights:

  • Most Americans are still Christian, and white Christians have stayed static at 42% over the last five years. It’s worth noting: that number was 54% in 2006 and 72% in 1990.
  • Christians of color make up 25% of the nation’s population.
  • Only 7% of Americans do not believe in God, per the Hill. “Belief is very stubborn in America today,” say Ryan Burge, who studies faith at Eastern Illinois University. Another 7% are agnostic, meaning they think the answer is unknowable. The remainder believe but have doubts to some degree.
  • Mainline Protestantism is “collapsing,” says Burge. Nondenominational Protestants, however, clock in at nearly 15% of Americans and “are the second-largest religious group in America today, after Catholics.”
  • The percentage of those who are religiously unaffiliated has risen to 27% from 16% in 2006.
  • The number of Americans who worship in other houses—including Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or Unitarian Universalist—has held pretty steady at 6%.

Check out the full NORC survey here, or the PRRI study here.

Let’s not forget the massive sexual abuse report on the Catholic Church….

In 2018, a grand jury report was released in Pennsylvania naming 300-plus “predator priests” in the state accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children over a period of seven decades. Partly inspired by those revelations, then-Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan started a probe in her own state, releasing what the AP calls a “blistering” partial report on the matter before she left office in early 2019. Now Kwame Raoul, who took over for Madigan and continued the investigation, has released the numbers his office uncovered, revealing more than 450 Catholic clergy across Illinois’ six dioceses, including the Archdiocese of Chicago, sexually abused 1,197 children between 1950 and 2019.

The 696-page report released Tuesday was compiled by 25 staffers based on more than 100,000 pages of diocese documents, as well as 600 confidential interactions with survivors. The report added 149 names of accused clergy to lists of child sex abusers that the dioceses themselves had already IDed either before or during the AG’s investigation, reports the New York Times. The paper notes that none of the total 451 accused are currently in active ministry, and at least 330 of them are thought to now be dead.

Have a good Sunday and a safe Memorial Day

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

IST Saturday News Dump–27May23

That time again….the weekend begins and IST finds the news that somehow missed the ‘headlines’……

Do you plan on a cruise anytime soon?

If so maybe you should read this first……

While most noroviruses don’t last long, contracting one can still a rough experience—especially when you’re at sea, thousands of miles from home. Unfortunately for many people on cruise ships in 2023, getting sick is part of the experience, per Quartz. Citing stats from the CDC, the outlet reports 11 outbreaks of illness (think vomiting and diarrhea) on cruise ships so far this year, the most since 2018. The spike reflects the increasing number of people taking cruises again since the worst of the pandemic, notes the Washington Post.

At least 1,503 passengers and crew combined have come down with some kind of stomach trouble while on cruise ships that dock in US ports. According to Quartz, three of the outbreaks were definitely norovirus, but all were gastrointestinal. Cruises are closed environments and norovirus spreads easily, especially because it can live on surfaces for months, per the Mayo Clinic. With thousands of people sharing tight quarters and buffets in open dining areas, hardy viruses can thrive.

If there’s an upside, it’s that stomach virus outbreaks on cruises have actually diminished since the CDC began keeping records in 1994. The most recent one provides a typical example: About 160 passengers and 26 crew aboard Holland America Line’s Nieuw Amsterdam, or about 8% of passengers and 3% of crew, got sick. The ship was returning to Vancouver Sunday after a two-week cruise to Alaska. If you want to avoid catching a bug that ruins your vacation, Condé Nast Traveler recommends 12 steps, including:

  • Visiting a “travel medicine specialist” before you leave.
  • Avoiding self-serve dining if possible.
  • Regular hand-washing.
  • Avoiding public area restrooms.
  • Immediately reporting other travelers who are sick.

The horror stories about these outbreaks makes me want to just stay on dry land….

There has been much written about the US police and their, at times, heavy handed techniques when a softer approach was called for….but the US is not alone…..let’s go ‘down under’…..

