Claims And Issues

Claims and Issues -- Author's Note: Commercial Advertising Not Authorized and Not Linked.

 

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TAKING THE "EXTRA" BASE.

I rounded third base in our Adult Softball League game and ran smack into a tank.  At least, that is what it felt like.  The "tank" was an opposing player standing in the baseline between me and home.  He was built like a tank.

          I bounced off him and fell to the ground.  When I got up, I saw the umpire standing at home plate.  He had his arm extended straight out and his fingers balled into a fist at the end of his arm.

          That was the signal for a free base, meaning that the runner (in this case, me) could advance without penalty to the next base (in this case, home plate)  due to the opposing player's obstruction.  I guess I was dazed from the collision on the base path, because I went back to third base.  Even though I was dazed, I knew I would be safe there.

          That happened almost 15 years ago.  I still think about that night occasionally.  It took me awhile afterward to realize that the umpire was signaling obstruction and that I could proceed.  In this case, that meant I could go home

          I scored on the next batter's hit but my run is not the point of this story.  Yes, you could say that my return to third base at the time ended up not meaning a thing because I scored anyway.  I think of that.  But putting that to one side, when I think of the game that night, regardless of anything else I almost always wonder why I returned to third base instead of going home.  Like I said, I was dazed.

          But ....

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

LEAVE THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT TO OTHERS, BIDENISTAS.

 

President Biden.  (AP / Susan Walsh)

Now that he made his deal for the debt, President Joe Biden is still talking from time to time about looking in the future at the Fourteenth Amendment option to the debt.

          Leave the Fourteenth Amendment alone, Joe.  You didn't use it when you could have (and should have), so don't mess it up now.  You and your aides do not have the skills to deal with the Fourteenth Amendment. 

          Anything the Bidenistas say now about the Fourteenth Amendment and the debt will be negative.  They have to pooh-pooh the Fourteenth Amendment option now, because that is what they did so that they could make their deal instead.  Don't expect an unbiased, calm assessment now.

          So leave the Fourteenth Amendment to them that can understand it, Bidenistas; you have shown us either that you can't understand it, or, which pretty much amounts to the same thing, that you have to ignore it to make deals instead.  That's fine, what's done is done and all that, but go away now.  Thanks.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

JOE WANTS RE-ELECTION SO BAD, HE CAN TASTE IT.

President Joe Biden is not good at talking.  I am not talking about stuttering; his life-long struggle to overcome stuttering is admirable.

 

          No, I am talking about the fact that he is no good at talking.  He is not an eloquent politician by anyone's reckoning, including his own.

His skills are in making deals.  In his own mind, Joe Biden is a negotiator.  Even though he gives away all his chips before he comes to the poker table, as he did when he gave away the Fourteenth Amendment instruction that the full faith and credit of the United States shall not be questioned, and chose instead to negotiate about it.

          He chose to negotiate because, to say again, that's what he thinks he can do.  That's why he took a negotiation and not a stand.  Now he thinks he will be remembered as The Great Negotiator, because how he will be remembered a year from now is more important to him than the debt.

          Joe Biden wants to be re-elected so bad, he can taste it.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

Ignore the Distractions, Follow the Money.

The debt ceiling bill that is making the rounds this week on Capitol Hill has distractions and profit in it.  A lot of people are going to be worse off and a few people are going to be better off for it.

          Forced labor requirements are euphemistically and usually called work requirements when officials and the media refer to this debt deal.  But they are forced labor requirements.  They're in the debt ceiling bill to provide cruelty appeal to a percentage of the votes in the U.S. House and in the U.S. Senate, but realistically, more so in the House.  The appeal of being cruel when they vote for this bill makes it attractive and so the bill is more likely to pass.

          The forced labor requirements will never apply to the people who vote for them.  Their soft little hands could not do the work.  People who apply for TANF (what's left of welfare) or SNAP (which used to be food stamps) are the people who face forced labor – but even then, not everyone.  There are exemptions for veterans or members of the military, or homeless people.  So the labor requirements will fall on the backs of mothers with four children who never served in the military, say, or on the backs of older people already bent with age.

          Ignore the distractions and follow the money.  There's money to be made here, and the billionaires know how.

