Sep 092021
 


Pablo Picasso Science and Charity 1897

 

RFK, Jr.: ‘Complete Obliteration Of Critical Thinking’ (JTN)
The Lie Of ‘All Unvaccinated’ (Denninger)
Open Letter to the Unvaccinated (Ocla)
Arizona AG: Tuscon Vaccine Mandate Is Illegal (B911)
Biden To Lay Out New Coronavirus Strategy As Delta Variant Cases Rise (JTN)
White House Signals New COVID-19 Measures Coming For Unvaccinated (ET)
Health Authorities Confiscate Alcohol Deliveries To Sydney Tower (Sky)
Melbourne Clinic Offers Ivermectin Despite It Not Being Approved (G.)
“COVID Zero” New Zealand Is Now A Full-Blown Police State (JS)
Children Are Not Covid-19 Super Spreaders: Time To Go Back To School (BMJ)
AFP Fact Check Accidentally Makes The Case For Ivermectin (Twitchy)
The Role Of Iron In The Pathogenesis Of Covid-19 (SD)
Yellen: US On Track To Default On National Debt In October (Hill)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kory Fauci AiDS

 

 

“Among 378,048 death certificates from 2020 listing COVID-19 as a cause of death, 5.5% listed COVID-19 without codes for any other conditions .. ”

RFK, Jr.: ‘Complete Obliteration Of Critical Thinking’ (JTN)

Political activist Robert Kennedy Jr. warned that a “society in fear” due to the COVID-19 pandemic could result in the “complete obliteration of critical thinking.” Kennedy, who spoke at the Ron Paul Institute’s conference, noted that only a small fraction of the individuals comprising the CDC’s COVID-19 death total died primarily from COVID-19. “Among 378,048 death certificates from 2020 listing COVID-19 as a cause of death, 5.5% listed COVID-19 without codes for any other conditions,” according to the CDC. “The people who died, 96% of them, had almost 400 reasons that might have killed them,” Kennedy said during a session titled the Pandemic and the Road to Totalitarianism. “You know, the manipulation of the death certificates. The manipulation of the PCR test.

“All of these mechanics appear to be deliberately manipulated to put our population in a state of fear — and what happens when you have a population in fear? The complete obliteration of critical thinking.” Under the program that Congress passed for reimbursement of funeral costs for COVID-19 tests, applicants were allowed to retroactively supplement their relatives’ death certificates with documentation showing COVID-19 was a contributing cause of death if it was not originally listed. “Applicants who incurred COVID-19-related funeral expenses between Jan. 20 and May 16, 2020,” FEMA explained in a June 29 release, “will be able to submit a death certificate that does not attribute the death to COVID-19 along with a signed statement from the certifying official listed on the death certificate, coroner, or medical examiner linking the death to COVID-19. The written statement must show causal pathway, or an explanation, linking the cause of death listed on the death certificate to the virus and should be submitted with the death certificate.”

Kennedy, a lawyer, said there is “no pandemic exemption” in the U.S. Constitution. He pointed out that government officials ordered churches closed across the country but allowed liquor stores to remain open as “essential businesses.” “There’s no protection of liquor stories in the United States Constitution,” he said. “There is protection of churches. They abolished religious exemptions.” Kennedy also mentioned that millions of small businesses were ordered to close during the pandemic without due process in “direct violation of the Constitution.” “They got rid of property rights,” he said.

Canada
https://twitter.com/i/status/1435445919453958154

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“Don’t throw your life away.”

The Lie Of ‘All Unvaccinated’ (Denninger)

Here’s truth folks…. Remember, you get monoclonal antibodies if infected, symptomatic and at risk of severe outcomes. When I got Covid-19 last month I did not qualify since I was not any of >65 (58 isn’t good enough), fat, diabetic, hypertensive or one of the few other listed “things” that quality you irrespective of age. I did not get vaccinated, I got Covid-19 and recovered, obviously, or I wouldn’t be writing this, and now have very strong natural immunity. At this point I thus have neither any fear of Covid-19 or any reason to be vaccinated.

Got that folks? The 23 people were all promised they would not get sick as the inducement to get vaccinated. All 23 of them were symptomatic and at high risk. Every single one of those people was also exactly as contagious to others as were the 27. 48% of Texas is vaccinated. 46% of these recipients were vaccinated. There is no statistical difference between the percentage of vaccinated people in the State of Texas and the percentage of people receiving monoclonal antibodies for symptomatic and at-risk-of-severe Covid-19 patients among this group of 50 who are vaccinated. It is statistically identical. The debate is over folks. You were conned America.

You were told to roll up your sleeve and take the risk of clotting disorders, heart damage, heart attacks, strokes and other serious, even life-threatening adverse reactions based on the lie that doing so would (1) prevent you from getting Covid, (2) prevent you from infecting others with Covid, and (3) keep you from having a symptomatic and potentially-serious outcome if exposed to Covid. All three were LIES and are being repeated to this day by Biden, Fauci, the CDC and your local and State Health Departments. Any “mandate” predicated on these lies was and is in fact a felony assault with a reasonable expectation of serious bodily harm or death to your person and should have been, and should be today, met with whatever level of force is necessary to cause the person issuing said mandate to STOP on an immediate basis. THE VACCINES DO NOT PREVENT INFECTION, TRANSMISSION OR THE RISK OF SEVERE OUTCOMES. ENOUGH!

PS: Before you do something stupid like get a “booster” answer this — why would you believe the third jab will work when you were told the other two would — and the people doing so lied? When, in addition, there is evidence that the manufacturers knew this would happen and rigged the trials to conceal it? What data do you have (none!) on whether the risk of serious adverse events rises with each successive injection, and why would you be so stupid as to believe a single thing these people say after being screwed by the very same people? I remind you: Never in the past has there been a successful vaccine for coronaviruses. All previous attempts have failed during trials, which took years to discover, either by mutational escape or worse, enhancement in those who got the injection(s). Don’t throw your life away.

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Good.

Open Letter to the Unvaccinated (Ocla)

You are not alone! As of 28 July 2021, 29% of Canadians have not received a COVID-19 vaccine, and an additional 14% have received one shot. In the US and in the European Union, less than half the population is fully vaccinated, and even in Israel, the “world’s lab” according to Pfizer, one third of people remain completely unvaccinated. Politicians and the media have taken a uniform view, scapegoating the unvaccinated for the troubles that have ensued after eighteen months of fearmongering and lockdowns. It’s time to set the record straight. It is entirely reasonable and legitimate to say ‘no’ to insufficiently tested vaccines for which there is no reliable science. You have a right to assert guardianship of your body and to refuse medical treatments if you see fit. You are right to say ‘no’ to a violation of your dignity, your integrity and your bodily autonomy.

