Thoughts for the Day, July 30, 2025: The Ying and Yang Continues

The Ying and Yang Continues

In my blog on Monday as part of recommendations for Project 2026/2028 about the importance of having consistent and complementary energy and environmental policies. Yesterday’s announcement by The Environmental Protection Agency declared Liberation Day from climate imperialism by moving to repeal the 2009 so-called endangerment finding for greenhouse gas emissions. This announcement favored by most industries is opposed by most environmentalists.

The Obama and Biden EPAs used the endangerment finding to justify electric-vehicle mandates and rules forcing the retirement of fossil-fuel fired power plants. Some progressives urged them to go further and regulate CO2 emissions from leaf blowers, lawn mowers and commercial buildings to help eliminate the use of fossil fuels. In between Obama and Biden, Trump’s first administration reversed the Obama and Biden mandates.

As I said in my blog on Monday, consistent and complementary energy and environmental policies are a win for the country when it comes to energy independence and environmental stewardship. The constant ying and yang of conflicting policies make it impossible to plan for the future. It is time for Congress to step up and establish rules and laws that recognize that energy independence and environmental stewardship are complementary toward each other.

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Mental Health and the Shooting in NY and the stabbings in TC.

There were two incidents recently that are reminders of how inadequate the mental health services are in our country. There was the incident where 11 people were stabbed at a Walmart in Traverse City, and the incident where four people were killed and the shooter took his own life in New York City.

Fron the Detroit News, the brother of a northern Michigan man accused of stabbing 11 people at a Walmart near Traverse City said his family tried for decades to get him help, raising red flags and saying his loved ones saw an incident like Saturday's attack "coming for years."

Shane Gille said the stabbings were the culmination of years of mental health problems that started when someone gave his brother, Bradford Gille, 42, a pill to put in a bowl of marijuana that had the active ingredient in cough syrup, “and it fried his brain."

"He was never the same after that," he said.

The youngest of three boys, Bradford Gille was “the meek one,” his brother said. “When he came home (from smoking the pill), his eyes were dark, and he was speaking gibberish.” The mental health problems escalated after that, Shane Gille said. “He never got better,” he said. “We got a call that he was in Pennsylvania running down the road naked. That kind of thing happened all the time.”

From the Wall Street Journal, the gunman who killed four people in a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper accused the National Football League in a suicide note of concealing the dangers of the sport on players’ brains, according to a New York Police Department official.

Shane Tamura, 27 years old, used an AR-15-style rifle to kill an NYPD police officer in the lobby of the building, as well as a security guard, an executive of financial firm Blackstone and a real-estate firm employee before shooting himself in the chest, police said.

Investigators recovered three pieces of paper from Tamura’s wallet that included a request that his brain be studied for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the official said. The disease is associated with head injuries that can be diagnosed conclusively after an autopsy. Police say Tamura, who lived in Las Vegas and had a history of mental illness, played football in high school.

“The league knowingly concealed the dangers to our brains to maximize profits,” the note said on one page, according to the official. “They failed us.”

This problem is only going to get worse as less people are becoming mental health providers and mental health services are less available.

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We must support our troops through action not words.

Long time readers of this blog know that I feel the way we treat our veterans borders on neglect when it comes to healthcare services. I have always believed that veterans should have the same healthcare coverage as our members of congress. Here is another article about how we need to improve how we treat our military personnel.

From an NY Times opinion article, the United States still must be prepared to wage a major conflict. And while there is no doubt that the U.S. military remains the most powerful and capable fighting force in the world, it is suffering from systemic challenges in a critical component of warfighting success: personnel readiness.

Even on the modern high-tech battlefield, war is still a people business. For the Department of Defense, this means it must care for its people along with developing its weapons in order to maintain lethality while also creating an environment that incentivizes Americans to continue to serve. When service members and their families cannot rely on the programs that are intended to ensure their quality of life, it distracts them from their duties, which inevitably limits their effectiveness in combat.

