What Am I, Chopped Liver?

There's something very unfair, and insulting, about the House of Representatives' (of whom?) efforts to try to find some reason to impeach Joe Biden.  At this point, they're openly acknowledging that there is no evidence, but they want to look for some.  They now think they want to examine Biden's...bank records, to see if anything there is amiss.

They've gotten the idea that they should somehow find some way to impeach Biden, even though there's no indication that he did anything impeachable, or anything wrong.  And they're willing -- desperately wanting -- to go to any lengths to find something that they can consider evidence.

Yesterday, a Florida Representative, whose name I have somehow failed to bother to remember (an overweight black guy with a closely trimmed beard, and his first or last name might have been Byron), presented what he wanted people to understand to be clear evidence in a text message.  Or at least a smoking gun.  Or something.  But House Democrats were all over it, and they discovered that the text message was fake.  It was a scam.  It wasn't really an incriminating text message.  It had just been made up.

So, here's my complaint.  Why does Joe Biden get all this attention and commotion?  Why doesn't someone want to see my bank records, or anything that could disqualify me?  (Well, "Anonymous" whines childishly about various things, but I'm miffed that no one more legitimate, if the Republican House of Representatives could be imagined to be legitimate, than that wants a piece of me.)  It's true I'm not the president of the US, but I'm a registered Democrat.  Isn't that reason enough to come after me?  Republicans are in such a blind and mindless frenzy that I would think someone like me would be a good enough target.  (Apparently not.  Oh, that's right, I didn't win an election over Donnie Trump, the savior of the world.)

Frankly, I'm offended.

Nikki Haley Was the Governor of a State? She Needs More Perspective.

I almost never watch political debates.  I didn't watch the Republican one last night.  It's just people spouting off nonsense, much of which isn't true.

But when I was exercising this morning in the garage, and the radio was on, I did hear some discussion of last night's shenanigans.  They were talking about the posturings and strategies adopted by the candidates.  According to the report I heard, Nikki Haley was going on about blocking out immigrants, and she said something to the effect of that having been part of the foundation of this country.

Hell of an argument from someone whose parents were immigrants.  In fact, the parents or other forebears of every candidate on that stage were immigrants.

Everyone in this country, except the Native Americans, are or came from immigrants.  And as for Haley's suggestion about the founding of this country, it was founded by people who just came here, with no one's permission, horribly abused the people who were already here, and soon enough got into the system of importing (buying) other people they could import and abuse.  I can understand why Nikki Haley (R-SC) doesn't want to talk about that, especially since she's not complaining about it.

The government of France gave us a beautiful and large statue ("of liberty") which we not only accepted, and placed where many immigrants have come to this country, but proudly inscribed with Emma Lazarus' poem about our invitation for the world to send us its "tired, poor, huddled masses" of people who "yearn[ed] to breathe free."

I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again.  Once when I was campaigning for office in BP, I spoke to an elderly Cuban woman who was complaining about "illegal immigrants."  I asked her if she knew why she wasn't an illegal immigrant.  It's because we said so.  We told Cubans all they had to do was get here, and we would welcome them in, no questions asked.  There's no reason we can't do that for Haitians, Guatemalans, and anyone else who wants to come here, as our forebears wanted to come here.

So, Nikki Haley had two options if she wanted to invoke the history of immigration to this country.  She could have encouraged anyone who wants to come here to come, and overpower and destroy us, as we did the Native Americans, or she could have encouraged anyone who wants to come here to come, because we have erected a Statue of Liberty to welcome them, and the Cubans, and the Indians like Haley's and Ramaswamy's families, and everyone else's forebears.  The only thing she could have said that would have been wrong was the thing she said: that this country was founded on keeping immigrants out.  It was founded, and has thrived, on welcoming immigrants in.

At Least We're Not Texas or North Dakota or Missouri? Oops.

From EveryLibrary:

How much are taxpayers paying to fund the book banning crusade?

