Here is a list of Opinionated Blogs ordered by Most Liked, posted by members. A Blog is a journal you may enter about your life, thoughts, interesting experiences, or lessons you've learned. Post an opinion, impart words of wisdom, or talk about something interesting in your day. Update your blog on a regular basis, or just whenever you have something to say. Creating a blog is a good way to share something of yourself with others. Reading blogs is a good way to learn more about others. Click here to post a blog.
States File FOIA Lawsuit Against Biden Admin Demanding Info On Any FBI Surveillance Of Parents
A 14-state coalition has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Biden administration demanding the government provide records on any FBI surveillance of parents. The lawsuit comes after the National School Boards Association suggested the Department of Justice treat parents concerned about the direction of schools as potential domestic terrorists.
The Biden administration has failed to respond to FOIA requests filed by Republican Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and other states last fall seeking federal officials’ communications prior to the October 2021 “threats” memo. Rokita is taking the lead on the effort, joined by chief legal advisors in Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah.
“We just want the facts,” said Rokita. “Rather than cooperate, the Biden administration has sought to conceal and downplay its culpability. What are they hiding? Why won’t they come clean? Hoosiers and all Americans deserve to know.”
The lawsuit takes aim at Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. The AGs are asking a U.S. district court to instruct the administration to respond to the requests, according to Fox News. The White House declined to comment on the lawsuit, and directed The Daily Wire to the DOJ.
NSBA’s letter was followed by Garland directing the FBI in a memo to lead a task force addressing threats to school officials and report the threats. A spokesperson for the White House then claimed it was not involved in the DOJ memo and that the department “chose to take this approach on their own.”
Read more:
The Biden administration has failed to respond to FOIA requests filed by Republican Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and other states last fall seeking federal officials’ communications prior to the October 2021 “threats” memo. Rokita is taking the lead on the effort, joined by chief legal advisors in Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah.
“We just want the facts,” said Rokita. “Rather than cooperate, the Biden administration has sought to conceal and downplay its culpability. What are they hiding? Why won’t they come clean? Hoosiers and all Americans deserve to know.”
The lawsuit takes aim at Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. The AGs are asking a U.S. district court to instruct the administration to respond to the requests, according to Fox News. The White House declined to comment on the lawsuit, and directed The Daily Wire to the DOJ.
NSBA’s letter was followed by Garland directing the FBI in a memo to lead a task force addressing threats to school officials and report the threats. A spokesperson for the White House then claimed it was not involved in the DOJ memo and that the department “chose to take this approach on their own.”
Read more:
Why shoplifting is soaring across the US — and will only get worse
Retail crime has been rising throughout the US for the past five years, with organized criminal rings targeting stores everywhere from Woonsocket (Rhode Island) to Greensboro (North Carolina) to Grafton (Wisconsin). The National Retail Federation reported that store losses mounted from $453,940 per $1 billion in sales in 2015 to $719,458 in 2020.
The biggest increase over that period happened not during the pandemic but in 2019, when total losses from shoplifting surged to $61 billion, up from $50 billion the previous year. The COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and early 2021 moderated losses, largely because stores were closed or had curtailed operating hours. Now that retailing has resumed, crime has spiked again.
Shoplifting no longer fits its traditional mold as a nonviolent crime perpetrated mostly by teens or substance-abusing adults. Nearly two-thirds of the retailers surveyed by the National Retail Federation said that violence associated with store thefts has risen, led by organized gangs that resell the goods they steal. Like retailers, top law-enforcement officials place some of the blame for the crime surge on a widespread lessening of penalties for shoplifting.
“Without deterrents and accountability, communities will be victimized, and businesses terrorized,” said Laura Cooper, head of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.
California’s recent headline-making “flash mob” shoplifting sprees have brought widespread attention to Proposition 47 — a 2014 state ballot initiative, supported by a range of left-leaning and libertarian groups, which, among other things, boosted the felony threshold for shoplifting from $450 of merchandise to $950. Soon after it passed, retailers in California began reporting a sharp uptick in retail theft, often in plain view of helpless store personnel and distressed customers.
