Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Going Too Far

Unfortunately it was going to happen, and we who support the movement need to call out those instances where it goes too far.  I am talking about the justified Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, mostly characterized by widespread peaceful protests even in small rural towns that never see such things, and with a solid majority of the American people currently supporting both the BLM and its main demands.  As it is, one should probably not tie the BLM to some of these recent unacceptable events, although those engaged in them will justify their actions as being part of the movement. This should not be accepted.

OK, the one that has really put me off happened last night at sometime after 10:30 PM in Madison, Wisconsin.  A statue I know well was not only pulled down, but it was decapitated with both parts thrown in a nearby lake, although apparently since recovered. This statue stood on the east corner of the Capitol Square downtown.  It is of Hans Christian Heg (1829-1863).  An immigrant from Norway, he was an active anti-slavery abolitionist and member of the Free Soil Party who led the 15th Scandinavian American regiment in the Union army.  He died fighting against the Confederacy in the Battle of Chickamauga, which it says on the base of his statue.  There is absolutely no justification for this event.

This was accompanied by other pretty unacceptable nonsense. The "Forward" statue at the opposite end of the square was also pulled down and dragged down State Street.  This is of a generic woman representing the state motto of "Forward," not quite as completely insane as pulling down Heg, but also without any obvious justification.The Forward motto and idea has long been associated with the Progressive tradition in the state, although I suppose one could drag in bad stuff about some of those folks, such as that some supported eugenics. But I do not think this crowd was thinking about that.

What triggered this? Apparently a man entered a restaurant with a baseball bat and a bullhorn, with which he began to harangue customers. He was later arrested for disorderly conduct, which sounds pretty reasonable to me.  There was no violence or other impropriety in his arrest.  But the crowd that pulled down the statues and smashed a lot of windows and attacked a state senator, putting him in the hospital for taking a photo of them, came several hours after his arrest to protest his arrest.  Bah!

I note two other items that need to be disavowed and opposed by supporters of the BLM. 

One was the tearing down of a statue in San Francisco of U.S. Grant. allegedly because for two years he owned a slave he inherited before he freed that slave. Well, I guess there is more case for pulling down his statue than that of Heg, for which there is zero. But he was not only the commander of the Union army that freed the slaves, but as president he supported Reconstruction that defended rights of the freed former slaves. The move to Jim Crow followed the end of his presidency.

Another is the continuation of the CHOP or CHAZ in Seattle, which, I gather, will be ended fairly soon one way or another.  Initially sort of interesting, the area has been hit with shootings over the last four nights, with one over the weekend killing 19-year old Lorenzo Anderson.  These are apparently not he result of outside white boogaloo racists attacking them but coming from inside this area.  There so far has been zero investigation of or effort to find Anderson's murderer and arrest him.The only report I have seen is that Anderson was advocating people not setting off fireworks due to a possible fire hazard. This appears to have what got him killed, although so far there is little solid information.But, sorry, this experiment should not end and not be repeated anywhere else.

I further note that Hannity and others on Fox News are spending lots of time going on and on about this Seattle situation.  Trump has been engaging in a series of increasingly unacceptable and outrageous actions, but those watching Fox and its allies hear and see none of that because, wow, there go those awful rioters in Seattle again!  Initially Fox made up and distorted reporting about what was going on there, which was initially peaceful and, yes,"Summer of Love" like.  But, unfortunately, now they do not need to make up stuff to put up ugly stories about it.

Barkley Rosser

66 comments:

  1. Yes, as usual you are writing well and compellingly.

    ReplyDelete
  2. June 24, 2020

    Coronavirus

    US

    Cases ( 2,462,707)
    Deaths ( 124,272)

    A devastating 38,500 new coronavirus cases today.

    ReplyDelete
  3. June 24, 2020

    Coronavirus

    US

    Cases ( 2,462,707)
    Deaths ( 124,272)

    UK

    Cases ( 306,862)
    Deaths ( 43,081)

    Germany

    Cases ( 193,254)
    Deaths ( 9,003)

    Canada

    Cases ( 102,242)
    Deaths ( 8,484)

    Sweden

    Cases ( 62,324)
    Deaths ( 5,209)

    ReplyDelete
  4. It was only a matter a time before something to this effect had happened. In an effort to seemingly create a post-racial society, or at least one in which racism is truly eradicated, actions like these go to show that even the best intentions may be misguided when they're perpetrated by those that are simply uneducated. In DC, statues to Admiral David Farragut (of "Damn the torpedoes" fame, an immigrant that fought against the Confederacy) and Brigadier General Tadeusz Kosciuszko (a Polish general fighting for the US in the Revolutionary War that used his will to free and educate slaves, the Polish President brought this up to the Trump while in DC earlier today) were both desecrated. Peaceful protesting and the exercising of civil rights should be of paramount importance during these times, needlessly vandalizing statues of the very people that fought for good causes is ironic (as you noted in the removal of Hans Christian Hegs's statue in Madison, WI) and only exacerbates the divide between people. I believe we should instead have a greater appreciation for history before opening our mouths.

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  5. I read this essay again, and am even more impressed. I think this line should read:

    "But, sorry, this experiment should end and not be repeated anywhere else."

    An important essay.

    ReplyDelete
  6. https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1275890146815225857

    Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

    Back on May 11 I wrote about how we could really mess up the economics of the pandemic 1/

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/opinion/coronavirus-depression.html

    How to Create a Pandemic Depression
    Opening the economy too soon could backfire, badly.

    4:34 PM · Jun 24, 2020

    I laid out a story about how it could all go wrong and leave us with a long period of high unemployment 2/

    Over the next few weeks, many red states abandon social-distancing policies, while many individuals, taking their cues from Trump and Fox News, begin behaving irresponsibly. This leads, briefly, to some rise in employment.

    But fairly soon it becomes clear that Covid-19 is spiraling out of control. People retreat back into their homes, whatever Trump and Republican governors may say.

