And I thought my math was bad! The FBI.

What's behind the domestic terrorist numbers increase? Biden loves to lie about it.  Where does that come from?  It's FBI "marketing" strategy. The FBI Whistleblowers have reported that in the past when they were told of suspicious activity of a group of 5 or even 20, that was one incident. Now, they are told to open 5 (or 20) full separate investigations. When the pro-abortionists were protesting and making threats at the homes of SCOTUS, a clearly illegal activity, they were told to open cases on the pro-life people as "terrorists" rather than the pro-aborts who were protesting the decision, which is patently absurd. Promotions and salary increases are dependent on the number of cases each office investigates.

Also, it's the old "if you build it they will come" strategy.  Throw out enough grant money and they'll come running to spend it on "finding" terrorism.

"In February 2021, DHS released $77 million in grants to state governments to better understand the domestic violent extremist threat, and DHS plans to increase that amount this year to approximately $128.5 million. Congress is also requiring the National Institute of Justice to perform a “feasibility study” into the potential to create an independent clearinghouse of online extremist content that would fund independent sleuths who could provide tips when they observe potentially criminal behavior. The clearinghouse – originally recommended as part of the Anti-Defamation League’s PROTECT Plan – is far from operational, but to have Congress mandate a feasibility study is an excellent first step." ADL.org 

Lakeside 2023 season

We're in Lakeside for 2 weeks. Now we are renters again as we were from 1974 to 1988. Lakeside is celebrating its 150th season and our 50th. It's been cool, but sunny, and in this photo we are enjoying the circle of benches near the lake after lunch.  There is a little haze from the Canadian fires, but not terrible. Because of the wind patterns Lakeside had less smoke than Columbus.  Last night we had dinner with our friends the Cassidys from Tennessee and then enjoyed a wonderful show in Hoover Auditorium by the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players. Today we have a high school graduation party for our good friend and neighbor from Cincinnati, Jack, and tomorrow a memorial service for our summer pastor of the last 15 years Rev. Irwin Jennings. This week I attended all the Faith Hours, with wonderful gospel preaching by Pastor Zac Hess of Grace Polaris in Westerville.

Our two week schedule

Saturday June 3 --travel to Smith Cottage on Lynn; Hoover program, "Whose line is it Anyway" with Colin Mochrie, Brad Sherwood 7:30.

Sunday June 4 --Church at Hoover Auditorium, 10:30, preacher Zac Hess, Grace Polaris, Columbus; evening 6:30, Heidelberg University Faculty Woodwind Quintet at Steele Bandstand

Monday through Thursday --Faith for Living, Orchestra Hall, Zac Hess, 9-10

Monday June 5 --Women's Bible Study, 10 a.m. Lakeside Women's Club; Film Festival 7:30 p.m. "Everestman." "The Last Last Hike," "Pony boys," (my favorite, about summer of 1967)

Tuesday June 6 -- Film Festival, 10:30 "American Dinner," "American Heartbreak," (Kent State, 1970),

"CLE Urban Winery Story," "Archie Hough Bakeries"

Wednesday June 7 -- Film Festival, 10:30 "Pheasants of Detroit," "Honk." (excellent!)   Dorothy Fuldheim by Anne McEvoy 1:30 Hoover; Picnic in Perry Park 5:30

Thursday June 8 -- Film Festival, 10:30 "Daniel and Nate" (teen is caregiver for brother), "Lizzi, Deeper than water" (paralympics) "The Prospector," "Rocks 4 Sale"; Silent movie, "Spite marriage," 1929 Buster Keaton and Dorothy Sebastian. Clark Wilson organist.

Friday June 9 -- Dinner with Cassidy's; 7:30 New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players, Hoover

Saturday June 10 -- Afternoon, Jack's party--saw many friends; Phoebe and Mark arrive for the week; sold the golf cart for $6500 but we keep it until the 16th

Sunday June11 -- church at Hoover, preacher Dr. Simangaliso Kumalo of South Africa;

Memorial service for Irwin Jennings, Pavilion,  reception at LWC

Monday June 12-15 -- Women's Bible Study, Lakeside Women's Club, 9 a.m.  Monday - Thursday, Faith for Living, Dr. Kumalo, Orchestra Hall (not very good) 10-11. 1:30 Book Review LWC, Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles; movie 7:30 Lincoln

Tuesday June 13 (It was Civil War week, but I didn't attend programs); LWC, meet and greet, M.A. Stephens: 6:45 Art Show Reception. Bob got Merit Award for Fisherman painting;  8 p.m. Keynote Speaker, Clark Kellogg (gave him Bob's book) Hoover

Wednesday June 14 -- Guy's Club 11:30; Ida McKinley reenactment 1:30 Hoover; Picnic in Perry Park, 5:30

Thursday June 15 -- Guy's Club breakfast, 8:00 Patio; dinner at JJ's with Phoebe and Mark for Father's Day

Friday June 16 -- Breakfast at Idlewyld 8:00; Farmer's Market with Phoebe 8:30;  Tram Tour 1:30; Sons of Mystro (violins) 7:30 Hoover; new owners of the golf cart picked it up.  Named it "Bruce."

Saturday June 17 -- Pack up, cleanup, ride home.

What's coming down the pike after transgenderism

Transableism, Trans-speciesism, Trans-humanism--so what pronouns should we use for these confused, self-maiming and deeply disturbed people/animals/machines? Ask a Democrat. As the Leftists on Social Media, government and academe wander further into La-la land they've gone way beyond destroying Western Civilization (the Constitution and the United States they abandoned long ago). Annihilation of the world is their goal. This is not a conspiracy theory; all you have to do is follow the breadcrumbs tossed to their followers. People who willingly blind themselves or amputate limbs, people who demand litter boxes in schools, are just the natural evolution of a cult that maims children in the name of "affirming" their own delusions.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/29/transabled-people-choosing-to-identify-as-handicapped/?

https://youtu.be/YVJEtY-2kL0  What is transhumanism, EWTN

Back to the seventies, Hippity Hop and Big Wheel

I'm not sure why I posted this 10 years ago on Facebook, except to tell of my parents' voices in my head. They are about 60 in the photo, so I was maybe 34. The original in 2013 said, "Hallmark should have a card to celebrate the day you become your parent(s). (Heard on the radio) I would love to sound like my mother, but usually it is Dad who speaks. He would give a solid yes or no, and Mom would say, "We'll see," so we interpreted that any way that suited us."

Now I've waited too long to tell about the visit or what we did. If I had my photo album, I might have notes. It was spring, that's a flowering quince which will take over the yard if you aren't careful, a sand box which Bob built and the neighborhood cats used. The kids weren't very interested in t.  The toys are Big wheel and Hippity Hop. Anyone remember those? Today about 50 years later I'm wearing mom's hairstyle in this photo. It's very windy this week at the Lake. Not once did I ever hear her complain about her hair, but I do every day. Every day. Oh, how I miss her wisdom, strength and love of service.

Diversity and Inclusion the Immigrant way

Big brawls you may not see on your cable news. American immigrants fighting from Maryland to California with Antifa and schoolboards about LGBTQ agenda in schools. Armenian-Americans and American Muslims seem to be less passive than all those white supremacists. This is real diversity and inclusion,

Protests and Violence as Immigrants, Muslims Kick Back Against #PRIDE LGBTQI2+ to Kids - NewsRescue.com

Fights Break Out at School Board Meeting Between Antifa and Parents (dailysignal.com)

Quebec on fire

 Massive forest fires are coating much of Quebec in haze and smoke | CBC News

"Yan Boulanger, a research scientist with Natural Resources Canada said that the ground covered by the fires in Quebec's commercial forests in the past four days is massive and estimates that it's equal to what was covered in the past 10 years combined."

Fires Burn Across Quebec (nasa.gov)

Fire season in Quebec usually starts in late May. In an average year, only 247 hectares (a square mile) of area would be burned by June 5, according to Quebec’s fire prevention agency (SOPFEU). But so far this year, 160,000 hectares (600 square miles) have burned.

