Wednesday, December 3, 2025

trumps pentagon in fog of war makes new boat strikes

President Joe Biden speaks during the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations headquarters on Sept. 24, 2024 in New York City.

a 36 foot catamaran was blown out of the water and all aboard killed offshore of rehoboth beach delaware as pentagon makes statment that all aboard were members of biden led state sponsored domestic and international terrorist smuggling group tren de amtrack

Harry Belafonte - Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) (Live)

Harry Belafonte Television and Video Archive

68K subscribers

9,319,664 views Jul 14, 2021 #harrybelafonte #belafonte

Harry Belafonte - Day-O, excerpt from "Harry Belafonte in Concert (Japan, 1960)". Recorded live at Sankei Hall, Tokyo, 18 July 1960. This song was first featured on the studio album "Calypso" (1956). Click this link for the complete program:

• Harry Belafonte in Concert (Japan, 1960) #harrybelafonte #belafonte

Banana Boat (Day-O)

Harry Belafonte

Belafonte: At Carnegie Hall

Harry Belafonte Television and Video Archive

Harry Belafonte - Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) (Live)

Harry Belafonte Television and Video Archive

68K subscribers

9,319,664 views Jul 14, 2021 #harrybelafonte #belafonte

• Harry Belafonte in Concert (Japan, 1960) #harrybelafonte #belafonte

Banana Boat (Day-O)

Harry Belafonte

Belafonte: At Carnegie Hall

Harry Belafonte Television and Video Archive

https://genius.com/Harry-belafonte-day-o-the-banana-boat-song-lyrics

“Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” is a single from Harry Belafonte’s 1956 album Calypso is an adaptation of a vernacular Jamaican work song. This version of the song was adapted by Barbadian singer, Jamaica… Read More

the 40 days of trumpmas - a surreal serial poem

guyhair1_517UcgHYK3L._AC_UL320_SR256_320_.png

Remember, remember! The fifth of trumpvember

the 40 days of trumpmas - a serial poem

for 40 days the trumpeter reigns,

his lies and hate on whom he disdains,

but election day will come so soon,

we'll no longer hear the orange baboon;

in 39 days full of world wide problems.

we could elect him to get rid of the muslims,

but as he'll rant on trivialities of his presidential life,

what could be worse? - you could be his wife;

in 38 days just what will you do?

the donald has said he likes lgbtq,

but as he bullies his women and all his men too,

if youre questioning, what stops him from bullying you?

in just 37 days, some people are saying,

(or pleading or hoping or some even praying)

the duke of prunes will dye his forelock purple my friend,

and thus make america grape again,

our days are down to just 36,

before our problems the don will fix,

he will on day one do what hes said - true,

he'll wall out our enemies - and fat women too!

on the 35th day of trumpmas

yes just seven weeks remain!

will the polls and tallies deliver us

donald with his golden mane?

34 days and the vice-pipers have piped,

though pence didnt say why donalds suit shouldnt be striped,

he wouldnt defend his master's string pulling,

to make america great? - who do they think they're fooling?

just 33 days till the macho tornado,

unless its blown away by hurricane machado,

with women and voters he has so much to loose.

keep your mouth shut donald (unless youre changing your shoes)

32 days and we’ve been hit by the big blowhard,

donald spoke here in fla (oh, we had a hurricane too)

this administration gives us playing the race card, a weak economy, and unemployment

but if you want a job you could be donald’s campaign manager (unless youre a jew)

31 days, just a month, remains;

will the donald say hes sorry, and his baser impulses restrain?

or keep blaming bill clinton for our moral demise;

when trump speaks to us, our NO votes must be our replies!

election comes this time (in 30 days) each 4 years,

time for praise and tears and fears;

as polls will open in many states,

vote early, please dont vote late!

down to 29, just a leap february,

and theres still the donald quite

contrary;

donald donald, how does your garden grow?

quoth the master debater, "with pretty maids groped in a row"

just 28 days - later or soon,

and the zombies will rise, led by the big goon;

unless everyone gets a reality inoculation,

i might have to move to canada for a well deserved vacation;

now just 27, less than 4 weeks,

no time for you to say 'yikes!' or 'eeeks!'

obama wants to go to mars and colonize it for man,

lets send trump tomorrow! and colonize it for orangutan!

