“Shaka, the Power of Aloha” is a documentary film project that explores the origin and meanings of Hawaii’s Shaka gesture. The film is produced by Bizgenics, a Hawai’i-based 501(C)(3) nonprofit that specializes in creativity, innovation & entrepreneurship programs
Is the Virus that Causes COVID-19 Affecting our Minds and Making us Mean?
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health mandates have created many social disruptions, including lockdowns, job losses, social isolation, mask mandates, social gathering restrictions, and even vaccine mandates, all challenging our lives, our health, our emotions, and our minds.
As a result of COVID-19, there is a widespread mental health and social stability crisis.
People are depressed, foggy-brained, anxious, sleepless, fearful, and desperate. Some people are getting aggressive towards others, with more violence and crime. Drug use is up. Spousal and child abuse are up. The culture is polarized in opinion to the point of physical confrontation. To control the message over COVID-19, censorship is high, creating disenfranchisement, alienation, and more anger.
Freedoms which were held sacred, like the right to choose whether one wishes to be vaccinated or not, are now challenged as selfish and harmful to the common good. People now see one another as threats to public safety and health.
We have gone from saying hello with a kiss or a handshake, to saying hello with a mask on and over the Internet.
It’s easy to see, and should have been expected, how the social disruption from the pandemic would lead to these mental health and social problems.
However, another possible contributor to this crisis could be the impact of the COVID-19 virus on the brain itself.
It is known that the SARS-CoV-2 virus does enter the brain, and antibodies to the virus have been found in cerebrospinal fluid. The NIH article, “Coronavirus and the Nervous System”, explains, “Changes in the immune system have been seen in studies of the cerebrospinal fluid, which bathes the brain, in people who have been infected by SARS-CoV-2. This includes the presence of antibodies—proteins made by the immune system to fight the virus—that may also react with the nervous system.”
The NIH article continues, “Researchers are following some known acute effects of the virus to determine their relationship to the post-acute complications of COVID-19 infection. These post-acute effects usually include fatigue in combination with a series of other symptoms. These may include trouble with concentration and memory, sleep disorders, fluctuating heart rate and alternating sense of feeling hot or cold, cough, shortness of breath, problems with sleep, inability to exercise to previous normal levels, feeling sick for a day or two after exercising (post-exertional malaise), and pain in muscle, joints, and chest. It is not yet known how the infection leads to these persistent symptoms and why in some individuals and not others.”
So what is currently known is that the virus does enter the brain, and both the virus and the antibodies to the virus may affect the brain. It may cause all sorts of symptoms, since the brain affects virtually all bodily functions.
However, note what is missing from the NIH list of symptoms. There is no mention of emotions and thoughts being impacted by the virus.
Usually, medicine studies physically measurable symptoms, for example, by looking for chemical markers of disease, or measuring nerve conductivity, or looking at levels of antibodies. We can see how well people sleep, and test their memory. But how do you measure changes in thoughts and moods? It’s not easy.
Realize that the seats of emotion and thought are in the brain. Any viral infection in the brain can impact the centers of the brain responsible for emotion and thought.
This means that in the brain, the virus, and/or antibodies to the virus, could be directly causing moods and thoughts, as parts of the brain associated with emotions and thinking are impacted.
Of course, if this is true, then it could partially explain the evidence we see of increased aggression, anger, and violence in society. However, since these are also the result of social disruption from pandemic management methods, as described above, it will be hard to separate these two contributions towards negative emotions and thoughts.
Scientists are seeing cognitive decline from the virus, including being “foggy-brained”, but what about a cognitive shift towards aggression from the virus? It is feasible that a virus could create a negative mindset by the way it affects our thinking. Likewise, a virus could theoretically cause a mood change towards negativity, intolerance, and hostility.
If the viral infection and the pandemic response can both lead to aggression and negative feelings and thoughts, then how could you tell which is more responsible? This is an important question, because it means that getting COVID-19 may itself be creating the mental and social dysfunction we are seeing develop, apart from public health measures.
This means that anyone who has had COVID-19, symptomatically or asymptomatically, might develop changes in mood and thoughts as a direct result of the viral infection, but possibly without other neurologic signs.
Aggression and hostility may be just as much a symptom of COVID-19 as heart disease or breathing difficulty.
Unfortunately, this will never be studied and confirmed, even if it is true.
Doing a study like this would require measurement of emotions and thoughts before and after COVID-19 infection, to see if there was a change. You would need to determine if there was previous asymptomatic infection, which could be done with antibody tests. However, these tests are not done routinely, at least in the US, and antibody levels drop with time, so conclusions are not reliable. You would also have to make sure these people did not also have to deal with the social disruptions caused by public health measures, which is virtually impossible since the entire planet has been affected.
There are also big political implications, if this is true. Any political leader who has been infected with COVID-19 may have an altered mood and mind. Could this be driving mandates that seem arbitrary and capricious, like requiring masks and COVID-19 tests for the unvaccinated but not for the vaccinated, even though the vaccinated can still get and spread the disease? We have seen politicians using pandemic emergency powers to spread mandates, lock people down, and force compliance with threats of jail. We have witnessed widespread censorship of information about this disease, its cause, and its treatment. There have been extreme violations of individual rights and freedom, and a call to subjugate one’s personal liberty and choice for “the common good” as defined by pubic officials.
Can an infection in the brain that causes aggression and hostility help explain why some politicians are calling for forced inoculation of vaccine into every body in the world, including people who have already been infected naturally and already have natural immunity?
Can a brain disease explain why the world has agreed to culturally-destructive lockdowns? Were the leaders who agreed to this destruction of their societies previously infected with COVID-19? Since most infections are considered asymptomatic, it’s hard to tell who has been infected in the past.
