IT IS A PUZZLEMENT...

Over the weekend..   Trump decided to bomb Iran..     I couldn't believe it..   WHY..  First he had already bomb it …. what last year?   While they have been busy trying to repair things..  they were no where near getting ready to bomb as ..  as Trump and his stooges are trying to make us believe..  Next they have nothing to travel that far with a bomb..  to get to us..    an hour after the first bombs hit.. we hear that Israel was with us as we bomb them..    so again..  I ask..  WHY ARE WE BATTLING FOR ISRAEL?   THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT…  Israel has the most to gain..   then we hear that Trump and his stooges hear that Israel was actually going to do that soon..    WHY DID TRUMP think we should???..

And my other question,   especially after Iran bomb OUR base in Quatar?   How is that going down with the Saudi  ‘s?     I thought!!  Saudi’s were Trump new best friends..  you know the Saudi’s who told TRUMP… NOT TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IRAN!!

THIS DEFINITELY A PUZZLEMENT…      and then the congress voted .. the REPUBLICAN  vote to not put any brakes on Trump in this..   what the HELL.??

I miss the days....

 I miss the days……..   

The days when people were more relaxed..  instead of looking for hate.  No matter which side…   now days..  there is hate every where.. of anything..  seems like the Ugly American they talked about in the 1950’s..  is back alive a not well..   All the of the ones who were looked down at,  when they would spew  nastiness..    words to destroy.. most of us looked at them with disgust.     Enough so that they would not say it unless they were around their own..  they were the 5 %...   I think a lot of us thought it was the bottom of the barrel of the South..  maybe because that is where we thought of the KKK group who tried their best to promote hate… prejudices… mostly there were of the blacks.. 

But for a short time..   in maybe the 80’s heading into the  ..1990’s the blacks were starting to get respect…   that people were starting to see there were good and bad black people .. just like the whites…    so they were enjoying actors, and actresses,   singers, and etc..  Lawyers, and bankers and then Senators and Representatives .    Even gays started to live without having to look over their  shoulders..   Finding out that they  too, were fine people,  singers, actors, or just the guy down the road who has a flower shop…  the lawyer who steps up and shows they too know the laws and can win a case of many…     People were finally look at them all as if they are just another human being.    But some where .. around the beginning of 2000…  things started to fall apart..  and by 2016.. the hate was back in vengeance … bring it to focus was Mr. Trump..  he showed them that prejudices were alive and well.    And the under current came up and the ones where 1. Didn’t know what to do,  didn’t know how stand up for those who were now targets again..      I don’t understand..  I have been .. around and had and have friends of these  groups…  NOT ONE GAY PERSON..  asked me to be gay…  they treated me like I was me…  NOT ONE BLACK person tried to change me…   when they saw respect..  I got respect back.     And the one that really throws me is the hatred that is back from the 1920’s.   the hatred of the Jewish people..   See I was raised around a lot of Jewish people..  my parents had a lot of Jewish friends..   never heard my parents say anything negative about Jewish people..    Our town has the oldest Synagogue in the USA.

I babysat for a Jewish family..   I also worked for a produce man..  who taught me a LOT..   there were never any negative words said…  I just don’t understand.   After I was a full blown adult, that I had read of prejudices in New Jersey…  I was shock.   I went to school  with Jewish…   I don’t get it..

AND WHY IS THIS UGLY BACK?   WHY?     We have always had some kind of prejudices..  We had Catholics not wanting their kids to date and or marry Greece.. or Protestants… or Jewish not wanting their kids to date and marry out of their religious group..      but none  of hate about color,  and about feelings.. and etc..      They just wanted to stay in their own religion…

OH, HOW I WISH I COULD TURN BACK THE CLOCK ON HATE…  Just when we were starting to accept each other for who they were..    they weren’t trying to change you to who they were…   they just want to be themselves..  and for you to be yourself…  

Guess, my ex was right…  I wear rose color glasses..  

 

 

                .. 

I wish I had taken notes....

I WISH I HAD TAKEN NOTES…. 

Or even better,  kept a journal..  as there is things I remember from over the years. But as I write them down in a book like one of my granddaughters had be do…   it just doesn’t seem to come out right.

When some one brings up a subject..  like what did you do for work?   In my days, most women were either secretaries, or store clerks, .or teachers, or..  and then there were nurse aides..  until they got married..   Some of them did it after they got married..  especially if they were divorced..   Better jobs came along later,  as strong women and society figured out that woman could do just about any job a man could.   Some companies hired those women because the pay for them was about a 1/3 less than if they hired a man.  And women were so happy to finally be looked upon as good workers..  Not knowing until much later that they were getting paid a lot less.   Then women started striking or taking it to court..  Winning some, but not as much as men.     Society found out that woman could do the same work as men during WWII… when the men went to war.. yet planes, tanks and etc had to be built..   Women did it..   of course as soon as the war was over, the women were let go. Even the women pilots were told they were no longer needed..   And it took until the 1990’s before there was the recognition of woman workers during the war.   Now you see occasionally a statute of a woman pilot.   War brought on women workers..  Women following the troops during the Civil war and taking care of the men who were shot.. was some what a start of nurses..     Except they were called..  camp followers..  and were not treated very well,  and  let go after the war was over.  