          The debt deal removes about 25% of the funding which Congress just voted for the Internal Revenue Service to flag wealthy tax cheats.  Only the rich can afford to be big tax cheats.  The funding applies only to tagging rich cheats.  This is a threat to them.  It had to be cut, from where they sit.

          Leaders who made this deal make their money by pushing programs of the rich.  Or they have a much better chance of winning coveted re-election by pushing programs wanted by the rich.  Or both.  To some, the cruelty of forced labor requirements is an added attraction as well; again, the idea seems to be to maximize your percentages of success even when you cannot completely, 100%  guarantee your success.

          Progressives, for their part,  are more or less naturally inclined to support a deal reached by the president of their own party.  Here, they were also told that this deal cutting the IRS search for wealthy tax cheats is temporary.  The IRS can get the money back some day, they say.  Maybe there will be even more funding in the future, they say.  Unfortunately for what they say, the reality in Washington, D.C. is now and has always been that once the money is gone, it's gone.

          The bottom line?  It's in the title:  Ignore the Distractions, Follow the Money.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THE POWER OF ONE.

Or, in these cases, the tail wags the dog.  It's a distraction.

          It's intentional.

          The story from Miami-Dade County has it that one parent objected to Amanda Gorman's poem at Joe Biden's 2021 Inauguration so it was pulled from elementary or middle school students (it is not clear to me which).

          The media reporting has tended to focus on the continuing attacks on books and ideas, forcing their removal from schools and libraries.

          I have focused instead on the fact that one person can make such a difference.  (If you or I ever thought that by ourselves we did not make much of a difference, we need to think again.)  How is it that one person can move thousands?

          It's a designed distraction.  By that I mean that there is a huge story, for example, of the Walt Disney Corporation pulling out of what was billed as a $1 Billion investment in a new Lake Nona Town Center area in Orange County.  I am uncertain how many thousands of jobs were lost, but it's a lot, perhaps as many as 2,000 jobs.

          Or the story of the same corporation shutting down a hotel in the Walt Disney World Resort.

          These stories and many stories like them have not gotten as much play as they would have, embarrassing as they are to the current "Top Guv," were it not for the distracting story of book bans.  Or in the case of the one Miami-Dade person, poem bans.

          That's what I mean when I say that this is a designed distraction.  It's a distraction by design.  If you run for president, after all, you can't have all this talk about losing billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

NEGOTIATION 101: KEEP YOUR OPTIONS ON THE TABLE.

Even if you yourself know that you are probably not going to use them, keep your options alive.  If you take them away yourself, you have lost them just as surely as if your adversary took them away.

          The Biden Administration had an option to have a coin available to pay off the debt, a massive, magic coin.  Bitcoin I believe it is called.  The Biden negotiators took this option off the table.  Treasury Secretary Yellen, for example, called it "a gimmick."

          The Biden negotiators still have the option of following the Fourteenth Amendment but, thanks to the Biden people themselves, this option is on life support.  Barely alive as an option now, following the Fourteenth Amendment would be relatively simple stuff.  The Fourteenth Amendment expressly provides that the full faith and credit of the United States shall not be questioned.  That's the Fourteenth Amendment in the Constitution.

          Last I looked at Constitutions and statutes, the U.S. Constitution takes precedence over any conflicting statute.  That includes the debt limit statute which is currently being used to take the Biden Administration – and the United States itself – hostage if the demands of the maggots are not met.  So the Constitution should win over the statute, right?

          Well, Biden aides have let it be known that they do not think much of this option.  It would inevitably mean going to Court.  That could take a long time.  And it would ultimately end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, and who has any faith in them or at least in about 6 of them, anyway?  (Sounds like Merrick Garland, doesn't it?)

          Lawyers look at arguments.  Lawyers ask if the argument is good or bad.  I know.  I am one of them.

          I think the Fourteenth Amendment is a pretty good argument.  Actually, it's a very good argument.  This is one argument that I would have been happy to make in Court myself, except that I am not the Attorney General or the Solicitor General or even one of Joe Biden's aides.  Still, surely one or more among them can make a good argument, especially one that is as good as this one.  One that is handed to you.

          Well, it could take a long time.  So what?  People will receive Social Security checks and paychecks in the meantime, and all the other debts of the nation will be paid in the meantime as well.  The Civil War took 4 years.  Some people thought that was a long time.

