Monday, March 10

Us rural folk trail behind.

 They don't teach sentence diagramming in rural places, it seems...

(seriously, that comes from a woman who speaks many languages, including English. She was even a professor. But... kinda a DEI hire:  her husband also had a job at the university...  It's hard to respect people with poor grammar. Especially if you've corrected their simple error and they continue on... Us don't understand why they try to make rural people out to be stupid.  We didn't do that were I come from...)

Try WE.  Why?  Because... proper pronouns matter!  If you want to come across as an educated person who earned your way up, you have to speak proper English in America.

John Cass of Chicago with advice for the Dems

 

To Move Forward, Democrats Must Oust Obama

By John Kass

Sunday Dec. 8, 2024

The historic political comeback of Donald Trump has left Democrats largely unable and unwilling to process what they’ve done to themselves.

Yes, they whine and cry and emote, like wounded adolescent narcissists, because that’s all they can do.  What of cold-eyed analysis that might compel them to make difficult choices and save what remains of their party? No. They’re afraid. That is beyond them now. They’re locked in their doom loop.

In granting Trump the White House through an electoral college landslide and popular vote, American voters also made it clear that they were fed up with leftist ideology. This includes allowing criminal gangs to bring poisonous fentanyl over the Democrat open borders, to those do-nothing Soros prosecutors and the crown signature jewel of the Marxist Obama left that eviscerated merit and used racism to awarded American resources:

DEI.

But how did America get to the point where Republicans, once the country club white shoe party of the Bush family, could begin to wrestle with Democrats for the votes of the working class, minorities and women? How did the Republicans win so decisively?

It was Trump. What he did in remaking the Republican Party is simply astounding. But first he had to politically eviscerate the Bush family political dynasty that controlled the GOP. And so he relentlessly attacked Jeb!, then the standard bearer of the Bush clan for the disastrous war in Iraq, which slaughtered  thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis while wasting trillions of American dollars on this and other endless neo-con forever wars.

With that, the Bush GOP  panicked and whined, but the Bush era was mercifully over. Eventually, working class whites, blacks, Latinos and young people turned their backs on the Democrat Party that had betrayed them.

But none of that would have happened if Trump didn’t have the guts to pull the Bushes out from the roots.

Oh yes, the Bush Republicans were horrified. George Will and the other noblesse oblige Republicans with their condescending smiling superiority toward working people were finished. And they knew it. As they declined into a cottage industry of resentment, lingering and sniffing around Washington, they became the never-Trumpers like the Cheney family and William Kristol, the second generation neo-conservative and a godfather of the endless wars.

Happily, no one listens to them now.

What’s next?

DEI.

It is the vehicle that perpetuates the racist idiocy of acolytes of Barack Obama, people like Ta-Nehisi Coates and Robin DiAngelo. It has fed the culturally corrosive and discredited theory of the  “1619 Project,” authored Nicole Hannah-Jones and embraced by other race hustlers at the Marxist New York Times. It helped weaken military cohesion. Now many corporations are pulling back from DEI policies, from Walmart to Toyota and more. And good old-fashioned merit might be ready to make a comeback.

Because on November 5, the America people said “No.” Common sense defeated left wing racism. And President Barack Obama’s third term in office–through his senile meat puppet Joe Biden– came to an end.

Many Democrats, from the hysterical lunatics performing on MSNBC to the taxpayer-funded Marxists of National Public Radio that joined other corporate media outlets in censoring and suppressing stories of Hunter Biden’s laptop were so amazed by Trump’s victory that they were left to gibber and gnash their teeth. And now the Democrats are now faced with a choice:

They can try and recapture what they had long championed and again become a party of the people, or they can continue following the discredited Clintons and Obamas down the sewer, while hoping against hope that Americans who rejected them on November 5 will be stupid enough to return to them for another beating.

After all, marketing is said to achieve miracles. Just ask the geniuses at Bud Light.

To win in the future, the Democrats must tear down Obama just as Trump tore down the Bushes. A new Democrat faith must emerge to launch a frontal assault on Obama’s keep in Martha’s Vineyard, sacking it and salting the earth. It must reject the cynical use of race to generate ugly tribalism.

