Category: General Interest

Submitted By: mmurf10@yahoo.com – Click to email about this post

Hello! Are there any local (Wheeler/Manzanita/Nehalem) in person meditation groups or sanghas? Would appreciate any info re where and when they meet. Thanks!

Submitted By: runnawaytrain1@gmx.com – Click to email about this post

Here is some comedy from George Carlin dealing with the billionaire’s ongoing theft Social Security, from many years ago. It was during Obama’s reign that he performed this piece I think, because THE POLITICIANS ON ALL SIDES WORK FOR THE BILLIONAIRES AND ISRAEL AND NOT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5K2bozek00

One way the globalist bankers (Rothschilds, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros. etc. – all Zionists btw) recently got out of paying social security benefits was via the engineered ’covid’ ‘pandemic’. The avian flu virus (the main ‘covid’ pathogen, there were others) was engineered in a lab(s) to be more infectious but less lethal. (If you are still not buying lab origins, at the very least, I assume/hope most readers have moved well-beyond the CIA’s racist and xenophobic ‘a Chinaman ate a bat at a wet market’ bs as an origin story.) Most of those who died in the US from ‘covid’ were getting social security benefits, which are paid out by our true leaders, the zionist and zionist-aligned bankers. Billons in benefits are not getting paid out anymore for those who who were murdered via ‘covid’, as they are now dead. “Boomer Remover” is the term the youth were using for the engineered virus at the outset of the pandemic:

www.newsweek.com/social-security-205-billion-boost-covid-deaths-doge-2034951

This basically means that the politicians in the US and our own DOD and CDC murdered Americans and psychologically damaged our children on behalf of the globalist anti-American zionist bankers who are no longer on the hook for 205 billion-dollars in SS payouts; now that those elderly folks are dead and not getting SS, the bankers get to keep it! And they used our our own taxes to kill the elderly (and the immune compromised) and engineer the shutdown; they didn’t even have to pay for the murder part! They got us to pay to kill off our own elderly social security recipients! That’s some devious psychopath bankster bs right there.

Maybe we should deport all the politicians, including Big Farma-loving and Palestinian child-killing senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkeley? They were happy to kill Oregonians for Big Farma zionist scum; and they are happy to kill Muslim children for Israel.

How abut some real questions at one of the next anti-trump town halls, instead of “Will my favorite hiking trail be closed this summer?”

Ask Wyden and Merkeley how THEY HELPED TO DESTROY MEDICAID AND SOCIAL SECURITY.

Ask them why they support sending guns and money to Israel so the IDF can murder children in Gaza. Ask them why they said NOTHING when Democrats under ‘Biden’ bombed Yemen (women/children/whomever) 1,000 times!!!!!

Then ask them about the DOD’s geoengineering program in Oregon’s skies???

This is how it’s done: this woman in CA found the pilots working on a joint California/DOD SAI (chemtrail) program purposed to increase water supplies in her watershed, AND CONFRONTED THEM.

Bravest and smartest person I have seen in a long time:

x.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status/1887215408681201949

And finally, a few days ago, someone on this site posted a video of a professor explaining what fascism is. The presentation is fascism/authoritarianism 101, and it’s a good presentation. The hard part for Dems though, seems to be seeing fascism in real life, in real time. Case in point, the post did not find it’s way to this site during the fascism of the last four years (blinded by blue), but was only offered up when Trump got in. Typical for Democrats.

After watching the 15-second video below, would you say Democrat Senator John Fettermen is a fascist? Or are democrats immune to fascism?

Backstory:

In the waning months of the Biden/Blinken/CIA/Netanyahu regime, Israel conducted an operation which saw them trick Hezbollah (Lebanon-based, Palestine/Iran-aligned/Muslims) into replacing 4,000 pagers with explosive pagers.

One day, a few moths ago, the 4,000 pagers were detonated all at once by the IDF/Mossad and exploded all over Lebanon; on buses, in homes, wherever. Many Hezbollah members are doctors, teachers, techies, etc., most are soldiers. Thousands of guts were blown out, testicles blown off (making Zionist-child Ben Shapiro laugh), etc. A little Lebanese girl found daddy’s pager going off, picked it up to give it to him, and her face was blown off. Etc. Etc.

Then, Lebanon had to bring fighters back from Syria to replace the 4,000 that were maimed/killed back home. When that happened, secular Syria was no longer protected, and Israel and the US (Dems) finally completed the Obama-era plan of overthrowing Syria. The Democrats put Al Qaeda (yes, the same folks that supposedly flew planes into the trade towers in NYC) in charge of Syria (using USAID money) and those terrorists immediately murdered an estimated 7,000 Alowhite Christians, just a few months ago. The murder of non-muslims in Syria by the Israel/Dem-installed government run by Al Qaeda is still happening as I write. How many Democrats even know that their beloved ‘Biden’ did this operation with Israel?

Pennsylvania Democrat Senator John Fettermen knew. He’s the fun and whacky Dem who would show up to work wearing sweats pants and hoodies; just another one of the guys!

And here is John kissing Netenyahu’s ring and ass last week in Israel. A silver pager was given to John by Netanyahu. Look how happy John is to receive the gift commemorating the horrific mass-murder of Muslims, the country-wide pager bombs that blew off a girl’s face. Look at his idiot googley-eyed wife smiling so wide…. And you can hear John say, WITH THAT BIG OLD MURDEROUS SMILE ON HIS FACE, “When that story broke, I was like, ‘oh I love it’”!”



Wha a sick.

rumble.com/v6qxf34-israeli-pm-netanyahu-gifted-senator-john-fetterman-and-his-wife-gisele-a-si.html

Again I ask, after watching the 15-second video above, would you say Democrat Senator John Fettermen is a fascist? Or are democrats immune to fascism?

Andy,
Wheler

Submitted By: Coastbbqfree@protonmail.com – Click to email about this post

United Paws’ Kittens of the Week
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You can learn more about these cuties, as well as other cats and kittens available for adoption, at unitedpaws.wordress.com, where you can also complete an application. If you would like to schedule a “Meet & Greet”, please email unitedpawsapps@gmail.com or call United Paws at 503-842-5663.

Submitted By: schechtel.m@comcast.net – Click to email about this post

This is a general appeal to all organizers and participants of local public demonstrations.

Please consider the potential liability to others when choosing a specific location to demonstrate.

My sad story.
I rear-ended a vehicle at the flashing light in Nehalem last Saturday. I am 70-years-old and it is the first accident I have ever had. My car is two months old. The repair estimate is more than $4,000.

Some context.
I was headed south on Highway 101. I am very familiar with the flashing-light intersection in Nehalem and the right turn permitted without stopping. I was several car lengths behind the car in front of me that had indicated it was turning right. I took my eyes off the road for just a moment to see what the demonstration was about and did not realize the car in front of me had come to a dead stop.

