Beat Smegseth should be used to refer to the current SECDEF from now on.

Thoughts?

Trying to cook with Bruce the cow - very funny

When are we going to start withholding our taxes we pay to the Federal government?

When are we going to start asking our blue state governments to withhold sending money to the Federal government? Something needs to be done.

Body Cam Footage Shows Alleged ICE Officer Pulled Over for Drunk Driving Racially Profiling Arresting Officer

My husband and I watched this 34 minute video and thought to ourselves, “who among us would ever be given this amount of privilege in a traffic stop”? Yes, the guy was finally arrested but good grief. The stop should have taken 10-15 minutes. Of course, he is blatantly impaired and also a jerk for so many different reasons.


https://www.commondreams.org/news/ice-officer-arrested-body-camera]

Despite Trump-Musk Feud, CO2 Milestone Is the 'Important News of the Day'

Source: CommonDreams.org

Carbon dioxide has been accumulating in the atmosphere due primarily to the human burning of fossil fuels, as well as by the clearing of forests and other natural carbon sinks. There, it acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat from the Earth, and is the primary gas responsible for the rise of global temperatures by approximately 1.1°C from the 1850 -1900 average. This warming has already had a host of dramatic impacts, from extreme weather events to sea-level rise to polar ice melt, and scientists warn these impacts will only accelerate under current energy policies, which put the world on track for around 3°C of warming by 2100.

The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentrations topped 430 ppm was most likely more than 30 million years ago, Ralph Keeling, who directs the Scripps CO2 Program, toldNBC News.

"It's changing so fast," he said. "If humans had evolved in such a high-CO2 world, there would probably be places where we wouldn't be living now. We probably could have adapted to such a world, but we built our society and a civilization around yesterday's climate."



Read more: https://www.commondreams.org/news/carbon-dioxide-record

What dystopian movie most accurately represents our current course?

It seems to me that Elysium is a close rendition of where we might be headed. The divide and conquer part is done. I also thought about Minority Report.

Some other lists with options in case anyone is interested in casually watching how prescient writers have been in history rather than watching it happen in real time.😫

https://lifehacker.com/10-of-the-best-movies-that-prove-rich-people-are-terrib-1848628516]

https://www.cbr.com/accurate-dystopian-movies/]

https://www.thereviewgeek.com/bestmovies-dystopianworlds/]

Obviously, many of these are based on the writings of well-known works by Orwell, Huxley, and others.

Will the current musk coup define our future?

I stumbled onto this article, which has a number of highly relevant links to other articles worth reading, after reading an article about plutocracy and the Super Bowl in Common Dreams ( link also included below).

https://inequality.org/article/will-the-current-musk-coup-define-our-future/]

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/super-bowl-pluto]

If Trump is Laundering Russian Money, Here's How It Works: This 2018 headline is still relevant

I wanted our President, Joe Biden, to stay in the race. But now, ...

I wanted Joe Biden to stay in the race. I wrote to the White House and the President expressing my satisfaction with him and his efforts to make our country a better place for us all. I wished him a speedy recovery from his latest bout with COVID. But now, since the dear man who is our President has dropped out and passed the torch, VP Kamala Harris must be our nominee in order for us to win. She has worked right along side President Biden in her role. She is more than qualified and she should be the first woman president in the history of our country. I am all for a “primary” for the VP spot on the ticket but if we have an open convention, I completely agree with Rep. Clyburn that we will most certainly lose this race. Anyone who would refer to such a scenario as a “coronation” is aiding and abetting Trump and the Republicans.

I am convinced, like most here at DU, there are nefarious forces at work here. Now that Biden has succumbed to the pressure, we cannot give anymore. We need to all come together around VP Harris immediately!

That said, does anyone have thoughts (besides Josh Hawley and Allen Lichtman) about President Biden resigning and giving the VP the incumbency? I don’t really know what to think about that idea at this point.

I thank Joe Biden for everything he has done in his life to make our country a better place.

Chadwick Boseman Dies at 43

Source: Vanity Fair

Devastatingly, and almost unbelievably, Chadwick Boseman, the star of Marvel’s Black Panther, has died at the age of 43 after a private four-year battle with colon cancer.

Despite a life cut tragically short, Boseman amassed a tremendous filmography. His legacy might be summed up in one word: Pride. In addition to the fictional T'Challa, leader of utopian nation of Wakanda in the Marvel movies, he was known for his powerful, dignified, and humanizing portrayals of pioneering Black American leaders such as baseball great Jackie Robinson in 42; future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in the legal drama Marshall, about one of his early cases as an NAACP attorney; and soul star James Brown in the musical biography Get On Up.

Read more: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/08/chadwick-boseman-dies-black-panther