Remember that Obama–who just the other day in a speech in Chicago talked about compromise and turning away from identity politics in order to save democracy–orchestrated two separate coup attempts against sitting American presidents. The first against Donald Trump damaged Trump from the outset and left his administration open to the depredations of the Obama Deep State including corrupt FBI and Intelligence officials, and later there was the Obama coup against Biden, which humiliated the senile old man and ended Biden’s presidency in all but name last summer.

Obama honors himself at every opportunity. But he is America’s one-eyed jack. And we’ve seen the other side of his face.

But who would lead the attack against Obama and risk the enmity of the well-heeled Democrat interest groups? Most importantly, who in the Democrat Party can play the iconoclast and take on the party’s neo-Marxist creed of racial and other grievances?

Obama pretends to rise above grievance, but he’s reliant upon it like an addict, like the “Revs” Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, though far silkier and smoother. Remember just weeks ago when Obama was lecturing young black men who weren’t enthralled with the presidential candidacy of Kamala Harris. Bitter and angry, he harangued them on what he could only understand as the sexism of the great unwashed. It was a rap he had used before. And it had treated him so well in the past. It reverberated in the halls of his many mansions. Perhaps even in that mansion on liberal Martha’s Vineyard, the vacation paradise for the immensely wealthy that was off limits to impoverished illegal migrants who’d crossed the border on Democrat invitation.

Yet those young men who he tried to shame didn’t live among the elites of Martha’s Vineyard or the Gold Coast of Chicago. And they weren’t insulated from the poor economy and pressure from the illegals. Instead, Obama was revealed by his own mouth to be be a complete and utter phony. You could almost hear regular people, those who had been Democrats, shouting “F  You  Barack” from every corner in every swing state.

Perhaps Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro could take on Obama.  Maybe Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would do it, or even that supremely, obviously ambitious Californian with the greasy hair, Gov. Gavin Newsom. But do any of them really want to challenge? Not just Obama but his acolytes, his proselytizers, his disciples, his praetorians.

Speaking of which, Obama wingman David Axelrod, who for years swam in the oily waters of the Chicago Way, has realized the coming threat to his golden goose.  And like all successful cynics, Axelrod is nothing if not perceptive.

“If they said, ‘Well, what should we do? Who should lead the party?’ I would take Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, and I would bring him back from Japan and I would appoint him chairman of the Democratic National Committee,” Axelrod said on his podcast. “He is the most skillful, political kind of infighter in the Democratic Party. … He’s been a member of Congress, he’s been White House chief of staff, he’s been the mayor of Chicago. Now, he’s been ambassador to Japan, and he ran, in 2005 and [2006], the campaign to take back the House.”

Emanuel is all of these things yes, but he’s also an Obama man.  He will forever be remembered in Chicago as the guy who tried squashing a Chicago Police video showing a white cop shooting black teen-ager Laquan McDonald. Recently, Emanuel turned down the possibility of protecting Obama’s flanks. He’s always been a self-preservationist. Maybe he doesn’t want to risk a cruise on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Study carefully the face in the picture below surrounded by clergy, and you will understand Emanuel’s virtue: That he’ll do what it takes to protect himself. He’ll do anything.

 

Rahm Emanuel channels the Holy Spirit in hoping to cleanse himself of the Laquan McDonald cover-up fiasco

Please make no mistake about this column. I’m not trying to protect Obama’s legacy. But a broken Democrat Party doesn’t really help America. Barack is still the phony I knew in Chicago, when he had Tony Rezko buying his dreamhouse and the Tribune carrying his water, and he was sucking up to the Daleys and stabbing his old lefty allies in the back. He helped himself, yes, he did not help black Chicago. He could have helped stop the street gang violence. He could have supported police and prosecutors in the battles against the gangs. But he only cared about himself.  He’s been the corrosive force that weakened the Democrat Party infrastructure through DEI and the rest of that Marxist nonsense.

And now, as wealthy donors build him a great temple on priceless Chicago lakefront park land, the Big O is more vulnerable than he’s ever been.

“I think Barack is already finished, already old news,” said a lifelong Chicago Democrat who was involved in the highest reaches of Chicago politics for decades. “Democrats don’t have to find somebody to take him out. He’s already taken himself out. This isn’t Julius Caesar getting stabbed in the back on the floor of the Senate. It’s not that dramatic. He and Nancy Pelosi beat up a senile old man who was once useful, and they were done with him. But those young black men he lectured, those Latinos and the woman who voted for Trump, they all turned their back on Obama.”