Here’s the point I want to make.
If I hadn’t been distracted by the group of sign-waving demonstrators lined up on the on the sidewalk very close to the intersection, I have to believe this accident would not have happened. The driver of the other vehicle admitted that she and her passengers were also looking at the demonstrators and were like-wise distracted — hence the full stop.

Please consider the potential liability of holding a demonstration so close to a busy intersection such as the one in Nehalem.
Situating your group a bit further down the sidewalk away from the intersection would lessen the chance of driver distraction without affecting the impact of your demonstration.

Thank you for your consideration.
Martha Schechtel

Submitted By: runnawaytrain1@gmx.com – Click to email about this post

A couple decades ago, when I was bartending in New Mexico, I met a Lakota guy from one of the small rezs In South Dakota. We struck up an acquaintance and over the next few weeks drank a bit in the bars around town. His mother had died the previous year, and there was a funeral ceremony for her that would be happening near his family’s home at Crow Creek. He had a headstone made for his mother in Albuquerque, and asked if I wanted to drive him and the headstone to the rez. I said yes. While we were driving across the rolling hills of SD under a full-moon sky, he informed me there was to be a peyote ceremony with one of the last medicine men and I was invited. After the ceremony – round after round of peyote in the teepee, tatanka grazing nearby, me the only white guy, everyone else family – when I was coming down off the peyote and feeling very emotional (long story there), the only comfort I could find was with a flock of chickadees flirting about high in the cottonwoods along a creek.

I like birds. A lot. I like birds more than just about every human I’ve met. I’ve rehabbed or brought to rehabbers lots of birds. I wrote a book about the life of a hawk in the Pacific Northwest. I wrote Headlight Herald editorials in support of the snowy plover program on the Nehalem Spit, the program that is mentioned in the Tillamook Country Pioneer on this site below. As a life-long birdwatcher, I am an outstanding hunter of ducks/geese/pigeons, and I LOVE eating them, even cooking down the bones. My point with all of this is that I LOOK UP AT THE SKY A LOT.

And I have grown quite sick of the Indigo pilots and the DOD’s geoengineering programs. In our part of the country, the planes fly out of Seattle. They spray over us and over Portland when conditions suit them. When they are working, look up and you will see the plumes being laid down by them and then expanding and drifting with the prevailing winds; generally drifting toward the Willamette Valley. When you see them spraying, check one of the FlightTracker apps and you will see that they originate in Seattle, fly around the coast and/or Portland, then return to Seattle.

These pilots are the highest paid of all pilots. The DOD chooses pilots that HAVE NO FAMILY and show themselves to be hardened or sociopathic. Our county commissioners should be investigating this, as well as The Johnson Near Space Center in Tillamook, headquartered at the Tillamook airport. They do high-altitude testing of various types. The county commissioners should be investigating their work.

Someone FINALLY put together a VERY SHORT piece about these pilots and the program. IF YOU LIVE HERE, PLEASE WATCH THIS:

x.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status/1827992555637608614

And here is Nicole Shanahan on the DOD’s program. (Billionaire Nicole was married to Google-founder Sergei, they had an autistic kid – 1 in 32 kids here in Amerikkka now – was 1 in twenty-thousand 15 (?) years ago – and she concluded it was government-mandated vaccines that most-likely destroyed her sons life. That woke her up to all sort of government abuse, like the DOD’s geoengineering programs:

x.com/NicoleShanahan/status/1893772720162148546

And here is super-creep Obama’s CIA director and CNN contributor John Brennan discussing the chemtrail (SAI) program at a CFR event years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffjaigBpbYQ

And the DOD’s geoengineering programs now use satellites and electromagnetic weapons for weather control, this from LBJ in 1962:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79voFUqcPq4

Oregon Democrats should be asking our Senators about the stuff being sprayed over our heads at these useless anti-Trump town halls, but they never will, because Democrats are entirely void of political self-introspection and rational political thought.

And, apparently, Democrats never look up.

Andy,
Wheeler

Deep dive, an outstanding film from an associate:

rumble.com/v4b7tco-frankenskies-geoengineering-chemtrails-weather-modification-haarp-cloud-see.html

Submitted By: dwieb1@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

As some here have pointed out, this thing about SS checks is absurd. This “controversy” is a good example of a disinformation factory playing us all for fools.

Associated Press Headline from 2/19/2025:
New Social Security chief contradicts claims that millions of dead people are getting payouts
apnews.com/article/social-security-doge-musk-trump-improper-payments-57f9e374e77e7a24fdff3afa294aa7fe

Excerpts from the article linked above:

Lee Dudek, the new acting SSA commissioner who was placed in the role by President Donald Trump, gave the clarification after Trump and billionaire Elon Musk falsely claimed on social media and in news briefings that people who are 100, 200 and even 300 years old are improperly and routinely getting benefits.

So are tens of millions of people over 100 years old receiving benefits?
No.

Part of the confusion comes from Social Security’s software system based on the COBOL programming language, which has a lack of date type. This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago. The news organization WIRED first reported on the use of COBOL programming language at the Social Security Administration.

Reports from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general in March 2023 and July 2024 state that the agency has not established a new system to properly annotate death information in its database, which included roughly 18.9 million Social Security numbers of people born in 1920 or earlier but were not marked as deceased. This does not mean, however, that these individuals were receiving benefits.

The agency decided not to update the database because the cost would run upward of $9 million.

A July 2023 Social Security OIG report states that “almost none of the numberholders discussed in the report currently receive SSA payments.” As of September 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old.

Submitted By: audene.artist@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Neil and I found this Youtube post very informative no matter your leanings. We felt it so important that we are sharing it with the community. So here it is. A History professor answering question from the internet about dictators. I hope you will give it a listen. Audene and Neil

https://youtu.be/vK6fALsenmw?si=F0-KImmbNq3HDQ1q

Submitted By: manzanita@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

Hi! We are looking for a photographer to take interior and exterior photos of 2 local hotels. Please send an email to manzanita@nehalemtel.net with your contact info so we can discuss further and provide more information.

Thank you!

Submitted By: nehalembayexperience@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Driving on Manzanita Beach?
Endangered Snowy Plovers are nesting.
Our local Veterans for Peace.
Whale Watch 2025
and Gordon’s Spring Break Weekend Weather
LINK= https://youtu.be/T3FK_Q6ufEg

Submitted By: barbaraandchuck@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

dixiedarrow@icloud.com doesn’t give a year for this speech by Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana who she says said, “all the dead and extremely old people over 100 years of age that were cashing social security checks. These checks were being cashed! The reason he said, was that all death notices went to just one office in Washington DC, and this office did not share these notices with any other agencies that paid out money to individuals who were entitled by age, disablity, or any other reason.”
www.northcoastbbq.com/2025/03/20/popping-the-sadism-balloon/

But my experience in 2025 was not at all like the above. As many of you know, Chuck of bbq fame, passed away on Feb 14. (Thanks for all the love and support–it means a lot.)

