Are the Bani Hashish tribes in Yemen related to AnsarAllah?

 The Bani Hashish tribes in Yemen are politically and militarily aligned with AnsarAllah (the Houthis), serving as a critical support base for the group rather than being ancestral relatives. [1, 2]

Here is how their relationship operates:

• Political and Military Alliance: The Bani Hashish tribe, located in the Sana'a Governorate, regularly answers mobilization calls from AnsarAllah's leadership. They frequently stage armed gatherings, provide tribal fighters, and deploy resources to support Houthi military campaigns. [1, 2]
• Geographic and Sectarian Connection: Like the core leadership of AnsarAllah, the Bani Hashish district and its tribes are predominantly of the Zaydi Shia sect, creating a shared ideological and regional bond. [1, 2]
• Distinction from the Al-Houthi Family: While the Bani Hashish tribesmen act as key operational allies and fighters, they are distinct from the Banu Houth tribe and the Al-Houthi family, who comprise the top religious and political leadership of the AnsarAllah movement. [1]

About Political Grief

 The stages of grief refer to frameworks that describe the emotional journey people experience following a major loss. The most famous of these is the Kübler-Ross model, introduced by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969. Originally observed in terminally ill patients, the model was later expanded to encompass any major life disruption, from the death of a loved one to a relationship breakup. [1, 2, 3]

Modern psychology emphasizes that grief is non-linear. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and people often skip stages, repeat them, or experience multiple emotions simultaneously. [1, 2, 3, 4]

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The Classic Five Stages (DABDA)

Developed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and later co-authored with David Kessler, this classic framework outlines five core emotional states: [1, 2]

• Denial: The initial shock and disbelief. You may feel numb or find yourself thinking, "This can't be real." It acts as a temporary defense mechanism to blunt the immediate intensity of the pain. [1, 2]
• Anger: As reality sets in, the emotional pain manifests as frustration, helplessness, or resentment. This anger might be directed outward at doctors, family, the universe, or inward at yourself. [1, 2, 3]
• Bargaining: A desperate attempt to regain control. This stage involves "what-if" thinking or mentally negotiating to alter the outcome (e.g., "If I could trade my life for theirs..."). [1, 2, 3, 4]
• Depression: The full realization of the loss hits, leading to intense sadness, emptiness, and isolation. This is a natural reaction to the gravity of the situation, rather than a clinical mental illness. [1, 2, 3]
• Acceptance: This does not mean you are "okay" with the loss or that the pain vanishes. Instead, it means you acknowledge the new reality, make peace with the finality of the situation, and begin figuring out how to move forward. [1, 2, 3]

Political grief is a recognized psychological response to sociopolitical losses, election outcomes, or systemic shifts that fundamentally threaten a person's sense of safety, core values, and identity. [1, 2]

When a major political event or policy shift occurs, it can rupture what psychologists call your "assumptive world"—the deeply held, internal mental model that makes the world feel safe, predictable, and fair. [1]

Why Political Grief Feels So Heavy

Unlike the loss of a loved one, political grief presents unique psychological challenges:

• It is often disenfranchised: Disenfranchised grief is a loss that isn't openly acknowledged, socially validated, or publicly mourned. Society has clear rituals for funerals, but it rarely offers collective grace for the deep emotional devastation felt after an election loss or policy change. [1, 2]
• It brings ambiguous loss: Because the loss isn't a single, physical death, it can feel continuous, lingering, and lacking concrete closure. People often oscillate between periods of intense hope and profound despair as events unfold gradually over years. [1]
• It triggers survival states: Because the "threat" is systemic, the nervous system often misinterprets the news as an immediate physical danger, manifesting as Fight (moral outrage, online insults), Flight (total news avoidance, doomscrolling), Freeze (political apathy, numbness), or Submission (faking agreement to avoid conflict). [1, 2]

How the "Stages" Apply to Politics

The traditional stages of grief map closely onto the political experience:

• Denial: Feeling immediate numbness, shock, or a refusal to accept polling data or legislative results.
• Anger: Directing intense frustration toward opposing voters, institutions, or the system at large.
• Bargaining: Ruminating on "what-if" scenarios ("If only this candidate had campaigned differently...").
• Depression: Feeling profound hopelessness, fatigue, and a belief that "all is lost" or that personal action no longer matters.
• Acceptance: Reconciling the world as it now exists with the world you thought existed, allowing you to regain internal clarity. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Things You Can Try Today to Cope

If you are navigating political grief, mental health professionals recommend focusing on your immediate sphere of influence to restore internal peace: [1, 2]

• Establish a news boundary: Give your nervous system a break. Set a specific, limited window to check the news rather than allowing 24-hour notifications to continuously re-trigger your threat response.
• Name it to tame it: Validate your own feelings. Remind yourself that feeling deeply about the state of the world isn't "overreacting"—it is a sign that your empathy is entirely intact.
• Channel grief into agency: Research consistently shows that civic activism acts as a powerful psychological buffer against sociopolitical distress. Channeling emotional energy into local community volunteering, mutual aid, or grassroots campaigns helps restore a sense of personal control.
• Find "concordant" spaces: Seek out community groups, trusted friends, or a professional therapist who share your values or understand the emotional weight of public events so you can express yourself without judgment. [1, 2, 3,

Were local health departments stronger and more involved in treatment prior to the spread and growth of Medicare? And were poor people cared for by local resources?