It is in the old history books..  if you can find one..  don’t know what the internet did with the information. 

I went the gambit..  Babysitting, clerk in office, waitress, ran a mom and pop ice creams shop.  He was in the Navy and she was a navy wife with a lot of friends.. and when he was at sea, she was partying..  so I open the place up..   and she closed it.   Then several years later..   I was a helper in a car smashing business with my husband..   burning cars to get the copper out of it..  standing on top of a load, so I could line up the finally car on top.   Even smashed a load one time.   As my husband had thoughts of over the road driving again.  Only to find out they wanted to sell him a semi and not use his old truck.   So I helped his partner smash a load of cars while my husband was returning home.    After I took classes in becoming a nurses aide..  and did that for up to 18 years.    So you see ..  women have been filling in for years..   Now some are heads of companies…  but there are  still some that are fighting the system of lower wages and sexual harassment.    So you see, I have done a few things..    but some how that becomes blah blah blah..  when some one ask..  what did you do for work Nana…

And there really is more to that..  the cold mornings of dragging cars to the place we smashed them..    drinking coffee to warm up..   Kids up on the top of old coal piles in the summer…  when they were not school age yet.      The jealousy of another metal smashing company..    how the mill where we dumped off a load and a bit later some explosive blew up in the grinder..  and the police grilling my husband to find out where his truck had been after he finished but before he drove over the mt. to the grinder company near Seattle.

The chief of police making a deal to smash cars left in the woods… finding titles or paper work so we could…     How I had a side job.. thru that chief.. of being their operator of the phones for the city from Friday night to Monday morning at 8am.

See more to the story of ..   well I was …..  

 

ARE YOU OLD ENOUGH…. WERE YOU POOR ENOUGH…

In the 1960’s.. there were something called commodities..  On the packages was marked.. MADE FOR US GOVERNMENT.   Which meant it was totally only… made for the US GOVERNMENT. 

My sister in law and I went down once a month to a building…..got a shopping basket and went down a roll .. there were about 3 rolls if I recall right.    I had a 3 on my cart and she had 8 on hers.. it was how many was in your household. 

Now Commodities were for those who did not make much money.  Bill had just got out of the Navy.. and being their wasn’t a big call for boat drivers, which is what he did in the Navy..  driving the officers from land to ships..  and also LDT landing- something the other - transportation..    So he sold encyclopedia  books which didn’t pay much.. about 50 cents an hour and commission on how many sets you sold..  you didn’t sell any?  No commission.

My sister in law Willie showed me the ropes..  both in getting the food, plus how to cook with it..   See this was NOT food stamps..  Food stamps where you went and bought what you wanted (with in their guidelines… like no bath soap, no clothes soap, no toilet paper and etc)   What we got was boxes of flour.. 5 lbs size,   sugar 5 lbs size,  18 inch long 4x4 tins of meat,  of cheese and peanut butter.    Which by the way..  was the best ever cheese and peanut butter…  which you could not find any where else..   as the manufacturer did not make the product under their own company name.    Willie got two of everything and I got one..  because of the size of our families.  There was powdered milk, which did make some pretty good milk.. nothing like the commercial ones in the stores that tasted like paste water.

The other part was you had to know how to cook with these items.. as there was NO premade food..  it was all up to you to know how to make pancakes, bread, and etc..  even pasta..  I got pretty good at making noodles..   rolling them out and cutting them with a knife and then boiling them.    Thanks to Willie showing me how.  

Bill learned how to weld from his older brothers and went to work in the ship yards.. where he got to work on the Navy ships he served on..   which he made too much money for us to get any more.

 

So are you old enough to remember?   And were you poor enough ? 

Think happy thoughts, they say.....

 So here I am,  still traveling thru the shingles crap...  as I have decided to call it..  I am so ready to be over this...     

I am done with the contagious part…the stuff festered, scabbed and dropped off..    So why are I not done?   Oh, no no…   the powers that be  say.. NOT SO FAST CIS….   As it comes the rest of it..  and you thought you had pain before.. WELL, HERE IS PAIN…  SHARP PAIN… BURNING PAIN.. PRESSURE PAIN..  in different parts of the body where the shingles arrived..      And just to make sure I am paying attention..  it seems during the scabbing.. and tiny little spot, decided to raise up on my chest..  See the rest of it is from the wrist to the armpit..  the full armpit..  with the elbow on its own.. doing its thing..   the joint part has reminders that this is still real..  with extremely painful sharp stabs…  that I swore was 30 seconds..   which turn out to be actually 5 to 6 seconds..  but it arrives when it wants to.. no warning.. just a huge stab in the joint… enough to make the arm jerk.   And now I read that there is a phase 3 with this.. where it can  last months and even years for others..  OH PLEASE,  GOD,  don’t let me be one of those.  