Whether or not the SARS-CoV-2 is affecting the brain directly, causing people and society to come apart at the seams, may never be researched. It may disqualify anyone who has been infected from being in a position of political power.
Of course, this could offer another way to get out of responsibility for doing aggressive, stupid things. Take the COVID defense. “The virus made me do it”.
Reference:
Coronavirus and the Nervous System
https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Current-Research/Coronavirus-and-NINDS/nervous-system
Can Raising a Tax Lose Money?
One fundamental assumption that has been made over the years by our lawmakers is that if you enact a tax, money will be raised.
What if that weren’t true?
In late 2019, a pair of economists, Enrico Moretti and Daniel Wilson, published a paper titled “Taxing Billionaires: Estate Taxes and the Geographical Location of the Ultra-Wealthy.” In that paper, they followed the movement of 400 of the nation’s richest people (the “Forbes 400”) and came up with a mathematical model to predict the chances that a particular rich person would move out of state in response to either an enactment of or a hike in that state’s estate tax.
Why concentrate on the wealthy? Only they are on the hook for the estate tax. Even in Hawai’i the estate tax doesn’t kick in unless the deceased person has amassed $5.49 million in wealth, so we are not talking about ordinary folks you see on the street.
Then, they theorized, based on earlier research, that if one of these rich people moves, they will pay a lot less of the former home state’s other taxes, such as income tax and sales tax. In that way, the move will cost that state.
They then tried to answer this question: “If X State adopts or increases an estate tax, will that state make money or lose money, and how much?” They tried to answer that question both with a targeted tax aimed at the ultra-wealthy (a so-called “billionaire’s tax”), and with a broader based estate tax.
When they modeled the billionaire’s tax, they found that 48 states had an expected revenue gain. But two states could be expected to lose money: California and Hawai’i. “For Hawaii,” the study said, “cost-benefit ratio [of having a bigger estate tax would be] equal to 1.43. The expected present value of having an estate tax is ‑$73 million. The difference between Connecticut [which would benefit from an estate tax] and Hawaii is largely due to the difference in their personal income tax (PIT) rate. Hawaii’s PIT is higher than Connecticut’s. The higher PIT rate in Hawaii means a higher opportunity cost of foregoing billionaires’ income tax streams.”
When they modeled the broader-based tax, assuming that the less ultrawealthy (people who had estates big enough to pay estate tax but who weren’t billionaires) were just as likely as the Fortune 400 to pack up and move in response to a tax hit, they found 42 states with an expected revenue gain. Eight states were expected to come up short. Of the states that don’t have an estate tax now, four were at risk: California, Idaho, Nebraska, and New Jersey. Of the states that do have an estate tax, four were at risk: Vermont, Oregon, Minnesota, and—you guessed it—Hawai’i.
Although the study didn’t pin down exactly when a state would be at risk for losing money if adopting an estate tax, it observed that California, the state with the most revenue at risk, had the highest personal income top tax rate. Hawai’i has never been far behind on that metric. We were even seriously considering legislation last session (Senate Bill 56, Senate Draft 1) that would have pushed our top personal income tax rate way past California’s, and we earned national attention, perhaps national derision, for that bill.
Over the years, this column, among others, has been accused of pandering to the wealthy and for being opposed to the “fundamental fairness“ that requires those with more to pay their fair share. We at the Foundation, however, are not trying to decide social policy. We’re trying to present the facts and the risks of unintended consequences. Our legislators are the ones making the hard policy choices. They should be making these choices with more information, not less.
Have We Unwittingly Put the Brakes on HART?
Lately, the news about HART, the body governing Honolulu’s largest ever public works project, has been focused on one of the nine voting members. That member‘s term is coming to an end, and the news is focusing on Mayor Rick Blangiardi‘s choice to replace him.
What you might not have seen is the difficulty the HART board is having making decisions.
HART was created in 2016, when the county’s voters approved a City Charter amendment establishing it. City Charter section 17-104 provides for a ten-member board, consisting of nine voting members and one non-voting member. That section also incorporated section 13-103, which applied the rules governing other City boards and commissions to HART as well.
One of the rules in 13-103 says: “The affirmative vote of a majority of the entire membership shall be necessary to take any action, and such action shall be made at a meeting open to the public.” But that language means whenever they take a vote, we assume that everybody who doesn’t vote “yes,” including people who can’t attend the meeting, are voting “no.“ With a ten-member board, that means we need six members to vote “yes” for anything to pass.
Then, along came 2017. As part of the State‘s bailout of HART, the State added four more non-voting members to the HART board. Two would be appointed by the house and two more by the Senate. After the bill was signed into law and became Act 1 of the 2017 First Special Session, HART had a 14-member board. That means we now need eight members to vote “yes” for anything to pass.
Another of the rules in section 13-103 of the Charter is that a “majority of the members shall constitute a quorum.” A quorum is the number of members needed to have a valid meeting. By the same logic, a quorum of HART was six members before the 2017 legislation, and eight members after it.
Recall, however, that there are only nine voting members. Two of them are the City Director of Transportation Services and the State Director of Transportation, presumably very busy folks. If one of them can’t attend a meeting, a unanimous vote of the others is required to do anything. If two of them can’t attend, nothing can pass. “Obtaining nine votes,” one voting member testified in February, “has proven difficult for the Board to obtain quorum to hold a Board meeting and proven very difficult to obtain a decision on any matter in front of the Board.”
It’s questionable whether the State, in putting four observers on the HART board, intended to change the voting dynamics drastically in this way. But, according to the City’s Corporation Counsel, that was the effect. (Lawmakers please note: One reason why you get as much public comment as you can on a bill you are considering is that some public commenters will see chain-reaction consequences like this one so the bill can be refined to weed out unintended consequences. Adding new material to bills at the eleventh hour, after the time has passed for public comment, can and does lead to problems.)
