Interesting and forgotten piece of history.

from wiki:

The National American Indian Memorial was a proposed monument to American Indians to be erected on a bluff overlooking the Narrows, the main entrance to New York Harbor. The major part of the memorial was to be a 165-foot-tall (50 m) statue of a representative American Indian warrior atop a substantial foundation building housing a museum of native cultures, similar in scale to, but higher than, the Statue of Liberty several miles to the north. Ground was broken to begin construction in 1913 but the project was never completed and no physical trace remains today.

Location

The memorial was to be erected on the site of Fort Tompkins on Staten Island, New York, United States. Fort Tompkins, a component of the larger Fort Wadsworth, is located on a bluff high above the west side of the Narrows. It was and still is owned by the federal government. For many years Fort Wadsworth, along with Fort Hamilton on the east shore of the Narrows, provided harbor defense for New York City. Virtually all ocean-going ships destined for New York pass the site, so the monument would have been highly visible to visitors, seen well before the Statue of Liberty would come into view.

History

The project was the brainchild of Rodman Wanamaker, scion of the Wanamaker department store family, and "Doctor" Joseph Kossuth Dixon, head of the retail chain's education department. In 1909 Wanamaker proposed the privately funded memorial at a banquet in New York attended by Buffalo Bill Cody among others. On April 4, 1911, Congress adopted an Act to set aside the federal land needed for the project but did not otherwise provide for any expenses.

Sculptor Daniel Chester French and architect Thomas Hastings, both already well known at the time, came up with a general concept and sketch of the memorial, which included the statue of an Indian standing on an Aztec-like pyramid base atop an Egyptian Revival complex of museums, galleries and libraries, surrounded by a stepped plaza and formal gardens with sculptures of bison and Indians on horseback.

On a rainy Washington's Birthday in 1913, President William Howard Taft broke ground with a silver spade amidst a massive ceremony that included at least two 21-gun salutes from nearby Battery Weed and a naval gunboat. Also in attendance were 32 or 33 American Indian chiefs, including Red Hawk and Two Moons.

It was soon discovered, however, that Wanamaker was not to be the donor of the cost of the project, but rather its chief fundraiser. Very little money was actually raised, and newspapers that were originally supportive now called the project "philanthropic humbug." With the advent of World War I in 1914, enthusiasm for the unfunded project on the site of a harbor defense installation waned. A bronze plaque that marked the site of the ground-breaking was gone by the 1960s at the latest.

Recently a local Native American group called The Red Storm Drum & Dance Troupe has reached out to President Donald Trump to revive the project, suggesting one on a smaller scale (the new statue, to be erected by sculptor Gregory Perillo, would be only 25 feet tall) than originally proposed.[1] !!!!!!!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_American_Indian_Memorial

Here is the Novartis Foundation page for patients looking for financial assistance and also the drugs Novartis makes covered under their program.

Patient Assistance Foundation Enrollment

The Novartis Patient Assistance Foundation, Inc. (NPAF) is committed to providing access to Novartis medications for those most in need. If you are experiencing financial hardship and have limited or no prescription coverage, then you may be eligible to receive Novartis medications for free.

To be eligible for NPAF assistance, you must:

Be a US resident
Meet the income requirements below
Have limited or no private or public prescription coverage
Household Size Annual Household Income Threshold

1 Person < $ 75,000
2 People < $100,000
3 People < $125,000
4 People < $150,000
>5 People Add $25,000 for each additional person

To enroll, select your medication from the list below and follow the directions provided.

Here is link and list of about 60 (lost count) drugs they market under the Novartis Foundation:

https://www.novartis.us/our-products/patient-assistance/patient-assistance-foundation-enrollment

Here is the Cosentyx web site as an example that even matches doctor to patient and medication.

https://www.cosentyx.com/ankylosing-spondylitis/index

But bounty or not, Russian bounties do not appear to have had any impact.

Isn't this (financial support to proxies) business as usual and something the USA does as well?

That said I do not dismiss Trump ignoring intelligence and sniffing Putin's anus.