In the true Chicago Way, Barack Obama and his meat puppet Joe made scores and more scores and pass generational wealth to their families. Obama’s mansions in Chicago, Washington, Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard where illegal migrants aren’t allowed, and Joe Biden’s mansions on the Delaware Shore were purchased through allies who wanted their influence, and to touch their political power.

This is the true meaning of “the audacity of hope.” The rest is just simply feed for the screeching empty-headed jays.

The Trump family made its own fortune by taking their own risks, building hotels, and tough men poured that concrete for them.

And Obama and his  China Joe? They made theirs through politics, through influence, back slapping and rubbing elbows, always looking to find the most important people in the room, as they devoured the soul of their country. Did they produce anything? No. All they did was talk and posture and talk some more.

Americans, including Democrats, deserve better.

Sunday, March 9

How Soon They've Forgotten the Lessons of the Holocaust

 I don't care how many time you assign Anne Frank's book now, human life is cheaper than ever...  Shame on Israel. Shame on the Jewish diaspora letting this be done in their name.  Nothing good ever came from killing children... I suspect the world will only stand stronger with the Palestinian children now... #LetThemLive

Israel ordered all of Gaza's electricity supply to be cut off on Sunday in an effort to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining Israeli hostages held in the territory.

Energy minister Eli Cohen's announcement came a week after Israel cut off all aid supplies to the territory, which has a population of more than two million people.

In a video statement on Sunday, Cohen said: "We will use all the tools at our disposal to bring back the hostages and ensure that Hamas is no longer in Gaza the day after [the war]."

The decision to cut electricity is expected to primarily affect the operation of desalination plants which are crucial for providing clean drinking water.

The government said it has not ruled out cutting off water supplies....

The ABCs of Cancer, by John Dabell

 Thank you for reading Part One, Part Two and Part Three of my ABCs Of Cancer.

Here’s Part Four of my ABCs Of Cancer.

A is for agathist. You might not be an optimist. You might not be a pessimist. You might therefore occupy the middle ground between the two. If that’s you, then you’ll be an agathist. An agathist accepts elements of both optimism and pessimism seeing the world as a place where headaches, hassles and hurdles abound, but not forever, as things will come right in the end.

is for balloon moment. You might think your whole world has gone pop but we can still make a positive impact on all those around us. A special moment where we positively shape another person’s life is a balloon moment. It is where we say something or do something that makes someone else’s life fundamentally better. It’s like presenting them with a balloon – it makes them smile, it makes them happy.

C is for conversation. It really helps to talk about cancer and then again it really doesn’t. Go with how you feel and do what is right for you. There is no right or wrong way. If you want to have a robust, passionate and unbridled powwow then go for it. If you prefer to just say nothing, no one is authorised to judge you.

D is for determination. With cancer treatment, your determination can wax and wane. Some days you have it and other days it’s just not there. You mustn’t expect miracles immediately. Your determination to live will see you through.

E is for eucatastrophe. JRR Tolkien coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’ to describe a sudden and surprising turn for the better. The word comes from the Greek prefix eu- meaning “good” and ‘catastrophe’ meaning “sudden turn”. Unexpected responses to treatments, miraculous transformations and real eucatastrophes do happen. Always hope for the positive plot twist.

F is for Free-Range Optimism (FRO). Being a FRO allows your mind to roam free and peck at the positives wherever you can find them. FROs nip at crumbs of positivity, tap at scraps hope and jab at granules of gorgeousness if the opportunities present themselves. Cancer means you take what you can.

G is for gunnen. This Dutch word means experiencing happiness in the happiness of others without envy. It’s so easy for us to feel bitter but we still have the capacity to generate happiness, experience happiness and delight in the happiness of others.

H is for hardiness. When we talk about hardiness in people, we mean the ability to tolerate extremely challenging situations, survive and even thrive. Considering the inherent adversity we have to endure during cancer treatment such as stress, fatigue, anxiety, and fears, hardiness is a key characteristic that can minimise the impact of these stressors. If you dig deep, you will find hardiness. Acting with hardiness enables hardiness to grow stronger.

I is for ikiru chikara. A Japanese phrase which literally means “power to live”, but is also translated as “zest for living”. Cancer might try and rob us of our vital energy but it can also give us the power to live far beyond what we did before a diagnosis.

