May 302020
 


Edward Hopper Folly Beach, Charleston, South Carolina 1929

 

Protests Spread Nationwide: Minnesota Curfew, White House Locks Down (JTN)
Unsanitized: Social Unrest When There’s Nothing to Lose (Dayen)
Trump Orders His Administration To Begin Eliminating Hong Kong Privileges (R.)
Trump Says US To Withdraw From WHO. Does He Have The Authority To Do It? (NPR)
Twitter Targets Trump Again, Flagging Tweet After Executive Order (SAC)
Coronavirus Sinks US Consumer Spending As Savings Hit Record High (R.)
Investors Eye Consumer Discretionary Stocks As US Reopens (R.)
A Chronicle of a Lost Decade Foretold (Varoufakis )
Malaria Drug And Zinc, The Missing Link (Berry)
Australian Anti-Vaxxers Label COVID19 a ‘Scam’ At Anti-5G Protests (AAP)
States Are Copying & Pasting Immunity Laws For Nursing Home Execs (Sirota)
De Blasio Ramps Up Destruction Of Homeless Encampments (Gothamist)
No One Knows Where Ghislaine Maxwell Is (Esq.)

 

 

The conversation has shifted away from corona for now. Is that a good thing?

Total global cases pass 6 million as daily new cases set another record at 125,511.

New cases past 24 hours in:

• US + 25,069
• Brazil + 30,739
• Russia + 8,952
• UK 4,938
• India + 8,105
• Peru + 6,506
• Chile + 4,654

 

 

 

Cases 6,054,777 (+ 122,597 from yesterday’s 5,932,180)

Deaths 367,288 (+ 4,674 from yesterday’s 362,614)

 

 

 

 

 

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-:

 

 

From Worldometer:

 

 

From SCMP:

 

 

From COVID19Info.live:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two sides prone to violence.

Protests Spread Nationwide: Minnesota Curfew, White House Locks Down (JTN)

The anger over George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody fueled intense protests coast to coast Friday night, as activists ignored a Minnesota curfew to set new fires while the White House temporarily locked down over security concerns just outside its gates. The arrest and murder charges filed earlier in the day against the police officer who allegedly knelt on Floyd’s neck did little to quell a swelling rage that drove protests in cities as diverse as New York and San Jose. In Atlanta, protesters spray-painted sayings and broke windows at CNN’s headquarters while tense officers in Brooklyn borough lined up to keep angry, chanting protesters from straying from street protests toward business.


The Secret Service on Friday evening put the White House on brief lockdown, sheltering reporters inside the press room, as several videos on social media showed unruly protesters outside of the Treasury Department, adjacent to the heavily fortified White House, and large groups of protesters walking from the city’s historically black U Street neighborhood chanting, “No peace, no justice.” The protests started Tuesday in Minneapolis, where weary residents and officers faced a fourth night of violence, rioting and fire setting. The Minnesota governor activated the national guard and a strict curfew for 8 p.m. was imposed in the Twin Cities, but it failed to keep large numbers of protesters from taking to the streets anew.

Read more …

“..that’s the same brutality..”

Unsanitized: Social Unrest When There’s Nothing to Lose (Dayen)

There’s a reason that Spike Lee set Do the Right Thing on the hottest day of the year in Brooklyn. The pressure from the heat simmered through the community and created sparks that ignited existing tensions. There was a triggering event, which led to a police chokehold and the death of Radio Raheem, and the destruction of Sal’s Pizzeria. The weather was the backdrop as events played out. That was 1989 and it couldn’t be more relevant right now. The death of George Floyd is obviously unforgivable on its own terms. There doesn’t need to be any context. Unreformed police murder in communities of color has been part of America since well before I was born. I have nothing to comment on about looters—at least eight people sent me this Onion headline, “Protestors Criticized For Looting Businesses Without Forming Private Equity Firm First.” (I guess my reputation precedes me.)

I can’t say anything about the burning of the 3rd police precinct. And I have a lot to say about the great misfortune of having Donald J. Trump in a leadership position during this moment, but most of it would be curse words. Decades of disinvestment and routinized brutality and structural racism created these conditions. The officer who killed George Floyd had enough history of violence alone to contribute mightily to this rage. (And yes, Amy Klobuchar declined to prosecute him and many others for these crimes.) But you cannot separate this outpouring of anger from two months of death, economic collapse, and the disproportionate pain raining down right now on communities of color.

Decades of environmental racism have created toxic vectors for spreading the virus; that’s the same brutality. Minority small business owners have had a harder time securing federal aid, owing to more distant relationships with local banks; that’s the same brutality. African Americans are more likely to be in “essential” jobs and unable to work from home and protect themselves; that’s the same brutality. They’re more likely to be in prisons under perhaps the worst conditions of this crisis; that’s definitely the same brutality. “Black Americans are 80 percent more likely than white people to have diabetes,” which puts them at higher risk from COVID-19; that’s the same brutality. Lack of decent food in communities of color, and access to healthcare, and the ability to rent enough space in shelter to physically distance—this is all brutality against a people, manifested today but going back 400 years.

