“I Have No Need of You”
From this morning’s Lectionary Readings:
1 Corinthians 12:12-26
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.13For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
14 Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?
18But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many members, yet one body. 2
1The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ 22On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; 24whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, 25that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. 26If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.
Hope is Not a Strategy
Our leader has said other nations will come to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump last week first raised the idea of naval escorts for tankers in the strait “if necessary,” but on Monday, he hoped they wouldn’t be needed.
“When the time comes the U.S. Navy and its partners will escort tankers through the strait if needed. I hope it’s not going to be needed, but if it’s needed, we’ll escort them right through,” he said.
But even with Naval escorts, an expensive and time-consuming mission, it’s “not necessarily a guaranteed success,” according to Kirby.
“Drones can fly low and slow, they can fly fast and low, and they can do a lot of damage even to one ship with the Navy not being able to knock it out of the sky,” he said. (From TheHill.com)
And then this, from Associated Press:
“Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe,” Trump wrote on Saturday, later adding, “this should have always been a team effort.”
It was not clear if that multi-nation push was set to begin or if Trump only hoped it might, however. That’s because he also wrote: “Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected” will “send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer” be threatened by Iran.
The normal route for declaring war is to communicate your intentions to your allies before you attack. It is to prepare and coordinate with your own national institutes before you attack. And, when you are going to seek assistance, it is a really good thing if you have not insulted your allies in numerous ways before asking for their help, especially when it involves great risking expensive ships, aircraft and lives.
“Hope” and “Hopefully” are not good substitutes for steady, consistent diplomatic relations and providing reliable, honorable leadership on the international level. This would-be war eagle has soiled his nest.
What Country am I Living In?
As an American, I’ve lived in a lot of countries, often countries that controlled news coverage and punished those who reported news the leaders found embarrassing.
Many experienced people found ways around it. They phrased their reports carefully, leaving the reader to read behind the lines.
It’s not what you expect in a Democratic Republic. It’s not what I expect in the United States of America, where the very first amendment to our Constitution verified our right to have our own opinions and our freedom to state them (given that they were not, of course, a threat against someone else, or shouting “Fire” in a crowded theatre.)
And now the elected leader of the United States is trying to control any negative reporting about his War, a war that surprised his own country, his own people. A War which has not been supported by Congress, which has the right to declare War. As billions go up, literally, in smoke, or down in flames, Trump and Hegseth want the FCC to pull the broadcasting license of anyone reporting the events that are really happening. Trump has a long history of calling reality “false news” and claiming his big fat lies are truth. Like his endless whining about the election he lost to Joe Biden by more than 8 million votes. And he claims it was a fraudulent loss, a rigged election.
How on earth could that ever be a secret if it were to have happened? Crazy, delusional, whoppers!
And now he wants people whose reputations are on the line, newsmakers, journalists, photographers, soldiers, sailors – people who can see what is happening with their own eyes, hear the blasts and report the damages, and hold those accountable for their actions – he wants them to toe the party line? He wants the TRUTH to be what he pretends it is?
George Orwell got it right, he just got the year wrong. With this administration, we no longer have guarantees of personal privacy. We no longer have guarantees guaranteed by our Constitution. The Police are no longer our friends.
The president believes the truth is what he says it is and that the rights of the people are those he says they have. How have we allowed this to happen?
He CREATES situations, or makes them up, and then creates an oppressive measure to deal with it – look at what ICE, once respectable, has become. An entity protecting our entry points has become a gang of thugs who operate outside the law. When courts rule against them, they ignore the rulings.
When Trump looks at the polls and sees that he cannot win an election, he creates the “SAVE” act to deter, discourage and delete voter’s rights. Both ICE and “SAVE” address problems which do not exist, other than as avenues to giving this monster greater and greater power to feed his endless greed.
Do not listen to this man. Do not believe a word he says. Look, instead, at his actions. He fires the watchdogs. He fires those who would limit his power. He is what he always has been, a fraud, a con man, a liar, and altogether a very flawed man. He piles up wealth by making agreements that fill his pockets, his family’s pockets, and his cronies’. He bullies those who stand up to him. This is not a man of strong character; this is a human wrecking ball.
Unintended Consequences
It is rare that I am stunned into silence.
This is not the world I grew up in. This is not the country I served. These are not the values we were taught as children, in a United States full of post WWII optimism, as we allied with other nations for the greater good.