He was getting social security and no checks were involved as it was an automatic deposit, which I assume is the norm these days. The staff at Caldwell Mortuary in Astoria took all the information for his death certificate and said that social security would be notified as a result of the filing of the death certificate. I didn’t even need to call them. And in fact he DID NOT receive any social security in March.

The system is working, at least as far as I have experienced, so I doubt there are dead people cashing social security checks. And if you are living and over 100 you certainly should still be getting your money from Social Security. After all it IS OUR money.

Barbara

Submitted By: dwieb1@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Here are the first 3 paragraphs from a ProPublica article dated Oct. 28, 2024
[https://www.propublica.org/article/video-donald-trump-russ-vought-center-renewing-america-maga]
A key ally to former President Donald Trump detailed plans to deploy the military in response to domestic unrest, defund the Environmental Protection Agency and put career civil servants “in trauma” in a series of previously unreported speeches that provide a sweeping vision for a second Trump term.
In private speeches delivered in 2023 and 2024, Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, described his work crafting legal justifications so that military leaders or government lawyers would not stop Trump’s executive actions.
He said the plans are a response to a “Marxist takeover” of the country; likened the moment to 1776 and 1860, when the country was at war or on the brink of it; and said the timing of Trump’s candidacy was a “gift of God.”
__________ 1. The interests behind this administration have a very negative view of socialist policies and use the label “Marxist” derogatively to gain support. Many, probably most, who voted for Trump benefit from US social programs. They will abruptly turn against him if these programs are taken away. Trump knows this.
2. These interests are the forces behind the blizzard of executive actions. Trump himself is incapable of crafting, or even conceiving of, the orders. He’s just “The Useful Idiot” (a 2021 book title) or, more generously, the performative talent delivering the script.
3. This article, a week prior to the election, accurately predicted the carnage we are now seeing with mass layoffs at government agencies. Current legal actions are showing promise and may save some agencies, we’ll see.
4. They will deploy military force to shut down protests, which are expected from liberals. They will take advantage of protests to promote their strength and further grow GOP voter support. One Republican representative at a town hall recently said they know they’re doing the right thing because liberals hate it.

One weakness of their plans lies in the goal: to take as much wealth as possible, even at the expense of average folks. At some point their supporters will experience so much economic pain as to override their fear of past social changes. Democrats must be ready to join forces, welcome them, and stop being so judgmental against those who just prefer a different lifestyle (iow, set a good example).
Meanwhile I continue to believe it’s important to expose the tactics elite interests use to control media and manipulate the public. If we understand this it will have less power. Be skeptical and compare sources.
-Dave

Submitted By: genedieken@yahoo.com – Click to email about this post

ITEM ONE: It’s not just the Wall Street Journal calling Trump’s tariffs “the dumbest trade war in history.” Now UCLA’s Anderson Forecast has issued a recession watch, assuming Trump policies will be fully implement.
“Weaknesses are beginning to emerge in households’ spending patterns. And the financial sector, with elevated asset valuations and newly introduced areas of risk, is primed to amplify any downturn. What’s more, the recession could end up being stagflationary.”
“The exceptional degree of uncertainty surrounding these policies is in and of itself damaging to the economy. The ad-hoc and fitful tariff policy paralyzes firms’ investment and hiring decisions as they prefer to wait until there is more clarity surrounding future economic conditions. The threat of deportations paralyzes economic activity in immigrant communities as both workers and consumers choose to stay home in fear of capture. DOGE’s activities are creating a heightened level of job insecurity for most federal workers.”
www.anderson.ucla.edu/about/centers/ucla-anderson-forecast/recession-watch-2025
ITEM TWO: The USDA is expediting $10 billion in direct economic relief to agricultural producers to offset losses from tariffs. This is likely the first round of many more to come and is similar to what was done during Trump’s first term tariffs aimed at China, where closer to $20 billion was allocated. This money is on top of routine, ongoing federal ag support payments and applies to agricultural acreage in active production or in reserve. A cynic might call this a farm family suicide prevention program (as it was in 2017-20) but the truth is, most of the aid goes to the largest producers and corporations.
Here’s a list of the per acre support by crop: Wheat – $30.69 Corn – $42.91 Canola – $31.83 Sorghum – $42.52 Crambe – $19.08 Barley – $21.67. Flax – $20.97 Oats – $77.66 Mustard – $11.36 Upland cotton & extra-long staple cotton $84.74 Rapeseed -$23.63 Long & medium grain rice – $76.94 Safflower – $26.32 Peanuts – $75.51 Sesame – $16.83 Soybeans – $29.76 Sunflower – $27.23 Dry peas – $16.02 Lentils – $19.30 Small Chickpeas – $31.45 Large Chickpeas – $24.02
Gene Dieken

Submitted By: dixiedarrow@icloud.com – Click to email about this post

Well I hate to stick a pin in Gene’s sadism balloon but long before anyone heard of DOGE, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana went on to the floor to give a speech about all the dead and extremely old people over 100 years of age that were cashing social security checks. These checks were being cashed! The reason he said, was that all death notices went to just one office in Washington DC, and this office did not share these notices with any other agencies that paid out money to individuals who were entitled by age, disablity, or any other reason. So he was introducing a bill, once again, to require that all death notices were to be sent on to other appropriate agencies, so this problem could be rectified. The first time he introduced this bill, he had a really hard time getting it passed which was strange. Why wouldn’t any sensible person want to stop this problem? These were our elected senators! Hmmm I said to myself. The first time he introduced the bill he had to make it good for only three years, before he could get it passed. The three years were now up and he was once again trying to get the same bill renewed. Here is a video of Senator Kennedy talking about this problem. Why are the Senators so reluctant to pass a very reasonable piece of legislation? Well I figure that it is because they have something to lose…What could it be, that they might lose?

WATCH IT The checks are being cashed –
1.3 billion dollars to dead people in one year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsGdTviSxCo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsGdTviSxCo

Submitted By: mmurf10@yahoo.com – Click to email about this post

Hello – looking for residential window cleaner recommendations. Thanks!

Submitted By: info@evcnb.org – Click to email about this post

mailchi.mp/evcnb.org/evcnb-ebrief-march-19-2025
Click the link above to read the full eBrief

Learn about camping at home. Safe shelter after an earthquake.

