France can do it–why can't we?

Last week a French law prohibiting unsolicited cold calls by businesses took effect.  I probably get ten of these calls a day, often four of five from the same scam artists.  Lately I’ve been getting solicited for an auto accident I might have been in that I can get money for.  

I do have a bit of fun.  First you get a robot, always female, who then switches you over to a “claims specialist.”  If I’m not too busy I see how long I can keep the scam artist on the line.  I also tell the scam artist outlandish things, like “I did have an accident, but it wasn’t my fault because I was drunk,” or “I only killed two pedestrians.”  Click.

Nonetheless, these calls are annoying.  Why can the French legislature act when our Congress can’t even publish the Epstein files?

We own Big Bend National Park

The closest I ever got to Big Bend was Fort Stockton on I-10, but this evening when I saw the film of the earth-moving equipment and the bulldozer uprooting trees in the Park, I felt so sad.  I heard that something like one percent of the people illegally crossing into the U.S. enter at Big Bend.  There is no reason to put a wall there other than to show that you can do it.

Like the White House and the Smithsonian, Big Bend National Park is owned by all of us, not some buffoon in the White House.  We–Congress, Texas politicians the population at large– really need to stop this madness.  And that is what it is.

 

The Timing of Medicare cuts

The Great Leader and the Republicans in Congress have cut subsidies for the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces.  So far this year approximately 3 million people have lost their medical insurance.

But wait.  The Republican Congress also enacted cuts in Medicaid.  Guess when those cuts take effect.  After the November midterms.  

Those wily Republicans.  Clever little buggers.

Working the Ukrainian Festival

Each year the Democratic Party has a booth at the Ukrainian Festival in Carbon County.  We give away small Ukrainian flags and plastic bracelets, have candidate literature available, collect money for a Ukrainian charity that helps bombing victims, and display four large posters with quotations by Trump and Vance praising Putin and criticizing Zelenskyy.

It is wonderful to bask in the warmth of the support of hundreds of people.  In the entire afternoon we had two negative passersby, including a MAGA supporter who claimed the Democratic Party was filled with Communists.  Everyone else gave us thumbs up, snapped pictures of the posters, took flags, and engaged in friendly discussions.  It was a great day.

The Republican Party did not have a booth.

Dayton, Ohio

“Would you like to come over for tea with the missus and me?  It’s a real nice way to spend the day in Dayton, Ohio, on a lazy Sunday afternoon in 1903.”

That’s from a wonderful Randy Newman song which you can hear on YouTube.  Dayton must still be a nice place.  It has immigrants from over 100 countries, including India, China, Vietnam, Haiti, and Rwanda.  

The City Council decided to remove all Flock cameras.  It was afraid ICE would use the data to harass immigrants.  I’ve never been to Dayton, but it sounds like my kind of town.

Rival conceptions of nationhood in the West

In an article entitled “Continental Drift” in the Aug. 17 issue of the New Yorker, Ian Buruma writes:

Since the nineteenth century, the Western world has been divided between two rival conceptions of nationhood:  the nation as a community of blood and faith, and the nation as a democratic state of citizens of equal rights.

That is one of the best summaries of the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats of today.  Listen to any speech by Trump or Hegseth or Vance, and you will hear the former.  Listen to any speech by any Democratic Senate candidate, and you will hear the latter.  

As the old labor song said, “Which side are you on, boys, which side are you on?”

 

Rounding up the "tonks"

I’ve heard that ICE agents are tired of being called “Gestapo.”  If that is the case, then they should quit acting like the Gestapo.  Agents are now referring to Mexican immigrants as “tonks.”  That is supposedly the sound made when one of those big flashlights is brought down on a Mexican immigrant’s head.  In light of that, Gestapo seems all too apt.

It is obvious that brown people are targets, whether American citizens or not.  And the rot starts at the top, where ICE administrators are issuing quotas of 3000 arrests a day.  And now our local municipalities are signing agreements to partner with ICE in return for funding.