Schnormeier Gardens for a nice summer trip

 Ohio's 'secret garden' filled with Asian treasures | 10tv.com

This might be a nice trip to take this summer as we check out the places we've been missing these last 50 years. We're at Lakeside right now, but soon we'll be free to explore.

Schnormeier Gardens | Japanese Style Garden in Gambier, OH

Dining near the garden - Schnormeier Gardens

"The focal point of the property is a spectacular Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired home. This private residence was completed in 1994. Other structures on the property include a Japanese teahouse, garden house, Chinese pavilion and arched bridge. An ever growing collection of unique sculptures are also located on the grounds.

Our gardens have a distinct Asian flavor and feature a variety of plantings rich in color and texture. Rare conifers are plentiful here. Large boulders and stone walls add dimension and contrast to the landscape. Designed with a bold vision and attention to detail, the gardens offer delightful viewing in any season."

Tara Reade and Russia

Tara Reade, one of the women who has accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, has decided to seek asylum and citizenship in Russia. Well, they were calling her a Russian agent anyway, so that will certainly ramp that up. She was interviewed by Megyn Kelly, who also interviewed her several years when the scandal (ignored by media and Democrats) broke. She seems terribly naive about Russia--says it is beautiful and she's never felt so free. I believe her about Biden, she even filed a complaint and told people at the time (Democrats say to always believe the woman unless she's reporting on one of their own), but she's pretty dumb about Russia. It's not just Putin. Russia has had such a long run of terrible, awful leaders from before recorded history, that I can't imagine anyone seeking citizenship there. Do they even have an immigration policy? Who breaks into Russia?

Chick-fil-A and DEI

No one ever objected to Chick-fil-A having gay, black, Asian, female or atheist employees. It helped them build their brand as Christians. Chicken and good service for all. Just as Jesus offers salvation for all as a gift, and not by force and offers an opportunity to love your neighbor through service. But now it has created a DEI department, which is just a trinitarian formula for a cult that promotes anger, hate, and the religion of division. They've submitted to the corporate cronyism that is the hallmark of the Biden Administration. I've never eaten there--not even a nugget of chicken, if they have that. I guess that opportunity has passed me by. This is not like Amazon, McDonald's or Ohio State having bloated DEI departments, committees and task forces at every level. Chick-fil-A was openly proud of its Christian roots and philosophy. 

DEI is a religious cult (aka DIE). 

DEI is anti-life (pro-abortion); 

anti-woman (destroys women's safe spaces, sports, careers); 

anti-capitalism (submitting to ESG, an invention of Community China);

anti-American (teaches destruction of the free-market); 

You can't be woke/dei-ist and love America and Jesus. Don't bend the knee for Caesar.

Chick-fil-A sparks anti-woke outrage for hiring VP of DEI (nypost.com)

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion | Chick-fil-A

Gender dysphoria and population

Gender dysphoric people are rare (less than 1%), but among those who are children and seeking a solution that will change their bodies to fit in with the current fad, 80% are girls. Cross sex hormones and genital and breast surgery will make them sterile.

The fertility rate in the U.S. is below replacement, the sperm count for men all over the world is dropping mysteriously, and chemical abortions in the U.S. requiring no medical supervision are at an all-time high, further endangering the wombs of women. You can't fix this with immigration, which is the latest form of colonialism and slave labor, leaving other countries drained of brains and brawn.

Democrats are the new flat earth society led by prosecutors trained in the methods of the Salem Witch Trials. They are blind to what they are doing by pathologizing this condition and eager to destroy our country. They are so terrified to swim against the LGBTQ tide that even those whose brains still function, go along with the BIG LIE.

The LGs have been taken over by the BTQ+xyz group, and it has spread.  My doctor's office now says my sex was assigned. Formerly respected journals now refuse any real information that confirms biological sex. Species confusion, trans-humanism is chasing at the heels of the chest feeders. Huffington Post reported on that almost a decade ago, so don't think this is about civil rights, or "finding" a true identity. We bought into the "it's all about love," or "it doesn't matter what adults do." Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.  

Third anniversary of the riots

We're in the 3rd anniversary of the worst riots in our history, riots supported by some in our federal government, and many at the state and local level. Yet many of those criminals got a slap on the wrist or very short sentences. Kamala Harris raised money for them. None got what the J-6 protestors did, because some black lives matter much more in politics. But most who lost their lives in these massive, nationwide, primarily blue cities were black. The businesses destroyed and the homes burned were owned by blacks. Those lives didn't matter at all to the Democrats.

In Portland they voted to defund the police. "The effect in the streets was immediate: From Jan. 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020, Portland had just four murders. In the following 12-month period, Portland tallied 94 homicides."  'Where are we headed?' Portland's record-setting year for murder fuels search for answers (yahoo.com)

Say what? APoB

 Listening to Dr. Peter Attia on a podcast today (he has a new book so he's been on several), he was discussing the 3 most important things for preventing heart disease--the #1 cause of death.  1.  Blood pressure (he recommends 120/80)--check.  2.  No smoking--check.  and 3. APoB.  Say what? Had to look that one up.  I don't see it on my lab reports.  Apparently, neither have most people--even doctors.  Here's what I found on a website called Levels.   https://www.levelshealth.com/blog/why-apob-may-be-a-better-cholesterol-marker

What is the ApoB Test?

"The ApoB test measures your body’s level of Apolipoprotein B-100 (also simply known as ApoB). ApoB is a protein that helps carry cholesterol and other important compounds through your bloodstream to the tissues that need them. Testing for this protein helps doctors quantify the number of potentially dangerous cholesterol-carrying particles in your body, thus giving insight into your risk of heart disease. . . 

"To understand how ApoB predicts heart disease risk, we first need to step back and understand cholesterol. Cholesterol is a waxy substance, a type of fat (lipid) that’s essential for human life. It’s used by cells as a structural material (to build cell membranes and insulate nerve cells) and as a building block for important hormones (e.g. cortisol, estrogen, and testosterone). Every cell can make its own cholesterol, but it’s produced in the largest quantities by the intestines (which absorb and repackage some cholesterol from dietary sources) and the liver. These organs then export cholesterol to other cells and tissues via the bloodstream. But this step presents the body with a challenge: Cholesterol is hydrophobic. It does not disperse easily in the blood but instead clumps together like oil in water. The solution is a particle called a lipoprotein—a molecule that encases cholesterol in a hydrophilic shell so that it can travel through the blood in small, discrete parcels.

There are many different types of lipoproteins that sequentially change into each other as triglycerides are offloaded. At the beginning of this chain is the Very Low-Density Lipoprotein (VLDL) molecule. VLDLs are formed when your liver bundles cholesterol along with triglycerides (another fatty substance that stores energy) into a large, protein-wrapped molecule. This molecule is “low-density” in the sense that it floats in blood—it is buoyant. The VLDL is then sent out into your bloodstream, where it circulates until it encounters a cell with an open receptor (typically a smooth muscle cell or fat cell). The VLDL then deposits its triglycerides into the cell, which can store them or use them for immediate energy." continues at web site. Important to read.

. . . "ApoB can give you critical information about your long-term heart health. This may be especially important for people with a personal or family history of heart disease, as well as people with a current heart disease diagnosis who are monitoring their condition."

Secrets of Hillsong, pt. 2

Last night I finished watching the FX Vanity Fair four part documentary on Hulu, The Secrets of Hillsong, a Christian (Pentecostal) megachurch in Australia, which spread to the United States. Much of this story was revealed in 2022 on the Discovery Channel. I was unaware of any of this, mainly because Hillsong first became famous through its music, which so many churches were already using. I don’t attend a service that uses that so there were probably discussions I ignored.

The first episode is primarily about Pastor Carl Lentz, the rock star pastor of the New York City Hillsong church who was so charismatic and charming (think Bill Clinton charisma but younger and better looking) that he became an entertainer-preacher who had celebrity guests like Justin Bieber, Kevin Durant and Vanessa Hudgens at the worship services. Lentz even appeared on the View. The footage shown of the services looked like rock concerts, but with more arm waving and jumping up and down. Even OSU Buckeye football fans don’t get that worked up!

