Claims And Issues

HEARSAY.

Katie Britt is infamously a U.S. Senator, among other things.  In her own words, she describes herself as a housewife.  She has been the subject of much reporting for her performance in trying to rebut President Joe Biden's State of the Union message last week. 

          I want to look at just one part of her performance, when she told a story of a person who, as she told the story, she herself had spoken with.  Ms. Britt said that the victim told her that she, the victim, had been put into sex trafficking by cartels when she was 12 years old.  Ms. Britt at least implied that the victim was an undocumented immigrant.

          Contacted by CNN, the victim herself corrected the story in an appearance of her own on television:  While it was true that she was involved in sex trafficking, it was not at the border and immigration policies had nothing to do with it;  she was repeatedly raped in the brothel where she worked.  The attacks upon her did not happen in the United States; they happened in Mexico.  They did not happen during President Biden's administration; they happened during George W. Bush's administration.

          I have not seen my question addressed in all the reporting since:  Did Katie Britt contact the victim of her story before she told her story?  Ms. Britt says that the victim herself told her this story.  If she did, I wonder why the victim herself would say, as she does,  that using her story for politics was "unfair" if she had been contacted in advance about using her story for politics.  So the likelihood seems to me to be that, at the least,  Katie Britt did not confirm any of this with the victim but that CNN contacted the victim to confirm any of this.

          There seems to be a moral here, and it is this:  It is always a best practice to engage your brain before you engage your mouth.  Here, that would have meant verifying the story before telling it – such as by contacting the purported victim, unless you intend to lie,  and asking her if all the details they told you to say are accurate.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"IT'S THE DICTA, STUPID."*

*With apologies again to Mr. James Carville, who famously said during one of the successful Clinton campaigns, "It's the economy, stupid."

Dicta is a word that lawyers use to describe the opinions of judges that go beyond what they need to say to decide the case that confronts them.  To paraphrase Black's Law Dictionary, a standard text for many lawyers, dicta are opinions of judges concerning matters which are not necessarily involved in nor essential to determine the case presently before the court.

          In the course of enticing all justices to agree that a candidate of a certain persuasion should remain on all ballots, 5 judges went beyond that case to declare how and why candidates in future cases should not remain on the ballot (which most legal scholars say is self-evident from the Fourteenth Amendment and which did not need to be rewritten).

          When the U.S. Supreme Court took this case, they limited their review to whether they should affirm or reverse the Supreme Court of Colorado.  The Colorado Supreme Court, you will recall, had held that the Fourteenth Amendment barred this particular candidate in this particular case from the Republican primary ballot in Colorado.

          That is what the U.S. Supreme Court said that they would review.  That narrow question.  Of course, as lawyers know, the question of affirmance or reversal on the facts of the particular case is everything that a reviewing court can ever determine without issuing an advisory opinion.

          Here is what the 9 said they ruled on together.  You may or may not agree with it, but you can certainly read it for yourself.  They don't want you to read it for yourself, you know.  Every good trial lawyer, and any lawyer or person for that matter, knows that when they don't want you to look at something, you should look at it.  Read this for yourself:

          A group of Colorado voters contends that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits former President Donald J. Trump, who seeks the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party in this year's election, from becoming President again. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed with that contention. It ordered the Colorado secretary of state to exclude the former President from the Republican primary ballot in the State and to disregard any write-in votes that Colorado voters might cast for him.

* * *

Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.

Trump v. Anderson, ___ U.S. ___, ___ S. Ct. ___, 2024 WL 899207, at *1 (U.S. March 4, 2024).

          The U.S. Supreme Court was previously pretty consistent in stating the view that it is or was limited under Article III of the Constitution to the existence of a controversy, and that, unlike State Supreme Courts, the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts lacked the power to issue advisory opinions.

          Based on preexisting precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court is accordingly prohibited by the Constitution from issuing an advisory opinion on what action Congress should take to enforce Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.  So there were very strong grounds before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in this case that it would be limited to deciding whether the Supreme Court of Colorado was right or wrong in this particular case.  Period.  End of report.

          Instead, the joint opinion of the 5 rewrote the Fourteenth Amendment to the satisfaction of the 5.  But this is not how all 9 think about the issue they decided, and it is certainly not the view of the other 4 who decided the narrow question of whether this particular candidate in this particular case would remain on the ballot.

          So the command of the 5 to Congress on how to implement Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates is dicta.

          That is what it is.  Meaning no offense but stating it clearly:  "It's the dicta, stupid."

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

UNELECTED TEXAS JUDGES, THE AMERICAN APOCALYPSE, AND MINORITY RULE.

A judge in Texas ruled that another federal policy must stop.   A rule adopted by the National Labor Relations Board would have treated corporations as "joint employers" when they control workers' pay, scheduling, and supervision, even if the workers are employed at say a franchise of McDonald's.

