Why is it either or? Ukraine's borders or ours?

Why is it so unreasonable to protect our borders from Hamas, sex traffickers, drug cartels, Russians, and run of the mill criminals (like we didn't have enough) while protecting Ukraine with billions at their border? "CBP encountered 57,163 foreign nationals from Russia between Oct. 1, 2022, and Sept. 30, 2023, over 20,000 more than the previous fiscal year. In the same time period, 52,700 Chinese nationals were encountered on America’s borders and at ports of entry." (Daily Signal) Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists have been found in border screening for the last 15-20 years! (probably now running college campus peace groups)

 
"A bill combining aid and border security would be a political win for both sides, but partisanship is holding up a commonsense solution." (WSJ) 

That means, the Democrats want to call Republicans right wing nationalists, xenophobes and white supremacists for protecting our borders.

October is Domestic Violence Month

For 40 years, October has been National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so be nice--it's for men, women, same-sex couples, teens, etc. We also have VAWA, or Violence Against Women Act, drafted by handsy, hair smelling, Ukraine visiting Joe Biden in 1991 and signed in 1994 by President Clinton, who lost his license to practice law because of the law suit by Paula Jones bringing on the impeachment when he lied under oath about the assault.

Republicans have had bad press about VAWA because they've failed to renew it due to Democrats stuffing it with all sorts of things like special visas for illegals who are victims of domestic violence (wow, can you imagine how that would be incentive to file a false claim) and special prosecution for male native Americans. And LGBTQ has been added, even though by adding men some time back to the law, the funding has not followed to protect men from aggressive women.

Funding? Oh yes. Big bucks for lots of organizations. The violence will never decrease because the grants would decrease, so it will just be redefined, or more victims will be added to the list. Don't know the amount right now but it was over $1.6 billion 25 years ago. The Office of Violence Against Women has 95 positions and gets over half a million! Obama added some more groups to get points with women. Since 1994, campus violence, elder abuse and tribal violence have been added to assure a strong pipeline of funding.

How to lie with headlines about the Republicans

Today I was looking for information on a training program for women that I saw in the recent budget consolidation bill (1200 p.) that was being rammed through. In the process of googling, I found this article at the Washington Post Answer Sheet but don't know if these programs were actually cut:

43 education programs Republicans want to eliminate
Forty-three education programs — including those that promote literacy, teacher development and droppout prevention — have been targeted for elimination in a Republican-sponsored bill in the House as a first step toward rewriting the law known as No Child Left Behind.

And then when I read the article, I found out the reason they wanted to eliminate them was because
1) they'd already lost their funding in the last budget bill;
2) Obama had proposed a consolidation and the program was part of that;
3) they hadn't been funded in recent years;
4) they were approved but never funded; and
5) they were duplicates of other programs.

Note: The House is controlled by the Republicans; all revenue originates in the House (Art.1, Sec. 7, Constitution of the United States)

Here are two an examples:
Even Start Family Literacy Program had received $66.5 million in FY 2008, 2009, and 2010, (which means it was a Bush program), but it had been deemed ineffective by the OMB and the children and parents in the program showed no better gains than those not in the program.

The High School Graduation Initiative (Drop Out Prevention) provided grants ($50 million in FY 2010 and 2011) to help schools increase high school graduation rates. The program did not receive funding in FY 2008 or 2009. It duplicates the ESEA Title I (Aid for the Disadvantaged) program. The fact that the FY 2008 and FY 2009 years were mentioned, indicates to me this was originally a Bush program, but was probably not funded by the Democratic House.

As soon as Obama took office in 2009, all Bush programs were scrubbed from the web, even applications forms and reports of success or failure, so unless you can find mention of them in a state document, it's awfully difficult to research. Obama added money to education programs with the stimulus, so the 2009 education budget although proposed during Bush's final year actually reflects the Obama infusion. Then when the stimulus ended, a drop in funding is shown for 2010.

#29

Public access to scientific journals

Is it just a matter of time before the public will be shut out of access to journals at a lot of public universities and colleges? The September 8 on-line issue of Scientific American has an article about this topic.

In 1995 the library where I worked was making massive moves to digital collections. It seemed that everyone but librarians (summary only; full article not available) fantasized that digital libraries would be cheaper than bricks and mortar. I think you can still sit down at most library terminals at Ohio State University and read something online without logging in a password to read a journal, but some material may be restricted. When I retired in 2000, OSUL still had a policy of retaining at least one paper copy of a title on campus (50,000 students), and sometimes it is the only paper copy in the state. The article in Scientific American points out some alternatives.

However, "we the people" pay for this research several times over--we pay the salaries of the researchers, we pay for the grants that provide the funds for the research, we build the labs and classrooms, we pay for the subscriptions, we pay for the on-line systems, or storage for print, and the salaries of the people who collect and store them; so when we walk into a state university, (after an hour long search for parking) should they be asking us for a password to read what we've already paid for?

For another viewpoint on research funding, including the hours of research time spent on the red tape of applying for federal grants check this Cato Institute site. Could Einstein have written a grant proposal?