I am a blessed woman. I have what I need, and my son married a woman with deeply perceptive insights. An environmental specialist, she taught me the concept of Unanticipated Consequences. We are witnessing a host of unanticipated consequence unrolling by the minute, consequences which will have reverberations far into the future – not forseeable consequences but lasting.
Our current Administration is whacko. They command the mightiest military on earth, and they hold the keys to nuclear weapons. I have a friend who says “We’re Doomed,” only he uses a stronger, vulgar word I don’t want to use here.
Another Brick in the Wall
Do you believe this man really has your best interest at heart? Don’t look at what he says; look at what he does. He has an agenda – self-enrichment. He has a strategy, and that strategy is outlined in Project 2025. Take a look. See how quickly and radically our democratic system and values are disappearing.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Treasury Department has terminated its collective bargaining agreement with unionized workers employed at the Internal Revenue Service, the agency said Friday, in an escalation of President Donald Trump ’s push to exert more control over the federal workforce.
The union contract for the Bureau of the Fiscal Service was also terminated this week, according to two people familiar with the decision. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.
Workers at the IRS and the fiscal service bureau, which processes payments for the government, are represented by the National Treasury Employees Union. They were informed by agency leadership that Treasury terminated their collective bargaining agreements, using an executive order President Donald Trump signed last March as the authority for the terminations.
In a letter to IRS workers Friday, viewed by The Associated Press, IRS Chief Human Capital Officer Alex Kweskin told employees the move “deepens our commitment of operating as one IRS, a collaborative team focused on serving American taxpayers.”
The contract terminations come after Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, issued a memo this month to agency heads calling on them to comply with Trump’s March order and notify labor unions “that they are terminating any applicable CBAs (collective bargaining agreements), whether represented by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) or another labor union.”
The union had sued the federal government last year over Trump’s executive order.
And while a D.C. court issued a preliminary injunction against the government, that was stayed pending an appeal. Meanwhile, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a decision in a separate case Thursday that cleared the way for the implementation of Trump’s executive order.
Doreen Greenwald, president of the Treasury employees union, said in a statement Friday that the IRS “cannot unilaterally end” its contract with the labor union. She said the federal sector labor statute requires the IRS to have a collective bargaining agreement “with the exclusive representative of its bargaining unit employees,” she said.
The National Treasury Employees Union represents roughly 150,000 employees in 37 departments and agencies.
Washington Post: Trump to Claim Emergency Election Powers due to “China Interference in 2020”
Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.
A Ray of Hope for Free and Fair Elections
This, just in from NPR News:
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will not patrol polling locations during this year’s midterm elections, a Department of Homeland Security official said yesterday on a call with top state voting officials. Kentucky Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams confirmed the promise in a social media post. The declaration comes as the president has continued to push false claims of noncitizen voter fraud, as recently as in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address. “
“Cunning, Ambitious, Unprincipled Men”
” However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. “
George Washington, FAREWELL ADDRESS | SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1796
The proposed SAVE act addresses a problem that does not exist. There IS occasional voter fraud, it is very rare and it is as often committed by one party as the other. Our elections are safe.
The SAVE act creates barriers for legal voters, especially for women who have changed their name as American citizens culturally do. So if you are a married woman, your ID does not match your birth certificate.
As a woman who has had to scramble in my life time to gather original documents, I know how frustrating, time-consuming and expensive it can be. I had to provide my birth certificate and marriage certificate to live in some foreign countries as we served our country. I was strongly motivated, and I had the luxury of clear instructions, TIME, and enough money to buy the documents I needed.
It is primarily American citizens; Women and the poor, who will be inconvenienced by this act, or unable to vote due to lack of money and time to access their documents.
In my state, Florida, restrictions have already gone into place that diminish voting: a requirement to renew your voting registration every other year, limits on early voting, and limits on absentee voting (especially hard for the elderly with limited abilities). Voters are increasingly forced to wait in long lines in the Florida heat and humidity. Oh – and there is an effort by one party to forbid groups who want to provide water for those standing in line to vote, a concern that a bottle of water might influence a vote.
LOL, this is an AI summary of Florida voting restrictions:
Overview of Voting Restrictions in Florida
Florida has implemented several voting restrictions that affect voter eligibility and the voting process. These changes have been a topic of significant debate.
Key Restrictions
Citizenship Verification
- Voters must provide proof of citizenship to register and vote.
- This requirement aims to ensure that only eligible citizens participate in elections.
