Welcome to WeeklyWilson.com, where author/film critic Connie (Corcoran) Wilson avoids totally losing her marbles in semi-retirement by writing about film (see the Chicago Film Festival reviews and SXSW), politics and books----her own books and those of other people. You'll also find her diverging frequently to share humorous (or not-so-humorous) anecdotes and concerns. Try it! You'll like it!
There are 150 teacher years in Connie’s immediate family and her first book, written for Performance Learning Systems, Inc., in 1989, is entitled “Training the Teacher As A Champion.” In this day of Betsy DeVos, you can expect to hear some comments on how our educational system is being undermined from the top down.
Elon Musk claims DOGE is uncovering all kinds of waste and fraud, outrageous scams perpetrated on the American people. These scams are so blatant and obvious that even youngsters untrained in forensic accounting can find them in moments. The implication is that federal workers, who are experts in their fields are either too stupid to have seen them or irredeemably corrupt. Look at the Social Security Administration, for example. Musk posted that his minions had found more than 20 million entries in the database with ages over 100 years old, including millions of people listed as over 150. It’s “the biggest fraud in history,” Musk said.
Except, of course, it’s nothing of the sort.
Because of a coding quirk in the vintage computer program the agency uses, an unknown birth date defaults to 1875, 150 years ago. These people are listed in the system, but they aren’t receiving Social Security checks—as a 2023 inspector general’s report had already concluded. In reality, only some 44,000 centenarians are alive and receiving checks, a figure that jibes with census data. And while there are certainly some fake numbers, even the conservative Cato Institute says those are mostly illegal immigrants who use them to get jobs, which means they pay into the system but get nothing out of it.
What else has DOGE turned up?
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was eager to tell us, saying last week, “I love to bring the receipts!”
But the only examples she offered were a few programs related to equity and inclusion, such as a $3 million Patent and Trademark Office program offering internships to minority inventors, and a $57,000 award for climate mitigation in Sri Lanka. Those may go against current administration protocols but they certainly don’t amount to fraud, since the money for them was duly appropriated by Congress. And cutting them will hardly engender significant savings in a $7 trillion budget.
You know who does know how to find waste and fraud?
The Inspectors Generals in our government agencies.
But Trump fired them all.
*****
Elon Musk.
Elon Musk’s claim to have cut $55 billion is already a fantasy—this week DOGE claimed an $8 billion savings for cutting a contract actually worth only $8 million.
Catherine Rampell (“The Washington Post”): “Trump voters want a shake-up and many cheer the wrecking ball. There are legitimate problems with the status quo, but the fix isn’t to indiscriminately fire air traffic controllers, gut public health agencies, or cut funding for cancer research. Trump is not fixing the problems MAGA voters care about. He’s creating new, much scarier ones.”
Said Martin Wolf in “Financial Times: “It’s a coup that will pave the way for autocracy, plutocracy and dysfunction. You can’t boost efficiency by hacking away at a complex bureaucracy, but you can chase out conscientious workers and replace them with loyalists who’ll do your every bidding. And once Trump and Musk achieve their goal of dismantling the civil service, it won’t be easily rebuilt. “This is destruction, not reform and whatever they have been told, ordinary Americans will not benefit.”
But we know who will.
(The lyrics to Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” that contain the phrase “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot” are: “They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”)
“BEE GONE,” warning about all the above, can be purchased on Amazon. Read about it here: https://conniecwilson.com/product/bee-gone-a-political-parable/
Pavel Talankin, director of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Helle Moos.
“Mr. Nobody Against Putin” about the Putin-dictated shift in Russia’s schools was made possible by a young Russian schoolteacher named Pavel (“Pasha”) Talankin. At the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pasha was serving as the school videotographer and event coordinator for Karabash Elementary School, the biggest school in what is a very small town of 10,000 people deep in the Ural Mountains, Russia’s industrial heartland. Karabash was world famous because it was once dubbed “the most toxic place on Earth,” with an average life expectancy of 38 and a huge copper mining plant that has blackened the mountaintop with pollution. One commentator called it “the most depressing place I’ve ever been” and “the darkest place on the planet.” But to Pasha it was home, where he lived near his widowed mother (his father drowned in a lake when Pasha was 9) in a two-bedroom apartment in the city center. Pasha’s humble flat contained 427 books, carefully arranged by color coding, and he has a dog named Nebraska.
NEW RUSSIAN PROGRAM
At the outset of the Russian invasion, Pasha sent out an e-mail ( described as “an overly long e-mail”) about the exhaustive program Putin’s government was pushing on Russian schools. The New Federal Patriotic Education Program was an impediment to actual teaching. Said Pasha, “Few of us were prepared for such an effort to interfere in our ability to teach…I am a teacher forced to do the exact opposite of what a teacher should do.” I could relate to Pasha’s dismay, because I lived through a push from those above me in pay grade to make all of us jump through hoops to select students for the Scripps Spelling Bee Competition. It soon became clear that 75% of my classroom time would have had to be spent doing spelling bee trials to select the finalists. The other things I was supposed to be teaching, which included, at that time, literature, grammar, composition and spelling, were to be shunted aside in favor of the Spelling Bee lady, who apparently outranked me on the food chain (even though I was ostensibly Department Chairperson and had been there many more years and had an actual degree in my subject area, which this woman did not. She, however, was married to a fellow School Superintendent; I was not). I soon cut to the chase and selected my contestants based on abbreviated preliminary bees, which left me free to go back to actual teaching. Things did not go quite as smoothly for the woman who insisted that ALL of our classroom time be spent running things the way the local newspaper dictated and she soon ran in a ringer who had not competed at all, as he was in the hospital with a broken leg during her many elimination bees. But he had an I.Q. of 152, so the rules that Mrs. Superintendent had imposed on us all soon went out the window, given the upset wins her trials were creating.
But for Pasha, the restrictions were going to get worse, and they came from much higher up.
NEW RUSSIAN TREASON LAWS
A still from Mr. Nobody Against Putin by David Borestein and Pavel Talankin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Pavel Talankin
Initially, shooting the film for this documentary was risky, but not illegal. But in April of 2023 Putin and his government passed a law mandating life imprisonment for treason and strengthening the laws about “treason.” Things would become increasingly dangerous for Pasha as he filmed what was happening in Karabash.
