Mindconnection eNL, 2026-10-04

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In this issue:
Good News | Product Highlight | Brainpower | Finances | Security | Health/Fitness | Factoid | Thought 4 the Day

1. "The stock market has set 59 record highs since Trump 2.0 started." [Jeff Childers, Coffee & Covid, 23SEP2026]
   
   
2. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez, a communist in The People's Republic of Illinois, wants to dismantle DHS because ICE has been so effective at removing the illegal aliens who form a major part of their voting base.
   
   
3. The communist lamestream media have been fixated on the President's barring three fake news outlets from being included in the very limited space of the White House. They are calling it a violation of the First Amendment, which is a patently stupid claim. This dishonesty on their part is further alienating them from their declining viewer base. Since they have no credibility among anyone but the extremely gullible, how can they possibly complain that this is costing them anything? And since they make up their BS regardless of what goes on in the White House or what the President says, how can they claim they being excluded in any way that means anything? Why don't they just lie about access as well and claim they totally have it?
   
   
4. "Combined with a record stock market, nearly full employment, steady GDP growth, and rising wages, the economic indicators are as strong as they could be without overheating. Gas prices are a continuing irritant, but even those, when adjusted for inflation, are still below Biden peaks. (Inflation, as we’ve noted before, is a hangover from Biden’s money-printing parties.)" [Jeff Childers, Coffee & Covid, 28SEP2026].
   
   
5. Massive $15 billion steel mill being constructed in Iowa, $100 million manufacturing plant being built (by Amazon) in Indiana (with wages well above the regional average). According to Elizabeth Moron, "Tru-ump" is running a disastrous economy. Yet, these two projects are not anomalies but are instead part of a series of record-breaking economic accomplishments. During the Communist Occupation, of which Elizabeth Moron is so proud, not even ONE such project was announced.
   
   
6. "President Trump canceled almost $1 billion in federal funding on Friday using the “pocket rescission” process, which allows him to sidestep congressional approval.
   The largest portion involved $567 million appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services to provide social services to illegal immigrants, including through grants to non-government organizations.
   The funds were deemed to be no longer necessary because of the near-elimination of illegal border crossings in the past year.
   Other cuts aligned with Trump’s anti-DEI agenda, including sex-change procedure research, minority business development, and the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Services, which the White House said promoted identity-conscious law enforcement practices." [The Flyover, 27SEP2026]
   
   
7. Given that our annual deficit spending is $2 trillion (2 followed by 12 zeroes), cutting "only" $1 billion (1 followed by 9 zeroes) doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment. It's a reduction of about half a percent. But it is progress. That's a billion dollars we will not be paying interest on and that will not be inflating the money supply (debasing the dollar). If you add this to the spending reduced vis a vis DOGE, you have a noticeable dent. However, there is no way we can cut the entire $2 trillion of excess spending.
   
   So what are we to do? We have to increase the other side of the balance sheet, that's what. President Trump has worked aggressively on that, for example by getting foreign companies to invest $18 trillion into USA manufacturing last year. That is $16 trillion more than our spending gap. As that continues to kick in, federal receipts continue to rise even with the OBBB tax cuts. In fact, the OBBB tax cuts removed one of the key constraints to economic growth so those will also cause federal receipts to rise. This is in stark contrast to what got us in this bad place to begin with: the four years of the Communist Occupation with its idiotically massive spending on leftwing stupidity (DEI, Green New Scam, etc.) and its severely depressing economic policies. We go from waste and shrinkage to stewardship and growth. THAT is how we will close the spending gap. But it's like a garden, you need time for the plants to grow, flower, and fruit. Vote against the commies this November so that can happen.
   
   

• LIFE-CHANGING: The Rocket Pen will help your child read independently in just days. This is the reading pen most often chosen by teachers and recommended for dyslexia support.
• 6-IN-1 READING TUTOR SYSTEM: Go beyond basic text-to-speech with spelling, syllabication (Orton-Gillingham inspired), phrasal verb lookup, idiom definitions, color-coded dictionary fields, and real-time word highlighting—designed to improve decoding, comprehension, and fluency.
   
• READS ANY SURFACE. Scans what you actually read from: phone, tablet, PC, other screens - not just paper. We could not find a single other reading pen that can do this. But the Rocket Pen can.
   
