Season 8, Episode Eleven June 2, 2024

On this episode, Not the Headlines will examine aliens, marijuana and the VA.  We'll also hear about driving and silence.  The epilogue will examine New York v. Trump.

Chapters

• 0:29 Not the Headlines
• 25:25 Let's Go Back
• 34:09 Epilogue

Transcript

Hello!  Thank you for putting  your ear to the Listening Tube!  I’m your host, Bob Woodley.  On this episode, we’ll hear about what’s driving Vermont to penalize oil companies, outlawing a moment of silence and DEI at the VA…..but first (Not the Headlines!)

Sometimes you hear about something and first you wonder if it’s true because it’s so outrageous, and when you’re sure it’s true, it just makes you shake your head.  Such is the case of a high school student who was suspended for making what was described as a racial comment in a class.  It happened back in April, and late May, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the student by the Liberty Justice Center against the Davidson County, North Carolina Board of Education and the Assistant Principal who issued the suspension.  
When I saw the first story I read about it, it briefly described a kid who was suspended for saying, 
“illegal aliens.”  My first thought was,  well, that can’t be right.  I’m sorry, contractual obligations require me to say, (can’t be right liner).  There must me more to the story.  So I dug up more information about it.  I found a story in the Winston-Salem Journal https://libertyjusticecenter.org/newsroom/a-former-student-at-central-davidson-high-and-his-parents-are-suing-the-davidson-county-school-over-his-three-day-suspension/ that shed a little more light on the incident.  It happened in English class, during vocabulary, and the word aliens was part of the curriculum.   The student asked if the aliens in question were space aliens or illegal aliens who need green cards.  The answer he got from the teacher was “Watch your mouth!”  The story goes on to say that an Hispanic student in the class joked that he was going to kick the ass of the first student, who, by the way, is a white kid.  A boy, in case you were imagining him in some other way.  When I read the part about the Hispanic boy chiming in, I thought maybe there was some slight-of-hand bigotry going on with the first boy.  But then I found another story in American Family News https://libertyjusticecenter.org/newsroom/federal-case-asking-about-aliens-isnt-racist/ that goes a little bit deeper into that.  A lawyer for the boy said both boys agreed there was no ill intent and that the whole thing is ridiculous.  Regardless, the lawyer claims the teacher and assistant Principal insisted that the white student’s words were “offensive and were racial and should be taken seriously.”  And they’re absolutely right.  Every question a student asks in school should be taken seriously.  Was it racial?  No.  Was it offensive?  Only to the teacher, it would seem, among those in the room.  The story says a three day suspension is standard punishment for using a racial slur, according to school administrators.
Just to be clear, the lawyer is quoted as repeating the question as it was asked in school that day.  The class was discussing the word aliens, and the student raised his hand, was called on, and he said, “Are you talking about illegal aliens who need green cards, or space aliens?”  Was he being a bit of a smart-ass?  Probably, but if the discussion they were having hadn’t got that far yet into the meaning of aliens, then it’s a legitimate question.  It was a vocabulary class, after all.  I wonder what the dictionary has to say about it…
 
