Harris&Ewing F.W. Grand store, Washington, DC 1925
Hardware problems this morning, my Chrome on MacBook started crashing and kept on doing it. Figured out it was due to Zerohedge’s ad settings conflicting with that set-up. Will look at the site in Forefox now. Cost a lot of time though.
Thanks for your support for our homeless project in Athens. Some of you are so generous it’s absolutely humbling.
Brazil overtakes the US for largest COVID-19 growth in the past week.
1 week of NEW cases:
Brazil: 151,600+
US: 144,000+
Russia: 61,400+
India: 51,600+
Peru: 44,500+
Chile: 31,100+
• Cases 6,394,316 (+ 106,140 from Saturday’s 6,288,176)
• Deaths 377,966 (+ 3,372 from Saturday’s 374,327)
Note: I dropped the SCMP graph, it doesn’t appear very relevant anymore.
From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-:
From Worldometer:
From COVID19Info.live:
“You guys are the stupidest motherfuckers I ever met in my life” says the black guy repeatedly to two stupid cops cuz they’re arresting him and he’s an FBI Agent.
Now this is funny! pic.twitter.com/LO5xgMCpwy
— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) June 1, 2020
On January 14, China’s no. 1 health official ordered the country to prepare for a pandemic. Only 8 weeks later did teh WHO declare a pandemic. Explanation?!
“On Jan. 13, WHO announced that Thailand had a confirmed case of the virus, jolting Chinese officials. The next day, in a confidential teleconference, China’s top health official ordered the country to prepare for a pandemic, calling the outbreak the “most severe challenge since SARS in 2003”..”
[..] “On Jan. 22, WHO convened an independent committee to determine whether to declare a global health emergency. After two inconclusive meetings where experts were split, they decided against it — even as Chinese officials ordered Wuhan sealed in the biggest quarantine in history. The next day, WHO chief Tedros publicly described the spread of the new coronavirus in China as “limited.“
• China Delayed Releasing Coronavirus Info, Frustrating WHO (AP)
Throughout January, the World Health Organization publicly praised China for what it called a speedy response to the new coronavirus. It repeatedly thanked the Chinese government for sharing the genetic map of the virus “immediately,” and said its work and commitment to transparency were “very impressive, and beyond words.” But behind the scenes, it was a much different story, one of significant delays by China and considerable frustration among WHO officials over not getting the information they needed to fight the spread of the deadly virus, The Associated Press has found. Despite the plaudits, China in fact sat on releasing the genetic map, or genome, of the virus for more than a week after three different government labs had fully decoded the information.
Tight controls on information and competition within the Chinese public health system were to blame, according to dozens of interviews and internal documents. Chinese government labs only released the genome after another lab published it ahead of authorities on a virologist website on Jan. 11. Even then, China stalled for at least two weeks more on providing WHO with detailed data on patients and cases, according to recordings of internal meetings held by the U.N. health agency through January — all at a time when the outbreak arguably might have been dramatically slowed. WHO officials were lauding China in public because they wanted to coax more information out of the government, the recordings obtained by the AP suggest.
Privately, they complained in meetings the week of Jan. 6 that China was not sharing enough data to assess how effectively the virus spread between people or what risk it posed to the rest of the world, costing valuable time. “We’re going on very minimal information,” said American epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove, now WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19, in one internal meeting. “It’s clearly not enough for you to do proper planning.” “We’re currently at the stage where yes, they’re giving it to us 15 minutes before it appears on CCTV,” said WHO’s top official in China, Dr. Gauden Galea, referring to the state-owned China Central Television, in another meeting. [..] Although international law obliges countries to report information to WHO that could have an impact on public health, the U.N. agency has no enforcement powers and cannot independently investigate epidemics within countries. Instead, it must rely on the cooperation of member states.
