I have Bart Art on a thumb drive, but I share the regret that I don’t have the graphic Ten Bears writes of because it’s spot on.
Another update on my friend Kamyk
My friend is doing better slowly. I plan to call him today as I have not heard from him in a few days. This morning his sister sent me a note with his new address. Thanks again to everyone who sent him a card, he has had a very difficult hard life starting with his kidnapping and sex trafficked as a little boy. Hugs.
Hi Scottie. Kamyk is at the same place as before… select specialty 8049 South Ave, Youngstown, OH 44512
I think his room number is 208
I have been fighting some depression for a few weeks… I am very sorry my texts have been sparse.
I how kamyk had been talking with you.
He seems to be healing slowly but steadily now. His blood work is leveling out and his wounds are looking a whole lot less infected and ugly!
So his old address was below. I guess just change the room number. Again thanks you are all grand. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, enjoy the celebrations of your choice with the people you wish to share them with. Hugs
Select specialty hospital
Attn: Kamyk Robinson
8049 South Ave room 103
Youngstown Ohio 44512
And It’s a More Important Reason than that they’re better than UPS and FedEx …
CBS NEWS: What to know about Social Security’s full retirement age in 2025
What to know about Social Security’s full retirement age in 2025
Social Security’s full retirement age reflects the point at which people can claim their full benefits. It’s going up in 2025.
Read in CBS News: https://apple.news/ACeiLqXtYSEmW7e4nnH0_Qw
Shared from Apple News
Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie
A threat to the community?
Peace & Justice History for 12/17
The first entry may be a clue as to why Musk is supporting the Don; he could wish to turn the US into S. Africa. As hard as we worked when we were young until now, progress doesn’t seem to have stuck, here.
| December 17, 1982 The U.N. passed a series of 4 resolutions attacking apartheid in South Africa: To organize an international conference of trade unions on sanctions against South Africa (approved 129 to 2); To encourage various international actions against South Africa (126 to 2); Support of sanctions and other measures against South Africa including international sporting events (139 to 1); Cessation of further foreign investments and loans for South Africa (138 to 1). The U.S. was the only country to have voted against all 4 resolutions (joined only by the United Kingdom on two). |
December 17, 1990 Jean-Bertrand Aristide Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a radical Roman Catholic priest and opponent of the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier who had been deposed in 1986, was elected president in the first free election in Haiti’s history. He was overthrown in 1991 in a military coup led by Brigadier-General Raoul Cedra.  More about Jean-Bertrand Aristide Jean-Bertrand Aristide Fast Facts |
| December 17, 2010 In Tunesia jobless graduate Mohmad Bouazizi starts selling vegetables. When police seize his cart, he sets fire to himself and later dies. This event believed to be the ignition of Arab Spring. A UK Guardian interactive timeline |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december17
Trump Tributes
by Clay Jones
New Jersey drones and some MAGA ass-kissing. Read on Substack
I’ve felt sick and disgusted since November, and those feelings only increased after I read about what ABC News did. If Donald Trump sues me for doing my job, I will not cave like ABC News, and I’ll tell him to go suck a lemon (replace lemon with something else).
Trump has villainized the media and has tried to take away the credibility of the press. Trumpers believe legitimate news outlets are “fake news” while they share “news” from YouTube and repeat Trump’s lies. Back when I freelanced for CNN and I’d try to discuss an issue with a MAGAt, they’d say, “Oh, you’re with CNN. That explains a lot,” without ever telling me exactly what it explained.
Anytime a Trumper tells you a news outlet lies, they can’t cite one example. Yet, these same idiots are in a cult that worships a man who told over 30,000 in a span of four years.
And it’s not just the cultists who are kissing Trump’s ass.
Jeff Bezos is donating $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration. He also pulled an endorsement from The Washington Post which was for Kamala Harris. When Bezos purchased the Post, he promised he would never meddle with editorial decisions. Bezos said he’s “very optimistic” about a second Trump administration (sic) and will be meeting with the orange goon this week. What’s Bezos’ deal with kissing Trump’s ass after years of criticizing him? It’s Elon Musk.
Bezos has government contracts such as with the Post Office delivering Amazon shipments (which is why you see angry mailmen on Sundays) and through Blue Origins, his rock company (it’s the one that looks like a giant penis). Bezos has lost government contracts to Elon and his rocket company (it’s the one owned by a giant penis). How can Bezos compete when his competition is firmly entrenched up Trump’s ass. It’s why you can’t see Trump anymore without Elon by his side. He’s afraid if he goes to the toilet for one minute, he’ll find Bezos up Trump’s butt when he returns despite the fact he called dibs.