J is for jam-packed. Don’t worry if your day isn’t one where you are completing another 5 things from your bucket list. Days don’t have to be full of anything other than enjoying the moments wherever you are.

K is for kainotophobia. A fear of change or newness is what comes when you get a cancer diagnosis and there is not much you can do about it because it is forced upon you. The new territories you will find yourself in will frighten you and take you by surprise but they aren’t all bad. Some will become your new comfort zones.

L is for living in limbo. When you’ve had a scan, this is the place you occupy – limbo land. It’s a strange and uncertain space to hang out in because your mind goes all over the shop and plays tricks with your optimism.

M is for Merchant of Moxie. To get through any of life’s challenges and moments of madness then we need bucket loads of moxie. This is about being a positive energiser who show dauntlessness, pluckiness and mettle. They have force of character and are full of grit and gumption. As a cancer patient, it helps to develop the moxie mindset because you need plenty of grit, gumption, nerve and daring courage.

N is for news. What do you do when you get some good news? Punch the air? Jump for joy? Open a bottle of bubbly? Probably all three and who can blame you?! The thing is, with cancer, it’s not that simple. With cancer, you are never really out of the woods so you might want to temper any good news you might get and ‘maintain an even strain’. This is another way of saying stay grounded, keep it together and don’t get too excited.

O is for ODAAT. Regardless of who you are and your unique circumstances you can only really take things ODAAT – One Day At A Time. Tomorrow will come when it’s good and ready. Cancer is sometimes minute by minute and getting through the best you can. Being a ODAATer is taking each day as it comes, no guilt attached. Taking things day by day makes sense. Don’t overthink it.

P is for pace. You can go at things like there’s no tomorrow or you can pace yourself and slow down. You know what you can do and what you can’t so if you are feeling energised, go for it but if you feel all in, go and have a nap.

Q is for quake. This is the sort of behaviour you do in your boots. Rest assured though, being afraid is a normal response to having cancer and nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve experienced one big earthquake and you wonder if they’ll be anymore.

R is for Red Carpet. When you have cancer treatment should you get a bit of the ‘red carpet treatment’ too? Of course you should! The need to feel valued and special is a basic human need. We all need it. If no one is going to roll out the red carpet for you, roll it out for yourself.

S is for self-talk. How do you master your inner dialogue after an incurable cancer diagnosis? You don’t – you just learn to be less afraid, root yourself in hope, pump the positives, slog it out, and hit the repeat button. What you say to yourself is how you shape your world. Words are powerful. Positive self-talk isn’t just a coping strategy, it’s a way of life that finds its natural home in a higher optimism where any little wins are celebrated however small.

is for training. You might not think training for treatment is even a thing but the better prepared you are helps set your mindset and get your body ready. Exercising is important before and after treatment and can help your presilience, resilience and recovery.

U is for undimnished. Cancer will make you feel weaker and smaller but that just can’t happen, not on your watch! You remain undiminished and will report for duty as long as it takes.

V is for verberate. Your intention is to lash, beat, or whip your illness and with that attitude you most certainly stand a very good chance.

W is for who? Who do you turn to when you are told you have cancer? Just as Mr Rogers advises, we look for the helpers. When we look for the helpers and look at all those that can make the world of cancer a less scary place, we can breathe a sigh of relief and know we are not alone.

X is for Xanadu. Always have a beautiful and idyllic place that you can go to either in your mind or in person. You need somewhere to escape to. You deserve somewhere to escape to. Make your Xanadu your space to recover.

Y is for yomp. The whole cancer experience is a slog across difficult terrain. Yomping is what will get you from A to B.

Z is for zoetic. This word means living or vital and that is exactly what you are.  Like a zoetrope, you can give life and vitality to the black squiggles.

Sports is a refuge from politics.

3h ago

Don't bring your shit into our spaces, politicians. You all got rich fucking up this country.  You're intent on pitting people against people, and funding all the wars the world wants by running guns that allow the mass killing of children...

Not everybody in America is so corrupted, or cannot support themselves without stealing or killing...

Until the Democrats clean house of all the old rich politicians who got us into this identify-politicked mess, ain't nobody voting for that party en masse anytime soon.  You promised us #Change under Obama, and you didn't deliver...

(David Hogg is not the leader you think he is... Really.)