          But the toil, the strife, the sacrifices, were all worth it in the end.  Certainly that was true for the vast, vast majority of the nation.

          So don't be afraid or very afraid.  Have faith and be hopeful, be very hopeful.  And keep all your remaining options alive, for gosh sake.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

NEGOTIATION SKILLS.

The best negotiation position to be in is not to have to negotiate at all.  If you have the power to prevent negotiation about what you want out of life, you have all the negotiating skill you will ever want.

          The Biden Administration and the Democratic Party had the power to get rid of the debt default limit.  If they had gotten rid of it, they would never have to negotiate over the debt because there would be no danger of default.  They had the power to do this by what is called reconciliation, which means passing a measure related to the budget with a simple majority in the U.S. Senate.  They had the votes at the time.  They had the power, but they did not use it for that.  If memory serves, whatever they used it on did not work, either.

          Now we are where we are.  More thoughts to come.  To be continued ....

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

TO BE NEITHER SEEN NOR HEARD ... CHANGE IS COMING.

(Photography by Nolan Trowe)

          I did not know that ADAPT members in wheelchairs protested the cruel budget cuts that the House passed, by flooding the office of Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker.  Not until I came across a single article in The New Yorker, here:  E. Tammy Kim, The Debt-Ceiling Fight's Collateral Damage, The New Yorker (May 19, 2023), https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-debt-ceiling-fights-collateral-damage.

          "Perhaps because G.O.P. budget-slashing is commonplace, and perhaps because righteous demonstrations are, too, the latest ADAPT action got no press."  Kim, The New Yorker May 19, 2023.

          How many times has a person in a wheelchair not been seen or heard?

          How long will attention not be paid?

          Not much longer, now.  Even if this blog and The New Yorker are the only places that this story of the devastating effects of budget cuts on disabled persons is told, there will be many more places telling this story.  Share The New Yorker article with your friends.  Post it on Facebook.   Submit it to your newsletters and newspapers and ask them to print it.  Publish it on your own website.  Spread the word.

          Change is coming.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

'FOR EVIL TO WIN, GOOD MUST KEEP QUIET.'

Some people representing some States sued to stop the federal government from allowing corporations to consider economic, social, and governance (ESG) issues in all States.  Honest.  Take a look at what they themselves wrote if you can't believe it:  Download State of Utah v. Walsh Complaint Doc.No. 1 filed 01.26.23 (N.D. Tex. Case No. 2.23.cv.00016)).

          They filed their lawsuit in Amarillo, Texas in federal Court.  There is only one federal judge there, so they filed there.  Not surprisingly, they got the judge of their choice.  Not even drug dealers in major cities can do that.

          Speaking of drugs, this is the same Amarillo judge who 'ruled' for the entire country that the Food and Drug Administration did not have the power to regulate drugs – back in the day, over 20 years ago.  Nothing is too far away to be overturned with this crew, it seems.  Not in time, and not in the rest of the United States; nothing is too far away for them to reach.

          Not having stopped the federal government yet, the litigious people are asking their Amarillo judge to forbid the federal government permanently from ever allowing corporations to consider environmental, social, and governance issues of concern to their shareholders.   Honest.  OK, take a look at what they wrote for yourself: Download State of Utah v. Su Motion for Summary Judgment Doc. No. 92 filed 05.16.23 (N.D. Tex. Case No. 2 .23.cv.00016).

          In Florida, another branch of this crew is 'investigating' a teacher who showed her class a Disney movie.   Honest.

          Parenthetically, the teacher resigned even before she showed the movie.  The 'investigation' by the Florida department of education began anyway when one member of the local school board, who had a child at the school where the Disney movie was shown, started the investigation.  One.   Honest.

          It has not been reported whether or not the one complainer has stock in a Disney competitor.  It does not appear that she has been asked as yet.

          Meanwhile, in Montana, Governor Headslapper signed a bill passed by the learned Montana legislators that bans Montanans from looking at Tik Tok on their cellphones or on computers at home or in the office.  (The governor once slapped a reporter who asked him a question he did not want to answer, so he slapped him instead.)  Honest.

          And so it goes.

