ABC and others--all Democrat all the time

As I wait for daylight to walk outside, I'm listening to ABC blurting misinformation in the kitchen about Sunday's post-assassination attempt (only non-cable TV in the house). I can't even . . . and to think this is what Americans hear as "news." Most of our news channels should be declared appendages of the Democrat party and claimed as a donation in the party's tax reports. Particularly the Harris campaign. Just to be sure they've nailed down their bias, they even threw in what Donald Trump said about Taylor Swift. They don't even mention the hundreds of times the left has called him Hitler and threat to democracy.

Saying hello and good-bye at the public library

I waited for the woman at the library to load her returned books in the bin so I could return my one book. But I had another book in my hand I was going to donate to the library. "The Secrets we Kept" by Lara Prescott, an historical fiction about women who worked for the CIA in the 1950s to get "Dr. Zhivago" smuggled INTO the USSR to help create unrest and distrust for the Soviet government. The cover was classy and colorful (red), so she asked me what it was about. I told her I didn't particularly like it (although it is about history). It was 2014 before the CIA involvement was revealed in its role of Pasternak's famous semi-autobiographical novel about the Russian revolution. Prescott filled in the gaps with fictional D.C. women, of course, but included the actual mistress and wife of Pasternak (from diaries/letters). The stranger I'd just met expressed interest, so I handed it to her instead of donating back to the library sale. I told her I'd studied Russian in college, and she said she did too! до свида́ния we two strangers said as we parted at the library today (Russian for good-bye).

 
Prescott had a good story going, she's a fine writer, although the CIA is so creepy and the actual story of using a book to destabilize the USSR is true. But she then revealed she really wanted to write about lesbians. I finished the book, but wasn't interested in keeping it, so I gave it to a stranger.

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott Reveals the Story Behind Doctor Zhivago - Historical Novel Society

When the CIA Used 'Dr. Zhivago' as a Cold War Weapon | HISTORY

The Democrat media blame Trump for Florida attempt on his life

Just last week Harris lied on national TV with her friendly, sisterhood moderators not calling her on it, falsely accusing Trump of calling Nazis “fine people”, promising a “bloodbath,” and being responsible for “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” Those debunked lies she repeats resonate with weak minded people like Ryan Routh who tried to kill Trump in Florida yesterday at his poorly guarded by Secret Service golf course. Weak minded Democrats who now believe "democracy" means bloated federal agencies never elected to anything. Weak minded Harris who has called for defunding of police, elimination of "resource" officers in schools, and taking the guns (mandated) of law-abiding citizens. Weak minded Biden who withdrew Kennedy's Secret Service protection (of only a few weeks) as soon as he supported Trump.

 
Yet, a blind, deaf leftist media slavishly bowing to their party of hate continued their brand of virtuous outrage yesterday afternoon reporting the crime as Trump's fault and saying HE needs to tone down the rhetoric. I suppose they mean he shouldn't talk about taxes or inflation or foreign wars or abortion or the border or bringing back jobs to our country that fled to friendlier shores. Then they quickly move on to Springfield, OH and blame Vance for Biden's resettlement of 20-30,000 refugees swamping a small town of 60,000. Those calls to the city government have been recorded and are out there, but the media blame everyone but themselves.

 
Biden/Harris have made all the USA  border states. Socialist equity. Only their families get guards and security gates. Sometimes I hear "how dumb do they think we are," but it should be "how long can they fool Democrats."

MSNBC, CNN lambasted for ‘appalling’, ‘lacklustre’ coverage of assassination attempts against former president Donald Trump | Sky News Australia

Ryan Routh was supporter of Ukraine. "The suspect in the FBI's custody said in a June 2022 video interview with Newsweek Romania that he was in Ukraine to help recruit people to the war effort.
Routh said that he was in Ukraine originally to help fight but that ge was 56 years old and had no fighting experience and was subsequently turned down. He said he stayed in Kyiv afterward to promote projects to support the army.

"Plan B was to come here to Kyiv and promote getting more people here," Routh said in the interview. "You know, we need thousands and thousands and thousands of people here fighting with the Ukrainians."

Routh said the world was at a "critical juncture" in the war, which he called a struggle of good versus evil."

Sounds to me like he must have had some money and backing to fly to Europe, live there and without knowing the language or having military experience, he evangelized the war we Americans are paying for. And he was willing to die in order to stop Trump. That's some religion the leftists are preaching.

Live updates: FBI investigating apparent Trump assassination attempt after golf course shooting (nbcnews.com)

Springfield, Ohio and adjusting to a population increase

One thing most of the nation found out that they didn't know Tuesday night (debate) is that Biden/Harris has imported 20-30,000 Haitian immigrants to Springfield, OH, a town of under 58,000. I looked back a bit to flesh that out, and the city fathers and the community welcomed this several years ago because they needed some growth and more workers. But that's a lot of non-English speaking people, especially during a lockdown, to resettle, house, feed, an acculturate. It was a big blow to the tax base, although the churches and non-profits initially received government grants. Some homes were sold at really great prices and turned into sort of group homes or dorms. But that depressed the values of other homes in the area, and the neighborhoods splintered. OK. It still looks like (if you can trust the mayor and npr's reporting) they were coping nicely.

Let's take race and immigration status out of the mix. We have home grown Americans and Canadians who also expand in groups. Anabaptists--or more familiarly, The Amish. The Hutterites. The Mennonites. What if real estate scouts from 2 northern Indiana Amish counties decided to purchase land in central Ohio because their tradition of dividing property among their large families had become too difficult and they needed to spread out. How does an influx of maybe 15 Amish families with 6-10 children who own thousands of acres in a school district or taxing district and who have a different set of values about education or health, or technology impact a near-by small town of 5-10,000 Lutherans, Baptists and Catholics? Small Ohio cities are dealing with something like this when the government and its allies in the non-profit world move in and revise all the unspoken traditions of the community.

Harris lied, Trump won the debate

Of course, when Trump said it, our dear MSM said he was a liar. But it's out there. Remember, she said (as a message to her leftist base) my values have not changed.

"KFile, an investigative outfit at CNN, unearthed a document this week that provides several alarming insights into what the Democratic candidate might actually believe in, including taxpayer-funded sex changes for illegal aliens and federal prisoners, eliminating the Hyde Amendment, statehood for Washington, D.C., decriminalizing crack cocaine for personal use, and cutting Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding.

These revelations, contained within an American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire completed in 2019 by then-Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.), have renewed concerns about the Democrat's radicalism and even managed to surprise CNN's Erin Burnett. " (The Blaze, Sept 10)

And ACLU has a Harris compilation--a roadmap--which it thinks will further its policies, yet warns about Project 2025 by Heritage Conservatives. Wow. Democrats. I didn't even want to download the document. Too scary for me. It's called "The Harris Memos Compilation."

Now Hugh Hewitt has reversed his opinion about the debate and says he thinks Trump won the debate.
https://youtu.be/HAtHUeH6lr0?si=qW5YnvzDZaI9BFMW

Arguing with AI

As of 2023 women have been included the Ohio State Marching Band for 50 years (5 joined in 1973 due to Title IX which activists are now trying to destroy). So, I asked Chatgpt how many women are in the 2024 band, and it told me there were 225 members in the band. So, I rewrote the question capitalizing WOMEN and asked if it was a DEI thing it couldn't answer. It told me I would have to contact the university, in other words, Chatgpt doesn't know. I tried again, and this time it told me there were 247 members and 20-25% were women.

Remember the subprime mortgages? 2008?

"Washington’s new favorite subprime lender is none other than Uncle Sam. In a little noticed report last week—make that not noticed at all—the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the feds will lose $65.2 billion on risky loans and other “credit assistance” in the next fiscal year." Wall St. Journal editorial board.

This can be figured 2 ways. One is the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 (FCRA), and the other is based on a measure of fair value. "Using FCRA procedures—the standard way in which costs of credit programs are measured in the federal budget—CBO estimates that new loans and loan guarantees issued in 2025 would cost the federal government $2.4 billion over their lifetime. Using the fair-value approach, which measures the market value of the government’s obligations by accounting for market risk, CBO estimates that those loans and guarantees would have a lifetime cost of $65.2 billion. (Market risk is the component of financial risk that remains even with a well-diversified portfolio; it arises from shifts in macroeconomic conditions, such as productivity and employment, and from changes in expectations about future macroeconomic conditions.)"