When you are either out of work or on a hair trigger because you know you’re risking your life by going to work; when your business can’t get a bridge loan and you know everything you worked for is about to be extinguished; when you’re cut off from your friends and neighbors; when your source of sustenance is the food bank; when you have nothing to lose, and then on television you see a black man with his neck wedged between a police officer’s knee and the pavement until he chokes, and you hear he died in police custody after pleading “I can’t breathe,” and you remember how those words were spoken by Eric Garner, and you hear that the man was in custody for using counterfeit money and you don’t think that’s a sufficient reason to kill somebody, and you recall that the Minneapolis Police Department has had a really ugly history with the black community for a long time, and when you exhale a little because the cops involved were fired but then the local prosecutor says this murder of a black man doesn’t merit prosecution… what results from this injustice should meet your expectations.

Read more …

It boils down to: how big of a threat is China? Opinionsvary.

Trump Orders His Administration To Begin Eliminating Hong Kong Privileges (R.)

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he was directing his administration to begin the process of eliminating special treatment for Hong Kong, in response to China’s plans to impose new security legislation in the territory. Trump made the announcement at a White House news conference, saying China had broken its word over Hong Kong’s autonomy. He said its move against Hong Kong was a tragedy for the people of Hong Kong, China and the world. “We will take action to revoke Hong Kong’s preferential treatment,” he said, adding that the United States would also impose sanctions on individuals seen as responsible for smothering Hong Kong’s autonomy.


Trump’s move follows Chinese plans to impose new national security legislation on the former British colony. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said the territory no longer warrants special treatment under U.S. law that has enabled it to remain a global financial center. Trump said he was directing his administration to begin the process of eliminating policy agreements on Hong Kong, ranging from extradition treatment to export controls. He said he would also issue a proclamation on Friday to better safeguard vital university research by suspending the entry of foreign nationals from China identified as potential security risks.

Read more …

The WHO has failed/refused to reform the way Trump asked them to.

Trump Says US To Withdraw From WHO. Does He Have The Authority To Do It? (NPR)

President Trump has announced that he is immediately halting the decades-long U.S. membership in the World Health Organization over its response to China’s handling of the coronavirus epidemic. In a press briefing Friday at the White House, Trump said, “We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs.” Trump said the decision came because WHO has “failed to make” reforms the U.S. requested. Last week, Trump sent a letter to WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, outlining his views on how the agency favors China and asking the organization to “commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days.”

It’s not clear what specific reforms the U.S. has requested, because those discussions have not been made public. Nor did Trump say why he acted on the threat after one week rather than waiting a month. The U.S. was a major force in founding WHO in 1948 and is the organization’s top funder, providing around $450 million a year, according to Trump. The level of funding the U.S. provides to WHO has been a sore spot for Trump, who complained at the briefing that the U.S. pays significantly more than China but does not wield more power in the agency. Global health experts said the president’s choice to leave the global health governing body during a pandemic is a dangerous call.

“This decision is really so short-sighted and ill-advised, and all it does is put American lives at risk,” said Dr. Howard Koh, former assistant secretary for health in the Obama administration and now a professor at Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health. “I disagree with the president’s decision,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, in a statement after the announcement. “Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of the United States as well as others in the world need. And withdrawing could make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States.”

It’s questionable whether the president can make a unilateral decision to withdraw from WHO. “It is an overreach of his constitutional powers,” said Larry Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. Gostin said he believes that the president may need congressional approval to terminate U.S. membership in the U.N. agency. “The only situation where he can do this is if Congress had agreed beforehand to give these powers to the president,” said Kelley Lee, a professor of public health at Simon Fraser University. “It is the role of legal advisers to inform the president on what authority he can exert. He is either not receiving good advice or not listening to it.”

Read more …

Thugs, huh?

Twitter Targets Trump Again, Flagging Tweet After Executive Order (SAC)

Twitter flagged and hid a tweet posted by President Donald Trump’s early Friday morning after the president signed an Executive Order challenging the growing political bias in tech companies, whose platforms are meant to be neutral. Trump’s tweet was in response to the growing unrest and rioting in Minnesota, in response to the horrific death of George Floyd while in police custody. Thursday night the situation in Minneapolis escalated again when rioters overran a police precinct, forcing police officers, who were told not to respond by city officials, to evacuate before it was burned to the ground.

Trump signed the Executive Order Thursday aimed at social media giants he says, have been operating as biased publishers rather than platforms for free speech. Trump tweeted that these “THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

The National Guard was sent to assist local authorities in containing the rioting. Earlier the president criticized the city’s mayor, who ordered the evacuation of the precinct saying, “the very weak radical left mayor Jacob Frey” if he didn’t bring the city under control. In response, Twitter flagged the President’s tweet and attached a notice saying “we have placed a public interest notice on this Tweet from @realDonaldTrump.” The tweet is actually hidden from public view but can be viewed if the reader so chooses to click on it. “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence,” said Twitter. “However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”

Read more …

Consumer spending is way down. Therefore, savings must be way up? is that so?