What has received far less attention, however, is the fact that California’s Prop. 47 was not an outlier among states. In the past 10 years, nearly half of all states have boosted their thresholds for retail felony theft. Thirty-eight states now don’t consider shoplifting a felony unless $1,000 or more of merchandise gets stolen. A 2020 National Retail Federation report on organized retail crime found that two-thirds of retailers in states that had raised their felony shoplifting minimums reported growing retail theft.
The unintended consequences of other government policies have also contributed to the problem, retailers say. Changes to bail laws mean that increasingly, those who engage in misdemeanor property crime — considered a nonviolent offense — are quickly back on the streets, where some go right back to stealing. Mask mandates allow criminals to cover up their faces in stores without attracting attention. Bans on single-use plastic bags have made it acceptable for consumers to walk around stores with their own non-transparent reusable bags, enabling thieves to load up in the aisles and head for the exits.
Retailers and cops are looking for reforms to help stem the thievery. They’d like local governments to amend shoplifting laws so that the aggregate value of a repeat offender’s stolen goods can count toward meeting the threshold for felony charges, rather than simply counting the cost of goods stolen from each incident separately.
Similarly, businesses and security experts want tougher bail for repeat offenders, even if the offenses in question are only misdemeanors, and a federal law targeting interstate shoplifting gangs. Finally, brick-and-mortar retailers want the federal government to crack down on online sites that sell stolen goods. Retailers have lobbied for a federal law requiring online sellers to disclose more information about their operations, though Amazon and other big tech companies have resisted.
The biggest increase over that period happened not during the pandemic but in 2019, when total losses from shoplifting surged to $61 billion, up from $50 billion the previous year. The COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and early 2021 moderated losses, largely because stores were closed or had curtailed operating hours. Now that retailing has resumed, crime has spiked again.
Shoplifting no longer fits its traditional mold as a nonviolent crime perpetrated mostly by teens or substance-abusing adults. Nearly two-thirds of the retailers surveyed by the National Retail Federation said that violence associated with store thefts has risen, led by organized gangs that resell the goods they steal. Like retailers, top law-enforcement officials place some of the blame for the crime surge on a widespread lessening of penalties for shoplifting.
“Without deterrents and accountability, communities will be victimized, and businesses terrorized,” said Laura Cooper, head of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.
California’s recent headline-making “flash mob” shoplifting sprees have brought widespread attention to Proposition 47 — a 2014 state ballot initiative, supported by a range of left-leaning and libertarian groups, which, among other things, boosted the felony threshold for shoplifting from $450 of merchandise to $950. Soon after it passed, retailers in California began reporting a sharp uptick in retail theft, often in plain view of helpless store personnel and distressed customers.
What has received far less attention, however, is the fact that California’s Prop. 47 was not an outlier among states. In the past 10 years, nearly half of all states have boosted their thresholds for retail felony theft. Thirty-eight states now don’t consider shoplifting a felony unless $1,000 or more of merchandise gets stolen. A 2020 National Retail Federation report on organized retail crime found that two-thirds of retailers in states that had raised their felony shoplifting minimums reported growing retail theft.
The unintended consequences of other government policies have also contributed to the problem, retailers say. Changes to bail laws mean that increasingly, those who engage in misdemeanor property crime — considered a nonviolent offense — are quickly back on the streets, where some go right back to stealing. Mask mandates allow criminals to cover up their faces in stores without attracting attention. Bans on single-use plastic bags have made it acceptable for consumers to walk around stores with their own non-transparent reusable bags, enabling thieves to load up in the aisles and head for the exits.
Retailers and cops are looking for reforms to help stem the thievery. They’d like local governments to amend shoplifting laws so that the aggregate value of a repeat offender’s stolen goods can count toward meeting the threshold for felony charges, rather than simply counting the cost of goods stolen from each incident separately.
