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- LA teams contributions… In the wake of current California wildfires, Los Angeles sports teams have offered to contribute $8 million to the recovery effort. While this appears to be a generous offer, in fact it averages out to $666 per structure destroyed. Apparently these teams can find money to pay their star athletes nearly a billion dollars but have little regard for the fans who are expected to attend their games. This is disheartening.
- Currently the court system is debating with President Trump the fate of the American division of TikTok, a very popular social media platform. While Elon Musk has indicated that he is not interested in buying TikTok we believe he will eventually decide to assume the 190 million users of that platform. That additional exposure combined with his “X” platform will allow him to control more than half of all social media platform users in this country. His control will be seen as a strong propaganda vehicle for the Trump administration.
- As part of the announced federal government cost cutting apparently $4.1 billion is being removed from the budget of the National Institute on Health. This reduction will severely cripple the NIH ability to research and recommend changes that are necessary in our ongoing development of health protocols–especially when and if additional outbreaks like COVID occur. (bird flu?)
- The current conflict between Israel and Hamas has triggered a greedy reaction from our president. He believes he has the right to interfere in the sovereignty of Israel and demand that the Palestinians abandon the Gaza area on the Mediterranean Sea. He has even suggested using the Gaza Strip as a development area (for his own properties??). This is an example of pure greed. To displace millions of people so that a seaside resort can be developed and using the president’s office as the basis for pressuring all that displacement of humanity is outrageous. Whatever happened to the emoluments restriction? (Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution) Whatever happened to decency?
- A perfect storm is developing around the confirmation of Robert F Kennedy Jr.. The spread of the bird flu and it’s mutations capability threatens to destroy a significant amount of American livestock. This problem goes beyond birds now that cows and other animals are exhibiting symptoms and dying. With RFK in charge very little progress can be expected and very few obstacles will be placed to stop this spread. More importantly, if bird flu is eventually transmittable from human-to-human how will a vaccine be developed if the Director of HHS is anti-vax? (or, just thoroughly incompetent?)
- Recently, President Trump has announced a series of tariffs which are supposedly intended to aid American manufacturers as they attempt to compete with lower cost foreign-made products. Unfortunately, he is picking on our major trade partners, China, Canada and Mexico. This threesome accounts for half of all imports. So, by in effect raising the cost of their products to a par with similar American-made products the cost of all such products inflates. We will pay more for items made of steel, aluminum, using batteries, some farm produce and many other items. It is impossible to reduce inflation under these conditions and the retaliation by these countries will reduce the profits of every multi-national American corporation. There are no winners here–everyone loses. Welcome to the genius of Trump economics.
- A few months ago Elon Musk challenged the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB is the Federal Government agency that oversees labor-management issues and attempts to resolve disputes with minimal work interruption. Musk was, at that time, having a problem with firing several key employees and supposedly ignoring their employment contracts. These employees were suing Musk so he wanted the NLRB to “butt out”. Now that Trump has taken over, he has fired the long-standing and highly regarded Head of the NLRB, Gwynne Wilcox. The actual firing is allegedly illegal but that’s not even a blip on the Trump radar. He knows he has all the judges in his pocket. Now both Tesla and Amazon (think “billionaire friends of the “Donald”) are free to abuse employees without fear of legal reprisals. BTW, Trump also fired the two Democrats on the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as well….seems they were suddenly and inexplicably incompetent. The Trump message is: if you’re a Trump supporter–I’ll take care of you. If you cross me–you’re “dead meat”.
- A Federal judge from the conservative 5th Court of Appeals has just ruled that 18 to 20 year olds are permitted to carry handguns. While this respects the 2nd Amendment, it disrespects common sense. Greater gun access in the hands of young people without real need is inviting more killing. (39% of all school shootings identify students or former students as the perp) The Federal Law that restricted this age group from carrying handguns had been in place since 1968. Another win for the NRA; another loss for humanity.
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