          The employers with control filed a lawsuit against the rule in Texas.  Not for the first time, a federal judge appointed during the American Apocalypse which began for most Americans on January 20, 2017 and ended on January 20, 2021, ruled in favor of the well-funded employers. 

          I say "not for the first time."  This ruling continues a string of decisions by unelected judges ruling for the minority of wealthy people in the United States who own or operate businesses.  In this case, for example, the rule was reportedly opposed once again by the Chamber of Commerce.  These decisions have been common for the last three years, coming mostly from judges in Texas, and most of them coming from unelected judges who were appointed between January 20, 2017 and January 20, 2021.

          For most Americans, the American Apocalypse began and ended on those dates.  For anyone who has anything to do with the federal courts these days, it is still going on.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

VACCINES ARE NOT POLITICAL. THEY ARE NECESSARY.

I attended a Post-Polio Support Group earlier this week.  Another person, who has Post-Polio Syndrome, mentioned that a candidate for president in America said that same day that he, the candidate,  would end mandatory vaccinations if he became president again.

          People who suffered from polio during their earlier years are keenly aware of the importance of vaccines.  If they too had been able to receive vaccines against polio, they might never have suffered so much.  So to them, this kind of remark is unforgivable.

          Yet the discussion about the remark was stopped.  Someone said it was "political" to object to this kind of remark.  I understand.  It is often better not to be controversial than to challenge.  Groups last longer without controversies than they do with challenges and, as a general rule, that's certain.

          But suppose a candidate says in the future that they will make fire escapes and sprinklers optional for landlords.  They will say perhaps that the cost of installing fire escapes or sprinklers is too great to require.  They will not require landlords to include them or not include them, but will leave it up to the landlords to make their own choice.

          I do not think that it would be political to oppose such remarks.  I think that it is self-evident that remarks of that kind  threaten the health and safety of other people for no good reason, regardless of whether or not a vocal cohort thirsts to hear them.  Some remarks are unworthy of being said in a civilized society.  Period.

          And so I think that the remark of making vaccines optional is consistent with insisting that there is no pandemic so that so far over 1 Million people have died.  That is not a political remark.  It is life-threatening.  No-one has the right to needlessly threaten my life or yours particularly for their own selfish benefit.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

LEST WE FORGET TO ASK: WHO PAID THE $1,031,788.33 BOND?

One month ago today, on February 7, 2024, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks's February 6, 2024 Order was filed, approving the payment of a  $1,031,788.33 bond into the Registry of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.  [Redacted, Unreconstructed] Plaintiff v. Hillary Clinton, Marc Elias, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, James Comey, and the United States of America, et al., Order Granting Unopposed Motion for Stay of Final Order and to Approve Bond To be Paid to Registry of Court, DE 309, filed Feb. 7, 2024 (S.D. Fla. No. 2:22-14102).

Click to Download Redacted Unreconstructed P v. [Lots of Ds Order Granting Unopposed M.Stay and Approve Bond to be Paid to Registry of Ct. DE 309 filed Feb. 6 2023 (S.D. Fla. Case No. 2.2022-14102).

         The payment of $1,031,788.33 into the Court Registry took the place of the appellants having to file a supersedeas bond to protect payment.  The Redacted, Unreconstructed Plaintiff and his lead lawyer in the case, Alina Habba and her law firm, Habba Madaio & Associates – lawyers who would also be his lawyers in other cases including the recently concluded and well-known litigation which Judge Kaplan presided over  --  appealed their joint and several liability to pay sanctions of $937,989.39 for filing this frivolous litigation in which they sued many, many defendants.  [Redacted, Unreconstructed] Plaintiff v. Hillary Clinton, Marc Elias, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, James Comey, and the United States of America, et al., Order Granting Joint Motion for Sanctions, DE 302, filed Jan. 19, 2023 (S.D. Fla. No. 2:22-14102).  

         PACER, the electronic docket allowing Public Access to (Federal) Court Electronic Records, does not show when the bond amount was filed or who filed it.  There is a lot of speculation in the press and on cable television, podcasts, and radio asking how the same Redacted, Unreconstructed party will be able to fund his appeals, several of which he has already filed.  Those are good questions.  You would think the payment of another Million Dollars (actually, more) would be added to the pot.  The payment of another Million Dollars+ to appeal hasn't even been discussed so far as I can find, let alone the fact that this appeal involves sanctions for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

          Yet the Sanctions Order filed January 19, 2023 seems to be forgotten already, and the Order Approving over $1Million to be Paid Into the Court Registry entered a month ago does not even enter the equation, yet it presents an identical question:  How did the Redacted, Unreconstructed party pay it, in other words, where did he get the money?  These are good questions as well.