It is your body, and you have the right to choose. You are right to fight for your children against their mass vaccination in school. You are right to question whether free and informed consent is at all possible under present circumstances. Long-term effects are unknown. Transgenerational effects are unknown. Vaccine-induced deregulation of natural immunity is unknown. Potential harm is unknown as the adverse event reporting is delayed, incomplete and inconsistent between jurisdictions. You are being targeted by mainstream media, government social engineering campaigns, unjust rules and policies, collaborating employers, and the social-media mob. You are being told that you are now the problem and that the world cannot get back to normal unless you get vaccinated. You are being viciously scapegoated by propaganda and pressured by others around you. Remember; there is nothing wrong with you.

You are inaccurately accused of being a factory for new SARS-CoV-2 variants, when in fact, according to leading scientists, your natural immune system generates immunity to multiple components of the virus. This will promote your protection against a vast range of viral variants and abrogates further spread to anyone else. You are justified in demanding independent peer-reviewed studies, not funded by multinational pharmaceutical companies. All the peer-reviewed studies of short-term safety and short-term efficacy have been funded, organized, coordinated, and supported by these for-profit corporations; and none of the study data have been made public or available to researchers who don’t work for these companies. You are right to question the preliminary vaccine trial results. The claimed high values of relative efficacy rely on small numbers of tenuously determined “infections.”

The studies were also not blind, where people giving the injections admittedly knew or could deduce whether they were injecting the experimental vaccine or the placebo. This is not acceptable scientific methodology for vaccine trials. You are correct in your calls for a diversity of scientific opinions. Like in nature, we need a polyculture of information and its interpretations. And we don’t have that right now. Choosing not to take the vaccine is holding space for reason, transparency and accountability to emerge. You are right to ask, ‘What comes next when we give away authority over our own bodies?’ Do not be intimidated. You are showing resilience, integrity and grit. You are coming together in your communities, making plans to help one another and standing for scientific accountability and free speech, which are required for society to thrive. We are among many who stand with you.

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“COVID-19 vaccinations should be a choice, not a government mandate.”

Arizona AG: Tuscon Vaccine Mandate Is Illegal (B911)

The City of Tucson announced Tuesday that it will be putting its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for its employees on pause after the state’s attorney general declared it illegal. Attorney General Mark Brnovich says that his office determined the City of Tucson’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for public employees does violate state law for purposes of S.B. 1487, and also is in direct conflict with the Governor’s Executive Order 2021-18. Therefore, Tucson must rescind or amend the ordinance to come into compliance with state law, or lose millions of dollars in state funding. “Tucson’s vaccine mandate is illegal, and the city could be held liable for attempting to force employees to take it against their beliefs,” said Attorney General Mark Brnovich. “COVID-19 vaccinations should be a choice, not a government mandate.”

Through a “S.B. 1487” investigation, the AGO determined Tucson’s Ordinance 11869, which mandates COVID-19 vaccines for city employees, violates state law and thus the city cannot require public employees to obtain a COVID-19 vaccine. The legislature’s intent was clear when it passed S.B. 1824 earlier this year – government entities from the local to state level cannot mandate COVID-19 vaccines. This law was further supplemented by the Governor’s Executive Order 2021-18 (E.O. 2021-18) in August 2021.In the AGO’s opinion, Tucson public employees could rely in good faith on E.O. 2021-18 and state law to refuse the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Today, the AGO officially notified the City of Tucson that its COVID-19 vaccine ordinance is in violation of state law and must be rescinded or amended. As expressly provided in S.B. 1487, if the City of Tucson does not rescind its policy within the next 30 days, the AGO will notify the Arizona Treasurer, who will withhold the city’s portion of state shared revenue until it comes into compliance. Additionally, the AGO believes the City of Tucson could subject itself to potential liability claims if it were to take adverse action against an employee who relies on E.O. 2021-18 and state law to refuse the vaccine.

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Oh wait, the vaccines DO work:

“More than 20,000 people have died in the U.S. from the virus in the past two weeks, a figure that is up nearly 70% from the two weeks prior.”

Biden To Lay Out New Coronavirus Strategy As Delta Variant Cases Rise (JTN)

President Joe Biden is expected Thursday to lay out a new, six-point strategy to confront the novel coronavirus, including the highly contagious Delta variant. Biden will meet with his COVID-19 advisers Wednesday. A recent wave of cases, owing largely to Delta, has created a new challenge for the Biden administration as the school year begins anew and hospitals in some areas become overwhelmed. Press Secretary Jen Psaki says the strategy, to be presented aboard Air Force One, will work “across the public and private sectors to help continue to get the pandemic under control.” It is unclear whether the new strategy will include any sort of new mandates.


“We need to continue to take more steps to make sure districts are prepared and make sure communities across the country are prepared,” Psaki said. Last week, the United States hit 40 million recorded COVID-19 cases. More than 20,000 people have died in the U.S. from the virus in the past two weeks, a figure that is up nearly 70% from the two weeks prior. Officials are aiming to begin distributing coronavirus vaccine booster shots the week of Sept. 20, following a Sept. 17 meeting of the Food and Drug Administrtion, during which advisers will consider a possible third Pfizer shot.

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“..the federal government lacks the authority to mandate vaccines for everyone..”

White House Signals New COVID-19 Measures Coming For Unvaccinated (ET)

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s announcement Thursday about new COVID-19 measures, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that there may be new measures that will be imposed on unvaccinated people. “There are six steps the president’s announcing, there will be new components,” Psaki told reporters on Wednesday. “Some of that will be related to access to testing, some will be related to mandates, some will be related to how we ensure kids will be protected in schools.” When asked about how the new steps would impact Americans’ lives, Psaki said that “it depends on if you’re vaccinated or not.” Psaki provided few details on what mandates could be imposed on unvaccinated Americans.

On Tuesday, she told reporters on Air Force One that the federal government lacks the authority to mandate vaccines for everyone. “There will be new components that sure, will of course impact people across the country, but we’re also all working together to get the virus under control, to return to our normal lives,” Psaki also said, without elaborating, on Wednesday. Biden, who was scheduled to meet with his COVID-19 advisers on Wednesday, delivered a speech about six months ago saying the United States has “made real progress” against the virus. Since that date, about 142 million Americans have received COVID-19 vaccines and about 950,000 people are getting vaccinated each day, according to data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Data released daily by the CDC’s COVID-19 tracker suggests that the United States’ new cases and deaths may have hit a plateau or is on the decline. The seven day-average for cases as of Tuesday was 140,000 and deaths were 1,022, respectively, while as of Sept. 1, the seven-day average for cases was 156,000 and deaths were 1,141, respectively. The president’s speech on Thursday could make reference to a recent announcement from the heads of several federal health agencies that third doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, or booster shots, would be provided around Sept. 20. However, the Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve the booster doses.