Pasha: “It’s a very unpleasant feeling. It’s like you’re in a room and the walls are closing in and the air is leaving. You remain trapped in the system. I love my job, but I don’t want to be a pawn of the regime.” Pasha actually resigned his position at one point, but when director collaborator David Borenstein contacted him, suggesting they act on Pasha’s idea, he withdrew his resignation and set about documenting what was going on in Russian schools. Pasha: “I’ll use my camera to film the abyss this school is sinking into.”
Others in the town mention how even first graders are being asked to recite war poems.
Pasha: “Since last year there is no freedom to be found here. All Russian movement is for the children’s movement.” Every day there are clubs being formed that resemble the Nazi Youth Clubs of Hitler’s day/ Victory Day, the holiest day of the year when parading crowds carry pictures of their dead veterans, seems to suggest, “Maybe one day you can be a dead soldier, too.” Pasha notes that the young people will have to carry the burden of victory over evil. Pasha: “All of you will die, but know one thing: Mother Russia will never forget you. Every warrior’s name will be carved into a plaque.”
At this point, Russia is losing 1,000 soldiers a day in the Ukrainian conflict. Says Pasha, “It’s now time for the mercenaries to teach: marching drills, grenade throwing competitions, shooting competition.” The film of boys as young as 10 being handed guns and sighting down the length of them is frightening. They are shown handling weapons of the Great Patriotic War, including Mosin, SVT machine guns, etc.
There are scripted lessons after scripted lessons. Proof that the school is complying with the directive is required. Soon, the scripts are given to the students, as well. They are being brainwashed by the state in the New Federal Patriotic Education Program.
KARABASH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHER
David Borestein, director of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Helle Moos
Pasha films history teacher Pavel Abdulmanov. Abdulmanov is strictly by the Russian book. He suggests that, “It’s so crucial to eliminate dissenting views so there is no split in our Mother Country. If you don’t like it, go to the country that you think is better.” When asked to name the Russian historical figures he admires most, he names Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s father of the Gulag system; Viktor Abakumov, Stalin’s spy hunter; and Pavel Sudoplatov, Stalin’s assassin for enemies. Sudoplatov masterminded the murder of Leon Trotsky from an ice pick driven into Leon Trotsky’s brain. Abdulmanov tells his students daily that “Russia could destroy Ukraine in a couple of days” and warns that countries in Europe will “soon be riding horses” as there will be no wheat or oil from Russia. He also tells the students that “state policy in Ukraine is decided by radicals and Nazis,” suggesting that Russia must eliminate the Nazis in power in Ukraine. Abdulmanov was given a luxury apartment as a reward for being named Teacher of the Year at the school.
LASHING OUT
Feeling an uncontrollable urge to lash out, one morning Pasha plays a recording of Lady Gaga singing the United States National Anthem, rather than the Soviet anthem. Soon thereafter, a police car is parked outside of Pasha’s apartment.
PASHA’S MOTHER
Throughout the film Pasha is shown bringing his mother flowers as she works to repair damaged school books in the school library. He repeatedly praises his mother. She is a particularly dour woman who never expresses any warmth towards her only son. At one point, he says he is going to stop over with something for her that evening and she tells him “Forget it.” Her view on the changes in the school’s atmosphere : “I am sorry, but people love war. It’s always been like that. People love to shoot each other.” Also representative of the town’s collective feelings is Masha, one of Pasha’s students, whose brother is drafted into the war effort. She says, “I could care less about the war as long as it doesn’t impact me personally.” This seems to be the main opinion of the town. (Masha’s brother eventually defects and is killed.)
GRADUATION
Pasha is in charge of arranging for Graduation Day. He addresses the assembled crowd, saying, “My dear friends: wherever your life takes you, I wish you solid ground under your feet. There’ll be turning points you’ll have to choose. Sometimes to express your love, you must sacrifice everything, but I know that your choice will come from your heart. Thank you so much for working with me through this year. I love you very much. The time for the last bell has come.” This heartfelt speech is followed by dancing in the most toxic town on Earth and students tossing Pasha into the air in celebration.
That night, he flees Russia. He is being paid as co-director of this impressive effort for the BBC’s Storyville, but he was not present at the Q&A at Sundance.
A still from Mr. Nobody Against Putin by David Borestein and Pavel Talankin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
CONCLUSION
Pasha put in three years of work on the project. He tells the camera, “Even a guy like me should have some principles. By June I am done here.”
This was a brave act of principle in the face of an oppressive autocratic regime. Having just completed a University of Texas class entitled “Putin’s Rise to Power” that laid out the ways in which Putin has closed down and expelled Western journalists from Russia. I am now enrolled in a class entitled “Misinformation and Disinformation.” Our first lecture went into a great deal of detail about how difficult it is to get truthful reporting out of Russia.
This documentary is a real treasure and should be seen by anyone who loves democracy. It was a courageous and brave act by someone who has risked his entire life to help alert the world to the truth of Vladimir Putin’s plans for world domination.
“Blitz,” from British director Steve McQueen, depicts Londoners during the Blitz of World War II in 1940. The harrowing drama focuses on a young bi-racial boy (Elliott Heffernan) sent to the countryside by his mother (Saoirse Ronan) for safekeeping. Approximately 500,000 young children were sent to the countryside from London to protect them from the blitz. Young George Hanway, age 9, jumps off the train taking him to safety, and tries to return to his home in Stepney, Clifford Lane, and his piano-playing grandfather (Paul Weller) and his Mom. The blitz (short for “blitzkrieg”) took place from September of 1940 through May of 1941. Forty-three thousand civilians, primarily in London, were killed; that number represented half of Britain’s wartime civilian casualties.
GENESIS
I began wondering what caused Writer/Director Steve McQueen to go back in time, historically, and create such an accurate depiction of what it must have been like to live through the war-time bombing of London. Perhaps the germ of an idea came out of McQueen’s expressed wish to do with the city of London something similar to what Martin Scorsese has done with New York City? McQueen has a highly developed artistic background; it serves him well in “Blitz.” When asked about the inspiration for the film, he mentioned a picture he had seen of a small boy of the time being sent off to the countryside on July 5, 1940. It was this picture that guided much of the search for a young boy to play the lead role, as McQueen envisioned the blitz being seen through a child’s eyes.
