Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Tuesday, December 09, 2025
penny for our thoughts
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But Lincoln’s image on a coin? Yeh, I’ll miss that.
If we’re thinking about a new public coin, something with Lincoln on it strikes me as much better than the other idea I've heard recently ... if only because we know how Lincoln's story ends.
Monday, December 08, 2025
Sunday, December 07, 2025
Saturday, December 06, 2025
Thursday, December 04, 2025
Monday, December 01, 2025
Friday, November 28, 2025
ain't done yet
I can't shake a couple of things that caught my eye this week.
I. There's this card floating around social media.
It reminds me of the sort of message that used to show up on the office fax machine this one place I worked — sent from person to person across a not-too-shadowy network (because most folks didn't bother to scrub their own fax numbers before sending the message along).
Same thing happened in the early days of email ... fwd, fwd, fwd, fwd....
And then, social media.
This new one (new to me, anyway) starts with the words: "People don't realize what happens when the illegal population is gone."
The body of the card is a listicle about what happens "when the illegal population is gone" so *people* will stop not realizing "what happens when the illegal population is gone." I guess.
To be honest, I didn't think it passed the smell test.
So I, you know, did my own research.
Here's how that went, beginning with the claim (12 of them), followed by the fact check, and ending with a list of sources that explain *why* it turns out I was mostly right ... that it *doesn't* pass the smell test.
1. Suddenly, Americans start getting raises.
Fact check: False. Unauthorized workers aren't why many citizens aren't paid livable wages. [Remember: Sources at the end]
2. ER overcrowding ends.
Fact check: False. Unauthorized residents aren't the cause of crowded hospitals emergency departments.
3. Schools return to normal class sizes.
Fact check: Here's one that's partly right, even though it's mostly wrong.
In some school districts, in some schools, in some classes, the challenge of too few classrooms and too few teachers is further aggravated by the presence of children who live in households with more than the average number of children those schools have budgeted to teach; and some of those households are headed by unauthorized residents. If you live in one of those school districts, you may feel temporary discomfort. But, in general, the children of unauthorized residents are not the cause of overcrowded classrooms. The record of *that* problem is well-documented, and if you're a boomer, you were there at the dawn of that history — you were just too young to know it.
4. Insurance bills drop annually.
Fact check: No, it does not. Whatever kind of insurance the card is talking about, this is nonsense.
5. Grocery prices level out because the welfare load isn't crushing the system anymore.
Fact check: This is counterfactual.
6. DMV lines move; traffic lightens; neighborhoods calm down.
Fact check: No, no, and no.
7. Crime stats shift in the right direction for the first time in decades.
Fact check: Nothing in the fact-based world supports this.
8. Organ transplant lists move faster.
Fact check: What . are . you . talking . about?
9. Teenagers get the jobs they used to get before cheap illegal labor replaced them.
Fact check: No. If you think teenagers (*regular* ones? I'm assuming?) are being underbid for summer and after-school jobs by unauthorized workers, I think you're paying attention to the wrong things (and, probably, the wrong people).
10. Trade programs fill with American kids who can actually earn a living again.
Fact check: Untethered from the real world.
11. People start having families (again: *real* people?) because the cost of living isn't strangling them.
Fact check: Having come this far, I guess I see why you might feel that this is true; but to the extent that *people* are being strangled by the cost of living, unauthorized residents are not the cause. Nor are they the cause of low fertility among U.S.-born citizens.
12. You remove the illegal burden, and the country snaps back into shape almost overnight.
Fact check: No. That's magical thinking.
II. The other thing that caught my attention caught my attention because of the first thing.
It occurred to me that I'd read Abraham Lincoln's 1863 proclamation naming a General Day of Thanksgiving for the nation; but I'd never read Lincoln's 1864 proclamation. He didn't get to make another.
In the preamble to his 1864 proclamation, Lincoln declared:
It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad and vouchsafing to us in His mercy many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions [emphasis mine]
Lincoln acknowledged that there were enemies abroad and enemies who are of our own house.
Same. With tears.
Lincoln celebrated the expansion of free people in the United States — by emancipation from enslavement and by immigration; and he connects the presence of those people with increasing prosperity for all.
Same. Aspirationally.
Including more people in what my friend, Rabbi Daniel Bogard, calls The Project of Us *is* the American way ... and we ain't done yet.
Sources
calendar alert
It strikes me as … odd, I suppose … that Black Friday showed up as an automated calendar alert on my desktop today….