    So we’re back where we started in economic terms, and in worse shape than ever in epidemiological terms. As a result, the period of double-digit unemployment, which might have lasted only a few months, goes on and on.

    It sure looks as if that’s what is happening, doesn’t it? We had employment gains in May, but states that rushed to reopen seeing a surge in infections; early indications that the public is retreating into its homes even as governors hesitate 3/

    It’s looking like the nightmare scenario is coming to pass. And it wasn’t “America” that wouldn’t stay the course: the NY area has done what needed to be done. It’s Trump and his allies who refused to get real 4/

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  7. BLM's CHAZ or CHOP if you will is a Maoist revolt, "protected" by Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club. As seems the rest if the unrest.

    It takes an unbalanced mind (common symptom of Trump Derangement Syndrome) to go along with most of the BLM faith.

    Taking down statues and changing place/military installation names seems meant to punish the tiny minority, many years ago who might have seen a statue of Lee as an 'idol for worship of slave worship'. I find that form of ideological presumption judging on people long dead to be illogical, and not moral. Mind reading!

    Delusions. "Systemic racism" is a made up agitprop. There is a gospel where Jesus admonishes "don't pull the speck from another's eye, until you pull the plank from your own."

    Doing away with "white privilege" agitprop requires an assault on John Locke and the "enlightenment" foundation of the US.

    "Police brutality" is real, and extremely rare! They paint police as bad when the rotten apples are in the 4 sigma tail. That kind of logic makes the news cycle enjoyable.

    BLM put me off when democrats went along with the dogma that BLM should admonish everyone. Since 27 May this is no different than burning Newark, NJ in 165.

    This has been good for gun sales, the bids for AR type rifles (I prefer 5.56 NATO, cheper and a bit more umph) on the site my friend use are out of the ceiling.

    BLM, whatever that is, has no idea what they want after the tantrum is over. So far I don't like what it wants to deliver.

    Who are "they" to judge?

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  8. Outside the panic press, some have observed 25 June 1950; 70 years ago today, started the "Korean Police Action" as my uncles, cousins who went called it.

    It is long past time to stop shouting the Covid 19 'casualty lists' and look at what the country will be after the pandemic fades and the panic press has moved on.

    "How to Create a Pandemic Depression
    Opening the economy too soon could backfire, badly." Krugman?

    Sweden is better off in terms of cases and deaths per million than most of the big places in the EU like Belgium, Italy, Spain France, UK.

    I doubt anyone will fall for shuttering the US economy again. That medicine, aside from the ongoing economic pain, we lost tens of millions of school kids' year, domestic abuses, depressions, alcohol and drug abuse, etc is real and worse than the hard to see 'benefits'.

    How could it have been any worse in NY metro? Houston needs to mobilize like NY Metro beds in a region not well served. Treatments are better than in March.

    I have been meaning to admonish Krugman on observing when US covid deaths exceeded Vietnam KIA. What he ignored is at that time US military deaths from Covid was in the few teens! For military reasons the DoD has stopped the body count and mainly announces exercises going on in spite of the pandemic.

    Krugman will get Trump no matter how much pain the rest of the country needs to endure.

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  9. "ilsm said..."

    Followed by a parade of lies and utter BS. Not even worth commenting on as your latest bot tirade was beneath being put in the garbage.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Protesters explain why they tore down statues at State Capitol

    MADISON, Wis. — Madison alder Mike Verveer tells News 3 Now both statues torn down by protesters overnight have been recovered.

    Madison police say a group of about 200 to 300 people took control of a towing vehicle and tore down the Forward and Hans Christian Heg statues at the State Capitol overnight.

    Multiple media outlets reported the Forward statue was left in the middle of State Street, while the Heg statue was beheaded, dragged down the street, and thrown into Lake Monona by the group.

    Heg was a Norwegian immigrant, activist and abolitionist who led an anti-slave catcher militia helping slaves escape before serving as a Colonel for the Union army in the Civil War. He was killed in the Battle of Chickamauga in north Georgia in 1863.

    Police say the group also broke several windows in the downtown area, including at the City-County Building, where a Molotov cocktail was also thrown into the building. Police say pepper spray was used within the State Capitol when people tried to force their way inside there.

    The Forward statue has been outside the State Capitol since the 1890s, serving as an emblem of the progress for women in the state.

    Protesters say they took the statue down because they don’t feel the state is moving forward.

    “We’re not moving forward, we’re moving backwards,” said Ebony Anderson-Carter. “This (statue) doesn’t need to be here until we’re ready to move forward.” ...

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  11. (In other news.)

    The Dixie Chicks Change Their Name, Dropping the ‘Dixie’

    The Dixie Chicks are now the Chicks.

    The platinum-selling country trio, which in 2003 became pariahs in Nashville for criticizing President George W. Bush on the eve of the American-led invasion of Iraq, has changed its name, apparently in tacit acknowledgment of criticism over its use of the word “Dixie,” a nostalgic nickname for the Civil War-era South.

    The group made the change stealthily on Thursday, releasing a new video as the Chicks and adjusting its social media presence. Representatives for the band confirmed the new name.

    But the three women of the group — Natalie Maines, Emily Strayer and Martie Maguire, who have been among the most outspoken figures in the conservative world of country music — made little immediate comment. ...

    (Also, as you may have heard, 'Lady Antebellum' is now just 'Lady L'.)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Err, (Also, as you may have heard, 'Lady Antebellum' is now just 'Lady A'.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Lady Antebellum Is Now ‘Lady A.’ But So Is
    a Blues Singer Who’s Used the Name for 20 Years

    “This is my life. They’re using the name because of a Black Lives Matter incident that, for them, is just a moment in time,” says the original
    Lady A, a 61-year-old black singer who’s released multiple records
    under the name ...

    Rolling Stone - June 12

    ReplyDelete
  14. ilsm,

    My my my. I am tempted to follow pgl's example as indeed you have quite a pile of nonsense here. But I shall note a few espexially off or misleading things you assert.

