A Place to Think About Mind
and What Matters
Self-governance is an agreement of the citizenry to conduct politics by peaceful means rather than by the use of force to decide power and impose a form of rule. A system of governance imposed by force or maintained by violence lacks consent of the governed. In Democracy Web:comparative studies in Freedom.
ARTICLE: Too Much of a Good Thing? Data Centers are draining resources across the US and, with an Orwellian twist, their unchecked practices can mess with our minds...ARTICLE: DEI and the LA Invasion. On June 13 mask men struck a homeless shelter in a rural area. The raids that day also included an area close to an elementary school where Latinos lived in a working class town - where townspeople shamed ICE agents lying in wait for the parents of the young children in order to meet a 3,000 quota of arrests per day. It has become a world of racism and preemptive strikes. And speaking of shame, the richest nation in the world is hardly a "Big Beautiful" country. It is impoverished when it comes to integrity and morality. Then, what if you don't own what is in the cloud? This is a matter of the 4th and 5th Amendment in today's world. And what about a wholesale burn of the Constitution in regard to birthrights? Is the US Supreme Court going to back off? Then there is a battle between NY State and the Feds over immigration. Is this a challenge to the 10th Amendment? Where will it go?
From Heather Cox Richardson, June 30, "'“This place feels to me, today, like a crime scene,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said on the floor of the Senate. “Get some of that yellow tape and put it around this chamber. This piece of legislation is corrupt. This piece of legislation is crooked. This piece of legislation is a rotten racket. This bill cooked up in back rooms, dropped at midnight, cloaked in fake numbers with huge handouts to big Republican donors. It loots our country for some of the least deserving people you could imagine. When I first got here, this chamber filled me with awe and wonderment. Today, I feel disgust.'”
Records retrieved by Wired, June 30, including audio recordings, reveals an overburdened medical system with hundreds of emergency calls, including life-threatening incidents and evidence of delayed treatment and overcrowding, from ICE detention centers. The article gives the example of the Stewart Detention Center in rural Georgia.
As an added note, around 52% of the detention centers are located in rural and often isolated areas where hospital closures and less access to medical help has increased. Cuts to Medicaid play a critical role in this trend.
For the most part, the lower courts have been fighting to slow down the effects of Trumps executive orders via some notable national injunctions in a kind of David and Goliath scenario. In this particular Administration these injunctions have been an important tool in the name of justice. In a 6-3 decision the Court handcuffed the lower courts. Read further in Happening.
From Inside Climate News, June 29, the US Senate amended the Big Beautiful Bill which offers some minimal protection against the sale of Public Lands, but the threat of sell-offs remains.
In Wired, June 19 - Data Centers are “... not mandated,...not regulatory. Given where we are with the climate crisis, it should be top of the agenda for regulators everywhere.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met with U.S. President Donald Trump on May 22. President Ramaphosa kept his dignity and remained a diplomat while Trump could not let go of a reporter's question about his newly acquired Air Force One from Qatar. Finally, the South African president broke into the tirade,
"I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you."
On March 16, 2025 it was announced by Kristi Noem that construction of the wall (see psm archived) would resume... This item in the "Big Beautiful Bill" has some Republicans puzzled. Noem wants $46 billion but the cost per mile for seven miles is an estimated $12 billion.
Reported by Drop Site News on June 13, Israel has attacked Iran. Ryan Grim includes contextual information and clarifications of statements along with the initial reports that are coming.
On June 6 the Supreme Court on Friday granted the Department of Government Efficiency access to Social Security Administration data that includes sensitive personal information of millions of Americans.
An indictment filed in Fulton County's Suprerior Court on August 29, 2024 levelled charges against 61 protesters or spuriously some who happened to be in the vicinity. The charges included accusations of racketeering, domestic terrorism, and money laundering related to anti-police protests.The indictment by Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General would probably get a failing grade in a freshman law class in terms of its descriptions used to justify the various charges in the document. It is worth reading.