Is Martyr the Correct Word?

by Bob Randall

(Editor's Note:  As my good friend, Ranger Bob, explains in this post, he has concerns regarding my use of the word "martyr" in reference to Luigi Mangione, the young man who shot on insurance company CEO to death on a busy street in Manhattan last December.  He sent his thoughts to me in a personal email, and  I respected what he had to say to the point that I asked him to resubmit it as a posting for this blog.  While I still feel that the federal government's response to this particular crime will serve to increase the shooter's notoriety and support among some members of the reading public, I agree with Ranger Bob in that "martyr" was not the ideal term.  "Folk hero" would have been a more accurate description of Luigi's rising status within the general public. 

The post to which my friend is responding is "Bondi Moves to Ensure Luigi's Martyrdom" which ran in this blog on April 5th.  Thanks for sending your critique along, Ranger Bob.  I always appreciate feedback and knowing that someone is taking the time to read what I have written!  -  Pa Rock)

 

Recently, Pa Rock posted about Luigi Mangeoni’s martyrdom. Remember him? Luigi, not Pa Rock.  Rock and I have exchanged emails concerning the use of the word “martyrdom.”   I told him that I disagree with that label. He asked me to make this post.

So what is a martyr? There is probably more than one way to define it. Google: “A martyr is someone who willingly … endures great suffering for a … cause.”   L is not a martyr because he is not suffering for his belief in a cause.  We can agree that he probably committed acts for his beliefs, but it is for his acts that he is being prosecuted.  If I believe that the American health insurance system is bad, I still do not have a right to murder anyone who is involved with that industry. BTW I do believe it is flawed. 

L is being prosecuted for his actions. He is an alleged murderer. Therefore, he is not a martyr in NY.  I think it is appropriate that he should be prosecuted for 1st degree murder in the state of NY’s courts under state charges. If he is adjudicated guilty, I suppose that a life sentence would be appropriate, but I’m not on the jury.  That wouldn’t make him a martyr. 

Is he a martyr because of the federal prosecution? Legally, he is a defendant in a federal murder charge (I’m not sure that is final yet) and that doesn’t make him a martyr.  Of course, the feds don't have to prosecute him, they could just leave it to the state. 

I had to look up the federal jurisdiction of the Brian Thompson murder. I can remember when murder was not a federal crime.  Remember the JFK assassination?  I found a couple of things that push it into fed law. I won’t look it up again but it says something like murder done while in violation of a federal law is a federal crime. It also says murder with a firearm is a federal crime. The double charges in state and federal courts are not double jeopardy since there are separate laws and jurisdictions involved. None of this makes L a martyr.

Is it the death penalty that makes him a martyr?  No, if the murder had taken place in Texas, he would still not be a martyr just because of the potential death penalty.  Whether you believe the death penalty is good or bad has no bearing on this point. Is it the way the death penalty is being applied that makes him a martyr? Well, people were calling him a martyr before the feds jumped in vowing to execute him. 

It does seem like the only reason the feds are pursuing it is to bring in the death penalty.  So, you might argue, as his attorneys are, that the feds didn’t follow certain protocols and violated Mangione’s due process rights. That is probably a valid argument but it doesn't make L a martyr. I read that AG Pam Bondi said it was because it was an act of political terrorism. I hate to agree with her but it fits into my definition of domestic political terrorism. Are they pursuing the case to make a political point of being tough on crime? I suspect that’s part of it.  I note here that neither the State of Texas nor the feds are pursuing the death penalty against the white supremacist mass murderer in a Texas Walmart. The Texas prosecutor said it was because the victims' families didn't want it. The feds haven't said why they weren't pursuing the death penalty.  There is a smell of Trumpian persecution of his perceived enemy, but it's only a smell unless you can prove it. 

There is no justification for Brian Thompson’s murder.  I cannot assign martyrdom to a murderer. I suggest a different label: L is a folk hero, albeit because of misplaced values. Martyrdom has too much of a positive association for his crimes. Folk heroes can be either positive or negative. L is more of a Jesse James than a Joan of Arc. 

There are plenty of reasons to argue that the Trump administration is a disaster, but don't try to bring Luigi up to a martyr status as a talking point.  Argue that the death penalty is unconscionable, argue that it isn't being applied evenly, argue that the commercialization of health care is flawed. You can do that without the hysterics of martyrdom. Bringing up a martyr and trying to justify it will just bring down the effectiveness of your arguments. The only people who will care will be those in the choir who are singing with you. The other side won't hear your argument, you will be handing them a straw man to diminish what you are trying to say.

I don't think I'm being picky.  I'm trying to moderate the perspective.

PS  I asked Google about it and it came up with an AI answer similar to mine. If the Secretary of Education is reading this, it is AI for artificial intelligence, not A-1, which is a sauce.

I Ride an Old Paint

by Pa Rock

Music Appreciator

Back when I was in junior high school - a loose term covering grades seven and eight of a school that contained grades one through twelve - in the very early 1960's, we had a music class that was officially called "Glee Club."   Girls had Glee Club three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and boys met twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  On days when either gender was not in Glee Club, they were in Physical Education (PE), which meant the boys had PE one day a week more than the girls - every week.

Twenty years later when I became the principal of that same little school - and the same music teacher was still there, a very sweet lady named Mrs. Alexander - that same scheduling routine was still in effect.  But before classes began in the fall a woman who was new to the community came to my office wanting to look the school over for one of her children who would be attending there.  By that time the county high schools had consolidated, and what remained in our community was a K-8.

The visitor asked about the scheduling for junior high PE and Music, and I told her about the system that had been in effect for decades, probably since the little school first opened its doors.  She replied, very nicely, that that system would need to change.  Being fairly progressive myself, I understood her point, and beginning that year we went to a system whereby boys and girls alternated each week on which group got three sessions of which class.  Not too long after that I hired the woman who had pointed out the educational inequity as the girl's PE teacher and coach.

(Today we would probably both be fired based on some DEI complaint about prejudice against a well-established tradition of white male privilege.)

All of that was an unnecessary prelude into the topic I intend to discuss, which is the school's Boys Glee Club from the 1960's, but I wanted to provide some sense of the situation and the times.

The music curriculum had its own building where the marching band met and the various grades had their music (vocal) classes.  The main room had an old piano which was used by the teacher, and a couple of sets of wooden risers where the students sat.  The junior high used a set of ratty old song books that contained a hundred or so songs, most of which were old standards that lots of people knew.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the teacher would pound away on the piano while the boys had a good time bellowing out the tunes.

I just remember a few.  One was "Papa Tony" which had an "Omp-pa-pa" refrain that was kind of fun to sing - and made for some great noise, and a couple were well known cowboy songs.  One of those was Cole Porter's classic "Don't Fence Me In," a paean to the cowboy's independent lifestyle, and the other was an older cowboy song called "I Ride an Old Paint."  The words of both songs have stuck with me through the years, and it is not uncommon to occasionally hear updated versions of "Don't Fence Me In" over various media.

"I Ride an Old Paint," however is not so common, but this past week it was mentioned in a blog posting by entertainer Garrison Keillor, and that got this tired old typist to remembering Glee Club.  As I read Keillor's mention of using that song as a sing-along on one of his radio programs performed before a live audience, I realized that I remembered most of the words and could have sung along to it as well.  But who wrote it, and what was its history?

It was time to do a little research.  

A quick scroll through the internet revealed that "I Ride an Old Paint" was a "traditional" cowboy song with no specific author or composer, just something that cowboys had come up with and no doubt modified as they used it to calm their cattle and entertain themselves during the evenings on the long, dusty cattle drives.  But the most interesting thing about the song's history was that it had been "collected" and preserved by master American poet, Carl Sandburg, in his "American Songbag" in 1927.