Major earthquakes, such as the anticipated Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, which will impact the Oregon Coast, can cause considerable damage to structures. It is advisable to shelter outside your home for at least seven days following a major earthquake…

Check out our other educational and learning opportunities including:

evcnb.org/events-and-training/cert-04032025
Get CERT-ified
Click the link above to register for this free class.

The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations.

evcnb.org/events-and-training/gobag-popup-04122025
GoBag Pop-Up Shop
Click the link above to make your purchases

Do you need a GoBag or GoBag supplies?

Purchase supplies on the website and pick up items at the Pop-Up Shop.

Pick up Saturday, April 12, 1:00 – 1:30 PM at the Manzanita Police Station

evcnb.org/events-and-training
Take Our WaSH Class
Click the link above and scroll down to the date you would like to register for.

Sign up for our comprehensive Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) class, in which you will obtain the know-how and equipment to get your household prepared to properly manage your WaSH needs during an emergency.

Multiple class dates offered in 2025:

From 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM

April 26
May 31

Food Can Tsunami

SAVE THE DATE!

Saturday, April 26, 10 AM – 12 PM

It is almost time for Food Can Tsunami 4, our annual combination Food Bank food/fundraiser and communication exercise.

Food donations and checks made out to the North County Food Bank or Nehalem Community Services (formerly The Nehalem Bay United Methodist Church Food Pantry)

More information coming soon!

evcnb.org/events-and-training/shelter-exercise-05032025
Emergency Shelter and Warming Center Exercise
Click the link above to learn more.

You are invited to come, participate, and/or observe the full scale Community Shelter & Emergency Warming Center Exercise.

The exercise will include multiple goals for processes that are integral for Shelter Operations, including the Medical Reserve Corps for injury/health care.

Submitted By: genedieken@yahoo.com – Click to email about this post

Here’s a link to Paul Krugman’s latest Substack column on the fate of Social Security and SSDI for the disabled and why Elon Musk seems obsessed about destroying it.

paulkrugman.substack.com/p/smears-sadism-and-social-security

Here’s the TLDR if you don’t have the time read the whole thing:

“Social Security has become to Musk what Canada has become to Donald Trump. Both men at one point said something stupid, something that would have turned them into laughingstocks if there weren’t so much fear in the air. But both men have been unable to let go, doubling down in what amounts to an attempt to redeem their initial foolishness.”

A reader’s comment:
“As someone who receives SSDI every month, I now hold my breath on the second Wednesday of every month, checking to see that the money has been deposited.”

Gene Dieken

Submitted By: babbles@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

The answer to the header question “Is this the America we want?” is a resounding NO!

from Michael Moore substack 3/18/25:

Noor & Mahmoud: Young Hearts Be Free Tonight, Time is on Your Side
Noor Abdalla, the Pregnant Wife of Illegally-Arrested Columbia U Protest Leader, Mahmoud Khalil, is from Flint. Naturally.
MICHAEL MOORE
MAR 18

Friends,

I would like to tell you a little story about a young woman. Her parents were from Syria and, like so many others before them and from all over the world, they came to America to start a family and to give their children a better life. This is the American story, the immigrant story. The parents settled in the U.S. in a Syrian-American community, just as the Irish and the Italians and the Germans and the Polish immigrants before them had gravitated to their own communities, a safe harbor to set down roots and to grow as new Americans. But this Syrian-American community was not in a random place, it was in my hometown of Flint, Michigan. Thousands of miles from Syria, they made a new home and gave birth to a baby girl, an American citizen, there in Flint. She grew up in the shadows of the bombed-out factories of General Motors, and right around the time she graduated high school and started college, the Governor of Michigan, in an act of political terrorism, diverted the city’s water, poisoning the city’s residents. This killed people in Flint and it left the children of Flint poisoned for life. And for this crime, the governor faced no consequences, no arrest, no charges of homicide. He was guilty of nothing other than “running government like a business.” A true patriot, a good ol’ fashioned American white guy showing his indifference toward a majority-Black city.

But despite it all, this little girl who grew up here did not leave — even when she had the chance. After high school, she enrolled at the University of Michigan-Flint campus. There, this child of immigrants excelled in science and biology — she conducted research on the Zika virus, child labor in India, and lead poisoning in Flint due to the poisoned water.

When she graduated with honors in the spring of 2018, she was not just one graduation cap in a sea of students in the crowd that day. Instead, she was chosen as the commencement speaker for her graduating class. As the school’s administrators said in bestowing this honor upon her, she epitomized the tradition of “Leaders & Best at the University of Michigan.”

With her Syrian parents looking proudly on, Noor Abdalla addressed her fellow students. She told the assembled students about her upbringing, and then she described the horrors of the civil war in Syria which at the time was entering its 8th bloody year. And then… and then she said this:

“We are all so privileged to be living in a country such as this one and to be receiving an education that is safe and accessible… I go to class and I know that I’m safe in so many ways. Not only safe from an air strike but I am safe to speak my mind whenever I feel it necessary. I’m safe to converse with my professors and have passionate talks about things that I love. And I’m safe to dream big.

“We must embrace our privilege and channel it into something greater, channel it to help those that may not have access to an education, those that have to travel miles and miles to get to school, those that are prohibited to learn and those that cannot read or write.

“Class of 2018, what a world we live in. You turn on the TV to see one devastating tragedy after the next — whether it’s gun violence in high schools all over the country, mass shootings, discrimination based on the color of your skin, and even right here in our city with our very own Flint water crisis.”

It is a beautiful and powerful speech — and it ends with her quoting Nelson Mandela:

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Well…

Seven years later, and Noor Abdalla is not safe.

She is not safe to speak her mind on college campuses — and neither is anyone else. If education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world, then it makes sense that the Trump administration is targeting students on college campuses, attacking and dismantling the Department of Education, banning books, and scaring people into silence.

One week ago this past Saturday, this same Noor Adballa — who is now 8 months pregnant — and her husband, Mahmoud, returned to their apartment in a graduate student housing building and were confronted by a gang of white men who refused to identify themselves. The leader of these men was a middle aged caucasian with a beer belly who was dressed in cargo pants and a Marvel comic book t-shirt. He says to Mahmoud, “We have you!” And as these goons drag Noor’s husband away, she asks them who they are, what department of the government do they represent, and she asks for their names.

“We don’t give our name,” says one of the men as Mahmoud is stuffed into a van and driven off into the dark of night.

All of this would seem insane — outlandish, impossible, fictional — except for the inconvenient fact that we live in a world of non-fiction film and this was all caught on video by Noor Abdalla herself, a young woman from Flint, Michigan, commencement speaker of the 2018 U of M-Flint graduating class. A young woman armed with an education and a camera.