Pastor Lentz falls from grace due to marital infidelity in the first episode after the audience has been introduced to his incredible ability to spin the Gospel and sway with the culture, but if that were the point of this documentary, there would be no story. The underlying theme and purpose in my opinion is to tell the audience that Christianity and Christians are a bunch of fakes and charlatans out of step with LGBTQ, BLM and Feminism, plus they are stealing money from their congregants and molesting children as sidelines.

In episode one we are introduced to the journalists and writers who put this story together (obviously with Pastor Lentz’s input). They dead pan pithy explanations yet do not condemn. That is left to the other on camera speakers, mostly from the NYC church who at one time were “volunteers” in responsible positions. (By the end of the 4th episode, they’ve all left the church, and some have left the faith, but you don’t know that in episode one). In the first episode, these are all women, several black, one possibly Hispanic, and one gay man who had been on a reality show with his boyfriend. In the 3rd or 4th (don’t remember) episodes we meet some men who worked with the Australian church, and like Lentz, were dismissed or “cancelled” by Brian Houston, the Australian founder of Hillsong (originally that was the name of the music arm, and the church took the name).

The final episode focuses on the sins of Brian Houston and his father Frank (d. 2004), who had been charged with child sexual abuse, but the church and particularly son Brian took no action even after a lengthy investigation by secular authorities. The trial is coming up in June, so that is yet to be revealed. Maybe there will be a fifth episode.

As I watched the very moving stories about the child abuse, I couldn’t help but think that this looks like nothing compared to what our current “leaders” from entertainment to school boards to medical clinics to churches are accepting-- the mutilation and sterilization of children who cannot give consent, either to attend drag shows, read assigned books or to have their bodies destroyed. Will they ever come to trial?

https://youtu.be/5_aIauL2xKA Shout to the Lord (Hillsong) The composer is at piano, and the lead singer might be Darlene Zschech.

https://news.yahoo.com/where-brian-houston-now-hillsong-203049379.html?guccounter=1

Keep in mind if you watch this, that from start to finish, the whole point appears to be to condemn all Christians, not a particular church or group of sinners. Why would Vanity Fair care? There are other sources for this story which may not have that slant.

Memorial Day, 2023

Today is Memorial Day, the last Monday of May, originally observed on May 30. It began in the South in 1866 to recognize their war dead, and became a national holiday in 1868. We now memorialize all those who died in service to our country, and it has become customary to honor also our friends and family who are deceased. To my knowledge, my family on my mother's side has only one Civil War dead to honor, Jacob J. George, my great grandfather's youngest brother. In a cruel irony, his parents who lived in Adams County, Pennsylvania (Gettysburg is in that county) sent their youngest boy to live in the relatively safe area of Lee County Illinois with his adult brother, a farmer.

Although we can find Jacob's name in the History of Lee County Illinois with the other volunteers from Company G, he and the others (almost 2,500 just from that county) had no idea they'd signed on for bad food, injuries, disease and prison. Lee County was paying $100 bounty, and it probably seemed like a great adventure to him (obviously lied about his age). He enlisted on January 4, 1864 when he was 15 years and one month old.

He's buried in The National Cemetery in Nashville, TN with over 16,000 soldiers, both Union and Confederate, whose names are known, and another 3,500+ unknown. He died in the hospital of acute diarrhea on May 10, 1865, having entered the hospital on April 12. General amnesty was proclaimed by the President on May 29, 1865, and the war ended. Many in this cemetery were transferred from hospital burial grounds. His Discharge papers (death certificate) showed his age as 18. He was 16.

It was about 120 years later that my mother and her sister learned about Jacob through the genealogical research of their cousin, and a few letters were found that he had sent his sister in Iowa describing his ordeal and homesickness. This is my own speculation, but I'm guessing his brother in Illinois, my great-grandfather, never mentioned him to his family. His birth and death dates are not in the family Bible. It's possible that when Mom was a little girl waving her flag at the parade on May 30 when the old Civil War veterans marched by, some may have been from Jacob's regiment.

Death and the Civil War: Extended Trailer | American Experience | Official Site | PBS

More evidence about the virus source

"Chinese scientists affiliated with the People's Liberation Army filed a patent for a Covid-19 vaccine in February 2020, with their research indicating they began working on a vaccine at least by November 2019, nearly two months before Beijing disclosed the Covid outbreak, according to a report on the virus compiled by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and his staff.

Additionally, Wuhan researchers filed for a patent in December 2019 for an "integrated system for use in biological protection" that would detect air pressure changes to maintain negative airflow and ensure that the lab operates safely.

The patent application also included data from between September and December 2019 indicating that the WIV was experiencing serious issues with its ventilation systems.

”The outbreak of an airborne viral pneumonia is one way that such problems could have become evident to the WIV leadership," the Rubio report states."

https://sharylattkisson.com/2023/05/report-early-chinese-vaccine-patents-adds-to-evidence-of-covid-lab-leak/?

A return to the worship of Caesar

Calling out every organization and person that doesn't bow and worship the policies and confusions of the Biden administration as "white supremacists" is indeed ugly and false. It's also leftist dog whistle for "Christian." But Rome did that too in the first and second centuries. Christians were expected to worship Caesar and were considered immoral pagans because they didn't revere the Roman gods. They were "cancelled" too--thrown to the lions for entertainment. We've been through this before. But Garland/Biden Satan's tricks don't change much. Be brave and smart. Don't let Garland Goons go after Christians with his names and slurs. Speak up.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/05/26/gama-sosa-merrick-garland-new-criminal-class-youll-be-part-of-it/

"Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in Gulag Archipelago (pg. 505 if you’re interested) that in the early days of the USSR, thieves and murderers were often treated with kid gloves. They could be rehabilitated, the party line went, and they were often allowed to commit crime if they targeted the right people.

Not so for anyone considered a “political criminal,” either directly or by association. Those people eventually ended up in the GULAG. Now this might seem unsurprising, until you realize that the crime of opposing the state could be something as simple as having more money than your neighbor, belonging to the wrong ethnic group, being Christian or simply existing."

Secrets of Hillsong

 I'm not sure I'll ever watch the documentary, "Secrets of Hillsong" (on HULU).  It sounds disgusting, but wonder if you have. 

"A non-denominational Christian church that began in Australia in 1983, Hillsong quickly expanded to a global audience, including the U.S. and nearly 30 other countries–launching its first U.S. location in New York City in 2010. The church’s rapid growth can be credited to its casual, almost secular style–pastors wear shredded jeans and leather jackets while preaching instead of more traditional wear; music for the congregants at a Kings of Leon concert; and church services are regularly held in venues like nightclubs." (Time description) 

Sex, child abuse, spousal abuse, money laundering, celebrity Christians--not a word about Jesus in all the articles I looked at. 

The Story Behind 'The Secrets of Hillsong' | Time

'The Secrets of Hillsong' explores allegations behind the international megachurch : NPR

Four Big Takeaways From The Secrets of Hillsong’s Carl Lentz Interview | Vanity Fair

Fourth anniversary of our kitchen fire in Lakeside

What I wrote 4 years ago, May 25, 2019.

"If we're on your prayer list, thanks. It never hurts to be preemptive. We're OK. The fire has been put out, and we had some clean up. The cottage odor is a combination of Febreze, scented candles and burned butter. We had a wonderful meal at Sortino's (Sandusky, OH) on Thursday evening and came home with 5 carry out bags + bread. However, the 20" stove in our summer home wouldn't quite hold everything when we tried to warm up dinner the next evening and (we're blaming Bob) some fettuccini alfredo over flowed, dripping butter, which then caught on fire. The four of us in the tiny kitchen (think Keystone Cops) were a hoot, with Phoebe rescuing our dinner from the flames and Mark squelching the fire. It is cleaning week-end so we then had fine soot over our freshly washed cabinets, counters, and floors. BUT. No one was hurt and there's no permanent damage. Supper was delicious once we all settled down, and I think there's enough for tonight's dinner. I do plan to buy a new stove, though."

