Stop the Idiocracy: Cigarettes

Showing posts with label Cigarettes. Show all posts

Monday, June 27, 2022

Roe vs. Wade is overturned, and all Hades breaks loose in #Murica. Is the country even worth saving? Ukraine, an honorable nation that is worth saving but has been largely forgotten by the American people, has not wavered in resisting Russia’s aggression

Michael Fischer/Picture Alliance/Getty Images

European leaders expected to formally accept Ukraine as a candidate to join the EU - Allowing Ukraine into the EU is the least Europe can do. Ukraine is defending the continent - indeed, the entire Western world, including ungrateful #Murica - from Putin’s tyranny. NATO membership next. (CNBC 6/23)

Russia is facing its worst recession in thirty years, and the ‘Putin Generation’ is paying the price - Putin is sacrificing the youth of his nation: Not only on the battlefields of Ukraine, but in ways that are severely curtailing their educational and future employment opportunities. (Business Insider 6/20)

[VIDEO] Moscow vows retaliation after Lithuania transit ban - It was Lithuania and the tiny Baltic Republics that led the way toward the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union toward the end of the Cold War, and they’ve been among Ukraine’s strongest allies since Russia began its war of aggression on February 24. Naturally, Putin wants to destroy them, and eventually will if he is not brought to his knees. (Deutsche Welle 6/21)

Prayers for Sievierodonetsk: ‘Russia’s military machine persevered in its ferocious effort to grind down Ukraine’s defences Monday, as the war’s consequences for food and fuel supplies increasingly weighed on minds around the globe after warnings that the fighting could go on for years.’ (AP 6/20)

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Sixty-eight percent of Americans polled believe the United States is less respected around the world today than in the past - If global opinion of America is ever to recover, it will only be due to another great heroic effort akin to defeating Nazism in World War II. We’re seen as the Nazis now, and increasingly #Murica defiantly lives down to stereotypes. (Pew Research Center 6/22)

Supreme Court votes to overturn Roe vs. Wade - As I’ve stated before, I do not speak about my feelings on abortion. As a legal, political, and social matter, all Hades is breaking loose. These judges are largely shielded from the consequences of their decisions, and maybe that’s a problem of its own. And I don’t know if the Framers desired for Justices to be as ideological as they’ve tended to be in recent times. Legal or illegal, abortions will continue to be performed, and the issue will continue to violently divide the nation. Why it’s such a hot-button topic here, whereas in Europe the issue is largely considered settled and rarely spoken about, I don’t know; but that’s not going to change anytime soon. (AP 6/24)

Ronald Brownstein: America is growing apart, possibly for good - As expensive as living can be in most of the ‘blue nation,’ the ‘red nation’ is not holding up well by most economic and social measures. This, as we witness states controlled by Republicans drift toward authoritarianism and reckless, uncontrolled populism. The rulings this week by the Supreme Court will only serve to further the divide, and the nation is going to break apart, sooner or later. We’re only learning now how good we had it in the final decades of the 20th century, as far as relative national unity, prosperity, and something of a shared vision of what it means to be an American. Such things must come from the heart and cannot be manufactured. Manufactured patriotism only comes through tyranny and brute force, as this world has witnessed far too often. But that is exactly what the Republican Party and its voters want. Most of these people are white, they are scared for their lives, and increasingly we’re seeing a willingness to go to extreme lengths to protect themselves from the real or perceived threats they face. Encouraged by years of conspiracy theories, religious zealots, and Donald Trump, they’re utterly convinced they are under attack. We’re going to have a hard time ever convincing them to stand down, or ever again convincing them of anything, period. It would take generations to repair the rift we have now, so perhaps we should agree to go our own separate ways. I doubt, however, we could even agree on that, as #Cult45 have become a proselytizing bunch determined to control the lives of all Americans. I didn’t always feel this way, but today I am grateful to live in Massachusetts. High cost of living aside. (The Atlantic 6/24)

