Intrepid Report

How to explain the pro-Trump supporters and the anti-Biden Democrats? The answer came to me the other day: they have been gaslighted. Donald Trump and his far right-wing coterie have convinced supporters that only he can save the country and help them. That is what Hitler and his gang told the German people in the wake of World War 1 and the unconscionable reparations the victorious allies imposed on them.

I cannot believe the last update I published was back in February. Where did the year go? I was in so much pain from the wound in my leg then. While the wound is almost healed now—it may take another month or two or three—the pain is gone but wish I could say the same about my arthritic knees. Getting up and down or sitting for an hour or more is painful. The hyalurontic acid injections in my right knee lasted for only three months. C’est la vie.

By Bev Conover by I had hoped to be back to publishing no later than January 9. As you know that didn’t happen. I am not only dealing with osteoarthritis in both knees but a nasty, super painful, wound on the left leg as well. My weeks have been filled with trips to the HCA Wound Center and nurses who come to my house to change the dressings. My insurance company won’t yet pay for an unbelievably expensive biological graft because the wound is still too big.

The traditional Christmas story is about an unmarried, pregnant, Jewish teen named Mary who, on a freezing night in Bethlehem, seeks a warm place to rest and give birth. Nobody would allow the girl a bed. Today, it is unlikely that such a person would not be shunned as much as the Biblical Mary, as we allow people to die in the Land of the Free when they fall to the bottom of the capitalist ranks where there is a dearth of mercy.

By Bev Conover by Aside from a Christmas piece written by my dear friend and colleague, Jack Balkwill, which will be published Friday, giving those who can time to act on it, I am taking an extended holiday break. Depending on how things go, I will be back to publishing Intrepid Report again in January but can’t give an exact date right now. With any luck, it will be January 2 or January 9, 2023. This has not been a good year for me.

It should be obvious to pretty much everyone at this point that anything crypto is an old-fashioned grift, a scam, a Ponzi scheme. Those who got in on the ground floor of crypto-currencies and NFTs and the like—and then left when the going was good—have made out like bandits. The rest of us are left holding the bill. Consider NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. These are collectibles—some might call them art—created by the same block-chain technology as cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Are state lawmakers free to ignore the results of a presidential election? Can they—in defiance of a state’s own constitution—design its congressional districts so a minority of voters pick a large majority of the state’s representatives? Can they discard voting rules written into law by voters themselves? In other words: Can state legislatures flout the basic principles of American constitutional democracy and destroy majority rule?

At least two million people in the United States are incarcerated in 122 United States prisons. Little is known about the prisoners themselves. Did their background condemn them to bad behavior or did they just make grievous mistakes? Do they suffer from mental illness sometimes masquerading as criminal behavior? Can they change their life path?

With congressional leadership expected to imminently release the text of omnibus government funding legislation, Politico revealed Monday that Democrats are preparing to join with Republicans who have demanded an end to Medicaid policies enacted because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Donald Trump committed multiple crimes when he attempted to overthrow the government on Jan. 6, 2021, and for that, he must be charged by the Justice Department. That was the recommendation that came from the House Select Committee investigating the Trump coup when it wrapped up its probe on Monday. “I think the president has violated multiple criminal laws, and I think you have to be treated like any other American who breaks the law, and that is you have to be prosecuted,” committee member Rep.