Disparate Impact and racism

 Black homicides: Remove all deaths caused by police (6 unarmed blacks in 2021) and all deaths of blacks caused by whites, and it would make almost no difference in the rate and percentage. Homicides of black women increased by 33% in 2020. Disparate impact is the odd law that is putting black criminals back out on the street to terrorize more black victims. It's considered structurally racist that crime rates are higher for blacks. That's disparate impact fall out.

Your mother's dementia diagnosis: The MCAT is now considered structurally racist because too many blacks can't pass and get into medical school. So, although it didn't begin in 2020, since the George Floyd riots and the rise in white guilt there's a push to eliminate the standards so more blacks enter medical school. Asian Americans have the highest MCAT scores and black Americans the lowest. The Asian American who didn't pursue a career in Alzheimer's research because the team needed to be racially balanced isn't available to find the cure for your mom because of disparate impact, i.e., all that matters is race.

What would Thomas Sowell say about disparate impact.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5szK1RX0gevURrY2BHCmer

Medical School Acceptance Rates by Race (2023): Does Ethnicity Play a Role? — Shemmassian Academic Consulting (shemmassianconsulting.com)

What the Media Doesn’t Want You To Know About 2020’s Record Murder Spike | The Heritage Foundation

Finding fun together as a family

 Our niece Joan lives in Indianapolis.  I often see on Facebook places she's taken her class (she's a teacher) or her grandchildren, or her friends for a day of adventure, fun or crafts. Sometimes it's a farm, or a park with forest and a fishing hole, a historic site, or a craft assembly.  Here's a photo of Joan, her sister, her two daughters-in-law, and her son's girlfriend.  They all made items out of wood and painted them.  Bonding and fun! We probably have businesses like this in Columbus, but I don't know where they are.

The economy

All the numbers look good according to the pro-Biden reports. Except when corrected for inflation they are all underwater, from retail to manufacturing to investment capital to jobs. They still can't get the workers to return--it was too easy working in pajamas, or less. As the election cometh, so come the lies.

I haven't shopped Target for years. It went all out trans during the Obama administration around 2012 where all this started, beginning with making the Target restrooms unsafe for girls and women. Then Target began devoting a whole month to the rainbow, for 2% of the population, hacking a rainbow sent by God after the flood which they stole from Christians and Jews. Now they've got swimsuits in the women's department with a "tuck" feature for men, so men can frolic in the women's locker rooms and real women will be at risk of assault. What ever happened to all those brave ladies of "Me Too?" Never believe a man who says he's a woman. And if the woman has just discovered she was raped 20 years ago, don't believe her either. Especially if the perp is a politician or movie star or rock celebrity.

My heart breaks for my country

 We’ve recently seen but few have read the Durham Report which is 380 pages of crimes at the highest level of government, especially of an agency that will call parents at school board meetings “domestic terrorists” but won’t police its own criminal bureaucracy. No one will be charged for these crimes even though some ineffective, powerless protesters from two years ago are still without trial. The very criminals listed in this report are still seeking more citizens to charge for January 6 for even being near the Capitol. Other rioters and looters from the summer of 2020 have never been charged or have received light sentences.

Also this week we heard testimony of three whistleblowers from the FBI.  The agency which is supposed to protect their rights, and our rights to disagree with the government—the FBI--refuses to recognize they are whistleblowers!  Their damning testimony seriously calls into question the events of January 6, 2021. And therefore, some members of the Congressional committee sneered and ridiculed their stories of abuse, loss of jobs and income.

We are embroiled in a horribly expensive (in both blood and treasure) proxy war in Europe between two Christian nations, while at the same time ignoring the debt ceiling reality. More billions approved today.  No one in our government is even suggesting brokering a peace.  Thousands of people are dying and we stand at the brink of nuclear war—no one in the world will survive that.  Not even the people who are making billions from such a war. Meanwhile, we ignore two other major wars among Christians because they are in Africa.  Black lives do not matter.

We no longer have borders.  And without borders there is no country.  6.5 million people—including Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, Africans, Chinese, Afghanis--have entered our country illegally in the last two years under the present administration.  They join all those who came before them and are now protected by a patchwork  of Executive Orders.  These are not legal immigrants, and few are refugees.   The years of promising “The American dream” in story, poetry and song to our own citizens is a joke. Much of the mischief is caused by NGOs, paid for by our donations to our churches and grants from our government with our taxes.

Coming across the border financed by the drug cartels and NGOs is a huge drug enterprise. The sex trafficking of women and children is also very lucrative. This is killing our own children and the children of other nations.

Special interest money is choking off the spirit and promise of the United States.  No one can or even wants to stop George Soros who has put 70 prosecutors in powerful big city offices  which have politicized the criminal justice system.  The criminals they put back on the streets are allowed to terrorize minority communities.  

Our U.S. oligarchs like Bezos, Gates and Zuckerberg are steam rollers at election time allowing our Bill of Rights to be mangled and rendering our own votes useless. Twitter was allowed via the mob violence of its “members” (and bots)  to destroy all manner of civil rights and protections.  No one stops them; they are the worst crony capitalists in our history and make the Ukrainian, Russian and Chinese oligarchs look like beginners.

Children are being maimed by “top and bottom surgery” and made infertile with cross sex hormones and genital surgery in tax supported “gender affirming” medical clinics all over the country—one at Ohio State just a few miles from my home.  Transgenderism has become the new civil rights movement of the current party in power as mentally confused children are told from an early age from their libraries to their school classrooms to the locker rooms of the sports teams that biological sex is not real. We have Supreme Court Justices who cannot define a woman because sex has become a political tool instead of God’s way of procreation.

The pandemic lockdown threat is not over.  All the societal protections bowed to a powerful bureaucracy which gave authority over our lives to local and state public health agencies with unelected, barely educated staffers. That power can be reinstated at any threat because we gave up freedom for safety.  All lessons from the past about health, quarantines, masks, mental and physical health were tossed overboard.  It was lust for power, not concerns for safety or life. Our church boards, pastors, priests, synods and fellowships just closed down and accepted money they didn’t need to use as they wished—but it was all “legal” when I questioned my church.  Legal but not moral. Some churches which did stand up to this injustice are still having battles in court.

Our independent media are a joke. The misinformation and disinformation are coming from the very agencies that warn us about the problem. In foreign countries journalists can be jailed; at home they are fired, cancelled or reassigned.

Churches and pregnancy clinics are terrorized and vandalized and the FBI looks away or arrests people praying at clinics. We are expected to follow some unstated law about pronouns.

Whether you call it gaslighting, dystopian, or just crazy, we Americans are in a very bad, bad place. We are not just denying God, we’re denying biological evolution, all the achievements of Western civilization, the beauty of nature, and ordinary common sense.

Gorsuch speaks out on lockdown, fear, declared emergencies, civil liberties

Statement of GORSUCH, J.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES ARIZONA, ET AL. v. ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

No. 22–592.