Some bills in this past legislative session aimed to fix the problem — HB 1288 and SB 998. Neither survived this session, but one or the other might be reintroduced next year.
A fix is needed to keep our HART board up and running. Hopefully there will be a reasonable chance of passage in the coming session once the pandemic and the damage it has done to our economy are not the all-consuming problems as they seemed to be in the 2020 and 2021 legislative sessions.
Ditch and Bra and Skip the Mammogram
One of the known causes of cancer is radiation from x-ray machines. That’s why radiation doses for medical diagnostic x-rays have been lowered over the years. It’s bad medicine when a diagnostic tool used to detect cancer also creates cancer.
The problem is that x-rays are like bullets shooting through the body, causing tissue trauma and burns and breaking DNA strands. Repair of this DNA damage can be faulty, leading to cellular changes that result in tumor development and growth. There is no safe amount of x-rays for the human body, and the impact of radiation damage is cumulative, so it adds up with each radiation exposure.
Mammograms are x-rays of the breasts, where the breasts are smashed between two plates and irradiated with x-rays to look for tumors. Radiologists know these x-rays to the breast cause cancer, and have estimated that mammograms cause breast cancer at about a 0.2% rate, or about the mortality rate for the flu.
This means that each year a woman gets a mammogram she increases her chances of developing breast cancer from that mammogram. Out of every million women who get mammograms, 1000-2000 will develop cancer from the mammograms.
The risk is worse for women who have genetic mutations in their tumor suppressor genes, such as BRCA1 and BRCA 2 genes, which lowers the body’s ability to repair radiation damage to DNA and thereby increases the chance of getting cancer from mammograms. Radiation damage needs to be cleaned up by these genes, helped along by a healthy immune system. Any impairment of the repair mechanism results in greater risk of developing breast cancer from mammograms.
As a result, women with a high risk of developing breast cancer due to defective BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes are advised to not get mammograms, opting instead for safer MRI imaging, which does not use x-rays. Ironically, the more likely a woman is to get breast cancer, the more harmful is the radiation from mammograms.
However, there is another cause of immune system dysfunction which increases breast cancer incidence. It has to do with wearing tight bras for long hours daily. Studies have shown that bra-free women have about the same risk of breast cancer as men, while the tighter and longer the bra is worn the higher the risk rises, to over 100 times higher for a 24/7 bra user compared to a bra-free woman.
How do bras increase breast cancer incidence?
Bras are designed to alter breast shape for fashion reasons, and this requires constant pressure being applied to the breasts to achieve that shape. This pressure constricts the thin, easily compressed lymphatic system within the breasts. The lymphatic system consists of a network of microscopic drainage tubes within the breast tissue. Lymph fluid drains from the breasts to the lymph nodes, most of which are in the arm pits. This pathway for fluid circulation in the breasts is essential for the immune system to cleanse away tissue debris from trauma and radiation damage, as well as to remove toxins, bacteria, and viruses from the tissue. If the lymphatic system becomes constricted by tight bras, the lymph fluid stagnates, as the breast tissue becomes increasingly toxic, causing a condition called lymph-stasis. Pain and cysts develop over time, and eventually this leads to cancer, since the immune system is hampered in attacking any developing cancer cells.
Keep in mind that cancer cells develop all the time in our bodies, as errors in DNA repair and replication are common. However, the immune system detects these defective cells and attacks them before they become a problem. The vast majority of developing cancer cells are killed by our immune system, so long as it is allowed to do its job. However, when we constrict the body with tight clothing, the compression of the lymphatics impairs this circulatory pathway of the immune system, resulting in decreased immune protection, just like having defective tumor suppressor genes.
The bra impairs immune function by constriction of the lymphatics. Any damage to the breasts, either by trauma, radiation, or exposure to carcinogenic chemicals or toxins, is made worse by bras, since the immune system cannot do its job when constricted and compressed by a bra. Blood flow to the breasts is also reduced by tight bras, essentially choking the breast tissue as it marinates in waste products and toxins due to lymphatic impairment. Add to this the repeated radiation damage to the breasts from mammograms, and you can see why there is a breast cancer epidemic.
Unfortunately, the role of the bra in breast pathology is under appreciated in the US, since bra usage has been promoted for economic, fashion, and sexist reasons. While dozens of studies internationally have confirmed the bra-cancer link, cancer authorities have been dismissing the issue out of hand, since the bra-cancer link is a research game-changer which has the potential of upending breast cancer research that has ignored this important factor affecting breast health. It’s like researching lung cancer while ignoring smoking (which was the case in the early 1900’s.)
Research into breast disease which ignores the constrictive impact of bras on breast lymphatics and circulation is flawed. However, the breast cancer industry insists that the cause of breast cancer is mostly unknown (apart from an approximately 5% cause from genetics), and insists that early detection of tumors with mammograms followed by treatment is the only alternative.
One of the major concerns that the cancer industry has had about the bra- cancer link is that women would avoid mammograms if they believed that their breast cancer risk was low due to eliminating bra usage. If the medical model for breast cancer management requires regular mammograms, then anything which can get in the way of that message is silenced. If becoming bra-free lowers risk, then why get mammograms, which are painful and exposes women to increased cancer rates through radiation damage? The promotion of mammograms as the alternative to prevention has created a multi-billion dollar mammogram industry. Prevention by bra removal is not lucrative for the medical industry. Dismissing the bra-cancer link, which is a major way women can effectively lower breast cancer risk, keeps women coming for their mammograms to detect the tumor once it appears.
As a result, women are not warned about the impact their bras are having on their breast health. Breast pain and cysts, in addition to cancer, are mostly the result of tight bras. Breathing is reduced by wearing bras. The sympathetic nervous system is harmed by wearing bras. The only thing that benefits from wearing bras is the bra industry which profits from bra sales, and the medical industry which profits from cancer detection and treatment.