         I am going to mention the names of people and outlets who have the capacity to answer these questions if they want to.  If I left a tweet on X-which-used-to-be-Twitter, I guess they might find a tweet but so would the trolls most likely and I do not want that.  I do not know whether these people will pay attention to blogs like this one, but I am going to try.  Maybe they will seek out their names since they are in a business where their name recognition is so important to them.

        I am not completely sure of how to bring this article to their attention, so I am going to mention their names here in the body of this article as well as in the metadata accompanying it.  Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Susanne Craig, David Barstow, Russ Buettner, Rachel Maddow, Andrew Weissmann, Will Bunch, Scott Maxwell, Jackie Calmes, LZ Granderson, Karen Tumulty, Julie K. Brown, David Dayen, New York Times, Washington Post, American Prospect, Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jamie Raskin, Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Talking Points Memo, ProPublica, Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, and American Prospect.

          Thank you in advance, one and all.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

         The payment of $1,031,788.33 into the Court Registry took the place of the appellants having to file a supersedeas bond to protect payment.  The Redacted, Unreconstructed Plaintiff and his lead lawyer in the case, Alina Habba and her law firm, Habba Madaio & Associates – lawyers who would also be his lawyers in other cases including the recently concluded and well-known litigation which Judge Kaplan presided over  --  appealed their joint and several liability to pay sanctions of $937,989.39 for filing this frivolous litigation in which they sued many, many defendants.  [Redacted, Unreconstructed] Plaintiff v. Hillary Clinton, Marc Elias, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, James Comey, and the United States of America, et al., Order Granting Joint Motion for Sanctions, DE 302, filed Jan. 19, 2023 (S.D. Fla. No. 2:22-14102).  

         PACER, the electronic docket allowing Public Access to (Federal) Court Electronic Records, does not show when the bond amount was filed or who filed it.  There is a lot of speculation in the press and on cable television, podcasts, and radio asking how the same Redacted, Unreconstructed party will be able to fund his appeals, several of which he has already filed.  Those are good questions.  You would think the payment of another Million Dollars (actually, more) would be added to the pot.  The payment of another Million Dollars+ to appeal hasn't even been discussed so far as I can find, let alone the fact that this appeal involves sanctions for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

          Yet the Sanctions Order filed January 19, 2023 seems to be forgotten already, and the Order Approving over $1Million to be Paid Into the Court Registry entered a month ago does not even enter the equation, yet it presents an identical question:  How did the Redacted, Unreconstructed party pay it, in other words, where did he get the money?  These are good questions as well.

         I am going to mention the names of people and outlets who have the capacity to answer these questions if they want to.  If I left a tweet on X-which-used-to-be-Twitter, I guess they might find a tweet but so would the trolls most likely and I do not want that.  I do not know whether these people will pay attention to blogs like this one, but I am going to try.  Maybe they will seek out their names since they are in a business where their name recognition is so important to them.

        I am not completely sure of how to bring this article to their attention, so I am going to mention their names here in the body of this article as well as in the metadata accompanying it.  Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Susanne Craig, David Barstow, Russ Buettner, Rachel Maddow, Andrew Weissmann, Will Bunch, Scott Maxwell, Jackie Calmes, LZ Granderson, Karen Tumulty, Julie K. Brown, David Dayen, New York Times, Washington Post, American Prospect, Guardian, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jamie Raskin, Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Talking Points Memo, ProPublica, Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, and American Prospect.

          Thank you in advance, one and all.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

CHURCHILL, CHAMBERLAIN, AND THE STORM GATHERING IN THE U.S. NOW.

Winston Churchill was famously a voice in the wilderness warning about Hitler.

          The newspapers and radios which were the media of his day heaped praise on Neville Chamberlain and not on him.  The newspapers and radios applauded Neville Chamberlain for continuously attempting to compromise with Hitler.  Until it was too late and World War Two came.

          The current situation in the United States is not the same as the situation that faced Winston Churchill.  It is not too late.  It is still possible to affect the outcome.

          That brings me to the decision released on Monday of this week in the Fourteenth Amendment case.  The best legal minds of the day said that the justices would apply the Fourteenth Amendment as it was written.

          The result was unanimous but the "reasoning" on offer was anything but.  Five turned on 4 after the 4 attempted to compromise for a unanimous result of not enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment as it was written.  The 5 outvoted the 4 and wrote their own amendment, still while not enforcing the Fourteenth as it was written.

          It is clear, or it ought to be clear, that this decision was not the product of the best legal minds of the day.  If it was not the result of legal minds, it was the result of political minds and raw power, not reasoning.  5 did not prevail by the strength of their reasoning, which is the only way that the decisions of judges are legitimate in a free society.  5 simply outvoted 4 after the 4 compromised for unanimity.

          The best legal minds of the day are clearly not on the U.S. Supreme Court.

           At this point,  only foolish people expect a different result from them.  To rephrase Ben Franklin, the future is ours, if we can keep it.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

BRAND NEW INVENTIONS. SAME OLD PROBLEMS.