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60682?

Trump's economic plan and the Reagan movie

I watched some of Donald Trump's speech at the Economic Club of New York (Sept. 5) on Fox. Don't know if the Democrat media covered it--Trump joked about them being there. He itemized his 2025 tax agenda in a very dry, business-like style, very different than his rallies. Wants to make his tax cuts permanent--these benefited all the quintiles, but especially the middle class. Pelosi particularly lied about this his entire term. A 15% corporate tax rate “solely for companies that make their product in America,” “expanded” research and development tax credits, restoring 100% bonus depreciation, and no tax on SS for seniors or on tips. Some of his "pillars" we've heard in his rallies, but this is all economics. The Democrats are now the party of wealth, so some of these have their support. He talked about waste and fraud and said he would create a special commission led by Elon Musk.

We went to see the movie Reagan with a group of like-minded (all conservative Christians) Thursday night. Everyone I'd talked to who had seen it raved about it. One couple in our group saw it twice. It was OK, but then I hadn't seen a first run movie since before Covid, so I'm a little out of the loop on the cost, the sound system that assumes everyone is deaf, and I just had trouble seeing actors playing historical figures of MY lifetime. Although they did a good job of inserting TV news clips. I never voted for Reagan and until I read a book about the President, Pope and Prime Minister (that may not be the exact title) I didn't know much about his contribution to the fall of the USSR. Like many Americans of the last 40 years, I just absorbed the alphabet media ABCBSNBCPBS 3-5 minute assessment of the evening news. I was a Democrat and my workplace (academe) was probably 75% Democrat, so I never heard another view. But also, it seems I'd heard of him all my life. Mt. Morris isn't that far from Dixon, and he was the local guy who went to Hollywood. My father knew him, although Reagan was a few years older, and played college football against him. The "hometown" scenes in the movie were fun to see--Rock River, the Dixon arch and his family home. I would recommend it though, and it's probably close to the history, except it didn't mention the Pope. Of course, all the reviews will be negative. Leopards don't change their spots. Ignore them. The audiences in this town have loved it.

Ben Carson on media's role in campaigning for Harris

 

 

Ben Carson: Kamala Harris a great test for media to transform her into MLK, will Americans see through it? (bizpacreview.com)

Harris' two war dilemma

The two wars in which we are now engaged (Israel/Hamas and Russia/Ukraine) would not have happened if Biden/Harris hadn't shown how weak this administration is back in August 2021. But that ship has sailed. We're in it now and half the country seems OK with that really poor leadership, exchanging a man who couldn't talk for a woman who is afraid to talk.

 
My question is why do Democrats/leftists seem so interested in some sort of negotiated peace for Israel/Hamas when Hamas and all radical Muslims have declared that Israel has no right to exist, but never even suggest that a third party might work with Russia and Ukraine to save lives and work through territorial disagreements. Neither war is in our best interest.

Does it go back to all those Ukrainian deals made by Biden's son when Joe was vice president? A lot of money changed hands. Or could there be growing anti-Semitism in the U.S., especially in the Biden/Harris administration? And what is the motive of people willing to vote for Harris to extend this mess?

Hollywood likes Trump's polices, but they are queasy about character

I was listening to an interview of Hollywood actor Michael Rapaport. He said he thought Trump's language was rough and divisive, but he had to be bleeped at least 4 times, and he was being interviewed by Sage Steel (female, former sports announcer for ESPN). Supposedly he is a "convert" from Hollywood leftism, but that's not the first time I've heard leftists decry Trump's divisiveness and language. They forget what he's been called by the other side--with no proof. They forget that Democrats lied and created legal cases against him that would have never been brought against another American. Because Trump tells the truth about crime surging, inflation, wide open borders, George Soros and the prosecutors paid by the Democrats, the Biden/Harris regime and the bug out in Afghanistan, they somehow think that is name calling. I'm good with words and I don't like cussing or swearing, or the F-word used as a noun, verb, adjective and exclamation, (which I haven't heard Trump use but Megyn Kelly does) but calling someone Sleepy Joe Biden or putting the wrong accent on Kamala's name, or deliberately mispronouncing Gov. Newsom's name hardly adds up to "threat to democracy," or "deplorables," or "bitter clingers." When I do a search, I get a Microsoft news aggregator, and the stories are 90% anti-Trump. Even the photos are ugly. It collects the weirdest conspiracies you can imagine about Trump. And he says mean tweets and silly nick names? Give me a break!

*                                                      *                                         *

Mark Alexander wrote in early 2017: "“The day Trump arrived in DC, he dropped a bomb on the Beltway status quo in Congress and its special interests. He dropped a bomb on the regulatory behemoths and their bureaucratic bottlenecks. He dropped a bomb on the trade and national security institutions and alliances that failed miserably over the previous eight years. And he dropped a bomb on all the pundits and mainstream media outlets.”

And that tells you the depth of hate and fear from Democrats and some Republicans and the source of Trump Derangement Syndrome. It's a war and they are fighting back--they want him destroyed. And a growing number suspect that might include assassination. It's why they call him a threat to democracy--because it's all they've ever known--special interests, regulatory agencies, red tape and bottlenecks, failed trade and security alliances, and a biased, one party media.

Reading to children

The word gap in early childhood is important. A child with a Mom who reads to her may hear a million more words than one who doesn't have that advantage.  I have many happy memories of Mom reading to my brother and me in the big burgundy late 40s chair with arms large enough to hold two children of school age (the chair, not hers). I can probably even remember the books. We didn't know what an advantage she was giving us even though we lived in a rural town of 1,000 with all 12 grades in one building. No amount of DEI later in life or Head Start as toddlers can surpass a mother who reads to her children. I remember the Little Engine that Could, the Ugly Duckling, and the Wee wee Mannie and the big big Coo to this day. Those stories had an ideology and lessons, great illustrations and challenging vocabulary plus Mom did great accents.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190404074947.htm?

Good-bye Summer

Good-bye summer.

 
That's what I think on September 1. It's my favorite month, though. It was the start of school (in the old days) and I loved school. It is the month of my birthday and anniversary of our wedding (64 this year). Did you know that Good-bye is a contraction of "God be with you?" Think on that each time you say good-bye. You are blessing them with God's presence and protection. It's the basis of that old hymn, "God be with you till we meet again." 

“God Be With You Till We Meet Again”, which was written by Jeremiah Rankin, was simply composed so his church choir could have something to sing when they parted each week. Rankin was the minister for the First Congregational Church in Washington, D.C. and said this about the hymn, “Written…as a Christian goodbye, it was called forth by no person or occasion, but was deliberately composed as a Christian hymn on basis of the etymology of “goodbye,” which is “God be with you.” He got the idea for the first stanza of the song when he saw the dictionary definition of “good-bye” was short for “God be with you.” The song was written in 1882 when Rankin was 54 years old."

Additional details in  Discipleship Ministries | History of Hymns: 'God Be with You Till We… (umcdiscipleship.org)

Harris' CNN interview August 29, 2024

Kamala Harris said something odd in her "interview" with Dana Bash on CNN last night. It sounded like she said money seniors saved on drugs (negotiated by Biden?) could have gone to fight fentanyl that has been devastating our communities (and she DID NOT say caused by drugs at border crossings). How does that work? How does the money saved in Mr. Senior Citizen's wallet get to the ICE to fight border criminals funded by China? Is this just word salad with brown lettuce? I looked up the Inflation Reduction Act, and couldn't figure out the money supply chain on that one. Everything I've read said the consumer is saving (and there are many exceptions and will only affect a few and doesn't start until next year).