Here is the video that Noor Abdalla made of her husband being illegally taken away. She filmed this while in absolute terror, her husband seemingly being kidnapped by a group of white thugs, not knowing if she would ever see him again. Everyone should watch this: (unfortunately, this video link didn’t come through into BBQ post)

Mahmoud Khalil — Noor’s husband — was a leading voice for Gazans in the anti-genocide campus protests at Columbia University last year. Mahmoud’s parents are Palestinian, and he grew up in a refugee camp in Syria. When the war in Syria spread, Mahmoud became a refugee of both Palestine and Syria, his family relocating to a refugee camp in Lebanon. From this impossible childhood, Mahmoud Khalil rose to one of the highest institutions of education in the world, Columbia University, where he was a graduate student — and a legal permanent resident of the United States of America with his government-issued Green Card. The holder of a Green Card has virtually all the same rights as an actual citizen other than the right to vote.

The United States government has no legal standing to detain him, nor to deport him. When asked why the Trump Administration is seeking to revoke Mahmoud’s Green Card and illegally kick him out of the country, the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security said that Mahmoud had “put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity.”

Wow. “Pro-Palestinian activity!” Scary stuff. UnAmerican Activities! Real Americans support Genocide, dammit!

“KILL THEM ALL! KILL THEM ALL! KILL THEM ALL! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”

To be clear, campus protests are NOT a threat to the United States of America! In fact, “pro-Palestinian activity” is not a threat to ANY ONE. The only people who could conceivably be threatened by “pro-Palestinian activity” would be someone who wants to kill or harm Palestinian people. And those are the people we should be deporting. Let’s start with the guy in the Marvel comic book t-shirt who handcuffed Mahmoud — and let’s toss in the immigrant South African billionaire in the White House who has sieg heil-ed his way into the Republican Party’s soul.

Three weeks ago today, I sent a letter just like this to my mailing list and my Substack subscribers. It was called “Our Muslim Boy Wonder” and it was about a Syrian student who came to America, met a young woman in Wisconsin, and together they had a child. That child grew up to be Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple. In that letter, I wrote about how this administration’s policy to round up and imprison and deport and separate immigrant families will rob this country of the future leaders and scientists and doctors and inventors who will guide and re-shape America. We deport them at our own peril.

Three days after I sent my letter, I was shocked to learn that I had hurt Donald Trump’s snowflake feelings, and that he had ordered the Trump White House to publicly rebuke me, calling me a “disgraced ‘filmmaker’” (“disgraced” I don’t know what that means, I’m an Eagle Scout and the nuns gave me all A’s, but putting those extra quote marks around ‘filmmaker’ — that’s a low blow and will lead to numerous Republican defeats in next year’s Midterms).

Ten days later, the Trump Administration sent their Marvel comic book hero to arrest Mahmoud Khalil.

In the week since Mahmoud was taken away, Universities across the country have, instead of standing up for their students and for the constitutional right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, empaneled administrators to root out activists and protestors on their own campuses. Under threat from the Trump Administration — and with the Department of Justice announcing plans to investigate universities across the country using “anti-terrorism” laws — the nation’s institutes of higher learning have turned on their students and have, as they have many times before, put on full display the intellectual weakness of the intellectual “thinking” class.

What is happening is not isolated. It is widespread and it is relentless. Each attack by this administration is a test to see how the public and the University administrators and the press react. So far, it’s working. UCLA has created a panel to investigate its students, so has Columbia. At Columbia’s vaunted school of journalism — which has been and should still be a temple to the 1st Amendment — students last week were told by their administrators to remove “commentary on the Middle East” from their social media. “Nobody can protect you,” the school’s dean told the students. “These are dangerous times.”

Just days after rounding up Mahmoud Khalil, Trump’s DHS also targeted an architect who attended Harvard and Columbia. Her crime — aside from being a Woman, an Indian national, and a Fulbright Scholar — was “liking tweets” that highlighted “human rights violations in the war in Gaza.” She has fled to Canada.

In yet another case, Dr. Rasha Alawieh, was denied entry to the United States this past Thursday. She holds an H1-B visa for people with expertise in their fields. Her crime — aside from being a Woman and a Muslim — was visiting her family in Lebanon. Her job? Well, her boss at the Brown University Health’s organ transplant division says that Dr. Alawieh is a “crucial” part of the team that “works on getting people in Rhode Island onto the list for kidney transplants.” The U.S. government believes she is a threat to the American public — and yet she is the one trying to save American lives.

Last week, as protests spread across the nation, on campuses and in city squares and in front of court houses, demanding the release of Mahmoud Khalil, Democratic members of Congress circulated a letter calling on the Trump Administration to “Free Mahmoud” — and in the end, only an embarrassingly paltry 14 Democrats out of 262 Dems in the House and Senate signed the letter. Fourteen.

Submitted By: glowpurple@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Thank you for writing and posting the letter.
You said exactly what I wanted to say. Salute to you!

Kit

Submitted By: babbles@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

to BBQ readership:
this letter was WRITTEN BY MICHAEL RANDALL and posted on the 3/15/25 Tillamook County Pioneer. i put those words in caps because i am not the author. i do fully agree with mr. randall’s words.
i am copying and pasting the letter below.
om peace namaste lucy brook nehalem resident U.S. citizen
Letter to Trump’s Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles Posted on March 15, 2025 by Editor www.tillamookcountypioneer.net
Ms. Susan Wiles White House Chief of Staff Executive Office of the President Washington, D.C. 20500 March 8, 2025
Dear Ms. Wiles: I am just an old guy who lives out here on the rainy northern Oregon coast. I have heard good things about you, and hope you bring those good conservative values to bear in your job as Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff.
I sent him the enclosed letter (see link below) a few days ago, although I realize he will never see it. It lays out my brief against his continued service as President. I know it sounds impolite, but I believe in my heart that the job is too much for him. He is five times too erratic (only one example: today all for Russia; then the next day he’s going to throw more sanctions at them.)
He has no knowledge of history (he is like a modern Chamberlain practicing appeasement at Munich in 1939.) He has no respect for the value and effectiveness of international rules agreed upon after WWII. And, apparently, he either does not know or does not care about Putin’s long-term goals (trumpeted widely for years by the little czar inside Russia.)
Tariffs will wound us all badly (they always do; they never work.) He is way wrong about his mass deportations. (Send back the convicted criminals, but give amnesty, work permits, and a road to citizenship to those who already are productive here in the USA. We actually need them here. At the same time, stiffen our controls at the southern border.)
Anyone who says that all his verbal “riffing” is merely meant to be starting points for negotiations shows little understanding of the differences between mere business deals and international diplomacy. Every thought that comes into his head goes out his mouth, and the world listens. He needs to play things a lot closer to the vest, yet I realize this is just about impossible for you or anyone else to control.
There is so much more: abandoning our NATO allies; appointing unqualified people to head executive branch agencies (I think you know what they are: largely a confederacy of dunces); his vengeful spirit employed cruelly and ineptly in slashing federal agencies’ capabilities, etc.
Anyway, I know my letter is insignificant in your larger scheme of things, but I wish you good emotional and mental health in your current job. I hope you stand successfully between your boss and the world’s destruction.
Sincerely, Michael E. Randall
www.tillamookcountypioneer.net/an-open-letter-to-donald-trump/

