In a world of many mistakes I thought it would change. Could we make it out? Promises break so I need To hear you say, You will keep it now Not some other day.
I long for our talks, How you said my name. The way you twist, the way you rise and fall. Your heart on a sleeve and face, your strength through it all, the way you are in lace.
When the curtain called the time Will we both be home again? It wasn’t hard to feel the signs, the ease, your depth of femme Till love’s death Of peace of mind.
Never before in our country’s 247-year history has a Speaker of the House been ousted, removed, and forced to vacate. In a vote of 216 to 210, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been (for the moment) terminated for NOTbeing the Speaker of the House chamber! He was not the House Speaker for the Republican party, but by bound duty the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representative to legislate and get bills, acts, and appropriations done. That was his sworn duty. Period. According to a majority of his own House Republicans, he failed and failed miserably.
Since this historic vote took place earlier this afternoon, I’ve watched and heard many interviews with Republican Representatives by the mainstream news outlets, and all of the Republican Reps kept trying to harp on the national debt of $31.4–$33 trillion. It is the typical deflect and divert tactic away from the sheer chaos today’s Republican party is in… and it is their own fault, their own catastrophe they themselves created in 2010–2016.
But nonetheless, let’s look much closer, much deeper into the context of their panicked response to McCarthy’s removal: the national debt and deficitthat supposedly, according to them, was caused by Democratic administrations. Grab the microscopes.
According to the Pew Research Center, a reliable established goliath in research reporting and objective fact-checking, there are five (5) facts about our accumulation of national debt that the mainstream news outlets rarely get in-depth about.
The federal government’s total public debt stood at just under $31.46 trillion as of Feb. 10th, 2023. Nearly all of that debt – about $31.38 trillion – is subject to the statutory debt limit.
For several years, the nation’s debt has been bigger than its gross domestic product (GDP). Read the Pew article for more in-depth details.
21.8% of the public debt, or $6.87 trillion, is owned by another arm of the federal government itself. This includes Medicare; specialized trust funds, such as those for highways and bank deposit insurance; and civil service and military retirement programs. But the biggest chunk of those “intragovernmental holdings” belongs to Social Security.
The Federal Reserve System is the single largest holder of U.S. government debt. The Fed bought Treasuries in massive quantities during the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to keep the U.S. economy from buckling under the strain of shutdowns and quarantines.
Servicing the debt is one of the federal government’s biggest expenses. Most of this spending is on veterans’ benefits and services due to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is more than it will spend on elementary and secondary education, disaster relief, agriculture, science and space programs, foreign aid, and natural resources and environmental protection.
The national debt has grown significantly since the early 1980s under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
The largest percentage increases to the debt occurred under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, both of whom enacted tax cuts that led to large deficits.[…]
Flashpoints that greatly contributed to the debt over the past 50 years include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic — the latter two prompting sweeping stimulus measures from Congress that cost trillions of dollars.
And let me add to the last point of the COVID-19 pandemic, our administration at that time, the GOP and tRump, did very little (if anything substantial) for the preparation of this country to go to WAR against a highly contagious, lethal biological virus! I repeat, tRump and his administration never took the pandemic and public health and safety measures seriously. Hence, look what happened.
Therefore my fellow Americans, when you are bombarded by political party rhetoric and propaganda on this nation’s debt and deficit like those heard today from the House chamber members scrambling and panicking to put out all the fires caused by their own Party, look deeper, look much closer into the factual data. THAT is where you will find the nectar and honey of what they speak about truthfully, or lie about, or divert with vague ambiguous half-truths.
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
For a few weeks now I have been contemplating a separate, dedicated blog to futebol/footballing only, primarily for my footballing friends that follow my regular public blog. I do not intend this possible blog to become an overwhelming workload of maintenance or responding. Those of you who know of and understand my present situation—as a full-time/overtime Caretaker of my Mom with severe Stage 7 Dementia and Early-Alzheimer’s—I simply cannot spend tons of time on another additional blog; I can barely manage this one and not at all my private blog.
Hence, I am hoping that this possible Footballing/Futebolling blog is merely an opportunity for myself and my WordPress sporting friends/followers around the world, e.g. South Africa, England, Wales, Australia/New Zealand, Brasil, etc., and infrequently the USA, to sometimes discuss, vent, or celebrate… mmm, yes… “The Beautiful Game” from all of the world’s top leagues, European and South American tournaments, transfers, up and coming “Wonder Kids,” and World Cup qualifying as well as THE quadrennial World Cup, and anything and/or everything football, or futebol, or soccer depending on your vernacular, including past/present great players, tactics, training, and specific individual and team skills. Also, the top managers of the game; so basically anything related to the world’s most popular sport. Hands down.
Therefore, I present to my WordPress footballing buddies, what do you think about this idea? Be boldly honest please, I need to know what to expect and whether or not I can/could keep up reasonably well. Tell me your thoughts and feelings.
Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always
Like many of you I am completely baffled every time Congress members threaten to let our federal government shutdown. And by the way, there have been 21 shutdowns since 1976. And worse, some in Congress right now appear to have no real motivation to collaborate in order to avoid it. Why? Because their Cult leader is commanding them to stonewall not just the House Speaker, but also millions and millions of Americans who desperately depend on Social Security, Medicare, SNAP, and other federal benefits to survive and get by month-to-month! They will be left out in the cold with none of these retirement needs coming in. And I won’t even go into how our military, law-enforcement, federal courts, transportation hubs, NASA and NOAA, disaster responses, nationwide education, and a whole host of other programs and agencies too long to list here.
(AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)
How is this possible? The United States is the ninth wealthiest nation in the world in adjusted GDP/capita (2022). The U.S. has the second most billionaires in the world behind first-place China (2023). And furthermore, the United States has the strongest economy in the world over China, Japan, Germany, and India, respectively (2023).
So how is it possible that our federal government does this too frequently and has actually shutdown 21-times and possibly a 22nd time this coming October 1st? How!? Is it because not enough of America’s wealthiest people and corporations pay their fair share of taxes? Why has this “shutdown rattling” (of swords) become chronic in America? For more details:
Addendum 10/3/2023 — My friend Steve Ruis over at Uncommon Sense published a very good post on our government shutdown:A Distinctly American Problem? Really?I recommend checking it out. It’s well worth it.
This is a continuation of the previous two blog-posts about Texas and white Texan’s extreme, delusional arrogance about how great it is to live in this hardcore Red state, particularly in the far suburban and rural areas and counties. By the way, just in the last two years or so Texas has surpassed Florida, Washington, Colorado, Nevada, and North Dakota as the third fastest growing population by state in the nation. Only Utah and Idaho are growing faster. As a result, Texas has for years now had very serious growing problems and they have not been improving.
As I alluded to in my previous post Best U.S. States to Reside, the Individual Median Income for Texans is $38,059 for a 2023 single-earner Texan. However, the sad disturbing statistical fact for Texans is that in 2021 the Average Cost of Living in Texas is $45,114 per year. I guarantee that cost has gone up noticeably. The largest cost for any Texan, by far and away, will be housing. A further breakdown of the average cost of living in various Texas cities compared to the national average can be found here.
Living conditions here are not improving, but instead will decline further over the next 5–10 years.
Dallas, Texas homeless encampment underneath an underpass of Hwy 75/Central Expressway
The other day I was waiting in line at my grocer’s pharmacy. I had to wait about 5-7 minutes because there was only one lady behind the counter/register for customers picking up their prescriptions. The gentleman she was helping was having issues with the man’s other missing prescription. This man causing the backup behind me was a white man, approximately 5’8″–5’9″ weighing maybe 220–230 lbs. with a large beer-gut, in kaki shorts, Walmart-brand sneakers, and wearing a black t-shirt. This is what the back of his t-shirt with a camouflaged square proudly advertised:
In my mind I was chuckling a lot, given my previous two blog-posts I just published at the end of last month full of actual facts and statistics about Texas and living here, not silly unfounded propaganda on t-shirts.
I thought, “Texas is only ‘great’ if…” you are of a very specific ethnicity and demographic, within a specific socioeconomic class like a business owner. Moreover, you have belonged to a specific political party your entire adult life in Texas or some likeminded state previously before moving here. Aside from this white man’s ridiculous t-shirt of arrogance, living here with the rocketing housing costs in Texas, it is about to get worse.
Today, Friday, September 1st, 2023, more than 770 new laws passed by the Texas Legislature, go into effect. The immediate effects and later ripple-effects of the new laws will impact untold millions of middle-class Texans in major urban and rural counties struggling financially during two straight years of hyper-inflation, let alone the lower-classes and disadvantaged Texans suffering the most. PBS station KERA of North Texas says more confusion and litigation is on the horizon:
“One example of this swirling confusion are rules in Dallas and Austin that that gives renters extra time to pay rent before a landlord can evict them. The ordinances ensure what some call a right for renters to “cure” the late rent before losing their home.
House Bill 2127, when it becomes law, blocks local governments from adopting, enforcing or maintaining any “ordinance, order, or rule regulating conduct….regulating evictions or otherwise prohibiting, restricting, or delaying” the eviction process. […]
At stake are countless city and county rules, ordinances, policies and practices, potentially including some humdrum policies that have been on the books for ages. That could include rules limiting fireworks, governing city and county contracts, water conservation and air quality efforts, payday lending limits, and more.”
— christopher connelly, kera (pbs) reporter for north Texas, august 29, 2023 for kera news
There are only two cities in Texas that offer the past COVID-19 counter measure called Right To Cure: Dallas and Austin. These have been city eviction regulations giving low-income or struggling renters a grace period to pay their rent and late fees before their landlord can start the eviction process. Ben Martin from Texas Housers, a low-income housing information service, says “These “right-to-cure” provisions are the norm in a majority of U.S. states.” Not so in Texas. House Bill 2127 went into effect today. To read more of Connelly’s reporting click here. What is essentially assured for struggling Texans is their protections for fair housing and a noticeably higher risk of becoming homeless after costly unforeseen events, disasters, or joblessness occur.
In other Texas and national political news, Texas is one of six (6) states at highest risk of Breakout of National Election Denialism in 2024’s Presidential election according to MAP. What are the two primary causes for this in Texas?
Given all the facts and stats about living in Texas over the last several decades and most of the 774 new legislative laws going into effect today, that man at the H-E-B pharmacy should’ve worn a t-shirt that said this:
Try to Live Safe – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Alot More
I have zero expectation that anything I ever say will end someone’s belief in their God. Not my goal or purpose. That alone belongs to the individual. ~ Zoe
'Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it' - Terry Pratchett
The Professor's Convatorium 