[..] “It’s obvious that we could have saved more lives and avoided many, many deaths if China and the WHO had acted faster,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. However, Mokdad and other experts also noted that if WHO had been more confrontational with China, it could have triggered a far worse situation of not getting any information at all. If WHO had pushed too hard, it could even have been kicked out of China, said Adam Kamradt-Scott, a global health professor at the University of Sydney. But he added that a delay of just a few days in releasing genetic sequences can be critical in an outbreak. And he noted that as Beijing’s lack of transparency becomes even clearer, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s continued defense of China is problematic.
“It’s definitely damaged WHO’s credibility,” said Kamradt-Scott. “Did he go too far? I think the evidence on that is clear….it has led to so many questions about the relationship between China and WHO. It is perhaps a cautionary tale.”
Because there are idiots who’d want to contest it. The sky is not blue.
• Distancing And Masks Cut COVID19 Risk – Review (R.)
Keeping at least one metre apart and wearing face masks and eye protection are the best ways to cut the risk of COVID-19 infection, according to the largest review to date of studies on coronavirus disease transmission. In a review that pooled evidence from 172 studies in 16 countries, researchers found frequent handwashing and good hygiene are also critical – though even all those measures combined can not give full protection. The findings, published in The Lancet journal on Monday, will help guide governments and health agencies, some of whom have given conflicting advice on measures, largely because of limited information about COVID-19.
“Our findings are the first to synthesise all direct information on COVID-19, SARS, and MERS, and provide the currently best available evidence on the optimum use of these common and simple interventions to help ‘flatten the curve’”, said Holger Schünemann from McMaster University in Canada, who co-led the research. Current evidence suggests COVID-19 is most commonly spread by droplets, especially when people cough, and infects by entering through the eyes, nose and mouth, either directly or via contaminated surfaces. For this analysis, an international research team conducted a systematic review of 172 studies assessing distance measures, face masks and eye protection to prevent transmission of three diseases caused by coronaviruses – COVID-19, SARS and MERS.
“..other than rubber rafts and unused vacation time, Europe can and will contribute nothing to Indo Pacific focused institutions, policies, and security strategies. The US should not be bound by historical alliances to fight different security threats and economic objectives.”
• Why Europe is Irrelevant to Challenging China (Balding)
One of the most widely watched geopolitical events is how will Europe respond to Chinese aggression from the national security law in Hong Kong to the invasion of India as well as a range of other events. Given that many have built a counter Trump foreign policy contingent upon attracting European allies to confront China, the importance of Europe in the unfolding geopolitical tragedy becomes even more important. The only problem with the Old World obsession? Europe is almost entirely irrelevant to the China problem. America has a European obsession. Coming out of a post World War II geopolitical environment there is good reason why that was the focus of resource allocation.
This resulted in significant work that focused on the trans Atlantic relationship from bilateral and multilateral alliances and institutions to economic and security relationships that built the post war world. In a post war world, rebuilding Europe rapidly and building alliances to confront the Soviet Union was tantamount. This formed the foundation for the post war institutional and alliance order. However, even beyond the broader institutional and alliance focus many in America looked to Europe as a natural ally that shared the same values but also behaved differently acting as a type of moderating influence on US foreign policy. They preferred to highlight different policy domains like the environment and human rights. They focused on institution building whether it was the European Union or whether it was NATO and post 1989 institutions.
This endeared them to many foreign policy wonks in the United States who admired European sensibilities. However, these threads of foreign policy and institutional alliances also overlooked key problems. First, much of this European cooperation flowed from the need to solve uniquely European centric problems. Whether the NATO security alliance facing the USSR to the United Nations Security Council with the two major victorious European powers as members or receiving financial benefits to rebuild Europe, enormous amounts of the cooperation involved European centric or adjacent needs, alliances, and institutions. In a post WWII world this is not a major problem. In a 2020 Asia focused threat theater, this is a problem.
Australia went from being a loyal vassal in one empire to the same in the next. A country without an identity or an opinion.