I have read about a new satellite that will "sniff out" methane emissions and alert everyone to areas of pollution on the planet.

          Technology continually gives us new machines and new ways to deal with our problems.

          What we need now is a new machine to "sniff out" people who are courageous enough to block the pollution.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"WHATEVER YOU DID FOR THE LEAST OF MY BROTHERS ..."

Catholic and other religious and nongovernmental organizations are under fire for giving water and food to people who cross the U.S. southern border into the United States.

          It is not clear exactly what the critics are saying, or why they are singling out charitable organizations in their anger, but they seem to be saying that migrants feel encouraged to come to the United States by a little water and bread on this side of the border, miles and months away from their native lands.

          A Member of Congress from Texas has singled out Catholic charitable organizations as the real reason for the influx of migrants.  The Texas attorney general has even sued Annunciation House, one of these organizations, calling it a part of human trafficking because it has given shelter and food to people who have already crossed the border, most of whom have been delivered to it by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol after they were finished applying for asylum.

          "Do you really think that people are uprooting themselves, putting themselves in danger as they undertake a difficult journey just so that they can come to our respite center to take a bath and have a meal or sleep on a mat?,"  Sr. Norma Pimentel asks.

          To answer Sr. Norma's question, of course the people who say these things do not really think that.  They do not really think at all.  They are filled with cruelty, not with thought.

          They are the people who nailed Jesus Christ to the Cross.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

P.S. THE "US" IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS LUNAR DISASTER.

This is a postscript to the article published earlier today, "WE" ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CORPORATE SPACE FAILURES.

I have read that the latest space shot to the moon was the latest space shot of "the US."

          It was not.

          I read this sort of thing more so before the lunar disaster that this privatized space shot has become, than after it became clear that it is another disaster.

          I am not certain who funded this privatized effort, but I would not be surprised to learn that the money did not come from the privatizing investors but from you and me, the U.S. taxpayers.  (This is worth looking into, particularly since the privatized media are not exactly filling pages and air waves with reporting on this question.)  One thing is certain, however:  The money to fund this latest enterprise did not come from the people who planned it and ran it.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"WE" ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CORPORATE SPACE FAILURES.

"We" are not responsible for failures on the launch pad.  "We" are not responsible for failures on the moon.

Living here in Florida near Kennedy Space Center, I hear and read more stories about corporate failures at the Cape than I find published or broadcast in the national media.  And when the stories appear in the corporate press at all, they are mostly transfigured into failures of the American people, rather than the failures of private corporations as they truly are.

          I was put in mind of this by recent reporting on yet another failed launch of a rocket and by the news of a private corporation's lunar rover I guess it was, that landed on its side and not straight up.

          These are stories of failure, all right, but you and I are not responsible.  The privatization of rocket launches and lunar landings is responsible.  That's the true story of "the man behind the curtain," if you will, the true story behind the stories published by the corporate media.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

ABORTION, FLORIDA, AND FREEDOM: IT'S FLORIDA.

Supporters of an amendment to protect abortion rights in Florida are focused on the huge number of people who signed petitions to put the proposed amendment on the ballot this November.  Supporters are also focused on the 70% of likely voters that many polls report as likely to vote for the amendment when it makes the ballot (so much so that even people like me who are personally opposed to abortion, are still likely to vote against imposing our own religious beliefs in America on the right of other Americans to make their own choice).

          Supporters of the amendment are focused in the wrong direction.  They will never get a chance to vote.  The people who are likely to vote on this matter are the people who are already in power.

          Freedom of choice will not be on the ballot in Florida in November.  The chance that the abortion amendment is likely to pass is why it is not likely to be on the ballot.

          Five of the people on the state supreme court who will vote on whether to allow the amendment to be on the ballot, were appointed in part because of their support of the politics of uniformity as opposed to the politics of the people being free to choose.   A sixth out of the seven who will decide this particular case is reportedly married to a Florida state legislator who introduced legislation to make the choice of getting an abortion in Florida harder, rather than making the choice an issue of freedom to choose.

          Supporters of the abortion amendment in Florida are focused in the wrong direction.  Freedom of choice will not be on the ballot in Florida in November.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

COME TO FLORIDA!  BRING THE KIDS!  SUN, SAND ... AND MEASLES?

Seriously?

Seriously.  See Editorial, Florida Shows How to Bungle a Measles Outbreak, LOS ANGELES TIMES, Feb. 28, 2024.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"KEEP PUBLIC HOSPITALS PUBLIC FOR THE PATIENTS' SAKE".

A joint editorial published in the Florida Sun Sentinel and the Orlando Sentinel newspapers says what needs to be said:  "Keep Public Hospitals Public For the Patients' Sake."  (The link is to The Florida Sun Sentinel website; the Orlando Sentinel has put the editorial behind a paywall with much of the rest of that newspaper.)

