The Wednesday Read

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Welcome! Here are the topics for today’s column:

  • State Senate Bill 164
  • Greenland, Canada, & Gaza Strip
  • Cabinet Picks
  • One More Thing

STATE SENATE BILL 164:

According to Lee Newspapers, Senate Bill 164 would make it a crime for adults to help transgender youth access certain medical treatments. The bill cleared the Montana Senate on Tuesday with the support of all but two Republicans. 

The bill now heads to the state House for consideration. 

Lee Newspapers reports that State Sen. John Fuller, R-Kalispell is the sponsor of the bill. It would make it a felony under Montana’s child endangerment laws for parents, physicians or others who allow minors under age 16 to obtain puberty blockers, hormone therapy or surgical treatments for the purpose of transitioning from their sex assigned at birth.

This is another one of those bills that infringes on a parent/guardian’s rights. This session of the legislature is wasting a lot of time and money on bills that are not needed. 

GREENLAND, CANADA, & GAZA STRIP:

First, it was President Donald Trump’s idea of taking over Greenland. Then he is talking about making Canada the 51st state. 

On Tuesday, a lot of people were left shaking their heads when Trump talked about an idea to take ownership of the Gaza Strip. Trump said he would redevelop it after Palestinians are resettled elsewhere and turn the territory into “the Riviera of the Middle East” in which the “world’s people”— including Palestinians — would live. Trump also said he isn’t ruling out deploying U.S. troops to support reconstruction of Gaza. He envisions “long-term” U.S. ownership of a redevelopment of the territory. (Source)

While I agree with Trump that the Gaza Strip is “a big pile of rubble,” and these people need someplace to go, I don’t think the United States should take over the Gaza Strip. The United Nations should take the lead on this. 

What are your thoughts about Trump’s idea?  

CABINET PICKS:

I was happy to see the Associated Press (AP) report about the U.S. Senate confirming Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Collins is a former congressman, an Iraq War veteran, and a former Air Force chaplain. He was confirmed on a 77-23 vote.

It was also reported that Pam Bondi was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be  President Donald Trump’s Attorney General. The vote was 54-46. U.S. Senator Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only Democrat to vote for Bondi.

I am not sure that Bondi is the right person for this job.

Two other nominees were voted out of U.S. Senate committees. 

The Associated Press (AP) reported that Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination to be President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence cleared a key Senate committee Tuesday. The Senate Intelligence Committee vote was 9-8. 

I’m not sure Gabbard is the right person for the job. We’ll see if she can clear the full Senate.

Then we have one of the more controversial nominees, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. His nomination to be the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary made it out of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee by a vote of 14-13. (Source)

Of all the Trump nominees, I think Kennedy is the least qualified to run the agency that he was picked to run. We’ll see if he can get enough votes in the full Senate.  

ONE MORE THING:

Everything happens for a reason. But sometimes the reason is that you’re stupid and you make bad decisions. 

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10 thoughts on “The Wednesday Read”

  1. trumpsky wants to “develop” the Gaza strip. Maybe call it Trump Ghettos. We’ve seen, over and over, how his “developments” pan out. Looking at Atlantic City casinos – FOUR -count-em- FOUR bankruptcies. If you look at the list of his business failures, it goes on and on. Successes? None.

    trumpsky does have a pretty solid skill set – it’s called lie, cheat, and steal. He’s got those down pat.

    • What could possibly go wrong with a plan by a western hemisphere power that 90% of the people in the middle east hate to forcibly kick 2.5 million middle easterners off their land, push them off into countries that don’t want them to move there, claim ownership of the land, and then redevelop it under armed guard into a billionaire’s playground, all in the context of ancient hatreds and the most violent little corner of the world.

      The word “quagmire” comes immediately to mind.

      This has got to be a diversionary ruse as the real corruption of billionaires looting the USA goes on. Even Tubby with all his delusions of grandeur can’t be that insane. Can he?

    • Most readers here are already quite aware America’s diet is for sh*t and making us sick. The only people against making it healthier are Big Food and Big Ag and their poodle Republican lawmakers who rebel against efforts like the Obama administration’s (and Michelle’s) efforts to make school lunches healthier by blocking proposals for healthier meals and passing dumb laws like declaring pizza a vegetable. Okay so add the type of troglodytes who might sport an occasional set of truck balls who rebel against anything someone else says is good for them. If anyone including Kennedy can actually do anything to overcome the stranglehold of Big Food money on the Republican party and improve the American diet, great. Good luck.

      On a semi-related note did you know it was Republicans Richard Nixon and his racist Ag Secretary Earl Butz who in 1971 started America down the path to obesity and all these related health problems with their program of massive subsidies for corn farmers thus creating the whole high fructose corn syrup industry, just to drive down food prices and get Tricky Dick re-elected? It’s true!

      https://www.offthegridnews.com/food/how-big-governments-policies-made-us-fat/

      But I have a simpler idea to improve our overall diet, food choices, and health care all in one fell swoop: USA becomes the 11th province of Canada.

      • Even if RFK does improve our diets by banning certain dyes or compounds you’d never admit his success.

        That being said did you see the news from one of your favorite sites?

        This is the biggest scandal in news media history:

        No employee at Politico got paid yesterday. First time ever the company missed a pay period. This is a crisis.

        Now we learn Politico — a “news company” — which spent the last 10 years trying to destroy the MAGA Movement was being massively funded by USAID.

        Trump & Elon deleted their funding.

        Now Politico will go out of business.

        The corruption is endless.

        Good riddance

      • Nobody here is opposed to RFK Jr over his talk about making America’s diet healthier. It’s all his other nonsense many people oppose.

        And the report that Politico was getting funded by USAID? Lies, it turns out.

        “Becker and Johnson’s claims are false. The only payments received by Politico LLC from USAID were for two subscriptions to E&E—an energy and environment publication it produces—totaling $44,000 over two years.

        According to USAspending.gov, an official source for U.S. government expenditure data—and the resource used by Becker in his post—Politico received $8.2 million in total payments from government departments and agencies between fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2025. However, only $44,000 of this total came from USAID.”

        You can find many stories similar to the following just doing a simple Google search.

        https://news.yahoo.com/news/claims-politico-received-usaid-funds-195555202.html

        But something in this particular story was real interesting, Politico receiving gummint money between FY 2016 and FY 2025. That includes the budgets of FY 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018. Can you guess what tubby orange blob was stinkin’ up the Oval Office and signing off on those budgets during those years? Hmmmm?

        https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/fa0cefae-7cfb-881d-29c3-1bd39cc6a49e-C/latest

      • Seems to be two conflicting versions of whether or not Politico was being subsidized by USAID.

        My take is this, with a gross income of $400M they should be able to weather any financial storm without taxpayer support.

        But if they crash and burn because of USAID’s demise we’ll know the truth.

      • I don’t really care that much about Politico. I don’t see your point.

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