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Pseudo-Patriots

Pseudo-Patriots

copyright Patricia M. Shannon 1996

They say that they are patriots because they love to wave the flag,
but they throw their trash along the road, and pour used oil down the drain.
They say that they are patriots because the pledge they love to say,
but they never bother to turn out the lights when they go home for the day.

How can we be patriots and not do all we can
to protect the earth upon which all our lives depend?
How can we be patriots and not help our fellow men?
What else is a country, but its people and its land?

They say that they are patriots because, they will always choose
to vote to build more prisons, while cutting funding for our schools.
They say that they are patriots, Star Spangled Banner they do sing,
but to their big gas-guzzlers they selfishly do cling.

How can we be patriots and not do all we can
to prevent the earth from turning into barren sands?
How can we be patriots and not lend a helping hand?
What else is a country, but its people and its land?

They say that they are patriots, because it fills them with such glee
to send our young folks overseas to be killed by enemies.
They say that they are patriots, but they would never think
to tutor some poor kids to help them stay out of the clink.

How can we be patriots and not do all we can
to protect the earth upon which all our lives depend?
How can we be patriots and not help our fellow men?
What else is a country, but its people and its land?

A country's not a piece of cloth, or words we say by rote;
a country's not a song we sing before we watch a sport.
And love's not just a feeling, it's something that we do,
every day, in every way, in everything we choose.

Poison pills in big ugly bill

 

May 20,2025

 From Concerned  Citizen on Facebook

 

This analysis of the dangerous “poison pill” provisions in the so-called Big Beautiful Bill was DMed to CC (me) by a follower and is definitely worth a read. Thank you!👇

“Buried in big beautiful.. please investigate yourself and post..

They buried it on page 602 of a 1,116-page bill.
And you weren’t supposed to notice.

But tucked deep in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” is a time bomb—a clause that would gut the courts.
Strip them of their teeth.
Silence them in the face of executive defiance.

Here’s the hustle:
If a federal court tells this administration to stop violating people’s rights—and they refuse?
Normally, the court can hold them in contempt.
Fine them.
Jail them.
Force compliance.

But this bill says they can’t—unless the accuser put up a cash bond first.

Are you hearing what I’m saying?!

You want to stop this administration’s policies?
Better bring your checkbook.

And in civil cases—like 99% of the ones Trump’s facing?
Nobody posts bonds. That’s not how justice works.

So let’s say:
• A small immigrant rights org tries to stop the deportation of 100 people.
• Government lawyers claim it’ll cost them $50,000/day to delay removals.
• The judge could demand a $250,000 bond or more as “security.”
And if the org can’t pay that?They get the injunction—but it’s meaningless.

Because under this bill, no bond=no enforcement

This is justice for the wealthy only.

And here’s the kicker: The bill also limits how courts can issue injunctions and temporary restraining orders (TROs) in the first place.

It shifts power away from the judiciary—making it harder for judges to pause or block government action at all.
So not only would the courts be powerless to enforce their orders…
They’d be less able to issue them in the first place.

So what does that mean?
It means the courts can scream, “Stop!”
And the administration can whisper back, “Make me.”
And the law can’t do a DAMN thing about it.

It’s not just unconstitutional. It’s un-American.
And they’re selling it to Republicans by declaring:
“We can’t save America unless we sneak in the power he needs.”

The pattern of clandestine and nefarious sh*t continues. If so many Americans want this as they claim? Why do they keep operating in the shadows and hiding their true intent?

But wait—that’s just one landmine.

This bill ain’t a budget.
It’s. A. Trojan. Horse.
And it’s stuffed with poison pills for the American people:

Page 291:
A 10-year moratorium on state regulation of AI.
That means if your state passes a law to protect you from algorithmic discrimination, facial recognition abuse, or predictive policing?
Too bad. This bill says states can’t enforce it.
It opens the door to UNREGULATED AI SURVEILLANCE—on your kids, your job apps, your medical data, every second and search you make online, your every damn move.

