I.C.E. at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy!?

 What is the purpose of ICE at the Olympics?  It is a threatening high profile criminal  "special force" that is the current U.S.A. administration's apparently lawless  "special force".   The criminal organization, ICE, has arbitrarily killed American citizens for no reason, when their supposed job is immigrants - who they also have criminally killed and jailed.

An online discussion about what Italy thinks about the problem of ICE showing up at the Olympics, included a person named "Errol" speaking on behalf of U.S.A..  When asked to comment about the name change of the U.S. Olympic house from "ICE House" to "Winter House" he stated some nonsense about it being unnecessary unless people had a negative attitude.  Then he said ICE was there to work against terrorism with international organizations, after it was already stated they were there to protect the VP's family.  Really?  Both sound like bogus prevarications, no one could believe.  Who was  he trying to fool?  The Italians did not buy it.

Why would the Italians who are hosting the Olympics not have a "negative. along with everyone else, about about U.S.A.'s I.C.E. agents showing up at the Olympics to supposedly protect the VP?  People worldwide know about the ICE criminal actions in U.S.A. so would anyone not consider it a very thinly veiled threat on the part of the current U.S. Administration, for ICE to be at the Olympics?  The Italians have a right to respond with fury, so does everyone else, given the criminality of ICE.

Why would ICE be protecting the VP's family at the Olympics instead of secret service agents assigned to them who are ordinarily not high profile.  Again what is the purpose of a threatening high profile criminal "special force" that is criminally used by the current U.S.A. administration?  

ICE, has become a criminal organization in U.S.A. that has arbitrarily killed American citizens for no reason, when their supposed job is immigration - which has also resulted in ICE killing people they have rounded up, or jailing them whether they were immigrants, citizens, tourists, or children - very young children in some cases?  How do we know those disappeared children about which there is supposedly no accountability, have not ended up as fodder for Epstein type crimes, which there is little doubt continue with other folks at the helm?  There needs to be accountability, especially for the children.

We have intelligence agencies that coordinate internationally on foreign soil.  The criminal organization ICE is not known to be one of them.  While it should be coordinating with other nations about undocumented immigrants in U.S.A., the agents have no business showing up on foreign soil, because of course it is perceived as threatening, given the ICE crimes openly perpetrated in U.S.A.  And then the excuses offered are about protecting the VP, and working with international terrorist organizations too?  The prevaricating makes ICE presence more threatening.

The Administration is apparently trying to gaslight the world about ICE presence.  An online exchange among people, noted that it is not the ICE ground troops being deployed to beat protesters, like in Minnesota (as if beating is .permissible, with no mention of murder which is worse).  It continued saying that ICE at the Olympics is a division of DHS known as "Homeland Security Investigations" that technically falls under ICE."  That sounds like totally bogus nonsense, with layer upon layer of individual departments all under DHS, then under other layers within DHS too. 

The quote is cited in an article at NBC News along with the claim of ICE being there to protect the VP and his family that states "Homeland Security Investigations is an investigative arm of DHS, and though it technically falls under ICE, it focuses on investigating transnational crime and issues with global trade or financial systems.”  We already had and still have a variety of three letter investigative agencies whose job that is.  We did not need new ones in addition, that do the same work, except they are blatantly criminal without oversight.  However, the media will report anything it is told to, unfortunately, to satisfy U.S. hybrid diversified, international, corporate conglomerate/government demands, as if it is not something that should rightfully become an investigative journalism series. 

It is the collective responsibility of we, the people, to police our own government, especially in times like these when the entire world is being threatened in some way, at least verbally, by what is difficult to describe in any other way than by a "rogue U.S. administration".  We are clearly not taking enough responsibility, collectively, as citizens.

What exactly is the new supposed international division of ICE that "technically" is a division of DHS, under ICE control?  Does Congress know anything about it, or was Congress bypassed, again, to prevent it from doing it's job?  Americans, and now people everywhere, are tired of DHS being used as a catch all for any and all crimes perpetrated by the current U.S. administration.  The numerous crimes are obviously being  perpetrated under the umbrella of "The Patriot Act". 

The Patriot Act was supposed to have been temporary when it was a bill created in Congress more than 20 years ago.  It did not have adequate oversight at the time to prevent it from being used criminally against anyone, including American citizens or people in other nations.  It was created in reaction to  9/11, and specifically stated in news reports that its purpose was not to be used against Americans,  though it could be.  Well, apparently it is now also being used as an unjustifiable excuse to target people beyond our borders - in their own nations.  

Worse there is an entire generation of young adult voters, some in their mid 20s by now, who have probably never heard of the Patriot Act, which was created before they were born.  All who wonder when fascism "officially" started growing into what we see today in U.S.A., need look no further than "the Patriot Act" and it's criminal abuses.  It apparently was not temporary, and was always intended to  criminally target Americans and citizens of other nations, also, in their own nations.

Obviously a variety of ramifications are associated with the issue regarding ICE being at the Olympics.  The worst of them is how ICE presence is now being used to threaten people in other nations with its presence in their nations.  Normal Americans are and should be aghast and ashamed regarding the lawlessness of the current rogue U.S. administration.  It has been violating so frequently that  Congress can not keep up with the overwhelming amount of work it creates for them, all of which is  litigious. 

Gaza

 I want to encourage the reading of an excellent Jamal K Kanj op-ed: "Why would six Israelis receive more attention than 41,000 murdered Palestinians".  While reading the op-ed it brought to mind watching Israeli people trying to debate and justify the torturing of Palestinian prisoner hostages.   Whatever other evil that brings to mind it also seemed to shout "White Messianic Superiority".   The Israelis  passionately trying to support those crime are clearly promoting abject hate.  And it also looks like they embody little or no traditional Semitic heritage and culture that has long been common to all the indigenous Palestinians, regardless of their religious belief.  

Knowing the origin of the majority of the early immigrant Jewish refugees (Russians from the Ukraine from the 1800s, onward, due to the anti-semitic pogroms), and the most recent immigrant refugees to Israel  (Ukrainians in the past few years).  The hate that motivates that debate seems to  indicate those particular folks do not embody the semitic culture of all indigenous Palestinian (of all religions and ethnicity).  Does that indicate those  imagining that torture is acceptable and debatable are either  1st generation immigrants to Israel, or the children of 1st generation of immigrants, and/or the descendants of the early quasi-religious political zionist zealots from Europe?

To be more clear, and very clear, I am not suggesting that problem exists in the indigenous native Palestinian demographic of Jews, Christians, and Muslims living in Israel and oPT, today or in the past.   However it does seems quite clear it is a problem that has thrived and grown through the generations which arrived with the immigrant refugees who already were, or shortly after were converted into zealous political zionists by the political zionist leadership when it arrived in Palestine shortly after WWI to create a "Jewish Liberation Army" in Palestine.  In fact there was nothing about the lives of the demographic of indigenous Jewish folks of Palestine from which they needed to be "liberated" divisively - politically or religiously - from the rest of the indigenous Palestinian population.  The Jewish Palestinians who did not want to cooperate with the violent "liberation" effort of the political zionist leadership were manipulatively extorted, which resulted in their cooperation.

As a result of current events, and history, reading the op-ed also causes wonderment  about how the quasi-religious zionist cult of "White Messianic Superiority" in Israeli, is  different than the quasi-religious cult of the supposedly surreptitious white supremacist "White Christian Nationalist" cult in U.S.A.?  I suggest they are near  identical, and that Israel's quasi-religious cult is as far removed from actual Judaism, as America's is far removed from actual Christianity.   If that collusion does not shout Fascism and more specifically the neo-Nazism of modern times, then I don't know what does so, more clearly..

I have come to the undeniable conclusion that the establishment of  Israel was/is a huge false flag long-term Nazi endeavor that preceded and promoted the rise of WWII Nazism; that the establishment of the political zionist state of  Israel was intended to attract as many Jewish folks to one place as possible to make it easier to victimize a huge number of them all at one time.  That was the actual intent of the anti-semitic Christian Zionists in the early 1800s who preceded and promoted secular Jewish political zionism that required 50 years to manifest.. 

All the quasi-religious efforts to use religion to justify what religion does not condone, for which  political zionism is notorious, always intended for the first victims to be the Jewish demographic.  Those folks were not religious scholars for the most part, so were able to more easily buy into the zealous pushing of the political zionist ideology by it's leadership. The same demographic, in these time is also seemingly the  the last to know the creation of the zionist state was intended to make victims of Jewish folks - all at the genocidal cost, also, of the indigenous Palestinians of every religion.  