Fortunately, becoming bra-free is now the fashion. Women have become skeptical of the alleged need for uncomfortable bras, and have opted for freedom and comfort. Gender-based clothing is also in question, as women ask why they “need” bras in the first place if men do not. While the bra industry has created cultural narratives which claim bras are “needed for support”, research shows that breasts support themselves when the natural suspensory ligaments in the breasts are allowed to function and hold the weight of the breasts by themselves. In fact, bras cause the breasts to droop more than they would naturally, since the artificial support from the bra results in these suspensory ligaments becoming weak and atrophying from nonuse. The breasts are also heavier when using a bra, due to fluid accumulation in the breasts from impaired lymphatic drainage. And large-breasted women are not freaks of nature who require 20th century lingerie for “support”. It’s all sales propaganda from the bra industry.
Conclusion:
Mammograms cause radiation damage to the breasts and cause breast cancer.
Bras cause lymphatic impairment in the breasts and cause breast cancer.
Get rid of your bra, and avoid mammograms.
References:
1. Radiation-Induced Breast Cancer Incidence and Mortality From Digital Mammography Screening. https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ m15-1241
2. DNA damage induced by mammography in high family risk patients: Only one single view in screening. https://www.sciencedirect.com/ science/article/pii/S0960977611004115
3. Time to stop mammography screening? https://www.cmaj.ca/content/ 183/17/1957.short
4. Is Mammographic Screening Justifiable Considering Its Substantial Overdiagnosis Rate and Minor Effect on Mortality? https:// pubs.rsna.org/doi/pdf/10.1148/radiol.11110210
5. Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras. Second Edition (2018), Square One Publishers, NY.
6. How Bras Cause Lymph-Stasis and Breast Cancer. https:// www.academia.edu/36287546/ HOW_BRAS_CAUSE_LYMPH_STASIS_AND_BREAST_CANCER
7. Bras Cause More than Breast Cancer: Preliminary Results of the International Bra-Free Study. https://www.academia.edu/40226963/ Bras_Cause_More_than_Breast_Cancer_Preliminary_Results_of_the_In ternational_Bra_Free_Study
With the Epic Fail In Afghanistan, It’s Time To Ask What We’ve Become
With the incredible failure in planning and leadership, not to mention the almost belligerent reluctance to act on the part of the Biden administration on the issue of Afghanistan – and the subsequent posturing by the mainstream media and the political Left, the time has arrived for serious self-examination.
What have we become as a country when we can elect such politically self-absorbed narcissists into leadership? Who are we as a people if we elect such unaware, arrogant, and ineffective embarrassments to office?
In one of the most embarrassing and chilling responses to a question posed by a member of the media, a question about Afghan’s falling to their deaths from the exoskeletons of US Air Force C-17s departing from Kabul airport, our president, President Joe Biden, said – annoyed that he was even being questioned on the matter, “That was four or five days ago!”
What kind of a human being responds to a question on an issue of that magnitude so dismissively? What kind of a politically opportune narcissist callously attempts to deflect from a question like that?
And then we have the President either lying directly to the American people or disclosing the fact that he doesn’t have a handle on what his own administration is doing, in his insistence that he was caught off guard by the swift Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in the shadow of the US withdrawal.
The Wall Street Journal reported, as conveyed by Blaze.com:
“The July 13 cable signed by nearly two dozen Embassy staffers went through the Department of State’s confidential dissent channel and warned of swift ground gains by the Taliban and the subsequent collapse of Afghan security forces, and it also supplied suggestions on how to mitigate the crisis and expedite an evacuation, the two individuals said, according to the outlet.
“‘The cable, sent via the State Department’s confidential dissent channel, warned of rapid territorial gains by the Taliban and the subsequent collapse of Afghan security forces, and offered recommendations on ways to mitigate the crisis and speed up an evacuation, the two people said,’ the Journal reported. ‘The cable, dated July 13, also called for the State Department to use tougher language in describing the atrocities being committed by the Taliban, one of the people said.’”
And then we have the nauseating declaration by the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, that the United States military doesn’t have the ability to provide safe passage to Americans and US assets out of Afghanistan.
As reported by The Washington Examiner, Austin told reporters:
“I don’t have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul…We don’t have the capability to go out and collect up large numbers of people.”
But this sentiment is exposed as another blatant lie from a member of the Biden administration, and one that is tangibly putting American lives and the lives of American assets in grave danger.
Again, from The Washington Examiner and analyst Tom Rogan:
“[US] Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue has told his British Army counterpart, a high-ranking field-grade officer of the British army’s 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, that British operations were embarrassing the United States military in the absence of similar US military operations…
“…I understand that the SAS has conducted operations to bring American citizens, as well as British citizens and at-risk personnel, through checkpoints and to the airport. This is not an indictment on US capabilities or special operations intent, but rather, it’s a reflection of political-military authorities.”
So, again, the actions of our duly elected federal government in Afghanistan – and in addressing Afghanistan – beg the question: Who are we as a people; what have we become?
The idea that the Taliban was sincere in its declaration that the government they intend to establish is to be “inclusive” and equitable toward women is so far beyond the realm of reality it defies even disillusion. The Taliban is not “Woke” and never will be.
And yet the US State Department, UNICEF, and the United Nations issued almost identical statements declaring they were “optimistic” about the Taliban’s declaration, UNICEF’s chief of field operations in Afghanistan, Mustapha Ben Messaoud, going as far as to say, “We have not a single issue with the Taliban…”
Meanwhile, Taliban Islamofascists have brutally massacred members of the minority Hazara community in the Ghazni province despite public claims that the Taliban would provide amnesty across Afghanistan.