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“Residents are now allowed to receive a ration of one of the following per day: six beers or pre-mixed drinks, one bottle of wine, or one 375ml bottle of spirits..”

To wash down the horse dewormer.

Health Authorities Confiscate Alcohol Deliveries To Sydney Tower (Sky)

NSW Health has confiscated bottles of spirits and large quantities of alcohol from residents living in a locked-down apartment block in Sydney’s Inner West in an attempt to limit the number of drinks consumed every day. Mission Australia’s Common Ground Facility in Camperdown was placed into lockdown for two weeks on September 2 after four tenants tested positive. Residents are now allowed to receive a ration of one of the following per day: six beers or pre-mixed drinks, one bottle of wine, or one 375ml bottle of spirits, according to NCA NewsWire. Residents of the social housing block are frustrated care parcels sent from friends and families are being searched through. “They are searching all bags and things coming into the building… They confiscated a series of gifts,” Common Ground resident Robin Elhaj told NCA NewsWire.


“So things like bottles of spirits, we weren’t allowed to have those and we still (aren’t).” Excess alcohol is being confiscated until lockdown rules are lifted. NSW Health says the limiting the amount of alcohol consumed aims to “ensure the safety of health staff and residents”. “We know the experience of a lockdown is very challenging for everyone living and working at Common Ground. Mission Australia is fully engaged with tenants and is providing support to them within the parameters of NSW Health and Police guidelines” Mission Australia’s CEO James Toomey said in a statement. “We continue to work alongside NSW Health, NSW Police, DCJ, cleaners and other tenancy support teams and local community organisations to ensure the safety of tenants and staff, and to ensure support and supplies are provided to people living at Common Ground during the lockdown.”

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Makes you wonder what Aussies treat their horses with.

Melbourne Clinic Offers Ivermectin Despite It Not Being Approved (G.)

A medical clinic in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs has been offering patients off-label prescriptions for the anti-parasite drug ivermectin to treat Covid-19, despite a lack of evidence for its use in treating the virus. The clinic set up a dedicated online page to apply for a consultation to be prescribed the drug to treat Covid-19 on its website after receiving an “influx of ivermectin inquiries”. The clinic says there is no guarantee a prescription for ivermectin will be given, and it will depend on a risk assessment on issues such as location, work, contact with Covid-positive people and medical history. Each consultation costs $85 and does not include a Medicare rebate.

The clinic was listed as a Tier 1 exposure site on Tuesday, after a Covid-positive case attended on 2 September. A caller to ABC Melbourne on Wednesday, who identified themselves as a hospital worker, expressed concern about people taking the drug, stating some had had “negative outcomes” and had to be admitted to hospital. Ivermectin is only approved for use in Australia for medical issues such as river blindness, scabies and roundworm infections. Medical practitioners can legally prescribe the medication off-label, but the Therapeutic Goods Administration has advised against using the drug to treat Covid-19 outside of clinical trial settings.

The National Covid-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce, which examines studies of the drug around the world, said in late August that “there remains significant uncertainty whether ivermectin is more effective and safer than standard care in treating patients with Covid-19”. The clinic is one of several believed to be prescribing ivermectin off-label to treat Covid-19 in Australia, however, sympathetic GPs usually do not promote offering the service, instead their details tend to be shared among private groups on Facebook and Telegram.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president, Dr Karen Price, said while RACGP did not consider its role to be looking over the shoulders of every GP, she advised ivermectin had not received regulatory approval in Australia for use as an anti-viral treatment. “In fact, the advice from the health experts is 100% clear – do not use ivermectin for the treatment of Covid-19,” she said. “The status of other drugs, such as sotrovimab, is very different. That is an example of a new drug for the treatment of Covid-19 that has passed through the rigorous testing safety procedures of the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Oz doctors

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Good luck.

“COVID Zero” New Zealand Is Now A Full-Blown Police State (JS)

New Zealand, the last of the dedicated “COVID Zero” nations on earth, has completed its transformation into a full-blown tyrannical regime, and shockingly, it has come with the consent of the vast majority of Kiwis. Once hailed as the media and “public health experts’” favorite COVID-19 managerial “success story,” the puff pieces have been increasingly hard to find, as Wellington has spawned a dystopian concoction of insane, despotic government edicts, claimed as an absolutely necessary part of their everlasting fight against a disease with a 99.8% recovery rate. Just observe what has happened in the Five Eyes partner nation during this week alone:

1) Virtually the entire country is once again under an indefinite lockdown, after a few COVID-19 cases were reported throughout the nation. A single case necessitates a “snap lockdown,” in which all rights of millions of citizens are immediately restricted and indefinitely subject to the containment of a seasonal respiratory disease. The current lockdown has been extended over Auckland until at least mid September, with many predicting a much lengthier sentence. According to past precedent, Kiwis will not receive their freedom back until — this is the truly insane part of Zero COVID — there is zero community spread of COVID-19. And the second another case pops up on the radar, the entire country goes back to square one of the Zero COVID protocol.

2) A man is being shamed by his countrymen for having the audacity to “escape” from a government-sanctioned COVID internment camp. The camps have been described in a more positive, but false light by the press and government officials as “quarantine hotels,” but it is most certainly an internment facility, as leaving is not allowed, and it carries a fine and lengthy prison sentence. The Hill reported: “The person was charged with failing to comply with New Zealand’s coronavirus health order. Under a new law passed last year, he could face a fine or up to six months in jail if convicted.”

3) The country’s police and military services are installing security checkpoints throughout New Zealand in an effort to make sure citizens are not traveling during the lockdown. Freely traveling during the lockdown now carries a massive fine and/or prison sentence as punishment. New Zealand is now the only country in the world left that is dedicated to COVID Zero, the pursuit of the total elimination of a virus from their nation, which has been under a government-sanctioned self-siege since the beginning of 2020. All of the other nations that attempted to pursue the pseudoscience behind COVID Zero have failed in catastrophic fashion. New Zealand has transformed from a highly-touted COVID “success story” to a full-fledged house of horrors, and sadly, there is no end in sight to the ongoing madness.