July 5, 1940 British child being sent to the countryside for safety during the Blitz.
CAST
Elliott Heffernan was cast as that small child, the daughter of Rita Hanway (Saiorse Ronan), a white worker in the factory making bombs for Britain, and the son of an absent father from Grenada, who is deported, leaving nothing behind for his wife and child but a St. Christopher Medal given him by his own mother. McQueen has said, in other interviews, “To some extent he (Elliott Heffernan) carries this movie.” Elliott was 9 when filming began. “He was 8 when he auditioned,” says McQueen. “So he was a little boy, and he auditioned because he’d never done acting before. As soon as I saw him, I thought, ‘Oh, he is the truth!’ He wasn’t going to pretend to be a child. He was a child.” (“Deadline” interview).
Also carrying the movie and singing in it, as well, is Saiorse Ronan (“The Lovely Bones,” “Brooklyn,”“Atonement”). McQueen’s lead actress has two strong films out this year with “The Outrun” receiving Oscar buzz. Says McQueen of Saoirse Ronan, “She’s like Bette Davis. She’s that good.” He called her “interesting” and “fascinating. “She makes the ordinary extraordinary, the arbitrary fascinating.” The eyelash scene, where Rita asks George to “make a wish” on an eyelash plucked from his cheek was actually something that occurred naturally between Saiorse and Elliott while they were bonding between scenes. McQueen chose to take the normal gesture and use it prominently in the film.
MUSIC
For composer Hans Zimmer, this is a deeply personal movie. His mother was evacuated from Germany and spent the war years in London. He remembered her stories about living in Mayfair, with bombs dropping all around. Zimmer reflected on his childhood when composing the score. He constructed it from a child’s perspective of terror and chaos, opening with an orchestra of children’s recorders. Zimmer’s score for this film is mentioned as a probable Oscar nominee. There are also many period songs utilized in the film and much (too much?) singing.
Back in 2016, when McQueen received the Artistic Vision Award here in Chicago, he said, “Sound is so important in film. People need to lean in to listen. It gives them something to do”.
CAST BASED ON REAL PEOPLE
Leigh Gill (“Joker,” “Game of Thrones”) portrayed “Mickey the Midget,” a Jewish East ender, Mickey Davies, a local optician and community organizer who stepped up to help make the time spent underground in the subway more humane. (Buckets for rest rooms, foropeners.) There was a movement to memorialize Mickey IRL, but it died when Boris Johnson was Mayor of London.
Benjamin Clementine (“Dune: Part One”) portrays Ife, who was based on the real-life E.I. EKpenyon, who was a law student from Nigeria who became an air warden in Marleybone. Ife (translated as “love” in Nigeria) teaches George to sing “Alleluia” as George accompanies him on his route, telling the locals to honor the blackout during the blitz. [Like all the horror movies where you know it’s a bad sign when someone is going to go to the attic or the basement, the well-meaning promises that Ife makes to George about returning him to his home the next day seem based on shifting sand.]
Paul Weller (“Grosse Pointe Blank”), a true musician, plays Gerald, or Grand-dad, as he is called. McQueen said seeing a picture of Paul McCartney with his father and a piano in Paul McCartney’s original house triggered the selection and one of the more haunting images (spoiler alert) is of Grand-dad’s dead body after he becomes one of the victims of the blitz. The camera lingers on his face in the rubble.
There were two Black clubs in London at the time. One was the Shim-Sham and, on the Piccadilly side, there was the Café de Paris, which the locals frequented because it was below ground and, therefore, considered safer. Onscreen, the local bandleader, Ken “Snakehips” Johnson is well-played by a young Black man in a white tux and tails who introduces a stunning Black singer in a white dress who sings “Oh, Johnny.” (Both were impressive.) Sadly, two bombs entered the ventilation shaft to the underground club and a scene is set in the remains of the club that involves young George, which seemed to be reaching a bit in depicting the adventures of the 9-year-old.
PICARESQUE HERO
Young George, with his mother and grand-dad, as he is leaving for the countryside.
Filmed at 13 locations around England and London, McQueen has said of “Blitz,” “It’s a very dark fairy tale. It’s the Brothers Grimm. And that’s the journey George goes on.” In the English-speaking world, the term “picaresque” is used loosely to refer to novels that contain some elements of this genre; e.g. an episodic recounting of adventures on the road. An English Literature major, I recognized enough picaresque elements of “Blitz” to recognize that the term applies to the adventures that young George has while trying to return home. While some of the adventures held your interest—especially the accurate re-creations of such things as the flooding of the tube (which actuallyoccurred and killed 34 people)—having them ALL happen to George on his journey seemed a bit much. (Mid-film I wrote, “Film needs a bit more to sustain it when it’s simply George being taken advantage of.”)
CONCLUSION
Saiorse Ronan and co-star Elliott Heffernan in Blitz.
In some ways, the comparisons to “Belfast,” which opened the 58th Chicago International Film Festival, are valid. Both turn the clock back on time, although “Blitz” does so in a much more arresting style, visually. The opening scene alone, where an old-style leaky canvas firehose is proving almost impossible to control while fighting the fires in the streets of London, is riveting. Others along the way, especially the scenes of how life went down in the tube (subway) are equally mesmerizing.
The attempts to recognize real heroes like Mickey Davies and to preach a bit in one subway scene (“We are allequal members of this country, willing or not…Treat each other with compassion and respect.”), while laudable, come off a bit obvious to everything going down around us in the world today. We can applaud the message and hope that it is internalized by everyone, but, in this country, at least, we are about to go to the polls to vote for a new President, and one of the candidates has made a mockery of that message. One critic used an expression “muffled by good intentions,” which applies, but even more than that, there was something so old-fashioned about the film that it surprised me it was a Steve McQueen film.
The movie opens in theaters on November 1st and will be streaming on Apple by November 22nd. There is also an Apple special that is a “behind-the-scenes” look at the making of “Blitz” that should be truly entertaining, just as researching some of the real-life background for the film proved to be.
It’s a powerful film. It will resonate with anyone who hopes we learn from the mistakes of our past and forge better paths to peace.