Similarly, businesses and security experts want tougher bail for repeat offenders, even if the offenses in question are only misdemeanors, and a federal law targeting interstate shoplifting gangs. Finally, brick-and-mortar retailers want the federal government to crack down on online sites that sell stolen goods. Retailers have lobbied for a federal law requiring online sellers to disclose more information about their operations, though Amazon and other big tech companies have resisted.
online today!
What has changed?
Nothing much so far.
Females are still giving birth, people are still living and dying.
The only new factor will be that about 90% of the globes population with be receiving a dose of 'who knows what' in the coming years.
Will things start to change then?
All I know is that today is a beautiful day.
Females are still giving birth, people are still living and dying.
The only new factor will be that about 90% of the globes population with be receiving a dose of 'who knows what' in the coming years.
Will things start to change then?
All I know is that today is a beautiful day.
The one drug that Neil Young doesn't want anyone doing
Maybe the weirdest part of the Joe Rogan–Neil Young fight is the ridiculous position Neil Young has staked out on "illegal" drug use.
For those of you under age 50, Neil Young was a moderately famous Canadian rocker from years ago who, like his band mate David Crosby, was notorious for ingesting loads of controlled substances and living to tell the tale.
There is a hilarious send-up of Young by SCTV at the end of this sketch that gets it dead-on.
Drug arrests were a big part of his earlier career, although in the last decade he claimed to be exploring a new perspective of sobriety after spending most of his life stoned out of his mind.
Young at least remembered he still has the rights to all his music, and he is petty about licensing deals, so seeing him pull out of Spotify over his Joe Rogan/ivermectin snit was actually nothing new. Apparently, old buddy David Crosby tried the same thing, only to be told he no longer owns the rights. Well, they always said smoking dope makes you stupid, and left-wing, geezer rockers are Exhibit A.
Of course, Neil Young and the other has-been singers are not necessarily against all drug use. They just seem to want to focus on one drug: ivermectin — a cheap, super-safe medicine with no narcotic buzz, that's been around since the 1970s. The worst that can happen to someone taking ivermectin for COVID-19 is that he doesn't do any better than someone not taking anything. But more evidence keeps coming in every day from around the world that the drug is helpful in treating the virus.
Contrast this with Young's 1970s attempt to address heroin use, "The Needle and the Damage Done," a vapid tune about a drug death, where heroin is some sad thing that just happens. Like a traffic accident. He saved his real anti-drug outrage for today, against a safe medicine being prescribed by doctors across the world for a short-course, off-label use.
Andrew Breitbart was famous for saying, "Politics is downstream from the culture" and thus the left is really good at polluting the culture for its political ends. But I think this episode proves yet again what a double-edged sword that may be. An absurd figure like Neil Young is left to tamp down dissent for the leftist-lockdown orthodoxy of our ruling class. This failing Florida newspaper is typical of the out-of-touch partisans, reduced to rooting on ancient, brain-addled rockers to carry their message. Most Americans though, are repelled, not impressed.
But to a certain extent, you can't blame them. Biden is ready to clean house, starting with HHS, over his messed up COVID-19 policies. He could just go ahead and hire the entire Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young bunch as their replacements. They already have more real-world experience with pharmaceuticals and hospitals than Tony Fauci, and as for policy-making, they couldn't do any worse.
For those of you under age 50, Neil Young was a moderately famous Canadian rocker from years ago who, like his band mate David Crosby, was notorious for ingesting loads of controlled substances and living to tell the tale.
There is a hilarious send-up of Young by SCTV at the end of this sketch that gets it dead-on.
Drug arrests were a big part of his earlier career, although in the last decade he claimed to be exploring a new perspective of sobriety after spending most of his life stoned out of his mind.