We're gonna create that #Change you promised, then sold out and snuck out to your wealthy places to retire to... Good riddance. You don't want the do-nothings around when there is real work to be done.  Pundits and MSM, take note?

The American people no longer are buying what your selling, and all your longstanding customers are dying out...  Good luck.  "If you're tired of the same old story, oh baby turn some pages... I'll be here when you are ready, to roll with changes, baby, roll with the changes, you got you got you got you got to...


Keep on Rollin'!"

It's Not Rocket Science, Ezra


    Any catholic could tell you, the problem is: some took too much, some do not have enough, the workers are not being rewarded, we've doubled down on rewarding -- handsomely-- those with connections, not skills...

    It catches up. The incompetency.  Ezra Klein broke journalism.  He and his liberal friends collaborated to craft stories pushing the Dem narrative in their collaborated news reporting.  They were the opposite of neutral reporters ferreting out the facts...

    Ezra is rich beyond his wildest dreams.  Wife, children, millions in the bank and property and retirement... 

    But what of the honest reporters? Sidelined now.  The middle class is disappearing as we see Klein's playbook across all industries:  come in numbers, cook the game, claim other people's work as your own...

    Here we are today:  open borders and non-American workers can put 5 people (unrelated) into a one-bedroom apartment because rules are not enforced (they're for Suckers, Ezra says).  We don't have enough housing for your preferred non-citizen workers to buy collectively with their wealth.  You're choking out American families that never get formed because people are working to keep up with inflated prices from those who are overpaid and with more mouths to feed and less to go around...


    Build, Ezra.  Pick up a tool and build something.  Stop contemplating your navel.  This isn't hard  Shut the borders and keep deporting until we understand that citizens are not being taken care of under the social contract in America anymore because you people did not play by the rules, cooked the books and broke the game!

    Saturday, March 8

    38 Special - Hold On Loosely (Live)

    Friday, March 7

    America Did Not Vote for This...

     Get out and about in America today. The whole of it.

    There's just no appetite to repeat the alleged "success" of the Korean experiment in the 21st century. much less to committing foreign troops abroad for ... forever.  Don't nobody keep listening to David French, no matter how well he's paid.  He's out of touch with the country.

    David French in the NYT editorial pages (they sure want these wars, that paper...): 

    The blueprint for ending the Ukraine war is found on the other side of the world, in South Korea. The Korean War ended with an armistice more or less along existing lines of the conflict, but with American troops on the ground to guarantee South Korean security.

    A Ukrainian cease-fire can look quite similar...

    Wednesday, March 5

    Margaritaville

    "Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, but I know it's our own damned fault..."  Carry on, America. One step at a time...

    Monday, March 3

    New York City Has a Poor People Problem

     Expect more scapegoats as Eric Adams wriggles free of his legal problems and looks to be... "tough on crime".


    1. 1h ago

    Sunday, March 2

    Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven

    Roald Dahl on Measles: "Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

    'Are you feeling all right?' I asked her.
    'I feel all sleepy,' she said.
    In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

    The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was...in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs:  they can insist that their child is immunised against measles."
    ~Roald Dahl, 1986

    You Got Me Ripped I'm Gonna Blow My Top

    Saturday, March 1

    "They're Eating the Cats; They're Eating the Dogs..."

     Try a nutrias now? lol

    1. 3

    Friday, February 28

    Common Sense.

     Ukraine will never win a "hot war" against Russia.  Parts of The Ukraine were once part of Russia, and this war began under Obama, who was cool with not getting America involved in an ethnic war over land.  (If only we were this wise regarding America's Middle East follies...)

    Three years ago, anyone with a working brain could see that the best America could do was provide some basic fighting weapons to Ukraine's small military to defend the parts of their small country most worth preserving.  Putin was never going to roll over all of Ukraine and invade Poland then keep his troops marching...

    Nope, the Hitler comparisons and the idea that if Putin wasn't stopped, Europe would fall is just silly talk.

    Lots of corruption in Eastern Europe and Eastern Europeans.  They are strong people.  They are capable of looking out for their own... they'll survive.

    But not with an arsenal of superpower weapons.  How much of Ukraine was destroyed, how many Ukrainian lives would have been saved if America had NOT armed Ukraine and the little region simply accepted their fate and made peace with the new leadership?  Cmon... they're Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

    It never was America's duty to "defend" Ukraine, and once we saw our weapons were being used to escalate... remember how exciting it was to see lil Ukraine attacking Russia proper?  They kinda got all pumped up on what the American taxpayers sent, but never ever was there a chance that Ukraine would win this war...