Decided May 18, 2023

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-592_5hd5.pdf

. . . Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country. Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale. Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes.13 They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private.14 They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on.15 They threatened violators not just with civil penalties but with criminal sanctions too.16 They surveilled church parking lots, recorded license plates, and issued notices warning that attendance at even outdoor services satisfying all state social-distancing and hygiene requirements could amount to criminal conduct.17 They divided cities and neighborhoods into color-coded zones, forced individuals to fight for their freedoms in court on emergency timetables, and then changed their color-coded schemes when defeat in court seemed imminent.18 Federal executive officials entered the act too. Not just with emergency immigration decrees. They deployed a public-health agency to regulate landlord-tenant relations nationwide.19 They used a workplace-safety agency to issue a vaccination mandate for most working Americans.20 They threatened to fire noncompliant employees,21 and warned that service members who refused to vaccinate might face dishonorable discharge and confinement.22 Along the way, it seems federal officials may have pressured social-media companies to suppress information about pandemic policies with which they disagreed.23 While executive officials issued new emergency decrees at a furious pace, state legislatures and Congress—the bodies normally responsible for adopting our laws—too often fell silent. Courts bound to protect our liberties addressed a few—but hardly all—of the intrusions upon them. In some cases, like this one, courts even allowed themselves to be used to perpetuate emergency public-health decrees for collateral purposes, itself a form of emergency-lawmakingby-litigation. Doubtless, many lessons can be learned from this chapter in our history, and hopefully serious efforts will be made to study it. One lesson might be this: Fear and the desire for safety are powerful forces. They can lead to a clamor for action—almost any action—as long as someone does something to address a perceived threat. A leader or an expert who claims he can fix everything, if only we do exactly as he says, can prove an irresistible force. We do not need to confront a bayonet, we need only a nudge, before we willingly abandon the nicety of requiring laws to be adopted by our legislative representatives and accept rule by decree. Along the way, we will accede to the loss of many cherished civil liberties—the right to worship freely, to debate public policy without censorship, to gather with friends and family, or simply to leave our homes. We may even cheer on those who ask us to disregard our normal lawmaking processes and forfeit our personal freedoms. Of course, this is no new story. Even the ancients warned that democracies can degenerate toward autocracy in the face of fear.24 But maybe we have learned another lesson too. The concentration of power in the hands of so few may be efficient and sometimes popular. But it does not tend toward sound government. However wise one person or his advisors may be, that is no substitute for the wisdom of the whole of the American people that can be tapped in the legislative process.25 Decisions produced by those who indulge no criticism are rarely as good as those produced after robust and uncensored debate.26 Decisions announced on the fly are rarely as wise as those that come after careful deliberation. Decisions made by a few often yield unintended consequences that may be avoided when more are consulted. Autocracies have always suffered these defects. Maybe, hopefully, we have relearned these lessons too. In the 1970s, Congress studied the use of emergency decrees.27 It observed that they can allow executive authorities to tap into extraordinary powers.28 Congress also observed that emergency decrees have a habit of long outliving the crises that generate them; some federal emergency proclamations, Congress noted, had remained in effect for years or decades after the emergency in question had passed.29 At the same time, Congress recognized that quick unilateral executive action is sometimes necessary and permitted in our constitutional order.30 In an effort to balance these considerations and ensure a more normal operation of our laws and a firmer protection of our liberties, Congress adopted a number of new guardrails in the National Emergencies Act.31 Despite that law, the number of declared emergencies has only grown in the ensuing years.32 And it is hard not to wonder whether, after nearly a half century and in light of our Nation’s recent experience, another look is warranted. It is hard not to wonder, too, whether state legislatures might profitably reexamine the proper scope of emergency executive powers at the state level. At the very least, one can hope that the Judiciary will not soon again allow itself to be part of the problem by permitting litigants to manipulate our docket to perpetuate a decree designed for one emergency to address another. Make no mistake—decisive executive action is sometimes necessary and appropriate. But if emergency decrees promise to solve some problems, they threaten to generate others. And rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.

Highest rate of gun violence was in the 1970s

 

  

What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S. | Pew Research Center  

While 2021 saw the highest total number of gun deaths in the U.S., this statistic does not take into account the nation’s growing population. On a per capita basis, there were 14.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2021 – the highest rate since the early 1990s, but still well below the peak of 16.3 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 1974.

Also notice it was during the Obama years the gun deaths crept up after dramatic decline following the Omnibus Crime bill in 94--before George Floyd, before Covid. I'd start looking at who George Soros funded in high crime rate cities. I don't have dates, but right now he has funded 70 prosecutors still in office. Another 12 have been removed.

"From 2014 to 2021, Soros’ $40 million in campaign spending helped elect so-called social justice prosecutors across the country while dozens more benefited from the billionaire’s largesse while in office." New York Post June 8, 2022.

Map of Soros backed prosecutors https://twitter.com/LELDF/status/1641212886663020546

What we learned from the FBI Whistleblowers

"A former FBI agent testified before Congress Thursday saying that the FBI manipulated data to make domestic terrorism linked to Jan. 6 seem like a nationwide phenomenon instead of an isolated incident. . .

Steven Friend: “Typically you would investigate Jan. 6 as one case with lots of subjects, but instead the decision was made to open up a separate case for every single individual there,” he said during the hearing. “And instead of, on paper, investigating them from the Washington field office, spreading and disseminating those to the field offices around the country, and if the individual lived in that area.”

“In effect,” he added, “it made it look like there was domestic terrorism cases and activities that were going on around the 56 field offices when in fact the cases were really all from Washington, D.C., and Washington had a task force that was responsible for calling the shots in all those cases.” Whistleblower: FBI manipulated J6 cases to make domestic terrorism appear widespread - Alpha News

Losing my pie touch

"After all these years of declaring myself the second best pie baker east of the Mississippi (my mother was #1), I've learned an extremely painful lesson today. I've lost my touch. I may never bake again. . . " September 10, 2006.  

 This probably wasn't my last pie, but I knew I'd lost my touch and today came across the date I realized it was never going to be the same. Collecting My Thoughts  Almost 17 years ago. Based on the date, I may have been baking it for our anniversary.

Chicago Tribune calls out the city's latest leftist Mayor

Opinion by Aaron Kliegman (Fox News)

Chicago's most prominent newspaper called out the Windy City's newly sworn-in left-wing mayor for doing the bidding of unions and signing "radical" executive orders just hours into the job, calling one in particular a "disaster" for the fiscal stability of Chicago.

"As Mayor Brandon Johnson was celebrating 'the soul of Chicago' in his inaugural speech, his office was churning out a batch of deeply radical executive orders that signal trouble ahead for anyone worried about tax increases or concerned with the fiscal stability of America's third largest city," the Chicago Tribune's editorial board wrote Wednesday, two days after Johnson was inaugurated. "The one that most immediately caught our attention was Johnson's executive order creating a new deputy mayor for labor relations."

The Tribune outlined what "any reasonable adult, be they Democrat or Republican," would expect a deputy mayor for labor relations to do in a big city: balance the demands and expectations of a unionized workforce with the "need to hold the line on costs."

In the public sector, however, there's less incentive to hold the line on costs because spending money to gain popularity is more of an appeal than within private companies.

“In the case of the city's new mayor, this danger is compounded because everyone knows that Johnson was hand-picked by the Chicago Teachers Union, with the help of other public sector unions, and their superb ground game got out the Johnson vote and put their man in City Hall," according to the Tribune. "Even Johnson's most fervent supporters should hope that the new mayor will make some effort to stress his independence from his union paymasters … His first responsibility is to Chicagoans who are trusting him to be a steward of the hard-earned money they pay in taxes and deliver them functional services."

Johnson, a longtime union organizer and activist, was supported by a progressive coalition, including the Chicago Teachers Union. During his campaign, he acknowledged that his ambitious proposals for investments in Chicago's social programs would require tax increases. Among Johnson's most controversial tax proposals is head tax on large companies of $1 to $4 per employee and a jet fuel tax.
As part of his agenda, Johnson, a Democrat, seems to be adopting a clear pro-labor position through some of the new positions he's creating.

The job description for the deputy mayor for labor relations, as released Monday, is being "responsible for working with all city agencies and departments to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers and retirees of Chicago; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights, including working with relevant authorities to help enforce workers' statutory rights."

According to the Tribune, such a job is a "gift-wrapped present" for the Chicago Teachers Union, "which probably had a big hand in its composition." The editorial board added that the executive order says nothing about an obligation to protect taxpayers, homeowners or businesses.

"It basically says: Do what unionized workers want, find more ways to give them more of what they want, and your annual review will be just dandy," the Tribune argued. "In fact, if you take that job description at face value, any deputy mayor pushing back on any union demand whatsoever would, in fact, be contravening what their boss says is the requirement of the job."