Young at least remembered he still has the rights to all his music, and he is petty about licensing deals, so seeing him pull out of Spotify over his Joe Rogan/ivermectin snit was actually nothing new. Apparently, old buddy David Crosby tried the same thing, only to be told he no longer owns the rights. Well, they always said smoking dope makes you stupid, and left-wing, geezer rockers are Exhibit A.
Of course, Neil Young and the other has-been singers are not necessarily against all drug use. They just seem to want to focus on one drug: ivermectin — a cheap, super-safe medicine with no narcotic buzz, that's been around since the 1970s. The worst that can happen to someone taking ivermectin for COVID-19 is that he doesn't do any better than someone not taking anything. But more evidence keeps coming in every day from around the world that the drug is helpful in treating the virus.
Contrast this with Young's 1970s attempt to address heroin use, "The Needle and the Damage Done," a vapid tune about a drug death, where heroin is some sad thing that just happens. Like a traffic accident. He saved his real anti-drug outrage for today, against a safe medicine being prescribed by doctors across the world for a short-course, off-label use.
Andrew Breitbart was famous for saying, "Politics is downstream from the culture" and thus the left is really good at polluting the culture for its political ends. But I think this episode proves yet again what a double-edged sword that may be. An absurd figure like Neil Young is left to tamp down dissent for the leftist-lockdown orthodoxy of our ruling class. This failing Florida newspaper is typical of the out-of-touch partisans, reduced to rooting on ancient, brain-addled rockers to carry their message. Most Americans though, are repelled, not impressed.
But to a certain extent, you can't blame them. Biden is ready to clean house, starting with HHS, over his messed up COVID-19 policies. He could just go ahead and hire the entire Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young bunch as their replacements. They already have more real-world experience with pharmaceuticals and hospitals than Tony Fauci, and as for policy-making, they couldn't do any worse.
online today!
Let's see if we can't get that to work...
I had a boss who inverted the can/can't statement. I'm sure he learned it from someone.
To me, it always sounded like a statement of failure. Why would you 'not' want something to work?
"Let's see if we can't get that to work..."
No boss, let's see if we CAN get that to work!
To me, it always sounded like a statement of failure. Why would you 'not' want something to work?
"Let's see if we can't get that to work..."
No boss, let's see if we CAN get that to work!
online today!
America's bleeding ulcer...
You may think, how is it possible for a country to have a medical condition like a bleeding ulcer. Read on... we can talk about it.
In the 70's it seemed like many of my friends had a parent who had a bleeding ulcer and they complained profusely about it. Lots of them were smokers, heavy drinkers taking medicines and being on restricted diets, but that didn't work. Eventually, doctors figured out a combination of antibiotic and bismol that made ulcers go away. No ulcers... no complaints.
I did a blog last week about building a wall (across the Mexican border) to stop illegal immigration. This has been going on for decades. Yeah... decades. Lots of talk (read: complaints) but no action. Republicans continue to complain, many directly blaming Biden for the situation they faced before he became president.
Trump ran a campaign on building a wall to stop immigration but was unsuccessful in doing so. Why?
Conservatives didn't like Roe versus Wade and constantly complained about it. Trump installed a few conservative supreme court justices and eventually the law of the land had changed with Trump claiming credit. That essentially stopped the complainers about the issue of legal abortion. They got what they wanted... except they need to find something different to complain about and to use in their campaigns.
What we have now would appear to be a history first... Democratic president Joe Biden has been instrumental in getting a bi-partisan bill directly aimed at resolving the immigration problem. He's doing it without a wall. No catch & release, faster processing, ability to block illegal drugs from entering our country. This is not a small step in immigration reform. It's a giant leap.
House speaker Mike Johnson is killing the plan. It became obvious that approving a deal like this in an election year would be making Biden successful and taking away from Trump to use illegal immigration in his campaign. Essentially Mike doesn't want Biden to cure a bleeding ulcer.
All the news media realize it. The republicans have stopped the progress to literally end their complaints about immigration... because it's an issue that Trump needs to campaign on.