          A wise person once said that all it takes for evil to win is for good people to remain silent.  I do not want to be silent.  Do you?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

CNN IS A TURN OFF↓

At least one report has it that after CNN aired "The Maggot Hall" last week, its ratings tanked below even Newsmax.

Keep on going!  

 

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

CNN: NOW OFFERING "THE MAGGOTS" BY THE GRIEVANCE BOY.

Remember watching "The Muppets" by Jim Henson?

    CNN's choice to replace that show is its new offering, "The Maggots" by the Grievance Boy.

    Early returns show "The Maggots" is doing well in what used to be called Kaliningrad.  That is a small city on the Baltic Sea where there is nothing else to do.  Although it is landlocked by surrounding democracies, it is ruled by the Russians.

    Back here in America, it's not going so well.   So many people are now literally turned off CNN.  Won't you join us?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

IT'S NOT JAMES EARL JONES'S CNN ANY MORE.

Free air time for The Grievance Boy, the one the jury found is a Sex Harasser?  Why?

    The next question is can't he afford it?  (Maybe not?  Lots of people ask whether he has ever been anywhere near as rich as he claims.)

    Bigger Questions come after that:  What has he done to deserve it?  Start a violent insurrection, attempt to overthrow the U.S. government, ignore the U.S. Constitution?  And so much more of like kind and nature that it makes your head spin.

    So we come back to the biggest question of all for CNN:  Why?

    It's not James Earl Jones's CNN any more.  Nor is it mine.  I'm one of the many viewers who are boycotting CNN starting today.  We will end the boycott when CNN returns to America, if it ever does.

    Until then, alternative networks like MSNBC or PBS should make a home for people like Anderson Cooper and Jim Acosta.  Anderson Cooper in particular would make a good host for The Rachel Maddow hour from Tuesday through Friday when Rachel is not in front of the MSNBC camera.  That way, we can still watch Anderson Cooper.  But not until then.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

SAY THEIR NAMES. TELL THEIR AGES.

This continues an article posted here earlier on Tuesday, May 9, 2023.

    The last names of the latest mass murderer's murdered victims are Cho, Mendoza, Thatikonda, and Cumana-Rivas.  The murdered victims' reported ages are 32, 26, and 3 years old.  The gunman gunned down women among the men.

    Another victim, one who was wounded but not killed, is 6 years old.

    Still not enough evidence for you to conclude that this man's motive for mass murder was White supremacy?  To conclude that he chose his targets from racism, anti-Semitism, women-hating, and fear of young people?  Reports have it that he intentionally staked out this shopping mall for days.  It is well-known for the diversity of the people who went there.

    Until a White supremacist mass murderer met them there.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

WHAT'S THE MOTIVE?

Why don't the "authorities" tell us the motive?  We just had another mass murder and they won't tell us why?

          Investigative reporting including from outside the United States has disclosed social media posts of the latest killer.  He posted on at least two networks, one of which is in Russia.

          The murderer also wore Nazi regalia and tattoos.  His rants are typical of White supremacists.

          Regardless of the motivation for the "authorities" trying so very hard not to tell us anything about his motive, the killer's motive is clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear:  Racism, anti-Semitism, women-hating, and rage against young people.  The fact that the murderer himself was Hispanic simply shows that killing knows no bounds and that White supremacy is not out of bounds for killers like the dead murderer in Texas.  Even some Jews became concentration camp guards to appease the Nazi SS (not very successfully, it should be noted; see the writings of Viktor Frankel and Eli Wiesel and others).

          Need more evidence for this man's motives to murder?  Look at his victims.  To be continued ….

Please read the disclaimer.  ©Dennis J. Wall 2023.  All rights reserved.

REASONABLY ACCOMMODATING OTHER PEOPLE SO THEY CAN WORK …& BE HEALTHY.

The idea of a reasonable accommodation appears in the employment law context.  It may have developed there, or it may have developed elsewhere.  But it is a concept that has changed lives and not just the lives of the disabled people it is intended to apply to.  It is a concept that has changed the perceptions of a people.

    Not so long ago, employers could exclude people from the workforce simply by looking to able-bodied people to perform the job they offered.  That is no longer the case, by and large; employers who want to  make a profit now see that with a reasonable accommodation, disabled people can more than do the job.