Pages 425–443:
Massive cuts to Medicaid & SNAP.
More work requirements. Higher costs for low-income families.
More hoops. Less help.
Millions could lose food assistance and healthcare, while billionaires get HUGE tax breaks.

Pages 487–502:
Education gut job.
Ends subsidized loans for undergrads.
Strips the Dept. of Ed from cracking down on predatory schools.

Under Obama, the DOE had a rule that said:
If a school receives federal student aid (Pell Grants, loans, etc.), they must show that their grads can get decent-paying jobs—or lose access to that money.

That rule helped shut down diploma mills and shady for-profit schools like Corinthian and ITT Tech, which exploited students—especially low-income, Black, Brown, and veteran students—while collecting billions in federal aid.

What this bill does:

It blocks or removes the Secretary of Education’s authority to:
• Enforce Gainful Employment rules,
• Pull funding from scam schools,
• Or create new regulations that hold schools accountable for outcomes.

In plain language?

It lets corrupt schools get fat off federal student aid while giving students nothing in return.

And if you know, you know. This ain’t policy—it’s personal. Remember HIS University?

But it goes even further and makes Pell Grants harder to get—unless you’re in trade school, serving corporate labor needs.
They are trying to devour the middle class. Creating a two-tiered social system of the very wealthy and the very poor. It’s much easier to control folks who are financially desperate.

Pages 552–589:
$70 billion for border militarization.
$46.5B for more walls.
$5B for CBP facilities (It’s infrastructure for mass processing, concentration camps, tent cities, expanded detention centers, surveillance, and confinement.)
$4.1B for hiring more agents.
This ain’t about safety—it’s about fear.
This ain’t about keeping immigrants out—it’s about potentially holding Americans prisoner.
It’s a surveillance state, on steroids, at the border and beyond.
You know that vacation you were planning… that honeymoon to Paris? How does Vegas sound? Or Niagara Falls? Cause you can’t cross the border. Welcome to the Handmaid’s Tale 2025.

And then we circle back to page 602:
Where they try to silence the courts.
Where they tie the hands of the last institution willing to challenge this administration’s power.
Where they say: unless a bond was paid in advance, the court can’t do a damn thing to stop injustice.
And at the same time—they’re rewriting the rules that govern when injunctions and TROs can even be issued.

This is a full-scale dismantling of judicial oversight.

So let me say it louder for the people in the back:

This bill is NOT about the budget. It’s not about prosperity.
It is an attack on every system that protects you from unchecked power.

It is legislative extortion disguised as patriotism.
A thousand pages of policy dressed like democracy—
but moving like a coup.

WHAT CAN I DO?!

Call Congress. TODAY.
📞 202-224-3121
Flood their lines. Melt the switchboard. Blow the damn whistle.
Tell them to STRIP the contempt and injunction/TRO clause.
STOP the AI surveillance trap.
SAVE Medicaid, SNAP, Pell Grants, and the courts.
And if there was ever a time to spread a message like wildfire—this is it.
Share it. Repost it. Text it to your group chats.
Because if this bill passes, it won’t just rewrite policy—it will rewrite the power structure of this entire country.

Also, we fight like hell to save democracy, but also WE MAKE A PLAN—we will not scatter like ants
—MAKE A PLAN.”

What Kind of Job Is Important

The relevance is really obvious in the wake of the several recent very destructive natural disasters. Obviously, not a comprehensive list of important jobs.

Lyrics

What Kind of Job Is Important
© copyright 2017 Patricia M. Shannon

What kind of jobs are important? What do we really need?
What is it we cannot live without, not just an expression of greed?
We need food and water, shelter from the cold.
The farmer, the plumber, the carpenter are far more important than gold.

(chorus)
Those who have been thru the tunnel/valley, seen the light then returned to our shores,
tell us helping each other, and always be learning, that is what we are here for.
And no one returns from the other side to say that our value is shown
by the size of our stock portfolio, or the number of cars that we own.