• The Forgotten Coup Against ‘The Most Loyal Ally’ (John Pilger)
The Australian High Court has ruled that correspondence between the Queen and the Governor-General of Australia, her viceroy in the former British colony, is no longer “personal” and the property of Buckingham Palace. Why does this matter? Secret letters written in 1975 by the Queen and her man in Canberra, Sir John Kerr, can now be released by the National Archives. Kerr infamously sacked the reformist government of the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, and delivered Australia into the hands of the United States. Today, Australia is a vassal state bar none: its politics, intelligence agencies, military and much of its media are integrated into Washington’s “sphere of dominance” and war plans. In Donald Trump’s current provocations of China, the U.S. bases in Australia are described as the “tip of the spear”.
There is an historical amnesia among Australia’s polite society about the catastrophic events of 1975. An Anglo-American coup overthrew a democratically elected ally in a demeaning scandal in which sections of the Australian elite colluded. This is largely unmentionable. The stamina and achievement of the Australian historian Jenny Hocking in forcing the High Court’s decision are exceptional. Gough Whitlam was driven from government on Nov. 11, 1975. When he died six years ago, his achievements were recognised, if grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. The truth of the coup against him, it was hoped, would be buried with him. During the Whitlam years, 1972-75, Australia briefly achieved independence and became intolerably progressive.
The last Australian troops were ordered home from their mercenary service to the American assault on Vietnam. Whitlam’s ministers publicly condemned U.S. barbarities as “mass murder” and the crimes of “maniacs”. The Nixon administration was corrupt, said the Deputy Prime Minister, Jim Cairns, and called for a boycott of American trade. In response, Australian dockers refused to unload American ships. Whitlam moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement and called for a Zone of Peace in the Indian ocean, which the U.S. and Britain opposed. He demanded France cease its nuclear testing in the Pacific. In the UN, Australia spoke up for the Palestinians. Refugees fleeing the CIA-engineered coup in Chile were welcomed into Australia.
“..it’s not just black people who struggle to thrive in the USA, but everybody else of any ethnic group who is not a hedge fund veep, an employee of BlackRock Financial, or a K-Street lobbyist..”
• That Change You Requested…? (Jim Kunstler)
The nation was already reeling from the weird twelve-week Covid-19 lockdown of everyday life and the economic havoc it brought to careers, businesses, and incomes. In Minnesota, the stay-at-home order was just lifted on May 17, but bars and restaurants were still closed until June. Memorial Day, May 25, was one of the first really balmy days of mid-spring, 78 degrees. People were out-and-about, perhaps even feeling frisky after weeks of dreary seclusion. So, once the video of George Floyd’s death got out, the script was set: take it to the streets!
Few Americans were unsympathetic to the protest marches that followed. Remorse, censure, and tears flowed from every official portal, from the mouth and eyes of every political figure in the land. The tableau of Officer Chauvin’s knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck was readymade for statuary. Indeed, there are probably dozens of statues extant in the world of just such a scene expressing one people’s oppression over another. And yet the public sentiments early-on after the George Floyd killing had a stale, ceremonial flavor: The people demand change! End systemic racism! No justice, no peace! How many times have we seen this movie?
What is changing — and suddenly — is that now it’s not just black people who struggle to thrive in the USA, but everybody else of any ethnic group who is not a hedge fund veep, an employee of BlackRock Financial, or a K-Street lobbyist — and even those privileged characters may find themselves in reduced circumstances before long. The prospects of young adults look grimmest of all. They face an economy so disordered that hardly anyone can find something to do that pays enough to support the basics of life, on top of being swindled by the false promises of higher education and the money-lending racket that animates it. So, it’s not surprising that, when night falls, the demons come out.
Things get smashed up and burned down. And all that after being cooped up for weeks on end in the name of an illness that mostly kills people in nursing homes. Ugly as the ANTIFA movement is, it’s exactly what you get when young people realize their future has been stolen from them. Or, more literally, when they are idle and broke and see fabulous wealth all around them in the banks’ glass skyscrapers, and the car showrooms, and the pageants of celebrity fame and fortune on the boob tube. They are extras in a new movie called The Fourth Turning Meets the Long Emergency but they may not know it.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner tried to get away with “no strangulation”, didn’t expect to be corrected.