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From 2020.

Children Are Not Covid-19 Super Spreaders: Time To Go Back To School (BMJ)

[..] most public health interventions have assumed children with comorbidities such as primary or secondary immune dysfunction or respiratory/cardiac illness to be at increased risk, and in the UK this has led to advice for these children to shield completely, as for adults known to be at risk. Many paediatric specialists are concerned that a blanket assumption that immune-suppressed children of any kind are all at increased risk will cause considerable long-term educational and social harm to these children. At the current time, children do not appear to be super spreaders. Sero-surveillance data will not be available to confirm or refute these findings prior to the urgent policy decisions that need to be taken in the next few weeks such as how and when to re-open schools. Policies for non-pharmacological interventions involving children are going to have to be made on a risk–benefit basis with current evidence available.


Governments worldwide should allow all children back to school regardless of comorbidities. Detailed surveillance will be needed to confirm the safety of this approach, despite recent analysis demonstrating the ineffectiveness of school closures in the recent past. The media highlight of a possible rare new Kawasaki-like vasculitis that may or may not be due to SARS-CoV2 does not change the fact that severe COVID-19 is as rare as many other serious infection syndromes in children that do not cause schools to be closed. Individualised risk assessment and decision-making by clinicians should occur for those considered at exceptional risk (such as in immediately after bone marrow transplant) or where there are other older family members at significant risk.

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“I think we’re in a situation where we can afford to give them this treatment”

AFP Fact Check Accidentally Makes The Case For Ivermectin (Twitchy)

There are claims circulating on social media that Japan approved ivermectin for use in treating COVID-19 but, as this fact check from the AFP makes clear, that’s just not true. What the fact check does say, however, is that Haruo Ozaki, chairman of the Tokyo Medical Association did, explain why a doctor might prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID-19: “Social media posts suggest that Japan’s government recommends using antiparasitic drug ivermectin to treat Covid-19, citing remarks by the chairman of the Tokyo Medical Association. This is misleading; while he cautiously supported the treatment, the association does not represent the country’s government, which has not endorsed ivermectin for that use.” Ozaki went on to say that since we’re in a crisis, “I think we’re in a situation where we can afford to give them this treatment”:

In the video included in the tweet, Ozaki compares the number of Covid-19 cases and mortality rate in African countries that distributed ivermectin once a year for its anti-parasitic properties to those that did not. “I believe the difference is clear. Of course, one cannot conclude that ivermectin is effective on the basis of these figures, but when we have all these elements, we cannot say that ivermectin is absolutely not effective, at least not me,” he says. “We can do other studies to confirm its efficacy, but we are in a crisis situation. With regards to the use of ivermectin, it is obviously necessary to obtain the informed consent of the patients, and I think we’re in a situation where we can afford to give them this treatment,” Ozaki adds.

The fact check also noted that clinical trials of the drug are ongoing: “Clinical trials are ongoing around the world to find out its potential effects on Covid-19 patients, but a recent spike in ivermectin prescriptions prompted the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) to release a statement warning of the potential harmful effects of the drug if misused.” So, not a “horse dewormer,” CNN?

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Key supplements that may chelate iron from the body include:
Turmeric.
Quercetin.
Resveratrol.
Green Tea.
Milk Thistle (potentially)*

The Role Of Iron In The Pathogenesis Of Covid-19 (SD)

Iron overload is increasingly implicated as a contributor to the pathogenesis of COVID-19. Indeed, several of the manifestations of COVID-19, such as inflammation, hypercoagulation, hyperferritinemia, and immune dysfunction are also reminiscent of iron overload. Although iron is essential for all living cells, free unbound iron, resulting from iron dysregulation and overload, is very reactive and potentially toxic due to its role in the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS react with and damage cellular lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins, with consequent activation of either acute or chronic inflammatory processes implicated in multiple clinical conditions. Moreover, iron-catalyzed lipid damage exerts a direct causative effect on the newly discovered nonapoptotic cell death known as ferroptosis.


Unlike apoptosis, ferroptosis is immunogenic and not only leads to amplified cell death but also promotes a series of reactions associated with inflammation. Iron chelators are generally safe and are proven to protect patients in clinical conditions characterized by iron overload. There is also an abundance of evidence that iron chelators possess antiviral activities. Furthermore, the naturally occurring iron chelator lactoferrin (Lf) exerts immunomodulatory as well as anti-inflammatory effects and can bind to several receptors used by coronaviruses thereby blocking their entry into host cells. Iron chelators may consequently be of high therapeutic value during the present COVID-19 pandemic.

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Autumn ritual.

Yellen: US On Track To Default On National Debt In October (Hill)

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday warned congressional leaders that the U.S. is on track to default on the national debt in October if the White House and Congress are unable to raise the debt limit. In a Wednesday letter, Yellen said that the Treasury Department would likely run out of cash and exhaust “extraordinary” measures to keep the federal government within its legal borrowing limit at some point next month. “Once all available measures and cash on hand are fully exhausted, the United States of America would be unable to meet its obligations for the first time in our history,” Yellen said.

“Given this uncertainty, the Treasury Department is not able to provide a specific estimate of how long the extraordinary measures will last. However, based on our best and most recent information, the most likely outcome is that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted during the month of October,” she continued. Yellen wrote the letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The Treasury Department has taken so-called extraordinary measures to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on the national debt since the federal debt limit was reimposed on Aug. 1. If the Treasury Department runs out of ways to stave off a default without borrowing more money, the inability of the U.S. to pay its debts could send debilitating shockwaves through the financial system.

Yellen urged lawmakers for months to raise the debt limit before it was reimposed in August, warning that a delay could “cause irreparable damage to the U.S. economy and global financial markets.” She has since pleaded with Congress to give Treasury the ability to pay debts already approved by previous presidents and congressional majorities. “Waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States,” Yellen wrote.

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Street art.

 

 

 

 

US before high fructose syrup

NY1960s

 

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Sep 282020
 


Dorothea Lange Abandoned cafe in Carey, Texas “Carey is fast becoming a ghost town of the Texas plains.” 1937

 

New York Times Mysteriously Obtains Trump Financial Records (RS)
New York Times Fails at Outlining President Trump’s Taxes Again (CT)
Project Veritas Uncovers ‘Ballot Harvesting Fraud’ In Minnesota (NYP)
Appellate Court Halts Wisconsin Ballot-Counting Extension (AP)
As Mueller Probe Fizzles, Anti-Trump Cabal Hatches New Collusion Tale (Smith)
COVID-19 Patients Who Get Enough Vitamin D Are 52% Less Likely To Die (DM)
New Covid Fines Of Up To £10,000 Come Into Force In England (G.)
Amy Coney Barrett: A New Feminist Icon (Pol.)
Federal Judge Gives Temporary Reprieve To TikTok (NBC)
Azerbaijan & Armenia Carry On Fighting Over Contested Nagorno-Karabakh (RT)

 

 

Will we ever find out who leaked Trump’s tax returns from Cyrus Vance’s offices? And does anyone still care that this is highly illegal?