For anyone who would like to sing their way through some genuine American history, here are the lyrics of the first verse and the chorus, the best know parts of a longer ballad.    There are no cattle that need calming, just a room full of boisterous adolescent boys, so sing loudly if you want to be heard!

I Ride an Old Paint

I ride an old paint

I lead an old Dan

I'm goin' to Montan'

For to throw the hoolihan

They feed in the coulees

They water in the draw

Their tails are all matted

Their backs are all raw

Ride around, little dogies

Ride around them slow

For the fiery and snuffy are a-rarin' to go

Class dismissed.

Bobby the Fabulist

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

When I was a child our sources for bedtime stories were generally limited to the ancient Greek, Aesop, who specialized in collecting fables, tales with morality lessons, and the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.  That pool of available fiction should be much wider and deeper for coming generations of little people thanks to the growing body of work by America's pre-eminent medical fabulist, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

RFK, Jr, who seems to have been chosen for his current government gig based on his outlandish medical beliefs, is certainly delivering the goods that his political benefactor wanted, but he did experience a recent rough patch with regard to the measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico.  That situation, where at least two children and one adult, all unvaccinated, have died (so far) from the highly contagious disease, brought about an astounding admission from that HHS Secretary that the best defense against the measles virus is inoculation with the MMR vaccine.  

Kennedy, a long-term opponent of vaccinations, especially for children, undoubtedly went through some serious soul-searching in order to come up with that piece of highly practical advice.   But losing a battle does not mean that he has given up his war on modern medicine.

Last week the governor of Utah signed legislation which prevents cities and communities in his state from adding fluoride to the drinking water.  Secretary Kennedy, a long-standing opponent of public water fluoridation was in Utah this week to praise the state's bold action, a move that is opposed by dentists and national health organizations.  Kennedy, who has no power to remove fluoride anywhere, does have control over health recommendations which are promoted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and on Monday Kennedy announced, in Utah, that he plans to tell the CDC to stop recommending the fluoridation of water supplies in communities nationwide.

Kennedy's fluoride edict will have a greater negative impact on poor people - and their children - than it will on people who are able to make regular visits to the dentist.  Fluoride may be applied at a personal level through toothpaste and mouth wash, but the better treatments come from dentists, and people who aren't able to visit dentists sometimes lack the knowledge or means for proper dental care in the home.  A fluoridated water supply helps to correct that imbalance in dental health and protection - but now that will be disappearing.

Thanks for nothing, Bobby.

But that wasn't all.    Kennedy, who resembles Trump in some respects, and who likes to overwhelm his subjects  with a a more-or-less constant assault of outrages, announced a major effort this week to find the cause of autism.  Kennedy said that a group of highly qualified researchers from around the world will look at many factors and have an announcement five months from now - September 2025 - that will identify the causes of autism and help to prevent exposure to those factors.

Here are a few of the problems with Bobby's moon shot:  

• He has already overseen cuts in both budget and staffing to HHS, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institutes of Health. Who is going to do this miracle research and how the hell are they going to pay for it?  Has anybody run this past Elon and Big Balls?
• The Secretary has a history of trying to link autism with childhood vaccinations, a theory that has been discredited by competent medical researchers.
• One person recently hired by RFK, Jr, to work in this research is a highly discredited individual who has a long history of trying to link autism to childhood vaccinations, and who was fined by the state of Maryland for practicing medicine without a license.
• The Secretary is not revealing details about how his research will be accomplished, how it will be funded, or how much it will cost.
• The major autism support organizations in America do not seem to be on board with Kennedy's effort.

Push on, Bobby.  Maybe you will be able to get autism under control before the big polio resurgence - and all of that "research" will undoubtedly help sell a few books once you leave office - which hopefully will not be too far in the future.

But back to fairy tales, where this screed began:   I am working on an idea for a modern fairy tale with a medical theme.  It involves a brain worm who dies in his human host but later regenerates, as worms sometimes do.  The worm decides that he wants to be a doctor and practice medicine, but, alas, he has grown too big to escape from his host's skull, so he goes with his second career option and decides to become a puppeteer, and he uses his puppet to practice medicine without a license - and lives happily ever after.

Okay, it needs some work!   

The Noel City Dump

by Pa Rock

Ruminator

(Note:  I keep a running list of things that might make for decent blog postings.  Last week I put "Noel City Dump" on the list, though now I have no idea why.  I'm old and I tend to forget, so that's why I write things down.)

Back in the day when the price of gasoline was less than twenty-five cents a gallon, cigarettes were a quarter a pack and you could buy them from machines, and decent people like Ike and Mamie still lived in the White House, most people in small and rural communities either burned their trash in rusty barrels in the backyard, or they hauled it to the local dump where, for a fee, they added it to a growing pile that was already there.  Some cities owned and maintained their own dumps, and others, like the town where I grew up, had dumps which were privately owned.

It was a time when there were no environmental laws.

The city dump for Noel, Missouri, "The Christmas City of the Ozarks," my hometown where I spent my misspent youth, was located two miles out of town in an idyllic setting of pine covered hills.  There was a large graded area where vehicles pulled off of the main road and then backed up to one of multiple sloping hillsides and threw or pushed the trash from their vehicles.  The trash cascaded downward and settled in among other people's trash.  The dump was especially convenient if a person needed to get rid of something big, like a couch, mattress, or a major appliance.

The family who owned the dump would occasionally bring in a bulldozer to push dirt on top of the trash or just to clear it from the parking area and push the trash further down the hillsides - and they would sometimes burn accumulated trash which gave the area a more-or-less permanent, pungent odor, one that I can still smell to this day

The dump was a great place for ten-year-olds to visit and explore, and I would often find some treasure to take home that was just as exciting as getting a new toy from the Ben Franklin five-an-dime store.  In addition to human scavengers, the Noel City Dump also drew an abundance of wildlife that searched the hillside for edible scraps, and people with unwanted litters of kittens and puppies would do the "humane" thing and drop them at the dump where they might survive off of garbage until someone showed some mercy and took them home.

When I was twelve or thirteen, a mama black bear and two cubs showed up at the dump and hung around for a couple of weeks.   Bears were uncommon in southwest Missouri, and those quickly became a tourist attraction.   In the evenings people would go out to the dump and sit in their lawn chairs hoping for a sighting of the visitors.  I was in a Boy Scout troop at the time, and our scoutmaster took us there just before dusk one evening to see the bears as they came to feed, but we showed up on an evening when the bears didn't.

Going to the dump was a regular and, I'm sure, under-appreciated chore for my parents, but for me it was always an adventure.  I'm so glad that I grew up before computers and "screens" took the outdoor fun out of childhood.

(And yes, there are still community dumps today, but they are just not the same.  The city of West Plains, Missouri, where I now live, has a dump (next to a cemetery) which is contained in a large, empty warehouse (the dump, not the cemetery).   People bringing in trash report to an office next door to the warehouse, pay a fee based on amount and type of trash, and then back up to the door and toss it in onto the concrete floor.  Then it is trucked to Springfield and dumped into a landfill.   Where's the fun in that?)

(I pay a private company to pick up my household trash every Monday at 7:00 o'damned-clock in the morning.  They also truck it to the landfill near Springfield.)