A 95-year-old Australian woman with dementia is in critical condition after being tasered by police officers who were called to her nursing home. Police say staff at the home in Cooma, south of Canberra, told them Clare Nowland had taken a steak knife from the kitchen, 9News reports. Police say an officer used a stun gun on the frail woman after she refused to drop the knife and approached officers. “At the time she was tasered, she was approaching police. But it is fair to say at a slow pace,” New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Peter Cotter said. “She had a walking frame. But she had a knife.”

Rowland is 5 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs 95 pounds, the AP reports. After she was tasered, she fell to the ground and her head hit the floor. Andrew Thaler, a friend of the great-grandmother’s family, tells the BBC that she suffered a fractured skull and is not expected to survive. “The family are shocked, they’re confused,” he says, “and the community is outraged. How can this happen? How do you explain this level of force? It’s absurd.” Police say the officer involved has 12 years of experience and has been taken off active duty.

Thaler says Rowland is well-known in the community. In 2008, she appeared on TV with a skydive over Canberra to mark her 80th birthday. Nicole Lee, president of the People with Disability Australia advocacy group, says Rowland should have been treated with “compassion and time,” not a stun gun. “She’s either one hell of an agile, fit, fast, and intimidating 95-year-old woman, or there’s a very poor lack of judgement on those police officers and there really needs to be some accountability on their side,” she says.

Are you telling me that the burly coppers did not know how to disarm a old woman in a walker with a knife?

Maybe a bit more training is called for.

My daughter’s company had their studio truck vandalized….someone stole the converter….and I wanted to check out if it was a problem….it was….

When Josy turned the ignition on her 2010 Prius one morning this February, she heard an unsettling rattle coming from underneath her car. Her girlfriend, Glory, unfortunately knew the sound all too well.

Once again, thieves had targeted the cars parked at Glory’s Indianapolis apartment complex, searching for catalytic converters — the valuable, canister-like part of the car responsible for transforming harmful emissions into less-polluting gas. Glory, a 23-year-old librarian, already had her “cat” stolen from her 2016 Kia Sportage twice, once in April 2021 and another time in March 2022. Now it was Josy’s turn.

Glory and Josy — whose last names are being withheld to protect their privacy — are not alone. From San Diego to Boston, nationwide catalytic converter thefts appear to be at a historic high. Insurance claims for these thefts increased from 16,660 claims in 2020 to 64,701 in 2022, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau’s latest report released last week.

https://www.vox.com/2023/5/20/23728557/catalytic-converter-theft-scrap-price-replacement-toyota-prius-cars-insurance-protection

Beware you could be next….

Microdosing is becoming a ‘thing’ for the treatment of mental disorders…

It’s been quite the journey for psychedelics, and it’s just getting started. First, they were sacred and ceremonial plant medicines for millennia. In the 1960s era, they traversed an American culture of mind expansion, which used them as wild tools for transcending ordinary states of consciousness. Then came the backlash in the 1970s when they were outlawed by a nervous Nixon administration. Now, psychedelics are emerging from the underground as a new generation of researchers amasses evidence that mind-altering drugs offer new and effective therapies to help stem the rising tides of mental illness.

Funding for research and legalization efforts on psychedelics are ramping up across the US. In January alone, seven states introduced new psychedelic legislation that ranges from decriminalization to supervised adult use to psychiatric treatment. Abroad, Australia became the first country to legalize psilocybin — psychedelic mushrooms — and MDMA as prescribable medicines by psychiatrists. The US looks poised to follow, with the FDA potentially set to approve MDMA for therapy later this year.