 

 

 

 

 

 

ZeroHedge Nothing Illegal

Balding tax returns

 

 

The New York Times once upon a time had intelligent journalists with a lot of integrity working -hard- for it. Now they go an yet another fishing trip looking to catch something illegal, but they fail, and still try to dress it all up as something terrible. No pride, no integrity.

New York Times Mysteriously Obtains Trump Financial Records (RS)

The New York Times reports that it has obtained President Trump’s ‘tax information” going back “over two decades.” The leak is from New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., or one of his underlings. We know Vance has obtained all of the financial records Trump had on file with Deutsche Bank, his primary lender. We know Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena. And, via the New York Times, we know that these records go back into the 1990s or, in the parlance of the day, “over two decades.” If the New York Times is correct, Trump’s finances being something of a hot mess is not a shocker. Trump has been on the edge of bankruptcy before and has employed mighty financial kung fu to stay solvent.

[..] From the tenor of the article, they think the revelation that Trump was getting a $72.9 million tax refund and only paying $750 in federal income taxes will be damaging. I really doubt that will be the case. There are things in this story that lead me to believe that either the people writing it are stupid or they think you are stupid. For instance: “In fact, those public filings offer a distorted picture of his financial state, since they simply report revenue, not profit. In 2018, for example, Mr. Trump announced in his disclosure that he had made at least $434.9 million. The tax records deliver a very different portrait of his bottom line: $47.4 million in losses.” These two things are not incompatible, and the fact that you declare earnings on a report that asks for earnings and not profit is not deceptive. The technical term is “compliance.”

By far, the most notable thing about this story is the willingness of the New York Times to engage in election interference by timing their release within 60 days of the election (that’s the standard, right? 60 days?). That and the role that seems to have been played by the Manhattan DA’s office in leaking records ostensibly demanded from Deutsche Bank as part of a criminal investigation to facilitate a political hit. The fact that a district attorney’s office is using such records as part of a political attack on the President within 60 days of an election is unprecedented (that’s the word, right? unprecedented?). The actions by Vance or his office virtually guarantee that any tax returns released to that office will find similar use as political ammunition.

There is a good chance that this story was intended to launch much closer to the election had the scope and extent of Hunter Biden’s financial shenanigans and the degree to which the ChiComs have their tentacles sunk into Sundown Joe not come to light…and will get even more light, I suspect, on Tuesday night. When the dust settles on this, I think the story is going to be “very rich guy with a fascination for high-risk business ventures pays lots of brilliant tax lawyers and accountants a crap-load of money to minimize and avoid (but not evade) income taxes and says he makes more money than he really does to golf partners.”

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Excellent question from sundance: “Now let’s figure out how DC politicians making $200k/yr are able to become multi-millionaires while holding office..”

New York Times Fails at Outlining President Trump’s Taxes Again (CT)

Once again the New York Times attempts to make an issue out of President Trump’s real estate holdings working as a tax shelter and reducing income taxes. In the article the Times completely obfuscates the way income taxes are strategically offset by depreciation, mortgage interest and the entire reason why real estate ownership is viewed as a business. John Carney writing for Breitbart gets it: […] So imagine our guy took out an $8 million mortgage at five percent, paying $2 million cash. Now he’s got to pay $400,000 in mortgage payments. He wants to make at least that much so he charges tenants an aggregate of $425,000, which after upkeep comes out to $410,000 of net income. (Remember, if the bank didn’t think he could make more in rent than the mortgage payment, it probably wouldn’t have lent him the money.)

“The interest payment on the loan–let’s call it $390,000–is deductible from his income, leaving him with $20,000 in net income. He gets to keep that and pay no taxes on it, however, because he still gets to apply the $370,000 depreciation charge. He tells the IRS he lost $350,000. Under our tax code, ordinary business expenses can be deducted in the year they are incurred. But when a business pays for a long-lasting item expected to produce income–like machinery, vehicles, or an apartment building–it is considered a capital investment. Instead of getting to write-off the cost all at once, the business is required to write it off over the course of decades. After the 1986 tax code, this was set at 27.5 years for residential real estate.” d

Anyone who has ever operated a business knows that offsetting income is one of the primary reasons to be self-employed. Additionally, the Times completely skips over the tens-of-millions in payroll taxes paid by the Trump organization and tens-of-millions in property and sales taxes paid by all of the various Trump properties. In the commercial real estate market it is common sense to offset income tax liabilities with a host of valid annual expenses, long-term capital depreciation and mortgage interest payments. With over 500 individual business entities within the Trump organization the ability to offset income in one asset with expenses in another is simply good accounting.

Additionally, President Trump donates his $400,000 government salary back to the U.S. government. So to accuse President Trump of only paying $750 in income taxes totally ignores all of the other donations and tax payments he makes. In practical terms no President before Trump has ever had his actual business portfolio so deeply connected to the success of the American economy. It doesn’t cost the American taxpayer a dime to have President Trump in office…. Now let’s figure out how DC politicians making $200k/yr are able to become multi-millionaires while holding office. Anyone?

Read more …

It’s getting serious. O’Keefe says they have been filming this for months.

Project Veritas Uncovers ‘Ballot Harvesting Fraud’ In Minnesota (NYP)

A ballot-harvesting racket in Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Minneapolis district — where paid workers illegally gather absentee ballots from elderly Somali immigrants — appears to have been busted by undercover news organization Project Veritas. One alleged ballot harvester, Liban Mohamed, the brother of Minneapolis city council member Jamal Osman, is shown in a bombshell Snapchat video rifling through piles of ballots strewn across his dashboard. “Just today we got 300 for Jamal Osman,” says Mohamed, aka KingLiban1, in the video. “I have 300 ballots in my car right now . . . “Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentee ballots. . . . Look, all these are for Jamal Osman,” he says, displaying the white envelopes.