Mark Zuckerberg, who banned Trump from Facebook for a minute (along with Russian trolls until they started paying to post), is also pledging $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and said Trump’s “fight fight fight” after being nipped in the ear was “badass.” Zuck probably also thinks My Little Pony is badass. Zuck is also donating his hydrofoiling board along with his CD that contains Country Roads.
Sam Altman, the owner of OpenAI, is also pledging a million bucks to the grift and said Trump will “lead our country in the age of AI.” That’s great news actually because I hate AI and if Trump is leading it, it’s doomed. But the thing is, Sam knows this and is only saying stupid shit to kiss Trump’s ass.
There’s no word yet on all the donors but former contributors to inaugurations are keeping mum, such as Google, Walmart, Home Depot, Target, etc, but nobody seems concerned about how their money is spent and they’re probably all resigned to the fact their donations will probably be grifted.
Trump raised $107 million for his inauguration in 2017 and a lot of that money disappeared. Sure, they paid for Three Doors Down (opening shot makes me think of what Trump must look like first thing in the morning) to sing Kryptonite and there was a very fine parade of tractors (look at the crowd size), but that didn’t cost $107 million. At least $1 million of it was spent for a ball at what was then Trump’s Washington hotel, but how many more millions landed in Trump’s bank account?
Trump has refused government funding for his inauguration in order to accept private donations. He says he’s saving taxpayer’s money when the truth is, he just wants to be bribed.
The donors didn’t care what happened to the money just so long as they won Trump’s favor, but what’s even more disgusting is when the media kisses the royal rump.
Bezos kissing Trump’s ass and using the Post to do it is one disgusting thing, but then there’s ABC News giving Trump $15 million for his stupid library.
ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump. He was miffed by the way George Stephanopoulos used the term “liable for rape” to characterize a 2023 civil case in Manhattan, the one where a jury ruled that Trump, the rapist, was liable for sexual abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll, who won $83 million from Rapey Trump. The judge noted that the jury’s verdict didn’t mean Carroll failed to prove Trump, the rapist, raped her.
The bar is high for libeling a public figure and Mr. McRapey is the most public of them all. News organizations usually don’t settle these bullshit lawsuits as they have the First Amendment on their side. When they do settle, it’s usually because it’s cheaper than paying their lawyers through a long tedious lawsuit, and not for something like $15.
Fox News had to settle with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million but they were guilty as fuck and they’re not a real news organization. So why did ABC settle with a guy liable for rape?
ABC News, which is owned by Disney, settled to kiss Trump’s ass but all they did was give him more encouragement to file bullshit lawsuits. What ABC selfishly did was hurt the entire news industry, which Trump, the rapist, has called the “enemy of the American people.”
Disney should understand that they shouldn’t kiss the ring of Darth Sidious. They own Star Wars. At least Palpatine never had over two dozen women accuse him of rape and sexual assault, not even a female gundark.
Today, Trump scolded the government for not giving out more information about drones in New Jersey, but if the government knows what’s going on with Jersey drones, then Trump probably does too. Sorry to scare you like this but since he’s president-elect (sic), he’s getting daily briefings which means Vladimir Putin is getting daily briefings. Maybe the drones are delivering Big Macs to Bedminster.
Creative note: Proofer Laura asked if I intended to make a Hunger Games parallel with this cartoon. Since I’m the only person in the nation who’s never watched Hunger Games despite there being abundant nudity with dragons (I’ve been told and I hope it’s not just naked dragons), I did not intentionally make that reference, but it sounds cool the way Laura described it.
Laura told me, “In the Hunger Games the “tributes” are the people forced to fight to the death, and drones are used to deliver gifts from audience members to help the tributes survive.” What kind of drones? Dragon drones? What if they smoked the tributes? Can you say a dragon ate my homework?
Laura also said, “In the Hunger Games the gifts sent to competitors are hugely expensive and only very wealthy sponsors can afford to send them, Bezos and Musk types.” That sounds about right. The only people who won’t be eaten by a dragon over the next four years will be people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
I wish I could send Trump a dragon. (snip)
States and Localities Can Use Guaranteed Income to Support People Experiencing Homelessness or Housing Instability While Promoting Dignity and Racial Equity
Victoria Bowden , Research Associate
Urvi Patel, Policy Analyst and Intern Coordinator
Everyone should have an affordable place to live.