These tectonic changes in drug policy are taking place against the backdrop of a US mental health crisis, one where existing treatments have fallen short: The World Health Organization’s (WHO) largest mental health report this century has termed current interventions “insufficient and inadequate.” Turning to psychoactive fungi for treatment-resistant mental illness is a sharp pivot, a sign of both the impoverishment of current approaches and the excitement around a genuinely novel remedy.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23721486/ketamine-dmt-lsd-psychedelics-magic-mushrooms-legalization-recreation-psilocybin

On the food front….I have been writing about this thing called ‘lab grown’ meat…..now a bit more on the subject….one selling point of this is that it would be environmentally favorable….but not so fast…

According to researchers, the environmental impact of cultivated meat is likely to be much higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods.

The current method used is similar to the biotechnology used to make pharmaceuticals, which leads to the question: Is it a pharmaceutical or food product?

Lead author and doctoral graduate Derrick Risner from UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology said, “If companies are having to purify growth media to pharmaceutical levels, it uses more resources, which then increases global warming potential. If this product continues to be produced using the ‘pharm’ approach, it’s going to be worse for the environment and more expensive than conventional beef production.”

The study also found that the potential for global warming is up to 25 times greater than the average for retail beef.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/lab-grown-meat-may-not-be-as-good-for-the-environment-as-previously-thought/

My final offering for this Saturday….

The story of a vendetta….Orca style….

Orcas are simply not something that anyone should take a chance with. sperm whales, great white sharks, blue whales – none of them are safe from the highly intelligent and creatively violent species. Even being out of the water is not necessarily a help, as the predators are known to snatch sea lions from the beach and create waves to throw seals from the ice. In short, no one messes with orcas.

So it’s not exactly comforting to discover that one pod of these marine menaces has taken to sinking yachts off the coast of Gibraltar. No fewer than three boats have already been sunk by the marauding cetaceans.

It seems that gangs of orcas have been learning from a ringleader named Gladys. Experts now believe that Gladys has a vendetta against boats after she was struck by one or became entangled in nets, which would make her disapproval of boats understandable.

And if you think a boat is big and strong enough to withstand orcas, think again. Researchers recently recorded pods of orcas successfully attacking and killing a healthy adult blue whale, which can grow to 30 metres long. Many privately owned pleasure or fishing boats are small fry compared to a leviathan like that.

https://www.unilad.com/news/pod-of-orcas-sinking-ships-607739-20230523

That’s all I have on this Saturday….hopefully you found something that peaked your interest…..

Buy that Orca a tuna!

Enjoy your weekend….be well and be safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Work Until You Die

That seems to be the answer dollar crisis that the GOP has for the crumbling retirement infrastructure….every time they control something in DC their first reaction is that workers need to retire later than last fiddled with…..

And it is that time again…..GOP is trying to push through another extension on your working ages…..

But is that truly the answer to the looming crisis?

Right-wing lawmakers’ preferred method for dealing with the United States’ looming retirement crisis—telling older workers to keep toiling until they’ve saved enough to stop—is “not a viable solution,” says a report published Wednesday.

“Millions of people are entering their retirement years with insufficient savings to cover basic expenses and medical bills,” the new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) notes. “In response, some policymakers have proposed that older Americans could delay retirement to increase their savings.”

But this ostensible fix “overlooks the large group of older Americans who work in difficult conditions—ranging from the physically demanding to the outright dangerous,” EPI points out. “If older Americans endure difficult conditions that often force earlier exits from the workplace, proposals to delay retirement make little sense.”

Rather than forcing aging employees to postpone retirement, lawmakers should implement full-employment macroeconomic policies to ensure that workers have “access to jobs that pay fair wages and provide solid benefits during their prime working years,” says the report, calling the latter approach “a more effective way to close the retirement savings gap.”

To make sure “older workers can afford to retire when they need to,” EPI also urges policymakers to bolster “support for workers with caregiving responsibilities, expand Social Security coverage and benefits,” and improve “conditions for all workers through collective bargaining, stronger labor standards, and more effective health and safety protections.”