“Money is the king in this world . . . and a campaign is driven by money.” The video, posted on July 1, was obtained by Project Veritas and included in a 17-minute video expose released Sunday night. Under Minnesota law no individual can be the “designated agent” for more than three absentee voters. The allegations come just five weeks before a presidential election plagued with predictions of voter fraud. Both President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr have warned that the increased use of mail-in ballots, due to COVID-19 concerns about in-person voting, are vulnerable to fraud, especially when unsolicited ballots are mailed to all voters in certain states.

Project Veritas’ investigation in Minneapolis will pour gasoline on the fire, only 48 hours before Trump debates Joe Biden in the first presidential debate Tuesday, addressing topics including election security. “Our investigation into this ballot harvesting ring demonstrates clearly how these unscrupulous operators exploit the elderly and immigrant communities” said James O’Keefe, founder and CEO of Project Veritas. The alleged involvement of Ilhan Omar, a controversial member of the Squad, and frequent Trump target, is claimed on camera by two people in Veritas’ investigation, including whistleblower Omar Jamal, a Minneapolis community leader and chair of the city’s Somali Watchdog Group.

Read more …

First of how many?

Appellate Court Halts Wisconsin Ballot-Counting Extension (AP)

A federal appeals court on Sunday temporarily halted a six-day extension for counting absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s presidential election, a momentary victory for Republicans and President Donald Trump in the key presidential battleground state. As it stands, ballots will now be due by 8 p.m. on Election Day. A lower court judge had sided with Democrats and their allies to extend the deadline until Nov. 9. Democrats sought more time as a way to help deal with an expected historic high number of absentee ballots. The Democratic National Committee, the state Democratic Party and allied groups including the League of Women Voters sued to extend the deadline for counting absentee ballots after the April presidential primary saw long lines, fewer polling places, a shortage of workers and thousands of ballots mailed days after the election.


U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled Sept. 21 that ballots that arrive up to six days after Election Day will count as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. Sunday’s action puts Conley’s order on hold until the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals or U.S. Supreme Court issues any further action. [..] State election officials anticipate as many as 2 million people will cast absentee ballots to avoid catching the coronavirus at the polls. That would be three times more absentee ballots than any other previous election and could overwhelm both election officials and the postal service, Conley wrote. If the decision had stood it could have delayed knowing the winner of Wisconsin for days. The Republican National Committee, the state GOP and Wisconsin’s Republican legislators argued that current absentee voting rules be left in place, saying people have plenty of time to obtain and return their ballots.

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Second installment of a two-part excerpt from Lee Smith’s book “The Permanent Coup: How Enemies Foreign and Domestic Targeted the American President”.

“According to the story the CIA officer and his colleagues would tell, Trump was again in league with a foreign power to defeat a rival candidate. They rotated Ukraine in for Russia and Biden for Clinton.”

As Mueller Probe Fizzles, Anti-Trump Cabal Hatches New Collusion Tale (Smith)

Just two days after the curtain dropped on the Mueller investigation, Ciaramella was rebooting the collusion narrative. According to the story the CIA officer and his colleagues would tell, Trump was again in league with a foreign power to defeat a rival candidate. They rotated Ukraine in for Russia and Biden for Clinton. The operation’s personnel drew from the same sources as the Russia collusion operation — serving officials from powerful government bureaucracies, the CIA, Pentagon, and State Department, as well as elected officials, political operatives, and the press. Therefore, the process was also the same: The actors would work the operation through the intelligence bureaucracy and the media to start an official proceeding, in this case an impeachment process. The play was set to begin.

Ciaramella first expressed his concern to a CIA lawyer. Frustrated that his action wasn’t moving quickly enough, he turned to the intelligence community inspector general responsible for oversight of all 17 of the nation’s agencies. On August 12, he filed a whistleblower’s report with ICIG Michael Atkinson. It was a version of the dossier, allegations based on second- and thirdhand sources. Steele said that his information came from anonymous Russians; Ciaramella claimed his came from unnamed Americans. “In the course of my official duties,” wrote Ciaramella, “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. elections.”

He even replicated a key feature from Steele’s memos that helped the FBI obtain the FISA warrant. The dossier alleged that the Trump campaign had agreed to two Ukraine-related quid pro quos. One, in exchange for the hack and release of DNC emails, the Trump team would sideline Ukraine as campaign issue. Two, in exchange for dropping Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia, a Putin ally promised Trump advisers energy deals. Ciaramella also alleged a Ukraine-related quid pro quo. His August 12 report added a detail missing from the July 26 memo. He claimed in his document he’d learned earlier in July that Trump had “issued instructions to suspend all security assistance to Ukraine.” With this, the CIA official had planted the seed that would grow into the basis of the impeachment charges brought against Trump:

The president had withheld foreign aid in exchange for something that would benefit him personally — an investigation of his political rival. Ciaramella and his confederates had simply taken the boastful blunder Biden made in front of the Manhattan audience and hung it on Trump. Now he was the one using U.S. aid to secure a favor from a Ukrainian president. It was an audacious move, but the Ciaramella dossier was also a defensive maneuver. “It was born out of desperation,” says one of his former colleagues. “He wasn’t just trying to protect Biden,” says the source, a former senior Obama administration intelligence official. [..] When he finds out Trump may get the Burisma investigation restarted, he’s worried for himself, too.”

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And 54 percent less likely to catch coronavirus in the first place. And if you do anyway, zinc hinders virus (RNA) replication in your cells. Two simple and cheap ways to protect yourselves and your loved ones.

COVID-19 Patients Who Get Enough Vitamin D Are 52% Less Likely To Die (DM)

People who get enough vitamin D are at a 52 percent lower risk of dying of COVID-19 than people who are deficient for the ‘sunshine vitamin,’ new research reveals. Vitamin D plays a crucial role in the immune system and may combat inflammation. These features may make it a key player in the body’s fight against coronavirus. Rates of vitamin D deficiency are also higher in some of the same groups who have been hardest hit by coronavirus: people of color and elderly people. It’s by no means a causal link, but suggests that vitamin D could play a role in who gets COVI-19, who gets sickest from it, and who is spared altogether.

Boston University’s Dr Michael Holick found in his previous research that people who have enough vitamin D are 54 percent less likely to catch coronavirus in the first place. Following on that work, he and his team have found that people who don’t get enough of the vitamin are far more likely to become severely ill, develop sepsis or even die after contracting coronavirus. Because vitamin D deficiency is common in people with other disease that raise coronavirus risks, it’s impossible to say exactly how many lives would be spared if we all got our daily dose of the sunshine vitamin. But we know that about 42 percent of the US population is vitamin D deficient. If that rate held true for the more 203,000 Americans who died of coronavirus, perhaps some 85,000 would have fared better with improved vitamin D levels.