But the fatality facts are:

U.S. fatalities by month in only Afghanistan according to iCasualties.org
Year J F M A M J J A S O N D Total
2001 – – – – – – – – – 2 2 3 7
2002 10 1 9 4 1 3 0 1 0 0 0 1 30
2003 4 1 8 2 1 2 1 4 1 3 6 0 33
2004 9 2 3 1 8 4 2 3 4 5 7 1 49
2005 2 1 5 18 4 26 2 15 11 4 2 3 93
2006 1 7 7 1 11 18 9 10 6 10 7 1 88
2007 0 12 3 8 11 12 13 18 8 9 11 6 111
2008 7 1 7 5 16 28 20 22 27 16 1 3 153
2009 14 15 13 6 12 24 44 51 37 59 17 18 310
2010 30 31 24 19 34 60 65 55 42 60 53 33 496
2011 24 18 29 46 35 47 37 70 42 31 18 15 412
2012 26 10 18 34 39 29 41 39 19 17 16 13 301
2013 3 1 15 13 19 17 11 11 8 9 3 10 120
2014 7 6 0 4 4 13 3 5 5 2 3 3 54
2015 0 0 0 1 1 2 0 3 1 8 0 6 22
2016 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 4 1 14
2017 0 0 1 3 0 3 1 3 2 1 2 1 17
2018 1 0 0 1 0 0 2 1 2 1 5 2 15
2019 2 0 2 3 2 2 3 3 2 0 2 1 22
2020 4 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan

We have moved into a post-full employment economy.

The distribution of income and wealth has become so skewed that our capitalism has become unjust and unstable.

Don't think many international trips are in the plans of most Americans in the immediate future.

Maybe if too much income you should pay more taxes?

One would think a functional thriving society able to withstand down periods is a worthy national goal.

establishing a permanent livable guaranteed federal income is a good thing and there is no time like the present.

In the cases of catastrophe (war, pandemic, et al), there would not be the economic disruption we now endure (and that will get worse).

Such payments would not be socialism but rather can be phrased as well-regulated and stabilized capitalism.

The GOP convention is scheduled for 8/24 to 8/27/20.

Some halfway normal candidate without perceived huge Trump ties or bull goose loony craziness is selected say Nikki Haley?

Who else could be a replacement GOP candidate?

Then the Lincoln Project (who we should not trust) pivots to the new GOP candidate and the GOP takes credit for removing Trump.

Trump steps down and is pardoned by Pence who serves out the end of the Trump POTUS but also removes himself from the 2020 ticket.

Trump is blamed for mismanaging the pandemic. The Democratic Party is blamed for everything else.

I think we should be prepared for something like a replacement for Trump happening, a fresh face to most voters.

Also these never Trump GOP ala the Lincoln Project are not pals of the Democratic Party but GOP looking to position themselves for opportunity and political survival.

This should be a strong warning about opening restaurants too soon and why buffets are a bad business model for the indefinite future

The Four Men Responsible For America’s COVID-19 Test Disaster

The White House’s inability to track the disease as it spread across the nation crippled the government’s response and led to the worst disaster this country has faced in nearly a century

Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control, flanked Donald Trump at the podium in the White House briefing room. It was February 29th, the day of the first reported U.S. death from the coronavirus, and the president fielded an urgent question: “How should Americans prepare for this virus?” a reporter asked. “Should they go on with their daily lives? Change their routine? What should they do?”

In that moment, America was flying blind into a pandemic; the virus was on the loose, and nobody quite knew where. The lives of tens of thousands hinged on the advice about to be delivered by the president and his top public-health advisers. Trump began: “Well, I hope they don’t change their routine,” before he trailed off, and, quite uncharacteristically, called on an expert to finish the response. “Bob?” he said. “Do you want to answer that?”

A tall man, with a tan, freckled head, and a snow-white chinstrap beard, Redfield stepped to the podium. “The risk at this time is low,” Redfield told the country. “The American public needs to go on with their normal lives.”

This reassurance came at precisely, and tragically, the wrong time. With a different answer, much of the human devastation that was about to unfold in the United States would have been avoidable. Academic research from Imperial College in London, modeling the U.S. response, estimates that up to 90 percent of COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented had the U.S. moved to shut down by March 2nd. Instead, administration leaders dragged their feet for another two weeks, as the virus continued a silent, exponential assault. By early May, more than 75,000 Americans were dead.

Rest of article at: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/covid-19-test-trump-admin-failed-disaster-995930/

These timeless songs, Son of Orange County and More Trouble Every Day, originally referred to Nixon but work well for Reagan and now Trump (1973 recording).

for tree planting, not a Pulaski.

A Pulaski is a fire tool with a pick on one side and a axe blade on the other.

A hoedad is like a very long bladed hoe (they come in different sizes) that is hit into the ground and rocked to make a hole for planting bare root or container seedlings.

Hoedad



Pulaski