26 days are all that remain,

will our democracy and economy go down the drain?

if we all keep listening to the blustering oaf,

will he give jobs and prosperity? - or just half a loaf

25 days - will more women speak?,

of the antics of donald who the presidency seeks,

dating 14 year old girls or groping their mothers,

how did the gop pick him over the others?,

24 days - were down to two dozen,

the next woman who speaks just might be your cousin,

or mother or sister, aunt, niece, even daughter,

describing the circumstance in which donald caught her,

23 days left and trump doesnt yet have as many accusers,

as cosby, but he assures us that they are all really losers,

sent by bankers or hillary with secret agendas,

to disrupt our election of him - our defender!,

22 days and we know charity begins at home,

but donalds attention is so prone to roam,

his gift that disappeared to 911 survivors from his foundation?,

oops! maybe donald spent it on a vacation,

21 days and trump says the election may be rig-ly,

if hes not the winner and his total's not big-ly,

tremendously higher than hillary gets,

he warns his supporters may all lose their wits,

20 days left and while george zimmerman still walks free,

the man who shot at HIM got 20 years - while trayvon got eternity,

trump wants us to support our cops and maintain law and order,

he'll put all the inner city dwellers in jail, and send the immigrant criminals far across the border,

19 days left till we all go to pretend,

to elect someone to lead us, as if on it our lives depend,

but wise man, donald trump, already really knows,

who we really voted for - a wolf in president's clothes?,

18 days and we bad hombres demand a rebate,

on the ill feelings left since the comments of one candidate,

the debaters have met in their final grudge match,

but only donald can say from whose hands victory will be snatched,

17 days and our government is corrupt with quid pro quo,

did you take latin at wharton? is that how you know?,

donald wants us to fire at them all - the bureaucrats lined up in rows,

and believe me, corruption is a subject. that donald really knows,

16 days - lets set term limits on all our office holders,

and put all our women in binders - or maybe in folders,

donalds endless complaints are becoming a sour whine,

have a little cheese with that, from wisconsin, where

hillary's doing fine,

15 days and on stocking covered thighs did linger,

two miniature hands with two thumbs and eight tiny fingers,

they belonged to the donald who believed that he owned,

any thing that he wanted - or anyone he got alone,

14 days yes only two weeks,

till the duke of orange assends to the throne he seeks?,

to rule all americans, the strong and the weak?,

and dominate the globe with power that's peak?,

the 13th day to go - does that seem unlucky?,

not for donald whos lately been appearing quite plucky,

claiming media, polls, and parties are against him,

and rallying his multitudes with wit waxing dim,

on the 12th day of trumpmas donald awoke with a jerk,

promptly fired his latest campaign manager (who considered that a perk),

if youre "AAAfroAAAmurikan" and unemployed i can put you to work,

barked donald the businessman from behind his sly smirk,

it's the 11th and engineer casey trump is in the caboose,

i hear some of you saying oh no! what's the use,

our campaign will probably just go off the tracks,

but donald says its ok - cause he's got "the blacks",

just ten days left yes only one-zero,

til donald is hoping that he'll be your hero,

as new hillary emails come under investigation,

donald hopes to rename camp david to camp donald for

his vacations,

like a cat has nine lives we're left with only 9 days,

till we're subject to donald? and his old wicked ways,

on foreign affairs he says he'll save us from isis,

but his domestic affairs are misogyny and crisis,

our days are numbered - yes only eight,

till once again we make america great,

by getting rid of candidates who have nothing to add,

goodbye donald you wont make america sad,

just one week to go - its day minus seven,

till america's lifted above - to trumpty dump heaven?,

where for rich folks like donald opportunity abounds,

and we keep the working poor with a wall that surrounds,

how the time it does fly its already day 6,

till americans problems the donald will fix,

his solutions begin on trumpday number one,

dont you like them? they'll come at the barrel of a gun,

Five days to go, baby, One in five,

No one here gets out alive, now,

david dukes not opposed to all jews,

he backs trump - who are you going to choose?,

only 4 days left till the armaged-don,

he'll seize power by the horns once he has won,

and donnie will be what he longs for - a winner,

using the FBI to wreak havoc on hillary the sinner,

only three left, just a triad of days,

and the donald his supporters continues to amaze,

with hoopla and folderoll made up in his head,

his winning temperament will leave us all dead,

just a pair of days - 2 - till trump paradise,

since these words you're reading please heed my advice,

the creatures that surround us are beginning to bite,

'blacks for trump' fear the Illuminati so lets turn out their light,

just a single day left till our thanksgiving,

deliver us from donald and preserve the living,