Maybe now more of these people who have been on the fence concerning the dangers of nationalist populism, with the events of recent weeks, are finally recognizing what has been patently clear to the rest of us since before the 2016 presidential election: #Cult45 and all of its various factions have far surpassed the hard-left and their ‘woke’ agenda as the greater danger to domestic order and personal liberty. There is no compromise with a cult; no making common cause on some issues, no meeting them halfway, and no use in viewing them as some lesser of two evils. The hard-left have some awful ideas that repulse ordinary people, and I will not completely discount the great influence they hold over culture, education, major corporations, so on and blah, blah. Yet, by and large, their numbers are not that great and they have essentially been rendered more of an annoyance than anything else. The far-right, on the other hand, has become *the* mainstream of the Republican Party, ‘conservatism,’ and Christianity in America. They’re the ones filling the majority of state legislative seats. Tens of millions of people all around us are intently listening, many of them armed, all of them angry. In spite of their great love of calling others ‘snowflakes’ and other demeaning slurs - nurtured to great effect by Trump - they are the most thinned-skinned people imaginable, tolerating not even a hint of criticism or dissent. Typical, hypocritical human behavior, but 100% essential to maintaining the brainwashing of any given member of any given cult. Cultists firmly believe it is *they* who are the ‘free-thinkers,’ when there is literally not even one original thought to be found among the millions of them. Cultists are not lying when they say they are protecting liberty, because in their twisted minds that is exactly what they are doing. It is going to take all those ordinary people who, at one time or another, made common cause on certain issues with the right out of exasperation with the excesses of the hard-left, and are now going to have to put those quibbles aside and recognize who the true enemy is. The hour is late, all ordinary Americans of good faith must publicly and loudly refute this nation-killing madness now.

Body-language expert Dr. Jack Brown reveals that Trump was showing contempt for the U.S. flag in that infamous hugging photo from a CPAC conference. (Twitter thread 6/14)

More evidence emerges that Trump pressured the DOJ to validate his baseless election fraud claims (NPR 6/23)

Roberto Jimenez Mejias/Getty Images

FDA approves COVID-19 shots for kids under five - Long past due. If it were not for the incessant whining of the anti-vax lobby and their powerful (GOP) allies in Congress and in the state houses, this would have been done long before now, and we’d be a lot closer to what we were told was the goal of eradicating COVID-19. That was the goal, wasn’t it? Hardly seems so anymore, but any steps forward are appreciated. (AP 6/15)

White House ‘set to announce a new policy requiring cigarette producers to reduce nicotine to non-addictive levels’ - Damnit, Mr. President: Here I am supporting you against all of these nitwits, and you want to take my nicotine away? Half or more of the problems in this world wouldn’t exist if everybody just kept to themselves and minded their own business. Unfortunately, there is a better chance of pigs and horses developing the capability of flight in the next year than humanity ever ‘butting out’ (pun very much intended) of each others’ affairs. (AFP 6/21)

HERE & THERE

Blaming inflation, more pet owners are surrendering their pets to shelters (KCCI 6/22)

A horrible tragedy of incompetence: Parents file lawsuit against Boston hospital after remains of premature baby lost in morgue. (Boston 25 News 6/23)

Poland quadrupling their gas import capability, speeding up much of Europe’s exit from dependence on Russian supplies. (Deutsche Welle 6/23)

German government declares that it remains committed to complete phase-out of coal by 2030, in spite of Russian state-owned oil conglomerate’s decision to cut supplies. (AP 6/20)

Pfizer sets sights on elimination of blinding disease trachoma by 2030. (AFP 6/23)

Congratulations to the Colorado Avalanche and all of their fans: 2022 Stanley Cup Champions. (Denver Post 6/26)

Friday, October 8, 2021

Lawmakers urge higher cigarette taxes to pay for Build Back Better bill, and the tobacco industry and retailers cry foul. Rightfully so