• READER PEN: You scan, it reads aloud individual words and even multiple lines of text in natural voice. Helps those with dyslexia or other reading-challenges gain reading independence. Earbuds automatically mute the built-in speaker to avoid classroom stigma. Select different voices for playback, lefthand or righthand use, left or right scan direction.
• REALLY BIG DICTIONARIES: A reader pen's word recognition capability depends on the depth of its onboard dictionary references. The Rocket Pen has the New Oxford American Dictionary with over twice the entries of the best competing reading pens, plus the Oxford American Children’s Dictionary. It also has the Oxford Thesaurus of English and Oxford American Children’s Thesaurus. All of these are Americanized. The Rocket Pen scans English and French only, but contains an English to Spanish dictionary and a French definitions dictionary (French to French).
• COMES COMPLETE. Self-contained, no computer, tablet, phone, or Wi-Fi required. Kit includes Rocket Pen reading tutor, USB charging cable, Quick Start Guide, earphones, and case. Meets FCC, ROHS, and CE standards, and conquers illiteracy.
• BACKED BY EXPERIENCE. The lead developers of the Rocket Pen Reading Tutor each have over 25 years of experience in reading assistive devices, and yet the Rocket Pen is the newest and most advanced reading pen on the market. And the only one with reading tutor functions

In our Amazon store you will see more offerings, including:

Disability Products:

(We are the sole Amazon seller for these)

• BlindShell phones for the blind
• RealSAM Pocket, which is a voice operated Galaxy smart phone for the blind
• SmartPens4U Rocket Pen Reading Tutor Scanning Pen | Case Bundle Black | Case Bundle Lavender

Tools:

• AEM instruments
• Bahco tools
• Case tools
• CAT tools
• CPS tools
• Irwin saw blades
• Mayes tools
• Rigid Tools work lights and related
• Vessel tools
• Wera tools
• Wiha tools
• Williams tools

More:

• American Hard Bag aftermarket sound system parts for Harley Davidson motorcycles
• Centerpoint Archery devices
• Cold Steel knives
• Dead Downwind hunting products
• G5 hunting products
• Flexilla hose connectors
• Funko collectibles
• Liberty Monitors hidden camera gadgets
• Mike Holt Electrical Exam Preparation products
• Nagy's aftermarket sound system parts for Harley Davidson motorcycles
• Paraben Consumer data recovery sticks, porn detection sticks, and similar diagnostic/ IT tools
• ROK straps
• Rostra universal cruise control kits
• Shwacker archery products

In our eBay store, you will see a lot of radios and related gear:

Radios:

• Anytone 10 meter radios
• Connex 10 meter radios
• Dosy meters
• General (brand) radios
• Galaxy 10 meter and 11 meter (CB) radios
• President 10 and 11 meter radios
• Ranger 10 meter radios
• Texas Ranger radios (Chuck Norris not included, sorry)
• Uniden radios and scanners

I got an e-mail from a former Covid mask fanatic who "got all of my shots". Yes, he is a registered communist ("Democrat") with TDS, profound ignorance, and an unshakeable trust in his comrades in the lamestream media. He is clearly is not a critical thinker. In that email, he said, “...modern medicine has increased our lifespans beyond the life of a normal body.” While this is a good marketing message for the medical industry, it is not true.

You can find human lifespan timelines online if you search. What you will find is that the average life expectancy was about 30–40 years for centuries, but this number is misleading. It was driven almost entirely by extremely high infant and child mortality, not because adults routinely died at 30. Demographic analyses confirm that adults who survived childhood often lived into their 60s or beyond (Hollingsworth, Population Studies, 1977; Finlay, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2001).

Then you will see a sharp rise in life expectancy beginning in the 19th century — before the advent of modern medicine. The rise correlates with improvements in sanitation, clean water, waste removal, food safety, and public health systems, not antibiotics or advanced surgery. Historical public‑health research shows that the “sanitation revolution” was the primary driver of mortality decline (Szreter, Social History of Medicine, 1988; Hardy, British Medical Bulletin, 1993). Water treatment and sewer systems alone account for massive reductions in infectious‑disease mortality (Cutler & Miller, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2005).