The system is responsible for caring for over nine million uniformed service members, military families, retirees and contractors around the world, while also providing care for wounded service members at home. But the system has been declining, and budgets for military hospitals have fallen by nearly 12 percent since 2015. As a result, its ability to provide adequate care to these groups and support the Defense Department in a major conflict has become severely compromised

Military treatment facilities face a global maintenance backlog exceeding $10 billion, which has led many of the system’s hospitals to fall into disrepair. The Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, outside Washington., which routinely treats presidents and members of Congress, had to evacuate several clinics this year, owing to burst pipes that resulted from delayed maintenance.

Military housing is also in disarray. In October, the Government Accountability Office found that persistent housing shortfalls for military families in some areas threaten overall quality of life and financial stability for service members and could lead to negative effects on performance and mission, especially for lower ranked, junior personnel. Other facilities and services designed to support military families — in particular day care centers on military bases —are increasingly strained as well.

The Navy secretary John Phelan was apparently shocked after touring barracks for sailors and Marines in Guam in May. The barracks were plagued with mold, exposed electrical wiring and damaged plumbing, which made the building practically unlivable. That situation is unfortunately not unique...

It is also imperative that both Congress and the administration resist pressure or temptation to redirect this money to other priorities, as has happened in the past. The lobbying power of major defense acquisition programs far outmatches those speaking up for military personnel. The military, too, has had to redirect money from quality of life initiatives to other more urgent priorities. This occurred most recently when the Defense Department planned to shift $1 billion away from barracks improvements to support efforts to improve border security. That mission is critical to our nation’s safety, but there have been times when the Pentagon has prioritized funds to sustain missions less essential to national security…

Leaders at the Pentagon and in Congress must avoid these… Military housing and health facilities can’t sink Chinese ships in the Taiwan Strait or shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles in the Persian Gulf. But the administration must understand that future diversions will continue to erode the quality of the Military Health System and military housing, undermining personnel morale, readiness and retention and diluting recruiting power.

The individuals who serve in our military are some of the best, brightest and bravest our country has to offer. This was recently exemplified by the dozens of pilots who flew a 37-hour round-trip mission to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, a feat unmatched in American military aviation history. But in order for service members to be successful at fighting and winning America’s wars, they must have quality housing, health care and services that enable them to focus on their core responsibilities.

As Gen. George C. Marshall reportedly told an aide, “We are going to take care of the troops first, last and all the time.” This is my Quote of the Day

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The Tigers

Welcome, Chris Paddack. Welcome back, Kerry Carpenter and Andy Ibanez. It may be a coincidence, but when two pure hitters come back to the lineup, good things happen. After losing 12 of 13 and struggling to score more than one run in a game, the Tigers have now won four in a row. In the four games the Tigers scored 34 runs and everyone in the line-up has contributed.

In today’s game, the Tigers scored seven runs and newly acquired pitcher Chris Paddack, pitched a strong six innings, giving up only 1 run before turning it over to the bullpen.

With the four-game win streak, the Tigers have reclaimed the best record in the American League and their 64 wins are tied with the Brewers for the most wins in baseball, which is amazing considering the recent losing streak.

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Quote of the Day: “We are going to take care of the troops first, last and all the time.” General George C. Marshall

Orchid of the Day: The Tigers’ four-game win streak. The heartburn is easing.

Onion of the Day: The ying and yang of our inconsistent energy independence and environmental stewardship policies.

Question of the Day: What will it take to improve mental health services in this country to prevent what happened in Traverse City and NYC?

Lyrics of the Day: “So lock up your daughter and lock up your wife. Lock up your back door and run for your life. The man is back in town, so don’t you mess me ‘round.”

If you think you know the lyrics send me your answer in the comments section of the blog.

Answer to Lyrics of the Day for July 28: Daydream Believer by the Monkees

Video of the Day: The Monkees

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