Alec McGillis in “The New Yorker” reported on the closing of eleven of Rochester, New York’s forty-five schools this way:
SCHOOLS IN CRISIS
“Four years ago, as the school year started with remote learning in many districts around the country, particularly in Democratic-leaning cities, I reported a piece for ProPublica and “The New Yorker” looking at what Zoom school was really like for disadvantaged students. The piece focused on Shemar, a seventh grader in Baltimore who had grown deeply isolated since schools had closed the previous March, and who only occasionally logged on to his online classes. “That homeschooling is not going to get it,” his grandmother said.
Shemar would not return to in-person schooling until the following year, the end of an almost-eighteen-month hiatus. His struggles to engage since then have been unsurprising, and have been shared by countless other students. I have written several more pieces for The New Yorker and ProPublica on the lingering consequences of the closures, including learning loss and chronic absenteeism.
DEC:LINING SCHOOL ENROLLMENT
Earlier this year, McGillis decided to report on another aftershock: declining enrollment that is forcing districts to close underpopulated schools on an unprecedented scale. Nationwide, public-school rolls have diminished by more than a million students, as many families have opted to leave for private schools or homeschooling. The declines are particularly stark in places where schools stayed closed the longest during the pandemic. (There is also the declining birth rate, which is plaguing many civilized countries. It is only because of the United States’ robust immigration numbers that our population numbers are not declining like those of nearly every other civilized nation in the world.
McGillis focused his reporting on one such city: Rochester, New York, where the district just decided to close eleven of its forty-five schools, a wrenching process that has caused disarray for families and left many neighborhoods without the hubs that sustained them for generations. “It’s like you’re watching institutions decline in real time,” one county legislator told me. “
Anchors of the community are disappearing.” This statement is very true. Placing unqualified people in positions of power, as happened in the first Trump administration, with Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education and others with no expertise in their field(s) put in charge of those fields is another reason why institutions show decline. Placing the vaccine-denier Robert Kennedy, Jr., in a position in the Department of Health would be another such miscarriage of justice, but has been rumored to be the deal that RFK, Jr., sought in order to endorse Donald Trump.
The piece raises the crucial question: Can American public education survive its downsizing intact, or is there a tipping point beyond which the system starts to unravel?”
DECLINING CHURCH ATTENDANCE
church
At the same time that public schools, nationwide, are under attack, the Catholic Church has been consolidating parishes and cutting way, way back.
In St. Louis, Missouri, where my cousin has been active as an organist in a large parish for many decades, she described losing her position when her church was closed. She went on to talk about how difficult it has become for some of the older members of her original parish to make it to the church that remains open but is not nearby,. There was no gold watch or gesture of appreciation for her large and well-regarded choir that had as many as 40 members who participated. People came from other churches just to hear the excellent choir. The priest who made the call to tell the 85-year-old organist that the Diocese had decided it was going to be better to dump the choir and the organ music and have a guitar mass with him playing solo.
Kind of rips at the community fabric that church is supposed to represent, don’t you think?
In East Moline, Illinois, St. Anne’s School closed after many years, following on the heels of St. Mary’s Catholic School just across town that closed 40 years ago. St. Anne’s was my husband’s childhood school. He went to school there from 1950 through 1958. Now, it is yet another empty building in an area full of empty buildings.
So, why are so many schools and churches closing?
On any given weekend only 3 in 10 U.S. adults attend religious services. This is down from 42% twenty years ago. Church attendance has declined across all U.S. religious groups and will almost certainly decline further in the future, given the fact that younger Americans have a weaker attachment to religion. The percentage of adults who say they never attend church has more than doubled over the past 22 years, going from 13% in 2000 to about 33% in 2023. The percent of those who attended weekly has declined from 32% to 20% in 2022.
Between 2000 and 2015, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Episcopal Church, and the United Church of Christ lost 40% of their members. An elderly friend of mine who lived in Chicago at the time became an Episcopalian minister and returned to our mutual home town to take over the church that sits just one house from my childhood home. When she returned to take over these duties, the flock had dwindled to only 7 members and the church was in danger of being closed, but the strenuous efforts of my friend saved it from the chopping block. She remains its pastor at age 85 and has had some success in recruiting new members by instituting a weekly humanitarian effort they dub “Hot Dog Friday,” where free hot dogs are distributed to all takers. She once jumped out of an airplane on her 80th birthday to raise funds to put a new roof on the very old church and St. James Episcopalian Church is much the better for her Herculean efforts to preserve it, even to the point that she was approached to run for Mayor of the town.
MILLENNIALS
“Many Millennials never had strong ties to religion in the first place. They were not brought up in the church in the same numbers as generations prior. This has left them without much connection to the church as they entered adulthood. Millennials are also reportedly turned off by the high-profile church leadership scandals and the increasing political polarization in many American congregations, causing many to lose trust in churches and religious institutions altogether.” When the Supreme Court appears to have been stacked by a former president and the peaceful transfer of power is in danger of disappearing, distrust of many American institutions is rampant.
Hopeful Signs of Millennial Church Attendance
However, there are some hopeful signs. Thirty-nine percent of Millennials report attending church weekly, up from 21% in 2019. (Barna), Millennials make up the largest surge in returns to church as the pandemic has ended. We are entering crucial life stages that make us open to church as a way to connect and find guidance.
When Catholics are asked about their failure to faithfully attend church services, they have mentioned the Catholic Church’s many scandals. Some of the Catholic Church and school closings nave been tied to the pay-outs the church is making to victims of abuse. Closing a church or a school may be linked as much to money as to declining attendance.
CONCLUSION
Donald Trump on January 6th
In a country where the schools, the post office, the Supreme Court and churches are under attack, the GOP candidate for the presidency is the least religious candidate in decades. Trump has no moral center. It is largely because of DJT that the United States Post Office under DeJoy (who owns stock in the private mail delivery services) is on life support. He would cause irreparable harm to our country by appointing even more unqualified people to his administration.
We need to elect the alternative to Donald J. Trump, because DJT is an agent of chaos and we can expect these pillars of our communities to decline further if he is ever anywhere near power again.
Divorce can be an emotionally challenging experience, but beyond the emotional toll lies the crucial need to protect one’s legal rights. Whether it’s the division of assets, child custody arrangements, or spousal support, the legal ramifications of divorce can significantly impact your future. Ensuring these rights are upheld requires more than just awareness—it demands skilled legal guidance.
