PayPal a Tyrannical Money Platform Exerting Absolute Control

by Allen Williams

After nearly two months of waiting I had a choice to make: (1) Did I want to forget my refund on the AC compressor and just dump PayPal? Or (2) Would I buy a another cellphone to act as a mobile number and get back to PayPal? Since my refund was over $200, I had to take Option 2 and buy another phone. Only two places provide this service Walmart and Target. However only Target has the ability to get the phone registered and operational as Walmart didn't have a clue. A young lady at Walmart recommended I buy from Target and so I took the advice. The phone and service was set up relatively quickly as there was a pretty substantial disconnect between Target staff and the phone carrier. It appears that 'stupid' is the new normal. However I still had to get PayPal to accept the new mobile phone.

After I entered the number via the mobile request popup screen, PayPal shifted into overdrive. First they called me on the new phone and had me type in the special code that was sent via the phone (I had to type it in using the cellphone key pad. Then I had to answer a bunch of questions where I selected additional methods of confirming my identity and so on.

At last I was BACK IN! As I entered the platform I scarcely recognized it, it was packed with all kinds of new options, most of which I would never use. After the brief tour, I came across a message from 'ZY' who was some lower level executive, apologetic regarding the problems I experienced logging in for nearly two months. That's when I lost it and promptly fired back with a response that's not fit to repeat. If PayPal was so concerned about my identity, why didn't they answer my requests? Because they wanted to force me to comply with the phone request. They have no respect for any of their customers, they are just 'cash cows' to be milked at will. Additionally PayPal was informed of their survey they sent me republished on Sitejabber. I wouldn't recommend them to clean toilets.

Why didn't they put a 'skip link' on the mobile phone where at least I could have gotten into the system and stated my objections. It is unprecedented to force somebody to use a particular 2nd phone to satisfy bogus identity issues. Technically they have no right to lock me out of may own account when I haven't violated any of their standards.

PayPal is out of luck because my mobile phone doesn't feature the ability to text as I requested. If they want to text me they will have to use the primary phone that they have had from the very beginning. All these financial platforms outsource their help personnel to India, Bangladesh or someplace where no one can speak English very well to keep from paying American workers to do the job. Get used to this until Artificial Intelligence (AI) can start doing the job and then these foreigners will be out of a job too'

I have my refund now so they will NOT pull this crap on me again.

Update 4-25-2023
Yesterday I received a call from PayPal about my account. It was a real person and not a BOT. However it was a reasonable facsimile in the form of a Chinese woman named Tina.(I ultimately wound up talking to two different women to get this issue resolved but was not successful.) I wouldn't be pursuing it now but I am expecting an EBAY REFUND on a purchase I made and..

Related: Report: Woke PayPal REINSTATES $2,500 Fine for Spreading 'Inaccurate' Information


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Banning Gas Stoves..Things you need to Know


close up of burning stove


For basically forever, gas stoves have been the preferred cooking appliance of professional chefs and at-home gourmets alike. They offer far greater temperature control compared to their electric counterparts, and there’s just something special about cooking over a live flame vs a glowing red coil. But lately, gas stoves have come under fire … uh, figuratively.

The hoopla began earlier this month when Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Commissioner Richard L. Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg that his agency was considering a ban on gas stoves in the US. The reason for a potential ban, Trumka cited, was related to health risks posed by natural gas stoves, as numerous studies have shown that the fumes they emit cause significant health risks. These risks potentially include cancer and respiratory illness, but the strongest evidence links their use to childhood asthma. (A recently-published study from the peer-reviewed International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that nearly 13% of childhood asthma in the US was caused by gas stoves.)

cooking on gas
SolStockGetty Images

Trumka’s quote set off an absolute firestorm of panic about gas stoves. Much of that panic came from the right-wing media machine, which seemed more than happy to open up yet another battlefield in their ongoing culture wars as red meat to feed to their base (cooked on a gas stove, naturally). With deluded fears of federal agents breaking down their doors and dragging out their gas stoves, many people began to see the gas stove as a symbol of freedom against government overreach. But let’s take a deep breath (away from the gas stove, please) and look at what’s actually going on with your gas stove.

No one is coming to take your gas stove

Even if gas stoves do end up being banned in the US, that doesn’t mean you’ll have to give up the stove that’s already in your kitchen. “We are not looking to go into anyone’s homes and take away items that are already there. We don’t do that,” Trumka told CNN in an interview. Any potential ban would only apply to new products, and not the 40% of US households that already have a gas stove, as the commissioner went on to explain. “If and when we get to regulation on the topic, it’s always forward-looking. You know, it applies to new products. Consumers always have the choice of what to keep in their homes and we want to make sure they do that with full information.”

The president opposes a gas stove ban

Even if you don’t own a gas stove currently but are hoping to buy one in the future, you shouldn’t anticipate any federal ban going into effect as long as President Biden is in office. The 46th US President is against banning gas stoves, according to White House spokesman Michael Kikukawa, who was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “The President does not support banning gas stoves. And the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves.”

However, even without federal intervention, gas stoves will likely be harder to come by in new buildings in the future, as a number of cities (and a few states) have already enacted or are looking into bans that would prohibit natural gas lines from being built into new construction, effectively banning gas stoves along with gas furnaces and water heaters.

close up natural gas stove burner with blue flame
Photography by Keith Getter (all rights reserved)Getty Images

What to do if you have a gas stove

Given the dangers associated with gas stoves, you may want to consider swapping yours out if you have one. While the government won’t be forcing you to do so, it will incentivize you to exchange your stove for an electric one. The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by the Biden Administration last year, allows for rebates of up to $840 for the purchase of a new electric stove and up to an additional $500 for the cost of converting your setup from a gas one to an electric one.