My son who got this after thanksgiving..  is still dealing with it..  in its starting of down hill..   so making that almost 2 month  s…   Please God don’t let me do more?

 

Some of this is hard..   as I have a pretty good endurance of pain..  at least I think I do…  My mother taught me as a child….   If you don’t think about the pain and to            busy yourself..  it will lessen it or have it disappear for a while..   and if you are lucky it will go away…   So that is how I have dealt with pain over the years.. UNTIL this.    So my pain goes from 9 – 10.. to 8,,  but still there..   I tried different creams…  which work about 3 days and then back to the old pain… so have been rotating it..   Keep telling myself..  next week it will be better..

So after reading this..  if you have not gotten the shingles shot…. Get it…  unless you are in to pain..      And as much as you think, you can think it away..  NOT.. going to happen.. 

 

Well, I am still surviving the shingles..   I have reached the non contagious... section..  the scabs have come and went.  now left with the redness and nerve pain...  so according to my son, who started his just after Christmas ... I am over the hump...  hopefully so...  as the pain is bad enough..   I am containing it somewhat.. with iprobem.. ,  

we have been watching odd channels for the past 2 weeks,... the King got attached to a show called SUE THOMAS... FB/EYE      well worth the watch.  about a woman who is deaf.. and has a yellow lab for her dog.. 

We took a break this weekend,  just in time to hear the next WORSE THING ....   I have a newsletter email that i read..   he is pretty solid of looking at both sides of life...     so if you are not a news person.   skip this..  and bow out..  it is long..  as he is through.    In the meantime.    stay warm and dry..  try to look thru life in your own back yard.  it is kind of like the bird who sticks their head in the sand...   and it feels horrible to be that way...  as I can't get this horror show to stop.

 this is from a email newsletter I get...   I have 3 but this one is a little more refine and to me..  is far more truthful and sees all sides..  even if we don't agree, I find him more stright forward... looks at both sides and then gives his opinion...     if you like how he thinks..   google a newsletter called Tangle... 