forget sanity and disgard your misgivings,

but pray hard to your gods that they'll be forgiving,

since we've got the nukes why can't we use'em?,

on the road to 2016 why couldn't we lose HIM?,

and trumpmas now has finally come,

the tallies will count up to a winning sum,

unless the earth is struck soon by a cataclysmic comet,

to elect a candidate who just makes you want to vomit?,

we wish you a merry trumpmas at this time each 4 years,

if you have'nt voted you've lost the chance to mitigate your fears,

cause donald duck is ready to lead, forget your crocodile tears,

so you'd better get the vaseline and lubricate your rears!

stay informed

Make your voice heard

https://5calls.org/

Welcome to the

resistance

https://www.buildtheresistance.org/

https://indivisible.org/resource/guide

What can I do to fight this coup?

https://choosedemocracy.us/

Welcome to the Trump ability War Room

https://accountable.us/home/trump-accountability-war-room/

https://deptofpeoplewhowork.org/

https://www.justsecurity.org/

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/

https://events.pol-rev.com/search

https://meidasnews.com/news

https://www.youtube.com/@MeidasTouch/videos

Rep. Jasmine Crockett

https://www.youtube.com/@RepJasmine/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@ElizabethWarren/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@senatorvanhollen/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@SenatorWhitehouse/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@AOC/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@BernieSanders/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@SenatorJeffMerkleyYT/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@SenatorChrisMurphy/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@RepRoKhanna/videos

https://www.politico.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@ForbesBreakingNews/videos

https://www.nbcnews.com/

https://www.nvunheard.org/protest-listings/?q=ergonomic%20backpack

https://www.youtube.com/@SenatorChrisMurphy/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@RepRoKhanna/videos

https://www.politico.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@ForbesBreakingNews/videos

https://www.nbcnews.com/

https://www.nvunheard.org/protest-listings/?q=ergonomic%20backpack

Deep cuts erode the foundations of US public health system, end progress, threaten worse to come

https://apnews.com/article/public-health-measles-rfk-maha-trump-d863f53a5d370413de8d165d5ab96e65

Deep cuts erode the foundations of US public health system, end progress, threaten worse to come

By LAURA UNGAR and MICHELLE R. SMITH

Updated 11:03 AM EDT, May 31, 2025

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Americans are losing a vast array of people and programs dedicated to keeping them healthy. Gone are specialists who were confronting a measles outbreak in Ohio, workers who drove a van to schools in North Carolina to offer vaccinations and a program that provided free tests to sick people in Tennessee.

State and local health departments responsible for invisible but critical work such as inspecting restaurants, monitoring wastewater for new and harmful germs, responding to outbreaks before they get too big — and a host of other tasks to protect both individuals and communities — are being hollowed out.

“Nobody wants to go swim in a community pool and come out of it with a rash or a disease from it. Nobody wants to walk out their door and take a fresh breath of air and start wheezing,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

Keeping communities healthy saves lives — and money

Just outside a Charlotte, North Carolina, high school in March, nurse Kim Cristino set out five vaccines as a 17-year-old girl in ripped jeans stepped onto a health department van. The patient barely flinched as Cristino gave her three shots in one arm and two in the other to prevent diseases including measles, diphtheria and polio.

Like many other teens that morning, the girl was getting some shots years later than recommended. The clinic’s appearance at Independence High School gave her a convenient way to get up to date.

A student receives a vaccination inside a mobile health unit visiting Independence High School in Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)

“It lessens the barriers for parents who would have to be taking off from work and trying to get their kids to a provider,” Cristino said.

The vaccinations also help the community around her. The teen won’t come down with a life-threatening disease and the whole community is protected from outbreaks — if enough people are vaccinated.

The Mecklenburg County department, with “Protecting and Promoting the Public’s Health” emblazoned on its van, is similar to other U.S. health departments. They run programs to reduce suicides and drug overdoses, improve prenatal health and help people stop smoking. They educate people about health and test for and treat diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis. Some, including Mecklenburg, operate medical and dental clinics too.

“You come to work every day and think: What’s going to be my challenge today? Sometimes it’s a new disease,” said Raynard Washington, Mecklenburg’s director. “That’s why having a backbone infrastructure is so important.”