EveryLibrary's Associate Director recently penned an Op-Ed in the New Hampshire Union Leader entitled: The overwhelming cost of book banning in which he explored the weaponization of school and public library policies by a small number of people. 

These attacks are costing taxpayers millions of dollars and having lasting impacts on your ability to choose books for you and your family.

You might be surprised just how much these activists are costing you, the taxpayer.

Never mind that the educational value lost is incalculable.

We can actually demonstrate how much money- tax payer money; your money- is being spent on taking books away from students. Let’s take a look at a few real world examples of the dollars that go into banning books. Then you can decide if this is what you want your taxpayer money going towards. Or if you think it would be better spent elsewhere.

Banning a book comes down essentially to two things. Parts and labor. The “parts” in this case are the books themselves. After all, it's hard to ban a book if you do not have it in the first place (although some activists have spent significant taxpayer resources on attempts to ban books that libraries don't even own). And since most school districts require a review by committee before a book is removed from libraries, every member of that review committee has to have a copy of the book.

Which brings us to “labor” or the human cost behind these reviews. And this is really where the costs take off. Think about it: Your taxpayer dollars pay the salary of the employees who are spending some of their time, or much of their time, reading books that have been challenged by just a handful of activists in your district. And every hour they spend reading a book to review, is an hour of other work they are not doing for you.

All because of just a few, vocal, radicals.

Let’s start in Texas.

Back in 2021, Texas State Representative Matt Krause requested that the Texas Education Agency fully review more than 800 books he felt should not be on school library shelves.  As you might expect, his book list was mostly targeted at books written for or about minority and marginalized communities, but that is actually immaterial to the larger point here.  The point is: how much would it cost?

One school district, just one, Lewisville Independent School District, provided an estimate to the Texas Education Agency that it would take one hundred and fifty-eight hours and more than $3,000 to ban books. 

For context: Texas has more than twelve hundred school districts! That means if ALL of them needed about $3,000 to comply with this request, it would end up costing the state $3.6 MILLION dollars to ban books. 

It will cost more than $3.6 Million dollars to ban books in Texas. 

That of course assumes that every single county and charter required the same personnel and resources. Lewisville ISD has about 315,000 people in its county. Of course, the largest school district in Texas is the Houston Independent, which has about 1.5 million people, or around five times as many, in its district. We can reasonably assume it would cost them considerably more.

Which means that $3.6 million dollars in the state of Texas is a low estimate.

That, of course, is based only on one single list provided by one single state representative. When a county falls victim to particularly radical action and actors, or becomes frozen by indecision and debate, the costs quickly skyrocket even more. Take the example of Spring Branch Independent School District in the same state.

A recent attempt to ban the book The Black Friend, on Being a Better White Person ended up costing the district 226 hours of time, divided between(sic) sixteen people and cost more than $30,000!  [I would have thought Caucasians, or anyone, would want to be better people.]

$30,000 just to ban ONE book!

Imagine how expensive state rep Krause’s list of 800 books would get in Spring Branch! Does this seem like money well spent? Is this where you want $30,000 of YOUR tax dollars going?

Florida is another state that is taking on absolutely absurd costs to ban books. And they recently passed HB 1069 which is an example of how vaguely worded and ill-defined laws end up costing taxpayers money as local officials toil to figure out how to abide by them.

Part of HB1069 requires that every library digitally account for every single book on their shelves and where they are filed, and upload those lists to a publicly available database.  Ostensibly, this is so parents are able to see if there are books on the list that they object to so that they can challenge them for removal. But cataloguing the entire library’s collection is one thing: this also applies to classroom libraries. Which means that schools have to go classroom by classroom and find every single book and digitally catalogue those as well!

Schools and libraries are already woefully understaffed, and the burdensome request of this bill has to be outsourced in most cases. That means school districts have to hire third parties to help them file everything. What’s the cost?

Between $34,000 to $135,000 per library or school to ban books in Florida. Per year. 

Every single year, it is going to cost every single library or school- and therefore, you, the taxpayer- an average of $85,000 to catalogue the books on shelves and in classrooms… really just so that extreme political actors can object to some of them and get them banned.