    Let me start with your use of "Trump Derangement Syndrome." Sorry, that applied to all the fools who believe the 19,000 plus lies Trump has uttered since he became president. They say the best defense is a good offense, so very quickly he was calling Clinton a "crook" and a "liar," when she was not even remotely in the same order of magnitude as he is on either of those. And he also began using "fake news" for the MSM, when it is far more truthful than Fox or OAn. I hear numerous outright lies every night out of the mouth of Hannity, the better ones repeats from many previous evenings to keep the deluded TDSed faithful in line. MSNBC and others make mistakes, but none of the repeat outright lies over and over every damned night.

    Regarding BLM, like antifa, it is not a group. It is an idea. There is a local group in New York whose leader has made some unacceptable statements in recent days about "burning everything down." OK, to heck with him. But he does not speak for the broader unorganized movement. And in particular, it is inaccurate to blame BLM for whatever is going on the CHOP of Seattle, even if some there claim they are BLM. But in fact there is no order there or any leader there or any coherent set of demands coming out of there. At this point they represent nothing and appear to have degenerated into being a bunch of gangsters no better than the gun-toting Boogaloo boys.

    Nobody is talking about economically shutting down the US again. Did you get this off Fox or AON or RT? Most of Europe now has far lower rates of new cases and deaths than the US, and they are mostly opened up, and we see much lower cases in much of the US as well. What is tied to these patterns? It is pretty clear that most of the parts of the US where we see cases rising again are in states where people are following the terrible example of Trump by not wearing masks or social distancing. If people social distance and wear masks (and wash their hands), most places can mostly reopen without having these increases in cases. They are doing this in most of Europe. Which are the three nations with the most deaths, all of three of them banned from citizens entering EU?: US, Brazil, and Russia, all of which have leaders going around publicly not wearing masks and mocking doing so.

    As for Sweden, yes, it is now fifth in aggregate deaths per million behind Belgium (this is a "large country"?), UK, Italy, and Spain. It is now ahead of France, with France still ahead of US, which is now in 7th place. You are not up to date.

    Indeed, Sweden is the one member of the EU other nations are banning its citizens from entering their nations. Like the US, it is having trouble getting deaths and new cases down. Indeed, I did a check, and Sweden's 7-day rolling average of deaths per million is well ahead of those four countries that have more total deaths per million. Sweden is doing very poorly compared to the competition, and is in with Russia (your fave) and Brazil and the US in not getting the virus under control (although I think their PM does wear a face mask in public).

    I really have nothing to say about the rest, although I could tear most of it apart other than to note that I could care less about the hysterical gun nuts in this country out buying guns. They are just sick and worthless, beneath contempt. Sorry if that includes you, ilsm, but if the shoe fits, please wear it.

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  15. Fred,

    I note that the person who justified tearing down "Miss Forward" did not offer a reason or excuse for tearing down Heg's statue. They simply do not have one. Clearly just lost their worthless minds in disgusting frenzy.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Unintended consequences:

    pgl.

    Rung bell, again!

    Over to you to point out a lie or two.

    Are you woke enough?

    JBR,

    If they told us the lock down was to last until we all went nuts (just after breaking society) would anyone have gone for it?

    Certainly unintentional! BLM is a vapid tagline appropriated by the 'wrong sort'. Whose fault is that?

    You type way too much and spend too much time with Hannity.

    On media Covid panic:

    Peeling the onion, Fred should like the chart:

    https://twitter.com/Hold2LLC/status/1276152441218752515?fbclid=IwAR3LshY7vy8c7pOG_7_GJ0o4wH7oOkN4A3jQsydik7s5sDMGthWlO7c7Fp4

    Chart on recent censuses: Been going down until a slight rise this week in hospitalizations seen against the ICU and Vent census.

    Hope Houston links in to latest therapies and treatments.

    Link provided by my son who is Org Chem PhD, says:

    "Summing up some coronavirus news:
    Hospitalizations up, ICU and ventilator use down. ICU / Vent use is not surprising as protocols improve - use of corticosteroids, anticoagulants, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (off recent finding at LSU and NYU Winthrop) seem to be working.
    We should see another round of broader preventive studies including pharmaceutical intervention and vaccine research hitting in July.
    The next round of Medicare/Medicaid/health care reform needs to include standardization of EMR record format* and public health reporting, since data content and quality varies widely between states and even cities/counties in the same state.
    You should follow @Hold2LLC and @EthicalSkeptic on Twitter for statistics-heavy coverage including the heavy lifting of data normalization."

    *I would note over at AB one or more have degraded use of more standard health records.

    Every day I find evidence there is no science and very little critical thinking in economists.

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  17. Wow, ilsm, you are seriously out of touch with reality. Lockdowns over some time ago and not coming back except maybe in a few locations.

    As it is, US just had the highest number of new cases in a day ever, not all due to more testing, with a sharply rising curve. Even Brazil and Russia and Sweden do not look as bad as us. We are a total pariah state on this in the world. EU nations, aside from Sweden, and UK a bit lagging, just way down on cases and deaths, Italy two orders of magnitude down.

    How is it that you are so completely out of it?

    ReplyDelete
  18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love

    The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during mid-1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. More broadly, the Summer of Love encompassed the hippie music, drug, anti-war, and free-love scene throughout the American west coast, and as far away as New York City.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I do not understand what is happening, though I have tried to understand, but without confiding in anyone I am unnerved and taking all precautions I can and I expect I am among many, many and in all we are going to significantly change the way in which the economy works.

    June 25, 2020

    Coronavirus

    US

    Cases   ( 2,497,544)
    Deaths   ( 124,849)

    ReplyDelete
  20. Notice that the death to confirmed coronavirus case ratio in the United Kingdom is what I consider an astonishing 14%:

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

    June 25, 2020

    Coronavirus

    UK

    Cases   ( 307,980)
    Deaths   ( 43,230)

    Also, the "sense" I have of cases of recovery is that a significant number of people who recover are still decidedly ill.