Coronavirus Sinks US Consumer Spending As Savings Hit Record High (R.)

U.S. consumers cut spending by the most on record for the second straight month in April while boosting savings to an all-time high, and the growing frugality reinforced expectations the economy could take years to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The report from the Commerce Department on Friday also showed an economy highly reliant on the government, with financial aid checks from a historic fiscal package worth nearly $3 trillion driving a record surge in personal income. Together with news that monthly exports collapsed, the report left economists anticipating the largest contraction in gross domestic product in the second quarter since the Great Depression. Data has also been dismal this month on the labor market, manufacturing production and homebuilding.

“Right now, the economy is totally dependent upon the largesse of the government,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economics in Holland, Pennsylvania. “Will the federal government keep sending out checks or will the household and business welfare payments dry up?” The Commerce Department said consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, plunged 13.6% last month, the biggest drop since the government started tracking the series in 1959. It eclipsed the previous all-time decrease of 6.9% in March.

[..] Personal income surged a record 10.5% last month. Without the government money, income would have declined 6.3% with business closures pushing wages down 8.0%. The unprecedented economic upheaval saw the saving rate hitting a record 33%. “If the economy reopens quickly without consequence, the millions who lost jobs are hired back and have no reason to fear they will lose their jobs again, these savings represent considerable spending power in the second half,” said Chris Low, chief economist at FHN in New York. “If it takes longer to reopen the economy, these savings will be used for sustenance over the next few months. They will limit the decline, but not fuel a sharp rebound.”

[..] In a second report on Friday, the Commerce Department said goods exports tumbled 25.2% to $95.4 billion in April, a 10-year low. The broad decline in exports was led by a 65.9% collapse in shipments of motor vehicles and parts. That outpaced a 14.3% tumble in imports. As a result, the goods trade deficit widened 7.2% to 69.7 billion last month. The larger goods trade deficit is likely a drag on second GDP, which economists expect could drop at as much as a 40% rate, a pace not seen since the 1930s. The economy contracted at a 5.0% annualized rate last quarter, the deepest pace of decline in GDP since the 2007-09 recession. Consumer spending tumbled at a 6.8% rate, the sharpest drop since the second quarter of 1980.

Read more …

Everyone buys Amazon, consumers and investors.

Investors Eye Consumer Discretionary Stocks As US Reopens (R.)

Investors are taking a closer look at the market’s consumer discretionary companies as a reopening U.S. economy fuels hopes of a turnaround for some of the sector’s hardest-hit names. Many companies in the sector have been battered by the country-wide coronavirus-fueled lockdowns that have weighed on growth and damaged retail spending over the last several months, though the stocks of a few, like Amazon, have soared. A gradual lifting of lockdowns in some states has stirred hopes for a bounce back for the retailers that make up much of the sector.Some investors, however, say it may be months before consumers return to their previous shopping habits, making it unlikely that the companies will see a pickup in revenues in the near term.

Firms ranging from middle-income retailers such as Gap Iand American Eagle Outfitters to high-end destinations like Tiffany & Co and Vail Resorts Inc are expected to report results in the week ahead. “This particular group is full of landmines,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner for Harris Financial Group. “There is not going to be a lot of investor follow-through until we get some certainty with what future revenue prospects are going to be.” Shares of the Gap, for instance, are down 43% for the year to date. A recession that persists through the fourth quarter of this year would reduce the company’s revenues by 40%, according to a note by research firm Trefis.

Next Friday’s U.S. jobs report is expected to show that the unemployment rate rose to 19.8% in May, smashing April’s record 14.7%, according to a Reuters poll. Non-farm payrolls are expected to drop by 7.4 million, adding to the 20.5 million jobs lost the previous month. Cox is focusing on dominant players such as Amazon.com Inc, Walmart Inc and Target Corp, which have a mix of essential items such as groceries as well as electronics and games that can appeal to customers who may face extended lockdowns during a potential second wave of the virus. Overall, retail companies in the S&P 500 are up 12.9% for the year to date, a gain powered largely by Amazon’s 31% rally. Apparel companies, by comparison, are down 16.2% over the same time.

Read more …

Yanis doesn’t want separate countries, though they are likely the best format in a pandemic. No, he wants globalization, just not the one we know. How practical is that?

A Chronicle of a Lost Decade Foretold (Varoufakis )

To exorcise my worst fears about the coming decade, I chose to write a bleak chronicle of it. If, by December 2030, developments have invalidated it, I hope such dreary prognoses will have played a part by spurring us to appropriate action. Before our pandemic-induced lockdowns, politics seemed to be a game. Political parties behaved like sports teams having good or bad days, scoring points that propelled them up a league table that, at season’s end, determined who would form a government and then do next to nothing. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic stripped away the veneer of indifference to reveal the political reality: some people do have the power to tell the rest of us what to do. Lenin’s description of politics as “who does what to whom” seemed more apt than ever.