In other words, the city's biggest paper wrote, Johnson's job description for his new deputy is a "disaster and it needs to be immediately rewritten so as to reflect the dual responsibilities of the job, which is to navigate and mediate between legitimate union demands and the ability of the city to meet them without casting citizens from their homes or sending off Chicago businesses to Florida."

The Tribune then called on Johnson to recognize that unions can ask for "unreasonable things" of their employers and be willing to respond, "No, Chicago cannot afford that much."

Johnson has said as mayor he will fund more social workers instead of police officers, let illegal immigrants vote in school board elections, make Chicago a sanctuary for transgender people and ensure women can have easy access to abortions in the city.

On his first day of office, beyond the new deputy mayor for labor relations, Johnson also created new deputy mayor positions for community safety and for immigrant, migrant and refugee rights. During his inaugural address, Johnson said Chicago has "enough room" for migrants who are surging across the country's southern border "whether you are seeking asylum or you are looking for a fully funded neighborhood."

New World Bank reports life time earnings loss from effects of Covid

 I find it ironic (or not) that the very world organizations that our own CDC slavishly followed are now concerned about the fall into poverty and loss of lifetime earnings in the middle class due to Covid regulations that destroyed years of critical schooling.

Although this publication is dated 2023, there were earlier reports from 2021 that raised concern. Did that stop Fauci or Biden? Heck No. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/human-capital/publication/collapse-recovery-how-covid-19-eroded-human-capital-and-what-to-do-about-it I know exactly what they'll do about it, and I'm not even a clever bureaucrat (although I was a librarian). Taxes will be raised, but only companies with high ESG scores will be able to exist. Everyone and every agency will have to be woke so that the effects of the pandemic can be overcome. We'll get hammered with more climate lies, more CRT and more blame if we don't buy the left's current hysteria.

If you read this carefully, you won't be able to tell if this was caused by the virus, the vaccines, or the lockdowns. But because very few children became ill or died, we all know the #1 problem was the lockdown which governments all over the world used to assume more power. 

6.5 million invasion led by Joe Biden

That's the number just since he took office. There's another 6.5 million already here waiting for amnesty. It's not kindness or protection for the refugee, it's about more numbers for the Democrat party. Their ideas are bankrupt and corrupt, so they can only increase through duplicity. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/biden-bill-would-give-amnesty-to-6-5-million-illegal-immigrants-cbo-says

[Two years ago, May 18, 2021] "The governors of 20 states sent a letter to President Joseph Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in which they ask them to take action immediately on the crisis at the southern border. According to the governors, contrary to what the administration has been saying, the border is not closed or secure.

In fact, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has reported a staggering surge in illegal border crossings: 172,000 in March, the highest number in nearly 20 years; as well as 18,890 unaccompanied children, which — the governors note — is the largest monthly number in history." Border surge includes people from countries other than Central America, highlighting terror threat | The Hill

They laughed at that letter or tore it up. Biden and Mayorkas are still lying about it and Harris is MIA. 6.5 million have now illegally jumped the border since January 21, 2023, been given "parole", an app for their phone, or a court date and are being spread all over the country. We are all border states now and Sanctuary cities are crying in their beer. (Probably Bud-light). They take jobs from Americans, primarily the poor, because the big tech guys can ship in green card workers and legally steal American jobs. Women and children are being sex trafficked, many have died in their effort to make difficult journeys, fentanyl is killing more Americans, and those white guys in DC, the spiritual grandsons of the KKK , are pointing a finger at the weak, spineless Republicans. Biden could have stopped it the first day of his administration by retaining Trump's policies, but instead in his lust for more Democrat voters, he is destroying our country.

FBI, Russian collusion hoax and the Biden crime family

 

CVS largest share of Rx drug market in U.S.

 I've been going around and around with my CVS about a prescription.  The press this, press that, message system is about to send me around the bend.  The latest message via my doctor's tech is that the prescription is still showing at Walmart in Port Clinton where I had it transferred this past summer when I didn't want to drive 120 miles to get a refill.  Of course, I picked one up in February at CVS, and no one said, Oh my this is at Walmart, nor did anyone say I couldn't get it refilled after April.  So I called Walmart.  Easy peasy.  Talked to a real person.  He looked up my name, told me they had transferred it back, and did I want them to fill it.  Imagine. Good service is alive and well at Walmart.  At the 5th largest prescription market I can talk to a person, but at the largest, I could still be talking to a machine and going back to press one. Thank you, Walmart, for having humans available, at least in the pharmacy.  "Talk to a live person" should be #1 on all medical/health answering machines.

Largest pharmacies by Rx drugs market share 2022 | Statista

Democrats and the FBI--outrageous, heartless, scoundrels and evil

 The three FBI whistleblowers are FBI Special Agent Garret O’Boyle, former FBI Special Agent Steve Friend, and FBI Staff Operations Specialist Marcus Allen. I watched this hearing today in horror when I saw what the FBI did to try to ruin men with an impeccable record plus a wonderful record of protecting us when they were in the military. FBI tried to bankrupt and demoralize them, and doesn't allow them to work elsewhere, but won't let them work for the FBI. And the Democrats on the committee were outrageous, heartless, scoundrels and evil. It may take me days to get over this following so close to the Durham Report which shows how corrupt the FBI is.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/watch-live-house-weaponization-committee-holds-hearing-with-three-fbi-whistleblowers?

Watch live: FBI whistleblowers testify before House ‘weaponization’ committee | The Hill

Dem Rep. Wasserman Schultz vs. Jim Jordan: FBI Has Determined That These Are Not Whistleblowers | Video | RealClearPolitics

When being responsible is called "banning books"

 Removing a pornographic title from the school library isn't banning a book, any more than removing a book on torture or how to build a machine gun is banning a book. It is not appropriate behavior to provide guides on gay sex techniques and positions for 11 year olds--it's grooming to desensitize them.  If the taxpayers are expected to pay for them and the staff who selected them, they have a right to say what are the community standards. Librarians, even school librarians, have selection standards that are probably left of the ACLU. The hysteria about "banning" is whipped up by the ALA so they can whine about a parent who expects professional, rational thinking. In fact, what the staff are doing is guaranteeing a fail for the next bond issue.

Have You Looked Inside Any of These Books? | City Journal (city-journal.org)

A picture is worth a thousand blogs

 

  

It's all there.  Democrats using the media to protect all the scandals that belong to Joe.

George Santos lied

George Santos is a Republican and a liar; his constituents didn't vet him. Shame on them and on him. George Santos lied about his college, his ethnicity and his bank account. He probably lies about what he had for dinner and his sexuality.

I invite you to look at his record and decide.

He didn't lie like Tony Fauci who destroyed so many careers and maybe lives;
he didn't lie like Hillary Clinton who still believes she won in 2016;
he's not on YouTube lying about Justice Thomas and Barack Obama both with his smile and sneers.

Adam Schiff tells more lies before breakfast than George Santos could repeat in a year;
James Comey should check his lies so he could embellish them more;
Santos' nose will never grow like Fancy Nancy's;
Harry Reid's lies where whoppers.

As we can look back in history,
let's remember all the lies the Democrats have given us in the last 150 years about
blacks and minorities and poor people,
gifting us the KKK,
Jim Crow,
the New Deal,
deed restrictions
faulty public housing and
bank red lining
while pointing the finger at the GOP.

George Santos has lied, he's a liar,
but he hasn't murdered millions of unborn;
he hasn't deliberately destroyed careers rather than debate the facts of biology and history;
he's never suggested sexually mutilating and sterilizing children;
he didn't lie about Afghanistan and
handing over billions of arms to the Taliban;
he didn't corrupt the FBI or
lie to the FISA Court;
he didn't demand that cities defund police;
he didn't promise millions to Haitian earthquake victims and then renege like the Clinton Foundation;
he didn't tell a hundred phony-baloney stories about his grandfather back in the old days;
he didn't call anyone dog-face pony soldiers;
he isn't this week trafficking thousands of women and children across the southern border for sex;
he doesn't fondle and sniff little girls in public;
or shower with his daughter.