    It took a law to change that perception in the employment context.  Some people say that they see this way of recognizing reality as special treatment.  How blind they are.  They do not see benefits to employer and employee alike, or say they don't; they can open their own doors and they are more than satisfied with what they themselves might call an unearned benefit.

    Reasonably accommodating other people so that they can work is a different way of recognizing reality, perhaps.  It is nothing less than a change in perceptions of the world we share.  It does not involve special treatment of anyone.  It involves giving every person an equal chance to work, not a better chance of working.  The goal in any case is to work, not to be treated special. 

    COVID-19 may have changed perceptions of health care for us.  The pandemic may have introduced us as a society to the possibilities of reasonable accommodation in health care.  It may not be necessary to change perceptions by enacting laws in order to recognize a space for reasonable accommodations in health care like telemedicine, as it seems to have been necessary to change perceptions about the workplace.

    There is a big difference here between labor and medicine.  Only disabled people experience thresholds as obstacles, for example.  Everyone on the other hand experiences doctors' and hospitals' waiting rooms.

      It should not take another law like the Americans With Disabilities Act, all in all. to allow telemedicine and other reasonable accommodations to make health care widely available.  But this time it takes Rules and Regulations issued by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid for those affected.  Others not yet on Medicare or not on Medicaid may still need our help.  Our reasonable accommodations for other people's health, if you will.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"THE DIPLOMAT" ON NETFLIX.

The Diplomat is a new and captivating show on Netflix.  The credits show that it was conceived by Deborah Cahn and it featured a woman who succeeded as a U.S. Ambassador (to the Court of St. James, no less, in the United Kingdom) by being successful at governing if not always so successful at displaying established gestures of diplomacy.

    It stars Keri Russell as Ambassador Katherine Wyler, and Russell too does a good job of bringing this refreshing character to life, matching the writing and the direction in the first episodes.

    Until the fourth episode, anyway.  Then she just became one of the boys.

    Not unique, not so different any longer.  She had sex just like the men do; she apparently could not restrain herself, this formerly one-of-a-kind character tiring herself out with all that truth.  It was fitting – and symbolic -- that the sex scenes came at the end of the episode.

    The fourth episode was the first appearance of Amanda Johnson-Zetterstroem in the credits.  She showed up as the scriptwriter for that episode.  I did not notice it in the credits, but imdb.com shows her as the producer of The Diplomat.

    Being a producer means bringing money to the production, either your own money or, more often, other people's.  It looks like she threw her money weight around to include what she apparently thinks of as an obligatory sex scene.  Just like the men.

    Whether that's what happened or not, it's a revoltingly sexist view to portray a successful woman as never being successful just because of the value of her brains or the merits of her personality.  Those are never enough, unfortunately, because in this unrealistic view, she must display intercourse to be entertaining.  Or it won't sell and they won't make enough money, or so it goes.

    The Writers' Strike which began the other day may have a positive effect here, who knows; at least for the short term we may not have more of this writing anytime soon.  I understand that The Diplomat has been renewed for another season, but I doubt it's because of the intercourse portrayed at the end of the fourth episode.  More like in spite of it.  We need more of The Diplomat the way it was written in the opening episodes, not less.

    I'll try the fifth episode, but if it's more of the same, it was fun to cheer for The Diplomat while its original spark was still burning.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THOM SAYS: "NOT MY FEET, AND NOT MY HANDS ALSO."

A U.S. senator from North Carolina says that servers in restaurants do not have to wash their hands after they use the restroom and then serve you food.  How exactly does he come by this insight?

           Perhaps Thom Tillis, the senator in question, does not hold his unit when he does Number One.  It's possible; some men stand in front of the urinal (or toilet) and let go without holding on to anything.  Sometimes it gets messy, but they do not wash their hands.

          On the Thursday before Christ was crucified, He washed His apostles' feet until He came to Peter, who was told that he could not enter heaven otherwise and replied, "Lord, then not my feet only, but my hands also."

          Thom Tillis thinks he  knows better, I guess.  Just don't shake his hand if you can avoid it.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

ORWELLIAN.

 

(Photo via Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals; a selfie if you will.)

Judge Mark Warner wrote that the Florida Legislature's recent restriction laws on voting were "Orwellian."  The Legislature in essence wrote statutes that referred to restrictions on voting as 'freedom,' and that referred to taking the right to vote away from some people as liberation.