By June 2020, as lockdowns began to ease, left-wing optimism that the pandemic would revive state power on behalf of the powerless remained, leading friends to fantasize about a renaissance of the commons and a capacious definition of public goods. Margaret Thatcher, I would remind them, left the British state larger, more powerful, and more concentrated than she had found it. An authoritarian state was necessary to support markets controlled by corporations and banks. Those in authority have never hesitated to harness massive government intervention to the preservation of oligarchic power. Why should a pandemic change that? As a result of COVID-19, the grim reaper almost claimed both the British prime minister and the Prince of Wales, and even Hollywood’s nicest star. But it was the poorer and the browner that the reaper actually did claim. They were easy pickings.

[..] Just as cathedrals were the Middle Ages’ architectural legacy, the 2020s left us tall walls, electrified fences, and flocks of surveillance drones. The nation-state’s revival made the world less open, less prosperous, and less free precisely for those who had always found it hard to travel, to make ends meet, and to speak their minds. For the oligarchs and functionaries of Big Tech, Big Pharma, and other megafirms, who got on famously with the strongmen in authority, globalization proceeded apace.

The myth of the global village gave way to an equilibrium between great-power blocs, each sporting burgeoning militaries, separate supply chains, idiosyncratic autocracies, and class divisions reinforced by new forms of nativism. The new socioeconomic cleavages threw the prevailing features of each country’s politics into sharp relief. Like people who become caricatures of themselves in a crisis, whole countries focused on their collective illusions, exaggerating and cementing pre-existing prejudices.

Read more …

Your daily dose of anti-remdesivir.

Malaria Drug And Zinc, The Missing Link (Berry)

Mystery surrounds why an anti-malaria drug is not being tested as a Covid-19 treatment in combination with zinc, which doctors say is crucial for efficacy. As we reported recently, President Trump revealed he was taking hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) alongside zinc after reports that many doctors are doing the same to help ward off Covid-19. Criticism of the President rose sharply after a non-randomised study published in the Lancet said that HCQ provided no benefit to hospitalised Covid-19 patients while being linked to increased deaths. What the mainstream media did not point out is that the Lancet study failed to test HCQ with zinc. Other experts have found zinc to be vital for efficacy in this context.

Zinc, available as an over-the-counter supplement, has long been seen as an immune-system booster that helps develop immune cells, or antibodies, and can strengthen the body’s response to a virus. American infectious disease specialist Joseph Rahimian explained that, in relation to Covid-19, zinc ‘does the heavy lifting and is the primary substance attacking the pathogen’. HCQ is said to work as a delivery systemfor zinc in fighting coronavirus. Ironically, the Lancet study came out at the same time as it was reported that India’s premier health body had expanded use of HCQ as a preventive for key workers following three studies showing positive results.

[..] ..a study by the New York University Grossman School of Medicine published this month [..] found that those receiving the triple-drug combination (HCQ, with azithromycin and, crucially, zinc) ‘were 44 per cent less likely to die, compared with the double-drug combination (i.e. without zinc)’. As the study notes:‘This study provides the first in vivo evidence that zinc sulfate in combination with hydroxychloroquine may play a role in therapeutic management for Covid-19.’ The above makes the question of why zinc was not used in the Lancet study more baffling. And why don’t the media note that the combination of zinc and HCQ is crucial?

Read more …

This sounds quite confused. “5G = communism”? Where do we start?

Yeah, 5G should be researched much more before it’s lanuched. But how can it turn COVID19 into a scam?

Australian Anti-Vaxxers Label COVID19 a ‘Scam’ At Anti-5G Protests (AAP)

Hundreds of anti-vaccination protesters have defied social distancing measures at rallies in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. Protesters claiming the Covid-19 pandemic was a “scam” gathered at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne on Saturday, and carried signs declaring they were against vaccines and 5G technology. Their placards claimed “5G = communism”, “Covid 1984” and “our ignorance is their strength”. They booed police – clad in gloves and face masks – who warned the crowd that they were breaching social distancing rules designed to slow the spread of coronavirus. In a statement, police said those found in breach of Covid-19 directions faced fines of $1,652 each.


In Sydney, up to 500 protesters voiced conspiracy theories regarding not only vaccination but also 5G telecommunication networks, fluoride and large pharmaceutical corporations. The group convened at Hyde Park in the CBD before holding a singalong of anti-vaccination songs and walking to NSW Parliament House. They chanted “freedom of choice” and “my body, my choice” on the march, with some attempting to raise the spectre of a “new world order”. The walk passed without incident or police intervention. When asked about the protest, Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, said “there’s no message that can get through to people who have no belief in science”. “There’s probably no reaching them,” he earlier told reporters.

Read more …

Hey, you wanted a for-profit medical system.

States Are Copying & Pasting Immunity Laws For Nursing Home Execs (Sirota)

To date, 19 states have enacted some form of immunity for the hospital and nursing home industries during the pandemic. In general, these new policies shield nurses, doctors and other frontline health care workers from liability when they are treating COVID patients. However, New York, Massachusetts and North Carolina go further: unlike other states, the identical language added to their laws explicitly define health care providers as including “a health care facility administrator, executive, supervisor, board member, trustee” or other corporate managers. That exact word-for-word clause appears in emergency legislation in all three states. In practice, it extends immunity to corporate officials who are not on the medical frontlines, but who are making life-and-death decisions across their companies.


