Defund the Pentagon
4 May 2021
A small group of us handed out flyers in front of the building that
holds the Philadelphia office of Republican Senator Pat Toomey. We
found the crowds to be very thin, but they were generally receptive to
our pitch. The US is simply spending too much on the military and not
enough on human needs.
Scientific American - "It’s
Time to Rein in Inflated Military Budgets"
Subtitle: "In an era of pandemics and climate change, we need to
reconsider what 'national security' means"
Here's
a page from which you can contact politicians to express your
concern about that.
US deaths from the coronavirus have
dropped off from the third wave in January, but are still too high
for people to stop wearing masks and to stop social distancing. Sadly,
scientists at UCLA figure the US
lost 400k more people that a more competent US response would have
prevented.
Deseret News ranks the people most
likely to win the Republican presidential nomination for 2024. The
first one is obviously, The Last Guy (TLG). The third and sixth are
former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo. As TLG was an extremely lazy person with no deal-making
ability, neither Haley nor Pompeo ever accomplished anything
worthwhile. What I find very disheartening is that the two governors
Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, rank second
and fourth in that list. Florida lost almost 35,500 people to COVID-19
(3rd highest loss in the nation) and South Dakota, with a far smaller
population, lost a little under 2,000.
Just two days ago, DeSantis suspended
all remaining restrictions on mask-wearing and social distancing.
The White House had no immediate comment, but that strikes me as highly
premature. DeSantis has shown great impatience with coronavirus
restrictions, at the expense, I believe, of the people of Florida.
The CDC concluded that for Noem to hold a 10-day motorcycle rally back
in August 2020 caused a
spread of COVID-19 to neighboring states.
The Israeli human rights organization, B’tselem, concluded
in January that Israel was effectively an Apartheid state. In late
April, Human Rights Watch concluded
the same thing. HRW's desire to see the "peace process" contniue
has given way to the conclusion that there is no currently active
process and that the Israeli occupation of, and settlements in, the
West Bank and seige of Gaza are both permanent.
Since 2014, Israel has launched several wars against Gaza. The
Interational Criminal Court has accepted that they have jurisdiction,
especially as the Palestinian lands became a member in 2015. Palestinians do not
see their prospects as particularly good, but it's the best they can do
right now. They were especially heartened about "Brazil and Uganda
taking ‘manisfestly incoherent’ positions against their own
pre-existing recognition of Palestine..." as it's always good to see
confusion on the other side.
How has Biden been doing as President shortly after completing his
first 100 days? He made a promise that he'd get 100 million shots into
US persons in that period. He has overfulfilled that promise by getting 220 million shots
into people in that period!
Republicans opposed and refused to vote for the $1.9 trillion American
Rescue Plan back in March. Sure
hasn't stopped them from taking credit for it, though! Lot more
bills like that on the way!
Press Secretary Jen Psaki is geting awesome
reviews from progressives.
Her style is not at all confrontational,
but she manages to
get her point across!
PRAWNWorks.net