Today’s topic. The latest shooting in Minneapolis. On Saturday, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) shot and killed a 37-year-old man in Minneapolis, Minnesota, following an altercation with federal agents. Earlier this month, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed Renee Good, 37, in her vehicle in a Minneapolis neighborhood, setting off large-scale protests. The latest shooting led to renewed calls from state officials for President Donald Trump to pull federal immigration enforcement agents out of the state.  Back up: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has deployed thousands of ICE agents to Minnesota as part of an immigration crackdown called “Operation Metro Surge.” Many Minnesotans have protested ICE’s presence in the state, organizing a general strike in Minneapolis on Friday.  We covered the start of the Minnesota ICE operation and Good’s death here.  The victim in Saturday’s shooting was identified as Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis resident and U.S. citizen who worked as a nurse in an intensive care unit. Video of the incident appears to show Pretti filming federal agents from the road, then stepping between them and another woman a CBP agent had shoved to the ground. The agent directs the spray at Pretti, who is then surrounded by several more agents and tackled. A gunshot sounds moments later, after which the officers back away from Pretti. At least two agents can be seen firing additional rounds at Pretti while he is lying on the ground.  In the hours after the shooting, reports emerged that Pretti had been armed with a semi-automatic handgun. At a news conference, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Pretti was a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry a firearm in public. However, Trump administration officials have described the victim as a “domestic terrorist” who intended to harm officers. “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said.  State and city officials have strongly refuted this characterization of the incident. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said the Trump administration was “spinning stories” and “rushing to judgment,” vowing that the state would conduct its own investigation. In an interview on Sunday, President Trump said his administration is “reviewing everything” about the shooting and “will come out with a determination.” Many Republicans have broken with the administration on its description of the incident and called for an impartial investigation involving state officials. Others expressed concern about DHS agents’ tactics and training. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said the shooting raises “serious questions within the administration about the adequacy of immigration-enforcement training and the instructions officers are given on carrying out their mission.”  Senate Democrats said they will oppose legislation that includes funding for ICE unless it is amended to reform how the agency operates; ICE funding is part of a larger government-funding package covering multiple federal departments. If the legislation is not passed by the end of the day on Friday, most of the government will shut down.  Today, we’ll cover the response to the latest shooting in Minneapolis, with views from the left and right. Then, Executive Editor Isaac Saul gives his take. What the left is saying. The left is appalled by the shooting, and many call for DHS agents to be pulled out of Minnesota.  Some say the Trump administration’s justification of the officers’ actions runs counter to the Second Amendment. Others argue the administration is encouraging more chaos.  The Minnesota Star Tribune editorial board said “an ICE pause is the only path to peace.” “Minnesota is standing at a dangerous edge. After a third shooting involving federal immigration agents in less than three weeks, both the state and its largest city are trapped in a familiar and deeply corrosive moment. As of Saturday afternoon, key facts remain unsettled. That uncertainty is not incidental. It is destabilizing,” the board wrote. “The shooting death of 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti on Saturday morning cannot be reviewed behind federal walls alone. A joint investigation must be established immediately, with federal, state and local authorities granted equal access to evidence, witnesses, body camera footage and timelines.” “An ICE pause would not represent abolition. It is governance. It is an acknowledgment that tactics producing sweeping disruption, mounting injury and now multiple civilian deaths are failing their own stated aims,” the board said. “Members of Minnesota’s Republican congressional delegation are needed now. So are business leaders and institutional voices with access to federal power. This surge will end eventually. The damage may not.” In The Atlantic, Tyler Austin Harper called the incident “a Second Amendment wake-up call.” “Although the administration claims that its immigration-enforcement operations are meant to protect Americans from an ‘invasion’ of foreign-born gang members, federal officials have now killed two American citizens — specifically, white American citizens, the kind Donald Trump and Stephen Miller tacitly signal they care the most about — in less than a month,” Harper wrote. “It is plain that Operation Metro Surge and Operation Catch of the Day — yes, that’s what ICE actually calls its Maine operation — are not about protecting the good citizens of Minnesota and Maine.” “Whether they lean right or left, are pro-immigration or have more restrictionist views, my fellow gun owners should understand the message that is being sent by this administration: If you exercise your constitutionally protected right to bear arms, masked federal agents can murder you in cold blood,” Harper said. “ It is not yet clear what exactly Pretti’s own views were, or what motivated him to be on that Minneapolis street. But he knew what the Second Amendment is for: to affirm that Americans are a free people, and free people will not be cowed by masked federal agents. As this country’s gun enthusiasts have long known, freedom means little if you lack the means to keep it.” In Jacobin, Ben Burgis wrote “Trump and ICE are driving the country off a cliff.” “The DHS’s statement, never quite claiming he had drawn the gun but vaguely gesturing at a ‘violent’ struggle and the officer who shot him supposedly fearing for ‘his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers,’ is unlikely to be believed by anyone who watched any of those videos,” Burgis said. “Indeed, one of the most striking parts of all this is that these particular lies don’t exactly seem to be intended to be believed. Instead, it feels like the point is just to give the hardcore supporters of the current administration something to hang their hat on when a ‘libtard’ tries to give them a hard time about this.” “Thus far, the restraint and unity shown by the overwhelming majority of the protesters in Minneapolis is remarkable. There have been mass demonstrations, an impromptu strike called by local organized labor, and an abundance of people filming ICE and the Border Patrol and letting them know that they aren’t welcome and that no one plans to make it easy for them to drag away their friends and neighbors,” Burgis wrote. “Even so, the more lawless and violent the behavior of masked and therefore totally unaccountable ICE agents become… the more likely it is that some misguided individuals will meet violence with violence.” What the right is saying. The right is mixed in their response, with many reaffirming their support for deportations.  Some say the incident raises nuanced Second Amendment issues.  Others criticize the Trump administration for its messaging about Pretti.  