IT: 🛰 Russian anti-satellite missile test prompts emergency, and... How do you feel about the bipartisan infrastructure bill?

Our infrastructure is way past due for investment.

Things that make you go hmmmmm. According to a 2017 Oxfam report, the top eight richest billionaires own as much combined wealth as "half the human race". As of October 2021, ten people have reached the status of USD hectobillionaires, meaning that each has had a net worth of at least $100 billion. All but one (Bernard Arnault) are United States citizens.

It’s about time! Our country is falling into decay, physically and ethically. We need to do upgrades to our country and our politicians have to step up and be role models for our young citizens. We all have to show good manners and kindness. Congratulations to all the Democrats and the two brave Republicans that did the right thing for their constituents. Our Senator Patrick Leahy is retiring. We need more men like him. He has been so good for Vermont. We will miss him. He is a class act.

"What? Me worry?" . Alfred E. Newman "Don't Worry. Be Happy." . Bobby McFerrin "Hakuna Matata" . Swahili Saying & Disney Song by Tim Rice & Elton John When I was a kid, we just worried about nuclear annihilation. Now we also have... Autocratic Repugnicans, COVID-19 Variants, Foreign & Domestic Anti-Democratic Terrorists, Chinese & Russian Imperialism, Global Warming, Supply Chain Shortages, Inflation, Orbital Debris, and now... Asteroids No wonder everyone is learning yoga, deep relaxation, and meditation. (Better that than substance abuse!) #1 Chunk of Moon Blast "Komo" The asteroid known as Kamo`oalewa is a quasi-satellite: a subcategory of asteroids that orbit the sun but stay near our planet. Discovered in 2016 by the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii, Kamo`oalewa is about 150 to 190 feet in diameter and most closely approaches the Earth at approximately 9 million miles. It bears a name taken from native Hawaiian creation myths and alludes to an offspring that travels alone. https://kutv.com/news/offbeat/asteroid-near-earth-could-be-lost-piece-of-the-moon-astronomers-say #2 Where's Reagan's Star Wars Space Lasers? Planetary defense: NASA prepares to launch spacecraft that will crash into an asteroid https://wjla.com/news/local/nasa-asteroid-defense-double-asteroid-redirection-test-drat-active-planetary-defense

This new infusion of money will only speed up inflation!

An unlisted topic, but potentially important to us because it affects the banking industry. An idea mentioned, though not expanded upon in the article about Biden’s nominee for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Saule Omarova, is the creation “of an agency not unlike the Food and Drug Administration, that would be charged with approving or rejecting new financial products.” In the aftermath of the financial shenanigans that created the financial collapse of 2007-2008 at the heart of the Great Recession which saw people lose homes and life savings, this doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me. The crisis rose from low interest rates and looser borrowing requirements that meant borrowers that would not otherwise qualify for the mortgage they were granted bought homes that then losr value as the housing bubble burst. According to Investopedia.com, “The banks then sold those loans on to Wall Street banks, which packaged them into what were billed as low-risk financial instruments such as mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Soon a big secondary market for originating and distributing subprime loans developed.” These high-risk financial products eventually caused the crisis as the housing bubble burst. The financial industry, from banking to Wall Street, has shown it does/will not police itself into integrity and out of greed. The legal system doesn’t seem able to adequately hold people in the industry accountable, either: By 2018, only one banker (Kareem Serageldin for hiding losses by mislabeling bonds, sentenced 2013, released 2016) in the US (out of only 47 worldwide) were convicted and punished for their contribution to the financial collapse and, although institutions were fined the fines may well not have had serious bite relative to profits. Here’s the hyperlink to the article about Saule Omarova who is a renowned scholar in finance: https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2438833526103/a-look-into-the-ugly-and-incredibly-personal-fight-over-biden-s-pick-to-oversee-banks?s=oldSite&ss=i0

Question: Which is better political leadership? #1 Announcing a "Grand Vision" then trying to Build a Consensus knowing you will come up short and will look weak #2. Figuring out what will garner passing votes first, then announce that as a "vision." Having been assured of the votes, it passes, and one looks like a "winner." I’d love to know what Biden’s Build Back Better Strategy Is. From the outside it looks two-pronged 1. Achieve as much as possible for the 99% knowing the 1% have their fingers on the scale. 2. Use the 1%ers and the Republicans' obstruction and opposition against them.

Infrastructure bill is great. Could have been 3x bigger! Pass Build Back Better!

The bill is a total waste , cuts taxes to the 1 % , taxes go up for middle class and poor, giving billions to blue states to bail them out..