In Oklahoma City, divorce attorneys play a vital role in safeguarding their clients’ interests. These professionals not only provide expert advice but also offer representation throughout the divorce process, ensuring that all legal aspects are handled with precision and care. By working with a qualified attorney, individuals can navigate the complexities of divorce with confidence, knowing their rights are protected every step of the way.
Understanding Your Legal Rights
When going through a divorce, it’s essential to understand the key legal rights at stake. For many, the division of assets is a primary concern. This process involves the equitable distribution of property, which can include everything from real estate to retirement accounts. Without a clear understanding of your rights, you risk losing out on assets you’re entitled to.
Child custody is another critical issue. Determining where children will live and how they will be cared for can be one of the most contentious parts of a divorce. Knowing your rights regarding custody ensures that your child’s best interests are prioritized, and that you maintain a meaningful role in their life.
Finally, spousal support, or alimony, is a significant factor for many divorcing couples. Understanding the conditions under which support is granted—and the amount that is fair—is crucial to maintaining financial stability post-divorce. In each of these areas, having a solid grasp of your legal rights is essential for reaching a fair and just outcome.
The Role of Divorce Attorneys
Oklahoma City divorce attorneys play a crucial role in ensuring that their clients’ rights are protected throughout the separation process. Their primary responsibility is to advocate on behalf of their clients, offering legal expertise that helps navigate the intricate legal landscape of divorce. This involves a deep understanding of family law, which is essential for effectively addressing issues such as asset division, child custody, and spousal support.
One of the key ways divorce attorneys safeguard clients’ rights is through their expertise in managing legal complexities. They are adept at interpreting and applying laws to each unique situation, ensuring that all legal requirements are met and that their clients’ interests are represented. This expertise is invaluable during negotiations and court proceedings, where precise legal arguments and documentation can significantly influence the outcome.
Additionally, divorce attorneys are skilled negotiators who work to achieve favorable settlements for their clients. They can help mediate disputes, propose fair solutions, and negotiate terms that align with their clients’ best interests. Their ability to handle such negotiations with professionalism and tact ensures that their clients are not disadvantaged by the legal process.
Choosing the Right Divorce Attorney
Selecting the right divorce attorney is a critical step in ensuring that your legal rights are effectively protected. When choosing an attorney, it’s important to consider several factors to ensure they are well-suited to handle your case.
Experience is a crucial factor. An attorney with substantial experience in family law will have a thorough understanding of the legal system and a track record of handling cases similar to yours. This experience can greatly enhance their ability to address the complexities of your case and navigate potential challenges.
Specialization is another key consideration. Divorce and family law is a distinct area of legal practice, and an attorney who specializes in this field is more likely to be up-to-date with current laws and trends affecting divorce cases. Their specialized knowledge can be a significant advantage in crafting effective strategies and providing sound legal advice.
Finally, compatibility is important. You’ll want to choose an attorney with whom you feel comfortable and whose approach aligns with your needs and preferences. A good attorney will listen to your concerns, understand your goals, and work collaboratively to achieve the best possible outcome for you.
Common Legal Challenges in Divorce
Divorce proceedings can bring about a range of legal challenges, each with its own complexities. One of the most common and emotionally charged issues is child custody. Custody battles can become contentious, particularly when parents have differing views on the child’s best interests or when allegations of unfit parenting arise. These disputes require careful legal handling to ensure that decisions are made based on the child’s well-being and not influenced by personal conflicts.
Another challenge that may arise is the concealment of assets. In some cases, one party may attempt to hide financial resources or undervalue property to avoid a fair division. Addressing these issues requires a thorough investigation and understanding of financial records. Divorce attorneys play a crucial role in uncovering hidden assets and ensuring that all marital property is accurately assessed and divided.
A skilled attorney can help manage these and other challenges by leveraging their expertise and resources. They can provide strategic advice, represent you in negotiations, and advocate for your rights in court. By addressing these issues effectively, an attorney helps ensure that the legal process is fair and that your interests are safeguarded.
Protecting Your Interests Throughout the Process
Staying informed and involved throughout the divorce process is essential to protecting your interests. Regular communication with your attorney is crucial. Keep them updated with any new information or changes in your circumstances, and ask questions whenever you’re unsure about the process or your rights.
It’s also important to be proactive in gathering and organizing relevant documents, such as financial records and personal correspondence. This information can be vital in building your case and ensuring that your attorney has all the necessary details to advocate on your behalf.
Collaboration between you and your attorney is key to achieving the best outcome. Work together to set clear goals, develop strategies, and address any concerns that arise during the process. A strong partnership will enhance the effectiveness of your legal representation and contribute to a more favorable resolution.
Conclusion
Working with a qualified Oklahoma City divorce attorney is crucial for protecting your legal rights during a divorce. Their expertise in navigating legal complexities, handling disputes, and ensuring fair representation is invaluable. By choosing the right attorney, you can have confidence that your case is in capable hands.
Take proactive steps in selecting an attorney who meets your needs and has the experience to handle your case effectively. Your choice of legal representation can make a significant difference in the outcome of your divorce, so it’s essential to invest time and effort in finding the right professional to support you through this challenging process.
Also present were many cars used in the Bond films, most of them Aston Martins (although there was one white car that was different.) There were motorcycles, waterskiing machines, and an assortment of smaller gadgets. I’ve taken quite a few pictures, which will not contain information on who, what, when, where or why because you will probably know these films as well as I do.
After we toured the 2 rooms that contain the James Bond memorabilia, we went through the room that has information about DNA and genetics and heredity. There were also small chicks hatching from eggs in that room.
The pictures tell the story:
I have to admit this made me think of DJT’s gold sneakers and gold toilet.
Ziya Tong, one of the directors of Canada’s documentary “Plastic People.”
The Canadian documentary “Plastic People,” directed by Ben Addelman and Ziya Tong, had its World Premiere at SXSW on Saturday, March 9th, 2024. It is an absolutely terrifying piece of detective work, investigating how our fixation on plastic came to be and what plastic is doing to us. The synopsis said: “Plastic People is a landmark feature documentary that chronicles humanity’s fraught relationship with plastic and one woman’s mission to expose shocking new revelations about the impact of microplastics on human health.”
Directors of the Canadian documentary are Ben Addelman and Ziya Tong. Producers: Vanessa Dylyn, Stephen Paniccia. Ben Addelman also wrote the screenplay.The film explores the origins of plastic (petroleum products) and suggests that, “Now we’re realizing that we made some big mistakes…We’re finding them wherever we look in the human body.”