What they do is cost-effective, experts have found. For every dollar spent on childhood immunizations, the country is estimated to save $11; on tobacco cessation, $2-$3; on asthma control, $70.

Mecklenburg County Health Department Director Raynard Washington speaks during an interview in Charlotte, N.C., on March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Mary Conlon)

Disease prevention is unseen — and ignored

Critical care can be glamorous — surgeons, cardiologists and cancer doctors can pull off breathtaking medical feats to save lives at the last possible moment. Prevention work is low key. It’s impossible to identify who was saved because, if it goes well, the person never knows when they’ve fended off a mortal threat with the invisible shield of public health.

“People don’t appreciate it,” said Dr. Umair Shah, former health director for Washington state. “Therefore, they don’t invest in it.”

State health departments are funded by a varying mix of federal and state tax money. Some states deliver services in a centralized way while others provide resources to local departments, which generally also get money from counties, cities or towns. Some large cities get direct federal funding for their health departments.

Mecklenburg — a large department with around 1,000 workers serving 1.2 million people — has an annual budget of around $135 million, while some metro hospitals have operating expenses in the billions. About 70% of the department’s budget comes from local funds, which helps fill gaps in state and federal money. But Mecklenburg is still strapped for cash and resources.

At times, employees work 12- to 14-hour days, especially during outbreaks. Nurse Carmel Jenkins recalled responding to mpox exposures at a day care center — arriving before 5:30 a.m. to alert the children’s parents and working late into the evening.

“Even though there may be limited resources, we still have a service to provide,” said Jenkins, a director of clinical services for the department. “We don’t mind going above and beyond to be able to do that.”

Chaos in Washington puts ‘lives at risk’

In March, the Trump administration pulled $11 billion from state and local health departments without warning under the leadership of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist and public health critic. The cuts abruptly ended COVID-era grants, which had also been approved for non-COVID work including vaccination and disease detection, tracking and testing.

A week later, thousands of people were laid off at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many had worked closely with state and local health departments to provide information, grants and other support.

The sudden, one-two punch delivered a serious blow to the system, public health leaders said in interviews, court filings and public testimony.

A Kennedy spokesman said in an email that America remains unhealthy compared with other developed nations and HHS is reorganizing what he said were “broken systems” and reprioritizing resources to “centralize programs and functions that will improve our service to the American people.”

“These cuts are not about abandoning public health — they’re about reforming it,” spokesman Andrew Nixon said, adding: “We reject the implication that HHS has turned its back on urgent health threats.”

HHS justified the grant cancellations by saying the money was for COVID and the pandemic is over. But most of the cuts were in areas that are especially important given today’s health threats. The biggest chunk, more than $8.9 billion, involved epidemiology and laboratory capacity related to infectious diseases, while another $2 billion was related to immunizations. In some places, the cuts are on hold due to a federal judge’s order in a lawsuit by states. But elsewhere, cuts are continuing.

In Mecklenburg, for example, 11 community health workers lost their jobs, meaning less outreach to groups like the Hispanic community. All eight employees dedicated to the mobile vaccine program were laid off.

A mobile health unit is parked outside of Independence High School in Charlotte, N.C., on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)

In Columbus, Ohio — one of several communities in Republican-led states suing over the cuts — the health department had to lay off nine disease intervention specialists. This left it operating at 25% capacity in its disease tracing and investigation work just as it prepared to address a measles outbreak.

Kansas City, Missouri, will not be able to do its own testing for infectious diseases because the cut came just as the city was about to buy $500,000 worth of equipment. And Nashville had to end a program offering free flu and COVID tests and cancel plans to buy a van to deliver vaccinations.

The cities complained the cuts had created “severe budget uncertainty” and forced them to redirect their limited resources “to respond to the resulting chaos.”

CDC staff cuts are also having a ripple effect on state and local departments. Children who are deaf or hard of hearing will no longer benefit from an early intervention program run by states after everyone who worked on the program at CDC was laid off. The team in the Office on Smoking and Health, which funds state tobacco hotlines that help people quit, was let go.

So was the CDC team that worked to reduce drownings, partly through funding low-cost swimming lessons in local communities. Drownings kill 4,000 people a year in the U.S.

“The experts who know the things that can be done to help prevent the No. 1 cause of death from children ages 1 to 4 have been eliminated,” Connecticut state health commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani told a Democratic congressional hearing in April, referring to drownings.