"The Inflation Reduction Act amends the non-interference clause by adding an exception that requires the Secretary of HHS to negotiate prices with drug companies for a small number of single-source brand-name drugs or biologics without generic or biosimilar competitors that are covered under Medicare Part D (starting in 2026) and Part B (starting in 2028). Under the new Drug Price Negotiation Program, the number of drugs selected for price negotiation is 10 Part D drugs for 2026, another 15 Part D drugs for 2027, another 15 Part D and Part B drugs for 2028, and another 20 Part D and Part B drugs for 2029 and later years. These drugs will be selected from the 50 drugs with the highest total Medicare Part D spending and the 50 drugs with the highest total Medicare Part B spending. The number of drugs with negotiated prices available will accumulate over time."

What sort of shell game has she added to gaslighting?

Overall, the interview was poor, didn't reflect well on her.  Tim Walz looked sort of silly sitting there like a Secret Service watchman in Butler, PA. Harris was evasive, and seemed to be looking down at her notes.  She looked tired and exhauted, but then last week was her big event, so perhaps she was tired.  It was billed as an "hour event," but it was more like a half hour, and Harris said little.

Kamala vs Kamala campaign ads

Have you seen Trump's Harris vs. Harris campaign ads?

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS, 2024: Everyday prices are too high... Food, rent, gas, back-to-school clothes.

HARRIS, 2023: That is called Bidenomics!

HARRIS, 2024: A loaf of bread costs 50% more... ground beef is up almost 50%... There's not much left at the end of the month.

HARRIS, 2023: Bidenomics is working!

HARRIS, 2024: The price of housing has gone up. It feels so hard to be able to just get ahead.

HARRIS, 2023: We are so proud of Bidenomics!

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/08/26/trump_campaign_ad_quotes_harris_on_high_prices_thats_called_bidenomics.html

Robert F. Kennedy Jr,'s speech to support Trump

You may have missed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s speech last week where he endorsed President Donald Trump for a second term. The major media outlets working with the DNC have completely censored him and refused to cover his campaign. The DNC tried to bankrupt him, just as they (i.e. Democrats) did Trump by bringing frivolous lawsuits. I probably don't agree with him on most issues, especially abortion, but he and Trump have shown the complete hypocrisy and illegal behavior of the Democrat party that screams "threat to democracy" every chance they get while doubling down on election interference. He's still on the ballot in some states. It's a good speech on many levels. Mainly it shows the complete corruption of the party in power in the White House, but if you watched how they crowned their current candidate with no input from the voters, you know that.

https://www.youtube.com/live/CG_dz4DjrkA?si=RojQgmPzCOhWmdP9

RFK jr aligns with Trump on many issues like ending the wars, protecting the border, protecting children from chronic diseases; they disagree on many others. Team of Rivals. (Abraham Lincoln). His biggest concern seems to be the health of children, and the rise on chronic health conditions.  He often refers to "when my uncle was President" which is about 1960, and an easy figure to remember. 
He condemns ultra processed food as the culprit in the shocking statistics on chronic diseases in children. Toxic chemicals he names as the second culprit--hormone disrupters cause girls to reach puberty earlier. Mass poisoning, he says. $4 trillion now on chronic diseases, whereas in 1960 it was zero. 70% of school lunches are processed food--poor have a high burden of chronic diseases. 74% of Americans are obese, he says. Imagine if they all needed Wegovy or Ozempic. A boon for Big Pharma. Or for less money give organic fruits and vegetables to every family. Make Americans Healthy Again.

 Of course, I want to save children too, but in the womb. They have to be born before Kennedy can improve their diet.

Put on your big girl pants

This may be the only sympathetic feeling I have for Kamala Harris: speaking in public. I'd bring along a guy for support, too (Walz). I'd let someone else speak for me if I could, too.  I'd make up rules to benefit only me, too. I spoke to my church as a teen-ager after a conference; I spoke at my professional organization's national meeting when I was the president; I spoke about how to use the library at freshman orientations in the Veterinary college for a number of years; when the WWW came online, I gave a seminar on how to use it, and a few other times. It was painful each time. I don't like public speaking. But she signed on for the job and she should start behaving like a big girl. We know she can, because she spoke to her sorority sisters rather than do her Vice President duties in meeting with Netanyahu of Israel a few days after she was anointed by the party to take Biden's place.

The crime scene was swept clean--July 13

The only police detective experience I've had is watching 8 years (plus re-runs) of the Closer. And even I knew this wasn't right.

"A SWAT counter-sniper who was working the Pennsylvania rally where former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated last month agreed with Republican lawmakers Monday that an “odd” pattern of evidence-handling had occurred following the deadly shooting.

Washington Regional SWAT counter-sniper Ben Shaffer said it was “absolutely” concerning that the roof of the AGR International building had been quickly scrubbed and gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks’ body disposed of before an official autopsy report could be released."

Trump rally counter-sniper backs bombshell 'evidence tampering' claims by House GOPers (nypost.com)

Trump rally counter-sniper Ben Shaffer sparks uproar as he supports GOP's 'evidence tampering' allegation - MEAWW News

House Republican Forum on the Attempted Assassination of Former President Trump | C-SPAN.org

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talks to Tucker

"In 1960 when my uncle was president our chronic disease rate was about 6%. Now it's 60%." Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the Tucker Carlson show speaking about why he decided to back Trump. He believes 8 years of Harris would be devastating to the country.

 
Fact checkers deny this (I just checked), Annenburg, a far far leftist organization devoted to keeping your right to speech and assembly within "proper" bounds (i.e., supporting Democrats) says so, and then all lackeys comply. The "fact" checker then reports on RFKjr stats, and it looks to me like the researchers don't agree on the percentage (not the idea). Since Kennedy was then a Democrat running without approval of the party because he would draw off votes from Biden, Annenburg had to stomp it out. It's who this "fact" checker is.

Kennedy is still running in 40 states. Biden has now withdrawn his Secret Service protection, which he only got because Trump brought it up at the RNC. It's who they are.

Zuck and Kamala have a lot to answer for

Too little, too late. "Mark Zuckerberg 'comes clean' in damning letter about Facebook's election interference and pandemic censorship."  He admits what we all knew.

Just one more reason not to trust Harris, especially since she's been wearing her MAGA hat and steal Trump's ideas.

"Zuckerberg said in his damning letter addressed to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that in 2021, senior officials from the Biden-Harris administration, including the White House, "repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn't agree.""

https://www.theblaze.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-comes-clean-in-damning-letter-about-facebooks-election-interference-and-pandemic-censorship?

What's wrong with Democrats who support Harris?

I heard at the "All In" Podcast (193) that the media have given Harris 84% positive coverage and Trump 89% negative coverage. No bias there. What a disservice to Democrats! That means media want Democrats to vote for higher taxes, for losing all private health insurance, for taxing unrealized capital gains, for being priced out of home ownership, for price controls, for more inflation, for candidates Harris/Walz both of whom have had zip/nada/zilch employment in the private sector when technically we are a free market, capitalist economy, and a candidate, Kamala Harris, raised in Berkeley and Montreal with parents who were Communists swamped in the lies of socialism from conception to the last one in the room when Biden made his awful decisions.

 
And don't kid yourself that Harris/Walz are just going after envy vote--want to only tax the rich. It always falls to the Middle class. The poor don't pay taxes, they receive subsidies. The rich have so many tax lawyers they probably won't even notice, especially when they move their assets out of the country. Lots of countries are looking for their money--our government tries to drive them out! It will all fall to the middle class to keep the tax hungry Harris away from the door.

Does anyone with a brain work in the legacy media?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSpGiFqL8_E I think this is episode 193. Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks & David Friedberg cover all things economic, tech, political, social & poker.

Gender affirming care

It's not "gender affirming care." That's word salad. It's toxic.

Humans don't have genders. We each have a biological sex. Nouns have genders. Old English had genders; modern English for the most part does not. There may be a few of us where something went wrong with the design, but we shouldn't aim for the anomaly. There are people born without arms, too. 

It's also not care and it's not affirming to create words and phrases that deceive. "Affirming care" is violent and cruel. It is not positive, confirming or expressing agreement.