Modern medicine is a factor, but its greatest effect is to extend our disease span, not our health span. You will live longer with an ailment due to palliative care and symptom suppression, but you will still fit into an average that has increased only marginally due to medicine. This distinction between lifespan and healthspan is well‑documented in population‑health research (Fries, New England Journal of Medicine, 1980).

The one factor that has most increased the human lifespan is capitalism. Why? Because if you plot lifespan against income level, what clearly jumps out is that poverty is the number one risk factor for early death. Economic historians have shown that improvements in income, nutrition, and living conditions correlate strongly with mortality decline across regions and centuries (Fogel, American Economic Review, 1994; Floud et al., The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, 2011).

There are reasons for this beyond simply access to medical care — which, as noted, has only a marginal effect on average lifespan. For example, someone living in a food desert for 50 years will consume far more processed food than a wealthier person living down the street from Whole Foods in the suburbs. Economic development research consistently shows that diet quality, environmental exposure, education, and chronic stress are major determinants of health outcomes (Deaton, Journal of Economic Literature, 2003).

While socialism redistributes wealth, capitalism creates it. More wealth means less poverty. Even the poorest decile of Americans are richer than the average person in most of the world’s countries. Wealth creation correlates with improved health outcomes and longer lifespans (Pritchett & Summers, Journal of Human Resources, 1996).

We have more billionaires per capita than any other country and four times as many as the much more populous European Union. The EU is bureaucratic and not a friendly place for capitalism. The same analysis works with millionaires. Both of these groups create jobs for people, lifting “the poor” out of poverty. I put “the poor” in quotes because not all of the poor are lifted — but the correlation between national wealth creation and national health outcomes is unmistakable.

I started out with this example to make a larger point about brainpower. Just because something is repeatedly asserted and on its surface has a ring of truth does not mean it is true. Con artists and their ilk rely on people making this very mistake. “It sounds right” does not mean “it is right.”

If someone says, “A caused B,” and there is no immediate reason to doubt that, should you accept the statement? No. Step back and look at the conclusion. Ask, “What else may have caused this?”

You have a working flush toilet in your home, I presume. You do not toss the contents of your chamber pot out the window into the street. You do not drink water drawn from a well next to where human and animal waste was buried. But it was not all that long ago these things were normal. And once they were no longer normal, lifespans began to rise — before modern medicine arrived (Szreter, 1988; Cutler & Miller, 2005).

We can use another example. It’s a very famous one. During World War II, some islanders were astonished to see a large flying craft land on their island. It always brought food. After the war, the troops were gone and so no more planes. The islanders associated the plane with food (A causes B), because every time a plane landed they got more food. After getting quite hungry, they solved their hunger problem by building a “plane” from whatever plant matter they could round up. But no food materialized. Anthropologists call this a cargo cult, a textbook case of mistaking correlation for causation (Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound, 1957).

A variant of A caused B is “If A is true, then B is true.” Someone states a true fact, and then tells you something else as if it is true just because the first was true. This is called a non‑sequitur. When someone spews this at me, I like to reply, “There is water in the ocean. So you owe me five bucks.”

4. Finance tip

Today, I would advise against moving into a larger house. Starter homes are plenty big, if you use them as homes and not as warehouses.

People accumulate crap and "need" more places to stow it. In my subdivision, about half of the home owners fill their garages with boxes of worthless detritus and leave their expensive vehicles parked in the driveway. Common sense says to do it the other way around, except you can't drive through the piles of crap. The solution is to live appropriately in the home you have. Else, you just pay more in property taxes, more to heat and cool, etc.

A larger house doesn't necessarily mean more living space and typically it means even less. Because "more space to put unneeded crap" feeds the accumulation compulsion. If a house feels too crowded, my suggestion would be to move into a smaller one and make the necessary space.

Rather than stretching for a larger home, people need to build a larger life. One not encumbered by a collection of excess stuff.

5. Security tip

6. Health tip/Fitness tips

Age 66 in these photos

Taxation comes in many forms. Most taxation is of the "hidden" type because people do not like being taxed. We also have a myriad of small taxes because, you guessed it, people do not like being taxed. Taxes are necessary, and not necessarily bad. They are bad when they are applied unfairly (I did not say equally), they assessed incorrectly with no recourse (as with IRS or most property tax authorities), collection is unduly harsh (as with IRS), and/or the collected taxes are squandered through fraud, waste, corruption, or incompetence.