I don’t recall signing up for any of this.
Thursday, November 27, 2025
Lincoln's Last Thanksgiving
Abraham Lincoln’s final proclamation of a national Day of Thanksgiving
October 20, 1864
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad and vouchsafing to us in His mercy many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of October, A.D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.
Source
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-118-thanksgiving-day-1864
Monday, November 24, 2025
the twenty-eight steps
This Ukraine/Russia *peace plan* is not just absurd….
1. Ukraine's sovereignty will be confirmed.
[Russia and the U.S. confirmed this is in 1994; why would anyone believe them in 2025?]
2. A comprehensive non-aggression agreement will be concluded between Russia, Ukraine and Europe. All ambiguities of the last 30 years will be considered settled.
[Russia promised no aggression in 1994 … dragging Europe into the charade is indefensible … calling what Russia has done to Ukraine ambiguous is wishful thinking.]
3. It is expected that Russia will not invade neighboring countries and NATO will not expand further.
[Russia is a member nation in the United Nations — not invading neighbors is a given . Russia has no say in NATO.]
4. A dialogue will be held between Russia and NATO, mediated by the United States, to resolve all security issues and create conditions for de-escalation in order to ensure global security and increase opportunities for cooperation and future economic development.
[Blah, blah, blah… The conditions for de-escalation couldn’t be simpler: De-escalate.]
5. Ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees.
["Reliable" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.]
6. The size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be limited to 600,000 personnel.
[Neither Russia nor the U.S. has standing to make this demand … nor would either accept it regard their own security.]
7. Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join NATO, and NATO agrees to include in its statutes a provision that Ukraine will not be admitted in the future.
[Russia has no say in the voluntary association of nations or alliances.]
8. NATO agrees not to station troops in Ukraine.
[Russia has no say in the affairs of any alliance it is not part of.]
9. European fighter jets will be stationed in Poland.
[European fighter jets are already stationed in Poland.]
10. The U.S. guarantee:
-- The U.S. will receive compensation for the guarantee;
[What? A finder’s fee? A matchmaker’s emolument? The following make a the U.S. a co-signer on the deal, but only for Russia … Russia should already be on the hook for violently breaking the last agreement … This is senseless.]
-- If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantee;
-- If Russia invades Ukraine, in addition to a decisive coordinated military response, all global sanctions will be reinstated, recognition of the new territory and all other benefits of this deal will be revoked;
-- If Ukraine launches a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg without cause, the security guarantee will be deemed invalid.
11. Ukraine is eligible for EU membership and will receive short-term preferential access to the European market while this issue is being considered.
[Neither Ukraine nor the EU are obligated to the other; nor are they beholden to the U.S. or Russia to declare Ukraine *eligible.* They think we’re stupid?]
12. A powerful global package of measures to rebuild Ukraine, including but not limited to:
[This section is a 500-year mortage … only the lenders win]
-- The creation of a Ukraine Development Fund to invest in fast-growing industries, including technology, data centers, and artificial intelligence.
-- The United States will cooperate with Ukraine to jointly rebuild, develop, modernize, and operate Ukraine's gas infrastructure, including pipelines and storage facilities.
-- Joint efforts to rehabilitate war-affected areas for the restoration, reconstruction and modernization of cities and residential areas.
-- Infrastructure development.
-- Extraction of minerals and natural resources.
-- The World Bank will develop a special financing package to accelerate these efforts.
13. Russia will be reintegrated into the global economy:
[Why? The global economy is doing fine — maybe better — without Russia. Tying the U.S. to a pact for economic cooperation with Russia finances, if not outright forgives, Russia’s debt at the expense of the U.S. economy and puts U.S. intellectual properties at risk needlessly.]
-- The lifting of sanctions will be discussed and agreed upon in stages and on a case-by-case basis.
-- The United States will enter into a long-term economic cooperation agreement for mutual development in the areas of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centers, rare earth metal extraction projects in the Arctic, and other mutually beneficial corporate opportunities.
-- Russia will be invited to rejoin the G8.
14. Frozen funds will be used as follows:
-- $100 billion in frozen Russian assets will be invested in US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine;
[Frozen Russian assets are A) already accessible for that purpose, and B) assets frozen by nations other than the U.S. are no business of the U.S. or Russia.]