The Wanderlust of Rep. Jason Smith

by Pa Rock

Taxpayer

My congressman, a Republican from rural southeast Missouri by the name of Jason Smith (who probably prefers being referred to as House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith), likes to travel, especially on somebody else's dime.   During his freshman term in Congress, Jason went to South America with his good buddy, Rep. Aaron Schrock of Illinois, on a sweet little junket that included time for a trip to the beach in Brazil.  That ill-advised trip was paid for by the government of Brazil.   Receiving anything of value from foreign governments can lead to concerns that those governments are trying to purchase influence in the American Congress.

Last September Jason took a walk down memory lane when he again visited South America, this time as the head of a bi-partisan congressional delegation that met with leaders and important officials from several countries.  American taxpayers paid for that excursion.

As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Jason bragged about bringing government to the people, and he set up listening sessions around the country where he and his committee would go to hear the concerns of actual people who live out beyond the beltway.  Those sessions at least provided poor Jason (who brags about sleeping in his office when Congress is in session), with the opportunity to occasionally sleep in a more comfortable motel room.  Interestingly, the congressman does not do listening sessions or town halls in his own district.

(Do the congressmen who sleep in their offices pay tax on their employer-provided housing - like ordinary people would have to do?  Enquiring minds want to know.)

According to on-line news reports today, Jason Smith is about to set off on another excursion south of the border, this time to El Salvador.  The following snippet is from "Punchbowl News" this morning:

"Smith and a group of lawmakers are going on a codel over the House recess that includes a visit to the notorious El Salvador prison, CECOT, where the Trump administration has sent hundreds of migrants - including at least one wrongfully so.  DHS Secretary Kristi Noem also visited the prison in late March."

Secretary Noem's trip seemed to center around a photo op which showed her standing piously in front of an extremely large cage of prisoners, presumably the ones that the Trump administration snatched off of the streets of the United States.   It's probably a safe bet that there will soon be photos of Jason Smith and his traveling companions standing in front of the cages also.  Nothing says 'law and order' more forcefully than pictures of sanctimonious politicians looking down their noses at caged human beings.

That photo will look great on Jason's office wall, right next to the one of him standing behind Trump at his desk in the Oval Office, a perk that presumably all GOP members of congress get to do - if they are on Trump's 'good list'.    A good photo from the El Salvadoran prison might even qualify for inclusion in this year's Christmas card.   Nothing says "Happy Birthday, Jesus" more than a large cage of suffering  humanity.

And, on top of getting to lord it over several hundred sub-minimum wage roofers and field hands, El Salvador is also known for it beaches!  Oh, the taxpayer work that is going to be accomplished on that "codel."

(Who collects the travel rewards when politicians travel at taxpayer expense?  Enquiring minds want to know that, too!)

Enjoy your trip, Jason, and when you get back a "thank you" would be nice!  Also, the Supreme Court on a unanimous said that Maryland dad, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man whom the Trump administration has admitted was deported by mistake, must be returned to the United States.  Maybe you all could earn admissions to heaven by giving the poor man a ride home.

(Pa Rock's word for the day:  "Codel:"  a parliamentary delegation or 'congressional delegation,' and an official visit abroad by a member or members of a legislature.    'Codel' should not be confused with 'junket' which means the same damned thing but is easier for voters and taxpayers to understand!)

Happy trails, Jason!

Narcissism on Parade

 

by Pa Rock

Taxpayer and Voter

(Narcissism:  Excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one's physical appearance.  Selfishness, involving a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, and a need for admiration.)

A couple of new insults to democracy were unfurled this week and both seem aimed at spreading the glory of Donald John Trump, our nation's preeminent narcissist.

Back in February Trump announced a plan for a special "gold" card which would act as a visa allowing permanent residency in the Untied States.  The card would sell for a pricey five million dollars and would replace an older "immigrant investor visa" that granted admission to the country at a less pricier rate.  Trump's new version has a special feature that is designed to be especially enticing to rich potential immigrants.  Unlike the earlier version, this one would not require the new arrivals to pay taxes on the income that they generate outside of the United States.

And, of course, the price tag would help to keep out the riffraff.

Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, made a couple of specious claims about the new visas for rich people last month.  According to news reports Lutnick said that 1,000 gold cards had been sold that week, and $5 billion had been raised in a single day.  He also said that the program currently had over 250,000 applicants - but the US Immigration and Customs website does not indicate that the application program has yet been launched.

But not to worry, because Trump now seems to have it under control now.

Last Friday aboard Air Force One as Trump was flying to Florida for his regular weekend of golf, he showed reporters one of the new gold cards.  Trump said that he had bought the first one, and that the program would be up an running within two weeks.

The new gold visa has Donald Trump's picture on it - of course it does - and he is officially referring to it as the "Trump Card" - of course he is.

There was also a report in the press this week that the military and the administration are planning an enormous military parade to mark the Army's 250th birthday and Flag Day on Saturday, June 14th, in Washington, DC.  That date just also happens to be Donald Trump's 79th birthday.  Some estimates are that the parade will extend from the Pentagon to the White House, a distance of four miles.  When Trump tried to stage a massive military parade during his first term in response to the Bastille Day parade which he had witnessed in France, the response was cool, with opposition both in Congress and with the Washington, DC, city government which feared damage to the city's streets from the military vehicles.  That parade never happened, much to the chagrin of the Grand Marshal.

But Trump, who missed out on his opportunity to serve in the military due to bone spurs, wants his parade, and if it happens to fall on his birthday, so  be it.  Our Dear Leader might even name it after himself!

Surely our cost-cutting Congress and the government watch-and-attack-dogs in the Department of Government Efficiency will step in an block this flagrant misuse of taxpayer dollars.  Right?  RIGHT?

I suppose I could recoup some benefit from my tax dollars by flying to Washington, DC, and personally viewing the parade  - but I don't want to.  I would rather see my tax money spent on mental health initiatives and treatment programs, and maybe then we wouldn't need massive birthday parades.

De-Extinction: Is That a Thing?

by Pa Rock

Friend of the Earth

CRISPR is a gene editing technology that allows scientists to make precise and targeted changes to DNA, a process that looks as though, on the surface, that it has the potential for major scientific breakthroughs which will be of immeasurable benefit to humankind, as well as furnishing plot lines for countless horror novels.  In fact, novels based on the general principal of modifying or replicating DNA have already been around for quite some time, with Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park" being perhaps the best known example.

In Crichton's book scientists were able to extract DNA samples from mosquitoes which had been trapped in amber for millions of years, and through that ancient biological material, re-create the animals from which the mosquitoes had been feeding.  They then spliced the old DNA together with frog DNA from the present and got some unexpected results.  The movie, "Jurassic Park," showed us both the marvels that science might one day produce, as well as the terrors that the same technology might inadvertently unleash upon the Earth.

 

Biotechnology like gene editing could result in grand achievements in things like medicine, disease control, life span, and even the preservation or the renewal of a species of plant or animal, and it could also bring about a calamitous situation that would severely and negatively impact life on the planet.

Many equated the new emerging technologies - like CRISPR - with playing God.

The idea had been around for years.   Plants had been modified through various processes, and the notion of selected breeding of animals for the "survival of the fittest," had been a mainstay of evolutionary practices since the dawn of time;  But as species developed and thrived, they also would, through various forms of competition, depopulate and die out.  And when they were gone, they were gone.

But Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park" postulated the possibility of bringing some of those species back, and now a commercial company, Colossal Biosciences, is claiming to have done just that . . . well . . . almost.

Colossal Biosciences, Inc, describes itself as "an American biotechnology and genetic engineering company working to de-extinct the wooly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, the northern white rhinoceros, the dodo bird, and the dire wolf."  It has been in the news several times lately, including for its creation of the "wooly mouse," a step in its formidable goal of de-extincting the wooly mammoth by 2028, and there were several early stories about the company's grand plan of resurrecting the wooly mammoth.