          The vote of two judges in Atlanta on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals was also "Orwellian."  They voted to reverse Judge Warner and to reinstate the restrictions.

          The reaction of the corporate media was also Orwellian.  The reporting described the two judges as "appointed by Republican presidents."  One of the two judges was appointed by The Grievance Guy.  She is easily marked ahead of a decision, at least outside of corporate media, for how she will almost certainly vote in  cases involving rights such as the right to vote,  this case among the rest.  The other judge made recent headlines for un-judge-like behavior of travelling to California – why California, you ask, when this judge sits in Atlanta and the Eleventh Circuit covers Florida, Alabama, and Georgia – but not California – and he too is well-known.

          When is the corporate media going to report news of the world as it is, not as they pretend it is?  When are they going to stop writing with Orwellian descriptions?  These are not ordinary times, these are not ordinary judges, and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals is not an ordinary court.  What they do should be reported accurately, not with blinders.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©Dennis J. Wall 2023.  All rights reserved.

DOMINION AND ITS LAWYERS PLAYED ME. THEY GOT THEIR MONEY.

If you are feeling a bit like you were fooled before the Dominion-Fox settlement bargain, join the club.  I was too.

Dominion tried its case in the newspapers (and on cable TV and on the internet) before Fox paid Dominion to stop trying its case.  Dominion's public position was that Fox damaged Dominion's reputation.

Now we know that all Dominion was looking for, really, was money.  Behind the scenes of its public face, Dominion must have wanted Fox's money desperately.  It took less than half of what it had been demanding from Fox.

Civil cases settle for money all the time.  But they don't settle for less than half of the money all the time.

 And more importantly, they don't usually settle without an apology when the party claiming to be the victim, in this case Dominion, claims that its reputation was irretrievably damaged by the other party, Fox in this case.

The value that Dominion really put on its reputation was nil, nada, nothing.  Dominion did not even get an apology from Fox.  That's how important Dominion actually thought its reputation was, in reality.  Dominion's reputation was worth nothing to Dominion.  Yet publicly, Dominion built a following by convincing the public that Dominion was the victim of such horrible deeds that its reputation might never recover.

Looks like all it took for Dominion was less than half of the money it demanded from Fox in the first place.

And Dominion didn't even get an apology.

So I'm not going to feel bad about believing Dominion's hype.  Dominion intended for me and for you to believe it.  Dominion spent a lot of air time and newspaper space crafting that phony narrative so that we would fall for it.  Masters of deception, with loads of help.  Dominion was adamant in public about the damage to its reputation.

Until, in private,  it wasn't. 

So don't let them make you feel bad now.  I have to admit that I felt bad myself, for about a day.  But not now.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

JIM JORDAN WRESTLES OHIO CRIME, FLEES TO SAFETY IN NYC.

Jim Jordan (R-OH) fled the high crime rate of Ohio for the safety of New York City's much lower crime rate.

Remember that every time you see or hear this man.

Especially whenever you see or hear him delivering speeches about crime.

Or about anything else, for that matter.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

KEVIN McCARTHY ON WALL STREET.

Kevin McCarthy has reportedly travelled to Wall Street to say that even though rejecting the "deadbeat ceiling" and defaulting on debts will hurt the bottom line, it is actually a good thing.

"Who are you here to see, George Santos?"—New York City.  "Never heard of him."—Anonymous.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT THOSE NATIONAL SECURITY LEAKS ….

The Shadow.  (Art by John Cassaday / Wikipedia)

It has been several days now, and although I have been keeping an ear out, I have not heard a word from the 21-year-old Massachusetts National Guard Airman who supposedly leaked national secrets single-handedly.

Yesterday, we received reporting that another player in the national security secrets leak, this time a former U.S. Navy CPO which the corporate media insists on calling a "veteran," spread the secrets that the airman leaked to the farthest stretches of the globe.  She also reportedly has connections with Putin and the KGB (which now calls itself FSB, but like many things, still smells the same).

Why is this airman kept so quiet?  Why was he alone blamed for the leaks, at least until the Navy CPO came along?

When will we hear from this airman and when will we hear from this "veteran"?

Ask yourself this too:  Why are these two leakers connected to the U.S. military?