    ReplyDelete
  21. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/opinion/seattle-autonomous-zone-CHOP.html

    June 24, 2020

    Don’t Be Fooled by Seattle’s Police-Free Zone
    The city looks progressive but has a history of racism and exclusion. This could be a turning point.
    By Margaret O’Mara

    SEATTLE — Seattle’s police-free “autonomous zone” is coming to an end.

    After two largely peaceful weeks, shootings over the last several days near the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area, CHOP for short, left a 19-year-old man dead and three others wounded. Mayor Jenny Durkan announced on Monday that the city would retake the abandoned police precinct at the heart of the zone and wind down the occupation.

    In its brief life, CHOP has reinforced Seattle’s reputation as a quirky left-coast bastion of strong coffee and strong progressive politics. Many white Seattleites like to think of their city that way too. But Seattle’s progressive appearance is deceiving.

    It is a city and region with a long history of racism, of violent marginalization, and of pushing back against more radical movements for social change. It is, in short, much like the rest of America.

    The global protests of the last few weeks have rightly generated the feeling that the world is at a turning point on redressing racial inequities. This moment has great possibilities, but the history of Seattle and other seemingly progressive places should make us realize that change is not that simple.

    A 2008 report found that black people make up less than 10 percent of Seattle’s population but well over half of the drug-related arrests. The Police Department was placed under federal oversight in 2011 after incidents of excessive use of force on nonwhite residents. The public schools here are more segregated than they were three decades ago. Less than three weeks ago, the police sprayed protesters with tear gas on the same streets now given over to the teach-ins and community gardens of CHOP....

    Margaret O’Mara is a professor of history at the University of Washington.

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  22. A day of 37,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases:

    June 25, 2020

    Coronavirus

    US

    Cases ( 2,500,995)
    Deaths ( 126,720)

    Yes, I will remain fearful and cautious.

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  23. "How is it that you are so completely out of it?"

    "Out of it"; no what you see is I do not accept your hypotheses! My view: 'consumer risk' of most of what you assert is unacceptable.

    For example you said (looking to be interviewed on RT?):

    "As it is, US just had the highest number of new cases in a day ever,"

    The rate of new cases in the US is 37907/2502311 which my calculator says in .015 of the total cases are newly tested positives. That is a very slow growth rate. In April we saw blue states' covid cases doubling in 4 days! Worst state on this page (worldometer USA 'now' page) is Az 3056/63030 is .04848, double in 18 days at that rate..... Michigan where Trumpers are fighting the lock down growth rate is 434/68989, fairly slow.

    Above you hypothesized that Trumpers do not wear masks, which I do not see for Trumper over 60.

    That is my observation, I know very fewer Trumpers. What I see more is masks are shunned by younger people, who are less worried about complications of covid 19, a hypothesis I agree with.

    If mask shunners are Trumper then old Joe ought to stay in the basement.

    About using a 7 day moving average to smooth epidemiology observations...... how do you use the second derivative of a moving average?

    You hypothesis; I see other data that need to be considered.

    Since you saw Little Green Men in Donbas but no fascists in Kievan militias and BLM is nothing but an ideology which you do not see is motivating a bunch of Maoists......

    I suspect you have agendas to defend and calling me 'completely out of it is all you got'.

    The comment on your typing so much was being nice what I am seeing is Gish Gallops.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Grant's family was anti-slavery, but he married into a slave holding family and was gifted an enslaved person, but rewarded that person with freedom. Grant was also very influential in Reconstruction, fighting the KKK, signing anti-KKK legislation, etc, but unfortunately, many of reforms were only short-lived after he left office. For some reason, he is not revered the way some honor Lee (Lee's chapel in Lexington on the W&L campus, unfortunately makes him seem like a god), but Grant was relentless and wise and he won.

    I read that Trump is trying to get a confederate statue in DC restored to its pedestal in DC after it had been torn down?!? Wow that is something. Will he move the capital to Richmond? Also, he really wants to protect the Andrew Jackson monument near the WH.

    ReplyDelete
  25. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/us/coronavirus-cases-young-people.html

    June 25, 2020

    As Virus Surges, Younger People Account for ‘Disturbing’ Number of Cases
    People in their 20s, 30s and 40s account for a growing proportion of the cases in many places, raising fears that asymptomatic young people are helping to fuel the virus’s spread.
    By Julie Bosman and Sarah Mervosh

    ReplyDelete
  26. ilsm,

    Oh dear, you are even further confirming that you are seriously out of it.

    Do recognize that our good Anonymous is scrupulous and meticulous about data. The most recent set of new covid cases for the US was just under 37,000 as A. reported, the highest number for any day in the US so fsr. You somehow seem to be questioning that. Sorry, doing so is evidence that you are seriously out of it, for whatever reason.

    Also, you are simply lying, or maybe you have simply forgotten in your out-of-itness, that I have readily admitted that there have been neo-Nazi elements at times in the Ukrainian militias. However, they are gone now and have been for some time, and current President Zelensky has especially cracked down on their remnants, although I have not seen you recognize that. But then your guy Trump does not give a phoo about all that and has undercut Zelensky all the way.

    I could say more, but really, ilsm, I actually do have some residual respect for you based on private conversations in the past I shall not repeat here. But you are rapidly undercutting and destroying what is left of that. Do please try to be a bit more in touch with reality in future comments here.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Coronavirus - United States

    .......... On June 25 ... 14-day change
    New cases: 41,113 ....... +54%

    New deaths: 2,467 ....... –30%


    ReplyDelete
  28. "More than 2,435,200 people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 124,300 have died, according to a New York Times database." ...

    That's slightly more than a 5% death rate.