    America military minds like... David French, who plays at publicly being a Christian pundit when he's not advocating more and more civilian war deaths in Ukraine or Palestine, cheered America's "strategy"... "look we can bleed out a generation of Russian young men, by providing billions in arms to for the Ukrainian slaughter, and ... not one America life was lost!"  Yes, it's just as sick as it sounds...

    He doesn't value life, David French.

    So color me happy that the US is done sending our working taxpayer billions that should be invested on building up communities and families here in America (yes, we know you and yours are good; go reward your good kids with another ice cream cone and hush up about American politics, all ye takers...).


    War is Over.  STupid Americans never should have sent the deadly weapons and transferred billions abroad three years ago... Biden and his son had dealings over there that the American press never cared to investigate and report on.  There is allegedly missing money, and even in that region where everybody skims their take off the top, we knew plenty of "warriors" were being enriched on our taxpayer dollar... Hell, Zelensky took time off the front lines (lol) to post for Vogue, and his lovely wife enjoyed Parisian shopping trips (she's worth it, dammit!) while our workers here were financing their failed fight...

    Zelensky was cheered for not hopping on a plan and absconding three years ago.  He still will.  He won't be killed or lose anything or anyone in this fight.  He'll hop on an escape plane in time, and find a friendly rich place to live pleasantly while his countrymen suffer.  Some types always come out on top like that, thinking themselves as having gamed the system while others pay their dues...


    It's our money.  We need not be financing Ukraine's fight for survival anymore than we need to keep financing Israel.  Especially when they keep killing kids to clear the land because Tel Aviv is just not enough beachfront property...

    Today, we saw JD Vance essentially school a little Jew that the world owes him nothing.  That he should be grateful for a Christian nation to step up and protect his people.  That he is not on our level, and if we're continually tasked with protecting him and his people, he owes us something and needs to stop taking from American families and communities to advance himself.

    Some folks find out the hard way that not everyone pities them, or believes their actions deserve "rewards" when really they're not pulling their own weight, not contributing to those doing the giving, and being asked to keep carrying others with no end in sight.

    #AmericaFirst means just that.  Tough love means Zelensky should be pouring over his maps tonight, rallying his remaining troops and deciding which parts of the country are most worth protecting with the weapons remaining.  There's nothing more coming, friends.

    You either learn independence, or you learn to get fucked. Don't think you're gonna fuck us though to support you.

    Monday, February 24

    Roberta Flack - First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 1972

    Saturday, February 22

    You Don't Say?

     Propaganda really isn't all that important anymore after Trump revealed Bibi's priorities for developing greater Israel over returning the hostages.  

    Israel wants this war. Israel needs this war. God Bless our allies, but #Verify, don't trust.  It's like the stories of rapes and beheadings that turned out not to be so true upon greater examination either...

    Israel Confirms Body Returned by Hamas Is Shiri Bibas

    DNA tests confirmed that a second set of remains belatedly turned over by Hamas belonged to Shiri Bibas, who was taken hostage on Oct. 7, 2023.

    2 min read

    Thursday, February 20

    A Realist in the White House

     Three years ago, I was prepping for my hysterectomy. I had bad fibroids, and my hemoglobin level was dropping so much monthly, I could not outwait the bleeding and let menopause do a natural fix, as I'd been hoping for years...

    When I came to in the hospital bed after surgery (they couldn't do a robotic laser removal vaginally as they were afraid the uterus mass would break into pieces and potentially spread cancer, though it biopsied benign), Russian troops were massing on the border poised to invade Ukraine. Next morning, the tv was all about the invasion...

    Three years in. The US initially promised millions to help repel and support the Ukrainian army.  Stupid move, I thought.  The Ukraine can't beat Russia; this war started in the Obama administration when Russia retook Donbas and the Russian-speaking more traditional territories/provinces...

    The Biden administration kept on throwing good money after bad, billions and billions and billions wasted to turn the region into a literal meatgrinder.  Acres upon acres of productive land with huma homes destroyed...