“The new measures granting immunity to health care providers and professionals go well beyond protecting front-line workers from lawsuits — many also provide immunity to administrators who make unreasonable and dangerous, even lethal, decisions,” said Syracuse University law professor Nina Kohn. “New York, Massachusetts, and North Carolina take protection for corporate owners and executives to a whole new level by explicitly granting immunity to board members, trustees, and directors.” “This is extraordinary protection which is in no way in the public interest,” Kohn said. “These states are explicitly and unabashedly giving for-profit corporations and corporate executives the green light to make unreasonable decisions that put vulnerable people in imminent danger, and letting them know that they don’t have to worry about being held legally accountable for the avoidable human damage that results.”

Read more …

Teaching the poor another lesson will always trump the pandemic.

De Blasio Ramps Up Destruction Of Homeless Encampments (Gothamist)

Trudi and Rickey Reppi live in a tent on a triangular stretch of sidewalk between three lanes of traffic by the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. The tent serves as a headquarters of sorts for a community of homeless people and panhandlers. Dave, Rob, Richard, Russia, and Seven all often sleep outside, some on mattresses or chairs, some on cardboard and bundled-up clothing. Others drop by frequently throughout the day, accepting packaged meals Trudi and Rickey had picked up from an aid organization (“Homeless people help each other way more than anyone in these hundred thousand dollar cars ever help us,” Trudi says) or fanning out, cardboard signs in hand, to ask passing drivers for money for hours on end.

The police arrive at about 9 a.m, flanked by outreach and Sanitation workers forming a team of around a dozen city employees. Trudi and Rickey wearily begin the weekly routine of taking down their tent, bundling up all the possessions they can carry, and leaving everything else on the side of the street for the Sanitation workers to throw away. For years, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has been sending joint teams of NYPD officers, Sanitation workers, and Department of Homeless Services staff to require that homeless people move from locations where they’ve set up shelter. The number of sweeps (also called “clean-ups”) per week has risen dramatically in the last six months, according to homeless people, advocates and case workers.

A DHS employee, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said that the team implementing the sweeps had increased last November from about 3 to about 40. The employee said that the clean-ups would be increasing to twice a week at most encampments; eventually, he suggested, homeless people would give in and accept shelter. Trudi says that she’s been subject to ten to fifteen sweeps in just the last three months. This count doesn’t include the nightly visits the NYPD has paid her in May, sending as many as nine police officers at 3 a.m. to demand that she take down her tent. “In my administration, we made a decision that from our point of view, it was unacceptable to have [a] single encampment anywhere in New York City and they had to be dismantled anytime they’re identified,” Mayor de Blasio said at a press conference earlier this month.

“And we’ve been doing that now for years and it’s really caused the encampments to become a rarity, but whenever we see a new one, we immediately take it down.” But the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has explicitly recommended against clearing encampments or displacing unsheltered homeless people during the pandemic. “If individual housing options are not available, allow people who are living unsheltered or in encampments to remain where they are,” the guidelines read. “Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers. This increases the potential for infectious disease spread.”

Read more …

The Netflix series on Epstein brings her to our attention again.

Still No One Knows Where Ghislaine Maxwell Is (Esq.)

Though multiple survivors have alleged that Maxwell participated in Epstein’s alleged crimes, she’s never been criminally charged. One thing that could stymie potential efforts to level charges against Maxwell is the infamous 2008 plea deal that Epstein struck with the US Attorney for Miami, Alexander Acosta, which found him serving just 13 months in prison after initially facing charges that could have garnered him a life sentence. Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich producer Joe Berlinger described the deal to Esquire as “unprecedented, unheard of sweetheart deal” that “included a non-prosecution agreement for named and unnamed co-conspirators.”

In April, an appeals court upheld the 2007 deal, writing in its opinion that the decision was “not a result we like, but it’s the result we think the law requires.” Maxwell is currently suing Epstein’s estate for money for her legal fees, and for the price of private security, alleging that her “prior employment relationship” with Epstein has caused to her be subjected to death threats. Though once a fixture of the global high-society, Maxwell has been spotted rarely in recent years. Last summer, she was photographed at a Los Angeles In-N-Out Burger, though the authenticity of the photo has been disputed. Her New York townhouse was sold in 2016.

This month, it was reported that lawyers for accusers seeking to file a civil suit against Maxwell have been unable to locate her. According to ABC news, one alleged victim’s “legal team dispatched process servers to five addresses previously connected to Maxwell, including a multi-million dollar brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, an apartment building in Miami Beach and Epstein’s mansion on Palm Beach Island.” Maxwell is also contending with other civil lawsuits filed by alleged survivors. Just this month, she won the right to delay her questioning in a suit filed by Annie Farmer, the sister of fellow Epstein accuser Maria Farmer, on the grounds that her testimony could be used against her in a current criminal investigation. But with the FBI allegedly investigating Maxwell, her story could be far from over.