Look that up liner

Alien may be used as both an adjective and a noun.  Three examples of adjectives are:  Belonging to a foreign country or nation.  Unfamiliar and disturbing or distasteful, the example given was ‘bossing anyone around was alien to him.’  And three, relating to or denoting beings supposedly from other worlds; extraterrestrial.  The first definition of alien’s use as a noun says, A foreigner, especially one who is not a naturalized citizen of the country where they are living, and it uses the example ‘an illegal alien.’  The second is, A hypothetical or fictional being from another world.
It sounds to me that this kid might be the only kid in his class who did his homework the night before.  And was his question even racist?  You may have heard me say on this program before that we’re all racist.  We’re trained to be racist, and we’re taught to be racist.  Our own government separates us by race, as do all the media and various other institutions.  But there is no race called “aliens.”  Yet the school says the boy was suspended because he used a racial slur.  And I think it might be safe to assume that it could not have happened unless he was white.  But even it you take that part out of the equation, we’re still left with only one conclusion.  If anyone needs to be suspended for being racist, it’s the teacher who was offended by the boy’s question, the assistant Principal who issued the suspension, and the school board members who supported the suspension.  And possibly the Hispanic boy who made the joke about kicking the white boy’s ass.
So, what do the boy’s parents have to say about all this?  And what about the general public and other parents in the district?  Well, a story in the Carolina Journal https://www.carolinajournal.com/lawsuit-filed-against-nc-school-board-for-illegal-alien-suspension-controversy/ describes the mother pleading  with school administration to let her son appeal the suspension.  She even argued that a racial infraction should be a more severe punishment than a three-day suspension.  Maintaining that her son did no such thing.  At a school board meeting in May, a large crowd of citizens showed up to speak about the issue, as well as the boy’s parents.  Many in the crowd singled out specific board members as being corrupt.  Demands for removal of the suspension record and a public apology from the board fell on mostly deaf ears.
But it seems at least two of the board members had heard enough.  The story says two board members dug up a 14-year-old arrest record of the boy’s mother, who was arrested and served time for having prescription drugs without a prescription.  She was released early and has stayed out of trouble since.  But that didn’t stop the two board members from sending a copy of the arrest record to various people, encouraging them to post it on social media.  Naturally, it made it’s way to the school students, too.  When the young man returned to school after serving the suspension, he was bullied and harassed.  He’s now being home schooled.
The lawsuit against the School District and the Assistant Principal claims the boy was denied his first amendment right to free speech, his right to an education, and due process.  What he said was mischaracterized, but he was punished for it anyway.  In so doing, the school denied him of the education he would have got during the three days he was suspended.  That he could not appeal the suspension was a violation of due process.  
Maybe there’s still more going on here than meets the eye.  Or, in our case, the ear.  If the school board doesn’t settle out of court, they might be opening a can of worms.  We’ll see if it makes it to the courthouse.   

A recent story in the Washington Free Beacon https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/dei-hits-the-va-bidens-veterans-affairs-department-offers-race-based-training-programs-that-exclude-white-vets/
explains how a program in the Veteran’s Administration is excluding certain veterans because of their skin color.  The Beacon dug into the online programs available to veterans and discovered four states that offer such programs as BIPOC Support Group, which is a support group for people who are Black, Indigenous, or “people of color.”  Another is called “Race-Based Stress/Trauma Empowerment Group” for veterans who identify as BIPOC.  In other words, no white people allowed.  There’s also a group for only Women Veterans of Color.  These 8 to 10 week programs are meant to address race-based stress and trauma by helping to protect against the negative impacts of said stress.  They claim to do that by “ increasing feelings of belongingness, connectedness to racial/ethnic identity and empowerment."