    The good news would be that some authorities estimate
    that 10 times that number have been infected, so
    that would drop the rate down to 0.5%

    ReplyDelete
  29. Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court to Strike Down Affordable Care Act

    NY Times - Sheryl Gay Stolberg - June 26

    If successful, the move would permanently end the health insurance program popularly known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans.

    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court late Thursday to overturn the Affordable Care Act — a move that, if successful, would bring a permanent end to the health insurance program popularly known as Obamacare and wipe out coverage for as many as 23 million Americans.

    In an 82-page brief submitted an hour before a midnight deadline, the administration joined Republican officials in Texas and 17 other states in arguing that in 2017, Congress, then controlled by Republicans, had rendered the law unconstitutional when it zeroed out the tax penalty for not buying insurance — the so-called individual mandate.

    The administration’s argument, coming in the thick of an election season — as well as a pandemic that has devastated the economy and left millions of unemployed Americans without health coverage — is sure to reignite Washington’s bitter political debate over health care. ...

    ReplyDelete
  30. JBR,

    Thanks for your forbearances, misguided as you may be.

    You do not answer questions, you do not like. Okay, with me. You could attempt to revise my conclusions on your lack of openness to countering evidence.

    For Fred, from my son's latest input. Fred is an RPI alum, within a years or two, with me:

    "Stockholm is the best population to test Covid theory whereby it was hit hard early and did not have lockdowns.
    Nobel Prize winner Dr Michael Levitt postulated that the virus burns out when it has infected 15-20% of the population.
    According to this, he's right...What does this mean for the US?
    If you look at the rest of Sweden, you see a bumpier curve because different counties get hit at later times
    The same will probably happen in states which were not hit hard during the first wave"
    The tweet thread goes on to list the states that have not yet reached the 20% threshold, which is many, though if these states only need to reach 15-20% to exit the first wave, then most of them are at least halfway there."

    https://twitter.com/gummibear737/status/1275118332887392256?fbclid=IwAR3udQL8UNl8o05RTmtpOmlxDyVb57NptU9WqwhAzUXe9J1WfKE1FF4PYnY

    Why the US is in for rocky road with or without "second wave".

    Concluding any of oit due to Trump is a stretch.

    ReplyDelete
  31. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-06-26/Scientists-begin-to-understand-the-health-problems-caused-by-COVID-19-RDMIeKikpi/index.html

    June 26, 2020

    Scientists begin to understand the many health problems caused by COVID-19

    Scientists are only starting to grasp the vast array of health problems caused by the novel coronavirus, some of which may have lingering effects on patients and health systems for years to come, according to doctors and infectious disease experts.

    Besides the respiratory issues that leave patients gasping for breath, the virus that causes COVID-19 attacks many organ systems, in some cases causing catastrophic damage.

    "We thought this was only a respiratory virus. Turns out, it goes after the pancreas. It goes after the heart. It goes after the liver, the brain, the kidney and other organs. We didn't appreciate that in the beginning," said Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California.

    In addition to respiratory distress, patients with COVID-19 can experience blood clotting disorders that can lead to strokes, and extreme inflammation that attacks multiple organ systems. The virus can also cause neurological complications that range from headache, dizziness and loss of taste or smell to seizures and confusion.

    And recovery can be slow, incomplete and costly, with a huge impact on quality of life.

    The broad and diverse manifestations of COVID-19 are somewhat unique, said Dr. Sadiya Khan, a cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago.

    With influenza, people with underlying heart conditions are also at higher risk of complications, Khan said. What is surprising about this virus is the extent of the complications occurring outside the lungs.

    Kahn believes there will be a huge healthcare expenditure and burden for individuals who have survived COVID-19.

    Lengthy rehab for many

    Patients who were in the intensive care unit or on a ventilator for weeks will need to spend extensive time in rehab to regain mobility and strength.

    "It can take up to seven days for every one day that you're hospitalized to recover that type of strength," Kahn said. "It's harder the older you are, and you may never get back to the same level of function."

    While much of the focus has been on the minority of patients who experience severe disease, doctors increasingly are looking to the needs of patients who were not sick enough to require hospitalization, but are still suffering months after first becoming infected.

    Studies are just getting underway to understand the long-term effects of infection, Jay Butler, deputy director of infectious diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters in a telephone briefing on Thursday.

    "We hear anecdotal reports of people who have persistent fatigue, shortness of breath," Butler said. "How long that will last is hard to say."

    While coronavirus symptoms typically resolve in two or three weeks, an estimated 1 in 10 experience prolonged symptoms, Dr. Helen Salisbury of the University of Oxford wrote in the British Medical Journal on Tuesday.

    Salisbury said many of her patients have normal chest X-rays and no sign of inflammation, but they are still not back to normal.

    "If you previously ran 5k three times a week and now feel breathless after a single flight of stairs, or if you cough incessantly and are too exhausted to return to work, then the fear that you may never regain your previous health is very real," she wrote.

    Dr. Igor Koralnik, chief of neuro-infectious diseases at Northwestern Medicine, reviewed current scientific literature and found about half of the patients hospitalized with COVID-19 had neurological complications, such as dizziness, decreased alertness, difficulty concentrating, disorders of smell and taste, seizures, strokes, weakness and muscle pain....

    ReplyDelete
  32. ilsm "Stockholm is the best population to test Covid theory whereby it was hit hard early and did not have lockdowns.
    Nobel Prize winner Dr Michael Levitt postulated that the virus burns out when it has infected 15-20% of the population.


    Sorry, but this is simply wrong. Do you know how to calculate the critical threshold value to determine when a virus "dies out"? It's SIR Modeling 101. The threshold value typical for most viruses is around 70%-80%.

    ReplyDelete
  33. <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/how-does-coronavirus-kill-clinicians-trace-ferocious-rampage-through-body-brain-toes'> Clinicians trace a ferocious rampage through the body, from brain to toes </a>

    Science - April 17

    ... clinicians and pathologists are struggling to understand the damage wrought by the coronavirus as it tears through the body. They are realizing that although the lungs are ground zero, its reach can extend to many organs including the heart and blood vessels, kidneys, gut, and brain.