On X, conservative commentator Greg Price shared a note for “my leftist friends.” “I do not care that a leftist agitator got himself killed because he decided to arm himself with a gun and venture out to resist ICE, nor the other one who sped her car at an ICE agent while fleeing arrest, nor do I care about the little kid who was detained with his illegal alien father, ” Price wrote. “ And neither do you, because all you care about are turning people — whose deaths never would have happened if you people didn’t have a psychopathic opposition to lawful immigration enforcement — into martyrs who can be used to justify ending deportations.” “I, along with 77 million other Americans, voted for a government that promised mass deportations. And that doesn’t mean just gang members and criminals. It means every single person who crossed the border illegally or has overstayed their visa,” Price said. “I simply do not care about any of the sob stories that you manufacture on a daily basis to emotionally manipulate people against lawful enforcement of our immigration laws. I don’t care if federal agents wearing masks triggers you, I don’t care about your tug-at-the-heartstrings propaganda.” In Bearing Arms, Cam Edwards explored “2A groups respon[se]” to the shooting. “[Kristi Noem] asserted that the incident ‘looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement,’ though video shows that Pretti never touched his firearm before he was killed,” Edwards wrote. “Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, drew widespread condemnation from gun owners (including myself), for a post on X several hours after the shooting took place where he asserted that ‘if you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.’” “Was it a bad idea for Pretti to actively engage law enforcement while he was carrying? Yes, though from the video I’ve seen the only contact he made with a Border Patrol agent was a momentary hand on the agent’s shoulder after the agent had pushed another protester to the ground,” Edwards said. “Whether or not the shooting will be deemed justified depends on the totality of the circumstance and whether or not the agents who fired their weapons had reasonable cause to believe their lives and the lives of others were in danger. I’m personally leaning towards the ‘lawful but awful’ scenario given that Pretti’s gun appears to have discharged while it was in the hand of the agent who confiscated it and the shouts of ‘gun, gun.’” In his Substack, Erick-Woods Erickson wrote about “another dead American.” “Both Pretti and Good would be alive if Tim Walz and Jacob Frey would cooperate with the federal government like most other states do. Americans are not dying in other states. Minnesota is a major sanctuary state and cooperating with the federal government would get ICE and border patrol out of the state,” Erickson said. “Like the progressive left and Hamas, however, there is a well-coordinated PR campaign between the Left and press to make the federal government the bad guy. Frankly, the federal government has walked into the PR battle and is doing its very best to lose it. More dead Americans does not help.” “What we have right now is the Trump Administration, led by the head of the Border Patrol and Kristi Noem, rushing to seed a narrative into the minds of people before all the facts are known and some of the facts they presented have already turned out not to be true,” Erickson wrote. “These are government officials. They have an obligation to be truthful and measured while so many facts are unknown. They also have an obligation to protect the President of the United States and his policies. Rushing out with a narrative that then must change because more facts have come out will destroy the Trump Administration’s credibility on this issue.” My take. Reminder: “My take” is a section where we give ourselves space to share a personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment. I feel like I’m screaming into the void, desperately hoping the right people will hear my pleas for de-escalation. Both the responses from the administration and some of its supporters are incredibly disorienting. The political tides are shifting, and an emerging majority is against DHS’s approach. Executive Editor Isaac Saul: When I was a kid, I used to have a recurring nightmare where a roomful of friends and family were talking to me, and I was responding, but they’d all keep asking me why I wasn’t answering. At the end of the nightmare I’m yelling as loud as I can to get them to hear me, and they all just keep looking around at each other, wondering why I won’t talk. Then I’d wake up in my bed screaming. This week, I’m reminded of that nightmare; for so many months, I’ve felt like I’ve been shouting and unable to get the people I want to hear me most to listen. As I did after Renee Good was killed, I’ll start by describing the events as objectively as I can, based on the available video evidence. Alex Pretti is standing in the middle of a street recording DHS agents. A car approaches and he waves it past. One of the agents appears to approach a woman standing in front of Pretti, and you can hear him and the agent both yelling. Pretti then grabs the woman and walks her toward the sidewalk, away from the agent, who follows them. There, another woman approaches and yells something at the officer, who shoves her to the ground. Pretti steps between the officer and the second woman and lays a hand on the DHS agent before raising his other hand into the air. The CBP officer sprays a substance into Pretti’s face, and Pretti turns away from him while keeping one hand in the air, filming with the other. He then tries to help pick the woman up off the ground. The CBP agent continues to spray him and the woman on the ground from behind. More agents then surround Pretti, who is clinging to the woman he was trying to help, and throw him to the ground. They begin spraying him, punching him, and trying to restrain his arms and legs. Pretti struggles. What happens next is difficult to parse, but one officer appears to see Pretti is carrying a firearm and pulls it out of its holster. Another screams “gun,” and then the shooting begins — 10 rounds in total, several after Pretti is lying motionless on the ground. These were my first thoughts after watching the video: Recording law enforcement is legal, and carrying a legal firearm is a constitutional right. Pretti seemed to be trying to keep his distance from the CBP agents, and he only ever got close to them after one followed Pretti toward the sidewalk then violently shoved a woman who yelled at him. Pretti’s instinct to put himself between the agent and the woman seems totally normal — if not explicitly admirable — to me. He touched the CBP agent, which was his gravest error; but he did it in about the most conciliatory way possible, with one arm in the air as if to say “I’m not trying to start any trouble” with his body language. A screengrab from one angle of the shooting captures his demeanor well: Screenshot of video of the incident What happened after the agents began pepper-spraying, beating, and disarming Pretti was pure chaos. Pepper-spraying someone while trying to handcuff them generally does not produce a perfectly compliant response. Whatever you think of Pretti, one agent screaming “gun” after he has been disarmed, then another shooting and killing him while he was held down by several agents, is not orderly law enforcement. Nor is an officer shouting “Where is the gun?” while searching Pretti’s body nearly a minute after he was shot. I’ve been doing this job for long enough that I’m rarely shocked anymore. But what happened in the wake of the shooting genuinely shocked me. For starters, the brazenness of the smearing of Alex Pretti is disorienting; the administration has claimed Pretti was a “domestic terrorist” who was trying to “massacre” government agents and “inflict maximum damage” and was “brandishing” a weapon. Stephen Miller called him an “assassin” who tried to “murder federal agents.” However, Pretti never brandished his weapon. He never threatened an agent. Before stepping between the CBP agent and the woman he’d shoved, I’ve seen nothing to indicate that he so much as verbally antagonized officers.  We now know the playbook: If an immigration officer assaults or kills someone, the administration will respond by trying to make the victim look as evil as possible. Remember, President Trump claimed Renee Good “viciously” ran over an ICE agent whose survival was “hard to believe” and that the officer was recovering in the hospital — all misleading or outright false. Pretti, Trump claimed, was a “gunman” whom CBP had to “protect themselves” from. All this is to say, this playbook totally justifies why people are recording immigration officials. When the federal government tries to call people they apprehend or kill “assassin” or “domestic terrorist” or “murderer” or “pedophile,” it’s crucial to have some evidence to show they are lying. In the public sphere, a lot of people who support DHS have claimed that Pretti was “obstructing” law enforcement or “resisting” arrest. In my view, both of these allegations are flawed. Obstruction implies Pretti was stopping agents from carrying out some kind of law-enforcement action — the supporting evidence is that he was standing in the street filming and waved a car past him, which some alleged was him “directing traffic” to block the agents. However, since the action was occurring in front of Pretti, it looks to me like Pretti simply waved a car past him while filming in the street.  