She said the abrupt and disorganized nature of the cuts leaves her department scrambling as officials try to understand what is being cut and to close important programs on the federal government’s impractical timelines.

“The current uncertainty puts lives at risk,” she said.

Public health funding is going bust — and about to get worse

The new cuts are especially damaging because health departments are funded differently than other government agencies meant to protect the public: Funding pours in during emergencies and slows to a relative trickle when they subside. Mecklenburg’s Washington notes the contrast with fire departments, which are kept ready at all times, not scrambling to find firefighters and fire trucks when houses are already burning.

With health departments, “there’s a long-established pattern of boom-and-bust funding,” said Dr. Steven Stack, Kentucky’s public health commissioner and past president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

A temporary surge of money during the pandemic allowed some health departments to expand and strengthen programs. In Alabama, the influx of COVID money allowed the state to reopen a health department in largely rural Coosa County that closed a decade ago due to a lack of money. In California’s Santa Clara County, a COVID-era lab grant paved the way for a new science branch with nearly 50 positions.

But by early this year, most of that money had disappeared, along with other COVID-era grants across the nation — some because they ended and some because the government rescinded them. Departments were again left brittle and vulnerable.

“We’re facing funding cliff after funding cliff after funding cliff,” said Dr. Sara Cody, Santa Clara County’s health director. “What really worries me is I felt that we had finally built the infrastructure in the public health department. ... We were still pretty trim, but we weren’t just, like, bones.”

In Chicago, one-time COVID grants made up 51% of the health department budget, and their ending will push staff numbers below the pre-pandemic level of 588 — slowing responses to outbreaks and forcing officials to scale back food safety, violence prevention and other programs.

In Mecklenburg, the department lost 180 employees as COVID funds dried up. It also lost a wastewater monitoring partnership with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte that helped the county react quickly to changing COVID variants and could have also been used to detect new threats like bird flu.

The cuts are not over.

The Trump administration has proposed cutting billions more from CDC’s budget, enough to cut the agency’s spending in half. CDC sends about 80 percent of its budget to states and local communities.

Michael Eby, director of clinical services in Mecklenburg, said the relentless cuts to the system leave departments unable to respond to new pandemics and old diseases returning across the United States.

“Without the appropriate funding, we can’t properly address these threats,” he said. “We’re at risk of them getting out of control and really causing a lot of damage and death to individuals that we could have saved, that we could have protected.”

___

Ungar reported from Charlotte and Louisville, Kentucky, and Smith reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press reporters Mary Conlon in Washington and Kenya Hunter in Atlanta contributed to this report.

———

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

LAURA UNGAR

Ungar covers medicine and science on the AP’s Global Health and Science team. She has been a health journalist for more than two decades.

MICHELLE R. SMITH

Smith reports for AP’s global investigations team. She is based in Providence, Rhode Island.

some songs

Wednesday, December 3, 2025

trumps pentagon in fog of war makes new boat strikes

Harry Belafonte - Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) (Live)

Harry Belafonte - Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) (Live)

Music 1 songs

Banana Boat (Day-O)

Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte Television and Video Archive

Harry Belafonte - Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) (Live)

Music 1 songs

Banana Boat (Day-O)

Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte Television and Video Archive

https://genius.com/Harry-belafonte-day-o-the-banana-boat-song-lyrics

“Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” is a single from Harry Belafonte’s 1956 album Calypso is an adaptation of a vernacular Jamaican work song. This version of the song was adapted by Barbadian singer, Jamaica… Read More

the 40 days of trumpmas - a surreal serial poem

stay informed

Make your voice heard

Welcome to the

resistance

INDIVISIBLE: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DEMOCRACY ON THE BRINK

What can I do to fight this coup?

https://choosedemocracy.us/

Welcome to the Trump ability War Room

https://accountable.us/home/trump-accountability-war-room/

https://deptofpeoplewhowork.org/

Rep. Jasmine Crockett

https://www.youtube.com/@RepJasmine/videos

Deep cuts erode the foundations of US public health system, end progress, threaten worse to come

Deep cuts erode the foundations of US public health system, end progress, threaten worse to come

Keeping communities healthy saves lives — and money

Disease prevention is unseen — and ignored

Chaos in Washington puts ‘lives at risk’

Public health funding is going bust — and about to get worse