Praying for the opening of a new business

Prayer opportunities in the everydays. Isn't it nice to be included in God's work through prayer? I think this prayer is a model to join the Lord's work in a new business from my friend Darlene, a former member of our church now living in SC. (used with her permission)

"Would you all pray for my son Drew today? He is an executive chef of a new restaurant having their grand opening tonight. Pray for their success.

 
Pray that each of them, especially Drew leading them. We can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. Not all of them are Christians but pray for the salvation of the ones that are to lead the ones that are not. I saw a caring and a love for each other among the servers, cooks and management. Pray for that love to grow.

When we were there for the friends and family, I felt a change in the atmosphere as I entered the restaurant. I could feel a release of the burdens of the day and a relaxation take over. Pray (especially in the times we are in) that the customers receive that same feeling. Pray for favor with God and man for the whole staff.

 
Pray the Lord be magnified and each person be lifted up! Pray they have a great time serving their customers and enjoying their work! and have fun. It would be an escape for the staff also.
Above all, commit their work to the Lord and they will be established.

 
Thank you for your prayers. I love you all ...Be blessed, Darlene"

Guttmacher, CDC and Pew

Although we know a lot about the U.S. populace from our government census, it doesn't ask about religion. So when you see those figures, it's not from the government census. There may be other agencies and organizations that do count heads for religion, but the Pew Research organization is the only one I know, and the one most quoted. Here's what it says about Christians, and it should be marching orders for all churches.

"Christians continue to make up a majority of the U.S. populace, but their share of the adult population is 12 points lower in 2021 than it was in 2011. In addition, the share of U.S. adults who say they pray on a daily basis has been trending downward, as has the share who say religion is “very important” in their lives."

"As of 2021, 21% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Catholic, identical to the Catholic share of the population in 2014."

That means Catholics are holding their own and Protestants are not. Also, it means that lack of religious observances like regular prayer and church attendance are factors in the increasing divisiveness in our society,

Here's another tip about statistics. Researchers rely on the Guttmacher Institute for abortion statistics. It is the research arm of Planned Parenthood. CDC is our government agency that tracks health and the reproductive health of the nation. Although reproduction is the opposite of abortion, that's where to look for abortion statistics. If you read an article about abortion or contraception, there is usually a mix of statistics using both CDC and Guttmacher. Those are the only two the Pew Research articles quote from. Although it's odd, abortion statistics from Pew is classed with religion and assigned to its religious editor. As far as I can determine neither one tracks, records or is concerned about the negative effects of abortion on the health and welfare of women, especially not in the long run. For that you'll need smaller, more female friendly organizations.

I looked up the 2 Pew religion writers/editors and one specialized in American blacks and Muslims and Europeans and the other in Muslims. Do you see any specialization gaps here?

I look at strange things so you don't have to.

Some DNC humor--Michelle Obama

 

Why do Democrats demonize their wealthy donors?

Maybe at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee the Republicans insulted their rich donors, but I don't remember that (referring to Michelle Obama's slam at the wealthy during her speech). I know the Democrats listen to their rich donors, because that's what began the march of daggers in the back for Biden. In mid-July George Clooney, a film star, called on Biden to get out, to retire, to fade away, to fall on his sword to save the party in power.  And he wasn't alone. All those Hollywood stars and corporate magnates with deep pockets and PACs were afraid Trump would rain on their power parade. During the 2016 campaign when another woman was campaigning for the White House, "At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released SO FAR to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million. (Fox, 8-23-16) In their 40 years of political life (as of 2015) the Clintons raised $3 Billion for their campaigns and their foundation. (WaPo, 11-19-15)  And they did it office sucking up as much money as they could.

Josh Shapiro

We all know Democrats dumped Josh Shapiro for vice president because he is Jewish and they need Michigan, but when Trump calls him a "Jewish Governor" they get the vapors and the liberal media pile on. Democrats have abandoned the working class, Blacks, Catholics and Jews all in search of power and their Marxist policies. Don't be fooled.

The one percenters--us

I usually ignore these memes, but I read it today, and it sort of sobered me. Especially thinking about those 99%. How many of these ring true for you, 99 % of those born between 1930 and 1946 (worldwide) are now dead. If you were born in this time span, you are one of the rare surviving 1% ers of this special group. Their ages range between 77 and 93 years old, a 16 year age span.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE 1% ers:

You are the smallest group of children born since the early 1900's.

You are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war that rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.

You are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.

You saved tin foil and poured fried meat fat into tin cans.

You can remember milk being delivered to your house early in the morning and placed in the "milk box" on the porch.

Discipline was enforced by parents and teachers.

You are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, you "imagined" what you heard on the radio.

With no TV, you spent your childhood "playing outside".

There was no Little League.

There was no city playground for kids.

The lack of television in your early years meant that you had little real understanding of what the world was like.

We got "black-and-white" TV in the late 40s that had 3 stations and no remote. (Kids were normally the remote.)

Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines), and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares about privacy).

Computers were called calculators; they were hand-cranked.

Typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon.

'INTERNET' and 'GOOGLE' were words that did not exist.

New highways would bring jobs and mobility. Most highways were 2 lanes (no interstates).

You went downtown to shop. You walked to school.

The radio network expanded from 3 stations to thousands.

Your parents were suddenly free from the confines of the depression and the war, and they threw themselves into working hard to make a living for their families.

You weren't neglected, but you weren't today's all-consuming family focus.

They were glad you played by yourselves.

They were busy discovering the postwar world.

You entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where you were welcomed, enjoyed yourselves.

You felt secure in your future, although the depression and poverty were deeply remembered.

Polio was still a crippler. Everyone knew someone who had it.

You came of age in the '50s and '60s.

You are the last generation to experience an interlude when there were no threats to our homeland.

World War 2 was over and the cold war, terrorism, global warming, and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life.

Only your generation can remember a time after WW2 when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty.

You grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better.

More than 99% of you are retired now, and you should feel privileged to have "lived in the best of times!"

If you have already reached the age of 77 years old, you have outlived 99% of all the other people in the world who were born in this special 16 year time span. You are a 1% 'er"!

* * *                              *  *  *      

My parents didn't get a TV until they could get color transmission from Rockford, IL--I think it was 1957 and I was already away at college.

No, don't remember Little League, but we had community "commercial leagues" sponsored by local businesses, and the American Legion sponsored teams. There was a Corbett Oil team (my dad sponsored it). For younger kids I think there were "junior" teams. Anyone else remember that?

Yes, I remember party lines. We were 59-L. My older sisters (teens) were telephone operators so we knew the gossip.

Walking to downtown and school was about same distance. Small and smaller towns.

Playgrounds were school grounds. Easy to get to. Also, streets and sidewalks were safe. If you were playing soft ball you'd just yell, CAR.

Not sure our lives overflowed with plenty, but I do remember our first refrigerator which replaced the ice box. Big boxes were fun.

Yes, polio was huge in my memory. Affected family and friends.

I don't recall a time of no international threats. We had duck and cover drills and classroom movies about "the bomb." All the theaters had WWII movies. Plus we had parents who remembered the Depression and lived accordingly.

And, although I never thought much about it at the time, we had pretty clothes. Today's closet for a young girl is full of sweats, T-s, and ugly shoes.

Kamalanomics

Michael Boskin says that there are three sources of insights into Harris’s economic thinking, “her positions when running for president in 2020, the Biden-Harris economic policies, and the economic program she rolled out Friday.”

 
Starting with the new policies she announced in a speech last Friday, Boskin explains that Harris wants to give first-time home buyers a $25,000 government check, favors subsidies to developers on low-income housing, and supports price controls on groceries." (Kamalanomics, Hoover Institute)

I wouldn't call those "insights," or "thinking." Give the general home buying public $25,000 to buy a house and all housing prices go up $25,000. That's 5th grade math. Only the free market works--even Communist China learned that when their economy was flailing. Definitely cat-lady economic theory.