    “[The disease] can attack almost anything in the body with devastating consequences,” says cardiologist Harlan Krumholz of Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital, who is leading multiple efforts to gather clinical data on COVID-19. “Its ferocity is breathtaking and humbling.”

    Understanding the rampage could help the doctors on the front lines treat the fraction of infected people who become desperately and sometimes mysteriously ill. Does a dangerous, newly observed tendency to blood clotting transform some mild cases into life-threatening emergencies? Is an overzealous immune response behind the worst cases, suggesting treatment with immune-suppressing drugs could help? What explains the startlingly low blood oxygen that some physicians are reporting in patients who nonetheless are not gasping for breath? “Taking a systems approach may be beneficial as we start thinking about therapies,” says Nilam Mangalmurti, a pulmonary intensivist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP).

    For survivors of severe COVID-19, beating the virus is just the beginning
    What follows is a snapshot of the fast-evolving understanding of how the virus attacks cells around the body, especially in the roughly 5% of patients who become critically ill. Despite the more than 1000 papers now spilling into journals and onto preprint servers every week, a clear picture is elusive, as the virus acts like no pathogen humanity has ever seen. Without larger, prospective controlled studies that are only now being launched, scientists must pull information from small studies and case reports, often published at warp speed and not yet peer reviewed. “We need to keep a very open mind as this phenomenon goes forward,” says Nancy Reau, a liver transplant physician who has been treating COVID-19 patients at Rush University Medical Center. “We are still learning.” ...

    (It was noticed early one that sometimes coronavirus is much more than
    an 'ordinary' respiratory disease, but the general public & media paid
    scant attention.)

    ReplyDelete
  34. Did Sweden get its coronavirus strategy horribly wrong?

    Bloomberg - April 6

    There are signs that the death rate in Sweden is growing faster than elsewhere in Scandinavia, raising pressure on the government to abandon its controversial hands-off approach in tackling Covid-19.

    The Swedish experiment has drawn international bewilderment as schools, restaurants and cafes have remained open. And while other countries passed laws restricting movement, Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven relied on the common sense of his fellow citizens to carry his country through the pandemic.

    But after a week of sobering data, Lofven now seems to be striking a darker tone. In an interview published on Saturday by Dagens Nyheter, he warned that Sweden may be facing “thousands” of coronavirus deaths, and said the crisis is likely to drag on for months rather than weeks. Meanwhile, criticism from across the political spectrum forced his Social Democrat-led government to back down on a proposal to bypass parliament when implementing sterner measures to fight the virus ...

    ReplyDelete
  35. June 26, 2020

    Coronavirus

    Sweden

    Cases   ( 65,137)
    Deaths   ( 5,280)

    June 26, 2020

    Coronavirus   (Deaths per million)

    Sweden ( 523)
    Denmark ( 104)
    Finland ( 59)
    Norway ( 46)

    ReplyDelete
  36. Notice that the ratio of deaths to confirmed coronavirus cases in Sweden is 8.1%.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Fred C. Dobbs

    Do try Angry Bear:

    https://angrybearblog.com/2020/06/open-thread-june-26-2020.html

    ReplyDelete
  38. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/opinion/coronavirus-republicans.html

    June 25, 2020

    America Didn’t Give Up on Covid-19. Republicans Did.
    Partisanship has crippled our response.
    By Paul Krugman

    ReplyDelete
  39. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/world/coronavirus-live-updates.html

    June 26, 2020

    Texas Bars Must Close, Governor Says in Reversal

    Gov. Greg Abbott ordered all bars to be closed down today, a day after he paused the state’s reopening amid a surge in cases.

    ReplyDelete
  40. 2slugs,

    You should go to twitter and tilt with the poster and the groupies. Report back here if you win. Not me, I thought something other than panic headlines should be presented.

    Thanks for thinking I could have come up with that myself. The thesis is from a Nobel Lauriat....... seems from observations in Stockholm.

    I posted the link, I am not that smart, my skill was asking guys like you the right question and applying the risks.

    As above:

    https://twitter.com/gummibear737/status/1275118332887392256?fbclid=IwAR3udQL8UNl8o05RTmtpOmlxDyVb57NptU9WqwhAzUXe9J1WfKE1FF4PYnY

    You can go to the twitter and take it up with the posters.

    The link was posted by my son with PhD in O Chem, who lives on Long Island just outside NYC, with my 2 toddler granddaughters. He is part of an informal "group" of techies and MD's tracking this kind of thing.

    He think Vit D is good for a 20% risk reduction, but you can find the resource as well as he.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Fred C. Dobbs

    Do try Angry Bear:

    https://angrybearblog.com/2020/06/open-thread-june-26-2020.html

    June 26, 2020 at 11:41 AM

    ReplyDelete
  42. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/corona-virus-latinos.html

    June 26, 2020

    Many Latinos Couldn’t Stay Home. Now Virus Cases Are Soaring in the Community.
    Rates of coronavirus infection among Latinos have risen rapidly across the United States.
    By Shawn Hubler, Thomas Fuller, Anjali Singhvi and Juliette Love

    ReplyDelete
  43. Anonymous,

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00502-w

    "11 May — High risk of COVID-19 death for minority ethnic groups is a troubling mystery:"

    "People who are not white face a substantially higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than do white people — and pre-existing health conditions and socioeconomic factors explain only a small part of the higher risk."

    "In the most sweeping study of its kind, Ben Goldacre at the University of Oxford, UK, and his colleagues examined the medical records of more than 17 million residents of England (E. Williamson et al. Preprint at medRxiv http://doi.org/dt9z; 2020). The analysis, which has not yet been peer reviewed, showed that medical conditions such as diabetes are linked to a higher risk of death from the new coronavirus."