    The spur for the editorial is a bill that has been introduced in the Florida House by a wealthy member.  He is still in his first term but he has lost no time providing an opportunity for private equity and other investors to convert public hospitals to private profit centers.  The editorial pretty much says it all.

    The editorial's only drawback is that it is overly tentative, too iffy, whereas direct description is called for here.  For example, a quote from the "CEO of Florida's Safety Net Hospital Alliance" says that the bill "seems" to give a competitive advantage to the money-making funds that would take over public hospitals.

    Of course it "seems" to.  The bill was written to give them an advantage and to make it easier for the private investors to take over public hospitals.  In the Orlando Sentinel version, a sentence appears that is not found in the Florida Sun Sentinel's version, in which the Orlando paper weakly intones that "It's foolish to assume that private chains wouldn't come sniffing after such profitable targets."

    They already are.  The "private chains" highlighted in this timely editorial are already sniffing after public hospitals.  Thanks to these two newspapers for sniffing out these private chains of publicity-shy investors who are trying to change patient care into nothing but making profits.

Please read the disclaimer.   This article 2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.  The author has pointed to the growing issues presented by the takeover of hospitals, nursing homes, physicians' practices, and other public healthcare providers for private profit, in Dennis J. Wall, Catastrophe Claims / Insurance Coverage for Natural and Man-Made Disasters, Private Equity and Medicare, § 18C:6.50 (Thomson Reuters forthcoming in the Spring of 2024). 

    

 

LIONS AND TIGERS AND CELLPHONE OUTAGES! OH, MY!

This past week the cellphones of many people stopped working.  They had no access to the internet; access was disrupted by the outage.  Many things and many people stopped working as well.

          Reports circulating today have it that this was an accident, particularly according to AT&T and other service providers who understandably don't want to share the blame, if there is any.

          What makes you think it was just a part of daily living in February 2024?  The cellphone service disruption was not divinely ordered, you know.

          Let's look to see if there was a culprit, whether domestic or foreign.  I'm not saying it was deliberate sabotage, but I am saying that the Great Cellphone Disruption of February 2024 was certainly not divinely inspired.  Since that's certainly true, other potential causes should be looked at accordingly, including both accidents and sabotage alike.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

"WE ARE THE WORLD." WOULD YOU WALK AWAY? STAY?

"We Are The World" was recorded in a session which included many of the foremost artists of the time.  It was being recorded as a benefit for starving people in Africa.

          There are times when a line is crossed.  Very often in my own life, I have walked out.  It is sobering to think how many times we walk out of a project because we blame somebody else for crossing a line, when it was us that crossed the line.

          During the recording of "We Are The World," Stevie Wonder suggested singing some lines in Swahili.   For Waylon Jennings, this crossed a line.  He walked out, muttering that he would not sing in Swahili.

          The rest of the artists stayed.  They argued that the suggestion to sing some lines in Swahili was not appropriate.  Stevie Wonder was open to their views, and he changed his mind.  The song was not recorded in Swahili.  (Most of the starving people did not speak Swahili, for one thing.)

          We would not have known these things if a documentary had not been videoed and released this year on Netflix.  Watch it.  You will get to see these things and many more things that you would otherwise never know, including watching Stevie Wonder coach Bob Dylan on how to sing the song like Bob Dylan.

          Along the way, think about crossing lines and walking out.  Would you walk away or stay?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

YOUR FALSE ASSETS TAKE THE MONEY MEANT FOR MY LOAN.

I have heard it said by and on behalf of those who falsify their assets and lie about their wealth, that they are not harming anyone because banks and insurance companies are too smart to be fooled by the falsehoods.

          The capital available for a loan is finite.  To put it another way, there is only so much money.  Even the banks and the insurance companies have a limited supply of money; however vast, their holdings still have a limit.

          When you falsify your assets to induce the banks to give you a loan, or lie when you apply to the insurance company to give you insurance, you take the money and the insurance away from me and everyone else who is not you.

          This conduct is wrong.  It has good consequences for liars and bad consequences for us whose applications for money and insurance are true.  What is right is to recognize that your behavior is a crime because of those consequences.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

HOW YOU SPEND YOUR TIME TELLS WHO, WHAT YOU ARE.

So now we are supposed to take moral instruction from an Alabama court in 2024. 

          The Alabama supreme court ruled that frozen embryos are people and you can sue for their "wrongful death."  The interesting part of that case is that the judges were interpreting a statute passed by the Alabama state legislature; instead, they apparently interpreted Holy Scripture.  Interesting, too, to see an Alabama state statute as though it came from the mouth of God.  Well, we'll contemplate such things on another day.