 

US families need to earn a staggering 80% more than they did in 2020 to 'comfortably afford' a home nowadays — despite the median income only going up 23% in that time

Rough Sleepers September book club selection

Our book club assignment for September is Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder.  Here is a summary of a model program from 1985 to the present at its website with a description of the book. Our History | Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (bhchp.org)

"2023:  Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People by Tracy Kidder is published. Kidder tells the story of Dr. Jim O’Connell, (Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program) BHCHP’s founding physician and the BHCHP Street Team as they offer medical care and friendship to “rough sleepers”, our patients living on the streets. Tracy Kidder, a Pulitzer prize-winning author followed the Street Team for 5 years resulting in this New York Times bestseller.

Rough Sleepers appears on the cover of the New York Times magazine with a 10,000-word author essay by Tracy Kidder and a photo montage of patients cared for by the BHCHP Street Team.

Barbara McInnis House respite program [in 2023] opens the Complex Addiction Treatment (CAT) team specializing in the respite care of people with active SUD using best practices from addiction medicine, harm reduction, and trauma informed models of care. This is a unique model of care: The team’s goals are 

(1) to provide effective care to respite patients at BMH who are at high risk for adverse outcomes related to drug use 

(2) to retain these patients in care at BMH to address the medical need(s) for which they were admitted and 

(3) to decrease triggers and trauma for patients in respite who are not using drugs by cohorting and better supporting patients for whom cessation of use is not an option."

Additional information

Find Immediate Homelessness Assistance | SAMHSA

Need Housing Assistance? - HUD Exchange

"SAMHSA’s SOAR program increases access to Social Security disability benefits for eligible children and adults who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness and have a serious mental illness, medical impairment, and/or co-occurring substance use disorder." However I found it so complex, I couldn't figure it out. Find Treatment Locators and Helplines | SAMHSA  Definitely would require a whole department of specialists. But I also looked at the number of applicants in 17 years this department has helped, and I was not impressed.

"Under federal disability rights laws, alcohol addiction, whether current or past, is typically considered a disability due to the effects it has on a person’s brain and neurological functions and is protected by the ADA. 7 On the other hand, though drug addiction is generally considered a disability, the ADA only allows protections for those in recovery and not currently engaging in illegal drug use. 7

Is Addiction a Disability? ADA Protections & Disability Benefits (americanaddictioncenters.org)

Dr. Jim O'Connell wrote a memoir in 2015. House Calls To The Homeless: A Doctor Treats Boston's Most Isolated Patients : Shots - Health News : NPR

Medicaids-Role-in-Housing-1.pdf (macpac.gov)

Thousands in Columbus are waiting for affordable, Section 8 housing (dispatch.com)

Let's FACE the double standard about demonstrations

The federal FACE Act prohibits “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.” It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994.

 
So why are pro-Hamas terrorists allowed to do the same activities on college campuses, major hi-ways, and at the Democratic National Convention. That must be a dilemma for Democrats. Demonstrating in front of an abortion clinic can get you put in jail, but demonstrating that you hate Jews and want to destroy Israel is no big deal. 

So if you block an ambulance with a heart attack patient or block the entrance to the library it's OK in the USA as long as it's to "free Palestine." Just don't demonstrate you care about the lives of the unborn.

Office of Public Affairs | Six Defendants Convicted of Federal Civil Rights Conspiracy and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act Offenses for Obstructing Access to Reproductive Health Services in Tennessee | United States Department of Justice

Photos show DNC protesters clash with Chicago police as convention kicks off (yahoo.com)

Some protesters tear down security fence as thousands march outside Democratic National Convention (wibw.com)

Pro-life authors I'd like to read--Helen M. Alvaré

Helen Alvaré

Helen M. Alvaré is a renowned Catholic legal scholar and pro-life advocate. She is the Robert A. Levy Endowed Chair in Law and Liberty at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University, where she teaches Family Law, Law and Religion, and Property Law.

Publications and Expertise

Alvaré publishes extensively on matters concerning marriage, parenting, non-marital households, and the First Amendment religion clauses. Her work has appeared in news outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and CNN.com, as well as academic journals. She has also authored books and lectured widely on topics related to family, marriage, and religious freedom.

Professional Experience

Prior to joining George Mason University, Alvaré taught at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America and represented the U.S. bishops’ conference on pro-life issues. She has worked for over a decade in the Catholic Church’s pro-life efforts, lobbying Congress and speaking publicly on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment.

Recent Engagements

In 2024, Alvaré delivered the Tim Fischer Oration on Ethics in Public and Political Life, speaking on the importance of upholding Christian values in public discourse. She has also been recognized for her contributions to the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and has been honored for her work on pro-life issues and broader public discourse on polarizing social issues.

Social Media

Alvaré is active on Twitter (@AlvareHelen), where she shares her thoughts on law, family, and faith, as well as her experiences as a Catholic scholar and advocate.

How the Greens gaslight us all . . . but especially the poor.

How the Greens gaslight us all . . . but especially the poor.

 
"According to the World Bank, between 1990 and 2019, as emissions surged, the proportion of the world’s population in extreme poverty fell from 38 percent to 8.4 percent. Food production similarly soared from 2000 to 2020, with global primary-crop production rising by 52 percent, meat production by 45 percent, and vegetable oil production by 125 percent. Those figures well outstripped population growth and resulted in the daily caloric intake rising in every region of the globe. At the same time, the real global economy nearly doubled in value."

https://www.city-journal.org/article/climate-reactionaries?

"Solar and wind are incapable of delivering the power needed for industrialization, powering water pumps, tractors and machines — all the ingredients needed to lift people out of poverty. As rich countries are now also discovering, solar and wind energy remain fundamentally unreliable. No sun or wind means no power. Battery technology offers no answers: today there are only enough batteries to power global average electricity consumption for one minute and 15 seconds. Even by 2030, with a projected rapid battery scale-up, they would last less than 12 minutes. For context, every German winter, when solar is a

its minimum, there is near-zero wind energy available for at least five days — more than 7,000 minutes."

Opinion: The rich world became wealthy by exploiting fossil fuels | Financial Post

"It Is often reported that emerging industrial powers like China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh are getting more power from solar and wind. But these countries get much more additional power from coal. Last year, China got more additional power from coal than it did from solar and wind. India got three times more electricity from coal than from green energy sources, Bangladesh 13 times more and Indonesia an astonishing 90 times more. If solar and wind really were cheaper, why would these countries not use them? Because reliability matters.

The usual way of measuring the cost of solar simply ignores its unreliability and tells us the price when the sun is shining. The same is true for wind energy. That does indeed make them slightly cheaper than other electricity sources: 3.6 US¢ per kWh for solar, just ahead of natural gas at 3.8 US¢, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But if you account for reliability, their real costs explode: in 2022, one peer-reviewed study showed an increase of 11-42 times, making solar by far the most expensive electricity source, followed by wind."

Bjorn Lomborg: Why solar and wind power aren’t winning (yahoo.com)

"Smartphones, computers and electric vehicles may be emblems of the modern world, but, says Siddharth Kara, their rechargeable batteries are frequently powered by cobalt mined by workers laboring in slave-like conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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."

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

A Kennedy supports the never primaried candidate

Jack Kennedy Schlossberg, 31, is the grandson of John F. Kennedy and the son of Caroline Kennedy and has endorsed Kamala Harris for president and mocked his cousin, third-party candidate RFK Jr. No surprise here.

Children and exercise--the gym or outdoors?

I go to Lifetime Fitness (I call it the gym) about 5x a week. Sometimes parents bring their children--I think they need to be 12 to be a guest. They are well-behaved and no trouble--but I do feel sorry for them, especially the young girls who are probably already a little over concerned about their bodies.

No one wants to hear that we knew better in the "old days" but here it is. I hated school PE classes, I admit it. I did avoid all organized summer sports although the town had community leagues. But I certainly had a lot of exercise. Watching a little kid on one of those machines today I recalled:

• climbing trees
• riding horses
• biking on no-speed, manual brake bicycles
• playing hop-scotch
• raking leaves in the fall
• mowing the lawn in the summer
• pulling weeds in the garden in the summer
• digging dandelions in the yard in the spring
• running during recess
• swinging on the monkey bars in the school yard
• roller skating with strap on skates on the sidewalks
• catching tadpoles and frogs in creeks
• playing softball in the street with neighborhood kids
• delivering newspapers on a morning route
• running just because
• and we walked because our mean mothers wouldn't drive us everywhere we wanted to go!