The other claim is that, by standing between immigration agents and the woman he just shoved to the ground, and making contact with said agent, Pretti was obstructing an arrest. Again: This is odd, since they don’t appear to be trying to arrest the woman in question. In fact, it looks like the agents are just assaulting her — shoving her to the ground and pepper-spraying her, without any effort to actually detain her. This is one element that’s making this issue feel so dissonant: Onlookers, and traditional defenders of law enforcement (often on the right), are talking like we’re witnessing traditional law enforcement tactics — as if a police officer was assaulted by an onlooker while trying to put handcuffs on a thief. In reality, immigration officers are brutalizing American citizens for filming them, standing in the street, or yelling insults at them — and when one guy instinctually tries to protect a woman being roughed up by one of these agents, he gets ganged up on, beaten, disarmed, and shot multiple times. Let’s be serious. Pretti is an ICU nurse at the VA with no criminal record. He was no “domestic terrorist.”   Others (like Greg Price under “What the right is saying”) called out that no Democrats protested for Laken Riley, a nurse who was murdered by an immigrant here illegally. The difference, obviously, is that Riley’s killing wasn’t committed, celebrated, or justified by the state — her murderer was arrested, tried, and convicted.  Then, finally, is the defense of a person’s Second Amendment rights, which I discovered in the last 48 hours is ideologically flexible. Many liberals who have long attacked the Second Amendment are now preaching about Pretti’s right to carry; meanwhile, many conservatives who have historically defended the right to carry firearms tried to make Pretti look bad by framing him as someone who “had a gun” at a protest. Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, told his followers that “if you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.” FBI Director Kash Patel went as far as claiming you don’t have a right to bring a firearm to a protest, which is precisely the opposite of the actual law.  All of this, obviously, is nonsense. You can legally exercise your Second and First Amendment rights at the same time, as many Trump supporters have been doing (sometimes with great fanfare) for years. And cops don’t get to assume you’re a threat because you are legally carrying a firearm — in fact, the Second Amendment was explicitly designed to protect citizens against government overreach, especially the violent kind, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen more clearly on display in my lifetime than right now in Minneapolis.  We don’t know why federal agents are acting so brazenly, so aggressively, as of late — but a questionable recruitment and training process undeniably has something to do with it. Even though the officers who pulled the triggers on Renee Good and Pretti were both veterans of the force, DHS — through CBP and ICE — has been quickly amassing an army of aggressive recruits, training them poorly, and giving them a green light to treat both American citizens and illegal immigrants as hostile entities in a warzone. DHS’s diminished hiring and training standards can only contribute to the decay of standards in the agency, and they’re also easy to observe. Recently, ICE literally offered employment to a journalist who applied for a job just to write a story about the process, and whom the administration apparently didn’t even run a background check on.  As Minneapolis’s police chief pointed out in a remarkable, must-watch interview, his department recovered 900 guns, arrested hundreds of violent offenders, and went the entire year in 2025 without a single officer-involved shooting. Consider that. This is now the third DHS-involved shooting in Minneapolis in less than three weeks and the second American citizen killed by immigration enforcement in that time span. On top of that, DHS has repeatedly tried to detain off-duty, non-white Minnesota police officers, and in at least one case allegedly approached an officer during a traffic stop with their guns drawn. On top of that, after 48 hours, we still know very little about the DHS agents who shot Pretti. No names, just that one of the shooters was a Border Patrol officer who had been on the force for eight years. And no accountability. As I’ve been screaming into a nightmare, these agents are masked, anonymous, and protected by the state; unlike police officers or other law enforcement, they’ve been given carte blanche to act however they like without being easily identified, something that should never be normalized in American society. If you spend a lot of time online, you’d be forgiven for thinking that these shootings are “divisive” or that DHS actions are becoming a partisan issue. Some may even read “My take” today as left-leaning or overtly “liberal.” But I believe this division is an illusion. Asked if Pretti’s shooting was justified, respondents to a YouGov poll came out 28 points for unjustified, with nearly a third of respondents unsure (probably because they hadn’t seen the video of the shooting). Support for abolishing ICE — not defunding or limiting or restraining, but abolishing — is now 46–41 in support, and is a +12 issue with self-identified independents.  The list of Republicans calling out the Trump administration’s enforcement efforts is only increasing: Sens. Dave McCormick (PA), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Bill Cassidy (LA), Thom Tillis (NC), Susan Collins (ME) Jon Husted (OH), and Pete Ricketts (NE) have all (to varying degrees) criticized DHS or called for investigations. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) pleaded with supporters to see how bad this is getting; Rep. Andrew Garbarino (NY), the House Homeland Security Chair, has stepped up requests for heads of ICE, CBP, and USCIS to testify before his committee. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) said “Americans don’t like what they’re seeing right now” and criticized the “bad advice” Trump is getting, careful not to actually go after the president himself.  Some Minnesota Republicans in Trump counties are beginning to jump ship, and Chris Madel — a GOP candidate in Minnesota’s gubernatorial race who is also the lawyer representing the agent who killed Renee Good — has now ended his campaign and said that DHS has gone beyond its stated focus on real public safety threats.  Perhaps most jarringly, John Mitnick, who helped establish the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 and 2003 and was Trump’s Senate-confirmed choice for General Counsel for DHS in Trump’s first term, is now calling out DHS’s “lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty” and suggesting Trump should get impeached. If you think I’m taking a partisan line here or overreacting, read that sentence a second time and let it sink in.  Even President Trump appears to be looking for an off-ramp — he announced he’s sending “Border Czar” Tom Homan to Minnesota, and officials are beginning to leak that he’s unhappy with DHS. My own politics have circled the political center for the last decade, and I’ve been an outspoken critic of the left’s immigration policies. Yet the Trump administration’s actions here — its shameless smearing of dead Americans, its violations of civil liberties, the overt violence of its agents — are decisively turning me against this enforcement effort. I’m glad to see I’m not alone, and that The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, and The New York Post’s editorial boards are all on the same side of this issue.  Democrats, waking from their stupor, say they want to separate DHS funding from an upcoming spending bill, even if it causes a government shutdown. That’s a good start — but it should only be a start. Oversight and accountability for everything that has happened, from the unlawful searches to the unjustified arrests to these horrific shootings, should come next. And it should come swiftly.  Take the survey: What do you think of the latest DHS shooting in Minnesota? Let us know. Disagree? That's okay. Our opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback.