          A federal judge in Alabama used to set the standard for morality and constitutional interpretation, too, while he was at it.  The judge was Frank Johnson, the time was from the 1950's through the 1970's, and the issues included racism and statutes written by the Alabama state legislature, not frozen embryos and statutes written by the Alabama state legislature.

          The federal court in Alabama set the standards to follow for moral instruction.  Even George Corley Wallace, he who declared "segregation forever," had to obey them.

          Times have changed, apparently.  One thing is still true, though:  How you choose to spend your time tells us everything we need to know about you.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY ...

... is no longer celebrated by itself.  It is a part of Presidents' Day of course, and it has been that way for a long time.  But to borrow a phrase from Edna St. Vincent Millay, I am not resigned.

          Nor am I resigned to lumping Abraham Lincoln's Birthday into the self-same Presidents' Day where we unload George Washington's Birthday as well – and for that matter, where we unload every single president including the ones that don't deserve to be celebrated.

          So here's to Old Abe and to the Father of His Country.  Long may their memories and examples live with us – both of them separate and identifiable for their honor, their integrity, and their character.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

IT'S THE REPETITION, STUPID.*

*Apologies to James Carville, who famously stated the mantra for one of the successful Clinton presidential campaigns:  "It's the economy, stupid."

The pizza is what did it.  I was repeating the plan to myself, over and over for a couple of days that we would be ordering pizza on Sunday.

          When Sunday came, my wife and I had a brief conversation about using up the left-overs on Sunday and ordering pizza on Monday (which happened to be the Presidents' Day Holiday) instead.  So we did.

          When Monday came, I forgot the short conversation and defaulted as it were to the plan I had repeated to myself for days.  I thought that we had overlooked taking something out of the freezer for supper.  My wife reminded me that we had decided on ordering pizza on Monday instead of Sunday.  I did not remember the conversation at first; I only remembered the plan to order pizza on Sunday, which I had repeated to myself for a couple of days, sometimes without realizing that I was repeating the plan for pizza on Sunday.

          I realized that I had molded my behavior around the repetition of an idea, a plan of action.  The repetition made it real to me.

          In baseball and softball, batters and fielders practice what they need to do until it becomes second nature.  We called it "muscle memory."  The hitter would repeat certain steps to successfully hitting a pitch, and the fielder would practice putting the glove down and setting the fielder's stance for ground balls, all almost like learning a sequence of dance steps – another area of learning by repetition.

          Another example in my own life was learning the keyboard for a typewriter by constantly repeating the location of the keys until I knew their location with my eyes closed.  (Was it Bill Gates who tried, unsuccessfully, to rearrange the keys on the keyboard?  Or was it some other geek?)

          Josef Goebbels is another example, the proponent of telling the Nazi's "Big Lie" by constant repetition.  Although most people, me included, have focused on the "Big Lie" part of Goebbels' propaganda technique, repetition was the key to it.

          With enough repetition, it appears that the human mind and body will respond as it has been trained by repetition to respond.  The good news is that we have been given minds to think with, eyes to see with, and ears to hear with, so that we can be more than our repetition. 

          Perhaps especially when we realize that repetition is not always reality.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2024 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

MEMO TO GORDON GECKO: EXPLOITING CHILD LABOR IS not GOOD.

Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel nailed it in his column published today, and I urge you to read it:  Scott Maxwell, Florida Values?  Put minors to work., Orlando Sentinel, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, at 3 (may be behind the Sentinel's paywall).

Here are two takeaways from a column which has many of them:

1. Businesses want you to believe that they are touting child labor because they want children to learn the value of work (and not because they, the businesses, are too cheap to hire workers at paying wages or to provide safer working conditions). Moms and dads, as Maxwell points out, want their children to know the value of work but they are not the ones who are clamoring for ineffective child labor laws.
2. State legislatures in Iowa and now in Florida are changing the market.  They are putting a thumb on the scale in favor of employers and against employees.  If the market were allowed to develop in a capitalist economy, it would require employers to fill their labor shortages by paying a living wage or by making workplaces safer and more accommodating to people working there, not by having state legislators intervene in the market and exploit child labor.

Read Scott Maxwell's column today.  It's good.

Please read the disclaimer.

 

OPINION BILLIONAIRES

"Opinion billionaires."  Filthy rich people who send automobiles into outer space and oligarchs that give presents to judges who do not report them as the gifts they are.  I like that phrase, "opinion billionaires."  It describes them.

These are people who are so out of touch with the way we live that they might as well come from a different country.  Effectively, they do come from a different country.  Why in the world should we pay attention to them when they tell us what we should think, how we should live, or what we should vote for?  They know so little about us.

Rebecca Solnit put it this way recently:  "Being a billionaire tends to isolate you from the rest of humanity, and too often places you in an echo chamber of your own making; it's arguably a disqualification for participating in the affairs of ordinary people."

I hadn't quite thought of these people in those terms.  They know so little about us and everything about themselves.  There may not be much to "argue" about this as a disqualification for participating in the affairs of ordinary people.