Some people think they're important, because they sit at their desks all day
making money by moving money around in a circular way.
But what use is money if there's no one who can buy,
and no one to fix the power lines, or the pipes when the water runs dry.

(chorus)

Not in America

 Great song by Jonathan Jensen.

 

 

Trump doesn't rule out third term

 March 30, 2025

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-third-term-white-house-methods-rcna198752

 President Donald Trump did not rule out the possibility of seeking a third term in the White House, which is prohibited by the Constitution under the 22nd Amendment, saying in an exclusive interview with NBC News that there were methods for doing so and clarifying that he was “not joking.”

A Piece of Paradise

(When I wrote this, I thought it might be bull frogs who made the sounds like a giant rubber band being plucked . Recently, thanks to the Internet, I found that they are green frogs. But "some bull frogs" sounds better and is easier to sing than "some green frogs", so I'm not changing it.)

A Piece of Paradise
copyright 2001 Patricia M. Shannon

Walking my dog in the evening,
I hear the crickets call.
How peaceful is the quiet
after the sun falls.

(chorus)
I feel I've found a piece of paradise
to spend delightful days,
listening to the sounds of nature
and watching the squirrels play.

After spending too much time
cooped up in a cube,
I feel full of freedom
when I come out to the woods.

Breathing in the clear, clean air,
I feel so energized;
I need the comfort of the woods
more than I realize.

And
(chorus)

Stopping by a waterfall,
much to my delight,
I see a mini-rainbow
shining in the bright moonlight.

A hooty owl says "Who are you?"
A loon sings a jazz song.
The stars put on a light show.
while some bull/green frogs thrum along.

Yes
(chorus)

..

Beware of fake JOANN web sites

 

Hours needed to escape poverty

 

The Mathematics of Inequality

 

 

Mathematical analysis shows that without redistribution, wealth becomes increasingly more concentrated, and inequality grows until almost all assets are held by an extremely small percent of people.  History shows this analysis is accurate.   I first saw such an analysis years ago, I believe in Scientific American in the winter in 1990, 1991, or 1992. I haven't been able to find the article in the Scientific archives, because they don't have good enough descriptions for the column where it would have appeared. I bought several articles I hoped would be the right one, but didn't find it. Luckily, there were finally some more recent analyses I was able to reference in my blog.

 

https://now.tufts.edu/articles/mathematics-inequality

By Taylor McNeil
October 12, 2017

Seven years ago, the combined wealth of 388 billionaires equaled that of the poorest half of humanity, according to Oxfam International. This past January the equation was even more unbalanced: it took only eight billionaires, marking an unmistakable march toward increased concentration of wealth. Today that number has been reduced to five billionaires.

Trying to understand such growing inequality is usually the purview of economists, but Bruce Boghosian, a professor of mathematics, thinks he has found another explanation—and a warning.

Using a mathematical model devised to mimic a simplified version of the free market, he and colleagues are finding that, without redistribution, wealth becomes increasingly more concentrated, and inequality grows until almost all assets are held by an extremely small percent of people.

•••••

It’s easy to imagine how wealth-attained advantage works in real life. “The people with that advantage receive better returns on their investments, lower interest rates on loans, and better financial advice,” said Boghosian. “Conversely, as Barbara Ehrenreich famously observed, it is expensive to be poor. If you are working two jobs, you don’t have time to shop for the best bargains. If you can’t afford the security deposit demanded by most landlords, you may end up staying in a motel at inflated prices.”

The model tracks the data with remarkable accuracy, he said.

•••••

Putting aside ethical issues of growing inequality, it can also create an unhealthy economy, Boghosian said. “That’s because when wealth concentrates and the middle class is depleted too much, you may get very wealthy industrialists, very wealthy manufacturers, but to whom do they sell their products? It locks up the economy,” he said.