-- The US will receive 50% of the profits from this venture. Europe will add $100 billion to increase the amount of investment available for Ukraine's reconstruction. Frozen European funds will be unfrozen. The remainder of the frozen Russian funds will be invested in a separate US-Russian investment vehicle that will implement joint projects in specific areas. This fund will be aimed at strengthening relations and increasing common interests to create a strong incentive not to return to conflict.
[This is a public announcement of the intent to rob European nations. We already have a strong incentive for Russia — the nation responsible for this whole mess — not to return to conflict: This invasion has cost Russia hundreds of billions in direct costs and trillions in lost GDP and sanctions … oh, and the death of about ¼-million Russians, with nearly ¾-of-a-million more wounded … oh, and once again extending Russia’s culpability for committing crimes against humanity beyond their own borders.]
15. A joint American-Russian working group on security issues will be established to promote and ensure compliance with all provisions of this agreement.
[No standing whatsoever … neither current government can regarded as an honest broker of anything until they convincingly reverse their backsliding.]
16. Russia will enshrine in law its policy of non-aggression towards Europe and Ukraine.
[Yeh, no loopholes in this item.]
17. The United States and Russia will agree to extend the validity of treaties on the non-proliferation and control of nuclear weapons, including the START I Treaty.
[Ditto.]
18. Ukraine agrees to be a non-nuclear state in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
[Ukraine did this in 1994 and kept their word.]
19. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant will be launched under the supervision of the IAEA, and the electricity produced will be distributed equally between Russia and Ukraine -- 50:50.
[Russia has no claim on this power. Russian stole this plant from Ukraine in 2022.]
20. Both countries undertake to implement educational programs in schools and society aimed at promoting understanding and tolerance of different cultures and eliminating racism and prejudice:
[Oof … False-equivalence alert.]
-- Ukraine will adopt EU rules on religious tolerance and the protection of linguistic minorities.
-- Both countries will agree to abolish all discriminatory measures and guarantee the rights of Ukrainian and Russian media and education.
-- All Nazi ideology and activities must be rejected and prohibited.
21. Territories:
[So the offer is … "We’re keeping the living room, the kitchen, and the workshop … You’ll say the kitchen was always ours and you won’t go in there; and we won’t go in there either ... unless we’re hungry, or thirsty, or sleepwalking.]
-- Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk will be recognized as de facto Russian, including by the United States.
-- Kherson and Zaporizhzhia will be frozen along the line of contact, which will mean de facto recognition along the line of contact.
-- Russia will relinquish other agreed territories it controls outside the five regions.
-- Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of Donetsk Oblast that they currently control, and this withdrawal zone will be considered a neutral demilitarized buffer zone, internationally recognized as territory belonging to the Russian Federation. Russian forces will not enter this demilitarized zone.
22. After agreeing on future territorial arrangements, both the Russian Federation and Ukraine undertake not to change these arrangements by force. Any security guarantees will not apply in the event of a breach of this commitment.
[This is hypocrisy. Only Russia has changed its security arrangements by force.]
23. Russia will not prevent Ukraine from using the Dnieper River for commercial activities, and agreements will be reached on the free transport of grain across the Black Sea.
[Russia has no right to prevent Ukraine from free commercial activities compliant with internatonal law.]
24. A humanitarian committee will be established to resolve outstanding issues:
[This I can get behind … it shouldn’t need to be said, but in this instance it does, so….]
-- All remaining prisoners and bodies will be exchanged on an 'all for all' basis.
-- All civilian detainees and hostages will be returned, including children.
-- A family reunification program will be implemented.
-- Measures will be taken to alleviate the suffering of the victims of the conflict.
25. Ukraine will hold elections in 100 days.
[Who the hell do these people think they are?]
26. All parties involved in this conflict will receive full amnesty for their actions during the war and agree not to make any claims or consider any complaints in the future.
[Here and in item 2. Russian would skip over truth and reconciliation (let alone reparations), and apparently, the U.S. would support that. Not even Germany after the breakup of their affair with the fascists — maybe especially citizens of Germany who it could be argued did not freely consent — thought it would be better never spoken of again.]
27. This agreement will be legally binding. Its implementation will be monitored and guaranteed by the Peace Council, headed by President Donald J. Trump. Sanctions will be imposed for violations.
[Sorry: Not an honest broker by any measure.]
28. Once all parties agree to this memorandum, the ceasefire will take effect immediately after both sides retreat to agreed points to begin implementation of the agreement.
[If they want to show good faith, let the Russians stop killing Ukrainians and breaking their stuff. Russia is the aggressor here.]
Source
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