According to Amnesty International, Hazara men have been shot and “three were tortured to death, including one man who was strangled with his own scarf and had his arm muscles sliced off.” The human rights group said the Taliban “killings likely represent a tiny fraction of the total death toll inflicted by the Taliban to date, as the group has cut mobile phone service in many of the areas they have recently captured, controlling which photographs and videos are then shared from these regions.”
Providing a first-hand warning in an interview with India’s News 18 of what is to come for the women of Afghanistan, Khatera, an Afghani woman, insisted the Taliban will not respect or honor women’s rights despite the Islamofascist group’s assertions to the contrary.
Khatera, 33, told of a horrific attack that took place in 2020 when her father – a Taliban fighter – tipped off the local Taliban faction that his daughter was employed (women, under Sharia law, are not permitted to work).
In October of that year, Khatera said that her father conspired with the local Taliban faction to attack her as she returned home from work. During the attack, Khatera – who, ironically worked for the police in a US-NATO controlled area – was shot at least eight times, stabbed, and had her eyes knifed out of their sockets before Taliban fighters left her for dead. She was pregnant at the time.
In a statement by the leader of the underground church ministering to Christians in Afghanistan, a first-hand account of the realities on the ground in that Taliban-controlled territory serves up monstrous details:
“The Taliban has a hit list of known Christians they are targeting to pursue and kill. The US Embassy is defunct and there is no longer a safe place for believers to take refuge…
“All borders to neighboring countries are closed and all flights to and from have been halted, with the exception of private planes. People are fleeing into the mountains looking for asylum…
“The Taliban are going door-to-door taking women and children…The people must mark their house with an ‘X’ if they have a girl over 12 years old, so that the Taliban can take them. If they find a young girl and the house was not marked, they will execute the entire family. If a married woman 25 years old or older has been found, the Taliban promptly kill her husband, do whatever they want to her, and then sell her as a sex slave.”
The responsibility for the wholly inept execution of the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan rests exclusively with President Biden and his administration. They had the ability to change course up to the very last minute and, instead, chose to ignore reports from responsible underlings in deference to whipping the political agenda vehicle that is COVID, an event that is all but over.
In fact, the British Parliament, the governing body of our greatest ally, voted to condemn not the United States, but President Biden himself for the disaster the withdrawal has turned out to be.
The Daily Mail reported:
“The speed of the Taliban’s gains after the US-led forces withdrew the bulk of their troops from Afghanistan surprised the West, leaving many nations having to scramble to get their diplomats and Afghans who had helped them out of the country.
“Several lawmakers on Wednesday focused on the US decision to withdraw – a move which Johnson admitted left Britain with no choice but to pull out its own forces – and Biden’s subsequent criticism of Afghan forces’ surrender…”
Former British Prime Minister Theresa May, said on the floor of Parliament, “Was our understanding of the Afghan government so weak? Was our knowledge of the position on the ground so inadequate? Or did we just feel that we have to follow the United States and hope that, on a wing and a prayer, it would be alright on the night.”
A recent poll exclaiming that President Biden has hit a low-water mark in his approval rating reveals that 54 percent of Americans disapprove of Mr. Biden’s performance. Additionally, approximately 1-in-10 Democrats regret their 2020 vote with 15 percent of Black Americans regretting their vote.
But what of the other 10 Democrat voters who still support Mr. Biden? What of the 46 percent of the electorate that believes Mr. Biden’s performance is a positive thing?
Higher gas prices. Higher food prices. Higher construction material prices. Higher taxes. The dissemination of our economy. An exploding national debt. The diminishment of America’s standing in the world. The facilitation of the rise of China. And now the facilitation of the enslavement and slaughter of millions of innocent, trusting Afghanis.
So, again, some questions beg to be asked.
What have we become as a country if we can elect such inept and politically greedy people to positions of power?
Have we become so addicted to “being right,” to “winning at all cost for the sake of winning,” so blind to the actions of the charlatan activists who run for public office that the difference between right and wrong simply doesn’t matter any longer?
Have we, as a nation, become a pathetic gaggle of self-absorbed, self-centered, elitist cry-babies that places more priority in “being offended” by gender pronouns and claiming victimhood for the wrongs of generations past than in preventing the enslavement and slaughter of an entire nation, acts facilitated by our ridiculous “Woke” cultural disability?
We cannot claim the mantle of righteousness if we do not stand up to tyranny in real-time when Islamofascist tyrants are slaughtering people and enslaving young girls and women as sex slaves. We cannot feign outrage at the slavery of America’s past if we do nothing to stop the enslavement of women and children today. We cannot claim to be the last best hope of freedom on Earth if we turn our backs on those begging for freedom.
Today, the people who have tasted freedom for the last 20 years in Afghanistan are crying out for help. They are begging for our help so they can hold on to freedom as bloodthirsty Islamofascist barbarians begin their slaughter in the name of their demented religion.
And as they beg, as they plead, as they fall from in-flight C-17 aircraft to their deaths in attempts to escape the certain deaths; the grisly deaths that await them if don’t at least try, our President is more concerned with who is wearing COVID masks and who isn’t, even as his order facilitates that slaughter and slavery.
If we, the American people, stand at this moment in time, as we witness the uncaring cruelty that our government is unleashing on the Afghan people and especially their females – and especially those who aided us in good faith over the last 20 years, we must all ask ourselves: What have we become as a nation if we allow this to happen without lifting our voices to the Heavens in protest to force our elected officials to do the right thing.
It is time to dispense with the Alinskyite politics of win at all cost. It is time to do the right thing. If we don’t, then who are we really? What have we become?
Frank Salvato is the executive partner at The CompassPoint Group, LLC. He is the co-host of the Underground USA podcast as heard on iHeart Radio, Pandora, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, and anywhere podcasts are heard. His writing has been recognized by the US House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention. His analysis has been published by The American Enterprise Institute, The Washington Times, National File, and Accuracy in Media, and is nationally syndicated. Mr. Salvato appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on FOX News Channel and is the author of six monographs examining internal and external threats facing our country. He can be heard twice weekly on “The Captain’s America: Third Watch” radio program syndicated nationally on the Salem Broadcasting Network and Genesis Communications affiliate stations.
