RAG Perspective: An American Pro-Liberty Conservative

Saturday, September 12, 2026

Post #7846 J

Endemic Report

Weekly CDC stats:

The Sick Times:

The virus continues to spread in most states, but trend data in the South suggests the wave may have peaked there. After a local CVS staffing issue last Friday, I got my latest COVID shot (2026/7: XFG) on Monday. A lot of news items focused on vaccine rollouts in other pharmacies/providers, and a number of states have authorized shots beyond seniors and other high-risk groups. (I had wondered if I was going to have to make a visit to my doctor just to get a prescription or permission slip for the vaccine. I probably know more about vaccines than most health professionals. It turned out I didn't have to because I was exempt, since I'm in a risk group. As a libertarian, it infuriated me that I had to potentially fight the Trump Administration to protect my health.)

The latest COVID-19 news items:

"Repeat COVID infections tied to higher odds of new health conditions"
"COVID-19 Infection Linked to Lower Risk of T1D in Those Younger Than 30"
"Major evidence review confirms influenza, COVID-19 and RSV vaccines are safe and effective"
"XOCOVA offers new post-exposure COVID-19 prevention option for adolescents"
"Widespread COVID death underreporting around the world raises broader questions about the reliability of official information"
"Recent COVID-19 Tripled Some Bacteremia Mortality Rates"
"Flu outbreak among Air Force recruits at Joint Base San Antonio after Hegseth ends mandatory flu vaccine"
"mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination Associated With Lower Risk of Myocarditis and Death, reassures study"
"Overnight Cough Data Could Predict Flu and COVID"
COVID relief fraud/other crimes:

"Lafayette man expected to plead guilty after orchestrating $325,000+ COVID-19 relief fraud scheme"
"New Jersey man pleads guilty to COVID-19 fraud involving Boise banks"
"Homes, bank accounts seized from company accused of fraud involving Covid-19 tests"
"River Pig Saloon owner fraudulently obtained COVID-era business relief funds, federal lawsuit alleges"
"Longview man faces 19 federal tax fraud charges, prosecutors say"

Legal/political issues:

"FDA withdraws publication of COVID, shingles vaccine research findings"
"Trump administration pulls Covid-19 vaccine safety studies amid political row"
"Running costs of vaccine damage scheme more than double amount paid to victims"
"Not So Fast- Why Your COVID Telework Policy Doesn’t Bind You Forever"
"Ex-Switzerland coach banned over fake Covid vaccination certificate"
"Inside the Trump FBI push to investigate Fauci and find evidence Covid came from a Chinese lab"

Other Notes

Blog pageviews unexpectedly, dubiously, more than doubled over the past week. I published my first essay of the month. X/Twitter remains mixed, with followers fluctuating around 200.

I often have to fashion workarounds for what I assume are product bugs. I recently purchased a deeply discounted smartwatch from Walmart. It took a while to find a user manual online to walk me through the setup, which also required coordinating with a cellphone app. Some things, like the date/time, are pulled from the Internet, but unlike my cellphone weather apps, it wasn't showing the current temperature. I found a way to configure it manually in the app, but the watch often seems to "lose" the temperature setting. It didn't lose the setting. So I used an old IT trick — in this case, toggling the weather setting off and on. That seems to restore the setting, but I've found myself doing it maybe once a day. I have to use a similar trick with Joplin, a utility that enables me to capture webpages, like purchase details or key news items for the blog; it sometimes (in Chrome) doesn't generate a snap button for capturing content, so I find I have to toggle my Joplin extension off/on to restore functionality.

But what's perplexed me for months is using MailStore, free for home users, as a repository for my Thunderbird emails. I often archive changes to my local folders on MailStore, but a large percentage of messages in my Thunderbird local folders don't show up in MailStore. A key example was my postal receipt for a voided IRS refund check I sent back to the IRS. I spent hours googling for hints on what was going on. I tend to purge local folders monthly, but more recently I backed up local folder mbox files in case I need to restore old folders. I think I may have figured out at least part of the problem. I think some of the emails are logically there but not physically moved to the target folders, and you have to do something like compact folders to complete the physical moves.

Post #7845 M: McClanahan on Huey P. Long and Modern Populism; The path to cheaper health care: stop blocking licensed cliniciansl; Immigration and crime: what the data say

Quote of the Day

It is a good thing to be rich,

it is a good thing to be strong,

but it is a better thing

to be beloved of many friends.

Euripides

McClanahan on Huey P. Long and Modern Populism

The path to cheaper health care: stop blocking licensed clinicians

Immigration and crime: what the data say

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Jeff Danziger via Politico

Musical Interlude: 1965 Top 100 Hits

Red Roses For A Blue Lady - Bert Kaempfert

Friday, September 11, 2026

Post #7844 M: 9/11 Silver Anniversary; McClanahan on Do We Have an Elected Monarchy?; Ron Paul on The Politics of AI Data Centers; Does the Right Still Believe in Limited Government?