Noting that 83% of tap water has plastic in it, the experts tell us, “We are slowly turning into plastic people.” Among other cheerily prophetic statements are these: “We are poisoning ourselves with our own hands. We are producing poisonous food.” And Christy Tyler, a PhD scientist says, “Every single person is exposed.”
BIG MONEY
“Plastic People” at SXSW 2024.
The income of makers of plastic is mind-boggling. With the efforts to curb the production of vehicles that use gas, the makers of plastic are looking at other ways to push up production and sales. One avenue was to support the single use of plastic, rather than recycling. Furthermore, says the film, the myth that some plastic can be recycled is pretty much that, since less than 10% of plastic, worldwide, gets recycled. (Forget the handy-dandy little recycle symbol.)
The film documents the following money made by big petroleum:
BASF – $65 billion
Exxon obil – $231 billion annual revenue
Dow Chemical – $48 billion
SABIC – $35 billion
Chevron Phillips – $3 billion
Plastic bottles used daily? 1.5 billion. Two million plastic bags are used every minute, amounting to 400 tons a year.
The film asks whether we want “to destroy the world to enrich a few?”
THE VERY BAD
“Plastic People” at SXSW.
The entire message of the film is depressing. It doesn’t get any better when we see Dr. Celticki performing a brain operation and noting the presence of plastic that has crossed the blood-brain barrier. “If it can go to the brain, it can go everywhere,” he says. His message, “We are living in a synthetic world made mostly of plastic.”
Transferring all of this to an unborn generation means risking losing that entire generation. The effects of all of these chemicals on our bodies may not become clear for decades. What kinds of chemicals are we talking about?
Dibutylphthalate, Bisphonol A, Diethylnexyl phthalate, Decabro modiphenyl ether, hexabromo cyctodecane, perfluoralkyl and polyfluoralkyl nonyl phenol. All of them bad, of course.
All of these chemicals in our modern-day world have led to major increases in breast cancer, prostate cancer, and thyroid cancer. It is well-known that chronic inflammation is a precursor to serious illnesses. Fracking is another example of a very bad idea, health-wise.
In Portland, Texas a local resident talks about how the nearby Gulf Coast Growth Ventures Exxon Mobil plant spews pollution (1.6 tons of ethylene) and burns so brightly that you can come outside and read a newspaper at night.
PREVIOUS FILMS ABOUT POLLUTION
“Plastic People” at SXSW.
Like the movie “Erin Brockovich,” Diane Wilson of San Antonio, who was defending the fishing industry, described taking on 10 chemical plants that were dumping 5 million gallons of toxic waste daily. (“Corporations do not have a conscience.”) She sued Formosa and won a $50 million-dollar settlement. Her fight reminded me of that waged against Teflon coating in frying pans by Mark Ruffalo’s character in the 2019 film “Dark Waters” or the 1998 John Travolta film “A Civil Action.”
RESOLUTIONS
“Plastic People” documentary at SXSW 2024.
At film’s end, a Rwanda effort to curb single-use plastics is lauded, but its spokesperson says, “We need big countries to ban the use of single use plastic items.” The watchword is RESTRAIN and REDUCE (but nobody’s doing it).
CONCLUSION
This is not a “happy” film, but it is a necessary one. The scripted line, “Only when the problem becomes too big do we ask the questions” struck home. That sentiment also applies to climate change. The weird weather anomalies that we are all experiencing now have come about because we have ignored a major problem for much too long.
One small bright spot was how the Philippines has done some clean-up of their extremely polluted shores. It followed right after the news that the big countries export their waste to the small countries, like the Philippines, something referred to as pollution colonialism. The prophetic word spoken to Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate” (Plastics) has come back to haunt us Big Time. What we are now seeing is described as “the embodiment of capitalism.”
After watching “Plastic People” I felt like I needed a drink, but straws are out now.
Martin Scorsese is the winner of multiple awards over the course of his prolific career. With nine nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director, he is tied with Steven Spielberg as the most-nominated living director of all time, second only to William Wyler‘s 12 nominations overall.
Scorsese has won only once, in 2007, for “The Departed.” Spielberg, by contrast, won for “Schindler’s List” (1993) and “Saving Private Ryan” (1998).
“Killers of the Flower Moon:” Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Given the fact that, despite 9 nominations, Martin Scorsese has only won once, we can assume that “Killers of the Flower Moon” will be Scorsese’s tenth nomination. Given his prominence and how often he has been an “also ran” in the Best Director category, this could well be Lucky Number Ten for Best Director.
The many times that Scorsese was nominated but did not win should weigh heavily when the Academy gets ready to vote this year. Scorsese, born in 1942, is now 81 years old . He is acknowledged as one of the seminal figures in American cinema. Some (most notably the “Wall StreetJournal,” which savaged “Killers of the Flower Moon”) may not be as inclined to give the man his due, but I think the picture has a good shot at Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Costuming, Music and possibly Best Supporting Actor. If it snags all of those (and it could losesome acting awards to other contenders like “Oppenheimer”), can Best Picture be far behind ?
Will the Academy reward the legendary Scorsese for his directing of the sprawling tale “Killers of the Flower Moon?” I suspect they will, although there are nay-sayers who have dissed the Master and suggested he is out of touch. (This doesn’t surprise me, given what happened to me this year, my 20th year reviewing at CIFF, but that’s a story for another day.)
THE CAST
Robert DeNiro and Jesse Plemons in “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
“Killers of the Flower Moon” is a $200,000,000 undertaking that showcases Robert DeNiro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone. There are many other notable cast members, including John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser and Jesse Plemmons, plus quite a few names in music, who have small roles. Fraser does a not-that-great job, shouting his dialogue unnecessarily, and Lithgow’s part is very small, but the contributions of the actresses who portray Mollie’s sisters and mother more than make up for the underwhelming nature of the Fraser/Lithgow turns. Cara Jade Myers, who plays Mollie’s wild sister Anna Kyle Brown is particularly good (Best Supporting Actress?) and the actress playing Mollie’s mother Lizzie Q (Tantoo Cardinal) and JaNae Collins, who played Rita, are uniformly excellent.