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

THE "TELL." Updated to November, 2023.

November 7, 2023:  I have not republished an article previously posted here, but this is a good time to start.  This article was originally published on November 12, 2022.  Many people seem to be in a tizzy about a poll published at this time, in November 2023, about the 2024 elections a year from now.  The polls were conducted by Siena College, I believe, and published by The New York Times.  Ridiculous.  Read on.  This has happened before, in fact, it happened before the last election as well.  Guess what?  People of good will won that election too.  So, as I have already said, read on.  Thank you.

Editing (Image by LexisNexis)

 

A "tell" in poker is information that a player at the table gives away about the hand they hold.  A tell can be a twitch of the eye, a tug on the ear, or anything else that the poker player does not realize they are doing when they telegraph what kind of hand they have.

Up until a few months ago, the story repeated in the media was that the Midterm Elections of 2022 would bring a "Blue Wave."  Then the stories changed, and they became stories that a "Red Wave" was coming instead.  These stories stayed up in the media until the Election, when of course there was no red wave after all.

Earlier this week, a few days after the Election, a  journalist revealed on a podcast that the story changed because Republican mega-donors commissioned new polls that would say that a red wave was on the way.  Whether or not journalists knew that at the time, they printed the multi-millionaires' poll results.  That says a lot about 21st Century Journalism right there:  Journalists did not fully investigate before they published.

Even if some journalists did not know the story behind the oligarchs' polls, all journalists knew that the Republicans did not reveal (even anonymously) their private polling data.  Parenthetically, Republicans have apparently shown journalists their private polling date in many past elections, at least when the data was favorable to Republicans.  Journalists knew that months ago.

Months ago, Republicans knew pretty much that they would not do well in the Midterms this year.  Otherwise they would have shared their private polling data.  You can bet that if the data was good for them, they would have published it early and often.

Not sharing private poll results is a tell. 

Journalists did not tell us that the Republicans this year did not share their private polling data.  Journalists just printed stories based on the polls commissioned to predict a "Red Wave."  They wrote, in essence, "Be afraid, be very afraid," right up until Election Day earlier this week.  Now they are writing a different story, that there certainly is not a red wave.

The secretly held private polling results was a major big tell.  The journalists knew.  And they did not tell us.

Other than they, the journalists, who said it is a good idea to pay attention to them?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

BASEBALL, MAKING A BUCK, AND BRAINS.

Baseball’s long-ago decision to make a couple of levels of short series that teams would have to negotiate like a minefield, showed itself this year.

The justification for departing from one pennant winner with the most victories in each league was money.  The Lords of Baseball, the Owners, wanted more money.  They thought without evidence at the time that more fans buying more tickets in more series would make them more money.  In the short run, perhaps it has.

In the long run, the fans that follow teams beginning in April know that in October their teams’ victories won’t matter.  What will matter is whether their team “qualifies” for the first of many short series on the way to the World Series.  Even if a team wins more than 100 games, as the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Baltimore Orioles both did this season, their records won’t matter if they don’t make it past all of the multiple short series.

So the lesson is that winning games between April and October does not matter so long as you win 3 out of 5 games, or 4 out of 7 games, to really punch your ticket to the World Series.  The Lords may be making money on this in the short run, and maybe not, but if those Owners pay attention they will see and hear and smell the loss of interest in the long run.

Short-term profits and long-term loss.  Isn’t that so 2023?

CIAO!  ARRIVEDERCI!

IS ANYBODY GOING TO WATCH THIS WORLD SERIES?

Fans followed two teams that went the distance in the 2023 baseball season:  the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Baltimore Orioles.  Both teams won over 100 games in a season that lasted over 6 months and a 162-game schedule.

The Orioles added something to their storyline this year.  Unlike the Dodgers, the Orioles have not been used to winning over the long haul.

Now we are in the short haul part of the baseball year.  After winning “the best of 5” and then “the best of 7,” the two remaining teams are proven losers over the long term but proven winners over the short term because they are still around.  For their part, the Orioles and the Dodgers have gone home.

So is anyone going to stay around and watch this World Series?  It’s a short series, you know.  Anything can happen, and losers can even be champs in a short series, you know.  But I wonder:  Are the same people that followed baseball over the long haul going to stick with this shortened version where the teams and the records are, well, smaller?

SEE ‘YA NEXT YEAR!  Maybe.

WHY DOESN’T JOE BIDEN GET MORE SUPPORT IN THE POLLS?

Members of the Taliban at the Kabul Airport after the Americans left.  (Photo by Reuters via The Jerusalem Post)

In a word:  Afghanistan.

MOVING ON BUT I DON’T KNOW WHERE ….

U.S. SENATE RULES ARE UNDEMOCRATIC. AND THEY ARE UNSAFE.