And isn't it just too coincidental by half that the leaked secrets were falsified before they were spread to the world to make Russia look good and to make Ukraine look bad?  Perhaps Putin and the KGB are still at work.

Perhaps?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved. 

ABOUT THOSE LEAKED NATIONAL SECURITY SECRETS ….

(YouTube image from an episode of "The Shadow")

There are national security secrets in documents marked classified in The Grievance Guy's Southeast Florida resort.  They were taken there at least by January 20, 2021.

Even in 2021, there were hyperlinks.  Have they been exploited by anyone?  Are they still "live" today, these secrets and these hyperlinks?

Reports today in 2023 have it that national security secrets have been leaked by a committed operative still in the Federal Government.  To get access, she or he had to take an oath.  So did The Grievance Guy. 

That was not good enough to keep the national security a secret, apparently.

There are still minions of The Grievance Guy employed by the Federal Government, even today.  Many of them work in the Justice Department, of course, as well as other departments.  The Defense Department is certainly not immune.

When and where will this end?  Will it end?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

MUCH MORE THAN TAKING FREE STUFF. IT'S THE NONDISCLOSURE, STUPID.

The reporting about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has until now been focused on Justice Thomas.  The focus should stay there.

Recent calls for a new "code of conduct" for Supreme Court Justices are a deflection from the focus on Justice Clarence Thomas.  A code of conduct for the Supreme Court may be necessary going forward, sadly.  That is largely but not entirely a result of the revelations about Justice Thomas, whether they are true or not.

And we have no denial from Justice Clarence Thomas or anyone else that while on our Supreme Court he has for decades accepted all sorts of lodging for free in all sorts of resorts all over the world from Indonesia to the Adirondacks, and all from one billionaire.

It is also largely a result of Justice Clarence Thomas taking free rides on yachts and on private airplanes, seemingly whenever he wants, all made possible by the same billionaire, and none of it reported for at least the past 19 years.

Some of it has never been reported by Justice Thomas.  It is only now being reported.  And the reporting is coming from ProPublica, not Justice Clarence Thomas.  To say again, no-one including Justice Thomas has denied a single thing that ProPublica has reported in this story.

The calls for a code of conduct are certainly the result as well of Justice Thomas's choice of companions who, so far as we know, are each wealthy, White, and usually male.  And each invited by the same billionaire on every trip, every vacation, everywhere.

But calling for a code of conduct for the Supreme Court does not answer a single one of these questionable things that Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly did without disclosing a single one of them.

It does not take a current code of conduct to know that taking free room and board on yachts and trips on airplanes and vacationing at resorts in the Pacific give off a bad smell.

Keep the focus on where that smell originates.  Let's see what can be done about that, if anything.  We' can let the future take care of itself, secure in the knowledge then of what it is that we are addressing now.  What we are addressing now smells badly enough that we should address it now, not just in the distant future.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

KEEP THEM ALIVE.

Right now many working-class Americans are struggling with inflation and rising costs of living. Any cuts to Medicare and Social Security would only threaten the livelihoods of millions, and pull the rug out from underneath all of us who have paid into the programs. Not to mention the risks of a recession and job losses if the House forces the government to default on its debt.

Members of Congress of all parties must keep the people who depend on these vital programs alive, by refusing to "defund" them through the back door by not raising the debt ceiling for these programs which have already been budgeted but cannot be funded without raising the current debt ceiling.

It's really as simple as that.

I urge Representative Cory Mills not only to join the sign-on letter from Representatives Boyle, Kuster, and Jayapal calling for a clean vote to avoid the US defaulting on our debts, and to oppose negotiating any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and other programs my community relies on. I urge him to vote for the people who cannot live without these programs, including the people who live in the 7th Congressional District of Florida which elected him in the first place.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

FASCISM AND THE EVIL ONE AT WORK TODAY IN NASHVILLE.

The Evil One does his dirtiest work at this time of year, and he is certainly at work in the Tennessee House of Representatives in Nashville today.  The maggot supermajority is right now in the process of expelling three members who dared to speak up when they were deliberately not recognized to speak.  They spoke up anyway.

They spoke up for the children, three of whom died from gunshots this week in their school along with three adults who also died from gunshots at that school.  The children were at the Tennessee Capitol protesting nonexistent gun laws.

