Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

Politics and religion are again meeting in a way that is detrimental to the Constitution and the nation. Churches are supposed to be nonprofit, but judging by the opulence of the buildings they build and the way most of the leaders of churches live, nonprofit is just a nonsense concept.
The idea of churches not paying taxes is not just one that the US honors, other nations do as well. That status was bestowed on them and along with that came a law in the 1950’s that said you will keep that status as long as you stay out of politics. That worked for several years but it is no longer true. The IRS is not going after churches that are involved in politics.
What does it mean for the average person that does not go to church? You are paying for public things like paved roads, and sales taxes and just about everything in between so that churches do not have to pay. If they were a true non-profit at the end of the year they would have distributed all of the money they have to the needy, we know that does not happen.
Let’s be honest in saying that influence is part and parcel to what churches are all about. They spout propaganda from the pulpit weekly and if you hear the call then you believe and follow. That message will of course, reflect the ideas and ideals of the minister and the congregation if not the greater community. If the message is negative towards any particular group or company or person, more than likely that message will make a difference.
The far right of this nation is very much, at present, on the record as white nationalists. The message they are preaching is most likely not one that is helpful to any candidate that is not white. This idea that ability, brains or worth is confined to one race or another is stupid but enough people are still of that mind to make a difference.
The idea, or belief that only one race has a lock on whatever is important makes as much sense as the idea that corporations are people and have a right to vote. Another lie that was said often enough that some started to believe it. We have problems in our country, the influence that is provided by those in leadership positions can not be understated. We get influence from our government, the media and which way the owners and directors of the media corporations what the wind blows, and from the pulpit if we are church attendees.
All the hype and far too much divisive nonsense is directed at us that our more easily influenced can become less than good neighbors. Radical ideas, racial bias and a host of other negativity encourages violence and hostility. How do we overcome these issues?
One possible idea is to make our police forces more accessible to everyone. Take some out of the cars and back to walking a beat and getting to know the neighborhoods. That seems radical to some but when you ride around in a car and the only interactions are because someone did something wrong, positive impressions of one another are hard to form. The idea might cost more to have the extra police but the positives of interaction should overcome the cost. Let respect become a common value of both the public and the police, we will all gain from the experience.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

As we get closer to making the decision as to how our country will be run, not just for the next 4 years but very possibly forever, it becomes more important to register and vote. At present we have the right and duty to express our wishes at the ballot box. Trump is promising that if he is elected we will no longer be bothered by this rather trivial recurring event. Guess that means that there will be no need to express your wishes as you will have not rights or at least no right to express.
Some are holding on to the notion that he will somehow be better this time around than he was on the first trip. With the glorification of imaginary people like Hannable Lector and talking about producing so much electricity that you will beg to have it shut off, one has to wonder about mental stability. We saw his adoration for the autocrats of the world and his disdain of those that have served to defend this nation, and yet there are people that still think he will do a good job.
The other problem is, of course, that Harris is a woman and it is well known that women are inferior beings. That status was bestowed on them from ages ago and has only been enforced by a male dominated society. Men have maligned women and come up with all sorts of denigrating names to call them, and yet the male of the species never seems to stop pursuing them.
Some cultures have the idea that girls are worthless or can be sacrificed for the glory of the male. The truth is that without the female there would be no perpetuation of the species. Granted a male can father potentially thousands of children in the time it takes for one child to develop and be born, but without that birth there would be nothing.
As to a woman being President or the leader of a nation there have been many Queens that ruled over the centuries and still rule today. There have been elected leaders of nations that were women and they have done very well in those positions so the argument that they are unfit for such roles is totally unfounded.
Why are so many determined to make judgements about abilities based only on gender, or color of skin, or some other superficial nonsense? Every person that strives to be more that merely one of the crowd is tested by one means or another for suitability in the place and we see a goodly number fail. All one has to do today to see the failure rate of those being elected to office is look to Congress and observe the republican representatives therein. The House has done little else in the last 2 years except try to run interference for Trump in his legal battles.
This coming election will hopefully keep democracy alive. No doubt the loser of this battle will behave as he did before and claim that he was cheated out of the election. It would be nice if that doesn’t happen but the only way that is possible is if he chokes to death on a hamburger.