The rules of the United States Senate are anti-democratic.  And unsafe.

    One senator can stop military officers from being promoted, even to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Even when that one senator has never served in the military, like Tommy Tuberville.

    One senator can also endanger the national security by putting a block on the appointment of diplomats from the United States to any other country.  That senator -- Rand Paul -- was never a diplomat, any more than Tuberville was ever a soldier, sailor, marine, or airman but he too is allowed to endanger the security of the United States because of the rules of the United States Senate.

    If the current Majority Leader of the United States Senate does not have the votes to change this rule, he should at least denounce this rule and call a vote to make it public even if he loses.

    If the current Leader cannot even call a vote, he should step aside and let someone else do the work.  Senator Chuck Schumer, leave the job to someone else if you can't do it.

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

THE OCEANGATE SCANDAL.

Have you heard about the OceanGate scandal yet?

           No, not the story of the tourist submersible that the company owned, or the story of OceanGate's CEO who tragically died piloting $1 Million worth of tourist seats to ogle the graveyard of the Titanic, its crew, and its passengers who went down with it.

           And no, not the story of the wrongful death lawsuits that from all the news reports it seems are likely to be filed right away, if they haven't been filed already.

          I mean the scandal of the loan to the OceanGate company of some reportedly $450,000 of COVID relief money in the guise of a PPP loan,  and the additional scandal that the OceanGate loan of COVID funds intended to relieve the pandemic, was reportedly forgiven so that the company does not have to repay a cent of the COVID money.

          I think that this is ironic, given the reluctance of some to forgive student loan debts even as OceanGate's "loan" was being forgiven.

          It truly is a scandal.  Do you think differently?

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

$250,000 MACK TRUCK PEOPLE, UNDER THE SEA.

(Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images)

Mack truck people in my lexicon are people who run out in front of a Mack truck, get run over, and if they survive yell, "Look at me!  I just got run over by a Mack truck."

          The four tourists in the tourist submersible to look at the wreck of the Titanic and the graveyards of all the people who were still on the ship when it sank, are each $250,000 Mack truck people.  They paid $250,000 apiece to take a ride and now they are in trouble and we are supposed to come to help them out of the trouble they paid their way into.  Again, don't get me wrong because I continue even now to pray, days after the news first broke, that they may return safely from their self-induced troubles under the sea off Newfoundland near the wreck and the graveyard that is left of the Titanic, which these tourists so richly wanted to see.

          But again also, we don't have to pay for their rescue.  Rescue them we will, or at least we will try.  Coast Guards and airplanes and ships of all kinds are rushing to the rescue, which is great.  So long as it is not at taxpayer expense.  The tourists caused their peril, the tourists should pay the bill for their rescue.  I continue to hope and to pray for their rescue.

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

BANGING ON THE TITANIC?

The Titanic (AP photo)

There are reports of banging from the tourist submersible that was chartered to visit the grave of the Titanic and its crew two miles down into the sea near Newfoundland.

          Let's hope this is a good sign.  I for one am continuing to pray for the safe return of the four Quarter Million Dollar tourists and of the one pilot who was apparently the only one who did not pay for the privilege.  If he had had his hands on $250,000, I doubt that he would have spent it on a trip to the Titanic.

          For all concerned, as I suggested the other day, surely the $250,000 apiece (for a total of $1 Million in round numbers, apparently) could have been much better spent on the hungry, the poor, and the sick.  But then, none of them are two miles down below the surface of the sea off Newfoundland, so far as that goes.

          BTW:  I thought that the final resting place of the Titanic, the members of its crew who went down with the ship, and its passengers who were still on board when the ship sank, was off limits to sight-seers?  Isn't this a protected site?  After this experience, if not, why not?

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

$250,000 TO OGLE THE TITANIC? FEED, HOUSE, CURE? PAY RESCUE?

Don't get me wrong.  I don't want anybody to drown or die.  I am praying for the safe return of the four tourists and one pilot in the lost submersible ogling the wreck of the Titanic.

          I do mean to say clearly that when I learned that the four tourists paid a Quarter of a Million Dollars apiece for the ride, I lost all sympathy for them.  I am still praying for them, and for their families.  But I personally think that $250,000 would be better spent feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and curing the sick, than spending it on myself for a ride to ogle the wreck of the Titanic.

          What's more, I read that various Coast Guards and maybe even Navies are rushing to the rescue of these unfortunate five.  The airwaves are dominated at this time by stories about their plight.  You and I should not pay the bills, whatever happens (and again, let's hope that what happens is a good ending to all this).  The four tourists can afford it if they can pay $250,000 apiece to visit the remains of a shipwreck two or more miles down under the waves.

          So, that's what I'm saying and I'm saying it clearly, so don't misunderstand and think that I want anything but the safe return of these self-centered tourists.  I just want them to make a better use of their own money.

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