Submitted By: runnawaytrain1@gmx.com – Click to email about this post

Trump continues the Biden/Obama/Trump#1 policy of bombing the hell out of Yemen for Saudi Arabia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKGsL066FiA

Cowards in fighter jets dropping bombs on one of the world’s poorest countries, Yemen, on behalf of one of the word’s richest and most backwards and anti-Christian countries, Saudi Arabia, and indiscriminately murdering women, children, and whomever else in the process, DOES NOT MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

It makes ‘Merikkka stay the same old International Satanic Murder, Inc. it has been for decades.

While Americans STILL lack money for skools, actual health care, roads/bridges, etc., Trump decides to murder folks in Yemen??? I thought he was the moral choice, the Christian choice, over Bombs-Away Biden?

DOGE: Stop spending OUR money on MASS-MURDER overseas FIRST. THEN (being entirely selfish) CLEAN THE HANFORD NUCLEAR RESERVATION SECOND!

Or how about egg subsidies (seeing as the Biden admin killed 300-million American chickens for no scientific reason, but for economic warfare against the American people and to scare that industry into shooting $ubsidized BIG FARMA/BILL GATE$ mRNA-fake-bird-flu-tech into their birds) for Americans BEFORE we bomb children in Yemen? Or did Tulsi tell The Don that Yemen’s navy is a threat to us here in MAGA land? Does Yemen even have a navy?? Do they have airplanes that can reach America??

“If all Christians acted like Christ, the whole world would be Christian.” – Mahatma Ghandi

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Tump isn’t actually a Christian! He’s just pretending to be one to keep the WAR MACHINE and the AMERICAN OLIGARCHY going…

Tump is working to get Christians to accept the Satanic digital ID from the siliCON valley tech bros, and Satanic programmable/surveilable digital currency, more Satanic war, Satanic Artificial Intelligence/mRNA-shots for cancer from Larry Ellison, and all else that has been in Biden’s Satanic pipeline for the last four years.

Trump believes in MAGA as much as he believes in Jesus: Not at all.

Thomas Massie lives off-grid, is an actual peace-loving Christian, stands up against war, stood up against all the ‘covid’ bs and much much more, so much so that his wife was brutally assassinated last year after he stood his MAGA ground in Congress. If I recall, he was standing up for Palestinians via vote, then his wife was murdered.

Massie is MAGA, not sure what Drumf is…

rumble.com/v6ql1n8-trump-rages-at-gop-congressman-thomas-massie.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp

In my view, pardoning the Jan. 6th protesters was Christlike; it’s Nancy Pelosi and countless undercover FBI agents who should have been sent to jail as they staged the riot. Maybe they will get jail time yet, but I ain’t crossing my fingers.

Also, in my view, Putin was pushed and pushed by Democrats and Republicans, threatened with nukes by NATO, etc., so ending that war which is NOT AT ALL the result of Putin trying to expand his empire (come on people, really?), is also Christlike. Getting rid of folks living here illegally, is MAGA, and the right thing to do, in my view. Our border needs to be 100% closed, all immigrants who want to live here should apply for citizenship legally.

As for the rest of Trump’s first days, so far it’s looking like a bunch of lies and smoke and mirrors to me, and I ain’t seeing much MAGA so far, just a lot of empty MAGA promises.

Andy,
Wheeler

Submitted By: diwax54@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

I will not be drawn into debate over this post. I’m aware of arguments of people who disagree with the statements below. I”m posting this for all those who may be living in fear in this moment so you know you are not alone.
I want to share this piece in solidarity: This is where I stand. The 45/47th President, his power hungry cronies taking positions of authority in his Cabinet and administration, and majority of Republicans in Congress are real and active threat to me, my way of life, and all or most of people I love.
Some people saying we should give Trump a chance, we should “work together” with him because he won the election is “everyone’s president.” This is my response:
I will not forget how badly he and so many others treated former President Barack Obama for 8 years and Biden cleaning up his mess…Lies about his legitimacy and hatred for his principles and his attempts to work within the system.
I will not “work together” to privatize Medicare, cut Social Security/Medicaid.
I will not “work together” to subvert the Constitution by illegitimately pushing unfit Cabinet nominees through on recess appointments without advice/consent of Senate.
I will not “work together” to persecute Muslims.
I will not “work together” to shut out refugees from other countries who seek asylum.
I will not “work together” to lower taxes on the 1% to increase taxes on middle class and poor.
I will not “work together” to help Trump use the Presidency to line his pockets and those of family and cronies.
I will not “work together” to weaken/demolish environmental protection.
I will not “work together” to sell American lands, especially National Parks, to companies to despoil those lands.
I will not “work together” to enable killing of whole species of animals because they are predators, or inconvenient for a few, or because some people want to get their thrills killing them.
I will not “work together” to remove civil rights from anyone.
I will not “work together” to alienate countries who have been our allies for as long as I’ve been alive.
I will not “work together” to slash funding for education.
I will not “work together” to take basic assistance from people who are at bottom of a socioeconomic ladder.
I will not “work together” to get rid of common sense regulations on guns.
I will not “work together” to eliminate the minimum wage.
I will not “work together” to support so-called “Right To Work” laws, or undermine, weaken or destroy Unions.
I will not “work together” to suppress scientific research, on climate change, fracking, or any issue where majority of scientists agree Trump and supporters are wrong on the facts.
I will not “work together” to criminalize abortion or restrict health care for women.
I will not “work together” to increase number of nations to have nuclear weapons.
I will not “work together” to put more “big money” into politics.
I will not “work together” to violate Geneva Convention.
I will not “work together” to give Ku Klux Klan, Nazi Party and white supremacists a seat at table, or normalize their hatred.
I will not “work together” to deny health care to people who need it.
I will not “work together” to deny medical coverage to people on the basis of a “pre-existing condition.”
I will not “work together” to increase voter suppression.
I will not “work together” to normalize tyranny.
I will not “work together” to eliminate/reduce ethical oversight at any level of government.
I will not “work together” with anyone who is, admires, tyrants and dictators.
I will not support anyone thinks it’s OK to put a pipeline to transport oil on Sacred Ground for Native Americans.
I will not “work together” to legitimize racism, sexism, and authoritarianism.
This is my line, and I am drawing it.
I WILL stand for honesty, love, respect for all living beings, and for beating heart that is the center of Life itself.
I WILL use my voice and hands, to reach out to uninformed, and anyone who will LISTEN:
That “winning”, “being great again”, “rich” or even “beautiful” is nothing… When others are sacrificed to glorify its existence.