An Outrageous Statement by UNICEF Chief: ‘Not a Single Issue With the Taliban’
An official for the UN’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said Tuesday he was “optimistic” after several local Taliban leaders expressed support for the education of females following the Islamofascist group’s seizure of Afghanistan.
UNICEF’s chief of field operations in Afghanistan, Mustapha Ben Messaoud, said he met with local Taliban representatives in the conquered territories of Kandahar, Herat, and Jalalabad, among others, who claimed they wanted schools “up and running.” Other Taliban leaders said they are waiting for guidance from higher-ups…
Adding that 11 of the country’s 13 UNICEF field offices were operational, Messaoud said, “We have not a single issue with the Taliban in those field offices.”
Also Tuesday, a spokesman for the Islamic Emirate’s cultural commission said the Taliban has declared a general “amnesty” for all in Afghanistan and urged women to seek roles in government despite the group’s history of extreme oppression toward females including the mandated wearing of burqas and the curtailing of individual liberties…
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan doesn’t want the women to be the victims anymore,” the spokesman said. “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is ready to provide women with environment to work and study, and the presence of women in different [government] structures according to Islamic law and in accordance with our cultural values…all sides should join” the government…
The Taliban has since been accused of seeking “those who had worked with” or who “had fought alongside the Americans” in executing a “kill list” while “terrified” Afghanis scramble to destroy any proof of association…
An English-speaking Taliban spokesman, contested the reports.
Why This Is Important
Several truths are important to understand so these declarations can be understood in context and through the eyes of the Islamofascists who issued them.
We in the West have a horrific habit of contextualizing statements from devout Islamists and Islamofascists through Western eyes. This has been a mistake in the past and, in the ridiculous woke culture of today’s West, remains a mistake.
The Taliban, the total of the Islamofascist terror groups and regimes, and indeed the whole of the devout Islamic world is not woke. They have no intention of becoming woke. In fact, the concept of wokeness is anathema to Islam. They look on the West’s fascination with wokeness as self-destructive and deviant; something to be vanquished, not acquiesced to.
The reality is that the Taliban statements are more about al taqiyya than it is about the softening of their stance and seeking to join the international community. Al taqiyya is defined thusly:
“There are several forms of lying to non-believers that are permitted [in Islam] under certain circumstances, the best known being taqiyya (the Shia name). These circumstances are typically those that advance the cause of Islam – in some cases by gaining the trust of non-believers in order to draw out their vulnerability and defeat them.”
Understanding that the Taliban exists as one of the most devout Islamic groups on the planet, they are bound to the Quran, the Hadith, and Sira literally. In devout Islam, the Quran is the literal word of Allah and is not open to interpretation. Therefore, the edicts in the Quran are not subjective, they are binding.
In my monograph, Women in the Fundamentalist Islamic Culture, I write:
“A traditional Islamic saying is that, ‘A woman’s heaven is beneath her husband’s feet.’ In the Islamic culture, to show someone the bottom of one’s shoes, to figuratively place them beneath one’s feet, is an insult of the highest order.
“The fact of the matter is that women in the fundamentalist Islamic world are relegated to the status of possessions. They are subjected to incredibly harsh and degrading cultural edicts where transgressions are punished – justified under Sharia Law (Quranic Law) – by whippings, beatings, stoning and death.”
The Quran makes it clear in 4:11, 4:34, 2:228, and 2:223, respectively,
“The male shall have the equal of the portion of two females…Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women)…and the men are a degree above them…Your wives are as a tilth unto you; so approach your tilth when or how ye will.”
So, because members of the Taliban are devout Muslims they must adhere to these edicts. This poses a number of issues with the statements emanating from the spokesman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The idea that women will be educated and involved in government is one advanced through al taqiyya.
Yes, women will be educated but they will be educated in the misogynistic ideology of the Quran. If they are even taught to read it would be approaching a taboo in Islamic culture. Their education would most likely come in the form of spoken proselytizing of the Quran, Hadith, and Sira.
Yes, women will be included in the new IEA government, but not as legislators, department heads, or in any position of authority. They, instead, will be included as burqa-wearing secretaries and extreme subordinates to the authority of men and for this reason. A woman in fundamentalist Islam is worth only half that of a man. How is a woman supposed to issue regulations or govern men when their worth is only half?
And understanding that the past is a good indication to the future, I once again turn to my monograph, Women in the Fundamentalist Islamic Culture:
“[W]hen the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 1996…a decree was issued forbidding women to leave their homes. Prior to the Taliban’s seizing of power, women in Afghanistan held jobs in hospitals, schools and in the civil service sector. Women were doctors and teachers. They were professionals. With the Taliban’s decree, employment and education for women came to a screeching halt. In fact, many would become beggars.
“This tyrannical dogma extended to men who tried to help women. In 2006, years after the “liberation” of Afghanistan [by the Taliban], a 46-year-old Afghan schoolteacher, was dragged from his family, his home, and horribly murdered – disemboweled and then dismembered – for defying orders to stop educating girls.”
Today, the women of Afghanistan are fearful of the same future they endured during the first reign of the Taliban. Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinej posted this video of an Afghan woman describing her fear:
Alinej posted a subsequent interview with this brave Afghani woman:
The level of naivety possessed by the West where the Taliban’s decorations are concerned – and especially their declarations about the females of Afghanistan – is stunning. It is as if they are completely ignorant of the Taliban’s history or the fundamentals of Islam and the Islamic culture.