Even if this was only an average cost per district, it would end up costing the state of Florida $5.8 million dollars ANNUALLY to ban books. 

But that average number of $85,000 is per school or library according to estimates.

Of course, Florida is not alone in passing vaguely worded bills that end up costing taxpayers millions of dollars as locals try to wrestle with how to apply those laws. North Dakota recently handed down HB1205 and SB2360 which add more layers of censorship to libraries and ban books. And guess what: even a tiny state like North Dakota finds itself overwhelmed by the absolute costs of how to apply these laws.

The North Dakota State Library, one single library, estimated that the costs of re-evaluating its collection to comply with what they believe is the intention of these loosely worded house bills, would be $3.3 million dollars. That’s $3.3 million dollars for one library in one state, just in labor costs, to comply with laws that want to take books away, not add them!

Is this getting exhausting yet? Do these millions of dollars seem like they are going to a worthwhile cause? Is this what you want your taxpayer money spent on?

One last example: let’s really get into the nitty gritty on this.

Back in March of 2022, Kelly Jensen of Book Riot published an article detailing the average costs of an individual book challenge. This is what it costs to challenge one single book on average. 

She used Francis Howell School District in Missouri as the example, however the numbers provided are backed up in presentations given by school districts around the country. Katy ISD released similar numbers when asked about how much an individual challenge costs. And while labor costs are slightly different from one district to another across the country, these average dollar values provide an illustrative point.

For a single committee hearing in Francis Howell SD to consider a book, every member of the committee needs a copy of the book. Trade paperbacks, believe it or not, cost on average of $15.00 now, and the book used in Jensen’s article was more expensive even: it cost the district $20.00 per copy for all seven committee members. 

That’s $140 just to get the books to be considered to be added to the library in one school district in Missouri. 

Then there is the real cost: the time it takes for members of the committee to read and consider that book (Monday’s Not Coming in this example). Jensen lowballs their salaries at $15.00/hour for the sake of the example: but the reality is many of the salaried members of this review board are making quite a bit more. And she only estimates that it takes 2 hours for the board members to read the book. Also very generous, since an average novel takes closer to eight hours of reading time to complete.

However, using Jensen’s charitable estimations, at $15.00 an hour for two hours for 7 committee members plus the cost of the book, we come to $365.00. Except the process is not over: they now need to discuss the book and make a decision based on their reading.

If the talks go long, you can probably expect to add an additional $210 in labor to the challenge, which brings it to $575.00 to challenge the book all in. And again, Jensen wanted to create an illustrative floor: the real costs only go UP from here.

Now, $575 to challenge a book might seem a bit more reasonable after we have been talking in the millions. But remember: this is for ONE book in a state where hundreds are being challenged every year. AND, most districts have a budget on per student spending. In Francis Howell SD, where Jensen set her example, that number is $6,375 per student. So the cost of book challenge is, on the low end, $575. That eats up almost 10% of the school's total per student expenditures. 

Thats 10% of a school district per student expenditures going into banning one book.

One book.

Here are two examples.  In Florida recently, the Diary of Anne Frank was banned, because it described that Anne Frank looked at the breasts of one of her friends.  I don't think there's any such thing as a preteen or teenager who is not attentive to the various sexual manifestations of his or her peers.  (They're curious, competitive, interested, or whatever.)  But this was too much for some parents in Florida, who appear conveniently to have forgotten their own earlier years.  Second, the most banned author in this country, for decades, is Judy Blume.  Ms Blume's offenses have been to have talked about these universal and totally normal preoccupations of developing young people.  The movie of her Are You There, God?  It's Me, Margaret has recently come out. Ms Blume does the young female population of this country the huge favor of talking about preteen or early teen girls talking to each other about who's wearing a brassiere, or who's gotten their period, yet.  Again, there are no such girls who don't have these preoccupations and insecurities.  But this is far too provocative for the adults who, if they were in the middle east, we would demean as the "morality police."