If you do insist on cooking with gas, or if your situation doesn’t allow you to pursue other options, there are some safety measures you should consider. Proper ventilation can greatly reduce the risks associated with gas stoves, so always be sure to open the windows in your kitchen (or those closest to your kitchen) and turn on your range hood if you have one to mitigate the negative effects of gas cooking.






Breaking: Rosenstein Personally Approved FBI Raid of Trump Lawyer

by Randy DeSoto


Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein reportedly personally approved the Monday morning FBI raids on President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen’s home and offices.

The New York Times reported that the FBI seized emails, tax documents and records, some of which are related to Cohen’s $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the days before the November 2016 presidential election.

According to The Times, a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller proceeded Rosenstein’s decision to green light the raid.

The Justice Department obtained a search warrant from a federal judge in New York, which would have required prosecutors to argue the FBI would likely find evidence of criminal activity.  A source told The Times that the documents identified in the warrant date back years.  Trump took the DOJ to task on Monday night during a meeting at the White House with his national security team.  He noted that Rosenstein approved a renewal of a FISA warrant, which authorized the FBI to continue surveil Trump campaign associate Carter Page during the early months of the new administration in 2017.

Asked by a reporter if Rosenstein would keep his job, Trump did not respond.  However, the president did voice his frustration with Sessions and Mueller. “(Sessions) should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself, and we would have put a different attorney general in,” Trump said. “So he made what I consider to be a very terrible mistake for the country, but you’ll figure that out.”

Sessions’ recusal led to Rosenstein taking over Russia investigation, which resulted in his appointment of Mueller as special counsel.  The president said the Mueller investigation is “an attack on our country in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for” and called Mueller’s actions against Cohen “a disgrace.”


RELATED: Former Board Member Dershowitz Hammers ACLU for Support of Trump Attorney Raid

Attorney–client privilege is dead!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 10, 2018

Asked whether he will fire Mueller, the president replied, “We’ll see what happens,” and, “Many people have said you should fire him.”

TRACKSIDE - McTique II

by John D'Aloia

A previous TRACKSIDE described New Zealand government reform actions as reported by Maurice P. McTigue in an article entitled "Rolling Back Government" printed in the April 2004 Imprimis, published by Hillsdale College. Space limitations prevented relating other actions taken by McTigue and company.

The reformers believed that subsidies make people dependent, dependent people lose their ingenuity, and dependent people become more dependent. McTigue’s example was sheep farming. Lamb was selling for $12.50 per carcass on the market and the taxpayers were kicking in another $12.50 per. In a one-year period, the government pulled the plug on the subsidy. Sheep ranchers put their heads together and developed a product that, within four years, brought $30 per carcass. By 1999 the price was $115 per carcass. It was forecast that eliminating the subsidy would result in corporate farming eradicating family farms. The opposite happened - corporate farms declined and family farming expanded. Inside the beltway, are you listening?

The New Zealand educational system was failing. More and more money was poured into the system while achievements headed south. McTigue said "It cost us twice as much to get a poorer result than we did 20 years previously with much less money." They found that only 30 cents of every education dollar reached the classroom. (The educrats were well fed.) They eliminated all Boards of Education, and placed each of 4,500 schools under the control of a board of trustees elected by the parents of students at the school. They gave each school a bag of money based on the number of students with no strings attached to the bag. Private schools got the same bag of money, allowing parents to choose which schools got the money for their children. Within 18 months, the large achievement disparity between public and private schools evaporated as teachers were empowered to teach - and realized that without students in their classrooms, they would be without employment. Within three years, New Zealand students went from being 14 or 15 percent below their international peers to 14 or 15 percent above them in academic performance. In Topeka, are you listening?

Every one who has had an encounter of a close kind on a highway with a deer (my encounter was more than close), and farmers, will like the New Zealand approach to managing deer. For 120 years, New Zealand tried to eliminate deer, loosed on the land when they were imported by the English for hunting. The deer were an invasive species - keep that term in mind for it is another ecofascist power play. The reformers authorized farmers and ranchers to farm the deer if they could catch them and keep them behind eight-foot high fences. Voila! The government spent not one cent since on deer eradication and New Zealand has 40 percent of the world’s venison market. In Topeka, are you listening? I think not - many, many sessions ago, a Kansas citizen brought a somewhat similar idea to the dome and was scarcely given the time of day. Why? A private-market solution is a direct threat to the entrenched bureaucracy which exists on the concept that government owns the state’s wild animals. If private citizens can own and manage wild animals, rangers, wardens, and offices in Topeka are superfluous baggage.

I wish McTigue had a bit of influence in Topeka. Not only is Kansas the "High Tax Point on the Prairie", we are spending ourselves into the poor house. The Guv’s staff has estimated that the "short fall" (such a genteel term for spending what you don’t have) for FY2010 would be $188M increasing to $400M in FY2011. Caleb Stegal, in an article posted on Kansas Liberty.com on July 2nd,longed for the good old days when Kansas had a conservative Democrat for governor. He wrote: "[She] abhorred waste in government and the burden of taxation. She vetoed tax increases and used her line-item to strike bloated deficit spending. She balanced the budget and forced an "existing resources" budget through a recalcitrant state legislature which increased general fund spending by only one-half of one percent. (Pause and let that sink in, especially in light of our current GOP-controlled legislature which treats the mere mention of holding to 3% budget increases with the tantrums of a spoiled child.)"

If Kansas Republicans cannot summon up the will to establish a McTigue-like program to straighten things out, perhaps we can find another Governor Finney.


See you Trackside.


Reprinted from the Old Eponym site in honor of former Editor John D'Aloia 

Excerpts reprinted by permission from Imprimis, the national speech digest of Hillsdale College, www.hillsdale.edu. Subscriptions are free upon request.