 Prior to the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, local health departments were far more centrally involved in providing direct, hands-on clinical treatment than they are today, and the care of impoverished individuals relied heavily on a patchwork of local tax-funded resources and informal charity. [1, 2]

The introduction of federal health insurance programs fundamentally shifted the landscape of American healthcare, moving local health departments away from direct treatment and transferring financial responsibility from localized welfare systems to the federal and state governments. [1]

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Direct Medical Treatment via Local Health Departments

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as public health departments expanded in major cities, they actively moved into clinical personal care. Because wide swaths of the public—particularly the urban poor—could not access private doctors, local health departments built a massive infrastructure of clinical services: [1]

• Specialized Clinics: By the 1910s and 1920s, cities ran hundreds of dedicated local clinics for tuberculosis treatment, venereal disease control, and infant/maternal care. [1]
• School and Home Visits: City health departments deployed legions of public health nurses to conduct school examinations and make home medical visits directly to patients. [1]
• The Post-Medicare Shift: When Medicare and Medicaid were enacted, billions of federal dollars flowed directly to hospitals and private physicians. Poor and elderly patients could suddenly seek care in the private sector rather than relying on public health clinics. Consequently, local health departments pivoted away from general medical treatment to focus more heavily on population-level prevention, environmental health, and data tracking. [1]

Indigent Care and Local Resources

For nearly 300 years before modern federal welfare, the primary safety net for the poor was entirely local, deeply rooted in the traditions of the British 1601 Elizabethan Poor Law brought over by early colonists. Under this system, local resources handled indigent care through specific mechanisms: [1, 2]

• Local Tax-Funded Assistance: Municipalities and counties were legally mandated to care for their destitute residents. Poor relief was frequently the single largest line item in local town budgets during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Local taxes directly paid local doctors, grocers, and homeowners to care for the sick and poor. [1]
• Almshouses and County Hospitals: As cities grew, they built local institutions to consolidate this care. These began as town "poorhouses" or "almshouses" but eventually evolved into public safety-net hospitals—such as New York's Bellevue Hospital or San Francisco's Laguna Honda—funded completely by local taxpayers to serve the immediate community. [1, 2, 3]
• The Sliding Scale and Barter Economy: For poor people living outside of major cities, private physicians operated on an informal "sliding scale," intentionally overcharging wealthy patients to subsidize free "charity care" for the indigent. In rural areas, doctors frequently accepted bartered goods—like poultry, crops, or firewood—in lieu of cash payments. [1]

While these local resources provided a vital baseline of survival, the care was highly fragmented, unequal from town to town, and entirely dependent on the financial health of the local community—a reality that ultimately drove the push for centralized federal funding in the mid-20th century. [1, 2]

Ray McGovern letters to Washington

 As a prominent anti-war activist and former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern has written several high-profile letters and open memos addressed to officials in Washington, D.C. Depending on the context of your search, you are likely looking for one of these two notable letters:

1. The 2010 Memo to Representative David Obey ("Obey Obeys")

On May 27, 2010, McGovern wrote a highly publicized open memorandum titled "Duck the Challenge" to Representative David Obey (D-WI), who was then the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. [1]

• The Core Message: McGovern expressed his profound disappointment in Obey's decision to continue funding the war in Afghanistan via a $33 billion supplemental appropriations bill. [1]
• Key Context: Obey had previously referred to the war in Afghanistan as a "fool's errand," yet he still moved forward with funding it, citing that he was "bone-tired". McGovern sharply criticized this justification, writing: "When 'heartland progressives' get 'bone-tired,' that is precisely the time when they should stick to their principles and go out fighting." [1]

2. The 2006 Letter Returning His CIA Commendation Medallion

In March 2006, McGovern sent an open letter to Congressman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), who was serving as the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. [1]

• The Core Message: McGovern used the letter to officially return his Intelligence Commendation Award medallion in protest of the agency's involvement in human rights abuses. [1]
• Key Context: He stated that he did not want to be associated in any capacity with an intelligence community that engaged in torture. To draw attention to the letter, McGovern and other activists walked the halls of Congress wearing orange jumpsuits and mouth gags to protest conditions at Guantanamo Bay. [1]

If you are looking for a specific text or a different letter written by McGovern (such as his memos through Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity), let me know which official or topic you are focusing on!

 --> The latest this week past.

The latest letter authored by Ray McGovern was released on November 3, 2026. It is an official open memorandum titled "Iran Is Not Bluffing," published through the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). [1]

• The Target: The memorandum is addressed directly to President Donald Trump.
• The Core Message: McGovern and the VIPS group issue a stern warning regarding the immediate risk of conflict escalation in the Middle East. The letter details the severe strategic and economic disasters awaiting the United States if it resumes or escalates military operations against Iran, ultimately urging the administration to seek diplomatic de-escalation. [1]

You can read the announcement and related updates directly via Ray McGovern's Official Site. [1

This link was prompted by Ray's appearance at Dialogue Works.

 https://www.youtube.com/live/DdsT9ZEAZSc?si=LmFwPqIdZEAonBDf