Those leaders created and participated in the terrorist gangs in Palestine that engaged in the massacres of villagers which started the Nakba in April 1948 - the catastrohe and "exodus" of non-Jewish Palestinians from the region the political zionist terrorists wanted for a Jewish only nation.  The non-Jewish Palestinian people had been told they would be killed if they did not leave their homes and land behind that were in the territory the political zionist leadership (by then terrorist gangs) wanted.  The lightning speed massacres of people in numerous villages proved that.  A month after the largest massacre, in April, which resulted in the catastrophic leaving behind by non-Jewish Palestinians of their homes and properties imagining they would be able to return, that same political zionist terrorist leadership declared Israel to be a nation, and peopled the first government of Israel.  The descendants of some of those folks are still peopling the government in a seemingly inherited quais-royalty way. 

Clearly, the very creation of the rogue nation of Israel was based on a genocidal intention and series of actions targeting Palestinians.  Rogue nation, because the partition was intended to be peacefully negotiated - to resolution.  However, the political zionist leadership wanted the first draft in December 1947 of the partition to be the final draft.  That resulted a series of massacres in Palestinian village (though there had been a series of systematic massacres prior to that also) and the decision of the terrorist leadership to forcibly declare the territory they wanted as a Jewish only nation which they did in May 1948 - to prevent further negotiating of the partitioning of Palestine.  However, that did not entirely put an end to the efforts to negotiate - until the same terrorists (by that time the Israeli government leadership) assassinated the chief negotiator of the partition, in September 1948.

That same demographic of Jewish folks who were not religious scholars in those times, is also seemingly the same demographic these days - and the last to know the creation of the zionist state was intended to make victims of Jewish folks - all at the genocidal cost, also, of the indigenous Palestinians of every religion..  

What else could account for the Israeli leadership choices consistently between then and now, being so far removed from the values of the religion of the indigenous Jewish Palestinians, if not "white messianic superiority" of the European immigrants?  Even non-Jews know better about Judaism  than the  cult of the  Israeli government that professes and superimposes  the political zionist ideology on the Israeli people - which promotes atrocities that of course are antithetical to Judaism.  

From the start it has been the indigenous Palestinians (Muslims, Christians, Jews . . . ) who have been made to pay for all the crimes of that collusion of ideological cults that manifested and continues to be supported in Israel, predominately by the same so-called "Christian" and "Jewish" ideological political cults in the U.S.A. and Britain.  It is also at great cost to the people of U.S.A. and Britain, whose taxes are primary supporting the genocidal Israel political cult and it's genocidal citizenry. It is no mystery that the majority of Israeli adults embraces genocidal hatred of Palestinians, given there is a universal draft of 18 year olds.  They are drafted to embody and engage in abject hate, that is encouraged to genocidally target Palestinian people.  The full extent of that cost has yet to be comprehended by the majority of  citizens in U.S.A. and Britain.  Whether or not people elected and appointed to government positions are as unaware as the citizenry, or as corrupt as the political zionist collusion, likely depends on the number of people who buy into the ideology of political zionist white supremacy who are serving in our government. 

There are numerous tales of people who have been shoved out of office in our nation by the illegal Israeli lobbies (i.e. which are not registered as foreign agents) because so many are dual citizens of Israel and America, but always put Israel first when making decisions *for the American people* especially if they gave up their Israeli citizenship to be able to serve the U.S. government for the benefit of Israel.  As hard as our legislators in the Israel First camp try to convince themselves and everyone else in our nation that what is good for Israel is good for America - it simply ain't so. 

There remains a concentrated effort of the Israeli lobby to people the U.S.A. and British governments with those who are political zionist zealots, which has resulted in any means to an end efforts to replace legislators who do not want to cooperate with what Israel wants from our government.  The Israeli lobby is well-funded and throws money and perks into the political arena to get different people elected when the ones who have been elected do not want to cooperate with the Israeli lobby.  Those are the least offensive and least criminal methods employed.

Cynthia McKinney's story is a textbook case.  She refused to be silenced by the bullying and badgering of the Israeli lobby, and those who bought into that lobbies maligning of her about everything except Israel - because she would not cooperate with how the Israeli lobby wanted her to vote, in favor of Israel.  She was not the first nor the last person that happened to, but one of the more recent people who did not remain silent about the manipulative efforts, because she is among the folks who  stood up for what was best for our nation, and called out the manipulative, corruption, bribery,  extortion, and harassment  applied to persuade people in our legislatures to cooperate.  As a result the Israeli lobby put a full out effort with any means to an end in the 2002 election to support an opposing candidate who the party was also "persuaded" to support.  And of course as part of that entire debacle, the retributive political zionist Israeli lobby continued to malign Cynthia McKinney.  Even so she was elected again.  However, there was a continued concentrated effort to derail and harass her. 

Agree or disagree with her politics, views, opinions about collusion, she has never been afraid to ask the hard questions, to explore "sensitive" issues for the purpose of needed debated (in part sensitive because of the risk of ill-intent coming to light that would also implicate those who had chosen to cooperate with the ill-intended).  She knew what needed to be talked about and had the courage to state an opinion, whether or not other folks were willing to explore the issues more deeply that she brought up because they needed a closer look. When she brought up known collusions (which were not widely known) because of the need for further inquiry, there was always a concentrated effort to silence her and label her a conspiracy theorist when she was standing up for the best interests of the people of Georgia and the American people. 

Cynthia McKinney was a force of nature while she was serving in government.  She refused to be silent so that other folks could be comfortable about the status quo which needed to be questioned.  And lest it be forgotten , or perhaps never known, pertinent to present times, she was an early supporter of the international Free Gaza movement, which again resulted in active clashes with the political zionist machine, which included armed attacks by Israel on ships taking supplies to Gaza.  Israel prevaricated about the attacks. She has since earned her Ph.D. and has never stopped working for the best interests of the American people. 

Like I said above, hers is a textbook case about which there is much to be learned about both all the good she has done for our nation, and AIPACs discomfort with and targeting of Cynthia McKinney for being honest, not being silent about injustice and corruption, putting our nation first, and for not remaining silent about Israel's victimizing of Palestinians.

In U.S. the combined Christian/Jewish quais-religious political cult and collusion, of what appears to be primarily "white supremacists" exemplified by the political zionism of the Israeli government,  is totally antithetical to our Constitutional separation clause that protects religion from government and government from religion, while insuring individual freedom of worship.  That alone should raise the question of what looks like unconditional support from our nation, for Israel, at high cost to we, the people, when is in support of a nation that functions antithetically to it's claimed religious allegiance, and wants us to to violate our Constitution regarding our separation clause - is actually dedicated to that end.

I am very angry at all of the criminal conniving - in particular the corruption of our U.S.A. government's support by the political zionist state, no matter which administration, given that they have all promoted, supported, and financed it for relentless decades, while participating in the government of Israel's long-term hypocrisy, truth twisting, lying, and cheating, plus all the associated crimes of the myriad of false flag attacks (that are oh so obvious, yet elude the comprehension of so many, as intended).  Our legislative branch makes a career of ignoring those.

More recently there is absolutely NO excuse for the concentrated development of spreading the Gaza-like genocidal atrocities into the rest of oPT, also, from where most of the Palestinian prisoner hostages (including Palestinian children) originated long-ago, and have continued to originate without cause and without charges during the Gaza genocide.  Along with the ongoing genocidal actions in Gaza,  today's invasion of Jenin, still on going, is the most recent genocidal action targeting Palestinians in the rest of oPT.
 
As usual - there must be a disclaimer to fend off claims of a debate being valid about the fact that the political zionist Israeli government is targeting Palestinians with a genocide.   There is no debate.  A genocide has actually been occurring for many decades, based on the agreed upon International Law  legal definition of genocide to which Israel and most of the world's nations are signatory.  The  instances of the Israeli government's genocidal intent and actions simply have not been saturating the media through the decades.  And as many of us know they have intentionally been kept out of the media, moreso in U.S.A. than in Israel.
 
If you have not already done so, do read Jamal K Kanj insightful op-ed: "Why would six Israelis receive more attention than 41,000 murdered Palestinians".