• State, Independent Autopsies Agree On George Floyd Homicide, Not On Cause (R.)
The medical examiner’s finding that the death was a homicide confirms the same conclusion of the independent autopsy that was also released on Monday, but there are key differences over the cause. A press release from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner said that Floyd, who struggled to breathe as an officer pinned him down by kneeling on his neck, had “recent methamphetamine use” and “fentanyl intoxication” – along with hypertension and coronary artery disease – all of which were possible contributing factors to his death. But two doctors who carried out that independent autopsy of Floyd, 46, and two attorneys for the family said that he had no underlying health conditions that may have contributed to his death.
They argued that not only the officer who was kneeing Floyd’s neck killed him, but also two officers who were pressing their weight onto Floyd’s back while he was on the ground. They added that they did not have information on toxicology and any drug or alcohol use by Floyd. Dr. Allecia Wilson of the University of Michigan, one of the two forensic doctors who performed the independent autopsy, said the evidence pointed to homicide by “mechanical asphyxia” meaning from some physical force that interfered with oxygen supply. While the county’s full autopsy report has not yet been released – Monday’s press release appeared to show authorities walked back their conclusions on what killed Floyd.
The original criminal complaint against the police officer who pinned Floyd with his knee cited the medical examiner’s office when it said it found no findings of strangulation. Carolyn Marinan, a spokeswoman for Hennepin County, did not confirm any reversal, saying only that Monday’s press release were the “final findings.”
“Your ‘expose’ is multiplying the stupidity in the world.”
• Bellingcat: Russians Didn’t Kill George Floyd, But Are Still Bad (RT)
Bellingcat, the UK-based enablers of Western narratives in Syria and Ukraine now fueling US race riots, selectively translated a satirical post from Russian social media shared by RT’s editor-in-chief to get her “canceled.”
On Sunday, Margarita Simonyan shared a Telegram post by Dmitry Steshin, a war correspondent for the newspaper KP, which purported to give “advice” to rioters in the US on how to make their uprising more “successful” along the lines of the 2014 US-backed coup in Ukraine. Given that the post was entirely in Russian, it was obvious that the real objective of Steshin – and Simonyan – was to comment on the Maidan uprising in Kiev and the ensuing war in Ukraine. Not so, declared the self-proclaimed experts on “open-source” intelligence.Bellingcat selectively translated a handful of sentences from Steshin’s post and accused Simonyan of – what else? – racism. “Bellingcat accusing me of racism for a repost that used the Russian word for a black person is as baseless as me accusing Bellingcat of racism for calling me Russian, and not Armenian (I am both),” Simonyan said in response to the accusations. RT also responded to Bellingcat on Twitter, pointing out that they “missed the point” of the Telegram post, which was not aimed at black protesters in 2020, but satirized the 2014 Ukrainian unrest. Indeed, Simonyan’s post starts with “good advice to black people of Minnesota from a journalist who covered seven Maidans and color revolutions” – referring to US-backed astroturfed protests that often escalated into riots for the purpose of regime change.
Being in Russian, though, the advice was clearly not meant for Minnesotans. While Steshin’s post might have used rough language, “humor norms vary by country. More so in countries not dealing with [the] burden of once being such enthusiastic African slave traders,” RT noted in a retort to Bellingcat. [..] It needs to be said that the declaration by Bellingcat’s founder Eliot Higgins that “Russia is behind the killing of George Floyd to provoke protests and riots” is a stupid take. It’s also a straw man, because even the media outlets stoking the riots only talk of some “Russian playbook” and sowing discord, and other such vague and unprovable insinuations, just as they’ve done for years with ‘Russiagate.’
The court’s deadline for Sullivan to explain his ruling was yesterday. Did he comply?