The West has become too self-absorbed, unable to view the world through the eyes of those who exist in other regions of the world. Wokeness, the petulant self-absorption of the ignorantly self-righteous who unwittingly serve as the “useful idiots” of the transformative class, compounds that cultural ignorance.
The women of Afghanistan are in clear and present danger. They are in harm’s way. And the ridiculous positions taken by UNICEF, the US State Department, and the United Nations telegraph the message to these women that help is not on the way. Perhaps the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan should be “All hope abandon ye who enter here.”
Please read my monograph, Women in Fundamentalist Islamic Culture, available on Amazon, and then contact your federally elected representatives and local clergy to ask them to take action in aiding the women of Afghanistan in this desperate hour. Their lives depend on us.
The Time Tax
This week we reflect on a piece in “The Atlantic” that argues quite persuasively that your government not only taxes people by taking their money, but also imposes administrative burdens that waste countless precious hours of people’s time.
“The issue,” the article says, “is not that modern life comes with paperwork hassles. The issue is that American benefit programs are, as a whole, difficult and sometimes impossible for everyday citizens to use. Our public policy is crafted from red tape, entangling millions of people who are struggling to find a job, failing to feed their kids, sliding into poverty, or managing a disabling health condition.”
Our own recent struggles with the unemployment system here in Hawaii illustrate this phenomenon. Hawaii Public Radio did an October 2020 story on “Thousands still waiting action on unemployment claims,” One person profiled in the story described the processes of applying for unemployment benefits as a “full-time job.” Civil Beat’s Denby Fawcett told the story of one claimant who called the unemployment office 22 times only to be put on hold for an hour when the person who answered said she needed to consult with her supervisor.
The Atlantic argues that some of this difficulty is by design. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said as much: “Having studied how [the system] was internally constructed … it was, ‘Let’s put as many kind of pointless roadblocks along the way, so people just say, oh, the hell with it, I’m not going to do that,’ …. It was definitely done in a way to lead to the least number of claims being paid out.”
The unemployment office is not the only government agency imposing a time tax on their so-called customers. One of our articles in 2015 profiled our Department of Taxation. Tax is not a simple subject, but it nevertheless operates on a “you figure it out” model as well. When people call in for help, at that time there was a more than 50% chance that their call would not be answered, at all. In fiscal 2020, the Department’s call answer rate crept up to 82%, basically answering five out of six calls (irrespective of waiting time, which wasn’t discussed in the report). At the same time, published guidance by the Department remains scarce, so it is still difficult for taxpayers to search for information to resolve their own problems.
No article on the time tax in Hawaii would be complete without mention of the obscene length of time that Native Hawaiian beneficiaries remain on the waitlist for lease awards of Hawaiian homestead land. Some have been on the waitlist for decades and some have died on the waitlist. Kalima v. State, a 2020 decision by the Hawaii Supreme Court, decided that the State breached trust obligations and needed to pay damages to those on the waitlist. Hopefully this case will lead to some mitigation of the time tax.
Nationally, the Atlantic argues, the time tax is regressive. It falls most heavily on the poor, the less educated, the ethnic minorities. It might be imposed unwittingly. Legislatures pass laws that are carefully drawn to benefit the “right” people, such as those hit by the pandemic. Agencies implementing the laws want to weed out the fraudsters and the liars, and those otherwise not worthy of the benefits. As a result, claimants, assuming they find out about the benefit at all, face an uphill battle in applying for it between navigating through complex qualification requirements and trying to get the application through an agency that is more focused on having a claimant run the gauntlet than in cooperating to get that claimant the benefits allowed by law.
Here in Hawaii, we can and should do better. We need benefits laws that are easy to understand and make sense of. We need agencies that execute the laws to educate the public clearly and thoroughly on what is required to participate. Our agencies should be reasonably responsive to the public. We the taxpayers are not just pigs clamoring around the feeding trough and shouldn’t be treated as such. Overall, lawmakers need to be aware of the time tax and what it does to their constituents. Once they do, maybe they can help make the system better.
Why You Can’t Compare the Vaccinated with the Unvaccinated
As the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus travels through society, we are being told that those who were vaccinated against the Alpha, or original, variant of the virus will experience lower mortality as a result of that vaccine. While there are currently reports of susceptibility to the Delta variant in both vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, the campaign to promote vaccination continues to compare the vaccinated with the unvaccinated in an attempt to persuade the latter to “get the jab”, reasoning that if you do get sick from COVID with the vaccine then it will be less severe.
But can we compare the vaccinated with the unvaccinated? Is this a fair and scientifically accurate comparison? Or is it comparing apples with oranges?
Over the past year of vaccine promotion, it is clear that there are two distinct segments of the population regarding vaccinations. There are those who completely believe in vaccines and their essential use, and there are those who avoid vaccines like the plague. I will call these groups vaccinophiles and vaccinophobes.
Vaccinophiles are more likely to follow mainstream medical advice. They are more likely to go to a doctor when sick, and are more likely to want pharmaceutical treatments over alternative health or lifestyle treatments. They are more likely to believe in the advice from mainstream medical authorities, and are more likely to comply with pandemic mandates of masking, isolating, and social distancing. They more likely to listen to mainstream media and have trust in government.
Vaccinophobes, however, are more likely to follow alternative medical advice. They are more focused on disease prevention and natural immunity, and are more likely to go to an alternative medical provider. They are more focused on diet and dietary supplements than vaccinophiles, and have a greater appreciation of lifestyle in the cause and prevention of disease. They are more likely than vaccinophiles to question medical authority and to believe in conspiracy theories, more likely to listen to alternative media, and less likely to comply with pandemic mandates.
When comparing these two groups, you are comparing sub-cultures with different lifestyle strategies, values, and belief systems. We could expand on the differences, such as which group is in overall better health, which group has a higher rate of co-morbidities, which group has a higher rate of prescription drug use or abuse, and so on, but the point is that these two subcultures have differences which impact health and behavior, including how they are responding to the pandemic.