    "But the prevalence of such conditions in people who belong to minority ethnic groups plays only a small part in the heightened risk, as does the prevalence of social disadvantages such as low income. The researchers say that there is an urgent need for better measures to protect people in minority ethnic groups from the disease."

    This is from Nature daily Covid 19 update. Which is good reading and covers vaccines, and anti body treatments which may be used by Autumn. See ELI Lilly and Regenron debvelopments.

    ReplyDelete
  44. Sweden supposedly was going for 'herd immunity', where you get
    enough people infected so that they won't get infected again.
    Could have worked ok, maybe, if it weren't for the high death
    rate from coronavirus. Looks like they've achieved the high rate.

    Has Sweden’s controversial covid-19 strategy been successful?

    Sweden has stood out in the global pandemic by eschewing
    lockdown and seemingly aiming for herd immunity.

    BMJ - June 18 (pdf available)

    ReplyDelete
  45. A personal observation that I mean to pay attention to, is that when I have shopped for groceries I have been surprised at how few people are shopping besides me. I use internet shopping often, but I am getting the idea that my friends and neighbors use the internet much more. I wonder if this shopping pattern will persist.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Looks like Florida is doing likewise.

    Florida reports more than 8,900 new daily cases

    NY Times - June 26

    Florida also reported an unusually high number of tests results — more than 71,000 — according to a daily Department of Health case report. The report was posted online before the department updated its coronavirus dashboard, which usually displays the latest case numbers before the case report is issued. Orange County is now averaging 412 cases a day, compared with 80 two weeks ago.

    Florida’s eye-popping number of new cases came as hospitals and local leaders warned about rampant complacency.

    “When I go out, I see fewer and fewer people wearing masks and practicing safe, physical distancing,” said Dr. Lawrence Antonucci, chief executive of the Lee Health hospital system in Fort Myers, which is seeing more Covid-19 hospitalizations and a higher positivity test rate than ever before during the pandemic. “The threat of this virus is as real as it’s ever been.” ...

    ReplyDelete
  47. June 26, 2020

    Coronavirus

    US

    Cases   ( 2,535,012)
    Deaths   ( 127,169)

    UK

    Cases   ( 309,360)
    Deaths   ( 43,414)

    Germany

    Cases   ( 194,042)
    Deaths   ( 9,017)

    Canada

    Cases   ( 102,733)
    Deaths   ( 8,507)

    Sweden

    Cases   ( 65,137)
    Deaths   ( 5,280)

    China

    Cases   ( 83,462)
    Deaths   ( 4,634)

    ReplyDelete
  48. ilsm I don't have a Twitter account and never will. It's only value is if your wife wants to send you a short shopping list. It's hardly a suitable vehicle for intelligent discussion. Hell, even Donald Trump can use Twitter so it can't be that enlightening of a tool.

    As to the 15%-20% threshold value for herd immunity, that's just absurd on the face of it. There is no even remotely plausible set of "beta" and "nu" parameters in the threshold calculation that will get you to a 15%-20% number. And even Sweden's own health expert who championed the idea of a herd immunity strategy has now admitted that he was wrong and Sweden should have followed the advice of Germany and her sister Scandinavian countries. The herd immunity theory belongs in the dustbin of history.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Another sad, sad, day. We knew what was necessary but went in different directions:

    June 26, 2020

    Coronavirus

    US

    Cases   ( 2,541,325)
    Deaths   ( 127,321)

    Please do wear masks.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Really scary:

    June 26, 2020

    Coronavirus

    US

    Cases ( 2,550,605)
    Deaths ( 127,581)

    ReplyDelete
  51. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/health/coronavirus-immune-system.html

    June 26, 2020

    How the Coronavirus Short-Circuits the Immune System
    In a disturbing parallel to H.I.V., the coronavirus can cause a depletion of important immune cells, recent studies found.
    By Gina Kolata

    ReplyDelete
  52. Beyond tragedy:

    June 26, 2020

    Coronavirus

    US

    Cases ( 2,552,708)
    Deaths ( 127,634)

    ReplyDelete
  53. 2slugs,

    I am not an ORSA (I can talk from my BS studies, and a few electives at grad level) occasionally I used the USAF version usually A&AS contractors and/or FFRDC of you guys. I would not talk models unless they showed the 'pedigree'.

    I do not know your model, nor do I know how CDC or WHO validates or accredits a model for CoV SAR-2 when there is little agreed to on CoV SAR 1 from 2003. Post Docs in Universities.......?

    NY metro, my home town and of 1/2 my grandkids', is "enjoying" very low new cases and for a number of weeks has seen steeply declining hospitalizations and ICU demand. The dead for NY state is well over 1500 per million, consider that during most of the shelter in place the center of NY state cases was the NY metro area (say 12 million souls) more than half NYS population in the shelter in place regime, you may disagree but I put dead for million in NY metro closer to 2700 than NY states' 1500 in round numbers. Sweden is around 10 million.

    NY metro failed at 'lock down', mass transit continued to operate, unlike Wuhan which shut it all down. "Essential" workers travelled, came home often to multigenerational homes, crowding and general breaking of the curfews denied most of the 'benefits' seen in Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan, where if one tested positive you were put in a "Covid hotel" totally out of 'circulation'.

    Some ideas:

    Estimates are that 20% of NY metro residents now have anti bodies, that is large number of cases with none to minimal symptoms. That is the (not so) hardest observation to explain what is happening in NY metro.

    Another theory comes out of Italy is with social distancing many 'subjects' get a small exposure to the virus and the subjects develop immunity. Another theory is 50 or so percent of the population has sturdy T cell response and beats the virus. I think Italy's, along with France and Spain, turn in the pandemic is a miracle! Thanks to Pope Francis.