In the face of the persistent housing affordability crisis, rising eviction rates in many parts of the country, and ongoing threats against unhoused communities, including the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, some states and localities — often working with philanthropic partners — are taking innovative approaches to provide unconditional cash to people experiencing housing instability or homelessness through guaranteed income pilot programs.
It’s more important than ever that state and local leaders choose strategies that help people with low incomes meet their housing needs with dignity, rather than punishing people experiencing homelessness through fining and, in some cases, arresting and incarcerating them for sleeping outside when they have nowhere safe to go, which evidence shows are ineffective, costly, and racially discriminatory strategies.
Guaranteed income (GI) is emerging as one strategy for helping people afford housing and other expenses like food, clothing, and transportation. Unlike universal basic income, which proposes giving a standard periodic cash payment to all individuals, guaranteed income provides cash assistance to people based on a determined need — such as experiencing housing instability or having income below a certain level — with assistance typically ranging between $500 and $1000 a month. Over 150 programs across the country have begun providing direct cash assistance, with several localities and states having one or more programs that prioritize people and families who are unhoused or at risk of homelessness. Promising findings from individual pilot programs support broader research demonstrating that GI programs can be a mechanism for helping people meet their needs. Ongoing research is helping us understand the ways that unrestricted cash supports can be designed to be most beneficial to the people who need them, including those experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness.
Today’s wave of the guaranteed income movement isn’t new. In the 1960s and 70s, leaders within the National Welfare Rights Organization, racial justice advocates in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, and feminist thought leaders within the Wages for Housework Movement began advancing GI in response to historical inequities rooted in enslavement, discrimination, and exclusionary policy choices. While GI initiatives alone don’t address the root causes of these inequities, they provide more possibilities for repairing harms caused by deep-seated prejudice in our institutions.
GI is a compelling step forward as policymakers look for innovative ways to:
- ensure that people can make decisions about how to best meet their needs;
- improve accessibility and reduce administrative burdens in existing economic security programs;
- reduce the discrimination people can face when they participate in assistance programs, which is often rooted in racism and stigma against people with low incomes; and
- guarantee that everyone who needs assistance receives it.
The rise of GI programs responds to the reality that many people don’t have enough money, even with work or public benefits, to afford basic needs due to reasons not entirely within their control. For example, systemic and structural racism embedded in the housing market and criminal legal system result in people of color, particularly Black, Indigenous, and Latine communities, being disproportionately harmed by a cycle of homelessness and incarceration. The same is true for the labor market, in which people of color are overrepresented in jobs with the lowest pay because of racism in hiring practices and frequent government underinvestment in communities of color — which leads to low-performing schools, chronic health conditions, and other negative outcomes that hurt employment opportunities. The impacts of low pay are also felt disproportionately by other communities that face discrimination, such as people with disabilities and LGBTQ+ people.
A Sample of Guaranteed Income Programs Prioritizing People Experiencing or At Risk of Homelessness in the United States Copy link
Hover over blue states for a list of programs Copy link
(embedded graphic on the page; click on the “Copy link”s to see. There are quite a few.)
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | cbpp.org
Several GI pilots were implemented in 2024. In California, a five-year pilot called It All Adds Up provides 225 families that recently experienced homelessness and are exiting rapid re-housing programs with $1,000 a month for one year. In Massachusetts, through the Somerville GI Pilot, 200 families that are struggling with high housing costs receive $750 a month for a year. And a New York City program supports 100 families that are living in shelters through monthly cash payments of $1,400 for two years to help them meet their needs.
Federal and state policymakers can take the lessons of GI pilot programs and apply them to other economic security policies. For example, reforming cash assistance programs like TANF and SSI to be more accessible and provide higher benefit levels would go a long way in helping older adults, people with disabilities, and low-income families with children meet their needs. Similarly, expanding access to tenant-based rental assistance, which rigorous research has shown can greatly reduce homelessness and housing insecurity, and testing new ways to deliver it — like through direct rental assistance, which is provided directly to tenants instead of landlords — can make it easier for families to find a place to live.
Expanding cash income supports, increasing access to rental assistance, and making these kinds of assistance simpler to access through processes that respect people’s dignity are the right path forward to improve well-being, promote racial equity, and help people stay stably housed.
This Is Nice-
via The Bee.
Scottie's Playtime 