George Santos has not lied for 6 years to the American voters about a candidate and president whom both parties feared because he knew the truth about government corruption, collusion and lies.

Yes, George Santos lied. Now we must stand up for the truth.

Gun deaths among kids rose 50%

Gun deaths among U.S. kids rose 50% from 2019 to 2021 | Pew Research Center

A discussion on gun deaths among children under 18 with friends last night promoted this search, and as I suspected, by far this is a young male problem. The Nashville Christian school case is one of the few I can remember where a female was the shooter, and we still haven't learned if she was on the testosterone treatment because transgenderism has become such a political bombshell. One other I remember from maybe 15 years ago was a young woman killing her dissertation committee.

Quotes from the Pew report:

"Boys, for example, accounted for 83% of all gun deaths among children and teens in 2021. Girls accounted for 17%."

"Those ages 12 to 17 accounted for 86% of all gun deaths among children and teens in 2021, while those 6 to 11 accounted for 7% of the total, as did those 5 and under."

"In 2021, 46% of all gun deaths among children and teens involved Black victims, even though only 14% of the U.S. under-18 population that year was Black. Much smaller shares of gun deaths among children and teens in 2021 involved White (32%), Hispanic (17%) and Asian (1%) victims."

(Note, only statistics for Hispanic children reflect % of population.)

"In 2021, a large majority of gun deaths involving Black children and teens (84%) were homicides, while 9% were suicides. Among White children and teens, by contrast, the majority of gun deaths (66%) were suicides, while a much smaller share (24%) were homicides."

Suicides among white Americans are always at a higher percentage than other groups--I believe the highest rate of suicides is for white males over 85 and the next highest is the 74-85 group. This is a tragedy our media (and society) pay little attention to.

Also, as noted in the URL, the pandemic lockdown contributed to more than just lost years of schooling. For all we hear about school shootings, schools are still the safest place for children to be. For far too many their own homes and neighborhoods are not healthy places. Yet our government's--from federal to local--poorly conceived lust for power to having everyone be vaccinated and isolated instead of just the vulnerable and elderly has led to a 50% rise in childhood gun deaths, many suicides.

In my opinion, and my Christian belief, having mothers demand the right to kill their own children up through the 9th month of pregnancy (and beyond according to a new law proposed in New York) has not set us up with a good foundation for respecting the lives of children.

The statistics I mentioned in our discussion for homicides of children under 5 comes from a government report; but all homicides, even those for children, dropped drastically after the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill, now much maligned by liberals. Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008 (ojp.gov)

Durham report. It was all made up.

"A report by Special Counsel John Durham released Monday found the FBI should not have launched a full investigation into the connections between former President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, with the report saying the FBI used “raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated intelligence” to justify the investigation." Forbes, May 15.

And the media were the pimps for four years, even to this day helping elect Basement Biden. We must never ridicule a 3rd World country's politics again.

"Former U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told Newsmax on Monday that even after a cursory reading, the Durham Report on FBI misconduct in its investigation of ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign should “scare the living hell out of everyone.” Newsmax, May 15

"Two special counsels, several inspector general reports and six years later, the country finally has a more complete account of the FBI’s Russia collusion probe of the 2016 Donald Trump campaign. Special counsel John Durham’s final report makes clear that a partisan FBI became a funnel for disinformation from the Hillary Clinton campaign through a secret investigation the bureau never should have launched.

The 306-page Durham report released Monday afternoon is far more comprehensive than anything issued by original special counsel Robert Mueller. Mr. Durham had already unfurled some of the narrative with his prosecutions of Russian national Igor Danchenko and Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann. He lost those cases, though the indictments laid out how the Clinton campaign used foreign nationals, an oppo-research outfit, and political insiders to feed the FBI and the media lies about Trump collusion." Wall St. Journal, May 16

The 306-page Durham report

The CNN vs. Trump Town Hall

 I didn't watch the CNN "debate" between Trump and Kaitlyn Collins, the "nasty person" (he called her) Wednesday night, but I've heard clips, and with Michael Graham I'd say, "Donald Trump won the first debate of the 2024 presidential cycle, and it wasn’t even close."

Of course, for me, the number one issue is abortion. Trump said it.  He got it done.  For 50 years the Pro-Life movement had struggled, but he got the Court appointees that got it done.  Because he knows, "They want abortion at 9 months, 8 months, 7 months--they even want abortion after birth. THEY are the RADICALS." [paraphrase because the coverage by media is so screwed up I can't find the exact quote, although I've heard it on Jason Whitlock's podcast--https://www.iheart.com/podcast/175-fearless-with-jason-whitlo-83738276/episode/ep-443-donald-trump-crushes-114934651/]. 

Like it or not, Trump has defined the evil of the bed rock mission of the Democrat party. He might have convinced a few women on the margin who have believed the lie about a clump of cells.  Wake up, ladies, it's also killing late term and after birth babies (read the new* proposed legislation for New York, it's clear) unwanted for whatever reason.

*lines 19-21 of NY proposed amendment to the state constitution  "access to medical care, including gender affirming health  care, contraceptive or other birth control measures, abortion or other reproductive care, and reproductive outcomes, including live birth, stillbirth, miscarriage or any other pregnancy outcomes.  https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/bills/2023/A6664#

Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara

"Kara, a fellow at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health and at the Kennedy School, has been researching modern-day slavery, human trafficking and child labor for two decades. He says that although the DRC has more cobalt reserves than the rest of the planet combined, there's no such thing as a "clean" supply chain of cobalt from the country. In his new book, Cobalt Red, Kara writes that much of the DRC's cobalt is being extracted by so-called "artisanal" miners — freelance workers who do extremely dangerous labor for the equivalent of just a few dollars a day.

"You have to imagine walking around some of these mining areas and dialing back our clock centuries," Kara says. "People are working in subhuman, grinding, degrading conditions. They use pickaxes, shovels, stretches of rebar to hack and scrounge at the earth in trenches and pits and tunnels to gather cobalt and feed it up the formal supply chain.""

'Cobalt Red' describes the 'horror show' of mining the element in the DRC : Goats and Soda : NPR

The author doesn't call this slavery, but I do.

"Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced because their villages were just bulldozed over to make place for large mining concessions. So you have people with no alternative, no other source of income, no livelihood. Now, add to that the menace in many cases of armed forces pressuring people to dig, parents having to make a painful decision, 'Do I send my child to school or do we eat today?' And if they choose the latter, that means bringing all their kids into these toxic pits to dig just to earn that extra fifty cents or a dollar a day, that could mean the difference between eating or not. So in the 21st century, this is modern-day slavery. It's not chattel slavery from the 18th century where you can buy and trade people and own title over a person like property. But the level of degradation, the level of exploitation is on par with old-world slavery."

Review from Daily Mail online, January 30, 2023

• Images from the Shabara mine and others in the Democratic Republic of Congo show young children mining 
• They dig for cobalt, the chemical element that is used in almost every tech product, including mobile phones, on the market today
• Apple, Tesla, Samsung and Microsoft are the other end of the complex supply chain

Devastating photos of cobalt mines in Democratic Republic of Congo that power Apple, Tesla and more | Daily Mail Online

6.5 million illegals

 since Joe Biden won a rigged election in 2020. Joe Biden has become the biggest trafficker in human beings since the 18th century--women and children for sex, men and teens for cheap labor.  And all of them for future Democrat voters.  Slaves, all of them. Are you happy now Democrats?

From the New York Times: Oct. 22, 2021

"A record 1.7 million migrants from around the world, many of them fleeing pandemic-ravaged countries, were encountered trying to enter the United States illegally in the last 12 months, capping a year of chaos at the southern border, which has emerged as one of the most formidable challenges for the Biden administration.

It was the highest number of illegal crossings recorded since at least 1960, when the government first began tracking such entries. The number was similarly high for the 2000 fiscal year, when border agents caught 1.6 million people, according to government data.