What "A Public Health Emergency" Is and Is Not

With New Mexico in the news, particularly Bernalillo County and Albuquerque in very negative ways, which the inimitable Roman Balmakov of "Facts Matter" clearly reports on,  let us use that as an opportunity to

reframe what has been defined as the issue, from a different perspective.  I want to zero in on the apparent misuse of  what has been labeled as a "public health emergency" for what is, instead, a series of law enforcement emergencies.  To do that we can consider a minimal amount of a few actual public health issues that can and do escalate into numerous individual emergencies, and compare those problems to an intention to recategorize a law-enforcement issue, instead, as a priority public health emergency

How about mosquito infestations as a public health issue, and the fact that some cities and counties do not spray unless they use pesticides, without ever informing people they will be spraying so they can at least plan around the initial damage, because the pesticides used are damaging in the short and long-term health of people and pets?  Their smell tells on the  pesticides with known damaging chemicals that should have been made illegal for use years ago, if not by the federal government then by the state government.  Another problem arises when people rightfully point out the toxic pesticide problem, then cities and counties simply chose to not spray, instead of using available effective products that are non-damaging  to people, pets, plants, and beneficial insects.

How about the myriad of very local problems that is  the stench of dog litter when dog owners refuse to clean up their own yards.?  Given increasing urban density, why are those same irresponsible people also encouraging their dogs to become pests because of frantic ongoing barking for hours at at time, or intermittently throughout a day or night, which of course interferes with the daily lives and sleep of those nearby whose lives are totally disrupted by the unnecessary, irresponsible noise and stink problems.  After high humidity, drizzling, or rain, the stench of the dog litter becomes unbearable, making it impossible to let in fresh air.  It is impossible for people nearby to do any needed work in their  yards without barking and stench.  The experience of enjoying yard work or the thought of simply sitting quietly for a time to enjoy being outside in fresh air and  nature as the cooler air of Autumn is showing up, is not possible for people in nearby homes - because of the barking and stench.  And of course, unaddressed, the problem spreads, throughout a block, community, and neighborhood,the same as the problem of naughty children spreads to other children, when ignored and unaddressed.

How about when local city and county councils vote to put fluoride into the water, some shortly before covid was known to be the public health emergency it became, although fluoride  had not been in of the water for a number of years, for good reasons.  Could anyone be blamed for considering it to be a transparent nefarious effort to use one of fluoride's notorious properties to calm the riff raff as was done during the Nazi regime?  It is common knowledge there are no dental benefits to fluoridating the water, and that it accumulates in bodies to eventually contribute to and cause health conditions.  Fluoridation is clearly an issue that requires a vote from a citizenry knowledgeable about it.

How about the larger scale dangerous and damaging toxicity that FDA still has not mandated be removed from what is supposed to be potable drinking water; and the fact that few water utilities will voluntarily go to the expense, themselves, of doing the filtering and sanitation required for  adequate removal; and that few of the industries creating problems, will responsibly do the needed amount of filtering of their waste water before dumping it into what eventually becomes part of the public water supply?

How about doing something about quality of life issues, backed by ordinances at the city and county levels which are creating long-lasting on-going very real public health complications  - some in very local areas, some regionally wide-spread?

All levels of government need to stop trying to ignore ongoing actual public health issues which have risen to the level of emergencies for increasingly more individual, the marginalizing made worse by trying to recategorize law-enforcement issues as priority public health emergencies instead, when law-enforcement emergencies of children being killed are not and never have been public health emergencies, but a problem with how crime is handled.  As an aside the article "DOH releases data on child deaths in New Mexico" reports the numerous incidents of childhood deaths according to the New Mexico Department of Health in the New Mexico Child Fatality Review 2022 Report:

• 14%, or 23 children, died from child abuse, neglect, or homicide
• Almost 23%, or 37 babies, died from Sudden Unexpected Infant Death
• Youth suicide represented 27% of those deaths, or 44 children
• Unintentional injury made up most of those deaths - representing 36%, or 59 child deaths

"The experts investigating each of those deaths found that 85% of deaths, or 139 lives lost, were preventable."

There is a difference between emergency law-enforcement issues and public health emergencies.  Emergency law-enforcement issues are a matter of life or death, often being immediate life or death incidents.  Public health emergencies are almost always due to natural disasters thus injuries, with shelter, water, and food not being readily available, or as we experienced in recent times, a pandemic - plandemic as some would maintain, a label not less rational by those who research and deal in facts.  To ignore the warning signs of slowly developing problems due to a lack of law enforcement, and  due to ignoring on-going problems that slowly lead to creating public health problems, is unacceptable.

Public health issues depopulate slower, and cumulatively when not addressed, with children always being the most vulnerable.  They are far less obvious.  People should never have to wonder or ask if  the problems are due to ignorance, negligence, or intentional life-threatening problems that slowly erode quality of life, and immune systems, through slow toxic pollution of water, air, and soil as a way to introduce directed toxicity into people's lives, small scale, large scale, and everything in between. - whether domestic or foreign directed.  Such issues slowly become individual emergencies, often in clusters with cluster effects  not looked for, thus they go unnoticed, officially, although they are evident and  indicate growing problems.  Eventually, after decades policies are revised or inacted in some cases,  eventually, instead of exposure shining a light on intentional public neglect.   Consider the eight year water crisis in Flint Michigan, until 2022 which was a full blown public health emergency yet it lingered on and on not seeming to be recognized as such.

We all know enough about  toxic pollutant issues, either through casual conversation, as common knowledge, as common sense, or as academically based available scientific research.  So it is impossible for any city, county, state government or federal departments to credibly feign and claim ignorance of the dangers.  If that does not suggest a corruption problem that creates a variety of innumerable individual public health problems that cumulatively lead to an unrecognized public health emergency, then what is it if not corruption?

How can normal people have any amount of trust in elected and appointed government and public officials, who resort to the drama of extremism as a way to call attention to problems?  Doing so looks like a clear case of hiding behind alarmism as a smoke screen to hide the fact nothing has been done about long term dangerous problems other than ignoring them.  Then, someone responsible in a top-down way, for not requiring what was possible to manage the danger, suddenly zeros in on an already long-term danger as being an emergency  - worse a  public health emergency when it is, instead,  a long-term life-threatening series of public dangers that have been ignored far too long? 

Funny thing, totally without actual humor - the extreme effort in New Mexico to reframe blame in a way that violates the way a state constitution is used to interpret our nation's Constitution.  As it should have, but did not, the proposed solution has addressed nothing to do with the dangers of damaging parenting and the children damaged for life by it, who are not required by parents and  "the village" (e.g. school, religion, neighborhood, family, friends, ad infinitum) to be responsible.  While they may be taught, there is not enough  adequate oversight and enforcing of safe parenting after children have been harmed.  Good parenting is work, challenging work at times.  It isn't for sissies or people who can not step up and do it right.  Instead some children are allowed to run wild without supervision and become an uncontrolled danger - managed instead by opportunistic criminals.  As such they damage a number of their peers directly and indirectly in some way or another, not only through bullying, violence, and introducing illicit drug-use, but also through engaging in gang recruiting.  That is no way for individuals and "the village" to raise children as the valuable assets they are and have the potential to become as responsible law-abiding adult citizens.

Acceptable Candidates and Supportable Party Platforms

Biden’s approval rating hits its lowest with 33 per cent in new poll by Eric Garcia in UK's Independent.

Although the message I take away from this article is likely not the primary message most people will take away from it, the message being conveyed which I consider to be most important, is that we need to do a much better job of offering up qualified acceptable candidates and party platform policy recommendations so that we are not electing people through the process of voting against "the lesser of the evils".

I wish numerous people would write articles that actually state this clearly and plainly, to hammer home a message it is vital for all to understand. Not everyone is willing to become an expat for however long it may be necessary, otherwise, when they do not consider either candidate to be acceptable.  And of course not everyone can afford the luxury of choosing to be an expat for an extended time.

Many consider the lack of acceptable candidates, and supportable party platforms, to be due to a lack of participation.  However,the lack of participation problem at the grassroots level is not necessarily reflective of what people want to do, or prefer to do.  I have made a successful effort to participate in other places I have lived.  That is not how it is where I currently live.  If inquiries about attending a local meeting do generate a response, they are met only with a response  about "pay to play" meetings and cost requirements for party membership.  What!?  I was astounded to be presented with "pay to play".  I honestly thought it was illegal.

It has never been mandatory, elsewhere, to pay dues to be a party member before being participating in discussions at local caucus meetings.  I do wonder how widespread the problem is, nationwide.  Not only can I not afford the "required" cost, more importantly, in principle, I am unwilling to pay a required cost to participate!  Of course a pay to play response discourages many people - and is obviously intended to do so.  It is no wonder people increasingly truly believe that elections and election processes are being bought.