Most Countries Don’t Celebrate Workers in September

While reserving the first Monday in September for Labor Day hearkens back to the holiday’s New York origins, the decision was also designed to distract from a more unsavory moment in the history of U.S. labor relations. Most countries around the world actually celebrate unions and workers on May 1, otherwise known as International Workers’ Day. This international holiday actually has its origins in the U.S., when a clash between Chicago police and workers in 1886 left several dead and dozens injured. Known as the Haymarket Riot, the event went on to inspire International Workers’ Day in 1889. Uneasy honoring such a bloody moment in U.S. history — especially one that inspired widespread vitriol against labor unions — Congress and President Cleveland opted for a different date entirely.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

The current political situation with the campaign is consuming and has a very ugly feeling about it. One party is very upbeat and focused on the future and bringing back common sense and dignity to our society. The other is advocating the destruction of everything we have ever established as good and necessary.
How is it possible to destroy our public schools and advance our society? Charter schools may have an advantage as they are less likely to have to put up with politicians telling them that they have to do certain things. Will closing the EPA improve our lot? It will make it easier to pollute our waterways and put chemicals into the air, oh yeah, and line the pockets of those in the mineral exploitation business. Take away the CDC and this will improve our health. Take away the FDA and that will make our food safer. Take away public health and we shall all live to be 100. If all that sounds like a lot of bull shit it is because that is all that it is.
Our future will have challenges that will need to be met with study and common sense solutions. Global warming is not just a theory, it is happening and if we can delay or mitigate it we are going to need the condition to be monitored, studied and worked on so that it does not make us distincant. By working on these problems here we are helping not only ourselves but the rest of the world. This world is the only home we have and it requires our care and attention.
The message that is being sent by Harris and Walz is refreshing and hopeful. The inclusiveness of taking care of all our neighbors, not just worrying about the ones that profess to be our brothers because of skin color and church attendance. Our Constitution does not address a concept of following a specific religion, nor speaking a particular language or exalting a certain skin color, so why would we listen to a party that wants to separate us based on any of those values.
Yes, ideally our government should have our back, but that does not mean they legislatively have the right to enter our homes or doctors offices to find out what illness we have or when and if we have sex or anything like that. The job of government is to help provide for all our needs and prevent the attitude of one group from overpowering another. This is not about whether a procedure is right for you or not it is about the right to be able to acquire that procedure if desired without interference.

Crossed the Rainbow Bridge Kitty Time

Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day a holiday.

U.S. HISTORY

L abor Day, celebrated on the first Monday in September in the United States, honors workers and their contributions to the nation. Congress passed a bill signed by President Grover Cleveland making it an official federal holiday in 1894, but state observations date back to 1887. Five different states observed Labor Day that year, but Oregon came first; the state’s bill to recognize the holiday became law on February 21, 1887. 

Strangely — and of little use to people with weekday work schedules — Oregon’s first Labor Day was celebrated not in September, but the first Saturday in June. After Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York each passed laws recognizing Labor Day on the now-traditional September date, Oregon moved its own observance to match. The September date comes from the first-ever Labor Day demonstration, which was organized by the Central Labor Union (a coalition of local labor unions) and held in New York City on September 5, 1882. It included a one-day strike, a parade, and, fitting with more modern Labor Day celebrations, a giant picnic. Unlike May Day, an international observance on May 1 that commemorates the 1886 Haymarket Riot in Chicago, there was no particular significance to the timing of the demonstration — it likely just fell roughly between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving on the calendar. In the ensuing years, pro-worker demonstrations on the first Monday in September started cropping up throughout the country, eventually gaining enough steam to become a national holiday.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