I read @Sharon’s latest post referring to opinion polls. Good stuff that needs critical thought. When articles lead with alarmist messaging, pay attention but do not trust them! Have you ever dealt with interviewers, pollsters, etc.? I have—multiple times. Too often questions are editorially written because they are paid for by people with an agenda. The individual pollsters may be poorly trained or have personal agendas. The publication that use the results always have agendas. Also poll results can be statistically predetermined – manipulated so that you can go to a relatively progressive city like NYC but focus on certain people or areas then get incorrect results. Then blast those results. Ask yourself this “Are Americans as fickle as the cited so-called polls reflect?” Whatever. Always remember this statistic: IQ follows a normal curve. 100 is the median. That means about 50% of the people have an IQ BELOW 100! INFER THAT! Scary, huh? Any wonder why it's so easy to attack democractic forms of govrrnment? Any wonder why the American founders created a really weak form of Republican Democracy? Is being a billionaire like being your own country?

“America is overflowing with good news. Unemployment is down, wages are up, consumer confidence is rebounding, and consumers are spending more (retail sales jumped 1.7% in October, the third monthly increase). Covid seems to be in retreat, at least among those who have been vaccinated. And two big parts of Biden’s legislative agenda – last spring’s $1.9tn America Rescue Plan, and his recent $1.2tn infrastructure plan – have been enacted. So what’s not to be happy about?” Robert Reich I do wonder why Biden’s approval ratings are so low even though his agenda, which is slowly being mitigated and enacted, has many parts that polls indicate are supported by the majority of Americans. In quotes from an op-ed piece below by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich his take on that is laid out. The guts of it seems to be that expectations of what a single President has the power to do were inflated. The pandemic and its effects on our hearts and minds lingers. Did we really expect that it wouldn’t when such a large percentage of our population refuses to mask and/or vaccinate? The only tools Biden has are persuasion or mandatory measures. And how are these people - some of whom continue to staunchly believe in disproven or unproven narratives, allegations, and assertions - to be persuaded to a view they don’t like or that is contrary to the views poured into their ears by those whose statements generally line up with what these people want to believe? Biden’s compromise has been to mandate EITHER vaccines OR testing, and the same group screams that even a choice takes away their freedom. Maybe some had an idea that the President is unilaterally able to somehow reverse the divisions in a country in which people fling insults at each other and assign contemptuous, degrading labels to each other when political opinions, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and/or education don’t match up. How did we think a single person had that kind of power over hearts and minds? To change the character of our collective society will require that the members of our society stop going around primed with arguments and attitudes against what we don’t like, trust, or agree with and listen with a desire to understand rather than conquer. Here are more excerpts and a hyperlink: “Biden’s current job approval rating is 12 points lower than when he took office – now just 41% (around where Trump’s was for most of his presidency). Most registered voters say that if the midterm elections were today, they’d support the Republican candidate. Even Trump beats Biden in hypothetical matchups. More than 60% of Americans say the Democrats are out of touch with the concerns of most Americans. And Republican congressional candidates now hold their largest lead in midterm election vote preferences dating back 40 years. How can the economic and pandemic news be so good, and so much of Biden’s agenda already enacted – yet the public be so sour on Biden and the Democrats? Some blame Biden’s and the Democrat’s poor messaging. Yes, it’s awful. Even now most Americans have no idea what the “Build Back Better” package is. It sounds like infrastructure, but that bill has been enacted. “Human infrastructure” makes no sense to most people. Yet this can’t be the major reason for the paradox because the Democrat’s failure at messaging goes back at least a half century. I remember in 1968 after Nixon beat Humphrey hearing that the Democrat’s problem is they talk policy while Americans want to hear values – the same criticism we’re hearing today. Some blame the media – not just despicable Fox News but also the corporate mainstream. But here, too, the problem predates the current paradox. Before Fox News, Rush Limbaugh was poisoning countless minds. And for at least four decades, the mainstream media has focused on conflict, controversy and scandal. Good news doesn’t attract eyeballs. Some suggest Democrats represent the college-educated suburban middle class that doesn’t really want major social change anyway. Yet this isn’t new, either. Clinton and Obama abandoned the working class by embracing trade, rejecting unions, subsidizing Wall Street and big business, and embracing deregulation and privatization…. After four years of Trump and a year and a half of deathly pandemic, most of the country was eager to put all the horror behind – to start over, wipe the slate clean, heal the wounds, reboot America. Biden in his own calm way seemed just the person to do it. And when Democrats retook the Senate, expectations of Democrats and independents soared. But those expectations couldn’t possibly be met when all the underlying structural problems were still with us…. Dashed hopes make people angry. Mass disappointment is politically poisonous. Social psychologists have long understood that losing something of value generates more anguish than obtaining it generated happiness in the first place. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/18/why-are-americans-so-unhappy-with-joe-biden

Focus on messaging. The Dems seem like the only adults in Congress these days except for a few noteworthy Republicans. They are doing what’s needed for the American people amidst a firestorm of disinformation from seditionists and far right media sponsored by dark money interests. Dems need to do a better job exposing disinformation for what it is, showing who’s propagating it and why they’re doing it, and showing people in rural areas how they are being supported by democrats and reasonable republicans. If they don’t and the seditionists take the House and Senate in 2022, say goodbye to democracy and hello to orange fascist tyranny.