Note that I use the term "caucus" to indicate local meetings, although other folks may use other terms.  I use "caucus" according to the inclusive definition (rather than the limited exclusive definition), that being: "any political group or meeting organized to further a special interest or cause"

Participating in local caucus meetings where platform policies and potential candidates are discussed and eventually agreed upon, should be freely open to everyone who selects a party when registering to vote, and wants to attend local meetings.  In other places I have lived caucus meetings are organized at the local community level, like the the radius of a neighborhood of many blocks.  The grassroots participation I refer to here, is not city, sector, county, or state wide - but on a much smaller neighborhood scale .  Each of the smaller local meetings then sends representative to the less frequent next larger consolidated meeting -  be it sector, city, county, or state wide.  And no one registered for  the party of the meeting they wish to attend and participate in, is prevented from attending those either - even though each local area selects representatives to speak for the group.

Local neighborhood caucus meetings really are the way for grassroots participation to be as diverse and as representative in all ways as the local areas in which folks live.  As such it is a way to develop a more acceptable slate of candidates and policy recommendations.  That is why "pay to play", in every form, should be illegal.  

Allow me to once more emphasize that in too many elections, too many people have no other choice than to vote against candidates instead of for candidates.  And this is simply an unacceptable situation. 

Ultimately, taken to the extreme, when there are no acceptable choices - and this holds true universally, not only with political candidates and party platforms - then no matter the situation it precipitates insurmountable problems.  Worse, when there are repeatedly no acceptable choices and instead only damaging choices - then depending on the scale of the collusion that limits choices to all being unacceptable (and it will always be a collusion limiting choices in that way), the repetitive problem of unacceptable choices eventually leads to conflict, armed combat - the atrocities of war.

Loopholes in Our Laws That Do Not Prevent Torture

We are not responsible citizens as long as we allow loopholes in the imprecise ways some of our laws are written, so they do not actually support the spirit of the protection we want to believe has been enacted by laws that are being enforced.

Our nation has to stop doing, through creating loophole laws, what we collectively want to believe has been made illegal for our nation - for good reasons.  In this case, a problem that has recently been reported is one of many schemes throughout the years that has found our nation, once again, to be financing what we believe is illegal and being enforced - like extraditing people to other nations to torture them with our own people participating in the torture, or managing those who do the torturing; like financing animal experiments in other nations that torture animals.  We need to make the financing and participation in torture of people and animals, anywhere, illegal for citizens and permanent residents of our nation - and of course within our nation also for people who are not here legally, since the extent of that problem continues to loom large and laws apply to all living in our nation.

Clearly, our laws do not cover all the bases.  Unfortunately, what they do is create loopholes that, as too many laws are intended to do in some way or another, allow ways to violate because of not being precisely articulated to prevent the abuse.  Of course the result fools our own people as our nation slides further into the abyss of double-standard hypocrisy because of loophole laws designed to hide the hypocrisy of violations.  People in other nations are not fooled as easily.  They increasingly connect our nation to becoming more and more hypocritical and untrustworthy in contradiction to our nation's stated values, principles, ideals, because they experience our hypocrisy in their own nations to which so many of us seem oblivious.  We continue to believe are laws do what we assume they do, and are being adequately enforced.  People in other nations are often aghast that we allow this to happen when we are collectively empowered to self-govern - that is to actively participate in advising those who are elected and appointed to do what we need them to do for the benefit of our nation and other people also.  Truth be told our only effective laws are win-win, not win-lose at the expense of some in our nation or other nations.

Decent law abiding people in our own nation, do not expect loopholes to be built into our laws - in this case laws that make torturing people and animals illegal.  People do not expect imprecise laws to allow our nation to be financing the torture of people it chooses to torture, or to finance the torturing of animals in nations where those violations are not illegal.  People do not expect loopholes in the laws that allow us to pay people of other nations to torture people and animals we ask them to, on our behalf; nor do we expect our own people to be used - contractors and/or military folks - to engage in torture in other nations where torture is legal; nor where it may be illegal, but is overlooked and allowed - for profit that is extended by our nation, or any organization our nation is part of that fiances and participates in the violating abuse of torture.

We can not allow what has become the stress of well orchestrated and well timed perpetual crises, one after the other, to be obstacles that redirect us in ways that  prevent us from doing what must be done.  Laws must be revised so they are not misleading because of  built-in loopholes that do not precisely prevent abuse of the laws we believe exist - which we also want to assume are being enforced.  In this case the laws sound good but apparently do not precisely cover the ways in which people intent on refusing to say "no" to the evil of torture, are allowed to abuse the spirit of the law. 

The reality of the problem is more horrifying for folks who have recently recognized the loophole problem.  However, it is nothing new under the sun in humanities history so why is it a problem and how can it be prevented?  More precisely, how can we prevent it, because it is our collective responsibility to speak up about imprecise laws that allow violations by our nation we can not imagine - can not believe are occurring - until we know otherwise. 

Imprecisely written laws are so common it is near to impossible for some of us to believe that loopholes in laws are unintended by the people representing our wishes who write the laws on our behalves.  Enough of these folks are highly educated and skilled enough in the law and in being articulate, to avoid making space for the built-in loopholes we find in a myriad of laws that allow them to be violated in ways that do not more  precisely outlaw the violations it is in the spirit of we, the people, to want to prevent.

Sources
A few sources which suggest there is little or no effort to outlaw torture.  Although it all sounds civil enough and is better than nothing, there appears to be little or no effort to outlaw U.S.A. from financing, supporting, and/or causing the torture of people and animals in other nations.  After at least 9000 years of history recorded in writing which is accessible, "civil enough" and "better than nothing" is not enough and has not been for a very long time:

1.  We can not be assured of Wikipedia accuracy but the article provides a big picture view:
Wikipedia article:  Animal rights by country or territory

2.  Recent information from the animal protection group White Coat Waste Project:
White Coat Waste Blog 3 March 2022: Breaking: WCW Discovers NIH Pays For Cruel Kitten Experiments…In Russia!

3.  Also investigations from White Coat Waste Project from July 2012:
"The top recipients of NIH funds in 2020 were institutions in wealthy countries, with German and Canadian institutes receiving the most taxpayer dollars sent abroad for animal testing that year. Other major grant recipients included entities in Australia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Taiwan and Ghana."
Newsweek article:  Zebrafish on Ecstasy and Feeding Mice Human Feces: NIH Hikes Funding for Animal Testing

4. Clearly this bill does not go far enough to stop torturing of animals which it is not intended to do.  It seems primarily intended to manage who does not make decisions and in which nations torturous research can not be carried out that is financed by our nation:
117th Congress (2021-2022) text of H.R.5527: Accountability in Foreign Animal Research Act
"To prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services, acting through the Director of the National Institutes of Health from conducting or supporting research on animals in certain foreign countries, and for other purposes."

5.  Three links about extradition which only seem to dance around the issue of torture without intention to outlaw it:

Carmichael Ellis & Brock law firm provides a brief synopsis of extradition, to and from our nation, including U.S. Citizens, none of which seems intent on preventing torture by U.S.A. of anyone, anywhere to include U.S.A. citizens:
Extradition from the US

ACLU from 2008:
Documents Reveal U.S. Knowingly Transfers Detainees To Countries That Torture

From CSR Reports, as much detail as anyone might want within the time frame of September 30, 2003 – October 4, 2016:
Extradition To and From the United States: Overview of the Law and Contemporary Treaties (downloadable)

6. Department of Justice website which may be the current Law and Treaties - but is not stated as such.  Reading the entirety of the 9-15.000, provisions may or may not specifically address an intention to outlaw torture:
9-15.000 - International Extradition And Related Matters

Is YOUR Opinion Based on Merit and Character . . . or Something Else?

I have watched a few reports from SKY News Australia - its political agenda seems similar to FOX News, which is not my priority go to news station.  Even so the brief SKY News video, below, about Kamala Harris conveys a lot of useful, though unpleasant, information.

What I understand the American who is being interviewed in the video to be conveying to people in other nations about the people in our nation, and the U.S.A. in general is, those who disagree with Kamala Harris about anything are considered to be racist and/or sexist.

Drawing that conclusion is the same as accusing those who selected her, and accusing her of having agreed to the appointment, because the purpose was for her to fulfill some type of quota because she is Black, Asian, and a Woman; not because of her proven merit, skills, and abilities as an individual.

I see . . . however if that was the case there would have been transparency associating that with her selection. Right?  Am I being sarcastic, here?  Yes, a little, but about the transparency problems of our government, in general.

