The United States government has over the last couple years provided weapons hand over fist to support the Israel government in it bringing a great amount of death and destruction to Gaza. In answer to a reporter’s question Tuesday at the White House, Trump suggested the US government may soon take things to the next level — directly engaging in war in Gaza.
Eight years ago this month I commented that “I would not be surprised to see the US government legalize marijuana within the next five years.” That conclusion came upon my consideration of the then 64 percent nationwide support for legalization among Americans who had been recently polled by Gallup, plus — for the first time — majority support among Republicans.
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Deep-six ‘the Jewish State’
Mentions of “the Jewish state” are common in media as a stand-in for the Israel government. Sometimes the phrase is just thrown in to mix things up by using something other than a repeated mention of Israel or to make communication come across as more interesting, refined, or erudite.
Some critics of government overreach have regularly welcomed United States government shutdowns, arguing that they provide relief — if only temporarily — from spending and bossing around by government that threatens both freedom and prosperity. For them, the announcement from the Donald Trump administration that the government shutdown that started this week could lead to the cancelation of billions of dollars in spending on “clean energy” authorized during the preceding presidential administration could seem a welcome relief.
“Safe and effective.” That was the phrase often repeated by people trying to maximize the injections of coronavirus “vaccine” shots during the coronavirus scare. This claim about the shots was wrong. The shots turned out instead to be dangerous and ineffective.
On Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a repeal of a substantial tax increase on marijuana sales in the state. By raising the cost of marijuana on the legal market, the tax increase was leading people to opt instead for making purchases on the black market.
Charlie Kirk became well known and helped build his organization Turning Point USA by coming on to college campuses to present views that some students and, often, the people running the colleges did not want aired. In doing so, he helped advance the exercise of free speech at colleges. It was at one of his campus events at which he was discussing and debating issues that Kirk was murdered last week.
The Trump administration’s Department of State has been placing a high priority on denying the granting of visas to, and revoking visas from, people who have said things critical of the Israel government, including the Israel government’s war activities. That looks like it is an early step of a trend at the United States government department. In a new Fox News interview this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced his desire that the State Department would make an addition to the list of thoughtcrimes for which visas may be denied and revoked.
In Milan Kundera’s debut novel The Joke, the character Ludvik Jahn in communist Czechoslovakia is expelled from college and the Communist Party and ends up conscripted to a hard labor camp as a result of a joke he included in a post card message to a friend. The joke was judged to run afoul of the ruling ideology.
Back in the 1980s, I was not a fan of the television show Miami Vice. The focus of the show — cops Sonny Crockett and Rico Tubbs enforcing laws against vice — was not appealing. Stop the crackdown on vice — including by bowing out of the war on drugs — and follow a policy of live and let live instead, I thought. Miami and the rest of America would be a freer and safer place as a result.