Most of these with the exception of newspaper delivery were social activities--done with friends or a group.

The White House plan for inflation, health and energy

“My plan is to lower everyday costs for hardworking families and lower the deficit by asking large corporations and the wealthiest Americans to not engage in price gouging and to pay their fair share in taxes.” — President Biden (White House web site)

The Harris Biden plan to reduce government induced inflation is to blame business. They flooded the nation with money long after the Covid crisis receded (in part created by their lockdown and masking policies) with too much money chasing too few goods. Many businesses just closed and some owners who fought back went to jail (especially in Minnesota under Walz who even had a tip line so neighbors could snitch on neighbors). Are they at fault for the policies that ruined them? The "wealthiest Americans" many of whom are backing Harris, can't bail them out with higher taxes. They just move their assets off shore. There's not enough money in their investments, which we need to grow, to reverse the bad monetary policy of the Harris Biden years.

The same WH message says they will take on Big Pharma, the same folks who prevented us from getting treatment for Covid because they could make greater profits with "preventive" measures that didn't work and actually wounded many Americans. Some Americans are still being terrorized by tax supported messages of fear and have submitted to 6 or 7 boosters while still wearing masks in their cars.

The same WH message says Democrats will lower our utility bills, but how will they do that when they intend to destroy fossil fuels in the pie in the sky plan to stop climate change, something that has been going on since the beginning of the record? What do you think is powering those electric vehicles? Coal!

Harris owns this. As vice president she casts the tie breaking vote in the Senate. She voted for those additional IRS agents to stop cheating on tips. Now she's running for cover by laughing and copying Trump's proposal to end taxes on tips.

 
We need a moderate Republican like Donald Trump in the White House to stop the radical leftist Democrat administration from destroying our economy and our Bill of Rights.

Harris and the takeover

Why in the world would Harris sit for an interview, even for friendly, soft ball questions from the "legacy media?" The media have already puffed her up to princess level; she's already allowed a foreign invasion as the Border Czar. How much difference did it make to Democrats that she did nothing. Said nothing. Answered no criticism. She only has to wait and not speak. She lies when her lips move, so what difference does it make? No shots fired. Easy Peasy. The stage is set for the totalitarian takeover.

Pray as though your life depended on it--because it's true

We are on the brink of war with Iran who is allied with Russia and China. Our current "border czar" allowed many terrorists to enter our country and they are now working with the rioters on the campuses and in our major (mostly blue) cities. She's busy campaigning for another 4 years of careless, anti-American, weak, feckless leadership and refuses to repudiate her years as Biden's right-hand lackey. She was not primaried, she was not selected by the people.

 
Pray as though our lives depend on God. It has ever and always been so, but some need more evidence. And it is right in front of us.

Break dancing at the Olympics

Count me as one who says break dancing is not an Olympic sport (why not have waltz or Texas 2-step events?). It is the height of hypocrisy for a black man to criticize a Lithuanian woman for wearing a Durag in a break dance event as "cultural appropriation." They expect us to accept a man parading in heavy mascara, 4 inch heels and sex hormones as a woman. That's absolutely cultural and sexual appropriation! The whole concept of an Olympic contest is cultural appropriation from Greece in 776 BC. Get over yourself.

Election fraud and Democrats--refresh your memory

When so many have already tossed the assassination attempt of Trump down the memory hole (less than a month ago), perhaps it's too much to hope we can recall election fraud and conspiracies by Democrats in the past. 1988 was the last time Democrats didn't cry fraud when they lost. Pelosi is already making threats about 2025 if Trump wins. So how is their record? Especially for mail in ballots, always ripe for fraud. New York Times and Washington Post used to warn of the dangers, then after 2020, Republicans were accused of being conspiracy theorists or spreading misinformation if they questioned the flood of ballots. Listen if you don't have time to search or read the book. In case you missed it, Walz, the vice president pick of the Democrat party for 2024, is already laying plans to outlaw free speech if he deems it misinformation. To refresh your memory. . .

  https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2021/11/mollie-hemingway-talks-election-fraud

Edith Stein, August 9 memorial

Today, August 9, we Christians and Jews memorialize the death of Edith Stein, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. She was killed in Auschwitz on August 9 for both her ethnic Jewish heritage (had converted to Catholicism in 1922 after being an atheist) and her Catholicism. After the Dutch Catholic Bishops had condemned the Nazis for the persecution of the Jews in 1942, Roman Catholics were rounded up and sent to the death camps.

 
The Collect for her memorial in the "Episcopal Book of Common Prayer" reads as follows:

"Pour out your grace upon thy church, O God; that, like your servant Edith Stein, we may always seek what is true, defend what is right, reprove what is evil, and forgive those who sin against us, even as your Son commanded; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory, now and forever."

Yad Vashem, the memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, commemorates Edith Stein as a Jewish woman murdered by the Nazis: “Edith Stein was born in Breslau, Germany in 1891. Prior to WWII she lived in Koeln, Germany. Edith was murdered in the Shoah.”

 
Pope John Paul II canonized her in 1998.
-----------
Let's remember on this day that Nazi (National Socialists) totalitarianism was against Christians as well as Jews. To revere God as higher than the state is a crime in totalitarian societies. Today we need to watch for that evil as the creeping socialism in our own country becomes an open, in-your-face marathon. We see attacks on Jews in our elite universities and the FBI has been found spying on traditional Catholics. Parents lose their rights for fighting against the agenda of radical trans activists who deny God's plan of Creation of male and female.

(Information from Magnificat, August 2023, pp. 117-118 and Praytellblog,com)

FACT and Kamala Harris and Walz and born alive

On June 26, 2018, the US Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to strike down as unconstitutional the 2015 California Reproduction Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act (the “FACT Act”). This law was co-sponsored by California's then Attorney General Kamala Harris. The law required crisis pregnancy centers that offer reproductive health services to inform clients, by posted notice or handout, about California’s public programs that provide low-cost or free contraception and abortion services. It also required that they post a phone number for more information, and that unlicensed facilities post a notice acknowledging that they are not a licensed health care provider. 

Just another example from the memory hole of how much Harris wanted women to get abortions instead of giving birth to healthy babies and how much she tried to destroy free speech.

And the record of her running mate, Tim Walz, on abortion and the value of babies born alive after an abortion is even worse.

"Minnesota was the rare state to require such born-alive abortions to be publicly reported, creating a powerful statistic for pro-life and anti-abortion forces to draw upon.

But in 2023, Walz worked with his new Democrat-controlled Legislature to eliminate both the REPORTING requirement and the state’s legal obligation for doctors, nurses and medical professionals to administer LIFE SAVING CARE to infants born alive during an abortion procedure. The governor-turned-vice presidential nominee signed an omnibus bill known as SF2995 that closed one of the few statistical windows on late-term abortions and the possibility that babies born alive were left to die."

Tim Walz Removed Born-Alive Abortion Reporting Requirements (dailysignal.com)

And this is the guy who called Vance weird?

Biden and the Constitution

I have a copy of the Constitution of the United States (and with Index, and The Declaration of Independence) c. 2009, 2012--in my hand. Every American should own one and read it occasionally. Especially the part about 3 branches of government. It's hard to imagine how powerful and historic such a small booklet can be--although it's not the print or the pages, but what it represents. And yet, Biden (and Harris/Walz) are willing to destroy it, with the most recent attack against SCOTUS. Biden should be on his knees smoothing their robes for their decision to clarify immunity for the president. There is so much crime, evil and malfeasance in his administration that sooner or later some clever lawyer/prosecutor just might string a few laws together that show it all started at the top. The Biden years are an insult to that precious document.

Biden Announces Plan to Radically Alter the Supreme Court Because He Didn't Like Trump Ruling (westernjournal.com)

Supreme Court Justice issues stern words on Biden's plans for huge overhaul | Daily Mail Online

https://nypost.com/2024/07/29/us-news/biden-formally-unveils-plan-to-overhaul-scotus-with-focus-on-limiting-trumps-powers/

Harris choses the most leftist of the party, Tim Walz

So the defund the police riot control candidate chooses a let it burn down candidate.