What the American who was interviewed conveys to me is an effort to blame Americans for being sexist and/or racist when they are not in lock step with the stated views of someone in government who is considered to be qualified to fill the position.  As far as I am concerned if Kamala Harris was not capable of filling that position, she would not have been appointed to fill it by someone who was also appointed to fill that position in a past administration, and knows the responsibilities of it, well.

If anyone wonders who is trying to keep racism and sexism "alive", to give it an increasingly destructive life of it's own, consider that the news interview at the end of the video is representative of the thinking of those who are actively working at doing so.

Who wants to make up the rules that if you aren't a stanch fan of Kamala Harris it is because you are racist and/or sexist? If that isn't YOU, then it must be someone else, right? But who and why?

Live there if you want to, but don't expect me to join you.  It is not good for our nation.  It is also not my own reality - not the one I have been part of working to keep alive and healthy so that it thrives, since before I was an adult - that being the reality that it is the content of character of people that matters most, and how we apply it to the work we do and our personal lives.

We are all entitled to our political opinions without being considered to be racist and/or sexist because of our opinions, when they have nothing to do with race or gender.

"Green Run"

A good friend told me, yesterday, there is a name for something that I know happened: a 1949 event referred to as "Green Run".  So I looked it up to read a little about it.   I still have more read.  A few online sources are  listed below, including the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments' (ACHRE) created in Clinton's administration, which is a more detailed technical report. 

The first article I read said Green Run was a Washington State "event", however it also affected the Idaho panhandle, and every where else in a huge circle where  monitors had been placed for measuring radiation, which would have been Washington, into Oregon also, most of Idaho, perhaps into Montana and further south too, depending on how many monitors there were at what variety of distances.  

I knew about the event because mother told me about a study long after it was finished, and showed me the booklet she had completed as part of the study she joined.  I don't know if Dad also joined.  I would have because of having lived in the affected area until age 9, and also having lived only a short distance from Camp Hanford when Dad was called back to active duty during the Korean Conflict.  I was age 3-4 that year, one year after the December 49 "Green Run" event spoken of in the article.  I was not informed of the study until long after it was completed.  From what I understand it was something in which everyone living in the monitored areas for any length of time should have participated.  I don't know if any of the extended family who lived in the area most of their lives also participated.   

The first article I read at Gizmodo, The Secret 1949 Radiation Experiment That Contaminated Washington,  states "Hanford’s plants routinely released small doses of radioactive material into the air" through out the years, which is why there were monitors placed in several different sized concentric circles throughout the region. The article also states the incident of 1949 was because the "Air Force wanted to fly planes behind a radioactive test plume, to test out their own instruments."

One of the effects of Green Run and the releases was cluster thyroid problems.  I remember my mother having been diagnosed with a thyroid problem.  It was within two years after the year we lived in Pasco, because I was older than four at the time.  And when mother was in the hospital for tests, that was one of the few times I was allowed  to stay with my paternal grandparents, alone, and overnight.

Was the study I learned about always a part of the original plan . . . to track the lives and health of those exposed to the releases who were living in the monitored area, for the purpose of collecting statistical data about exposure?  Supposedly, the intention of the many periodic releases through the years, according to how the study was explained, had been to learn about how the wind carried contamination - to what extent and intensity, and how long lasting it was.  According to the ACHRE Report, Part II Chapter 11, "An interim aerial sampling network was in place in early September 1949 that detected radioactive debris from the first Soviet nuclear test."   That was three months before Green Run.

According to the Gizmodo article "Green Run was a secret Air Force experiment that released Hanford’s largest single dose of radioactive iodine-131. On the night of December 2, 1949, at the behest of the military, scientists at Hanford let 7,000 to 12,000 curies of iodine-131 into the air, where it rode the wind as far as 200 miles. For a sense of scale, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident released an estimated 15 to 24 curies of iodine-131 and the Chernobyl accident 35 million to 49 million curies. "

After the Air Force debacle of 49, once it became known in the mid 80s, over 35 years later, with  government responsibility and accountability insisted on, it may be that data about those who had lived in the monitored areas was considered to be useful to those who mandated the releasing during Eisenhower's administration.  I have no idea if there was intention to also eventually look for cluster health problems in 49 when the network of monitors was put in place.  Given what we know of government resistance to taking responsibility and to being accountable, it seems doubtful.  Although no doubt the study did look for correlations once the proverbial "cat was out of the bag".

There are "downwinders" in New Mexico, also. There is one location in particular where people live as downwinders from White Sands Missile Range where the first nuclear blast was fielded.  It was the Project Trinity test of the device known as "Gadget", according to the Trinity Site page of the National Park Service.  Many have suffered from serious and fatal obvious cluster ailments - and worse suffered from official denial that the downwind problem existed.   There are a number of downwinder communities within the intermountain region.  According to Wikipedia the communities are  "primarily in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah but also in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho." These downwinder issues are among the issues that need Erin Brockovich type action and results - in the form of tenacious investigating with a strong harsh light shined on the problem; also court cases won. 

Currently, it has been on the news that water at numerous military bases is knowingly contaminated, most often with chemicals, often fuel.  It is not necessarily known to many living on base who drink the water, unless the taste tells them; or unless cluster illnesses create suspicion and questions that are eventually researched and addressed with persistence.  Costly advanced filtering is required to render the water potable, along with putting an end to the continuing contamination and doing successful clean up. 

And of course anywhere there have been military conflicts there are contamination problems.  Contamination is a universal problem, so is taking responsibility and being accountable for a problem that requires tenacity to solve it.  Humanity can not continue to horrendously and relentlessly knowingly do damage to the environment and all that it supports.  There is no where else to go once humanity's nest is fouled.

We have a local problem, too, with fuel contamination that threatens (only "threatens" we are told) local water wells near to the local Air Force base.  A lot of work was required from dedicated people to get the process of admitting there was a problem, initiated, then also to enlist the city to get on board with negotiating the taking of responsibility and being accountable for putting an end to the problem and cleaning it up.

Having said all that has not been only for the purpose of reciting unresolved and past problems.  It is also about doing better to address current problems.  The answer is simple: if you do it, then own it.  That includes all aspects of government.  Allow me to remind everyone that government needs to be driven by the needs of "we, the people" - nothing more nothing less.  Not lobbyists, not big business and corporate conglomerates, not political parties.  Yes, really - none of those.  

We can not do anything about the past except to do our best to prevent the same problems from continuing to occur and reoccur in the future.  And we must require repair of as much damage as possible.  However to be successful at prevention and recurrence requires consequences - not retribution, not revenge, but functional consequences - whatever is required in each individual situation.

For example there must be accountability for ill-intent and carelessness that is obviously too intentional to be assumed a lack of foresight and/or greed, or any other poor excuse it is not possible to buy into believing, when a problem is being attributed to "merely" careless words.  Really? Careless words, only? Anyone who can honestly buy into imagining that supposedly well place calculated "careless words" could possibly be unintentional, when they were intended to be a means to motivate an unacceptable end result, has a problem with living in reality, and with condoning and becoming part of the corruption that motivates those words and resultant behaviors.

There are current issues we can and must do something about as soon as possible rather than discovering cumulative problems over 40 years later and much more damage that could have been prevented. To that end I urge people to please contact your Senators, and Congressmen, about wrong-doing which has occurred when it is our collective Legislative body's responsibility to adequately address it.  We are obligated to inform them of their need to do right by "we, the people", and to thank them when they do. 

There must be consequences commensurate with intention, regardless of claims there was no ill-intent, when a clear case of ill-intent has been made about what our Legislative body experienced directly on 6 January 2021.  It was an obvious intent to create instability in government and our entire nation to which some of us have been witness the entire past four years.  Don't kid yourselves into imagining it was anything different.  People who innately see the big picture knew it.  

Currently, we are all required to excel at seeing the small picture, innately so or not, which is required to appropriately address what was the culminating "event" - more precisely to encourage our Legislative body to appropriately do so.  Of course, in the event there is any doubt to what I refer, of course it is the proceedings of the current, ongoing U.S.A. impeachment process.

Clearly there was, is, and will continue to be many occurrences in our lives when government oversight is lacking or entirely absent and should not have been.  However, it is up to us - "we, the people" - to BE that oversight, and it always has been.  There is no excuse for us being silent about obvious corruption while we witness it happening.  YOU are responsible.  We all are.  Better for you and everyone else that we all take responsibility sooner, than later.  Our government is only as good and as responsive to our collective needs as we responsibly insist on it being.  Those are the facts.  That is our collective reality.