This latest display of racial discrimination by the Veteran’s Administration is the result of a Biden executive order called, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, 13985 and 14091,which, according to the VA website, charged the federal government with advancing equity for all and addressing systemic racism in policies and programs.  So, the VA will try to correct the perception of systemic racism with actual racism.  The VA calls it I*DEA, that’s the word idea with an asterisk between the I and the D.  The letters stand for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access.  The asterisk is in there to symbolize a promise, but the promise isn’t to not waste taxpayer’s money on ad agencies who have to offer lengthy explanations as to why there’s an asterisk in the logo.  I won’t waste your time on that.  Anyway, all of the goals of this I*DEA program are all of the things the people working at the VA already thought they were doing for decades.  The American military and by extension, the VA, are the most non-racist institutions we have!  The only thing new here is a demand for race-based record keeping and exclusionary exercises.  The goal of equality is to treat everyone the same, and the VA has an excellent track record for that.  But a VA official quoted in the story says treating everybody the same might not be enough.  He added that, “what we're talking about today is, number one, providing tailored different solutions for different things, but also this understanding that because people are situated in society differently, they come from different barriers, they come from different challenges."  There are two issues with that statement that I’d like to address.  He said, “tailored different solutions for different things.”  Well, if the VA wants to tailor different solutions, they should be for different people, not different things.  Perhaps the VA needs to be reminded that their mission is to people, not agendas, agendai, or whatever the plural of agenda is.  Secondly, these people are veterans.  You claim they are situated in society differently, whatever that means, and they come from different barriers and challenges.  Well, I got news for you, Veteran’s Administration official.  By the time they get to you, they all came from the military.  For the past however many years, they were all situated in society the same, overcame the same barriers and challenges.  When you’re in the military, the only thing that matters is the rank on your uniform.  It doesn’t matter what color skin is under it.  To be fair, Air Force basic training is probably a lot easier than Marine Corps basic training, but that has nothing to do with skin color.  That’s the way the military is, and that’s the way the VA is.  Or at least was.  
Honestly, President Biden’s DEI policies have done more to hurt people of color than help.  First of all, it lumps everyone who isn’t white into the same category, then claims to tailor programs to help them in a specific way that white people won’t understand.  His policies give Black people the false impression that they need special help, or reduced standards or specific rules without which Black people will fail.  How racist and bigoted is that?
But the progressive left will have you believe that what they’re doing is helping people of color, and they don’t care what color as long as it isn’t white.  But no one is being helped by special rules or lower standards or specific programs designed to tell you how oppressed you are because of systemic racism.  Programs like the VA’s I*DEA and other DEI programs are only meant to keep black people feeling inferior or oppressed.  There’s no intention of helping any minority group.  The only goal is to keep minorities believing that only the political left can help, but only if you rely on the political left to support you. 
When it comes to the VA, the left understands that many veterans are conservative; patriots.  Men and women of any skin color who’ve served their country in the U.S. military often don’t align with radical left views.  These DEI programs mandated by the Biden pen may be just a way to sew division among those of us who served.  Not all veterans are conservative, of course.  My Vietnam Veteran step-dad once told me he didn’t like President Nixon.  But patriotism is a problem for the lunatic fringe on the left.  We can’t have a new world order while there are soldiers beholden to their country.  Our schools don’t teach civics anymore, and our colleges and universities all but condemn patriotism.  Our veterans might be the last bastion of American patriotism we have left.  Race is often the tool the left uses to drive wedges where there were none.