"You Go On Strike; You Get Fired." An Interesting, If Precarious, Philosophy.

Someone asked Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), who is running in the primaries (so far) for president, what he would do about the auto workers' strike if he was president, and he responded with the quote in the title of this post.

Setting aside that the president of the US has nothing to do with an auto workers' strike, and nothing to say about it, and that the posture, and sentiment, Scott expressed are just another example of applying yet more handicaps to already disadvantaged Americans, Scott's impulse creates some potentially difficult problems, for people like him.

If you're a US Senator, and you announce that you refuse to consider any SCOTUS nomination made by then president Barack Obama, in Obama's last year in office, when a Justice had died, and needed to be replaced, have you gone on strike?  Should you get fired from the Senate?

When Donnie Trump is impeached by the House, twice, and the Republican majority Senate announces that it doesn't care what the House does, because regardless of any of the facts and testimony, it refuses in advance to convict Donnie, are Senate Republicans then on strke?  Should they all get fired from the Senate?

If you're a Republican member of the House, and you refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless you get to impoverish more Americans, have you gone on strike?  Should you get fired?

If you watch various videos of Congress, and you notice that the vast majority of Congressmembers are not there, because they're working out, having lunch, shopping, trysting with their boyfriends or girlfriends, or spending much of their time on phone banks, looking for money for their next campaigns, are they in effect on strike?  Should they all get fired?  Should they get fired on the spot if they add insult to injury, and claim they haven't had time to read the bills on which they vote, so they just vote blindly?

When members of Congress vote according to what their larger donors, or the people who "lobby" them, want, and contrary to the interests of the American people, let alone the rest of the world, are they in effect on strike, at least against American citizens/voters?  Would Tim Scott agree they should be fired?

Clearly, these are rhetorical questions.  Tim Scott no doubt receives campaign donations from the huge auto conglomerates, and not from the unions, and he only cares about the welfare (hmm) of his donors, and not of the American people, including those who do the thing Republicans always insist people should do: work.

It seemed Scott painted himself into a corner.  If he thought more about it, he might very well adjust his view of this matter (especially if someone informed him that this is a private sector issue, and does not involve the president of the US, or that person's opinion).  As frustrated as I sometimes get with Joe Biden, at least he knows when to butt out.  But maybe Scott just wanted whatever tiny base he has to know how nasty and sadistic he is.  Noted.

Are They At an Advantage, Or Is It a Disadvantage?

The Tennessee legislature skulked out of session without dealing with a proposed gun control bill.  And part of the imagined impetus they might have had to deal with it was yet another school shooting, this time in Tennessee.  But for the legislature, this event wasn't reason enough to, you know, fucking do something!

I have no idea who are the members of the Tennessee legislature, apart from the three who got themselves famous a few months ago, by demanding gun control legislation.  And in response to this demand, the legislature threw out two of them (the two young African-American male ones, not the somewhat older Caucasian female one).  The vacated seats had to be filled, and the districts involved enthusiastically re-elected the two guys who had just been ejected.  So, maybe the legislature was in part embarrassed about this failed attempt to suppress elected representatives and initiatives that were important to their constituencies.  Maybe that's why Plan B was to skulk away without taking up the proposed bill.

Gun violence, including against school children, just doesn't seem to look like a problem to groups like the Tennessee legislature.  And maybe the fact that it doesn't look like a problem is the problem.  Maybe they don't see the problem other people see, and for which those other people are agitating for a solution, because they weren't the legislators' children who were shot and killed.

I don't want the children of Caucasian, right wing, Tennessee legislators to be shot and killed.  I don't want anyone to be shot and killed.  And I'm very sure that Caucasian, right wing, Tennessee legislators don't want their own children to be shot and killed.  But they seem to be unable to recognize that the shooting injuries and deaths of other children, who are not theirs, is the same thing as the shooting injuries and deaths of children who are theirs.  They're at the advantage, or disadvantage, of not being the parents of children who were injured or killed by someone with a gun.  The problem, for those of us who think these shootings are a problem, is just not in focus for them.