•••••

https://www.austms.org.au/Jobs/Library4.html

THE MATHEMATICS OF INEQUALITY

By Mark Buchanan
reprinted from The Australian Financial Review
September 2002
(originally in New Statesman)

•••••

Even if everyone starts out equally, and they remain equally adept at choosing investments, differences in investment luck will cause some people to accumulate more wealth than others. Those who are lucky will tend to invest more, and so have a chance to make greater gains still. Hence, a string of positive returns builds a person's wealth not merely by addition but by multiplication, as each subsequent gain grows ever bigger. This is enough, even in a world of equals where returns on investment are entirely random, to stir up huge disparities of wealth in the population.

•••••

Take Care of Our Planet

Lyrics to a song I wrote. I'm not a great singer, but when I sang it at an open mic, w/o accompaniment, in a restaurant, everybody stopped talking. Only time I've seen that. So people do care.

The recording is sung by UD Banks, and produced by David Leonard of Reveal Audio Services.

https://open.spotify.com/album/0z2A4cDgQh2rSxobQLrZC1?si=HhLWFpGbTqCgA4ShhQcqwA


Take Care of Our Planet
copyright 2001 Patricia M. Shannon

Walking in the early sunlight, with the calling birds,
I see the trees against the newborn sky;
listening to the breeze, I hear God's voice
saying "Take care of this planet, don't make it die!"
We must

(chorus)
take care of our planet,
it's the only home we have;
it will give us what we need,
if we treat it respectfully.

He did not make the earth to be just a toy,
or an enemy with which we are at war;
remember that we were just an afterthought,
stewards and not owners are what we are.

Now some say the end is coming,
so we'll need the earth no more;
He said no one will expect it,
might be 10,000 years to go.

(chorus)

He did not mean for us to be parasites,
always taking destruction to new heights,
killing off the species He so carefully planned,
in the interdependent web of life.

Don't depend on some angels,
or a space ship from on high
to save you from your own folly,
if you do, you're sure to die."
So

(chorus)


..

Welfare Religion

I wrote this song after my experiences working with people who bragged about being "born again". It didn't keep them from being mean dishonest liars. I started asking them how being "born again" had changed how they treated other people. Not a single one said it had any effect. They ALL looked puzzled at the idea. They admitted it hadn't, but said it made them feel so good.

The on-line book "The Authoritarians" https://theauthoritarians.org/, by  Bob Altemeyer, refers to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's coining of the phrase "cheap grace", in chapter 4:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/
"Cheap Grace. Unfortunately, fundamentalist Protestantism may directly promote hypocrisy among its members through one of its major theological principles: that if one accepts Jesus as a personal savior and asks for the forgiveness of one’s sins, one will be saved. But a lot depends on what “accepts” means. Is one’s life transformed? Do good works increase? Is the born-again person more like Jesus, holier? That would be all to the good. But because of some evangelist preachers, the interpretation has grown that all “accepts” means is a one-time verbal commitment. You say the magic words and you go to heaven, no matter what kind of life you lead afterwards. Many have thought that a pretty sweet deal. You’ve conned a free pass through the Pearly Gates from the Almighty and you can sin and debauch all you want for the rest of your life. "

A nifty phrase. It describes what my poem/song "Welfare Religion" is about. And I have incorporated it into the song.
If you read the Bible, you know that is not what Jesus said. Eg., Matthew 25.

When sung, the last verse is the chorus.


Welfare Religion
copyright Patricia M. Shannon 1996

What would Jesus think if He came to earth today?
Do you think He would be happy with all the folks who say:
"I am saved, alleluia, and I'll live forever more".
But they would never think of giving comfort to the poor.

They say they believe in Jesus and the Bible is all true,
but they ignore what He did say in Chapter 25 of Matthew:
What you do for the less fortunate, you've done it unto Me,
and where you go after you're dead depends upon your deeds.

They say "I feel so good because I have been born again.
And what's that got to do with how I treat my fellow men?
Jesus loves me, this I know, He loves only myself;
it's true, because He doesn't care how I treat anybody else.

I believe in Jesus, no need to change my ways,
just massage His ego once or twice a day.
I believe in Jesus, all it takes is that cheap grace,
to get me into heaven, the perfect welfare state.