The right also drives a wedge where there need not be one.  And statistics show the extreme right-wing in the federal government as well as in many state governments just won’t accept that marijuana is not only a legitimate medicine, but also an enjoyable recreational drug.  Less harmful than another more accepted drug called alcohol.  When I say that alcohol is more accepted, I mean that it’s more accepted by the government.  The use of alcohol is legal practically everywhere in the United States, with some exceptions.  For example, when I was a younger man, I was a volunteer firefighter, and we took the truck to some town for a parade.  As it turns out, the town was in a dry county.  You couldn’t buy any alcohol.  If you lived there, you could go to another county to buy it and bring it home.  Which is why there was a bar right on the county line.  We pulled in with our firetruck after the parade, as did about a dozen other firetrucks.  That place was not gonna burn down that day.  But you couldn’t smoke a joint on either side of the county line.  That was around 1980 or ‘81.  Laws about marijuana were very strict, and the public perception of weed had been simmered in falsehoods and misconceptions about cannabis.  Misunderstood and demonized, even marijuana research was stifled.  But a new study by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health paints a picture that shows the people of America have a different view of pot than do the right wing of the government.  The research compared alcohol and marijuana use from 1992 to 2022.  2022 is the last year data was complete, and ironically, 1992 was a low point in the use of marijuana.  I lived in Port Hueneme, California back then, and I knew plenty of people who smoked weed.  And crack.  So, I guess it depends on who you ask when you do a survey.  Today, I don’t know anybody who does crack.  Gee, maybe I need to get out more.  Anyway, for the first time ever, more Americans use pot on a regular basis than alcohol, according to the results of the survey.  When I say regular basis, the survey means daily or near-daily.  
Data can be manipulated.  For example, alcohol is still more widely used than weed, according to an AP story by Carla Johnson https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-cannabis-alcohol-drinking-daily-use-b91c2c5957fdb2d48e6616c3baa14c13.  But among those who consider themselves regular users, pot smokers now outnumber drinkers 17.7 million to 14.7 million.  Or three million more American pot smokers.  The growth of each is revealing.  Alcohol users went from 9 million in 1992 to the current 14.7.  Only 1 million pot smokers were logged in 1992, skyrocketing to it’s current 17.7.  They can’t all be left-wing radicals!  The study also showed that 62-million Americans said they used pot in the past year, just not regularly.  The same study showed that 89 percent of people who drink alcohol don’t drink it regularly, which means 177 million Americans said they drank in the past year.  
Carla’s story provided more detail than another AP story about the subject.  The other one was an unattributed story that just highlighted some of the facts about the survey.  It was last updated at 3:19 pm. https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-cannabis-alcohol-use-disorder-daily-9cec33f3ac513123c8ffc8b8b3141877?utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter
About six-and-a-half hours later, Carla’s story was published.  
Both stories were written in a way meant to influence the reader’s opinion of marijuana.  Which surprised me a little, because the AP is often accused of leaning left.  But in these cases, the stories seem to lean right.  In the unattributed story, it points out that about 3 in 10 people who use cannabis have a related disorder, according to the CDC.  Thirty-three percent.  It doesn’t say if they’re regular users or not.  Let’s assume they are. Thirty-three percent works out to 589,000 people.  The same study showed 29.5 million Americans had an alcohol use disorder.  2022 data.  But the marijuana statistics are from a report created in 2015 and cited on the CDC website.    
Carla used the data from the survey to writer her story, too, and she had the time to find a doctor who would also lend some depth to the story by adding an opinion about the rising use of marijuana in the United States.  Because there are differences of opinion when it comes to marijuana use, an author can choose to tell us about the benefits of marijuana or the liabilities.  Maybe both points of view.  Carla’s story only offers a warning.  She found a professor of psychiatry who says research shows that regular pot smokers are more likely to become addicted.  Healthline dot com has a lengthy story https://www.healthline.com/health-news/marijuana-addiction-rare-but-real-072014#The-cycle-of-addiction about marijuana and addiction.  One thing I learned from the story is that the word addiction is often used in a way that suggests the addiction is harming you in some way.  That’s not always the case.  For example, if you have a prescription for Lyrica, and you take it as prescribed and use it responsibly, and it’s helping you cope with your ailment.  You’re able to function as a regular person and go to work and participate in society.  It doesn’t appear that anything’s wrong.  But if you try to stop taking the pill, you find that you can’t cope without it.  That means you’re addicted.  An addiction isn’t always a dependence on something that is slowly ruining your life, like a crack addiction.  
So when marijuana become addictive is when you’re using it to treat something.  If you’re using it to treat anxiety, you can expect the anxiety to return if you stop using the marijuana.  So an addiction isn’t always a bad thing, it’s sometimes a consequence of a good thing.
If you end up missing work or school, or can’t function because you have an addiction to something, that’s a different story.  I’m sure there are some stoners out there who fit that description.  But most marijuana users are everyday people who are productive citizens, raising families and paying bills.  They’re not the drug-crazed caricatures depicted in Reefer Madness.  
The doctor in Carla’s story also said “High frequency use also increases the risk of developing cannabis-associated psychosis,” a severe condition where a person loses touch with reality.  I have some important news for the doctor.  The reason we smoke marijuana as a recreational substance is precisely to develop cannabis-associated psychosis!  I believe the accepted medical term for it is “head rush.”

