JUST SOME POSTS

There are a lot of comparisons between Trump's appointment of Amy Barrett and Obama's appointment of Merrick Garland. There is one HUGE difference that makes all the difference. The President's party is in control of the Senate at the time of the appointment. People seem to not understand that the appointments to the Federal Judiciary are at the “Advice & Consent of the Senate”. The advice and consent of the Senate of the Garland appointment was “we will not approve him”. Although I thought at the time and still think now it would have been better to have the vote and the appointment be ended that way, it is well within the Senate’s purview to say “No” prior to the vote. It is forgotten that Garland would have not been approved in all likelihood even with the vote.  The other point is this: the people have spoken and had input into the appointment of the next Supreme Court justice - in 2016 they voted in Donald Trump (I know that argument is somewhat negated by the fact...

 Somewhere among all these posts is one where I talked about how the problems that the politicians were going to fix have been the same all my life. The political ads from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s could be used today with a small bit of "polishing".  Our elected representatives have been correcting inequities and solving the same problems for as long as I have been hearing politicians. I am sure it goes back way before me! If the politicians wanted to (or giving them the benefit of the doubt - were able to ) solve these issues - they would have - period. There are also posts here where I try to delineate the powers and responsibility of the branches of our government as outlined in the Constitution. I will not go there again (if you care - go looking), I will just say that the three branches have to work together - at least somewhat - to get anything done. As a reminder the three branches are the Executive (President), the Judicial (the federal courts headed by the Suprem...

  Dr. Malcolm Kendrick is (as he describes himself) a Scottish MD, author, speaker, and skeptic. He is one of the folks that I "follow" and read fairly regularly. His take on the Covid-19 pandemic was one that I digested as I came with my own opinions early on. This post he just did sums up where we are and how we got here: https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/ It is a long read, but well worth it if you want to know the truth. The Covid-19 pandemic has been turned into nothing more than a political tool at this point. Almost all responsible scientific and medical-type folks have come to the conclusion that the world screwed up royally and caused severe disruption of the entire economy as well as the well-being of the population.  Please read his comments at the link above. (there are many other great reads here as well) No more needs to be said.

I could not come up with any good title for this one. The subject does not lend itself to any type of levity - even sarcasm.  I should not have to say this, but in today's world, I will: this post, the facts and statements presented here in no way condone or pardon the unspeakable act of slavery. The ownership, control over, and/or forced labor of another human being is reprehensible and cannot be supported with any statements or facts.  This post came about from a "discussion" I had online with someone (as is normal online - I cannot know for certain if they were male or female nor how old they were - they presented with a traditional male name and as a college student in Ohio). They were comparing the condition of African-Americans today to slaves in the US south in the antebellum period. After "talking" some back and forth I came to realize that they truly believed the USA was the historic center of slavery in the world and the nexus of the slavery issue. Alt...