    All so America's war loving neo-cons (men like David French of the NYT) could lick their chops, excited that we could simply pay a foreign army to throw bodies at Russia and bleed them out.  "No American lives lost!" the worldwide warriors proclaimed. We can just keep paying them BILLIONS and they will fight for us!~

    Nevermind it wasn't our war, our fight and was actually disadvantageous these perpetual wars... to the global environment, civilian lives, and any chance for smart diplomacy in the region.  The Biden family syndicate had connections over there;  little Zelensky dressed up in camo and charmed our Congress; and the good times rolled... to the tune of unaccounted for billions, sums not even seen in America's "liberation" of Iraq and Afghanistan that helped enrich the personal private fortunes of men such as French, Vance, DeSantis, etc.

    Warriors without a cause, they now point to Putin as... the next Hitler! (or was that Trump?, so many mini Adolph's popping up in paranoids these days; it's profitable to keep pumping out that opinion column, it seems; all the Dem activists in the  press can do now that they've been disempowered with the former regime...)

    Three years later, it's time to admit what wiser minds knew back them, if they told the truth: "Defending Ukraine" is not America's job, much less Europes's.  It was another gigantic global wealth transfer, aimed at initiating foreign business interests -- Ukraine being lithium-rich and thus "valued" the way we once did Middle Eastern nations when the US was more reliant on foreign energy; those days are passing too...

    This is and always has been a regional conflict.  Putin has no plans to "take Poland!" and The Ukraine does not belong -- cannot afford to belong -- to a large organization like NATO.  It's best a "buffer region" where the local people should be allowed not only to have a say in their political futures, but simply to live...

    Sending all those weapons of war to a little country that had neither the manpower not the expertise to operate them, and never saying, "No" to little Zelensky's outstretched "fundraising" hands has finally caught up to us.  The US voters elected new representatives because the old guard -- whoever that was -- was not representing our interests, but the global elites who continue taking from our country (some even citizens now) but owe us nothing.

    More wars means more refugees.  More Eastern Europeans means more chronically "needy" peoples here who know mostly political corruption, not how democracy works -- the take AND give...  More war refugees to assimilate in an America already flooded with unmet social needs.

    Trump is right that America needs to secure our borders, a job that Congress has collected paychecks for but left undone since the 2001 attacks... He's also right that perpetually defending Ukraine is not our fight.  Let Zelensky flee now, after three years of enrichment and a futile defense of his homeland (but hey, they DID attack Russia proper once upon a time; ah, sweet memories!) as Trump and Putin -- the two "superpower" leaders -- on behalf of their peoples put their heads together to come up with a less bloody solution to the Ukraine problem today.


    If only American political leaders would stop worshipping the weapon, and financing wars abroad -- with our tax dollars -- at the drop of a hat.  If only the media had held Congress accountable all these years.  The people's representatives are responsible for "declaring war" and the American people have not been on board with all this death-for-profit since 2008, at least... 

    Sadly, admit or not, Trump is more representative of the American people's will on Ukraine today. If you disagree, anybody can enlist and you can privately fund the Sunflower Revolution by cancelling your foreign travel and putting your money where your mouth is...

    “She never thought of herself as a victim. She identified as a survivor.”

    For all you who worship guns, and think sending billions abroad to perpetually/allegedly "defend" other peoples in other countries not our own, read this story and weep.  This is what you worship:

    Anne Marie Hochhalter, who spoke publicly about the long-lasting effects of gun violence after she was paralyzed in the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, was found dead on Sunday at her home in Westminster, Colo. She was 43.

    The police said that officers had found Ms. Hochhalter after they were called for a welfare check. ... 

    Ms. Hochhalter was eating lunch with friends when two students opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., on April 20, 1999, killing 12 other students and a teacher before fatally shooting themselves.Ms. Hochhalter, a junior who was 17, was shot twice — once in the chest and once in the back — and was paralyzed from the waist down. Her brother, Nathan, who was a freshman at Columbine, was trapped in the school for hours until a SWAT team arrived.


    Six months after the shooting, their mother, Carla June Hochhalter, walked into a pawnshop, asked to see a gun, loaded it and killed herself. The elder Ms. Hochhalter, 48, had been struggling with depression and other mental health issues before the Columbine shooting, her daughter later said.

    But her death was “very much harder than what happened at Columbine,” Ms. Hochhalter told U.S. News & World Report in 2009. “It shocked me because, you know, I was injured by a gun and the fact that, you know, she committed suicide with one was very hard to understand.”