The mayor of Minneapolis failed and the governor of Minnesota failed to get things under control until the rioting spread across the nation, in late May-June, 2020. The senator from California jumped on the defund the police and raised bail for rioters bandwagon. Pennsylvania's governor, Josh Shapiro, most likely lost out because he's a Jew and Kamala, being at the far left of her party, favors the Palestinians.

What a team!

https://www.foxnews.com/us/minnesota-gov-tim-walz-up-harris-vp-criticized-remarkable-lack-leadership-during-covid-riots?

Semaglutide and weight loss for diabetes or obesity

I recently saw a photo (mid-2023) of Oprah on Dr. Peter Attia's web site (promotes health, longevity, exercise, etc.) and noticed how thin she was. I heard she'd been on one of the GLP-1 drugs (semaglutide[Ozempic, Wegovy]) and had stopped the "healthy" diet promotions. That article was a "members only" read, but here's what she told People magazine.

“The fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime, feels like relief, like redemption, like a gift, and not something to hide behind and once again be ridiculed for,” Winfrey stated. “I’m absolutely done with the shaming from other people and particularly myself.”

I wonder if the thin Oprah will be as popular as the fluffy Oprah?

Some researchers question the safety, and others who are not researchers (me) think it's too expensive.

Because it also lowers the risk of some other dangerous health conditions, how much should the taxpayers be chipping in? Ozempic is FDA approved for type 2 diabetes and Wegovy is FDA approved for weight loss with or without diabetes. This matters for insurance, but there is a cost either way. Someone pays. Someone makes a profit.

 
Remembering how Hormone Replacement Therapy drugs were called a "miracle" about 30 years ago to prevent heart attack, stroke, dementia etc. as well as hot flashes, then were dropped in 2022, I'd be a bit cautious. That's a personal opinion.

Here's a video, useful for its recency with a voice over to help with pronunciation.

https://youtu.be/DTOcV8uFZyw?si=Hpi5yoWnPJpaDMxr

What Kamala Harris believes

 https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-kamala-harris-believes-c1136006

What Kamala Harris Believes

The Vice President’s political record reveals the views of a California progressive.

---

By The WSJ  Editorial Board

Democrats are rapidly unifying behind Kamala Harris as their party nominee, yet the Vice President remains relatively unknown to most Americans. That means it’s important to look at her record to see what she believes.

As VP she’s closely identified with the Biden agenda, for better or worse, and she embraced that record in remarks on Monday. She said President Biden’s first term has “surpassed the legacy” of most Presidents who have served two.

So mark her down as endorsing the spending blowouts that caused inflation, the Green New Deal, entitlement expansions and student loan forgiveness. Until she says otherwise, we should also assume she’s in favor of Mr. Biden’s $5 trillion tax increase in 2025.

The Vice President’s four years as a Senator from California are another window on her worldview. She sponsored a bill to create a $6,000 guaranteed income for families making up to $100,000. Another Harris proposal: A refundable tax credit that would effectively cap rents and utility payments at 30% of income. Liberal economists panned the subsidy because it would drive up rents.

She co-sponsored legislation with Bernie Sanders that would pay tuition at four-year public colleges for students from families making up to $125,000. This is more honest than the Administration’s back-end student loan cancellation. But it would cost $700 billion over a decade and encourage colleges to increase tuition.

Another Bernie mind-meld: Single-payer healthcare. Ms. Harris co-sponsored his Medicare for All legislation paid for by higher income taxes. She tweaked Bernie’s plan when running for President in 2019 by extending the phase-in to 10 years from four and exempting households making less than $100,000 from the “income-based premium.” But it would still put government in charge of all American healthcare over time.

As a San Francisco Democrat, Ms. Harris shares the state’s hostility to fossil fuels. She used her power as California Attorney General to launch an investigation into Exxon Mobil over its carbon emissions. In 2019 she endorsed a nationwide ban on oil and gas fracking, which would cost tens of thousands of jobs and cause power outages like those that often occur in her home state. Expect this to be a GOP talking point in Pennsylvania.

One question to ask is whether the Vice President wants to restructure the Supreme Court. She said in 2019 she was “open” to adding more Justices, but that idea doesn’t poll well. Does she agree with Mr. Biden’s mooted plan to endorse “reforms” to the High Court that would make the Justices subject to Congressional supervision?

Mr. Biden famously put Ms. Harris in charge of border policy, and we know how that has turned out. Rather than push for border policy changes, her first instinct was to blame the rush of migrants on “root causes” in developing countries, including corruption, violence, poverty and “lack of climate adaptation and climate resilience.”

Climate change makes the U.S. border a sieve? Apparently so. “In Honduras, in the wake of hurricanes, we must deliver food, shelter, water and sanitation to the people,” Ms. Harris declared. “And in Guatemala, as farmers endure continuous droughts, we must work with them to plant drought-resistant crops.” These “root causes” take decades to address, and in the meantime she had nothing to say about actual border security.

Ms. Harris’s foreign policy views aren’t well known, or perhaps even well formed, apart from promoting Mr. Biden’s policies. While she has backed the Administration’s military assistance to Ukraine, she has equivocated about support for Israel. In March she chastised Israel for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Leaks to the press say officials at the National Security Council toned down her speech’s criticism of Israel.

She lambasted the Trump Administration for killing Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qassem Soleimani, claiming it could lead to bigger war in the Mideast. The killing chastened Iran’s rulers instead, at least until the Biden Administration began to ease sanctions and tried to repeat the 2015 nuclear deal.

It will be especially important for the press to ask Ms. Harris about her national security views. If her handlers control her as much as White House advisers have Mr. Biden, we’ll know they’re afraid that the Vice President might not be able to handle the scrutiny.

A fair conclusion from all of this is that Ms. Harris is a standard California progressive on most issues, often to the left of Mr. Biden. Perhaps as she reintroduces herself to the public in the coming weeks, she will modify some of those views. She would be wise to do so if she wants to win.

Given the rush by Democrats to anoint Ms. Harris as their nominee, the press has a particular obligation to tell the public about who she is and what she really thinks. Does she believe California is a model for the country?

Kamala Harris was supposed to be there

Donald Trump comes into a hostile environment with bad equipment and poor sound. President Trump showed up and Kamala Harris didn't. She can't face an audience--will probably campaign from the basement just as her mentor, Joe Biden, did in 2020. I heard the entire Q & A between Trump and the ABC host. She lied about him from the get-go and he was gracious and honest after he called her on her rudeness. But he held his ground, made his points, and she on behalf of black journalists looked rude, weak and foolish.

 
He absolutely did not attack Kamala for her race. I heard every word. She threw out a gotcha question on DEI and he asked for a definition, but got no answer. So, he said when he first became aware of Kamala Harris he thought she was an Indian-American, because that's how her election to the Senate was described--not by him, but by the media. It was called historic! You can watch the videos! When it was to her advantage, she "became black." So, his detractors say calling her an Indian-American is insulting? Oh my, Democrats are such racists!

 
https://youtu.be/GgKLPzQe6uI?si=32FoLVz1CRpv3jqv

https://youtu.be/fqF54777VsY?si=HIXsT7MB7dflEzn8   Megyn Kelly on National Association of Black Journalists' conference,

 

https://youtu.be/K3oflr7rEU4?si=h_3znfqYnM8LeK0K Historic first Indian American in Senate

https://youtu.be/QiVNHyl0_3E?si=bk7w1PRfbd6PwCh8 Charlie Kirk on Megyn Kelly

https://youtu.be/w5PyJw3TYgY?si=6ebuNBav5EX15tht  Kamala speaking code for black audiences

https://youtu.be/WRPpP277D8Y?si=CLI7FzMF2hjGk6cQ  Judge Joe Brown calls her a Ho and corrupt; ;and "she ain't black". Met her father--he wasn't black.

https://youtu.be/2nTjb1QJmnU?si=UJnWyK5ePn9bFQyM   Harris campaign staffer tells all. Tell the donor what they want to hear. James O'Keefe.