In the 70's it seemed like many of my friends had a parent who had a bleeding ulcer and they complained profusely about it. Lots of them were smokers, heavy drinkers taking medicines and being on restricted diets, but that didn't work. Eventually, doctors figured out a combination of antibiotic and bismol that made ulcers go away. No ulcers... no complaints.
I did a blog last week about building a wall (across the Mexican border) to stop illegal immigration. This has been going on for decades. Yeah... decades. Lots of talk (read: complaints) but no action. Republicans continue to complain, many directly blaming Biden for the situation they faced before he became president.
Trump ran a campaign on building a wall to stop immigration but was unsuccessful in doing so. Why?
Conservatives didn't like Roe versus Wade and constantly complained about it. Trump installed a few conservative supreme court justices and eventually the law of the land had changed with Trump claiming credit. That essentially stopped the complainers about the issue of legal abortion. They got what they wanted... except they need to find something different to complain about and to use in their campaigns.
What we have now would appear to be a history first... Democratic president Joe Biden has been instrumental in getting a bi-partisan bill directly aimed at resolving the immigration problem. He's doing it without a wall. No catch & release, faster processing, ability to block illegal drugs from entering our country. This is not a small step in immigration reform. It's a giant leap.
House speaker Mike Johnson is killing the plan. It became obvious that approving a deal like this in an election year would be making Biden successful and taking away from Trump to use illegal immigration in his campaign. Essentially Mike doesn't want Biden to cure a bleeding ulcer.
All the news media realize it. The republicans have stopped the progress to literally end their complaints about immigration... because it's an issue that Trump needs to campaign on.
online today!
Mad and dangerous
Donald Trump said the US election will be “liberation day” for his supporters and “judgement day” for his enemies in a high-octane speech ahead of winning the South Carolina primary.
The former president, 77, vowed his second term would mean “revenge” for his opponents as he promised to “fire” Joe Biden, 81.
In my opinion
Mad as a March hair
Crazy as a skunk
And as dangerous as a cornered rat
The former president, 77, vowed his second term would mean “revenge” for his opponents as he promised to “fire” Joe Biden, 81.
In my opinion
Mad as a March hair
Crazy as a skunk
And as dangerous as a cornered rat
online today!
Collateral Damage: be careful what you wish for...
The level of hate for one CS member had been building for a while and reached saturation by the end of summer. My thought is "If you don't like someone here, avoid their blogs" but that didn't happen. What did happen was a handful of haters followed him around and picked at his blogs like vultures, forcing him to delete their comments and locking his blogs while he was away.
Several members had wished he was gone and it appears their wishes were granted.
A few days ago in the middle of the night, the axe swung and he was gone... and so were a few other members including one who appeared most vocal in complaints about him.
I call that Collateral Damage or injury inflicted on something other than an intended target.
It doesn't matter who you know or how popular you are here. We are all guests and have some basic rules to follow.
Several members had wished he was gone and it appears their wishes were granted.
A few days ago in the middle of the night, the axe swung and he was gone... and so were a few other members including one who appeared most vocal in complaints about him.
I call that Collateral Damage or injury inflicted on something other than an intended target.
It doesn't matter who you know or how popular you are here. We are all guests and have some basic rules to follow.
A Blog is a journal you may enter about your life, your thoughts, interesting experiences, or lessons you have learned. It's your own page on Connecting Singles that you can update on a regular basis, or just whenever you have something to say. You can write about an opinion, impart words of wisdom, or talk about something interesting in your day. Creating a blog is a good way to share something of yourself with Connecting Singles members. Reading blogs is a good way to learn more about members you have met here. Please be sure to read the blog rules before posting.
Would YOU like to post a blog on Connecting Singles? Have you written blogs that you'd like to share with other members? Posting your blogs shows your skill and creativity and helps members get to know you better. Your blog will appear on the Connecting Singles Blogs page and also in a link on your profile page. Click here to post a blog »