We've had this debate before, right here on these pages, about our national spending priorities, guns or butter?.
In the guns versus butter debate, "Butter" represents non-security goods that increase social welfare, such as schools, hospitals, parks, and roads. "Guns" refers to security goods such as personnel—both troops and civilian support staff—as well as military equipment like weapons, ships, or tanks. Because these two types of goods represent a tradeoff, a country cannot increase one without negatively impacting the other.
Here now is what Google says: "Guns and butter" isa classic macroeconomic model demonstrating the trade-off a country faces when choosing between defense spending ("guns") and social programs ("butter"). Because resources are finite, increasing military output typically requires sacrificing domestic investments like healthcare, education, and infrastructure.
So, yes, the Iran war is costing us in terms of the sacrifice of civilian benefits. There are just a finite number of dollars available.
AI Overview
U.S. RepresentativeChrissy Houlahan (.gov)
Press Releases
To ban the Secretary of Defense from hiding the true cost of war, the Honoring the Sacrifice of Troops in War Act.
Representative Chris Deluzio | (.gov)
Deluzio Joins Push to Stop Trump from Hiding True Cost of War.
Bans Arbitrary, Unjustified Recategorizing of Designated Contingency Operations by prohibiting re-designating an ongoing conflict.
Congressman John Larson (.gov)
Trump Has Blown $37.5 Billion on Iran War.
Jul 20, 2026 — “This from the administration that said there was no money for food assistance, Medicaid, and healthcare tax credits.”
Wash. Post: Trump officials plan to cut hundreds of thousands from ACA, claiming fraud
That's one way to pay for the Iran war that Donald Trump had simply started for no reason.
Well, yes, there actually was a reason. Bibi Netanyahu had urged Trump to strike Iran to postpone his own corruption trial, which is what then really happened.
Fraud or not, Trump's war must be paid for one way or another. So JD Vance has been tasked with finding the money. He has decided to go after Obamacare.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump himself has been focused on his proposed ballroom.. Is that a priority for the American people?
Donald Trump has now banned media outlets whose reporting he doesn't like from all White House events. So much for "freedom of the press."
MS NOW’s Vaughn Hillyard reports from a street corner near the White House on Monday after being banned by Donald Trump. =============================================
Trump would rather deport refugees than give them asylum, but he has not been deporting them back home, rather to countries they've never even heard of. And if they are from Latin America, which is most likely, he is sending to Africa to countries from which they will have
trouble ever actually leaving
An alert blog reader has pointed out that Eswatini, mentioned in the previous post as a deportation destination in Africa, was formerly called Swaziland.
So that may help other readers get a better idea of the country we've been talking about, since Trump has made a deal to send some deportees there, no doubt including some financial incentives for the receiving country--now using our tax dollars to deport folks to such very faraway places. Is that really something most Americans really want to do, to punish folks for just wanting to live here among us?
Our country cannot get rid of Donald Trump as our president fast enough now. But we still have over a year to go to actually rectify this colossal mistake that the electorate has so thoughtlessly made. Many Trump voters are already very sorry for their vote, but it's simply too late now. We'll have just to wait and live with the results for another year or so. The whole world is suffering right now because of the ideas and decisions of just one very confused guy.
Americans had hesitated to vote for Kamala, a woman, so they voted for Mr. Trump instead. Yet many other countries have had women presidents, including right now in Mexico, our own southern neighbor, where Claudia Sheinbaum is the current president.
Wash. Post, see article below. I cannot erase anything now without erasing the whole post here so far. Those fickle blog deities are warning me to leave well enough alone and to post this right now before they do any more damage.
Wash. Post, A Canadian couple, who just “couldn’t sleep,” after reading about the plight of an Iranian Christian convert deported from the United States to Panama, have now helped to sponsor her resettlement to Canada. According to the New York Times. Ian and Naomi Elliot, who are in their 60s, spent months searching for a way to help resettle Artemis Ghasemzadeh, but found that “everywhere we tried, the door was shut”. Until just before Christmas last year, when Mr. Elliot received an unexpected call from a charity that helps to resettle persecuted Christians to Canada, City of Refuge, which had had a cancellation and offered the place to Artemis. The Elliots were given two days to submit the paperwork, find a church to sponsor her, and $25,000 to support her, which they secured through the help of an American lawyer who had helped Artemis’ brother to secure asylum in the States, the Times reports.
Finally, in June 2026 Artemis was granted asylum in Canada and a month later arrived in Vancouver, where the Elliots were waiting for her, with a welcome feast and banners reading “Welcome Artemis” in English and Persian.
===================================================I'd like to move the next item up above but the blog gods are warning me not to try to do so . In fact, I dare not move anything around, as it's already past 5 pm, here in West Virginia when internet traffic gets heavy.
Jury convicts Vermont man of attempted murder in shooting of 3 Palestinian students
Fortunately, the students were not actually killed and this guy has been locked up, so let's hope he stays there for quite a long time, because he poses a clear and present danger now to the whole community.
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Of course, it would also help if fewer guns were in circulation in our country. Someone needs to sponsor a gun buy-back to just drop lots more guns into the sea, as may sometimes have been done in the past.
Or maybe that's not such a good idea after all.
Google says: Finding a gun underwater happens often when scuba divers, magnet fishers, and treasure hunters explore local rivers, lakes, and bridges,
If you find a gun underwater, just leave it in place and immediately call local law enforcement, as there is a high probability that it is tied to a criminal investigation.
Guns found underwater are typically checked against law enforcement databases for stolen status before being permanently destroyed or disassembled.
Guns in this country can even be bought online, including this one I have found there justnow. It is really quite shameful that guns are so readily available for purchase in this country, even being sold online.
But you cannot have a firearm just delivered directly to your doorstep without first undergoing a background check. That's something of a control.
So it's not just a free-for-all, but there are still too many guns in circulation in this country. The fewer guns there are, the fewer gun deaths. In similar nations with much stricter gun controls, gun deaths and murders in general are considerably lower than they are here.
A reader has identified this bird seen here last time as a Painted Bunting.
The female is not nearly as colorful.
This bird below is an egret, a long-legged wader that eats fish it captures in the water and also can fly. Egrets live all over the US, but spend the winter in southern states.
But you cannot have a firearm just delivered directly to your doorstep without first undergoing a background check. That's something of a control.