But at some point Colossal changed its initial priority of recreating the wooly mammoth and replaced it with a focus on the dire wolf.  (Undoubtedly due in some degree to the featured presence of the dire wolf in episodes of the television serial, "Game of Thrones" and  the enthusiastic support of George R.R. Martin, the author of the "Game of Thrones" novel who is an investor in Colossal.

Colossal Biosciences has now announced that it has created three animals that are based in part on actual DNA from dire wolves.  Two males, Romulus and Remus, were born last October, and a female, Kaleeshia, was born in January.  The wolf pups have thick white hair, and are taller than modern gray wolves with longer tails.  The two males now weigh 80 pounds each.  All are being kept in a nature preserve that has be given some form of approval by the Humane Society of America and the US Department of Agriculture.  

Each carry twenty genes that were taken from DNA samples removed from the bones and teeth of extinct dire wolves.  The DNA was placed in embryos and then implanted in female dogs to gestate.  The technology for importing greater amounts of DNA into new animals is still evolving, and until that happens, actual or complete de-extinction will not have occurred.

De-extinction has not happened yet, but science is definitely on the road to achieving that success.  What the future may hold is generally unclear, but a couple of things would appear to be certainties:  bio-ethicists will have plenty to ponder, and science fiction writers will have no shortage of material in which to delve.

(Perhaps if science keeps making these great leaps forward, and Artificial Intelligence blossoms beyond human control as it surely will, a future inter-galactic social order of computers will consider de-extincting humanity and we could all go live in peace on a reservation somewhere out among the other stars - without the noises of things like poverty, greed, war, bigotry, and hate.  We might be worth a do-over - or not.)

Quads Signal New Hope for the Survival of a Species

by Pa Rock

Friend of the Earth

 

The fate of one of Earth's critically endangered species got a brief reprieve on February 27th when the first of four Western Santa Cruz Galapagos tortoises was born at the Philadelphia Zoo.  Apparently there are more eggs still incubating, so that number could rise.  The proud parents, Mommy, and her mate Abrazzo, are each very near 100 years old.  Mommy has been a resident of the Philly Zoo since 1932, and Abrazzo, the stud in a shell, arrived in 2020 and apparently got right to work.

Mommy now holds the record for being the oldest known first-time mother of her species.   Galapagos tortoises, both in the wild and in captivity,  often live to the century mark, and a few have even survived to the ripe old age of two-hundred.

In the 1950's, when I was but a lad, my family visited the San Diego Zoo at Balboa Park on two occasions.  I believe I was six and nine during those trips.  One of my favorite exhibits at that zoo was the large fenced-in area with the giant tortoises, a species that had roamed the Earth, albeit very slowly, since before humans showed up and began spoiling it all.  

Then a few years ago while I was living and working on Okinawa, friends and I visited a neighboring island called Ie Shima, where famed American journalist Ernie Pyle was killed during World War II.  That afternoon, after a climb up Mt. Gusuku, we went for a drive around the small island and accidentally came upon a fenced-in yard surrounding a traditional Okinawan home on a rocky hillside.  Roaming the yard were several giant tortoises who seemed quite happy in their surroundings.  The tortoise sanctuary was not an official part of the island's tourism plan, but we spent more time standing at the fence watching the big tortoises lumber about than we did at any other site that day.

The giant tortoises are fascinating creatures, and I wish them Godspeed in their struggle for survival.  May they be here until wilderness once again covers the land.

American Stocks: Down, Down, and Down Again!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Monday morning:  

As the American stock market begins sliding into its third consecutive day of free fall, Donald Trump, who has returned from the White House following an extended weekend of golfing in Florida, is telling us to take our "medicine" and chill out.  He's in charge, after all.

I heard a statistic on the radio the other day which said that 62% of Americans own stock, a figure I was able to verify over the internet - where I also learned that at least 58% of American families are invested in the stock market in one form or another.  That's quite a few people having to take their medicine at one time.  Is that something that RFK, Jr, deem to be wise?

It's just after 9:00 a.m. in the midwest.  I checked the DOW ten minutes ago and it was down over 1,500 pts.  Now I have checked it again, within the last minute, and it has miraculously risen to just over minus 900 pts.

I understand the wisdom of not panicking and haven't sold off anything, and probably won't, but this is still quite a bit of absolutely unnecessary aggravation that has been inflicted upon US and world markets by a politician who is planted in a golf cart.

Remember back during the presidency of George W. Bush, the second dumbest administration in history, when they were promoting the idea that American's should be "free" to invest their social security retirement savings in the stock market.  That malarkey ended when the market tumbled and shortly thereafter we entered the "Great Recession" of 2007-2009.  Americans dodged a major bullet by not throwing their retirement savings into the fires of corporate greed.

The next recession was a short-lived affair in the spring of 2020, and it was rooted in the economic chaos brought about by the COVID pandemic.  But the economic impact of the world-wide crisis was worsened because President Trump had deliberately trashed the Obama administration's national response plan for a pandemic.   When the reports of the virus began appearing in the international press, Trump ignored and minimized them for three months, time to give the viral disease a permanent and deadly foothold in the US - followed by a panoply of quack cures, some of which were spread by the White House, rather than a reliance on rigorous science.

Now, of course, we are knocking at the door of the second Trump recession, one that our leader has seen fit to inflict upon us himself, and while the price of everything except stocks is on the rise, he is busy flying back and forth to Florida to to play golf and to rent rooms in a resort that he owns to his staff and secret service detail - all on the dime of the American taxpayers.

The irony and absurdity of that is so unbelievable it would not even make a good comedy routine!

It is now 9:45 a.m. and the DOW has 'risen' to minus 890 pts.

It's time to put the stable genius out to pasture where he can golf in peace.

In Defense of Our Home

by Pa Rock

Survivor

The ignoramuses in their red caps can belch about climate change not being real all they want, but I'm here to tell you that they are grossly mistaken - and by "grossly mistaken," I mean they are lying their lazy asses off.

It rained off-and-on last week, but by early Friday afternoon the "off" switch was beginning to wear out and the rains have been fairly constant, and often heavy, since then. Mercifully my house sits on a rise, but water has been pooling in the yard for the past two days as it gathers to run off onto the road where it makes its way down to the local creek - except the local creek has been out of its banks and spilling across the adjoining pastures most of that time

There have been several times over the past couple of days when traffic on the road out front has been blocked going both directions, and the most direct route for getting into town has been blocked almost constantly.   Lots of drivers have turned around in my driveway as they struggled on trying to decide which direction was safer, and more than a few left tire tracks in the yard as well as on the drive.  But I will smooth over their transgressions in a few days, when and if the sun comes out again.

Don't tell me climate change isn't real, not when I have to squish my way to the mail box to see if the mail lady was able to make it this far. Don't tell me climate change isn't real when I am stuck in the house suffering "cabin fever" in April.  This storm has killed at least sixteen (and very likely more). in the midwest and upper south in the last four days.  Those dead bodies are real.

(I listened to the national news report from National Public Radio (NPR) a few minutes ago, and they said that a driver had been killed in West Plains, Missouri (my community) when his vehicle washed off the road.  That was followed by brief comments from our city's mayor, a big bear of a bearded man by the name of Mike Topliff, who sounded like he was struggling unsuccessfully to hold back tears as he encouraged neighbors to stand ready to help neighbors during this weather catastrophe.  West Plains suffered high winds and tornadoes less than two weeks ago.)