Research for Tracy Kidder book on Rough Sleepers

Our book club is reading Tracy Kidder's book, Rough Sleepers (2023). I was researching some of his information on homelessness, and saw the subtle but common myth some of our current burden was the Reagan policies "with its deep cuts in programs for the poor and policies that led to declines in the supply of inexpensive housing." ( p. 55) I'll skip over the housing supply (single room occupancy) because that is a local/city problem. I did find the article in "Behavorial health news," by Michael B. Friedman, which I then checked further, since it also brought up Reagan. Yes, there was a 1983 SSDI law passed to stop fraud and he signed it. Then it was revised twice in 1984 and actually eased the requirements so the disability awards shot up, not down. Since I was a Democrat then and only believed the worst about Reagan (same media treatment that Trump gets, and Bush before him) I had always believed Reagan was the reason people were put on the streets.

But as the author himself wrote, the deinstitutionalization which is closely tied to the SSDI recipients finding housing began in the 60s and 70s, long before Reagan was in the White House. And truly, one can't deny that most of the programs that make it to Congress and the White House begin in academe (where I worked). Congressmen are so busy raising money to campaign they have no time to dream up billions in social and economic programs, or even read the bills they vote on.

But I want to pass along two experiences with government programs for the disabled, one from the late 1960s and one from 2020. In the late 60s at church coffee hour I met a former pastor of the Church of the Brethren (Anabaptist tradition) who was a social worker in one of the rural Ohio residential institutions for the blind and deaf mentally challenged. It was in the process of "deinstitutionalizing" his clients because he said, "they deserved their civil rights like any other citizen." Joe was thrilled with the idea. At that time, I was a giddy humanist in my early 30s, so he convinced me they would do fine on the "outside" because there would be community programs and smaller homes (not yet established) that would help them. So, many of them lost the only home they knew and life long friends.

In October 2019, our son was diagnosed with glioblastoma. He was 51, employed and a homeowner with a mortgage, but no wife or adult children, only his 80 something parents. However, he could not work, especially not after the surgery and chemo which is the same "slash and burn" method of 30-40 years ago. The SSDI application was brutal. I can't imagine how anyone, let alone someone who has been on the streets, completes it. Our daughter who works in the medical field and her cousin who was a lawyer for Social Security in DC worked together on it. Probably took eight hours with both working on it. The sick, unemployed person usually waits 6 months--to prevent fraud (which vastly increased during Obama years as people lost their insurance). He died about 6 months and 1 week after the application went to Washington. He paid his bills with his IRAs and retirement account, he had family to help, and it was all used up in 6 months plus he was charged a penalty for closing out his retirement funds and he had to pay income tax on it (or rather his estate did since he was deceased).

Between the green local laws to save the environment which adds thousands to every home purchase/rental and the new codes for safety and transportation, all types of housing have become prohibitive. Plus this is not the 1930s culture where people let even cousins or childhood friends sleep or rent a room at their home. Let's not point fingers at the 40 year old Reagan administration; there has been plenty of mischief since then. 

Are you old enough to remember or have studied the housing shortage after WWII? Low income, inadequate housing was taken off the market through special codes. A lot of livable housing was condemned. There was no actual shortage. Reagan was a movie star then, not a politician. There were the same number of housing units in 1945 as in 1940--it was the liberal policies that destroyed them by law.

California has become a cesspool of homelessness by fixing the tax system with Prop 13 so no one would dare move and it weakened the tax revenue for supportive services. The grifting of non-profit agencies and probably thousands of California state employees to "fix" a problem has contributed to the now mushrooming homeless population who suffer from legal and illegal drugs, alcoholism, mental illness, illegal immigration, an aging population, lack of general life skills, and mentally challenged (probably some blind, deaf).

It wasn't Reagan and it isn't Trump. But it is government at all levels working with academe. It's liberal, pie in the sky programs that don't work which began in academe by people who need to publish and who don't live in reality or a low income neighborhoods.

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Growth of homelessness--who caused it? Reagan policies, loss of SRO housing, closing of institutional care facilities, 1968-1973 (about 1/3 of the increase), https://www-origin.ssa.gov/benefits/disability/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/04/08/how-americans-game-the-200-billion-a-year-disability-industrial-complex/

Why Are the Disability Rolls Skyrocketing? The Contribution of Population Characteristics, Economic Conditions, and Program Generosity, pp. 337-379, chapter 11 in "Health at Older Ages: The Causes and Consequences of Declining Disability among the Elderly" (2009) https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c11119/c11119.pdf  

Deinstitutionalization Did Not Cause Homelessness: Loss of Low-income Housing and Disability Benefits Did By: Michael B. Friedman, LMSW Mental Health Policy Advocate
April 1st, 2020 https://behavioralhealthnews.org/deinstitutionalization-did-not-cause-homelessness-loss-of-low-income-housing-and-disability-benefits-did/

"At the height of deinstitutionalization in New York (1968-1973), people who were discharged (with wildly inadequate discharge plans) were not homeless. Most went to live with family. Some went to adult homes. Many went to nursing homes because they had dementia. And quite a few went to single-room occupancy hotels (SROs) and other places where poor people lived. To be sure, this resulted in huge family burden, inadequate care in adult homes, transinstitutionalization to often unprepared nursing homes, and squalid sometimes dangerous living conditions in SROs and poor neighborhoods. But they were not literally homeless. In fact, the scandal that led to the creation of the community residence program for people with mental illness in NYS was not homelessness. It was the squalid and dangerous conditions in SROs."

The Olympics, 2024 in Paris

I've watched one Olympic event. Men's volleyball. I didn't intend to since France has promoted yet another drag queen outrage against Christians (let them try that on Muslims). I knew nothing about volleyball, and truth be told, still don't, but I was captive.

 
I was at the dentist and the TV was on, muted.

 
Now I've researched it and I know the short guy (6'), the libero, didn't forget his uniform. They always have a different color. Most have played in the Olympics several times, but there are 3 new ones. And I didn't even know we had national teams. https://www.kshb.com/news/team-usa-avoids-disaster-five-set-win-over-germany?

 
But my teeth are clean and I still have all of them. 32.

Vacation Bible School beautiful art at UALC Mill Run

After Sunday School on July 28 (Lytham Rd. congregation at Windermere school while our regular space is being remodeled) we drove to our church's other location, Mill Run, which is in Hilliard, to look at the art of the VBS Kindergarten-fifth grade. The theme was Jesus' parables and the children made 2 things in their art time--puppets and theater curtains.

 
When VBS was over the curtains were saved and hung in the upper level. The best view was standing at the end of the corridor and taking in the explosion of color. Like the parables, "the curtains REVEAL (open) and show the drama and they also CONCEAL (close) and hide it. They create anticipation. They help our hearts lean toward the truth. The stage curtain is open or closed and the meaning of the parable is open or closed depending on the readiness of the hearts in the audience. It's by grace that our hearts become ready to hear God's word with faith."

  

I think (I don't teach and have no one in those classes) they emphasized treasure, thus all the glam and glitter and jewels woven into the curtains. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” It's difficult for adults to understand Jesus' parables, so perhaps this will start them on a study and discussion that could go on and on.

We were both impressed, not only with the message, but by the effort (by the adult volunteers and teachers). To make these people donated necklaces, earrings, bracelets and weaving fabric for the children to create the 12 curtains. 

I enjoyed art as a child, but hated "group" or "team" projects. I would have been the one complaining waiting for recess. I was artistic and always had to pull the others along. We think of that as relatively new--but we were doing it in the 1940s too. That said, I still have one VBS project I made when I was about 8 and we attended Faith Lutheran in Forreston, IL. Bookends made of wood with a cross on them. When I look at them now, I can remember all the adults who were working behind the scenes, because it was quite complex (involved wood burning, painting, and varnishing to preserve it). So even though I could say, "I did that," and take it home, there was a whole lot of labor in it that wasn't mine. God bless those VBS teachers (who learn more than the kids).

If you'd like to see it, the display will be up the rest of the summer. http://ualc.org