Read more …

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Home Forums Debt Rattle May 30 2020

Viewing 23 posts - 1 through 23 (of 23 total)
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  • #59361

    Edward Hopper Folly Beach, Charleston, South Carolina 1929   • Protests Spread Nationwide: Minnesota Curfew, White House Locks Down (JTN) • Unsan
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle May 30 2020]

    #59362
    zerosum
    Participant

    when you have nothing to lose

    USA

    https://www.zerohedge.com/health/paul-craig-roberts-questions-campaign-against-hcq#comment_stream

    Home


    http://covexit.com/new-brazilian-study-shows-telemedicine-hydroxychloroquine-treatment-reduce-need-for-hospitalization/
    Here are key highlights of the just released study. The abstract follows, and so does the .pdf file of the study titled “Empirical treatment with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for suspected cases of COVID-19 followed-up by telemedicine.

    —–
    The elites enablers are in control of the club membership fees.
    https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/students-upset-as-some-canadian-universities-hike-tuition-fees-1.4961036
    Students upset as some Canadian universities hike tuition fees

    Published Friday, May 29, 2020 5:40PM EDT

    Some Canadian universities are raising tuition fees for the new school year much to the consternation of students, who argue their costs should be going down, not up in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    #59363
    lasttwo
    Participant

    It is raining and our power is out. so a rambling I go.

    Watched the movie Joker last night. While it fails as a DC comic it succeeds in making a few relevant points about our society. Not the least of which is if we don’t elect a leader the streets just might. That will be a different kind of crazy. That kind of thing happens in poor countries it could never happen in the USA. ( oh wait that is how the usa started.)
    Does anyone really need a billionaire? just saying if money is their key to happiness and a thousand million dollars is not enough they need mental help and should not be allowed to keep anything over a billion. that kind of power leads to total corruption. 8 men own more wealth than 4 billion people let that sink in.
    If the government is paying most of the people is this socialism? I think most current socialist countries had a better plan.
    With automation socialism is more palatable. Free health care and education

    #59364
    lasttwo
    Participant

    If the 2078 billionaires on the forbes list gave up .0042 of their wealth they could end world hunger. that is .4% After contemplation I think greed is the deadliest sin. I am wondering what the world could be like without it.

    #59365
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Well, their delicious civil war is on, going successfully as predicted and as planned. I’d run down the details, which cities, who’s in charge, but I don’t have time and you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

    But so protesters apparently are most mad at CNN and the Treasury? Healthy white military men dressed in black are methodically going down the block, breaking each window with an stadard-issue emergency glass tool? Protesters film them and post it online. They know. I mean really? Can’t you do better than this?

    But since they’re getting what they wanted, why bother? It works well enough.

    So here’s the year so far: not in 2018, not in 2019, but ONLY in the election year, we just HAPPEN to have a virus outbreak a few weeks after the treasury market, and therefore US Dollar, blows up. A week after China signed a trade agreement they see as bad and can now take force majeure on. Result: financial reset, no one will be blamed for either.

    The virus is attempted to have the President force lockdown, crack the economy, lose election, and also go for mail-in voting which the NAACP says is rife with fraud and must be recalled. That doesn’t work: his popularity rises, virus stops, he dumps the attempts on the States, but also gets unlimited nationwide emergency powers and martial law and doesn’t let go of it. Why? Nuttin’ happening. Why the “resistance”, who gave him the powers plus extra billion$$ for spying and war, no mention his hanging on these powers either. Huh.

    So after pissing off every body in the nation, getting them to wear camera-baffling masks, and insuring everyone is broke, desperate, and nobody has a job to focus and occupy them, we have a egregious, intentional incident in a DNC district run by Ilyan Omar and Klobuchar, where two guys who have known each other for years is pretended to be random police brutality. The next day, the healthy well-dressed white men in black are smashing, and a few hours later all the evidence is burned up in the precinct. Despite the police were instantly fired—unusual and notable success, AND the first one was charged with Murder 3, no questions, very high probability of easy conviction, AND the whole thing is being investigated by the FBI. All America, Minnesota, and Minneapolis agree. So everyone is united, winning on every front.

    Then without a pause the next targets are CNN, the Treasury, and all the same blue resistance cities where nothing has happened locally. I’m sorry – so since every single thing has gone well, exactly as demanded, can you tell me why cities with no association, no events, suddenly want to attack the kind of random targets generals and policemen pick, not the kinds normal residents would? Uh-huh. The same organizers, same usual suspects, same mayors, and same mysterious gym-going white non-residents in the crowd.

    So since they’ve been planning this for decades, and certainly adjusting plans since 2016, so has the Administration, and they been leaking this unrest would be staged, would happen, and how, and where, for years. Don’t have time to explain, go look it up. So both sides, in this oligarchic dispute are running 5GW, getting confusion and the people to get hurt and do the dirty work on their behalf, while they sit safe in gated communities and private islands. As usual.