As world leaders and their corporate, greedhead oily-garchs manipulate to keep the planet burning our fossil fuel (oil, gas, coal, and wood) resources that they own and control, as they steadily deplete the ozone layer that protects our fragile planet - and while they poison the air that we breathe and the water we drink, why should an old hillbilly in the Ozarks give a rat's ass.  I'l be gone in a few years and it will be somebody else's problem.

But that "somebody else" includes my children, and their children, and their children, people whom I love and care about.

I'm tired of the rain, and I'm tired of the lies, inaction, and bullshit from our leaders.  Climate change is here, it is real, it is the product of the activities of man, and it is killing the planet.  While Vlad, Elon, Don, and even my congressman seem to have no concern or regard for the future of our fragile planet, I do.  This is where my genetics will be struggling for survival.

The planet has been in the hands of privileged few for too long - and they have failed miserably in protecting it and us.   We have lived like there is no tomorrow for too long, and it has caught up with us.

The can we have been kicking has reached the end of the road.

Planet Earth is our home, our only home, and we have a moral obligation to renew and protect it - and we do that by working together, neighbor, by neighbor, by neighbor - and not just talking change, but being the change we seek - and if that involves making some noise, so be it!

Bondi Moves to Ensure Luigi's Martyrdom

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old young man from Baltimore who allegedly shot and killed 50-year-old Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, on the streets of New York City last December 4th, appears destined to be tried by the state of New York as well as the federal government - and the feds will be seeking to end his life.

The eleven charges filed against Luigi Mangione by a New York grand jury include one count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder - one of which speaks to terrorism, as well as other charges related to weapon possession and forgery.   The maximum sentence that Mangione can receive from the state of New York, which has no death penalty, is life in prison without the possibility of parole - a significant punishment for a man who is only twenty-six.  Mangione has pleaded "not guilty" to the state charges.

The feds have yet to convene a grand jury to issue formal charges against the young man from Baltimore, and he has therefore yet to enter a plea in the federal case.  The government plans on charging Luigi Mangione with "murder through the use of a firearm," a charge which carries the possibility of the death penalty.  Donald Trump oversaw a record 13 executions of federal inmates during his first administration.  Biden placed a moratorium of federal executions while he was President and commuted the death sentences of 37 of 40 federal inmates on death row to "life in prison."  Trump has lifted that moratorium and seems anxious to resume executions. Luigi Mangione's case will be the first federal murder trial under the second Trump administration.

This week the United States Attorney General, Pam Bondi, a former Fox News talker and Florida politician, announced that she will direct the US prosecutors assigned to the Mangione case to seek the death penalty.  In making that announcement, Ms. Bondi chose to use hot-button words like "assassin" and "terrorist" to describe the former high school valedictorian and graduate of an Ivy League university who is quickly becoming a folk hero.

Pam, be careful what you wish for with the extermination of Luigi Mangione.  There is a word for people who put their lives on the line to call attention to evils in society, and are then are removed from the social conflict by dark and sinister forces - like a despot or a despotic government.  That word isn't "terrorist," it's "martyr."

Luigi Mangione helped to shine a light on the sordid machinations of the American insurance industry, and his impact is still growing.   At this point, his death at the hands of a government that has long been an ally of the insurance industry will only serve to make Luigi's light shine brighter.

They can extinguish the man, but his stubborn light will shine on.

Not the Time to Quit Paying Attention

 

by Pa Rock

Retiree

Donald Trump unveiled his massive tariffs on foreign imports Wednesday after the US stock markets had closed for the day, and on Thursday the markets suffered their worst day of trading in five years with the Dow closing down nearly 1,700 points, or almost 4%, the S&P off nearly 5%, and the Nasdaq down six percent.   Yesterday was essentially a rout, and stock futures for today indicate that a second day of market upheaval is likely.

From a historical perspective, this would probably be a good time for investors to begin sniffing around for bargains because after the market adjusts, it generally begins to climb again.   But given today's volatility and this government's general lack of predictability, this adjustment might not be normal.   The stock market "crash" of 1929 was a prolonged affair that ultimately took years of government intervention in order to get it and the national economy back on their feet.

There may be bargains to be had this morning, but buyer beware.

I am dug into the stock market as a mainstay of my retirement, and right now I will sit in that hole and hope for the best.  The earth could rise again leaving me in the full sunlight of satisfactory interest, stock splits, and regular dividends, or the hole could fill with water and I would drown.  This morning it's raining - I think that's a sign.  Regardless, I have set my shovel aside and have quit digging, at least for the time being.

What our nation needs is an actual stable genius, and what we have is an angry old man with a vendetta.  We could be on the brink of the big one, like 1929, without a competent leader to get us through it.  Stay focused and alert, America - this is not the time to quit paying attention - but it may be the right time to stop digging, at least until the rain lets up.

Vandalism Versus Terrorism

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Lately the word "terrorist" is being splashed around faster than a bottle of Trump Cologne in a busy kennel.  The use of the word is expanding to include all manner of indignities aimed at those who regard themselves as being superior to the rest of us.   

A terrorist used to be someone acting on behalf of a foreign government or movement whose aim was to cause serious harm to, or bring down, our national government, but now the same term has devolved into a quick description of anyone who pisses off someone who is in a position of authority and influence.  Domestic terrorists were people from within our own country who committed heinous and often deadly acts against their fellow citizens - mass shooters, people who blow up buildings, plane hijackers, etc., but that now definition is being stretched to include common vandals who unwisely target the wrong people.

US Attorney General and former Fox News talker, Pam Bondi, seems to have developed a particular penchant for use of the word "terrorist," which she employees to describe people who commit acts of violence against a particular brand of automobile, one manufactured by Elon Musk, a known Trump supporter and the world's richest human.   Bondi's boss, Don Trump, also used the emotionally-loaded term of "terrorist"  to vent his rage at vandals who did some digging damage and freelance graffiti-painting at his Turnberry golf course in Scotland a couple of weeks ago.

A portion of the graffiti reportedly said "Gaza is not 4 sale,"  a reference to Trump's stated desire for the US to buy Gaza and turn it into a seaside resort on the Mediterranean.

Trump said in a social media post on March 31st that Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom had informed him that the "terrorists" had been captured and were in prison, and that he (Trump) hoped they would be treated "very harshly."

The trio of "terrorists" included a 33-year-old man, a 66-year-old woman, and a 75-year-old man.  According to news reports, only the younger man was under arrest and authorities were still trying to figure out what to do with the older two.  It is unclear at this point whether any of them had tattoos or not.

People who damage property connected to the oligarch, Elon Musk, and property belonging to the President of the United States should be treated "very harshly," but people who wantonly damage and desecrate the US Capitol Building, which belongs to all of us, and people whose actions brought about the deaths of individuals charged with protecting that building and those who serve there, those vandals, and dare I say it, terrorists, are somehow victims of a corrupt political system who deserve to be free and perhaps even collect compensation for the indignity of having been formally charged, tried, convicted, sentenced, and jailed.

That just does not smell right.

Elon's property and Trump's property are somehow more important than our property, the Capitol Building of the United States of America, and the democracy for which it stands?

To me that sounds like a serious case of misplaced values, not to mention a flagrant overuse of hyperbole.

Get a grip Pam, and Elon, and Don.  While intentional damage to government property and beloved public landmarks could be classified as terrorism, especially if it involves violence and the institution of government itself is imperiled, damage to cars and private property clearly does not meet that bar.  

Just because people succeed in pissing you off, does not make them terrorists - and neither does skin color, body art, gender, where they pray, or with whom they crawl into bed!