See also:

Sarah Zhang, Sarah. The Secret 1949 Radiation Experiment That Contaminated Washington
(Gizmodo, Website: 6/03/15)

ACHRE Report.  Chapter 11:  What We Know.  (Georgetown University Bioethics Archive: January 1994 - October 1995). note:  the chapter is specific to Green Run 

The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) Website

Cornwall, Warren. Hanford downwinders get their day in court. (The Seattle Times: 25 April 2005)

Pinnaz. Green Run Map Location Information & Much More! (Call of Duty Zombies, website: 26 December 2012)

"The Downwinders", Whitman Magazine. (Whitman College, website: Summer 2015)

Senators of the 117th Congress - contact information for all Senators

Directory of Representatives - contact information

United States Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121.  A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the office you request.
  

Before, During, and After the Vote

Campaigning is the time when candidates try to persuade people to vote for them rather than someone else, not AFTER there has been a vote which has been carefully counted, accepted, and registered. If there is suspicion of corruption, then it needs to be addressed BEFORE the vote.

BEFORE the vote is the time to make sure that if machines are used they are working properly; and to be sure there are no irregularities in the registration process or the records of those registered to vote.

DURING the vote election officials are sworn to be on the look out for irregularities and to prevent possible fraud through standard procedure that applies to all; so too are watchers present to keep eyes on process and voters. Those sworn to process the votes are also sworn to look for irregularities then process possible problems separately.

AFTER everything is said and done and the vote is certified, is NOT the appropriate time to be back-pedaling because of wondering about proper procedure when there has been oversight every step of the way.

AFTER the vote is the time for peaceful transition from one administration to the next - as a celebration of the functionality of our system of government.  Our system of government is structured in such a way within our Constitution that it is a blueprint for our nation's dedication to peaceful transitions from one administration to the next.

When there are ethical and legal concerns about those serving, those running, and party processes, it is the Secretary of State in individual states who needs to be consulted about effectively addressing the problems at the appropriate times - before, during, and after voting. 

Under the Electoral Count Act of 1887 challenges to state electors who were certified before the “safe-harbor deadline”, are prohibited in Congress.  That deadline is six days before the Electoral College votes.  This election the "safe harbor deadline" was 8 December 2020.  So the occasion of Congress tallying state votes, is not the appropriate time to be raising objections that should have been raised at the appropriate time before the electoral college certified the election results, IF there were concerns to be resolved. 

Common sense is rarely complicated.  Applying it appropriately prevents unnecessary complexity that creates unnecessary confusion about relatively simple procedures.  Election schedules include actions before, during, and after the vote.  The timeline needs to be respected.  It really is that simple.

The Fourth Estate Is Not What It Once Was

 On a friend's Facebook post, today, I read a comment about the media wanting to convince people that "half the U.S.A. wants socialism/communism/anarchy".  I agree with that comment about the media, but consider it to be only half of what the media is doing.

I agree that the media no longer makes a priority of functioning as the fourth estate to serve we the people and our freedoms.  It is totally bought off by advertisers, primarily in the form of corporate conglomerates who also work diligently to dictate to government in the form of the lobbies they create intended for that purpose.

Where my opinion differs from the comment I read is that the media is also at work trying to convince people that half the country wants lock-step Fascism, all the while fanning the flames of anarchy by glorifying riotous violent behavior due to all the coverage it is given.

I suggest that at least since 2000 there have been very obvious active efforts to force binary political extremism as political choices of we the people, by "bad actors" who want to define  every issue and candidate within those unacceptable parameters.  It seems much more obvious than in decades  past.  Since that time total package dictatorial governments under the auspices of the political  ideologies of Communism and Fascism have frequently been called on symbolically, and openly spoken of boldly as opposite extremes from which we have to choose, with labeling of the right as Fascist by the left,  and the left as Communist by the right.  It is an effort to replace liberal with left and conservative with right; right being  used as "code" for Fascist and left for Communist by those who are attracted to the extremism of one or the other.  

In actuality and symbolically both Communism and Fascism are manifestations of dictatorial political extremism to which people have reacted with riotous violence, which is often perceived as a desire the participants have for anarchy.  The behavior more realistically indicates a desire for autonomy as individuals within a system of government that is not a dictatorship.  It is what can happen when people do not use the rights with which they are empowered to be civically active for the purpose of continuing to maintain their freedoms.  

When people say "freedom ain't free" it is not only about serving in the military or running for office and doing the best job possible if elected.  It also means taking responsibility as a citizen to educate oneself about the issues and speaking up; voting; advising those who are elected and appointed to office, all for the purpose of working to maintain the freedoms with which we are empowered.

The same "forces" to which media is kowtowing ("foreign actors" or not) are hell-bent on trying to redefine our constitutional democratic republic in U.S.A. as a "capitalist political system",  base on  the way they use the term "capitalism".   However, capitalism is not the  political ideology nor the political system of the U.S.A.  It is merely a descriptive word associated with the way in which any nation's economy might function in an overly controlling way, be it completely government managed, free enterprise, or  some sort of hybrid of the two.  

Use of the word capitalism should not be suggesting a political ideology as a complete system of government which is how it if most often used when it is intended to malign the US.A. government.  It should, instead, be suggesting the dangers of monopolies, against which we have laws in U.S.A.  It also should be suggesting  the worse dangers of corporate conglomerates since they too are monopolies which are currently outside of the laws pertaining to monopolies - only because of a difference in how they are defined.  That difference was created solely for the purpose of putting them outside of laws pertaining to monopolies.  That is referred to as corruption because the  corporate conglomerates are doing the damage that laws pertaining to monopolies were intended to prevent, all the while protected from anti-monopoly laws being applied to them.  That danger from monopolies using the label of corporate conglomerates could be described as capitalism - that being  the damage that corporate conglomerates do in their efforts to manage governments and the citizenry of a nation.  

I suggest those same forces who are trying to redefine our system of government as something it is not, are people who are subjected to a system of political ideology, themselves, which is a total dictatorship government as a non-negotiable political system/religion or no religion system/economic system - a complete package deal; a system of government that requires  violence to overthrow it, since those subjected  to it are not empowered to change it in peaceful ways.

That is quite the opposite of a nation which  states the government is based on the consent of the governed, where there is 1) no required political ideology; 2) no required system of religion or nonreligion, and; 3) no required economic system.  Not one of these, not two of these, not all three are part of the system of government or dictated by the system of government in U.S.A.

Fact is when capitalism is used as a descriptor to malign the U.S.A., it is intended to infer a "capitalist political ideology", meaning it is superimposed as a total package government ideology that includes a political system, a religion or no religion system, and an economic system.  However that does not exist in the U.S.A. no matter what word people might want to use to suggest that it does.  Capitalism is nonexistent as a political system in U.S.A., except in the imagination of propagandists who can not see beyond the dictatorial system of government to which they themselves are subjected, or those who are enthralled by those political ideologies without having experienced the damage of their dictatorial governments.

Whether the pushers of dictatorship who want to redefine government in U.S.A. are "foreign actors", immigrants who do not give up trying to superimpose the type of government of the nations they left, or U.S. citizens who think Marxism, Maoism, Nazism as ideological political systems are "cool", the pushers are certainly not representative of collective U.S.A. citizenry.  At best the well known political ideologies of Marxism, Maoism, Nazism could be considered to be "philosophies" - political philosophies that do not function well on behalf of a nation's population when superimposed as dictatorial forms of government.

The dangers of corporate  conglomerates are visible in the glaring harsh ways they dictate to media through advertising, not advertising, and withdrawing advertising as a way to manipulate what is broadcast by media outlets.  Fact is most media outlets are part of corporate conglomerates.  So media will be doing their bidding along with that of whatever businesses they encourage or allow to purchase advertising time on their outlets, whether those businesses are part of their media conglomerate or not. 

The same situation is apparently selectively blinding to many in the ways that corporate conglomerates dictate to government.  They want to have more influence in government than we, the people are empowered to have which, again, is why anti-monopoly laws were originally enacted.  Unfortunately media outlets do not shine a light on that as they increasingly become outlets for relentless propaganda intended to both create public opinion and sway public opinion.  The desired opinion creating and swaying is often the result of what corporate conglomerate's lobbies and government, together, agree to promote as public opinion.