In Britain 20 per cent of the population suffer from the deficiency, according to the British Nutrition Foundation. When the rate is applied to the UK’s 41,936 deaths from coronavirus, it suggests 8,387 of them could have been helped with improved levels of Vitamin D. ‘This study provides direct evidence that vitamin D sufficiency can reduce the complications, including the cytokine storm (release of too many proteins into the blood too quickly) and ultimately death from COVID-19,’ Dr Holick said. Dr Holick and his colleagues took blood samples from 235 patients admitted to hospitals in Tehran for COVID-19. Overall, 67 percent of the patients had vitamin D levels below 30 ng/mL.

There isn’t a clear marker for the ideal level of vitamin D, but 30 ng/mL is considered a sufficient. Anything below that is ‘insufficient,’ but won’t necessarily have broad-ranging health consequences, while levels below 20 ng/mL are considered ‘deficient.’ About 60 percent of elderly people living in nursing homes, for example, are thought to be vitamin D deficient. The most likely explanation is that they simply spend too much time indoors. Sunlight is our primary source of vitamin D. When we are exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation in rays of sunshine, it reacts with cholesterol in our skin, triggering the production of vitamin D. In an increasingly indoor world, rates of vitamin D deficiency have climbed.

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Behind a paywall, the Times reports pub curfew does not apply to bars in Parliament. Way to go.

New Covid Fines Of Up To £10,000 Come Into Force In England (G.)

A new, more robust chapter in English coronavirus regulations begins on Monday, with fines of up to £10,000 for people who refuse to self-isolate when asked, and enforcement including tip-offs from people who believe that others are breaching the rules. The changes come with the duty to self-isolate moving into law. It becomes a legal obligation if someone is told to do so by test-and-trace staff, but not for those simply using the Covid-19 phone app, which is anonymous. At the same time, the government is introducing a new system of payments of £500 for people on lower incomes who are unable to work because of the mandatory 14-day self-isolation, a system being implemented by councils.

The two-pronged approach, intended to create better compliance with self-isolation rules, was described by the health secretary, Matt Hancock, as “imperative” in helping keep down coronavirus infection rates. According to a health department statement setting out the new system, local authorities are expected to have their test-and-trace support schemes up and running within two weeks, with those self-isolating before then given backdated payments as needed. However, the Local Government Association, which represents councils, has warned it will be “challenging” for these to be set up at speed, adding that “urgent clarity is needed about how councils will be reimbursed for costs of setting up these schemes and the payments themselves”.

To be eligible for the payment, people must have been told to self-isolate by test and trace – having tested positive for coronavirus or being in close contact with someone who has – as well as having lost income as a result, and be recipients of one or more of a series of benefits, including universal credit, income support and housing benefit. Those who do not self-isolate when told to could face fines, which start at £1,000 and rise to £10,000 for repeat offences, or those who instigate breaches of the law, such as an employer who orders or permits people to come to work when they should not. Test-and-trace call handlers will check on those told to self-isolate, with police taking a role in areas or groups seen as high risk, as well as acting on tip-offs from neighbours or others who spot suspected breaches, the government announcement said.

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We need tolerance of people who do not think exactly like we do.

Amy Coney Barrett: A New Feminist Icon (Pol.)

Amy Coney Barrett has been praised for her topflight legal mind, even by those who disagree with her. At 48 years old, she is poised to help shape the court for a generation or more. But that’s not all her elevation to the high court has the potential to accomplish. Barrett’s expected confirmation should serve as a catalyst for rethinking the most powerful social movement in the last half century: feminism. Over the last week, as Justice Ginsburg’s body laid in repose outside the Supreme Court, the nation has rightly celebrated Ginsburg’s trailblazing 1970s legal advocacy, one which pushed both law and culture to reexamine the ways in which women had been pigeonholed as caregivers and men as providers. The late justice’s antidiscrimination wins opened up a new era in which both men and women could respectably and responsibly engage in both avenues of fulfillment, according to their personal talents and circumstances.

But Ginsburg also viewed abortion rights as central to sexual equality, and her leadership helped give rise to a movement that remains laser focused on abortion to this day. Yet rather than make women more equal to men, constitutionalizing the right to abortion as the court did in Roe has relieved men of the mutual responsibilities that accompany sex, and so has upended the duties of care for dependent children that fathers ought equally to share. Barrett embodies a new kind of feminism, a feminism that builds upon the praiseworthy antidiscrimination work of Ginsburg but then goes further. It insists not just on the equal rights of men and women, but also on their common responsibilities, particularly in the realm of family life. In this new feminism, sexual equality is found not in imitating men’s capacity to walk away from an unexpected pregnancy through abortion, but rather in asking men to meet women at a high standard of mutual responsibility, reciprocity and care.

At Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearing in 2017, Sen. Dianne Feinstein tellingly remarked, “You are controversial because many of us that have lived lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems, and Roe entered into that, obviously.” Barrett’s life story puzzles older feminists like Feinstein because bearing and raising a bevy of children has long implied retaining a traditional life script — like staying home with the children — that Barrett has obviously not heeded. To be sure, few mothers of seven could become federal judges, never mind Supreme Court justices. Barrett – “generationally brilliant,” according to her Notre Dame colleague, O. Carter Snead — is likely alone in this set.

It all seems so unlikely: She has risen to the pinnacle of her profession while at once being “radically hospitable” to children, as Snead has described her. An enigma to many, she doesn’t easily fit into any ideological box. If we’re really intent as a country on seeing women flourish in their professions and serve in greater numbers of leadership positions too, it would be worthwhile to interrupt the abortion rights sloganeering for a beat and ask just how this mother of many has achieved so much.

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Much ado about an app. China’s worried about the source code.

Federal Judge Gives Temporary Reprieve To TikTok (NBC)

A federal judge granted a temporary reprieve Sunday to TikTok, the short-form video app that was facing a Trump administration-imposed midnight deadline that would have prevented users from downloading it. The order from U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols of Washington, D.C., allows U.S. app stores to continue offering downloads. Nichols did not rule on a second, more comprehensive ban that would halt U.S. companies from working with TikTok. In a statement, TikTok said that it was pleased with the ruling and that it “will continue defending our rights for the benefit of our community and employees.”


“At the same time, we will also maintain our ongoing dialogue with the government to turn our proposal, which the president gave his preliminary approval to last weekend, into an agreement,” it said. TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, struck a deal with Oracle this month to move the company’s headquarters to the United States. The software giant would oversee its operations. Walmart is also involved in the deal. TikTok has been under scrutiny from the Trump administration for nearly a year over concerns that the Chinese government could gain access to American users’ data. President Donald Trump said in July that he would ban the app. Trump said this month that he had given his “blessing” to the deal and that he had approved it in concept.