WELL THIS IS THE PITS............

On Saturday I noticed a rash on my arm.... from my arm pit to my wrist..  it was rash .. a flat rash.. so didn't think much of it but wondered what I had touched to get it.   I thought about shingles   being from a nursing background, it did make me wonder for a moment..   but it was like under my skin..  So I took a hot shower before bed..  Well, as I am drying off.. I see bright red..and bumps.. DAMN IT IS SHINGLES. 

Went to bed. and  did not go to church.   Talked to my oldest son, who is in the tail end of a shingle weeks.  He said you need to get to a dr.  NOW..  you only got about 10 more hours .. other wise is it going to be a LOT worse..   So after talking to him..  I decided to go to Immediate Care unit.   And yes,  she verified it was in fact SHINGLES..   She prescribed the meds that my son talked about and mention some over the counter meds for itch and pain. 

So far..no itching ..and pain is not as bad as I thought it would be..  but think that is because of the meds. It is not a sharp pain, but more of a ache..  but the worse.. to me.  it the lack of energy..   And the lack of sleep.  I was sleeping 15 minutes every hour..   Monday, I got the chills.. so put on a sweater..  ending up going to bed early about 8pm..  but I fell asleep right away and woke at 2..  went to the bathroom and back to bed until 5. I felt so much better..  well, energy wise that is.. the ache and etc.  was still there. 

but here I am on Wed. feeling drained again.   no appetite.. (maybe I can lose weight... lol) 

The first thing every one ask. DID YOU GET THE SHINGLE SHOT..  and my reply is  nope. 

I had friends who got the shot and got shingles.. so what was the use.. one got it for 3 weeks.. the other got it for 4 days..  so figured why get the shot if you are only going to get shingles.. which seem to me like getting the shot  caused it.    Well, I guess I better get the shot, as they say getting shingles is no guarantee you won't get it again..  In fact, one friend told me her father got it 3 times in 3 years...  He finally got the shot.  He got it again for 3 days and ever got it again.    So got to pull up the big girl pants and get the damn shot after this is over. 