Today the children are reportedly protesting fascism at the Tennessee Capitol as three Members are expelled for the crime of speaking for them.

The maggots would like you to think that they have the supermajority and there isn't anything you can do about it.  They are wrong.

There are lots of things that can be done.  One is for the current Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate to strip the two U.S.  Senators from Tennessee of their Committee assignments.  I do not advocate that the Tennessee Senators be expelled; the Majority doesn't have the votes.  But they can certainly try to remove the two from their Committee assignments.  BTW, the two U.S. Senators from Tennessee are the famous MAGA supporter Marsha Blackburn, and an unknown man named Bill Hagerty.  (I had to look them up.)

Another thing that can be done is for aid to Tennessee to suddenly dry up, at least temporarily, in whole or in part.  I cannot support my tax dollars going to bail Tennessee out, not under these circumstances when Tennessee is apparently run by fascists who listen to The Evil One.

Those first two things are up to the U.S. Senate Majority Leader and the President of the United States, respectively.  I would not be surprised if both of those two old men (they are barely older than I am) were not up to the job.

If that turns out to be the case, you and I can act even if they don't.  We can boycott whatever it is that Tennessee provides the rest of the nation.  The only thing I can think of is country music, the famous Nashville Sound.  Today the Nashville Sound sounds an awful lot like a rally at Nuremberg in the 1930's.

Still, if that is all we have got to boycott, then I for one will not buy any more Dolly Parton records.  Sorry, Dolly, but if you don't get with the program of freedom here, you're out with the rest.  I don't have to spend my hard-earned money on this stuff.

That is what America is all about, friends.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

CONTINUE TO BE CONFIDENT. THEY'RE PROVING THE CASE FOR US.

This follows the article posted here about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election on Tuesday, April 4, 2023, TODAY WISCONSIN ELECTS A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE.

I hesitate to say "I told you so," but I told you so.

Now there are reports circulating that a Wisconsin State Senate race has resulted in a "supermajority" of maggots in the Wisconsin State Senate.  They couldn't have done it without gerrymandering.  The way things were going in Wisconsin, I kind of thought that the maggots already had a supermajority in the entire Wisconsin Legislature.

Now the "afraid, be very afraid" crowd is speculating that this new supermajority in the Wisconsin Senate may impeach one or four of the Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices.  Let them try.

Let's see how that plays out.  One thing is already certain:  If they try stuff like that, they will be continuing to prove the case for us -- including for the good people of Wisconsin -- exactly why maggots are not good.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

TODAY, WISCONSIN ELECTS A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE.

(Common Ground)

Be confident.  Be very confident.

Wisconsin will elect a real Justice.   Count on it.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THE INDICTMENT, THE ARRAIGNMENT, AND THE SECRET SERVICE.

(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)

The Secret Service reportedly was behind the scheduling of The Grievance Boy's arraignment in New York City on Tuesday, April 4, 2023.  The Secret Service also reportedly denies that, saying instead that it had nothing to do with the scheduling.

The Secret Service also said that it did not know that it had to keep text messages from the January 6 Insurrection before the Secret Service deleted those text messages (or tried to, perhaps the messages have been electronically resurrected, who knows).

The Secret Service also said that the agent in the limousine with The Grievance Boy on January 6 had no problem with The Grievance Boy trying to manhandle his way to the Capitol.  That is contrary to testimony under oath that The Grievance Boy fought with the Secret Service agent in the car, trying hard to get to The 1/6 Insurrection at the Capitol.

Hmmm.  Who you gonna believe?

Whoever made it happen, The Grievance Boy's agents or whoever, expect The Grievance Boy's followers to try to take advantage of the time between now and his arraignment which was not scheduled for the next day after we found out about his indictment, but instead is scheduled for 5 days more.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

FIRST VIRUS IN HISTORY WHERE DYING DEPENDS ON YOUR POLITICS.

COVID Patient in Hospital, Sarasota, FL.  (Shannon Stapleton / Reuters)

"Those who cannot  remember history are condemned to repeat it."  That is what George Santayana said in 1905.

Those who do not remember diseases and infections are condemned to repeat them.

Not getting vaccinated will lead to many more infections than cases of paralysis.  "When you see a case of paralysis, know that that is the tip of an iceberg."  Dr. Paul Offit said that in 2023.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.