Cory Booker has his Say

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I have been an ardent fan of Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey even since the evening thirteen years ago this month when, while serving as Mayor of Newark, Booker and two of his security guards rushed into the burning home of a neighbor and rescued a woman who had been trapped in the fire.  As a big city mayor, Cory Booker was known for rolling up his sleeves and being active in the community, often at street level.  And as a US senator he is  known for still being active and close to the center of things.

Senator Cory Booker earned a dubious distinction yesterday by becoming the longest-winded speaker in the history of the United States Senate.

Senator Booker had taken the floor the previous evening in an effort to bring attention the outrages being perpetrated against the American public by the Trump administration, a list of affronts whose enumeration and illumination took the senator twenty-five hours and five minutes to fully disclose and discuss.

The Herculean endeavor from the New Jersey senator was intended to inspire public resistance to what the Trump administration is doing to America, and in that effort, Senator Booker was highly successful.  The marathon speech was livestreamed on TikTok where some reports say that it received over 350 million "likes" from the international audience.

The record for the second-longest floor speech in the history of the US Senate is now held by the late Senator Storm Thurmond of South Carolina whom Booker knocked from the top spot.   Senator Thurmond, an old hardline segregationist, spoke for twenty-four hours and eighteen minutes in 1957 as he attempted to filibuster civil rights legislation.  Senator Strom Thurmond, his times, and his record are gone now, and it was a black man who brought some of that to an end.

In preparing for yesterday's ordeal, Senator Booker revealed that he had not eaten or drank anything for several hours prior to the speech.  He intentionally dehydrated himself so that he would not have to worry about bathroom breaks.  He said that he suffered stomach cramps for a while during the protracted oration, but persisted in speaking and ultimately prevailed in delivering his message and setting a record while he was at it.

The message was the core of Senator Booker's speech, and he stayed on that message throughout more than a complete day at the microphone.  He had prepared remarks and supplemented those by reading letters of concern about Trump policies from Democrats and Republicans across the nation.  His colleagues also stood to ask relevant questions at various points throughout the speech, small mercies which helped to keep the speaker focused and to give his voice an occasional bit of respite.

Senator Booker spoke for an exceedingly long time, but he spoke with purpose - and people heard him.  He helped to single out and shine a light on the daily crap that Donald Trump has been slinging against the wall for over two months - and he showed the world that in America we are not all dispirited victims content to quietly take what life throws at us.

Cory Booker stood up - for a long damned time - and he made some noise, or as the late Rep. John Lewis might have termed it - some good trouble.

Thank you, Senator Booker.  Salute!

Proper and Improper Ideologies

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

 

In his never-ending quest to re-invigorate American society with infusions of racism and class division, Donald Trump last week put a target on the Smithsonian Institution with claims that the venerable museum organization has an "improper ideology."   Trump signed an executive order last Thursday which directs Vice President JD Vance to work with Congress to rid the Smithsonian Museum and the National Zoo of "improper ideology" that is "inconsistent with federal law."  

Vice President Vance has a seat on the Smithsonian Institute's Board of Directors.

Trump's expansive order seems to specifically target a couple of the Smithsonian Institution's museums:  the American Women's History Museum and the National Museum of African American History.  Trump's order seeks to slash funding for exhibits or programs that promote ideologies which are deemed (presumably by Trump and Vance) inconsistent with federal law or policies.  Currently much federal "policy" seems to be coming from the dark recesses of the aging mind of Donald John Trump and from the extreme right-wing "Project 2025" handbook for lazy politicians with fascist tendencies.

According to news reports Vance and his museum cleaning team are to be on the lookout for anything which recognizes trans people, degrades shared American values (presumably those values shared by the cultural and ethnic majorities of Americans), and which divide Americans based on race.

The Trump team seems to regard the teaching of black history, including slavery and racial discrimination, as being particularly divisive in that it can tend to show white Americans in an unfavorable light based on their ancestry.   Conservatives, including Vance, have decried the Smithsonian as well some schools of higher learning as being "woke" and destroying patriotism with their realistic and historically accurate portrayals of American history through the perspectives of racial and ethnic minorities.

Accurate history would appear to be an "improper" ideology.

While Donald Trump wants to put limits on the Smithsonian's ability to tell certain key aspects of American history, he also used that same executive order to openly promote another seriously divisive measure.  Not only does he want to tone down or perhaps eliminate key portions of Black history, Trump is also calling on the Secretary of the Interior to reinstate national monuments and statues within his jurisdiction that were "removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history."  And by that he is pushing for bring back the Confederate statues and monuments that were taken down during the 2020 racial justice protests.

That action dovetails nicely with Trump's efforts to bring back the Confederate names of US military installations that were changed during the Biden administration.

Worshipping false idols of dangerous bigots from out nation's past would appear to be an example of "proper" ideology.

If it's all just a plot by the administration to "dumb down"America, as Trump's election itself proves, there's not further they can go!

Put a Cork in Your Outrage, Elon!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

A couple of weeks ago Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made a humorous remark regarding Tesla while speaking at a political town hall meeting in Wisconsin.  Walz, who was the Democratic nominee for Vice President last year, was commenting on how Tesla stock was falling precipitously as the company's CEO and major stock holder, Elon Musk, was becoming more and more involved in politics and the operation of the United States government.

During the town hall Governor Walz had the temerity to tell those in attendance that he checks his iPhone stock app during the day to watch the Tesla stock plummet whenever he needs "a little boost during the day."  Governor Walz made his remark in a humorous vein, but Elon, the touchy billionaire, was not amused.

In fact, the humorless Elon Musk was embittered and vitriolic in his response to the remark that Governor Walz made in jest.    In an interview on Fox last Friday the immigrant billionaire did not hold back in expressing his views on Governor Walz:

"I mean, you have Tim Walz, who's a huge jerk, running around on stage with the Tesla stock price, where the stock price had gone in half, and he was overjoyed . . . What an evil thing to do - what a creep, what a jerk.  Who derives joy from a thing like that?"

Maybe if Elon Musk can't handle good, old-fashioned political hazing he should pull his South African nose out of American politics and go home!

Perhaps it's good to see the humorless billionaire focused on "evil things."  Maybe that will help him to understand the suffering and death that he helped to loose on the world when his unofficial government agency, DOGE, tore into USAID in a move that led to it being dismantled.  Children around the world suffered and even died from that atrocity.  Or how about when his minions forced their way into the US Institute for Peace and helped to bring the decades-long good work of that agency to a complete stop.  What an evil thing to do!

And don't get me started on Gramma not being able to sleep at night as she lives in abject fear of losing her social security benefits because of  the actions of the DOGE team - cutting personnel in the social security offices, cutting the number of offices, and limiting ways in which people can effectively contact the social security administration, especially if those good, God-fearing elderly folks live in rural areas.  What an evil thing to do.  What kind of a "creep" would cause a thing like that to happen?  What sort of uncaring "jerk" could call the nation's premier program for keeping the elderly fed, safe, and well a "ponzi scheme."

Put a cork in your outrage, Elon.  Each and every starving child in the world, regardless of their skin color, is worth more than a damned car, or a thousand damned cars, and so is every elderly person who is carefully rationing their groceries - or their medications - in the hope of spending a little more time with their loved ones.

Your priorities are twisted - and embarrassing - and definitely not American!

Boycott Tesla, America!  It's the least we can do!

How Today'$ Democracy Work$

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

This coming Tuesday voters in Wisconsin will have the opportunity to tell immigrant Elon Musk to take a long walk off of a short pier.

Tuesday's big political race in Wisconsin is for an officially non-partisan seat on the state's supreme court, a seat which will determine whether liberal forces will keep their bare majority of power in the court, or if the power will switch to conservative forces.  Even though the seat is officially non-partisan, the state's Democratic party is supporting one particular candidate, the liberal, while the Republicans are in bed with the conservative.