So if you haven't gotten the shot, and wasn't going to..  might want to rethink it. 

Opinions.. every one has one

 It is amazing how we all feel our opinion is very important..  some think theirs should over rule yours..  we are all guilt of it one time or another..  

Why is it so important that you not only be right but you should think that you should change others mind,  who do not agree with you..

Why should your opinion always be the only one worthy?  Can't yours be just different?  Can you just let it go?  Seems we don't.    We automatically think our resource is the correct one.  

Some times it is how we see things..  We can all see something happen..  and certain things stand out.. and so we see it differently..       

A big case of this is the Good woman being killed by ICE..  We all have seen MANY MANY videos of it.  So many see that the ICE stood in front of her car..  he came around the front of her car from the other side after video taking her friend...  and she says to him.. it is fine dude, I am not mad at you... those are her last words..   then she turns the wheel to get away from him.  From every angle.. you see her back up about 4 feet, turn the wheel towards the right, so she will miss him.. yet he stayed there and lean forward and shot her..  as she was letting the car ease forward.     They tried to say... she sped away... the car did not pick up speed until after he shot her... so the natural guess would her body stiffen and her foot pushing on the pedal as she was dying. ramping a car about half a block away.   

This isn't just my OPINION..   this is what the videos show.. time and time again.. different videos.y 

But others want to say she was a radical..  she was a ring leader..   Even so far as to say she deserved to die..   WHAT KIND OF AMERICA ARE WE HAVING HERE?    Just as bad as when Charlie Kirk  was shot..    what kind of people are we ?   

And 99% of us where not there.   And that is why I think their should be a full investation.  NOT BY THE FEDS..    They need a fully non involved group... 

 

Any way ... your OPINION  does count.. it is how you see it..  but also be opened to seeing the other side..  and if you don't have all the information.. be careful what you say..  if you weren't there.. becareful..      But if you saw it with your own eyes and mind..   Share that.  and don't be upset if other doesn't see it that way..

Like that country music said years ago..   you can just tell them...    OK, YOU ARE RIGHT..  doesn't mean you are changing your mind..   it means it isn't worth the time to fight it out.. 

2026 HANG ON TO YOUR HATS...

 I have thought about what to write..   for at least two days...  at first I thought I was lost for words..  but if anything..  maybe too many words..   THIS IS NOT THE AMERICA I GREW UP IN..  

I get it.. the dictator was the worse..  he like Trump, claim that he didn't lose the election.. and has been running the county in the hole as he has for 10 years..    Under horrible conditions for the citizens.. I GET THAT...   So when I am upset with what they did.. I got the  YOU LOVE THE DICTATOR  AND HIS ACTIONS..     NO..  but I don't think it was up to the USA to do this.  First it was up to the citizens..  I know .. I know. they have about as much problems with that as we do with Trump..   BUT they do have the UNITED NATIONS...  even with the toothless actions of them.... there was a way..   

To say it was drugs..  never really believed that..   AND I especially did not believe it when he let the guy go... who got 45 YEARS and who had DUMP 400 TONS of drugs on our door step..     I knew it had to be something else.  and of course the good old USA has been known for year to help or what ever you want to call it ..  FOR THE OIL..   Now we sit back and watch this disaster roll out. ....   because if it was for the USA..  WHY DIDN'T HE TALK TO CONGRESS..  plan with Congress.?? 

AGAIN  THIS IS NOT THE AMERICAN I GREW UP IN........ it was full of warts.. but no puss boils like now... and those drills are OLD.. who is going to pay for this.. and replacing the bombing areas they did?   OH, YEA.. Trumps rich buddies..  who want to come in and make it a tourist spot...    and the oil companies..    You do know that oil is not the kind we put in our cars.. right?   it is the kind they refine for airplanes and such..   Remember about 15 years ago or more we told Venezuela to keep their oil.. of which China didn't ever let the sun set before they grabbed up the oil..  and Now we want it? 

HEADING OUT THE DOOR OF 2025

 As we head out the door of 2025... we all look back to see what we did over the year..  Some of us kept complaining about it going by too fast..  We started summer and the next thing we know it is Labor Day. And talk of Black Friday sales going on..  a month before Halloween. 

And then it was Thanksgiving and Christmas stuff was in the stores before Halloween..    Valentine's Day is already in the stores and has been for a week.   No wonder we feel like the year is not just slipping away.. but at high speed.

I remember years ago, someone talking about how life and time is like having a roll of toilet paper for your front wheel on your bicycle.  The more you ride it the faster it unrolls...    I think I was about 40..  and thought it was funny..    Now at 85...  not so much. 

As for me..  2025 zoom by ...  I turn 85 in April .. in August went down to meet my brand new great great granddaughter..   rest is a blur. 

I remember I use to say..  on New Years day... well,  another year to louse up..   Hopefully we don't.. not personally, nor nation wide. 

So enjoy what is left..