The Lincoln Project has a video out that is so scary that it draws doubts about what roles various entities will play if Trump gets re-elected.The video depicts a father daughter trip that was to get the daughter an abortion and they get stopped by a police officer. The officer knows about the girl’s condition, knows what the trip map they are using indicates and is aware of the clinic destination they have in mind.
The father is charged with attempting to take his underage daughter out of state for an illegal procedure and the girl is arrested for attempting to escape motherhood. The thought that a police officer would have the personal information on these people is disturbing enough but then to proceed to the charges is even more outlandish.
A policeman should not have that sort of information and where the hell did such charges come from? This is the stuff of return to the dark ages. We know that a part of the world has already been thrown back to a time when religion was the first order and humanity was the last effort. Take a look at the middle east as that entire region has slipped back into the male ruled religious requirement of women being veiled in public.
To have faith may give some the support they feel they need to cope with the world. What text do they follow as every christian bible has a version identifier attached. That means that it was authorized by someone and that someone did the translation to further the message as they saw fit. All of the versions have some deviation from the original if you could find one.
We, as a nation, need common sense laws and common sense administrator of the laws to properly manage the country and provide the respect to our citizens, our nation, and our environment that is required. We have a populus of people that do not follow a single religion and we cannot force any religion on everyone.
The effort to rule through religion is a formula that promotes division and distrust. The domination of a faith in a region generally brings intolerance for others in the form of death. Believe as I believe or die, The current battles going on in much of Africa are over what belief will dominate.
The really sad part of all this is that every religion professes to be about love. Worse yet is the “Love thy neighbor as you love yourself” attitude and then go kill the neighbor cause they do not have the same faith. History tells us that at one time Catholics required Jews to repent and convert to have their soles saved and then killed them anyway because, well you cannot trust someone that is not true to their faith.
Again we are at the junction of minding your own business and let others do the same. You do not have all the answers, no one does and each of us needs to remember that.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

There is an item on Military.com about vet benefits. One of the issues is that there is a large shortfall in the money to support the VA and pay the benefits to the veterans. In the article it says, we as a nation, borrow money to go to war. We are in agreements that make it necessary for us to honor those agreements so we have to borrow to support.
The fact that we supported the Gulf War, Desert Shield/Desert Storm and paid for all that out of our funds still bothers me. There is something about not supporting monarchies written somewhere. The fact that Kuwait has enough money to allow all the nation’s citizens to not work and have an allowance says that they have enough to pay for our support, which it seems they did not.
Is that being picky? Those of us that were sent there were not given an option nor were we paid extra as far as I know. Not like hired soldiers would have been paid at least. Point being maybe our shortfalls could be eased by requesting some pay back on our involvement. Just a thought.
Should we abandon those that we have agreements with? That is not the answer if we wish to maintain our status in the world. However, when those that have been helped are recovered and on stable footing again, repayment of some of the costs does not seem like a big ask.
The other source of the money needed to support those that have served should be coming from the pockets of the arms and ammunition companies that always make huge amounts of money from war. Those profits never seem to slow down because these companies have people in Congress that seem to be willing to involve us in every little conflict no matter how big or how far removed from our security it might be.
After we have gone to war, lost some folks and injured a bunch more they come home and are denied benefits and the dealers are given tax breaks. Somehow that does not seem fair. Maybe rather than asking the nations we helped we should be taking a percentage from the arms dealers, a much bigger percentage than we are now. Radical thinking for sure

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

Education is important whether it is our children getting educated in the classroom, on the playground or at home. Thing is education never stops, or the opportunity for education never stops, some just choose to ignore the opportunity.
So on to the lesson at hand. There is a publication called 2025 put out by the Heritage Foundation and it is claimed to be the manifesto for the second term of Trump as President. This is a 900 page script of all the things that are to be done both to the citizens of this country, and the country itself. It is similar to the books written by Marx reference Communism and Hilters plan for the 3000 years that his rule was to be felt.
The book tells of the massive number of people that are being recruited and trained to move into key positions in the government on day one. It describes the process of eliminating government agencies that are classified as unnecessary or that interfere with big business and their profits. The subjects include books to be banned, people to be deported, and who is the enemy of the state and to be locked up for their crimes against Trump.
That is a thumb nail sketch of the subjects and nowhere near a full list of the agencies that are to be done away with. It is afterall, a comprehensive program filled with rules and regulations, intended actions and oh so many other things that only a dictator could possibly put into place, but then he did say that was his goal.
For all friend or foe you gotta know what life is to be like in the future should we draw the short straw again. If it does nothing more than gets you to vote to save what you have and keep you from becoming even less than you are today then you should read it.
No one wants to have their view of most anything challenged by someone else, but if you get to read the words as they have been published and from the authors then acceptance becomes more likely. Accepting that it was said not necessarily accepting the outcome described.

https://www.project2025.org/