None YoBizz

lowkey raised in captivity

PRESIDENT TRUMP: "Whether I lost $2 billion or $5 billion, it doesn't make any difference to me. I don't care. If you're rich, it doesn't matter. I'm doing this for the country, I'm doing this for the people." President Trump is putting country over money. 🔥🔥

Real life, baby

I love collecting proof of ancient precision machining. One of the most precise ancient artifacts of all is the Sabu Disk. Uhh… Hey, what happened here? 😮 Picture this: for this photo I had to climb on top of the display case in the Egyptian Museum, because I was determined to get a barely distorted shot of this object, precisely so I could draw in these yellow bisectors. So it's clear to everyone just how precise this object is. And now we know. Not at all!

There’s not a war on this planet that the United States should be involved in right now, monetarily or militarily.

If Ilhan Omar was never a U.S. citizen and has been serving as an elected representative, that’s a Constitutional crisis. For the first time in history, we may have been allowing a non-citizen to vote in Congress.

I am the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Checkpoint Hospitality at the TSA. We employ about 60,000 people. This week, I took away their chairs. Not all of them. Just the ones at the podium. The officer who checks your ID and your boarding pass. The first face you see at the airport. That face now stands. Our statement called it "this welcome change." A reporter asked who it was welcome to. You. The traveler. We wrote it down: it shows our "commitment to hospitality by having these officers on their feet and alert." Hospitality is a person standing on a hard floor all shift so you feel greeted. You will notice we said "alert." We did not measure alertness. We have no alertness data. But a standing officer looks alert in photos, and photos are what Congress sees. Alert is a look. We bought the look by removing a chair. The chair cost us nothing. Removing it cost us nothing. That is the best kind of initiative. It shows up in a press release and never in a budget. We also wrote: "All officers must meet fitness for duty requirements." The officer was fit for duty last week. Sitting down. This week, the duty includes standing. So the fitness changed. The officer didn't. That's how requirements work. You don't raise the bar. You remove the furniture under it. The union says nobody asked them. Correct. We don't consult the workforce on furniture. They said the chairs were "basic ergonomic and safety support for officers that stand and walk on hard surfaces all day." They said we're "treating this matter like it is a privilege." It is a privilege. It became one on Tuesday. An orthopedic specialist told the Washington Post that standing for long stretches strains the feet, the ankles and the knees, and that workers should be allowed to change positions often. We agree. They're allowed to shift their weight. From the left foot to the right foot. As often as they like. That's flexibility. Let me be fair to myself. This spring, during the shutdown, our officers screened you without pay. NBC News counted more than 400 who quit. The ones who stayed kept working. Sitting down. We couldn't fix the paycheck. We fixed the posture. I'll tell you where I wrote the statement. At my desk. In my chair. It has lumbar support. I requested it through the proper channel, and the proper channel approved it in two days. My chair is not at a podium. It is not part of the welcoming environment. Nobody needs to see me looking alert. Next time you're in line, look at the podium. If the officer is shifting from one foot to the other, that's the hospitality. You're welcome.

HYPOTHETICALLY… IF I BOUGHT MY HOUSE FOR $125,000 IN 2002 AND THE COUNTY NOW SAYS IT’S WORTH $487,000, WHERE DID I ACTUALLY MAKE $362,000? Did I sell it? No. Did I receive $362,000? No. Did somebody hand me a check for the new assessed value? Obviously not. But my property taxes still go up because, on paper, my house is suddenly worth hundreds of thousands more. That’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me. This isn’t income. It isn’t cash sitting in my bank account. It’s a number someone assigned to my property, and now I’m being billed based on that number. If my stock portfolio doubles but I don’t sell, I haven’t turned that gain into cash. If my salary stays the same, I don’t suddenly owe more income tax because someone thinks I’m worth more. So why does owning a home work differently? WHY AM I PAYING TAX ON A GAIN I NEVER REALIZED? A house isn’t just an investment. It’s where people live. You can pay off the mortgage, own the property outright, and still face a bigger bill every year because the value of the house went up on paper. At some point, you have to ask what “owning” something actually means if the cost of keeping it can keep rising because of money you never received. THIS ISN’T ABOUT WHETHER THE HOUSE IS “WORTH” MORE. IT’S ABOUT BEING CHARGED FOR VALUE YOU NEVER TURNED INTO CASH. And people are starting to notice.

The executive order to allow on farm processing didn’t happen, so next week @chelliepingree and I will be introducing legislation to allow sales of meat directly to consumers from small farmers who process a limited number of animals on their farms.