The dangers of monopolies, including in the form of corporate conglomerates, including the individual corporations with their "personhood" that populate the conglomerates of which they are part, must be recognized and remedied so that undue influence is reigned in, so that laws against monopolies also apply to corporate conglomerates; so that neither is any longer allowed to dictate to government and by doing so compete with the rights of we the people, who consent to being self-governing, collectively.  We have never consented to, nor are we required to consent to being governed indirectly through our own government by the lust corporate conglomerates have for increasing their net-worth by any means possible.

The American People and the American Police

There is an article at the Mondoweiss website that is long and worth reading. It is not an easy read, but it is a necessary read:  Israelizing the American Police, Palestinianizing the American People, by Jeff Halper*.  The title says it all, actually.  I encourage it as a "must read" article but it will not be easy.  However, understanding the background it provides is vital for understanding what seems to be a collection of insurmountable obstacles plaguing our nation (pun not intended but it fits).

Although it may seem so, this is not an article that is putting all the blame for U.S.A. wrong-doing on Israel.  But U.S.A. could not do what it does without Israel.  Read on, and you will better understand.

As an American I was "Palestinized" in numerous ways many decades ago which is why I have been pushing back against the "Iraelizing" of our government, since. Of course it also woke me up to injustice in general, and my responsibility to understand how to prevent it in my own nation and elsewhere too, especially when our nation is causing it or supporting it. Standing up to injustice . . .  and living - it is NOT a one man or one woman job, for damned sure!

The Israelizing of our nation has been very publicly showing up in the past several years (for those who were not paying attention to the Middle East until after 9/11).  It seems most evident in the criminal behavior of some in our U.S.A. police forces who get themselves and their entire force in trouble. In earlier decades U.S.A. police were shipped to Israel to be trained. In more recent decades the training is done by Israel in U.S.A., also, or instead, sometimes locally, so an entire police force can be trained. Many may be unaware of that.  Also most of the training is financed by U.S.A. military aid to Israel, from the funds promised in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreement between U.S.A. and Israel every 10 years, which provides for well over $40 Billion U.S.A. military aid to Israel every time the agreement is renewed. 

We see some of the most obvious results of U.S.A. military aid to Israel showing up in the militarization of our own police forces, nationwide, which as Halper says is part of the process of creating "the American Security State" with Israel as the model.  The MOU demands that a certain amount of those funds to Israel be invested in military related U.S.A. products and services.  Two examples would be the purchasing of aircraft, and providing militarized training to U.S.A. police forces.  The percentage of the MOU not required to be used on American products and services for Israel's military use, can be put to "military use" in Israel.  But "military use" is interpreted differently in a militarized nation because defense forces, occupation forces, law enforcement, and the population, are all dedicated to the security of a militarized nation which Israel is and has been since 1948.  So any use to which "military aid" is put in Israel is considered to be for "security" - which nine times out of 10 ends up harming Palestinian population in the occupied territories or building housing for immigrants to Israel in Palestinian territory which international law makes illegal. Both Israel and U.S.A. are signatory to agreeing to international law, yet Israel violates it and U.S.A. finances the violating.  Something is very wrong with that picture, but it is fact, none the less.

Jeff Halper's long Mondoweiss article needs to be read. For those concerned about police officers who are committing criminal acts, and worse getting away with it, this article is background - the big picture of how that evolved.  More precisely  how that increased and became more wide-spread, as well as becoming  public knowledge, particularly since the turn of the most recent century - which shows U.S.A. on the way to becoming a "security state".  Divide and conquer is always how the game progresses, and "security" is the name of the game from which, together all the turmoil arises.  Beware.

If you are not already familiar with any of the history in the Mondoweiss article then it will not be an easy read. It is not easy even for those who are already familiar with some or most of the aspects of the big picture that is presents.

However, the understanding provided can shine a light on the way forward, but it requires warrior souls, committed to non-violence. The collective well-orchestrated interrelated dilemmas with which we are all confronted - "the obstacle" - is a dangerous weapon that has gone undetected by too many for too long . . . and it is not painless to learn about it, though much less painful than loosing all of our freedoms if we do not choose to educate ourselves and be responsible citizens who use the rights properly with which we are empowered to "persuade" all aspects of government at all levels, to do right by us - the American people.

As the article makes clear, Israel can can not be blamed for U.S.A. wrong-doing. U.S.A. efforts to move towards dictatorship are responsible.  Governments everywhere will try to do so unless the citizens are empowered by law to stop that from happening. And we, the people are responsible too, for not realizing that is something all governments eventually try to do, at first, in ways that are not noticeable.  They only become emboldened when they succeed at the unnoticeable erosion of our legal rights.  Some of the ways we miss what would otherwise be noticeable can be due to crises being magnified (whether manufactured or real) the intent being to redirect our attention away from government sleight-of-hand wrong-doing so that our attention is consumed with whatever crisis is looming that saturates the media 24/7, and in some cases the lives of most.  This is not our first rodeo as a nation in that respect, but you wouldn't know it.  "Fool me once shame on you.  Fool me twice shame on me", pertains.  Be aware of government policies there are efforts to advance or roll-back when the nation is in crisis. 

The way in which our Constitution was crafted informs us of the danger of government trying to move towards dictatorship, because of the protections and rights with which it empowers us.  However, we are empowered IF and ONLY IF we, collectively, use our protections and rights as we are supposed to do to prevent government from becoming dictatorial.  It's known as collective "self-government" and requires a lot more participation then only voting.  We never know how vital self-governing  is and how much responsibility for it belongs to each and every one of us, until there is danger that confronts everyone. That is a reason we want to elect Representatives and Senators who want to advocate for what their constituents need and want, rather than people who kow-tow to the highest bidder which is not always party politics but instead sometimes, illegally, the wishes of a foreign nation, any and all foreign nations, instead of we, the people  People who do that really do not belong in office representing our wishes, which they do not do.  There is a word for people who do that which some may know.

Israel does play a big part in the dilemma's of the U.S.A. because U.S.A. has empowered Israel to do so - a classic "vicious circle" situation.  The U.S.A. empowering Israel's criminality, is returned in kind by Israel supporting U.S.A. efforts to move in the same direction of government control and abuse (by labeling it "security") as the Israeli government started out with in modern times when political zionist terrorist groups orchestrated attacks on Palestinian villages, massacring the Palestinian people who did not leave - then in 1948 declared all the land of the Palestinian people to be the nation of Israel.  Perhaps the easiest way to truly understand the relationship is to consider that  if U.S.A. and Israel were children in elementary school, we would keep them away from one another because they each influence one another to be increasingly naughty - daring one another toward dangerous collusive ends, type of naughty.  Anyone who does not already understand the meaning of "Israelizing the American police" and "Palestinianizing the American people" will understand after reading the recent history presented by Jeff Halper in his  Mondoweiss article which is vital, at this juncture, for all to know and understand.

*About the author.

The Bungling Chaos Effect of Unpreparedness on Crisis Management

This is not about me, but I can not remove “me”, or anyone else from what needs to be said, so I start with me.  I have never been nor have I ever wanted to be an "I told you so" person.  It has seemed primarily associated with egotistically demanding credit, and guilt tripping others about having been  wrong or not competent enough.  So, even though I am still not willing to be that person on a personal level, I have no trepidation about shining a light on government for falling down on the job, primarily because of political party partisanship, when political parties are obviously corrupt and becoming more corrupt as time passes while the corruption remains unaddressed.  That translates into the political parties  doing what they are doing, through neglect,  to facilitate the development of government tyranny - claiming the entire time the potential for tyranny does not exist, and that they are not exacerbating the potential for the tyranny they deny while contributing to it.  Does the term “cognitive dissonance” come to mind? 

Why is this on my mind?  And why a harsh look at a harsh but denied reality?  Because the process of unchecked increasing corruption is being denied.  I would like to be wrong about this, of course.   I truly would.  Please prove me wrong.  That none of the evidence points in that direction does not make that an easy task.  Consider that each tiny hole which goes unnoticed, in every little brick in the wall between corruption and no corruption, weakens the wall, like the unnoticed start of a cavity in a tooth that weakens a tooth.  It is our job to be vigilant about the tiny little warnings of problems instead of neglecting them, so that we can prevent them from developing into huge problems.  An example was reported in the news this morning.  The really great news is that the cleaning of masks with hydrogen peroxide gas has started - thousands at one time in a few hours!  It is not a recently proven effective process.  However, the news is that it has just now received government approval - probably approval for financing to make scaling possible.  So, it has just been implemented.  One of the people who created the process honestly says they had not considered scaling.  But what was the use if government refused to approve the high value and use of the safe and effective procedure?

