Drip, drip, drip. Three million pages of Epstein files, and we are served one factoid a day. Is there a smoking gun in there or not? Someone knows, but we get drip, drip, drip.
A lot of the other so-called news is suspected of being a distraction to hide whatever is in those files. Maybe the Epstein files are the distraction to keep us from paying attention to something else?
Over 100 speedboats, or fishing boats, or farmers market boats on their way to Cura莽ao, blown out of the water. Allegedly, they were carrying illegal drugs from Venezuela, maybe Columbia, but no effort to collect evidence that was clearly floating on the surface. Why was evidence not collected? Don鈥檛 boat crews deserve due process?
The arrest of indicted Maduro was controversial. Impounding illegal shadow tankers sound like a good step but overdue. Finland did it first. What happens next? Who will get the oil? Who will get the money for the oil? Drip, drip, drip.
Vaccines have saved many lives, but like everything else may have side effects. It is not just a personal choice, because unvaccinated people cause risk to everyone else. No different than deliberately going out with an infection instead of quarantining oneself.
The statistics are quite clear, and statistics support the science: The risk to an individual is minuscule compared to the benefit to everyone. If almost everybody is vaccinated, almost nobody gets the disease.
Thanks to the vaccination of everybody, nobody gets deadly disfiguring smallpox anywhere anymore. Thanks to vaccination, crippling polio has been reduced to only two countries. Thanks to the MMRP vaccine deadly, childhood diseases that can come back worse years later were made virtually extinct, but misinformation about vaccination still clutters the news. Drip, drip, drip.
91直播land security, breaking down doors, bullying people on the street in search of an alien criminal, or a citizen鈥檚 beloved grandma who crossed the border 25 years ago, thousands of detainees, a few citizens murdered, but no arch-criminal found. Did we lose our moral compass before or after heavily armed Americans were videoed breaking into houses in Afghanistan and Iraq looking for weapons? Drip, drip, drip.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine goes on and on. Several NATO countries have been impacted by the war near their border. Closing other nations鈥� airports is a blockade, an act of war. NATO, or just the US, could easily overpower what鈥檚 left of Russia. Why not? We get rhetoric instead of a decision. Drip, drip, drip.
The State of the Union address may have been a dignified report long ago. In my lifetime, it has become something like a pep rally for a president鈥檚 minions and painful homework for the other parties. A gusher instead of a drip.
Tariffs on, tariffs off, tariffs changed, tariffs off, tariffs on. How much is news? How much is distraction? Which is the item that鈥檚 really being covered up? Drip, drip, drip.
Tariffs, it slipped out Tuesday, are a regressive tax to obviate the progressive graduated income tax. The graduated income tax was introduced in 1913 so that those who could afford it without hardship paid more. The personal exemption was high enough then that half the population paid nothing, even after Henry Ford doubled the minimum wage.
The income tax is commonly misunderstood. For example: Being in a higher bracket does not increase the tax on what one earned in the previous bracket. Only the excess is taxed higher. Getting a big refund means you loaned money to the government at zero interest. It is the only tax that is not inherently regressive. Social Security is only on wages, and the same amount whether one earns $150,000, or $150 million.
What is affected by tariffs? Things you might buy retail from Amazon, Target or Walmart like clothes, shoes, towels, pillows, phones, lamps, pots and pans, toys, small appliances or some foods that can鈥檛 be grown here. Drip, drip, drip.
What is not affected by tariffs? Things the wealthy spend a lot on, a second home, a third home, foreign travel, Broadway shows, meals at expensive luxury restaurants, speculation, acquisition, servants, broadcast stations, race horses, sports franchises, private jets or a $2 billion yacht built in Hong Kong, registered in Panama but moored in Bora Bora, with a paid crew of 12 and a helicopter.
No drip, drip on that last item, it鈥檚 not even in the news.
Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer and safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a biweekly column for 91直播. Feedback is encouraged at obenskik@gmail.com.