Identification Requirements
- Certain forms of identification that were previously accepted may no longer be valid.
- Voters must present specific forms of ID when voting in person.
Voter Eligibility Challenges
- Individuals can challenge another person’s eligibility to vote, but this process is regulated.
- Challenges must be submitted in writing and can only occur within a specific timeframe before an election.
Provisional Ballots
- Voters whose eligibility is challenged can cast provisional ballots.
- These ballots are counted only after verifying the voter’s eligibility.
Impact on Voters
Affected Groups
- The new laws may disproportionately impact students, seniors, and women, who may lack the required identification or documentation.
- Critics argue that these restrictions could suppress voter turnout among eligible citizens.
Registration Deadlines
- Voters must register at least 29 days before an election.
- Changes to voter registration, such as party affiliation or address, must also be submitted by specific deadlines.
These restrictions are part of ongoing discussions about election integrity and access to voting in Florida.
These are moves designed to usurp the reins of government.
What Iran and the United States Have in Common
I don’t think I ever met an Iranian woman I didn’t like.
The Iranian women I met – it seemed to me – were all gorgeous. They were educated, and they liked to read books and if you ever want to have a great conversation, look for the Iranian woman. I survived many a stuffy reception, finding intelligent women and talking books, or customs, or history.
So I shudder as I see our forces gathering for a potential strike on Iran.
I get it. Iranian men are smart too, I used to run into them in college, always talking engineering, as in huge national engineering projects, and, way above my head, nuclear physics. They are smart, creative, and great problem solvers.
Here is what makes me laugh. I don’t think the Iranian nuclear threat is the problem. I think Iran is too much like the USA.
Iran has a strong, unpopular leader who is particularly tough on uppity women (do you see where this is going?) and has an economy which is slowly tanking. Iran wants the population to be COMPLIANT and does not like civil protest. Iran is hard on student protestors, but especially hard on non-compliant women.
Our equally unpopular leader, equally chaotic, arbitrary, and cruel, envies the Ayatollah’s theocratic autonomy. Theocracy in Iran has all the power; they can jail people with impunity. They kill protestors with impunity. Not only are they the LAW, but they are above the law.
So how is that working out for Iran? Not so great. It hasn’t worked out so great since the overthrow of the Shah. When people don’t have a voice in how the country are run, they aren’t happy, and unhappy people have ways of resisting, and sabotaging the oppressive regime.
I think that all this massing of power and threatening to invade Iran is a distraction from our own orange leader’s problems with leading. After one year of his leadership, jobs are declining, people cannot afford health care, colleges are afraid to teach critical thinking skills, and we have poorly trained goons and thugs with carte blanche to invade people’s houses, shove demonstrators around, and to kill with impunity. Or at least that is how I see it. I have seen no accountability for the killing of Renee Good or Jonathan Pretti in Minneapolis, nor for the homicides in the “detention centers” which are like huge cattle corrals.
And to what point? As long as the Iranians are increasingly unhappy with their own leader, their leadership has big problems. When the leadership can point their finger at an impending danger caused by an encroaching bully, it rallies the people to the national cause.
Oh, but the power and the might makes the heart beat faster, and what a perfect opportunity to play with all our ships and planes and the great glory of it all, you know, like what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Oh wait! Another similarity! Our leader uses emergency powers because of an ALIEN INVASION! The Rule of Law no longer applies! We are overrun by our roofers! Our gardeners and landscapers! Our waiters! Our housekeepers! Our fruit and vegetable pickers! Our meat packers! Our teacher assistants! Our janitors! Our nursing home care-givers! Our teachers and professors! Our potential citizens, tempest-tossed, waiting by the Golden Door (posted on our Statue of Liberty, welcoming our fore-fathers to this country).
These are not the criminals and rapists our toddler-in-chief tells us he is saving us from; over 90% of those violently arrested and detained are NOT criminals, just people who will work hard to try to provide their family with a living wage and a roof over their heads, and enough food. Many are documented, going through the system. The system is failing them, and failing us, as a country. We are a nation of immigrants.
Like the Ayatollah, our leader seeks total control, including “protecting” our elections – protecting us from voting against him and his politics of hatred, inequality, and humiliation.
Do you think there is a long-term strategy in all this? Do you believe in the Board of Peace as a functional institute? Do you see anything here that is truly in the national interest of the citizens of the United States of America? All I see is a dance of chaos, self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement, vanity, and a grab for all the power.
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Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 