Among the musicians in the film were Pete Yorn, who plays Acie Kirby, the munitions expert. Yorn wrote the score for the 2000 film “Me, Myself & Irene” but had never acted previously. Country singer Sturgill Simpson makes an appearance as Henry Grammer. Jason Isbell, four-time Grammy award winner and former member of the Drive-by Truckers and the 400 Unit plays Bill Smith, the snake-like husband of two of the murdered Osage women. Jack White, winner of 12 Grammies, has appeared in several other films. Charlie Musselwhite portrays Alvin Reynolds, one of the key informants who spills the beans on the conspiracy that DeNiro’s character William King Hale has set in motion.
Critics have lauded Lily Gladstone, but Robert DeNiro is great as the uber-snake William King Hale. I admired DeNiro’s performance more than that of DiCaprio, but it was great fun seeing these two onscreen in a father/son fashion, which hadn’t occurred since 1993’s “This Boy’s Life,” when DiCaprio was only 18 years old. (Released when DiCaprio was 19.)
PLOT
Lily Gladstone and her sisters in “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
“Killers of the Flower Moon” is based on the book of the same name by David Grann. An impressive amount of research has gone into this labor of love. You can’t help but feel that, like Marlon Brando before him, this is Scorsese’s personal protest against the historic mistreatment of Native Americans. One character with a substantial speaking part, Paul Red Eagle, is played by the current Osage National Minerals Council Chairman, Everett Waller.
Set in 1920s Oklahoma, “Killers of the Flower Moon” focuses on a series of murders of Osage members and relations in the Osage Nation after oil was found on tribal land. Tribal members had retained mineral rights on their reservation. Whites sought to steal the Osage wealth by systematically murdering them.
In “Killers of the Flower Moon,” writer and journalist David Grann offered an intimately detailed account of a little-known but devastating chapter in American history: the Osage Reign of Terror. This period lasted five years from 1921 to 1926 during which upwards of twenty Osage Indians were murdered in cold blood for access to their valuable shares of oil money. There are also references to the Tulsa, Oklahoma murders on Black Wall Street (Juneteenth) and the KKK is depicted onscreen in fleeting parade scenes. Principal photography took place in Osage and Washington counties, Oklahoma, between April and October 2021. Pawhuska, Oklahoma, stood in for Fairfax in the film.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone in “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
The scope of “Killers of the Flower Moon” is epic. It covers a lot of history and does so with admirable pacing despite the film’s length. Although it is 206 minutes long, eclipsing even “Oppenheimer,” it did not drag (which “Oppenheimer” sometimes did). The entire project began in 2016, so it was 7 years in the making.
The acting by the three leads (DeNiro, DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone) is outstanding, although there were times when looking at the expression that DiCaprio sports throughout the film reminds the onlooker of looking at a pug bulldog. It’s not a good look. It is meant to show Ernest Burkhart’s venality, weakness and stupidity. Mission accomplished, but leading man reputation as good-looking for Leonardo destroyed. One wonders why Mollie would find him attractive.
It is casting against type for Leonardo DiCaprio, who has usually been quick-witted and attractive in his leading man roles. In this one he is spineless, thick, obsessed with gaining wealth without hard work, and conflicted by his genuine affection for his Osage bride. His wife-to-be refers to him as a coyote. But the very real fact that—doing his evil Uncle’s bidding—he is going to be responsible for the of murder most of Mollie’s family members and even bring Lily, herself, to the brink of death is certainly a good reason to be conflicted. There is ample evidence that Ernest will go whatever way the power wants, including his on-again/off-again decision about whether or not to testify against his powerful uncle.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
In addition to the scenes of tribal rituals, whether weddings or pow wows, I was struck by Rodrigo Prieto’s visual imagery in depicting the figures burning down a neighboring farm as almost Dante-esque. They are shown in the distance, fanning the flames of the farm that Bill Hill had engineered a $30,000 fire insurance policy on just a month prior. The shot looks like figures dancing in Hell. Since Mollie (Lily Gladstone) is confined to her bed by that point in the film, seriously ill from her husband’s poisoning her insulin shots, we see the pulled window shades glowing red inside from the fire outside. There are many such impressive visual images. The Osage braves frolicking in the crude oil gushing forth, geyser-like, from the earth. The field of flowers. An explosion is also impressively rendered.
The costuming is also noteworthy and authentic.
THE MUSIC
Robbie Robertson did eleven films with Scorsese. He was also a close personal friend of the director. Robertson died of prostate cancer at age 80 on August 9, 2023. He married his second wife, Top Chef Canada judge Janet Zuccarini five months before his death. Robertson’s scores for Scorsese films include “Raging Bull” (1980), “The King of Comedy” (1982), “The Color of Money” (1986), “Casino” (1985), “Gangs of New York” (2002), “Shutter Island” (2010), “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013), “Silence” (2016), “The Irishman” (2019) and “Killers of the Flower Moon” (2023), as well as being a performer and producer on 1978’s “Last Waltz,” the documentary about The Band.
The movie is dedicated to Robertson, who died just months before its release.
INTERESTING INFORMATION (SPOILER ALERT)
Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio in “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
In researching the genesis of the movie, I found it interesting that, originally, Leonardo DiCaprio was supposed to play the role of FBI agent Tom White that Jesse Plemmons portrayed. Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth reworked the story because of the interesting conflict that emerged when Leonardo’s character, who loves his wife, is still complicit in murdering almost all of her family and nearly killing her, something she didn’t truly accept until the scene near the end, when she directly asks him what he put in her insulin and he does not answer truthfully (despite just havingsaid that he has confessed all and that it has been a weight off his shoulders). Lily goes forward, then, and, in fact, marries another, dying at age 50, but she is done with Ernest, who is pardoned late in life. Ernest and Byron (his brother, who was complicit in the murder of his wife, Mollie’s sisterAnna) lived together in a trailer park at the ends of their lives. Byron was never convicted of anything, which seems unlikely and unfair.
Mollie divorced Ernest after she realized (or finally accepted) the depth of his betrayals. She did not seem to have done so early in his trial, but in the climactic scene between Ernest and Mollie, we see that she is now ready to accept the horrible truth.