As a result, we cannot compare the morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 between these two groups. Vaccine status is only one variable among many variables which impact health and disease prevention.
It’s important to also realize that positive placebo effects and negative placebo, or nocebo, effects will differ for these two groups regarding the immune response and adverse reactions to the vaccine. Those who are vaccinophiles will have enhanced immunity due to the belief in the vaccine, which is a positive placebo effect. This could also minimize adverse side effects, or at least the perception of these effects. On the other hand, those who are vaccinophobes are more likely to experience negative placebo, or nocebo, effects due to negative expectations, along with worse side effects.
This means that the impact of the vaccine depends, in part, on the mindset of the person getting vaccinated. Mandating vaccines, or vaccine coercion, can make vaccinophobes more ill from the vaccine than would be the case for vaccinophiles.
Masking has dubious advantages for viruses, along with known harmful impacts on physical and mental health, altering respiration and heart rate, causing hypoxia and hypercapnia, creating dental and dermatological problems, and creating psychological issues. Vaccinophiles are more likely to wear masks than vaccinophobes, creating another variable in assessing the health differences between these two groups and the impact of vaccination on health.
Social distancing has the potential to create psychological problems, along with reduced immune function, since the immune system atrophies and weakens when lacking exposure to pathogens. Vaccinophiles are more likely to socially distance compared to vaccinophobes, adding this health issue as another variable.
Stress is a known factor impacting health on many levels. Those who are most frightened by the pandemic are more likely to get vaccinated. This makes this group more stressed out than the vaccinophobes. You might think that vaccination ends the fear, but the attacks by the vaccinated against the unvaccinated attests to the continued fear experienced by these vaccinophiles.
From this brief, logical assessment of the differences between vaccinophiles and vaccinophobes, it should be clear that you can’t compare morbidity and mortality to COVID-19 based solely on vaccine status. If these two groups become better characterized, perhaps we can compare the vaccinated and unvaccinated within each group. Providing that these groups are relatively homogeneous in the issues raised above, we could then compare the outcomes more reliably.
But for the moment, we are in the midst of a vaccine promotion campaign waged by the government, industry, and the media, with the goal of getting needles in arms. Whatever challenges that agenda is suppressed or censored. This means that reason and science take a back seat to propaganda and an agenda which must show vaccines are more effective than natural immunity, even if it isn’t.
So don’t fall for the false comparison between vaccinophiles and vaccinophobes. These are two distinct groups with greater differences than just vaccine preference. But don’t expect good science and political honesty to suddenly prevail in the response to this pandemic.
The best advice is this: If you believe in vaccines, then take them. If you don’t, then don’t take them. Being true to your own beliefs is important in any healthcare. The choice should be yours to make for yourself. Only you know if you are an apple or an orange.
Counties, You’re TAT Collectors Now
Most of us have heard about House Bill 862, the bill that cut off the counties’ share of Transient Accommodations Tax (TAT) but allowed the counties to impose their own TAT. This bill became law by legislative override of Governor Ige’s veto.
To make things “easier” for taxpayers, the law says that the counties‘ TAT needs to cover the same things, and have the same exemptions, as the state TAT. But the law has no provision allowing the counties to piggyback on the State’s collections like the state GET surcharge. Which means that counties that want to impose the TAT not only have to pass their own ordinance, but also need to hire their own people to do their own collections.
Kauai Council Chair Arryl Kaneshiro said that it seemed like such a waste of resources, “They [the state] assess [general excise] tax and they cut us a check for it. I see it as the same thing with TAT. For us to have the same system and pay two different sets of employees to do the same thing, I don’t see it as being anywhere near efficient.”
The counties tried. According to reports, the counties tried to work out a memorandum of understanding with the State Department of Taxation to come up with a solution similar to what happens with the GET now. But the Attorney General put the kibosh on that idea, understandably pointing out that unlike the GET surcharge law, HB 862 makes no provision whatsoever for joint collection. The counties are on their own.
This isn’t the first time the counties have been asked to administer on their own a tax that is mandated to follow state rules. For the first ten years after the counties took control of the real property tax following the 1978 Constitutional Convention, the counties administered the tax mostly according to state rules, as provided in the Hawaii Constitution. Also, after the counties sued for a piece of the Public Service Company Tax imposed on public utilities because it was imposed on the utilities instead of real property tax and GET, the resolution of the suit led to the enactment of Act 64 of 2001 allowing the counties to impose and collect their own PSC Tax.
Those changes, however, did not cause the counties headaches. The transfer of real property tax was a change that the counties wanted and were ready for. For the PSC tax, most counties seemed to respond by foisting the new responsibility on their finance department staff, which wasn’t too problematic given that there wasn’t an inordinate number of public utilities.
In contrast, the language in HB 862 that dumped the TAT revenue sharing was introduced for the first time by the Conference Committee, which neither heard the bill nor accepted any public testimony. A different bill with TAT surcharge language appeared late in the session. It was put into play when the Senate gut-and-replaced a House TAT bill with a very different focus and sent the revamped bill into conference. That bill (HB 321 SD1) contained language allowing the State to collect the tax on behalf of the counties. Even so, the Hawaii State Association of Counties and some of the individual counties testified against it. Imagine everyone’s surprise when the final version of HB 862 came out with a TAT surcharge that the State wouldn’t help the counties collect.
When a new tax is enacted, there are usually a few devils in the details. This one presents the counties with pandemonium. Economists generally like the idea of having taxes levied by a local government that is closer to the local population and thus more responsive to the local services that are required, as UHERO points out. But this instance feels a lot more like sending the counties up the creek without a paddle. Fixes to allow greater efficiencies in administering this tax should be enacted soon if this surcharge is to continue.