The central issue in the Wisconsin appears women's health care and their right to abortion services.

The race has drawn in around $73 million (possibly as much as $81 million) in contributions with the liberal candidate, Circuit Judge Susan Crawford of Dane County currently leading in the money chase over Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel.  But just because Judge Crawford is leading in contributions at the moment, Schimel's side is also relying on some very deep political pockets, one of which belongs to the world's richest man, Elon Musk.  Musk and his political protege, Don Trump, have endorsed Schimel throughout the campaign and have been active on his behalf on social media.   Musk, in the current Wisconsin effort, is pulling out one of the shadier tactics that he used on the 2024 Trump campaign:  he is slathering cash directly upon potential Schimel voters.

The way the Musk money dispersement directly to potential voters works is like this:  Elon's super pac has drafted a. petition against "activist" judges.  ("Activist" in this case is intended to be a derogatory term referencing judges who maintain and practice a liberal judicial philosophy - and conservative "activists" are apparently not a problem, at least to Elon and Trump.). Elon offered voters who signed his petition one hundred dollars, along with an extra one hundred dollars if they got someone else to sign the petition, too.  It's a gambit to whip up enthusiasm among conservative voters in the hope they will then turn out and vote.

The crafty immigrant also announced that he would be awarding two checks of one million dollars each to two individuals to act as spokesmen for his petition.  One person, a man from Green Bay, Wisconsin, has already been selected as one of the spokesmen.

Musk will be giving a "talk" in Wisconsin on Sunday, and the only actual spectators who will be allowed in for his performance will be people who have signed his petition.  Presumably the second "spokesman" (winner) could be announced there.

Musk performed a similar gambit in the 2024 general election where he offered a million-dollar giveaway per day to people in seven key swing states who signed a petition in support of the First Amendment.

Both of the giveaways, last year's and this year's, have the feel and smell of being a sweepstakes, but in point of fact the winners in the first were pre-selected for their ability to influence others in the 2024 venture.  The money was intended to go to people who would be useful to the campaign.  That appears to be the same strategy with the giveaway in Wisconsin, with one "winner" already having been selected.

The Democratic attorney general of Wisconsin went to court to try and stop Elon Musk's latest money shower, but an appellate court has ruled that it can continue.

Current estimates are that Elon Musk has contributed in the neighborhood of $10 million to the state supreme court judicial race in Wisconsin - so far - making him the largest individual contributor. That is probably not how our nation's Founding Father's envisioned democracy working - and certainly not through some sleight-of-hand scheme where potential voters are led to believe that they have as good of a chance as anyone else of "winning" a million dollars.

Votes should be earned, not purchased.

Law and Order It Isn't

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The law and order President who continually boasts about his administration rounding up and deporting  gang members and criminals appears to have a blind spot when it comes to dealing with one very notorious criminal gang - the gang of 2,000 or so who smashed and forced their way into the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021.  In fact, Donald Trump pardoned those criminals, even the ones whose actions led to the injuries of more that 140 members of the Capitol Police and the subsequent deaths of five Capitol Police officers.

Unbelievable but true!  The thugs and miscreants who broke windows and stormed doors to gain entry to the Capitol and then ran amuck once they were inside - destroying property (to the tune of a million-and-a-half-dollars), occupying offices, terrorizing and physically assaulting people who worked in the building, and even defecating on the floor -  those full-fledged domestic terrorists were pardoned for their crimes almost as soon as Donald Trump got back into office.

(But anyone who keys a Tesla is headed straight for El. Salvador!)

In an interview with the right-wing news organization, Newsmax, earlier this week, Trump had the audacity to say that those individuals who were in the Capitol on January 6th,  were there"peacefully and patriotically."  (The injured and dead police officers would probably beg to differ.)

But even after his outrageous pardons of the January 6th criminals, Trump was still not content.  In that Newsmax interview last Tuesday he said that the Capitol invaders could also wind up receiving compensation for their time in jail - the government would give them monetary payments (our tax dollars!) for the indignity they suffered by being locked up.  Trump told the interviewer that there is a lot of talk among people in government right now (his people) about compensating those individuals, and he added that is because they "really like that group of people."

One of the people who stands to be compensated for being locked away as a reesult of his involvement in the January 6th riots at the Capitol is a young man from North Carolina who was found to have child pornography in his home, pornography which he had produced himself involving two young girls, one pre-pubescent an the other under the age of twelve.  That pornography was discovered while police searched his home looking for materials connecting him to the January 6th riots.  A news story this week indicated that since the discovery of the pornography was linked to the January 6th investigation, the man's lawyer plans to use the presidential pardon in an effort to get his client free of the pornography charge.

Meanwhile there is another young man who is in a hellhole prison in El Salvador whose only two crimes were:   1.) being Hispanic, and 2.) having a tattoo supporting autism awareness which the ICE agents who snatched him were too damned dumb to understand.

And the person responsible for all of this "law and order" is an elderly politician who less than a year ago was convicted by a New York state Supreme Court jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover-up hush money payments to a porn star.

Maybe we should compensate him, too!

The hypocrisy is stunning - and outrageous!

Quackery Compounds the Measles Epidemic

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Doctors at Covenant Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, which is near the epicenter of the current Texas-New Mexico- Oklahoma measles outbreak, are finding abnormal liver functions among some of the measles patients at their hospital, a probable sign of too much consumption of Vitamin A.  

That particular situation, the consumption of too much Vitamin A and the resultant toxicity that is affecting liver functioning may be rooted in remarks by US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, who has been touting Vitamin A as possible protective and preventative measure for measles.

The only way to prevent measles is  with two doses the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine, which is 97% effective.  Kennedy, who is not a physician, has said that he encourages the MMR vaccinations, but that it is a personal parental choice.  He has also continued to promote the use of Vitamin A as a way to limit the severity of the highly contagious viral disease,  or prevent the infection entirely.  Kennedy's promotion of Vitamin A as a preventative measure or a treatment for measles may have led some parents to believe that they should choose between the shots or the vitamin treatment.   The hospitalized children with the Vitamin A toxicity were all unvaccinated - a clear sign that their parents made the wrong choice.

According to the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control, the controlled use of Vitamin A can play a role in the treatment of measles in serious cases, but it should be under the care and supervision of a physician.  MMR shots remain the only effective prevention measure .

Keep you children safe.  If you have questions about the effectiveness of a medical treatment, consult with a physician.  Don't take medical advice from a politician or some quack huckster.

Signal-gate and the Innocent Bystander

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

In a rapidly developing national political scandal that is now in its third day, White House and Pentagon officials are working at warp(ed) speed to control damage to their public personas.  When news broke earlier this week that top government officials had met a few days earlier over a public group chat service called Signal to discuss military attacks on Yemen and Houthi rebels and pirates in the Red Sea, and that they had somehow inadvertently invited the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine into their conversation, a tsunami of bad press went surging across the world's media landscape.

Donald Trump, being a politician who is only responsible for good news, quickly denied any knowledge of, or involvement in, the public relations fiasco that was also a likely breach of national security and was definitely rocking his administration.   In fact, Trump seemed to be trying to lay the blame at the feet Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic editor who had been included in the high level discussion and briefing.  After the incident occurred and had been made public, Trump, a master of projection, referred to Goldberg as a "sleazebag."