• In Appellate Brief, DOJ Unloads On Behavior Of Judge In Flynn Case (Davis)
The Department of Justice on Monday unloaded on the antics of the rogue federal judge overseeing the Michael Flynn trial, accusing him of usurping the constitutional authority of the executive branch to make prosecutorial decisions and ignoring both statutory law and federal court precedent requiring him to dismiss the case against Flynn. After Judge Emmet G. Sullivan refused to grant the unopposed DOJ motion to dismiss the charges against Flynn after the government unearthed and relevant reams of evidence that the government had abused its power and unlawfully targeted Flynn, Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell filed a writ of mandamus with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia asking it to order the trial court to dismiss the charges against Flynn.
The appellate court ordered Sullivan to respond by close of business on June 1 and invited DOJ to file its own response as well. [..] Sullivan, who at one point accused Flynn, a decorated military combat veteran, of being a traitor to his country, refused to dismiss the charges and instead appointed John Gleeson, a former federal judge, to make arguments to the court about why the unopposed motion to dismiss charges should be denied. Days before Gleeson was appointed by Sullivan, Gleeson co-authored a Washington Post column calling on Sullivan to deny DOJ’s motion to dismiss the Flynn charges. Sullivan also asked Gleeson to provide the trial court with arguments to support new charges of perjury against Flynn.
“The failure to dismiss the indictment was error,” DOJ wrote in its brief. “And the court’s efforts to pursue additional charges of contempt compounded its error.” “When, like many other defendants, petitioner pleaded guilty but later asserted his innocence, he did not expose himself to prosecution for criminal contempt of court,” Francisco and the other DOJ attorneys noted. “The court lacks authority to bring its own prosecution of petitioner, for two independent reasons.”
But the judge simply claims Julian refused to attend. She needs to be excused.
• Julian Assange Too Unwell To Attend Court Hearing (CW)
Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, was too unwell to attend a court hearing by video link today at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Assange’s lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald QC, told the court that his client had had respiratory problems for some time. The WikiLeaks founder faces 17 charges under the 1917 Espionage Act after WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from Chelsea Manning, a former US Army soldier turned whistleblower, in 2010-11. The 48-year-old faces a further charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The charges, filed in an indictment by the Easter District of Virginia, carry a maximum sentence of 175 years. Observers and journalists dialled in to a short court hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, but frequently had difficulty hearing what the lawyers and judge were saying over noises on the line.
According to one journalist present at the court, district judge Vanessa Baraitser said the court had received an email from Belmarsh Prison, saying Assange was “refusing to attend the hearing and refusing to sign a refusal form”. Fitzgerald told the judge that Assange’s solicitor, Gareth Peirce, had sent the court an email on Friday explaining that Assange was unwell with respiratory problems, 7 News reported. The judge said she had hoped to provide the name of the crown court that could hear Assange’s extradition case today, but said she was still waiting for confirmation of the venue. The court heard that the prosecution had been unable to complete a psychiatric report on Assange because a medical expert had been unable to gain access to Belmarsh Prison during the lockdown.
The judge gave the prosecution a deadline of 31 July to produce the psychiatric report on Assange. James Lewis for the prosecution said the defence had served new evidence that would need to be examined to determine admissibility. The judge ordered the prosecution to present a new skeleton argument to the court on 25 August, with the defence skeleton argument due on 1 September, 7 News reported. The next scheduled hearing will take place on 29 June, and a full three-week hearing is due to start on 7 September. In a separate development, 36 members of the European Parliament have called for Assange to be released from Belmarsh on press freedom and humanitarian grounds.
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https://twitter.com/i/status/1267628157168783363
Witness the change in air quality around the globe as people stayed indoors pic.twitter.com/kQaKg3odZb
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 2, 2020
https://twitter.com/_youhadonejob1/status/1267696839073116162
“Only A Pawn In Their Game”
March on Washington
August 28, 1963
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