Let’s go back liner

This week in 1919, New York began requiring a the completion of a driver’s test in order to get a license.  Professional drivers had been required to get a license for a few years before that, but now anyone who drives more than ten days in a calendar year must have a license.  It cost a dollar.  As of 2021, according to statista dot com, there were nearly 12 million drivers in the state of New York.  Three states have more drivers than New York:  Florida, with just over 16 million, Texas with more than 18 million, and number one on the list is California, with over 27 million licensed drivers.  
Meanwhile, as of last week in 2024, the state of Vermont has a new law that charges petroleum companies for damage done that can be attributed to climate change.  https://apnews.com/article/vermont-climate-change-superfund-oil-companies-b6565729f23e85eed4d3da44b04ae2e5?taid=6659ca06b890320001ff0959&utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter
The Republican governor didn’t sign the law, but let it become law.  He obviously didn’t veto it, either.  But according to a story by the AP, last July brought Vermont its worst flooding since 1927.  The governor says he understands something has to be done to address the toll of climate change.  Did the state of Vermont blame climate changefor the flooding of 1927 that killed dozens of people?  Who paid for the recovery then?  
The new Vermont law wants to hold responsible any companies that engage in the trade or business of extracting fossil fuel, or refining crude oil that can have at least 1-billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions occurring between the dates of January 1st, 1995 until December 31st of this year attributable to them.  To put it in a simpler term, Big Oil.  Vermont wants Big Oil to be held retroactively responsible for climate change damage, and they want money.  How much money has yet to be determined, as the formula for that is still being worked on, with a report due by January of 2026.  That must be one long and complicated math problem if it’s going to take more than a year do calculate!  But once they figure it out, the story suggests a variety of ways the state can spend the money they hope to get.  Upgrades to drainage systems and elevating sewage treatment plants, as well as energy efficient weatherization upgrades to public and private buildings are on the list.  The story quotes the director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group as saying, “Finally, maybe for the first time anywhere, Vermont is going to hold the companies most responsible for climate-driven floods, fires and heat waves financially accountable for a fair share of the damages they’ve caused.”  A Democrat state rep says “...the stakes are too high – and the costs too steep for Vermonters – to release corporations that caused the mess from their obligation to help clean it up.”
But nobody in the Vermont government is opening the check book yet.  Big Oil is sure to challenge the law in court, and that in itself could add years to the enactment of the law, even after the math is done.
But the reality is that Big Oil isn’t responsible for all the greenhouse gasses that Vermont claims cause the flood last year.  It’s us.  The drivers of automobiles that burn the fossil fuels provided by the oil companies.  Are we experiencing climate change right now?  Of course.  The climate’s been changing since the formation of the planet.  Is climate change being effected by human activity?  Probably.  Is that human activity causing the storms that brought floods to Vermont last July?  Nobody knows.  One thing’s for sure...it’s not the people of Vermont who are causing a lot of greenhouse gasses.  Of the fifty states, only Wyoming has fewer drivers than Vermont’s half-million.
The American Petroleum Institute released a statement that said, in part, “This punitive new fee represents yet another step in a coordinated campaign to undermine America’s energy advantage and the economic and national security benefits it provides.” 

1985

The Supreme Court strikes down Alabama’s "moment of silence" law.  The law allowed, or perhaps mandated a moment of silence near the beginning of each school day for meditation or voluntary prayer.  The Supreme Court of the United States concluded that since the law included the option to pray, it would be considered an establishment of religion.  The Constitution of the United States prohibits that.  But in the same sentence of the Bill of Rights, it also says we shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof (meaning religion).  A lot of people seem to forget the second half of the sentence, and insist that government and religion stay as far apart as possible.  Separation of Church and State!  That’s not anywhere in our constitution.  Our founders knew the divisions religions create, and didn’t want that variable involved in government.  At the same time, they knew that religion was a part of what kept people civil and respectful of each other.  Besides, it’s not the government’s job to regulate faith and emotion.  It’s also not the government’s job to eliminate it.  
All of this started in the early 1960’s, according to an essay written about it in 2008 and published on encyclopedia of Alabama dot org, when court decisions determined that prayer and Bible reading in public schools violated the First Amendment.  That didn’t stop teachers from leading prayer in the class room, though.  But then in 1978, Alabama passed a law that allowed teacher-led silent meditation.  And that was fine.  But three years later, for no apparent reason, the legislature of Alabama decided to add “voluntary prayer” to the law.  That led to actual spoken prayer, which again, had already been determined to be unconstitutional.  Then in 1981, a young boy entered kindergarten, and his dad found out the teacher was leading a prayer before lunch.  When the father asked the teacher about it, he was told that his son didn’t have to participate in the prayer, and that it would continue.  So he filed a lawsuit, and won.  But only the part of the law that included the word “prayer” was struck down.  The original 1978 “moment of silence” law remained intact.  So, if the First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, one could argue that by removing the word “prayer” from the law is also a violation of the First Amendment.