Signed
A concerned citizen in solidarity

Submitted By: babbles@nehalemtel.net – Click to email about this post

The following letter was published in the online newspaper the Tillamook County Pioneer (TCP) on 3/3/25.

Tomorrow i will post a follow-up letter to Trump’s Chief of Staff, that was published in tonight’s TCP 3/25/25.

om peace namaste

lucy boork

An open letter to Donald Trump
Posted on March 5, 2025 by Editor

I am 81 years old and come from a working-class family, having grown up near Portland. I was a US Marine, a Portland police officer, a teacher, business owner, and community volunteer. Although I did not vote for you, many people like myself did so. They thought you respected them, but you have proven otherwise multiple times, and I hope they turn against you for your vengeful, destructive behavior.

First, you show yourself to be a despicable coward by supporting Vladimir Putin’s ambition to rebuild the Russian empire through invading his neighbors’ countries. Appeasement of Hitler did not work either, but led to World War II and over 100 million deaths. Your embarrassing timidity and kneeling to Putin will lead to massive terror and suffering, and someday likely another God-awful world war. You have encouraged that by your chicken-hearted, appeasement of little Putin. You are both very small.

You have willingly abandoned Ukraine and its leaders to a terrible fate, through creating another of your big lies: blaming Ukrainian President Zelensky for the Russian invasion of his own country that has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. How could your mind embrace such a terrible lie? It is just another of many you have told, so many now that even our traditional allies in Europe look at you with contempt for displaying such cowardice.

Second, you betrayed our country when you pardoned the people who committed serious crimes on January 6, 2021. With your urgent instigation, they attacked the Capitol Building in Washington, trying illegally to keep you in power. Police officers died from that attack, and many people on both sides were injured because of you. You do not give a damn about them, but only work to manipulate the fears and anger of those who believe in you so that you can cling to power. You are a traitor to America — to its history and higher purposes.

Third, the US government’s agencies need a “reset” – that is true. But you chose to be vicious and inflict the greatest possible fear, uncertainty, and pain on federal workers and their families. You could have undertaken this project more competently, done it with intelligence and care, but you chose to be both cruel and inept. You have not differentiated at all between services that are important (even lifesaving), and which are not. You have wounded our nation’s citizens again. How can you look in the mirror and not feel shame about your incompetence?

Fourth, you plan mass deportations of those who came here illegally to escape terrible conditions at home, or to seek a better future for their children. Most of those millions have already contributed here quite well; filling jobs that otherwise would go begging for employees, starting their own businesses, volunteering in our communities, and enriching our society by their presence. Running them out constitutes a serious wound to our country, and to our economy and self-respect.

You, being among the worst of humankind, have the nerve to call them “alien invaders,” “murderers,” “criminals and rapists.” In doing so, you draw out the worst qualities of those who believe you. You sicken our country. You create more fear and hatred. You leave wreckage behind you wherever you go. You have no sense of your own honor or the need to treat other people with dignity and respect. Most undocumented migrants deserve respect, but you deserve none.

You should immediately resign, though I know you will not. You will cling to power at all costs to our people. You are a sad, sick creature, a cruel joke on the nation. History will not treat you well.

Please consider me to be among your most devoted opponents.

Michael Randall
Netarts, Oregon

Submitted By: cbbcalm@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Two of us a ready to get this going , as we did 5 years ago . We would meet and converse correct ,help each other with sentences. We may read from a book . Discuss the news in South America.. It was fun , let’s this again .
4.30 to 6 pm . usually at Wild .
corinna & Jennifer
cbbcalm@gmail.com ,

Submitted By: codger817@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

CIVIC SATURDAYS WITH JIM HEFFERNAN March 15 @10 am Zoom Link; Last Week’s Transcript – Sermon #7 Legitimate Doubts
Posted on March 14, 2025 by Editor

Join us Saturday, March 15 at 10 am for Tillamook County’s version of “Civic Saturdays” with Jim Heffernan hosting. The sermons explore new and better ways to be a citizen. They are aimed at developing “citizenship muscle. We will need “muscle” to bring power back to “We the People”, where it belongs. Each sermon functions as a stand-alone sermon. Don’t worry about missing earlier sessions.

This week’s sermon is “Fear and Hoarding” and is 20 minutes long and will explore the topics of fear, scarcity, and responsibility. We can talk about the sermon afterwards, or not.

Zoom link below – Invite link for Saturday 10 AM

us06web.zoom.us/j/88905106346?pwd=TEaw5qfSN2X5UoxBHgZSF7UsqwMugD.1

Recordings are available for those who are unable to attend the zoom. Contact me at codger817@gmail.com and I’ll e-mail one to you. Recordings also available for earlier sessions.

Submitted By: coastbbqfree@protonmail.com – Click to email about this post

United Paws’ Cat Supply Drive

Please consider the many ways to help United Paws of Tillamook – you can make a difference!

Submitted By: runnawaytrain1@gmx.com – Click to email about this post

Responding to a previous post about Orban being a bad man.

Hungary’s Orban doesn’t wan war with Russia, and he’s a Christian. No wonder the Democrats are attacking him!

From The Guardian (UK newspaper), March 2nd:

“Three years later, EU leaders are under pressure as never before to live up to those promises. After a summit hosted by Keir Starmer on Sunday, the EU27 leaders will gather in Brussels on Thursday for crisis talks. But trouble is ahead: Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has called on the EU to follow Trump’s example and open direct talks with the Russian president.”

OH NO! WOLDN’T WANT DIRECT TALKS WITH RUSSIA! JUST SEND MORE AMERICAN BOMBS TO KILL MORE OF EVERYONE OVER THERE!!! (Then steal trillions of the minerals under Ukrainian soil!)

The author included a quote from Democracy Now!’s Juan Gonzales. I met Amy Goodman years back, during one of her book-tour stops in Wokeland. Sadly, in my view, she has gone down the $oros ‘destroy-America’ rabbit hole. When Dubya and Dick were murdering Muslims all over the Middle East AND working to destroy our civil liberties here in America, Amy was on it, but when Dems are doing the same (Biden Admin, Obama Admin), like most Dem party members, she turns a blind eye, save the trendy Gaza stance.

(For what it’s worth, In a previous post I typed a Russian military-death-toll from WW2 as 50-million, I meant 5-million. And yes, without Russia’s involvement, we would be speaking German in America.)