Quote of the Day

Think as you like,

but behave like others.

Robert Greene

Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)

I was working in the Waukesha County courthouse, which hosted the county IT infrastructure. I was racing for a government contractor on a fixed-bid ERP upgrade contract. I had relocated from California to the Chicago northwestern suburbs (my new employer only had one Wisconsin-based client) mid-contract, an 83-mile commute one way. I joined the project, replacing the original Apps DBA, and it was well behind schedule. I had to spend long (unpaid) extra hours because the county DBA's processes sometimes failed to bring up Apps processes after backups (and there were issues with their backups beyond this discussion), so I had to be at the courthouse early before testing. If I had to implement any patches, the county insisted I could only apply them after 7 PM, so I often had 12+ hour days, not including my commute.

I was well into my hectic work schedule, and I was somewhat annoyed by my Indian developer colleague who was late to work. (He lived locally.) I think I needed him to check some details. We had a few cubicles among client cubicles when my colleague finally arrived, yelling to the floor about an airplane flying into a NYC building.. I was puzzled, thinking maybe he was incoherently talking about a Cessna having a hardware failure over NYC. It soon became clear from others that it was more serious and multi-faceted. I particularly remember hearing about Flight 93. By that time, one or more clients brought in portable TVs. It seemed like I was the only person at the courthouse actually still working. It's not that I didn't care, but the county was paying for my work, not watching TV or discussing the news on their time. It really wasn't until I got home that evening and had access to the Internet.

I remember the paranoia in the aftermath of the attacks. I was worried about soft targets like Chicago Union Station during rush hour. I recall briefly joining early morning prayer assemblies in front of the courthouse after my morning commute.

McClanahan on Do We Have an Elected Monarchy?

Ron Paul on The Politics of AI Data Centers

Does the Right Still Believe in Limited Government?

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Matt Davies via Politico

Musical Interlude: 1965 Top 100 Hits

The Beatles - Ticket To Ride

Thursday, September 10, 2026

Post #7843 Rant of the Day: Trump's Narcissism and Abuse of Power

By this point, almost 6 years into Trump's presidency, I'm almost used to his latest outrage of the day. I'm still not used to him using the bully pulpit literally, like calling a reporter (Bloomberg News White House correspondent Catherine Lucey) a "piggy" and routinely publicly insulting journalists to their faces, calling Mrs. (Heidi) Cruz ugly, and coveting his name on an aircraft carrier to the point that his sycophants are talking about renaming one originally intended for a black WWII hero, Doris "Dorie" Miller. During his first term, there was a notorious attempt to keep a destroyer named after McCain (with whom he feuded) out of port during a Trump visit to Japan. More recently, Trump tweaked an unattributed 1948 Life Magazine ranking of Presidents, putting himself at the top. He has become the first POTUS to put his signature on fiat currency. Trump has used the Justice Department as an extension of his personal legal staff, still trying to reverse his E. Jean Carroll sex abuse and/or defamation convictions, arguing a POTUS has immunity from defamation laws. {You cannot argue defaming a private citizen is a protected Presidential duty.) He has also used Justice to go after political enemies like Comey, Leticia James, Bolton, and others. Trump has routinely tried to use his control over the FCC to go after late-night comics like Colbert and Kimmel, and more recently the NBC MTP moderator Kristen Welker, over saying his record of successful partisan endorsements is mixed. Then there is Trump's obsession with tacking his name onto the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

As I've tweeted, I don't necessarily fault Trump for having an inflated ego. I think having a healthy self-image is a key ingredient for displaying confidence in leadership. I do have some broad principles, though. The first relevant one involves pragmatic leadership. One thing that drove me to support George W. Bush in 2000 was his bipartisan record as Texas governor. When I lived in Texas as a young adult, Texas had been a solid Democratic state for a century; John Tower gained a foothold by succeeding LBJ in the Senate after LBJ became VP under Kennedy. Years later, Clements served nonconsecutive terms as governor. Bush succeeded Clements after an intervening term. Bush had to work with a Dem-controlled House and a Dem-controlled Senate (until the 1997 election). Thus, Bush had to work pragmatically and bipartisanly. By the time of the 2000 election, I was fed up with the partisan warfare on Capitol Hill, and I thought Bush's leadership style was a necessary prescription. That was probably an unrealistic expectation. I never expected Bush's nation-building in the Gulf region after Bush relevantly criticized Clinton on Eastern Europe and the hard-won balanced budget under Clinton vanished. The GOP lost its way in Congress under Bush; I think my jump-the-shark moment was when a GOP senator threatened to resign when the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska funding was challenged. Still, although I never supported Trump, I thought his main selling point was negotiation and deal-making skills, and that he was a former registered Dem and not a political ideologue; Trump might succeed where Bush had failed. That completely evaporated when I saw Trump, despite thin majorities in both chambers of Congress, playing political hardball, even constantly demanding that the Senate retire the filibuster, never mind using the Justice Department to go after his political enemies.