Getty Images

Guess what, the big, bad tobacco industry is absolutely right. Higher and never-ending taxes on cigarettes are already driving black market crime. Every time with these politicians, it’s let’s pile on more taxes upon cigarette smokers to pay for this or that. We’re already paying far more than our fair share in federal, state and local taxes every time a pack of cigarettes is purchased, yet year after year we are conveniently scapegoated and punished. How about instead of throwing new taxes upon smokers – who, by and large, keep their smoking away from others these days; I know I do - we pass the cost for the Build Back Better bill on to the unvaccinated? If the intent is to punish a certain sector of society, then punish those blatantly spreading a plague, not people whose only relief in this rotten life is engaging in a vice that used to be perfectly normal before our society went mad. Politico -

A group tied to major cigarette manufacturers is warning Congress that if lawmakers tax tobacco to help pay for President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, suppliers will market smokes to children.
That was the not-so-subtle message made last month by a coalition of trade associations, including the National Association of Convenience Stores, as Congress began hammering out the specifics of the president’s Build Back Better bill.
Though the e-cigarette and tobacco company names aren’t directly on the letter, the convenience store association counts as its members some of the biggest names in the industry: Altria Group, Reynolds American Inc., and JUUL Labs — the e-cigarette giant that has faced a myriad of probes of its own into whether the company has marketed toward children. Just this week, in fact, the trade association announced that top executives from the tobacco and vaping companies had taken on a leadership position in the lobby group.
In the letter, dated Sept. 14, the trade associations argued that if the price of tobacco products spikes, buyers would move to the tobacco black market where sellers don’t abide by standard regulations and often prey on young people.
“When the price of a product rises too much too fast, illicit purveyors will seize the opportunity to exploit and take advantage of current users and entice new users without discriminating based on age,” the letter read. “This undermines the responsible measures our retailers have taken and creates a problem for society as a whole.”
The warning is one of the most public cases of pushback from the tobacco industry as it finds itself once more being targeted by Congress. For years, lawmakers have scrutinized the industry over its marketing that targets young adults and children. Numerous state and federal legislative initiatives have been launched to clamp down on tobacco, including by taxing its products, as Democrats have proposed to do as part of Biden’s social spending bill.
Still, the use of tobacco products among minors remains widespread. Late last month, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study that found an estimated 11.3 percent of high school students reported using e-cigarettes within the last 30 days. (Read more)

Saturday, May 1, 2021

Week in review, 04/24 - 04/30

Seems to me the majority of people are no longer interested in reading news articles (or reading, period), and most especially if their narrow worldviews are in any manner challenged. Echo chambers that demand no critical thinking are so much easier and provide far more entertainment for the masses. As the old saying goes, of course, 'the masses are asses.' Always been true, and truer still today in this unprecedented technological age. All the information in the world at our fingertips, yet blissful ignorance is always going to prevail …

In defense of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Efforts by the far-right to portray Dr. Fauci as ‘some bespectacled Beelzebub’ fall flat and are ultimately self-defeating

Not yet close to America’s death toll, but at the rate they’re going it may not be long: India passes 200,000 Covid-19 deaths as new cases spike to a world-record 360,960 in one day, ‘widespread shortages of medical oxygen and beds’

‘Russia has launched a major campaign using ministries, companies and pro-Kremlin media to promote the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine and spread fake news that the West and the European Union are trying to undermine the shot, an EU agency said in a report Wednesday’

‘The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines were found to be 94% effective at preventing hospitalizations among people ages 65 and over in a real-world study published Wednesday by the CDC’

Beware of Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, another huckster having great success peddling fear and disinformation about COVID vaccines to evangelicals and others predisposed to be anti-vaccine

‘A man and his three sons are facing criminal charges after they sold more than $1 million worth of toxic industrial bleach that was fraudulently marketed as a cure for COVID-19 and other serious medical conditions, federal prosecutors said’

‘The Border Patrol says it has insufficient time and space to conduct coronavirus testing at crowded processing stations.’ This obviously needs to be rectified. At the very least, it should be ensured those coming to this country are not spreading disease

If Florida sees a surge in COVID infections soon, we’ll know where it likely started: 15,269 pack Jacksonville arena for UFC event

Massachusetts surpasses 640,000 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, with a statewide death total of 17,199; an estimated 30,000 active cases

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announces the final phase of the Commonwealth’s reopening plan