"Sleazebag" or not, when Goldberg finally realized that the correspondence he was receiving was not some elaborate prank in which he was a victim being"punked" by persons unknown, he withdrew from the conversation, and subsequently notified officials that he had been accidentally included in the chat.    Most of the players, Donald Trump included, quickly made their way to news outlets to announce that no classified material had been discussed in the group chats.  

Some of those players included in the actual conversation included Vice President Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard,  National Security Adviser Mike Waltz - who set up the group chat, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, (presumed) White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff - each and every one of whom was handpicked for their critical and highly sensitive jobs by Donald John Trump.

Atlantic Editor Jeffrey Goldberg was identified in the messaging as "JG," and no one in the group questioned his presence or identity.  Goldberg observed the group interaction but did not participate.

After listening to the caterwauling of the players for a couple of days, as well as their insistent denials that classified material had been discussed, Goldberg and his magazine, The Atlantic, decided to release the transcripts of the group chat.  There could be no conceivable harm in that if the cyber-meeting was as innocent as the participants - and even Trump - said that it was.  Yesterday that transcript was published by The Atlantic, and chief among its contents were specifics of an attack on targets in Yemen that took place two hours after Defense Secretary Hegseth posted the information on the group chat.  Even some Republican politicians are struggling to explain why those plans would not have been classified.

Steve Witkoff was in Moscow meeting with Putin at the time of the attack.  It is unknown whether he had access to his messaging app while he was in the Kremlin or not, but the proximity of that information to the nerve center of Russian intelligence should be extremely troubling to American intelligence - to say the absolute very least!

The bombing plans seem to have been carried out effectively, which is amazing because the preparations were comical and slipshod from the get-go.  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth entered specifics about targets and the timing of airstrikes two hours in advance on an app that the Pentagon had instructed military personnel not to use for classified on sensitive material.

Signal is not an approved government platform for sharing classified information.

Part of the reason that Mike Waltz (or whoever made the actual decision) chose to use Signal is that it can be set to delete messages at a specific time, and it could be used to contravene the Presidential Records Act of 1978 which established public ownership of records created by Presidents and their staff in the course of discharging their official duties.  Over the years there seems to have developed a reticence on the part of presidential administrations and some of their members to  follow the law and dutifully preserve all records, particularly those that history might find to be incriminating.  

Some are arguing that Signal was used by that particular working group to circumvent the Presidential Records Act.   The government has servers which are encrypted and secure for sending and receiving classified information, but those would result in official records that would have to be kept in accordance with the Presidential Records Act of 1978.   Using apps like Signal and private email accounts is one way to circumvent that pesky law.   Signal and private email accounts also pose serious  threats to national security - and everyone involved in that particular group chat should have been well aware of the risks involved.

The scandal is building and politicians from both parties are demanding answers. Right now the only obvious fact of the matter is that Donald Trump was just an innocent bystander - as he always is.

The Ultra-Wealthy Are Already Freeloading!

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Louis DeJoy, a Republican mega-donor with a net worth somewhere in the neighborhood of nine-figures - but shy of the current GOP benchmark of being worth a billion dollars or more to be a top government appointee - was appointed leader of the US Postal Service by Donald Trump during his first administration.  DeJoy, who came to government service from the private sector, quickly earned the enmity of many postal service employees and much of the public sector with his cost-cutting activities which resulted in slower and curtailed service from the USPS, a government service seen by many as the bond that holds the country together. 

Joe Biden, during his 2020 presidential campaign against Trump, made political noises about firing Louis DeJoy, but once Biden was elected he apparently removed that item from his "to do" list and was supportive, or at least tolerant, of DeJoy's aggressive business style.

There was political chatter at the time of DeJoy's appointment to head the Postal Service, that he was there to cripple the agency in an effort to get it under private control, and that may have well been the case, but somewhere along the way he seems to have developed a sincere interest in helping the over-burdened and under-funded agency succeed.

Enter Elon Musk and his co-conspirators in DOGE at the beginning of the second Trump administration, and attention once again turned to crippling the US Postal Service with the obvious intent of eventual privatization.   DeJoy apparently agreed to an initial DOGE mandate for his agency to cut 10,000 jobs, but he roared in protest when Elon and his boys wanted access to highly confidential information on his agency's computer system.  DeJoy had already announced his intention to resign as soon as the USPS Board of Governors found a suitable replacement for him, but this past Monday he adjusted that timeline and said that he would resign at the end of the day.

What Joe Biden either couldn't or wouldn't address, Donald Trump managed to accomplish in just over two months.  He got rid of one of his own employees in a move that appears intended to hamstring an important government service to the American people.

Folks, Elon and Trump and their boys have already been swinging hard at Social Security by slashing the employee rolls, closing offices, and making communication with the agency much harder - if not completely impossible.  The end game is to make certain that Social Security is unable to function effectively so that our overlords can rush in with a privatization plan to "save" the program.    The same is true of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, the end game of which is to force participants into "advantage" programs - which would result in benefits being approved and administered through private insurance companies.  For those who think dealing with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is too hard as it is, pick up the phone and just try getting a human being at United Health Care (or any other major insurer) on the line.  I double-dog dare you!

Now, just as it looks as though we are going to be needing the US Postal Service even more, it, too, will be headed for the auction block. And plans for increased rural access to internet also seem to be evaporating.

Education, too, is being rapidly privatized through the funneling of public tax dollars to private and religious schools, with an end game being the collapse of "free" public education.  Soon, very soon, securing a basic elementary and secondary education for your child will be like going to the store for groceries.  Shoppers will be strictly limited by what they can afford - and - to frost that cake - they (we) will go right on paying taxes anyway!

We have a government that is rapidly disengaging from its role in providing basic human services to the population.   The attitude emanating from On High seems to be that if a service does not directly benefit billionaires, it is a waste of the money that working people send them through taxes.

Shame on the Grand Old Party for turning its back on the people whose blood, sweat, and tears built this once-great nation.  That rumble in the distance is the sound of collapse, and the GOP owns it!

No tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy!  They are already freeloading as it is!

The Narcissist-in-Chief

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The whine is on!

Donald John Trump, a man who literally grew up wallowing in privilege, loves to complain ad nauseam  about how unfairly life treats him.  The starchy old politician is now in a major snit over the way artist Sarah Boardman depicted him in a portrait which is hanging in the Colorado State Capitol next to a portrait of Barack Obama that was painted by the same artist.

Trump regards the painting of himself as unflattering while complaining that the one of Obama looks "wonderful."

(Hey Don, cut the artist some slack.  Consider what she had to work with!)

Trump had apparently just become aware of the painting which has hung in the Colorado State Capitol since 2019.   He described it as "purposefully distorted" and demanded its removal.  The executive committee of the state legislature has acceded to the petulant demand and said that it will be removed.

IMHO the painting looks remarkably like Trump with a couple of glaring exceptions:  his face is somber, containing neither his trademark smirk nor sneer, and his color is somewhat pallid because Ms. Boardman chose to paint him without his makeup, rendering his face substantially less orange.  But Trump should have been happy with the improvements that the artist made to his hair.  It is full and thick, a far cry from the whispy combover that perpetually struggles to stay atop his large, follically challenged head.

Republicans in the Colorado state legislature paid for that painting (the one that is coming down) with a GoFundMe page that generated over $10,000.  They may not have to beg money for its replacement because Illinois Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker has offered to buy the old one.  Pritzker, a real billionaire, would be certain to give the disparaged painting a prominent display space that is worthy of its subject- perhaps in a railroad car on The El, on a restroom wall at O'Hare, or perhaps above a vending machine in a snack bar at the Obama Presidential Library.

Governor Pritzker and Illinois would be sure to show the narcissist-in-chief the respect he so rightly deserves.