Those who portray working longer as a legitimate solution for people who cannot afford to retire assume that “as workers age and gain more work experience, they are able to transition into jobs that are less physically demanding, less onerous, and less hazardous—making it possible to extend their working lives,” the report notes. But as it goes on to show, “many workers in fact see little or no improvement in working conditions as they age.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/working-longer-no-solution-to-us-retirement-crisis

Wait an see just what silliness the GOP has to offer to solve this problem….and believe me it will be silly.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is This How They Support Our Veterans?

I personally think that this country does not give enough support to our veterans…..especially those that suffer damage because of our moronic wars.

The GOP always plays hard to the veteran and lies to them every election and when they are elected they stab the vets in the back…..almost every time.

The GOP controlled House has done that exact thing while playing the debt game…..

When the new House majority passed its grab bag of government spending cuts last month, setting up an on-going game of chicken with the White House over any federal debt limit increase, they also directed their fire at essential services for military veterans, a constituency long courted by their own party. Included in the “Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023,” was a proposed 22% reduction in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Right-wing Republicans scrambled to provide political cover for themselves by insisting that “our budget cutting plan doesn’t harm veterans.” Instead, claimed Mike Bost, a former Marine from Illinois who now chairs the House Veterans Affairs Committee, his  conservative colleagues were just trying to force a long-overdue discussion of whether VA funding is “actually helping veterans.”

Fortunately, a VA patient, elected to Congress last year, took the House floor to accuse the Republican majority of passing a “B.S. plan” that’s “an absolute betrayal and a disgrace.” As former Navy Officer Chris Deluzio (D-PA) noted, House Republicans are “threatening to blow up our economy and to push us into default unless we agree to cuts to the VA and veterans, and to so much else.  There is not a single protection, not a single one for veterans in their bill. …Millions of veterans are going to be screwed by this plan.  They won’t get the care they’ve earned, and they will have to wait longer for benefits.”

Deluzio’s fiery speech generated much media attention and set the tone for other Democrats, like Joe Biden and California Congressman Mark Takano, who have weighed in, with similar criticism of GOP hypocrisy. Democratic Party consultants and strategists are, no doubt, already sketching out the kind of attack adds—focusing on Republican support for VA benefit cuts—that will be aired to help the White House woo the “vet vote” away from right-wing candidates next year, who need to be defeated for myriad reasons.

Amid Debt Ceiling Debate: VA Cuts Passed by House Give Corporate Dems Political Cover

How f*cked up is that?

We have a Pentagon play war around the world that gets almost unlimited funds and our vets will have to deal with a possible 22% cut in need funds.

And yet this betrayal will be forgotten by 2024 vote…..now that is what is f*cked up!

Our vets deserve so much more than they get….thank you for your service is just a feel good tagline….if you really want to ‘thank them’ then make damn sure they are looked after as they should be.

On an unrelated note:  DeSantis announced Thursday that he would seek the presidency and in the first 24 hrs he has raised $8.2 million….that should scare any rational person into start looking closely at the candidates.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The GOP Debt Plan

After a couple of weeks of no progress on the debt ceiling thing the GOP has come up with a plan (they always have a plan that does little to solve the problem…..as usual it will involve benefits for business and of course the inevitable tax cuts.

Here is a look at this ‘plan’…..

With the U.S. careening toward a default crisis that they manufactured, House Republicans are reportedly crafting a major tax cut package that would overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations while blowing a multitrillion-dollar hole in the federal deficit.

The fresh push for tax cuts, according to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), further shows that “this hostage crisis has never been about deficits for the GOP.”

“It has always been about wealth transfer—taking away food and healthcare from the poor and middle class to give away $3 trillion more in tax cuts to their rich friends,” Omar, the deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, tweeted Tuesday.

Politicoreported earlier this week that Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee hope to finish work on their emerging tax legislation by June 16, just over two weeks after the so-called “X-date”—the day on which the Treasury Department expects the federal government to run out of money to cover its obligations unless Congress raises the debt limit or President Joe Biden acts unilaterally.