And while I called the Ukraine War a Democrat war, it is, like all American wars, actually a bi-partisan war: make billions murdering folks, then steal trillions of their resources.

Here is The First Lady of Congress, Republican Lynsie Graham, on the REAL reason America and NATO spent ten years and a billion dollars (of USAID money btw) overthrowing the Ukrainian gov’t in 2014 (Obama) and otherwise worked to provoke Russia into a Ukrainian invasion:

responsiblestatecraft.org/lindsey-graham-ukraine/

Andy,
Wheeler

Submitted By: pelksorensen@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

Recently, I watched a sitcom where the actors were handed cups of coffee. The cups are supposed to be full of hot coffee but, because they were empty, the actors would hold them awkwardly and at angles that a person wouldn’t do if the cups were full. The producers didn’t bother to fill the cups with anything and left the actors to make the viewers believe they were real. The cups obviously didn’t have any substance and no reality. They were just for show.

In viewing what DOGE is doing, I see the same thing. They say millions of 150 year-olds are getting Social Security. The “doge bros” didn’t bother to ask why these millions of people all have the same birth date – it must have been a very busy day in 1875. This claim is so obviously a lie, I’m surprised that anyone would believe it but I know some do. According to Pew Research, there are approximately 101,000 people in the US over 100. According to the Social Security Administration, around 74,000 receive benefits. Clearly, this is nowhere near the millions of people that DOGE has claimed.
Having been a software engineer for longer than these guys have been alive, I know it is common practice to have an arbitrary date in the past to indicate that the data wasn’t provided. I have seen systems with a default date of 1900 so, to me, this makes sense. And, yes, I have seen dates like these in government systems.

I would need more information before I would believe they are all getting social security because social security benefits are paid by social security number, not birth date. Another important date is DOD (date of death). In this case, the benefits end or can revert to the spouse, if still living. DOGE, of course, didn’t consider this either since it wouldn’t make for a sensational press release.

Also, there was great fanfare when DOGE published a list of all the “savings” they are finding. They were forced to remove the top 5 “savings” because it was pointed out that the billions of dollars were greatly inflated. In some cases, they claimed credit for canceling contracts that the previous administration had already canceled. No, DOGE didn’t tell anyone, they just removed them from the website. I wonder why?

When viewing what the current administration is doing, I tend to remember the coffee cups on TV. They are performative and meant to convey a point of view but what they really are is devoid of substance and without a context in reality. They are for show. Using common sense and digging a little reveals how empty they are.

Paul Sorensen
Manzanita

About me: I’m a Software Architect for a global healthcare company. I’ve worked with government agencies, hospitals and clinics as well as other companies.

Submitted By: tevisdiii@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

A response to a response:

There was a response to a post entitled, ‘ The democrats destroyed Ukraine; please stop referring to this as Trump’s war’. The respondent used the first sentence in the post to disregard any of the many points that followed. This could be considered a straw man argument.

Many people in this nation have no clear understanding of Ukraine’s history so here is a link to the area’s past in maps. Mr. Dieken offered this several months ago. It’s worth the watch. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1i1e6h

It’s clear that the whole area around Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Belarus, Hungary, Russia has traded borders and people for centuries, which means that it is complicated. So many overlapping ethnicities and every single one can call up grievances of horrendous mistreatment by others; loved ones lost in conflict is history carried by families that’s different from history read in a book. Conflicts end and new lines are drawn on the maps and guess what, yesterday I was Polish but today I’m Ukrainian, or Russian, or Romanian.

Nations agree to new borders, new beginnings, new trade and security arrangements, give their word once again but deep wounds are so easily reopened if care is not taken. It’s not a simple matter to understand why Ukraine has been destroyed, but here are links to speeches by knowledgeable statesmen who foresaw and forewarned the world about pursuing those paths that began the destruction, that can help educate. Professor Stephen Cohen, Jeffery Sachs, John Mearscheimer, Colonel Douglas MacGregor, Scott Ritter, Claire Daley, Oliver Stone, are just a few. Despite what we all hear, the Russians did everything they could to avoid this war, do not wish to continue it and have absolutely no desire or intention to go beyond their stated goals: a neutral Ukraine, not run by Nazis and no NATO.

duckduckgo.com/?q=speeches+by+professor+stephen+cohen&atb=v314-1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-pUj3Vqptx8 Cohen, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiK6DijNLGE Sachs

johnmenadue.com/jeffrey-sachs-explosive-address-at-the-eu-parliament-sends-shockwaves-across-europe/ Sachs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUoJwXtMue4 Cohen,

debunking the putin panic/ Matte

duckduckgo.com/?q=speeches+by+professor+stephen+cohen&atb=v314-1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DtUoJwXtMu matte/cohen

www.filmsforaction.org/watch/why-is-ukraine-the-wests-fault-featuring-john-mearsheimer/ Mearscheimer

www.sott.net/article/465594-Macgregor-Washington-wants-war-to-continue-as-long-as-possible-in-hopes-to-overthrow-Putin Macgregor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRb5-_790wY Macgregor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCDiw6eg04E Ritter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKcmNGvaDUs&t=2121s Oliver Stone doc. on Maidan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNxLzFfR5w Netflix version of Maidan

mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#label/new+age/QgrcJHrtvWzcGXbXrBzFjJZQHQXJHKPHlgv?projector=1 Claire daly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cWly2hHVxg Putin, 2007 speech in Munich, Security Council. This speech shows prescience few grasped at the time.

Submitted By: klgsmall@gmail.com – Click to email about this post

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And can you talk about Orbán’s role in terms of Project 2025, the Danube Institute, and its relationship with the Heritage Foundation, and also his attempt to become a center for right-wing movements throughout Europe? KIM LANE SCHEPPELE: Yeah, exactly. So, first of all, you know, when Project 2025 came out, I sat down and read it, and the first thing I thought was, you know, this sounds so much like what Orbán did. And then, it turns out, a month later, there was a terrific article in The New Republic that made the connection. So, Orbán has this English-language think tank. It’s called the Danube Institute. You can google it and see what it’s up to. And the Danube Institute had entered into a formal agreement with the Heritage Foundation to actually provide consulting on how the Trump people were going to copy what Orbán had done. In the meantime, you know, when Orbán gives his Hungarian-language speeches, one of the things he keeps saying is, you know, “We are deep into the Trump administration and involved in its central planning.” So, you put all this together, and it’s actually not just that the Trump people are aping Orbán from a distance, it’s that Orbán has actually been involved in the design of Project 2025. This is excerpted from Democracy Now STORYFEBRUARY 12, 2025 “Are We Sleepwalking into Autocracy?” Trump Embraces Authoritarian Playbook of Hungary’s Orbán I had to eat three pieces of chocolate when I found this again and reread it. Karen