Since the battle against CoVid-19 became imminent, then peripatetically started, repeated thoughts of the plagues that we know have decimated populations  periodically throughout human history, have come to mind.  So too does the more recent handling of potential pandemics in Africa which did not become worldwide catastrophic disasters also come to mind.  And perhaps the reason these thoughts come to minds is in recognition of the huge extent of acquired knowledge, skills, and technologies since medieval times  -  health oriented, but also communication oriented, and everything else that makes lives easier and often more hygienic at the same time - all of which have evolved to being reality since plagues ravaged entire populations.  Along with and because of the progress there has also been an evolution of universal common sense that  progress has fostered in populations, worldwide.  This  recognition  gives rise to questions.  Why are we not driven to ask why a culture of unpreparedness and ignorant bungling exists regarding the reality of the current battle with the "enemy" identified as such last year while there was still time to decide when to initiate appropriate preparedness plans?  Why?  Can it be attributed to incompetence or ill-intent, or both?  Did we have preparedness plans in place?  And if not why not?

Another stark contrast these questions shine a harsh light on is why our nation is so quick to provide funds for military combat based on flawed, misleading "intelligence" - supposedly accurate information from supposed "trustworthy" nations considered  "friends" of our nation, even in preference to reliable information from our own people.  Evidence demonstrates our nation has  misplaced trust in some nations which have been hard at work for decades proving they are neither trustworthy nor friends.  It has been ongoing since the armistice of World War II.  It continues to be unconscionable that we fund the battles other nations want to fight which never were ours, but also are not worthy battles because they are motivated solely by greed and control that depend on retributive deprivation of those already in control who were not depriving those who want control, or anyone else. 

Asking these questions  actually demonstrates how far down the road of corruption our nation has traveled given that our nation has become a willingly handmaiden in support of such illogical unworthy battles for which it has allowed other nations to  dictated our participation, including demanding that we take responsibility for engaging in combat which harms others and our own people. Of course part of that demand is the financing of our participation which depends on depleting our nation of funds needed to maintain our own infrastructure and domestic needs.  So these questions also demonstrate how much mistrust of government competency and intentions being on the path to corruption has created, rightfully so, as a pervasive attitude in we, the people.  It can only be understood when we recognize it is a matter of corruption steadily creeping in that has been ignored for decades, like tiny holes accumulating in all the brinks in the wall between corruption and non-corruption which, collectively, eventually creates a point of no return leading to the wall crumbling.  

So I suppose thoughts of instances of “the plague” in millennia past come to my mind as a lesson in stark contrast now that we have now gone to battle, in a world war, on a different level and on a different front with a much more elusive enemy we are united, worldwide, in needing to defeat - at least to manage in ways that prevent ongoing catastrophe.  So why the unpreparedness and bungling as a hallmark of crisis management which, because that has been the reality of response, has also created the foundation for catastrophic disaster that could have and should have been mitigated from the start? 

And why were we not prepared as a nation, as individual nations, to realize the culture of unprepared bungling would be predictable?  Why were we not prepared as nations to minimize disaster from the start?  Why were all our national  agencies not coordinated in the past, and not trained through field exercises (yes, like the military) to be prepared to effectively hit the ground running when/if it ever became necessary to do so? Why?

Looking at how catastrophic world wide disasters have been avoided, even as recently as the past decade, because of the comprehensive ways the dangers were managed and mitigated in Africa, would be one place to find guidance.  Looking to common and effective military logistics for organizational preparedness is another place to seek guidance.  Those who have been elected and appointed to represent the quality of life of the constituent needs and wishes, equitably, of we the self-governing people, need to use their time wisely to give up competitive party partisanship for the purpose of asking one another these question and more.

And as importantly we, the people, need to take our responsibility to direct those we elected and who have been appointed to seek functional solutions through preparedness by connecting with people and experienced organizations that have effectively managed and prevented the problems of unpreparedness, and the chaotic bungling unpreparedness it creates when crises threaten to rise up to confront us, rather than after they overwhelm us due to our lack of required preparedness.

Because government is tasked by we the people to do so for the benefit of all, funded by our taxes, it needs to seek direction from people and agencies which can provide effective good leadership and direction about how to transparently implement preparedness, how to train to be ready to implement effective procedures that work, and how to mandate effective functional coordination through needed oversight.   Government just needs to give the coordinating of that responsibility for success the priority it deserves, then to just do it.  It is not necessarily easy. But it really is that simple.

Air Quality Has Improved in Cities Around the World

"Air quality has improved in cities around the world", as reported in an article about the relationship between less globabl emissions and  air quality, the facts of which  should really be no surprise to anyone:  Coronavirus lockdown causes global emissions to fall

Seems there are lessons to be learned.  Perhaps one of them is that each time the toxicity of our environment threatens the quality of life of our species and our progeny - life on earth, more precisely - we will be confronted with a worldwide pandemic.  (I am not prepared at this time to make an observation about whether such a pandemics are naturally occurring or created.)

Perhaps it is time for the technology we do have to be used in more effective and productive ways which do not require physical presence as much, in some vocations, so that we can actually be more productive personally, and professionally with less frenetic efforts. Spending an 8 hour or more block of time, daily,  dedicated to getting to and from the work place and being there, is not an absolute necessity for the work many do which can as effectively be accomplished online from a home office. 

Working from home, at least part of every week or month, provides opportunity to better schedule demands of work around the normal demands of life instead of everyone struggling to fit what is not associated with work, into before, after, and during work hours. 

Before covid-19 we knew that working from home was already an opportunity extended to a few, when it is actually an opportunity that could be extended to many more employees.  Fact is that changing the mind-set from scheduling work around life, instead of scheduling life around the demands of physical presence at work, does not necessarily change the quality of anyone's work, and it actually improves the quality of everyone's life.

When we have the time and wherewithal to make home a place where we want to be, as a comfortable hub from which to live all aspects of our lives, then why wouldn't productively working from home be advocated and  encouraged as an advantage to both employees and employers?

The People vs. Political Parties

stop the nonsense

I do not trust the Republican Party.  I do not trust the Democrat Party.  I have no use for either of them because they have both demonstrated that they function more like organized crime than political parties, particularly when either party is a majority in the House and/or the Senate.  I simply have no use for the partisan politics the parties like to create.  And I do not know anyone who does have.  That means I have no use for any political party and have never been inclined to affiliate with any political party.  Do any normal people who have refrained from becoming frenzied by "divide and conquer" created polarity, trust either party or the dedication of the parties to partisan politics instead of their constituents - we, the people?  I doubt it.

Prior to the Iowa primary, I have been flooded with e-mail from the DNC asking for donations for "Unity".  I'm like Really!?  I thought I made it clear that not even minimal trust is possible after the criminality of the DNC processes  associated with its candidate selection in 2016.  It was a charade, imho, which was actually a series of crimes that should have resulted in people being prosecuted. 

I am extremely tolerant, to a fault, and repeatedly give another chance - too far into what is undeserved chance territory.  But when I finally realize there is no change for the better, and never will be, then any possible minimal trust I want to extend can no longer exist, and never will exist again. It is useless for anyone to try.  I have tried.  And since I have the most influence with me, I know that once I have reached the limit of my trust having been betrayed (rarely indicating during the processes of betrayal that it has been betrayed), then  my trust is gone - forever.  Nothing can change that like nothing can change a force of nature. It just is.  Thus, my inability to trust the agendas, hidden and otherwise, of any political party. I highly doubt that I am atypical in this regard.

So, as usual, I will vote for whom I think will be the least damaging candidate.  I actually think we deserve an ethical  moral president with respectable good manners who knows how to talk to people without creating enmity - a uniter not a divider.  IF the DNC has the integrity, this time, to present an honest candidate for president who is lacking in moral turpitude, then of course I would be inclined to vote for that candidate.  That did not happen last time which is why I continue to say that the DNC voted our current Republican president into office. The DNC needs to own that, because it is a fact.

If the DNC screws up again, this time, then when I vote in the presidential election I will have no choice, and once again will not be able to vote for either the R or D candidate in 2020 like it was not possible to vote, in good conscience, for either the D or R candidate in 2016.  All voters will be in the same boat, no matter how we all vote.

I still think Ralph Nader's suggestion to put "none of the above" on every ballot, bears consideration - especially during times where dishonesty and narcissistic desire for dictatorial power are in play and take center stage, created and exacerbated by filthy party politics.  None of the dirty tricks in play  by political parties have been granted by our Constitution.  In fact our Founders did their best to make it clear filthy politics were neither intended to develop nor to be condoned if they emerged due to competing criminal elements in government.