“Key parts of the [tax cut] package… will likely include a full restoration of research and development deductions, full bonus depreciation, removing caps on business interest expensing, and a doubling of the $1.08 million limitation on the section 179 deduction (which, like bonus depreciation, allows a company to deduct an asset’s cost up-front),” Politico noted.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated last week that extending the individual provisions of the 2017 tax cuts—which are currently set to expire in 2025—would add $2.5 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. The original law made the cut to the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% permanent.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/gop-tax-cuts-debt-limit

Let me ask you….if you have a debt problem would cutting your income help solve your problem?

GOP wants to cut the revenue that the country gets….but they want to keep spending on stupidity like wars…..I cannot see our debt ceiling problem being solved by these plans from the Right.

They keep doing this horrible plan so that they can attack social safety nets while giving a helping hand to those that need no help.

But these plans do keep the dollars rolling into their coffers….and that is what it is all about.

Pay attention!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Day For Sad News

Wednesday was a day for sad news….

First the ‘Queen of Rock and Roll’ has died…..

The world has lost one of the most beloved recording artists of all time. A spokesperson says Tina Turner has died peacefully at her home near Zurich, Switzerland, after a long illness, the Telegraph reports. Turner, who was born Anna Mae Bullock in Tennessee, was 83 years old. She was known as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” with massive hits including “What’s Love Got to Do with It” and “(Simply) The Best,” per Reuters. “With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model,” the spokesperson says.

Turner had been in poor health in recent years, the Guardian reports. She was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016 and received a kidney transplant from her second husband, former EMI record executive Erwin Bach, in 2017.

She will be missed and may she rest in peace.

Dammit!  It’s official!

The second piece of sad news came in the evening…..

Most thinking people have been dreading the possibility that the mini dictator from Florida would try to bring his form of mind control to the nation.

We can stop our dread…..DeSantis made it official yesterday.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is officially running for president. The Republican filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, hours before a 6pm ET Twitter Spaces session with Elon Musk in which he is expected to launch his campaign, the AP reports. DeSantis enters the race behind front-runner Donald Trump in the polls but well ahead of other challengers. Today’s move puts DeSantis “in direct competition” with Trump for “the heart of the Republican Party,” per Politico.

Twitter was not polite to the announcement…

A DeSantis campaign official tried to cast the glitches as a positive, saying “Governor DeSantis broke the internet—that should tell you everything you need to know about the strength of his candidacy,” per CNBC. Although DeSantis couldn’t be heard for a while, Twitter employees were audibly complaining about the situation. “That was insane, sorry,” Musk said after having to borrow another account because his crashed. Musk had told the audience Twitter’s servers were straining under the demand.

Glitches or not, DeSantis’ audio announcement lacked the usual trappings of a presidential campaign announcement—no soaring music, uplifting rhetoric, or cheering crowds. “I don’t care about fanfare,” he said. DeSantis promised his audience that come January 2025, “I will be taking the oath of office as the 47th president of the United States.” Trump answered DeSantis with a couple of videos mocking the governor on Truth Social, as well as the gibe, “His collar is too big!”

We now have DeSantis, Trump and Scott for the GOP nomination….there is one thing we can be sure of….the lies will flying and the truth will be suppressed.

Now is the time for any real conservative out there to start looking for a ‘real’ candidate that has the best interests of the country at heart.

If there are any left….that is….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Rot At SCOTUS

The recent events around the dealings of Justice Thomas and his closeness with some billionaire who seems to be paying the bills for Thomas.

I read a piece written by Bill Astore that sums up what is happening within our Supreme Court……a good piece and should be read…..

A big part of the American experiment is the idea we are a nation of laws as defined by the U.S. Constitution. The law is supposed to apply equally to all, and disinterested, impartial, justices are supposed to make rulings that are unaffected by money or race or religion or any other factor other than the law itself and what’s right and what isn’t.