Single adults represented the largest group of those detained in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, at 1.1 million, or 64 percent of all crossers. There were also large numbers of migrant families — more than 479,000, which is about 48,000 fewer than during the last surge in family crossings in 2019.

But the nearly 147,000 children whom agents encountered without parents or guardians was the largest number since 2008, when the government started tallying unaccompanied minors. Finding shelter for these migrant children, until they can be released to relatives or other sponsors in the country, was one of the president’s earliest challenges. As of Friday, nearly 11,000 remained in government custody.

The crossers hailed from around the globe, many of them seeking economic opportunity as the coronavirus pandemic erased hundreds of millions of jobs. Agents caught people from more than 160 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, with Mexico accounting for the largest share.

A public health rule, invoked by President Donald J. Trump at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 to seal the border, has remained in place under the Biden administration. Over the last 12 months, the Border Patrol has carried out more than one million expulsions of migrants back to Mexico or to the migrants’ home countries. Agents used the public health rule to expel migrants they encountered 61 percent of the time and to expel families 26 percent of the time." Illegal Border Crossings Soar to Record High, New Data Shows - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Even sluggish, sleepy CNN noticed the problem: October 22, 2022

"It has been an endless cycle since President Joe Biden took office, according to multiple administration officials and sources close to the White House. Agency officials dream up a plan but then struggle to get White House approval, even as the problem compounds and Republicans step up their criticism.

Frustration is mounting, too, especially among those on the front lines.

“Everything seems to influence each other,” one Homeland Security official told CNN. “Things develop. People change their minds. They lose one battle, and they do this instead.”

“I think they’re at the point where it’s Hail Mary after Hail Mary,” the official added.

As border arrests remain high, officials are grappling with how to stem the flow of migration – resulting in a constant churn of ideas, including processing migrants further from the border."

From Townhall, May 9, 2023

"According to Customs and Border Protection, since January 2021 when Biden took the oath of office, there have been 5,118,661 encounters with illegal immigrants along the southern border. Add to that the number of known "gotaways" — illegal immigrants who were either spotted visually by border agents or detected via unmanned monitoring equipment and not apprehended — since Biden took office, and the number of illegal immigrants who've entered the country is even greater.

Through the first half of Biden's term from January 2021 through January 2023, Customs and Border Protection reported 1.2 million "gotaways." That is, at least 1.2 million illegal immigrants were confirmed to have unlawfully crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. The actual number of illegal immigrants who entered the country unimpeded is, by nature of the crime, unknown. It could be double the number of known gotaways, it could be three times worse, or more. We just don't know, thanks to Biden's border policies. . . That's just since January of 2021, and now the Biden administration is facing down the expiration of Title 42 on Thursday night [May 11] at 11:59 p.m. ET. The mainstream media has even had to take note of the problem that's only going to get worse along the southern border, but the problem has been getting worse since Biden's first day in office in January 2021. To think that the United States hasn't even seen the worst of Biden's immigration policy is a stark reminder of the very real consequences of President Biden and his administration's abdication of duty and denial of responsibility along America's border."

Newsweek, Biden's policies hurt black Americans May 11, 2023

"Sanctuary cities like New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C., once falling over themselves to signal their virtue and welcome immigrants, are now calling for a state of emergency and demanding more money from the federal government after tens of thousands of migrants have been forced upon their social welfare programs.

But resistance to importing millions of new Americans whose first act on U.S. soil was to break the law and enter illegally is coming from Black Americans, who are sick of having our fight for equity in this country appropriated by people looking for a better economic outlook."  Biden's Open Border Hurts Black Americans Most of All—and We Know It | Opinion (msn.com)

Obesity, is it racism?

 In the United States, everything that is bad is blamed on racism.  Especially health issues.  And racism of course, is blamed on the history of African slavery and Jim Crow within the U.S.  But what about Britain? Overweight adults - GOV.UK Ethnicity facts and figures (ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk)

• in the year to November 2021, 63.5% of adults (people aged 18 and over) were overweight or living with obesity – up from 62.8% the previous year
• 72.0% of adults from black ethnic groups were overweight or living with obesity – the highest percentage out of all ethnic groups
• 37.5% of adults from the Chinese ethnic group were overweight or living with obesity – the lowest percentage out of all ethnic groups
• compared with the year ending November 2016, the percentage of adults who were overweight or living with obesity went up in the white British ethnic group (from 62.1% to 64.5%), mixed ethnic group (from 53.9% to 59.5%) and 'other' ethnic group (from 58.9% to 66.2%)
• the percentages were broadly similar to those from the year ending November 2016 for all other ethnic groups

Their ethnic census list is even more complicated than the U.S.  Our government continues to break down the country into race categories.

The UK ethnic groups for the Obesity Survey were:

Asian or Asian British

Indian
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
Chinese
Any other Asian background

Black, Black British, Caribbean or African

Caribbean
African
Any other Black, Black British, or Caribbean background

Mixed or multiple ethnic groups

White and Black Caribbean
White and Black African
White and Asian
Any other Mixed or multiple ethnic background

White

English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British
Irish
Gypsy or Irish Traveller
Roma
Any other White background

Other ethnic group

Arab
Any other ethnic group

In Wales, ‘Welsh’ is the first option in the White category. See the article for how race is recorded in Ireland.

In the USA, obesity is also a problem. 

Obesity in the United States from Statista, Obesity rates U.S. adults by race/ethnicity 2021 | Statista 

 Unless the definition of overweight/obesity is different, it looks like the Brits are fatter than the Americans! The Statista data represent adults who reported having a body mass index (BMI) greater than or equal to 25.0 kg/meters squared.

"Obesity is a present and growing problem in the United States. An astonishing 32 percent of the adult population in the U.S. is now considered obese. Obesity rates can vary substantially by state, with around 41 percent of the adult population in West Virginia reportedly obese, compared to 25 percent of adults in Hawaii. The states with the highest rates of obesity include West Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama.

Diabetes 

Being overweight and obese can lead to a number of health problems, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Being overweight or obese is one of the most common causes of type 2 diabetes, a condition in which the body does not use insulin properly, causing blood sugar levels to rise. It is estimated that just over eight percent of adults in the U.S. have been diagnosed with diabetes. Diabetes is now the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for three percent of all deaths.

Obesity rate by race/ethnicity

White 31.5%

Black 43.9%

Hispanic 36.7%

Asian/Pacific Islander 13.2%

Native American/Alaskan Indian 38.6%

Other 32.9%

The CDC provides additional information on obese Americans.

• The US obesity prevalence was 41.9% in 2017 – March 2020. (NHANES, 2021)
• From 1999 –2000 through 2017 –March 2020, US obesity prevalence increased from 30.5% to 41.9%. During the same time, the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%. (NHANES, 2021)
• Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer. These are among the leading causes of preventable, premature death.
• The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the United States was nearly $173 billion in 2019 dollars. Medical costs for adults who had obesity were $1,861 higher than medical costs for people with healthy weight.

Here's a shocking statistic from CDC:  "Over a ten-year period [1998-2008], the number of states with 40 percent or more of their young adults who were overweight or obese went from 1 to 39." MR_Too_Fat_to_Fight-1.pdf (missionreadiness.org)

San Francisco is dying according to native

"Elizabeth Weil detailed the crime, homelessness and human misery on display in San Francisco compared to the city’s pre-pandemic prosperity in a Wednesday article in New York Magazine. Her story included an apology to her fellow San Francisco residents for contributing to the barrage of stories about the city’s collapse.

“I’m sorry. I know … There’s always some story in the east-coast press about how our city is dying,” she wrote. “When I set out reporting, I wanted to write a debunking-the-doom piece myself. Yet to live in San Francisco right now, to watch its streets, is to realize that no one will catch you if you fall.” "

Journalist Goes On Quest To Debunk Blue City’s Bad Reputation, Instead Writes About It ‘Spiraling’ Out Of Control | The Daily Caller