I Never Realized How Tall Bill Walton and Dr. J were till I Saw Them Close Up

I was a part of Oscar Mayer Purchasing in 2017 when it was acquired by General Foods and then Philip Morris. I was also the one who sourced Lunchable’s packaging with a company in Iowa. What made the packaging unique was it being made of recycled material, having a similar SBS brightness, and foldable without cracking (which was common in recycled material due to how it was made). Using recycled material gave it a claim of recycling utilization in its labeling. It was a win for Oscar Mayer, but not so much for me.

General Foods had a supplier convention to which all the suppliers attended. I walked into the hall where it was held. Nearby was two very tall people standing there pretty much left alone. It took me about two seconds or less to recognize who they were. Bill Walton was polite when I asked him if I could be of help. Dr. J was somewhat insulted due to the wait to present their company, a minority company at that. I did ask the team of what the time was for them to present. I probably could have received a better answer from a wall. They were not noticed which is flabbergasting to me. There is value to their names for a company and their minority status which does help a company. At the time, I was already doing business with Gale Sayers.

“Pam Bondi Insists Wrongly Deported Dad’s Wife and Child Are Better Off With Him Gone” (The Daily Beast): SUMMARY: 

“Pam Bondi’s latest excuse for refusing to bring back a mistakenly deported Maryland dad is that his wife and disabled child—who have begged for his release—are better off without him.

AB: I doubt if Ms. Pam would ever know what is dangerous and what is not. This is just noise to disrupt a correction of an illegal action. Kilmar’s wife is not supportive of Ms. Pam’s dictate.

‘America is safer because he is gone. Maryland is safer because he is gone. And that woman that he is married to and that child he had with her? They are safer tonight because he is out of our country and sitting in El Salvador where he belongs,’ President Donald Trump’s attorney general said Wednesday of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.”

MY TAKE: There are so many logical fallacies in this story that it seems like an SNL parody of a politician that we would all be laughing at—if the stakes weren’t high. If she wasn’t the highest law enforcement official in the country who just proclaimed laws won’t matter when Trump doesn’t want them to. Here are her logical fallacies:

• Bondi’s statement is basically victim shaming, akin to saying someone who flirted at a party deserved to be raped. There are two major issues here: (1) Garcia was sent to a foreign prison with no due process and even Bondi admits he is not guilty of the crime they sent him there for. It’s disturbing to have the Attorney General of the U.S. push aside due process by claiming that even if he’s not guilty of what we’re punishing him for, he’s guilty of something. That’s something crooked cops say on TV. (2) The administration refuses to fix their mistake out of fear of looking weak because they can’t grasp that not admitting a mistake is a sign of weakness.

• As to Bondi’s accusations to smear Garcia in order to dehumanize him so people stop protesting, according to his wife they had a domestic dispute in 2021 that resulted in a restraining order which was dismissed after a month. His wife explained: “We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling. Our marriage only grew stronger in the years that followed. No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect.” Of course, we don’t know the intimate details—nor do they matter regarding the legal issue at hand—but at this point, there’s no reason to doubt her. Remember: Trump’s first divorce was granted on the grounds of “cruel and inhuman treatment” of Ivana and she accused him of raping her, though later claimed she didn’t mean in a “criminal sense.”

• Bondi’s assertion that “America is safer because he is gone” seems based solely on the domestic dispute three years ago since there’s no evidence Garcia was with a gang. Therefore, if we follow Bondi’s logic that the country is better off when deporting people for bad behavior, what about Trump (a convicted felon and accused of sexual assault or harassment by more than two dozen women), Pete Hegseth (accused of drugging and raping a woman), RFK Jr. (accused of sexual assault), Linda McMahon (accused of sexual misconduct), and others. Next stop El Salvador, Pam?

• The only relevant issue here is that Garcia did not receive due process and therefore is being punished for a crime he was not tried for. Efforts to smear his name or villainize him have nothing to do with the fact that the real villains are the Trump administration. The Judicial Branch of government is supposed to offer checks and balances to the other two branches, not become a weapon of the Executive Branch.

“Top Trump Official Claims Defending Due Process Is ‘Aiding’ Terrorists,” (The Daily Beast): SUMMARY:

“A top Trump administration official said those demanding due process for a wrongly deported Maryland dad might themselves be accused of “aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists.”

MY TAKE: As frightening as Bondi’s statements are, it gets even worse. Trump’s senior director for counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, said that critics of Garcia’s imprisonment might be committing a federal crime. He said that protesters against Trump are “on the side of the cartel members, on the side of the illegal aliens on the side of the terrorists . . . And you have to ask yourself, are they technically aiding and abetting them? Because aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists is a crime in federal statute.” His lack of anything resembling reason continued: “It’s not left and right, It’s not even Republican or Democrat. There’s one line that divides us: Do you love America or do you hate America? It’s really quite that simple.”

That’s only simple if you’re simple-minded because it’s a logical fallacy called a false dilemma, which offers only two alternatives when there are others. It’s like a parent saying you either marry the person I choose for you or you don’t love me. We can love our country but hate some of its actions. The fact that Gorka holds such a high office and doesn’t understand that is terrifying. If we follow his logic, anyone who protested against Biden (like Trump did on Jan. 6) hates America and should be charged with aiding and abetting terrorists?