    But this isn’t going anywhere. They can schedule, pay, agitate, lie, and perpetrate events, but all that does not a war make. Ultimately, they got nothing: essentially no shootings and no gun control. People black and white are coming out, armed rednecks are defending black parts of Minneapolis, and they support George, the protests, but not the riots. Despite 50 years of keeping race wars simmering and 10 years stoking on high with all the events and rhetoric they could manufacture, this is true nationwide. So what ya gonna do? If people don’t shoot themselves for you, there aren’t enough oligarchs and enough money to do it themselves. …I mean besides them being spineless cowards and weasels, idiot sons of idiots sons who’ve failed at everything since birth.

    So Cheeto can send in the Guard — or not — won’t really matter. The government’s not in control, never have been, as you’ve seen in the lockdown theatre-and-puppet show. Hey, where’d that go anyway? When it didn’t work, suddenly alllllllllll forgot, huh. People will themselves decide this is enough, the point has been made, and won’t allow further damage in their own neighborhoods. It is their right to be armed, and their right to defend themselves, and when their patience is ended, they will, and not much will happen. The bad elements will just know it and disappear. If they don’t, they’ll be so outnumbered they’re a joke. “We can drown them in our urine” as one guy says.

    After that, you have a mop-up operation and healing, which the media will attempt to prevent a few more ways with a few more made-up things for a few more pointless months. Then they’ll scream about Russians, election interference, fascism, and a bunch of other words they don’t understand and can’t define. And that will be that.

    …Just sayin’. From the ground here. Just like I’ve said, oh how long have I been here? 5, 7 years? Saying exactly this, exactly this attempt, exactly this way, because they’re all idiots who lack talent, imagination, and can only follow orders and think-tanks, books on 5th generation warfare, and CIA coup manuals. And that makes it so, so easy to know what they will do, and how to respond.

    8 men own more wealth? Their claims on wealth will soon be nothing. The thing has been going down since Sept 14, 2019. That’s why the world’s best-timed virus shuts off inflation when we print $6T, then the world’s best-timed Booglaloo. Always burn down the casino after you rob it to hide the evidence. Nice try. Don’t fret yourself: be patient. History will find them, these 8 men. And the men paying for the present excitement. Fix your own house and let your own preparations play out.

    #59366
    zerosum
    Participant

    The elites enablers are in control of the club membership fees.

    ” … idiot sons of idiots sons who’ve failed at everything since birth.”

    Therefore, let’s stop foreign , Asian students from coming to our university and stealing all our knowledge to go home and build up the Asian societies.

    #59367
    zerosum
    Participant

    ” … Healthy white military men dressed in black …”
    They were trouble makers
    They were not locals
    bused in to cause trouble
    Foreign agitators
    Radicals
    Rebels
    Not Americans
    Interference from abroad

    Tomorrow they will say operatives
    Russian
    Chinese
    Communists

    #59368
    lasttwo
    Participant

    8 men own more wealth? Their claims on wealth will soon be nothing. The thing has been going down since Sept 14, 2019. That’s why the world’s best-timed virus shuts off inflation when we print $6T, then the world’s best-timed Booglaloo. Always burn down the casino after you rob it to hide the evidence. Nice try. Don’t fret yourself: be patient. History will find them, these 8 men. And the men paying for the present excitement. Fix your own house and let your own preparations play out.

    I hope you are right, alto I look not for vengeance not even for justice. I look for some measure of decency and with a question. How much money is too much? How much is not enough? somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot. Once one has enough the rest is not needed unless someone has figured out how to take it with you. Without the sickness of greed the world maybe could be healed. to your last sentence done and done.

    Trump has an interesting tweet. MAGA night at the white house(paraphrased) is he intentionally trying to start a race war? The people of color have a point if the roles were reversed there would be blood in the streets. Can you imagine the uproar of black cops were treating white people the way some white cops treat them? Maybe it is all a farce, a stirring to distract. They have already stolen trillions of dollars the future of america’s next generation and maybe democracy itself. Are we only left with a burning casino? If so a world government is not far off. It will not be a democracy as history will point to ours as the failure it is turning out to be. A republic if you can keep it. We could not we were too greedy.

    #59370
    WES
    Participant

    So the world is on fire!

    Soro’s thugs have been let loose again in Democrat controlled inner cities where the police are told by majors to stand down. Waiting for the President to step in. He doesn’t take their bait. So their inner city neighborhoods burn. Sounds like a great winning formula for the poor people!

    Moving to the big Apple, the Democrats don’t like the homeless poor, so it is OK to declare constant war on them atnd their tents! This is being done to help them re-pitch their tents somewhere else. The liberal press looks away and as usual says nothing.

    In the early days of the virus, the Democrats were eagerly hoping the virus would kill off a lot of rich conservative people. Yes, they got their death wish. The virus did kill off a lot of people. According to a PEW study, 75,000 of the 100,000 reported deaths, so far, occurred in Democrat represented areas.