Phone and email liner

So, earlier this week, a New York Jury found former President Trump guilty of 34 felonies related to book keeping.  To most people in America, this was nothing more than a show trial.  Just the way the District Attorney and the judge in the trial twisted the law in whichever way was needed to target and persecute the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States this November was an obvious display of what’s become to be known as lawfare.  I wasn’t in the jury, and I didn’t hear and see all of the testimony and evidence.  But to elevate book keeping misdemeanors from six years ago into felonies this year, the year of the election, is pure political corruption.  The D.A. who brought the charges knows it.  He ran on a promise to persecute Donald Trump in any way he could.  He was elected for that purpose.  With the help of the Biden Department of Justice, he found a way.  That’s why the number three man in Biden’s DOJ went back to New York, leaving his cushy office in D.C. and led the prosecuting team.  That’s why the prosecution didn’t even have to say what additional crime had been committed to elevate misdemeanors to felonies until the judges final instructions to the jury, and then they were given three different options from which to choose, none of which Donald Trump had been previously tried or convicted.  Donald Trump literally didn’t know against what he was defending himself.
Look, I’m not a conspiracy theorist.  But it looks to me like the fix was in.  Trump knew it, too.  He even said after the two sides rested that even Mother Theresa couldn’t escape a guilty verdict the way the trial was run.  He was right.  Despite all the reasonable doubt there was about the prosecution’s case, the jury still found a way to convict.  They seem to have forgotten that a person is innocent until proven[ guilty.  The jury was literally instructed to find a way to establish guilt, and even given multiple options from which to choose.  That’s the opposite of how American justice is supposed to work.
I fully expect the verdict to be overturned.  There are so many holes in the prosecution’s case that this trial might as well have been held in a Swiss cheese factory.  From the way the judge handled the testimony, the testimony itself, and the witnesses who were allowed to testify as well as those who couldn’t spelled doom for Donald.  Whether or not it gets overturned is irrelevant.  The goal of the charges and trial were twofold.  Keep Donald Trump off the campaign trial, and make it possible for Joe Biden to call Donald Trump a convicted felon from now until election day.  
Once election day is over, all of this will reveal itself as the smoke and mirror show it is.  If Joe Biden wins, he’ll probably end up pardoning Donald Trump for all the charges the Biden DOJ has put in front of him.  If Donald Trump wins, he’ll own the DOJ, at least on the surface, and all the charges will go away through executive privilege or the DOJ simply ignoring the charges that remain.  You may recall me saying on this program that whoever controls the executive branch controls which laws are enforced.  Never has it become more evident than during the current administration.  Donald Trump could’ve sent the DOJ after Hillary Clinton for destroying evidence when she tried to hide her personal server that was used for government communications, a violation of the law, for sure.  But he didn’t.  Not only did the extreme left of the Democratic party open a pandora’s box by bringing all of these charges against the former president, but they’ve also shown the rest of the country how low they’ll stoop.  
During a prize fight, the two combatants will pound each other over the course of up to 12 rounds of brutal punishment.  But when the final bell rings, the fighters will often embrace each other, showing respect for a battle well fought, regardless of who wins.  But the Democrats didn’t do that with Donald Trump.  Instead, they sent thugs after him.  Thugs like Letisha James, Alvin Bragg and Fani Willis.  Thugs like Matthew Colangelo, who was the number 3 guy in Biden’s DOJ, but left to lead the prosecution of Trump.
Since Donald Trump is a first offender of what is a white-collar crime, he should be sentenced to no more than probation.  We’ll see how that shakes out just before the Republican National Convention. 

The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly.  Copyright 2024.  Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube.  Subscribe today.  I’m your host, Bob Woodley for thou ad infinitum.