The legislators have another way to look at it, and it might, in a sense, help them gain some perspective.  They could realize that they represent the whole state, and not just themselves and their families.  It doesn't appear they adopt that perspective.  "They don't care" is a harsh way to summarize their inaction, but they don't leave much of an alternative.

Of course, if they were part of this conversation, they would sort of without doubt cite the "Second Amendment," which they would say, as Marco Rubio says, says "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."  And half of the Amendment -- the second half, that depends on the first half -- does say that.  But the Amendment is not about guns.  It never mentions them.  It's about "Arms," and "Arms" are for the purpose of being an effective member of a militia.  That's the condition the first half of the Amendment very clearly states.  We don't have common public militias any more, and all of the "Arms" that would be necessary to be an effective member of a militia today, for the expressed purposes of militias, are illegal.  By making them illegal, we have informally or indirectly repealed the "Second Amendment."

And the Tennessee legislature could listen to one of its own citizens, who grew up around guns, and handled and used them, and became an emergency room doctor, and calculated that gun use that nobody wants is 42 times more common than gun use that people might generally want, or accept.

The Tennessee legislature had compelling reasons to pass the proposed bill, but their advantage, or disadvantage, prevented them from recognizing the propriety and essential importance of it.

Who knows what would have gotten their attention?  Federal Representative Steve Scalise was shot while playing softball, and that didn't lead him to change his mind about guns in society.  Of course, he just got a leg injury, from which he recovered, and the shooting didn't result in his burying one of his children.  So, maybe he, too, was at an advantage, or a disadvantage.

'24 might be interesting.

I Dare You

"G20 Must Forge Agreement to Increase Tax on Rich, Say Campaigners

"Developed and emerging economies must use a summit this weekend to forge an international agreement to increase wealth taxes on the global rich, campaigners have said.

"In an open letter to the G20 before its meeting in Delhi, the group of almost 300 millionaires, economists and politicians say urgent action is needed to prevent extreme wealth “corroding our collective future”.

"The letter, whose signatories include the Disney heiress Abigail Disney and the artists Brian Eno and Richard Curtis, urges the G20 to demonstrate the same global cooperation it showed in ensuring multinational companies pay a minimum level of tax to agree collectively to tax wealth.

"With deep divisions between members of the G20, little is expected of this weekend’s summit, but those pushing for a wealth tax said it was time for leaders to listen to public opinion.

• "What does the letter say? 'Much work has already been done. There is an abundance of policy proposals on wealth taxation from some of the world’s leading economists. The public wants it. We want it. Now all that’s missing is the political will to deliver it. It’s time for you to find it,' the letter reads."

  
  

  
  

  I dare you to pay your tax bracket.  Don't deduct anything, except what it costs you to be in business (licenses and fees, rent) and other taxes you pay (property, etc).  If that leaves you with a tax bracket of 30-something percent, then pay 30-something percent.  You live in this country.  You choose to live here.  Living here provides you with the advantages you have.  Pay for them.  And pay for the other things this country does, to protect you, and to protect other people, even people who are just less fortunate than you are.  You yourself wouldn't choose every expense this country incurs?  Neither do I.  But we all choose to live here, and supporting this country and its agreed/voted upon endeavors is our responsibility.

  If you choose to donate money to anything or anyone (a religion, a cultural entity, civil rights groups, organizations against guns, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or anything else), let that be your pleasure, your honor, of personal meaning to you, and no one else's responsibility.

  I dare you to "man up," and do it.  If you make or have so much money that the tax would be a lot, then you have way more than you need, can use, or want anyway.  Think about the people who give away money so they won't have to pay tax on it.  They give away more than the tax they're trying to avoid paying.  How unpatriotic is that?

  The last time I took tax deductions was 2012.  After that, I only deducted business costs and money I donated to the Village (to buy sculptures), which I considered a voluntary extra tax.

  Are you up for this dare?