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This is real war. Stop it.

Azerbaijan & Armenia Carry On Fighting Over Contested Nagorno-Karabakh (RT)

Intense hostilities between Armenian and Azeri forces continued overnight along the border of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Both sides claimed local victories and reported inflicting heavy casualties on one another. Azerbaijan and Armenia, two historical rivals, kept on fighting throughout Sunday night and Monday morning despite mounting calls from international leaders to hold fire and disengage troops. There have been skirmishes “of different intensity” overnight on the Nagorno-Karabakh border, a spokesperson for the Armenian Defense Ministry reported earlier on Monday. “The adversary resumed offensive using artillery and armor, including the heavy flamethrower system TOS,” the official revealed.

The Armenian military are deterring the attack, “inflicting significant losses on the enemy in manpower and equipment.” Baku, meanwhile, blamed its arch-nemesis for targeting civilian-populated areas. On Monday morning, Armenian forces have been shelling Terter, a border town of roughly 19,000 people, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry told the media. “Proper measures” will be taken if the bombardment doesn’t stop, the ministry warned. Previously, Baku suggested at least 550 Armenian soldiers were killed or injured in the Azeri “counteroffensive,” along with dozens of tanks, howitzers, and air defense systems lost in action. Yerevan promptly rebuked the claim as “unfounded.” Nagorno-Karabakh itself reported a loss of 31 Armenian soldiers in the fighting.

The lingering hostilities broke out previously on Sunday morning. Yerevan accused Baku of using combat aircraft and heavy artillery to bomb targets within Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region administered and populated by ethnic Armenians but claimed by Azerbaijan as part of its territory. Baku, in turn, said it had counter-attacked in response to Armenian “provocations.” Both sides – which have fought on numerous occasions since the Soviet Union’s demise – sent reinforcements to the frontline and blamed one another for targeting civilians.

Read more …

 

 

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Jun 172015
 
 June 17, 2015  Posted by at 2:57 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , ,  8 Responses »


Jack Delano Street scene on a rainy day in Norwich, Connecticut 1940

For a while now, I’ve had a German saying floating around my files, that I didn’t really know what to do with. I know now. The saying is:

In der Not ist der Mittelweg der Tod.

Which loosely translates as:

In emergencies, the middle ground is lethal.

It seems like the Greek parliament thinks along just those lines. A preliminary report issued today declares all debt illegal. You can read the entire report behind the link. Here is chapter 8, Asessments of the Debt. I’d say this is somewhat inflammatory.

Hellenic Parliament’s Debt Truth Committee Preliminary Findings – Executive Summary of the report

Chapter 8, Assessment of the Debts as regards illegtimacy, odiousness, illegality, and unsustainability, provides an assessment of the Greek public debt according to the definitions regarding illegitimate, odious, illegal, and unsustainable debt adopted by the Committee.

Chapter 8 concludes that the Greek public debt as of June 2015 is unsustainable, since Greece is currently unable to service its debt without seriously impairing its capacity to fulfill its basic human rights obligations. Furthermore, for each creditor, the report provides evidence of indicative cases of illegal, illegitimate and odious debts.

• Debt to the IMF should be considered illegal since its concession breached the IMF’s own statutes, and its conditions breached the Greek Constitution, international customary law, and treaties to which Greece is a party. It is also illegitimate, since conditions included policy prescriptions that infringed human rights obligations. Finally, it is odious since the IMF knew that the imposed measures were undemocratic, ineffective, and would lead to serious violations of socio-economic rights.

• Debts to the ECB should be considered illegal since the ECB over-stepped its mandate by imposing the application of macroeconomic adjustment programs (e.g. labour market deregulation) via its participation in the Troïka. Debts to the ECB are also illegitimate and odious, since the principal raison d’etre of the Securities Market Programme (SMP) was to serve the interests of the financial institutions, allowing the major European and Greek private banks to dispose of their Greek bonds.

• The EFSF engages in cash-less loans which should be considered illegal because Article 122(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) was violated, and further they breach several socio-economic rights and civil liberties. Moreover, the EFSF Framework Agreement 2010 and the Master Financial Assistance Agreement of 2012 contain several abusive clauses revealing clear misconduct on the part of the lender. The EFSF also acts against democratic principles, rendering these particular debts illegitimate and odious.

• The bilateral loans should be considered illegal since they violate the procedure provided by the Greek constitution. The loans involved clear misconduct by the lenders, and had conditions that contravened law or public policy. Both EU law and international law were breached in order to sideline human rights in the design of the macroeconomic programmes. The bilateral loans are furthermore illegitimate, since they were not used for the benefit of the population, but merely enabled the private creditors of Greece to be bailed out. Finally, the bilateral loans are odious since the lender states and the European Commission knew of potential violations, but in 2010 and 2012 avoided to assess the human rights impacts of the macroeconomic adjustment and fiscal consolidation that were the conditions for the loans.

• The debt to private creditors should be considered illegal because private banks conducted themselves irresponsibly before the Troika came into being, failing to observe due diligence, while some private creditors such as hedge funds also acted in bad faith. Parts of the debts to private banks and hedge funds are illegitimate for the same reasons that they are illegal; furthermore, Greek banks were illegitimately recapitalized by tax-payers. Debts to private banks and hedge funds are odious, since major private creditors were aware that these debts were not incurred in the best interests of the population but rather for their own benefit.

The report concludes, fittingly, with a quote from Pericles’ funeral oration:

People’s dignity is worth more than illegal, illegitimate, odious and unsustainable debt

Having concluded a preliminary investigation, the Committee considers that Greece has been and still is the victim of an attack premeditated and organized by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. This violent, illegal, and immoral mission aimed exclusively at shifting private debt onto the public sector.

Making this preliminary report available to the Greek authorities and the Greek people, the Committee considers to have fulfilled the first part of its mission as defined in the decision of the President of Parliament of 4 April 2015. The Committee hopes that the report will be a useful tool for those who want to exit the destructive logic of austerity and stand up for what is endangered today: human rights, democracy, peoples’ dignity, and the future of generations to come.

In response to those who impose unjust measures, the Greek people might invoke what Thucydides mentioned about the constitution of the Athenian people:

“As for the name, it is called a democracy, for the administration is run with a view to the interests of the many, not of the few”

(Pericles’ Funeral Oration, in the speech from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War).