The second point is Trump's inconsistent principles. Notably, Trump had criticized Bush's Gulf region wars and used an America First theme to discuss foreign policy. In fact, Trump had accused Obama of plotting a war on Iran. But he was hardly a principled noninterventionist; true, he threatened NATO, but that had more to do with what he saw as European allies freeloading at US expense. He did not shut down the Afghanistan War; In fact, Trump not only ramped up undeclared drone wars, but he relaxed engagement policies aimed at minimizing and reporting civilian casualties. Via Google AI:

Yes, Donald Trump significantly ramped up the use of drone strikes and loosened military restrictions during his first term in office. [1] (https://www.merip.org/2018/02/trumps-drone-surge/), [2] (https://truthout.org/articles/trump-has-pushed-ahead-with-drone-strikes-putting-us-citizens-in-the-crosshairs/)Increased Strike NumbersTrackers and foreign policy organizations, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that the pace of targeted strikes and drone operations heavily outpaced the early rates seen under the Obama administration. [1] (https://www.cfr.org/articles/not-so-peaceful-transition-power-trumps-drone-strikes-outpace-obama), [2] (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-using-deadly-drone-strikes-191800659.html)Data compiled by groups like the Associated Press and Bureau of Investigative Journalism showed that strikes in places like Yemen surged dramatically during Trump's first two years compared to previous years. [1] (https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2019/5/8/18619206/under-donald-trump-drone-strikes-far-exceed-obama-s-numbers)Assessments by publications like Middle East Research and Information Project indicated an overall record increase in munitions and air combat deployment across Middle Eastern conflict zones. [1] (https://www.merip.org/2018/02/trumps-drone-surge/)Policy and Rule ChangesLoosened Restrictions: The Trump administration lifted strict Obama-era rules that required a "near certainty" of zero civilian casualties before authorizing a strike outside of conventional war zones. [1] (https://truthout.org/articles/trump-has-pushed-ahead-with-drone-strikes-putting-us-citizens-in-the-crosshairs/)Active Hostilities: Parts of countries like Yemen and Somalia were designated as regions of "active hostilities," giving military commanders and the CIA broader and faster authority to launch attacks. [1] (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/trump-admin-wants-increase-cia-drone-strikes-n802311), [2] (https://truthout.org/articles/trump-has-pushed-ahead-with-drone-strikes-putting-us-citizens-in-the-crosshairs/)Reporting Rollback: In 2019, an executive order removed the requirement for U.S. intelligence agencies to publicly report civilian death statistics resulting from drone strikes outside active war zones. [1] (https://truthout.org/articles/trump-has-pushed-ahead-with-drone-strikes-putting-us-citizens-in-the-crosshairs/)

Not to mention, Trump had appointed neocon interventionists like Bolton to powerful positions. More recently, Trump joined with Israel in launching an unprovoked war on Iran.

It's not the only instance where Trump's policies have shown inconsistencies. Trump's trade wars have been based on net trade deficits. The US has enjoyed a surplus with Brazil, but Trump slapped a heavy tariff on Brazilian exports, not for intrinsic protectionist reasons, but out of outrage that Brazil has prosecuted its Trump ally predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Then Trump, in a desperate move to offset sky-high beef prices, cut a special deal on Argentinian and Brazilian beef, which his ally farmers/ranchers opposed. (The quantities are insufficient to materially affect prices.)

A third point is Trump's undisciplined, unconstitutional power grabs. Take, for instance, birthright citizenship. The 14th Amendment not only unconditionally affirms jus soli, but under Title 8 of the U.S. Code, Section 1401, Trump had no authority to issue an executive order redefining citizenship rules. Then there have been his manic, unprovoked trade wars that have roiled global markets, increased economic uncertainty, and exacerbated inflation for consumers and businesses, not to mention retaliatory tariffs hurting American exports. Tariffs are taxes, explicitly under Congress' power of the purse. Trump has been trying to use old laws in an unprecedented way, not to mention that Trump's actions violate GATT and WTO, which were ratified by Congress.

Trump has also abused his authority in other ways that violate the First Amendment. For example, after Trump absurdly renamed the Gulf of Mexico, the White House barred the AP, not recognizing the change, from pressers. (Don't get me started over his renaming Lake Ontario in his latest trade war with Canada.) Trump has tried to use the FCC and merger review authority to go after network reporters and late-night comics. As described earlier, Trump (trying to manipulate the independence of the Fed) has gone after Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and his political enemies, explicit violations of the rule of law.