At the unusual creative end, when Scorsese uses the old-style radio show based on the FBI to give us the information on what has happened to the principal characters, Scorsese himself reads us Mollie’s obituary, which another writer described as having really impacted Scorsese in a major way. He couldn’t believe that, after everything Mollie had suffered, her obituary from June 16, 1937, at the age of 50, mentioned nothing of these tumultuous life events.
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Rated R for violence, some grisly images, and language.
A timely issue for our time is the use of deep-fake video. It was one of the sticking points during the recent 148-day Hollywood entertainment strike. It is bound to rear its ugly head again during the 2024 presidential race. Porno videos with famous people’s faces super-imposed on the bodies of others are out there. In this documentary, it is a college student who makes the discovery that there is “Another Body,” represented as hers, circulating on the Internet. The supreme irony is that, in able to testify to the damage being done to victims like the fictional Taylor Klein, she had to “deep fake” her own testimony, (which made it all the way to the White House.)
In the timely documentary “Another Body,” directed by Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn (co-written by Isabel Freeman), a college student discovers deep fakes represented as being Taylor, circulating online. Using video diaries, synthetic media, and 2D and 3D animation, the documentary takes you behind the scenes: who did this and why and how can it be stopped and rectified? :”I kept asking myself who would do this and why would they want to do this? I worry that they are going to do something more drastic? I believe that, in his mind, he is getting back at us for rejecting him.”
THE GOOD
I marveled at the expertise that the filmmakers showed in presenting this complicated story to us, using dummy-like automatons to represent the fictional “Mike” (the perpetrator that Taylor and friends track down over time.) It was very impressive in regard to its technical achievements.Bravo!
I empathized with statements like, “I’ve had to deal with all the consequences that he should have had to deal with. I’ve had to leave the fun group, but he hasn’t.” 9,500 porno sites with 14 million hits a month sounds like the death throes of a decadent society. Are sites like PornHub that “normal” in this country’s incel culture that this sort of thing is doubling every six months, as the film says? Do those who use such sites routinely end up on a roof with a gun, shooting at spectators at a Fourth of July Parade in Illinois? What-the-heck is going on? Yes, Trump is the poster boy for such bad behavior, but…really?
I also recognized that the misogyny that today’s women of the MeToo movement are not willing to put up with has been going on for decades. DJT is a throwback to those decades when it truly was “a man’s world” and, as he bragged on video, if you were male you could get away with just about anything, because that is what women were told they had to put up with in order to be “good” female citizens. Women were not supposed to “take a man’s job” and we were supposed to stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, waiting on our man. R-i-i-i-g-h-t. So, I enjoyed seeing the new generation of women take on the male establishment. Maybe the good guys—err girls—will win, this time. I hope so. The request that she be respected for her professional achievements and viewed as “good” is not a pie-in-the-sky goal for the fictional Taylor of this tale; it is what women deserve, but have seldom achieved without a fight.
THE BAD
Like many other documentaries, this one could have been shorter. A half hour trim would not have taken away from the film, which became repetitive. Some of the interactions between Taylor and other victims could have been shortened.
Worst of all, the conclusion that Taylor draws near the end of the film is depressing: Sometimes the bad guys win.
“What the Democrats are trying to do on this issue is wrong, to allow abortion all the way up to the moment of birth.”
(Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida)
“We cannot let states like California, New York and Illinois have abortions on demand up until the day of birth.”
(Senator Tim Scott)
THIS IS FALSE.
Roe v. Wade was the law of the land for over 20 years and the American public still wants the right to decide their own fate in regards to whether a woman is forced by the GOP to bear a child to term because religious zealots have made it very difficult to secure an abortion that is safe and medically supervised. The sanest voice in the room seemed to be Nikki Haley—-also the only female—who felt that this should be a matter decided by a woman in consultation with her family and physicians. Abortion has always been about the male desire to retain power by keeping women down and in their place. The Democratic proposal that did not pass the Senate allowed states to ban abortion after fetal viability, roughly 24 weeks, except when the mother’s life was threatened. There are good reasons to allow an abortion, but no one in the Democratic party has lobbied for a late-term abortion. This question was answered by former Vermont Governor Howard Dean in a back yard in Muscatine, Iowa, in 2004, when he was campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president. A physician, he had actually checked records in Vermont and testified that there had never been a documented case of a late-term abortion in Vermont history.
2) “We will back law enforcement because we remember who we really are. And that’s also how we address that mental health epidemic in the next generation that is directly leading to violent crime across the country.”
(Vivek Ramiswamy)
This is unsupported by factual evidence. There is no direct correlation between people with serious mental illness and responsibility for violent acts. Ramiswamy had a bad night on the “factual” level, constantly making random remarks that were not supported by any factual evidence. He also voiced the sentiment that Ukraine and Israel should not be supported by the U.S.
3) “We need to acknowledge the truth, which is that these subsidies are not working.” (Nikki Haley)
THIS IS FALSE.
President Biden in Independence, Iowa on the Fourth of July, 2019.
Early data suggests that President Biden’s subsidies for renewable energy are proving to be more popular with companies and consumers than initially forecast. Job creation and investment have been rising. The possibility that subsidies could spur greater reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than originally estimated have been put forth. (Governor Doug Burgum).
THIS IS FALSE.
In 2021, the Director of the CIA, William J. Burns, traveled to Moscow, informing Putin about American intelligence concerning Russia’s war plans and cautioning him about the consequences of such an attack.
4) “The reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.” (Vivek Ramaswamy)
THIS IS FALSE.
No deaths have been linked to the growth of renewable energy or to the Biden administration’s attempts to reduce the use of fossil fuels to address global warming. Between 1970 and 2021, however, according to the United Nations, 2 million people died from extreme weather events. Right now, we are sweltering under a heat wave and rising global temperatures have caused more than 700 deaths, 67,500 emergency room calls and more than 9,200 hospitalizations.
5) “Joe Biden’s Bidenomics has led to the loss of $10,000 of spending power for the average family.” (Senator Tim Scott)
THIS IS FALSE.
Economists agree that the $1.9 trillion pandemic rescue package did contribute to inflation, but it was not the sole cause of rising prices. There was also the stimulus passed under Donald J. Trump and the monetary stimulus by the Federal Reserve, along with disruptions to supply chains caused by Covid-19.
We moseyed over to the 
e pictures tell the story:
“What the Democrats are trying to do on this issue is wrong, to allow abortion all the way up to the moment of birth.”