    The truly rich don’t pretend to like poor people. Me thinks Democrats, deep down, really don’t like poor people either! They are just using them to further their ends.

    So in conclusion, everything in our world is perfectly normal.

    #59371
    WES
    Participant

    So the big drug dealers are declaring a war against HCQ.

    Why?

    Because HCQ is stealing customers away from buying the big drug dealer’s more expensive drugs that work better at killing and extracting wealth from their customer’s estates!

    #59372
    WES
    Participant

    Zerosum:

    Universities raising instead of lowering tuiton fees doesn’t surprise me one bit.

    I have long noted that for government entities, they must receive increased budgets every year just to survive as they currently are.

    If they receive the same amount of money as the year before, they will die a thousand deaths!

    Hopefully by raising their student tuiton fees, they will get less students, and even less money!

    #59373
    WES
    Participant

    Yesterday, China fell from sixth last to fifth last on the virus charts.

    By Monday I expect that China will be third last from the bottom of the virus charts!

    At some point, China will simple disappear from the virus charts!

    This goes to show you how successful China has been at exporting the virus around the world.

    #59374
    zerosum
    Participant

    WES
    Did you see this. Maybe canadian university will get an increase of income from more foreign students.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/chinese-cheating-rampant-us-college-applications-and-classrooms

    #59375
    zerosum
    Participant

    Forgot to say,
    The foreign students don’t even have to come here since all learning is on line.
    🙂

    #59376
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Edward Hopper Folly Beach, Charleston, South Carolina 1929

    Wonderful Hopper. Folly beach looks very inviting/mysterious…
    Interesting date.

    #59377
    WES
    Participant

    Zerosum:

    Yes, I knew the Chinese cheat.

    But then as my brother said, they cheat all the time!

    Cheating is their national sport!

    #59378
    John Day
    Participant

    WES said:
    Mentioning Hawks is enough to frighten Moki!
    Every once in a while, when she is in the open back yard with us, she will suddenly run back into her cage where she knows she is safe. The walk-in cage has a roof on it. Usually it is just an airplane flying over head.
    Usually when she isn’t hopping around, she will lay under a lawn chair near us for shade and probably protection from an air attack….
    Strangely the tomatoes never seem to get hit. Not sure why? But everything else like corn, peas, beans, lettuce, got hit hard! If it wasn’t the critters, then the insects!
    The trick is to grow extra, enough for everybody!
    Our squirrels will definitely eat tomatoes in Austin, and the birds peck them in Yoakum, but you did figure out the main trick of outproducing the little buggers.

    #59379

    The freeways and major arteries into the city are closed. St. Paul has blocked the bridges from Minneapolis.
    Peaceful protestors were to leave at 8pm, but those who stayed are sitting down. The involved streets are all cops. In-city people I know are tense. The authorities are positive the agitators are outsiders- there are many “cars without license plates”.
    In the endless breaking news, it is clear the left/right thing is specious- the locals want the bad actors out.
    Walz is turning out to be a very shrewd politician. It’s a Minnesota thing- boring on the outside, ruthless on the inside. I think he knows the FBI knows what he needs to know but won’t tell him.
    That this has spread to other cities smacks of conspiracy- or the months of lockdown, alienating masks, and thinking your fellow man has cooties (or that he thinks you do) has made people twitchy. And it isn’t even summer yet- today was 67 with a dew point in the thirties- a beautiful blue day. Next week we get upper eighties.

    #59380
    WES
    Participant

    Know:

    Are the riots in Minneapolis or St Paul?

    I suspect outsiders are there to burn the poor folk’s homes and neighborhood down. It has all been planned ahead of time. White folks dressed in black, so the locals get blamed. Sad.

    #59381
    WES
    Participant

    Know:

    It wouldn’t surprise me if Congress told the FBI to stand down and not help the major or police.

    It is pretty clear from AG Barr’s behavior that the President has little control of the DoJ nor FBI. The gang of eight still retain control and want him out at any cost after repeated impeachments failed.

    Now with the lockdown hurting the economy, they see another opportunity to get rid of him.

    I suspect this time they will succeed.

    Then everything in DC can go back to the way it was before and the elites will be happy, even if the people aren’t.

    #59382
    zerosum
    Participant

    This morning, TV reports 22 cities have arrested demonstratorsactivists.

    #59383

    WES-
    As of my writing last night, there were about 150 buildings that had been burned- mostly small businesses, mostly in Mpls, some in St.Paul. St Paul kept their police force out in full force; Mpls did not.

    #59386
    zerosum
    Participant

    Before the internet …. I was ignorant.

    Now, I read the blogs, and I find that I’m not alone. I’m aware.
    I can make a better informed decision. However, It might still be a wrong decision.

    I’m still not among those that are the shakers and movers.

    Like most everyone, I was not invited to participate in any of the 22 cities that had people arrested.

    I’m not surprised by the events.
    I will accept the changes, (toward 2024), that are coming, to the best of my abilities.

    I find it obvious that there is no safe places, for me, to hide from the changes that are happening, the flue can find me anywhere and everywhere.

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