That doesn’t describe today’s Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS).

Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted all kinds of undeclared gifts from a billionaire supporter, including tuition for his great-nephew at private boarding schools. Justice Neil Gorsuch profited from a real estate transaction with a rich law firm CEO with extensive business before the court. Apparently, SCOTUS polices itself here, and so far the SCOTUS cop on watch is asleep.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh gained his seat under a storm of controversy. I wrote in September 2018 that he should withdraw his name from consideration, based on the demeanor he showed at his Senate hearing, but of course he didn’t. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was specifically “saved” by President Trump to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg; everyone knew she was a conservative Catholic opposed to abortion with a clear record of being pro-business to boot.

You’d think the #1 criterion for a SCOTUS justice would be unassailable integrity, but today it seems to be predictable partisan positions (both political parties are guilty here, though Republicans are more blatant). Allegiance to moneyed interests is a big plus. The latter point is why these justices see no problem with accepting “gifts,” otherwise known as bribes (for that is what they are, in plain speak).

https://bracingviews.substack.com/p/rot-at-the-supreme-court

Integrity in the court has left the building many years ago…..the rot within the court is all pervasive….the only for sure about the court is it is as corruptible as the rest of DC and our elected officials….the only difference is these political hacks have a lifetime to have their palms greased.

It is beyond time to make some much needed SCOTUS reforms…..like term limits, mandatory retirement and stop allowing political hacks on the highest court in the land.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

All Those School Shootings

There has been a rash…no that is the best word….and epidemic of shootings in our schools with massive deaths and injuries and all ask what the hell has happened?

Today is the anniversary of the horrible Uvalde school massacre….

Why is this happening with such frequency?

That question has an answer….but few will heed or even care as long as daddy gets to strut around wearing his pistol….

This is a study that tries to answer some of the questions (an interesting read but sadly it will go unread) ….

High school students who experience violence or bullying at school are more likely to bring weapons like a gun, knife, or club to school than those who have not experienced violence, according to a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Because weapons increase the potential for injury and death when there is interpersonal conflict, developing a better understanding of the relationship between exposure to violence and weapon carrying is essential for developing effective public health interventions.

“With 93 school shootings in the US just the 2020-21 period alone, and an average school shooter age of 19.7 years (in since 1970), the issue of school violence couldn’t be more pressing. The occurrence of violence in is an urgent and complex public health problem,” explained lead investigator Richard Lowry, MD, MS, Office of the Director, National Center for Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA, U.S..

“Our research examined the link between exposure to violence and weapon carrying. We found students who experienced violence at school were much more likely to carry weapons than those who had not experienced violence,” he noted.

Data on 28,442 participants from the CDC’s National Youth Risk Behavior Surveys from 2017 and 2019 were analyzed to calculate sex-stratified, adjusted prevalence ratios, which were also adjusted for race/ethnicity, grade, , current substance use, suicidal thoughts, and history of concussion. The research is novel because it used recent data available, has results for males and females, and is adjusted for important demographic factors.

Overall, 3.3% of US carried a weapon at school. Among all students, 6.6% were threatened or injured with a weapon at school, 19.3% were bullied at school, 8.3% were in a physical fight at school, and 7.7% were absent from school due to safety concerns.

Nearly half of males (48.8%) who experienced all of these forms of violence, and nearly a third of females (31.4%) who did, carried at school. Males and females were respectively 3.5 and 3.9 times more likely to carry a weapon if they had been threatened or injured with a weapon at school, and 3.4 and 3.7 times more likely following a physical fight at school. Males who felt unsafe were twice as likely to miss school, while females were three times more likely than those who didn’t report feeling unsafe.

https://phys.org/news/2023-05-reaction-school-violence-compounds-crisis.html

Did this answer any of your questions about schooling shootings?

Another post on the mass shootings will be forthcoming….watch for it.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”