    Son with PhD theories, his words:

    "Cell paper suggesting 40-60% of people have innate immunity ranging from cellular response (lysozyme, TLR pathway, etc.) to cross-reactive T-cells. A pet theory of mine is ACE2 receptor polymorphism as a possible factor; I saw an early Chinese paper suggesting east Asians carried an ACE2 membrane domain very similar to that of bats, though have not found much follow-up to that. Like with SARS-1, there will be many years of study and still no good answers."

    The above is from a dialog with his childhood friend, now an ER MD in a Massachusetts hot spot, I used to take them to Boy Scouts 30 years ago.

    I disagree with my son, the recent "success" in NY metro is a miracle: NY metro changed nothing; kept the subways running but 'turned the corner' in a big way!

    I pray!

    You have another explanation for NY?

    ReplyDelete
  54. Blood Type May Hint At How Hard Coronavirus Hits, Study Says

    CBS News - June 24

    In a study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), European researchers compared 1,900 people severely ill with coronavirus to 2,300 healthy blood donors.

    They combed through their genetic codes to see if they could find any differences.

    “They found two genetic areas,” says Dr. Kiss, “one of which had to do with immune regulation of the body, and another that had to do with ABO group.”

    People with type A blood had a 45% risk of becoming infected.

    People with type O were only two-thirds as likely to become infected.

    People with type O blood make antibodies against type A and type B — perhaps these antibodies are protective. ...

    ReplyDelete
  55. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2020283

    June 17, 2020

    Genomewide Association Study of Severe Covid-19 with Respiratory Failure
    By David Ellinghaus, Ph.D., Frauke Degenhardt, M.Sc., Luis Bujanda, M.D., Ph.D., Maria Buti, M.D., Ph.D., Agustín Albillos, M.D., Ph.D., Pietro Invernizzi, M.D., Ph.D., Javier Fernández, M.D., Ph.D., Daniele Prati, M.D., Guido Baselli, Ph.D., Rosanna Asselta, Ph.D., Marit M. Grimsrud, M.D., Chiara Milani, Ph.D., et al. for The Severe Covid-19 GWAS Group
    Abstract

    BACKGROUND

    There is considerable variation in disease behavior among patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). Genomewide association analysis may allow for the identification of potential genetic factors involved in the development of Covid-19....

    ReplyDelete
  56. Fred C. Dobbs,

    Please do try Angry Bear:

    https://angrybearblog.com/2020/06/open-thread-june-26-2020.html

    ReplyDelete
  57. European study links genes, blood type with risk of severe coronavirus infection

    (CNN - June 18) A team of European scientists say they have found two genetic variations that may show who is more likely to get very sick and die from coronavirus, and they say they have also found a link to blood type.

    Their findings, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, point to a possible explanation for why some people get so seriously ill with the virus, while most barely show any symptoms at all.

    (NEJM: Genomewide Association Study of Severe Covid-19 with Respiratory Failure )

    They found people with Type A blood have a higher risk of catching coronavirus and of developing severe symptoms, while people with Type O blood have a lower risk.

    "Our genetic data confirm that blood group O is associated with a risk of acquiring Covid-19 that was lower than that in non-O blood groups, whereas blood group A was associated with a higher risk than non-A blood groups," the researchers wrote in their report. They found people with Type A blood had a 45% higher risk of becoming infected than people with other blood types, and people with Type O blood were just 65% as likely to become infected as people with other blood types. ...

    ReplyDelete
  58. I completely agree that Trump was involved in a series of increasingly unacceptable and outrageous actions, but those who are watching Fox and his allies hear and see nothing, because, wow, these terrible rebels are coming to Seattle again!

    ReplyDelete
  59. (Surely Vlad would have told him.)

    Trump denies knowledge of 'Russian bounties on US troops' as criticism mounts

    Donald Trump claimed on Sunday that no one had told him about a Russian plot to offer bounties to Taliban militants in exchange for fatal attacks on coalition troops in Afghanistan, though US security officials have been weighing a response to the plot since at least March.

    Top administration officials, including members of Trump’s national security council, have been discussing the Russian bounty offer for months, the New York Times first reported. ...

    ReplyDelete
  60. Trump denies briefing on reported bounties against US troops by Russia

    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday denied that he had been briefed on reported U.S. intelligence that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing American troops in Afghanistan, and he appeared to minimize the allegations against Moscow.

    American intelligence officials concluded months ago that Russian officials offered rewards for successful attacks on American service-members last year, at a time when the U.S. and Taliban were holding talks to end the long-running war, according to The New York Times.

    Trump, in a Sunday morning tweet, said “Nobody briefed or told me” or Vice President Mike Pence or chief of staff Mark Meadows about “the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians.”

    '‘Everybody is denying it & there have not been many attacks on us,” he said.

    The White House had issued a statement Saturday denying that Trump or Pence had been briefed on such intelligence. “This does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of the New York Times story erroneously suggesting that President Trump was briefed on this matter,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said. ...

    Russia called the report “nonsense.‘' ...

    John Bolton, a former national security adviser who was forced out by Trump last September and has now written a tell-all book about his time at the White House, said Sunday that ‘'it is pretty remarkable the president’s going out of his way to say he hasn’t heard anything about it, one asks, why would he do something like that?”

    Bolton told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he thinks the answer ‘'may be precisely because active Russian aggression like that against the American service members is a very, very serious matter and nothing’s been done about it, if it’s true, for these past four or five months, so it may look like he was negligent. But of course, he can disown everything if nobody ever told him about it.” ...

    The Times, citing unnamed officials familiar with the intelligence, said the findings were presented to Trump and discussed by his National Security Council in late March. Officials developed potential responses, starting with a diplomatic complaint to Russia, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the report said. ...

    ReplyDelete
  61. Spies and Commandos Warned Months Ago of Russian Bounties on US Troops

    NY Times - Eric Schmitt and Adam Goldman - June 28

    WASHINGTON — United States intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January to a suspected Russian plot to pay bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops in Afghanistan, according to officials briefed on the matter.

    The crucial information that led the spies and commandos to focus on the bounties included the recovery of a large amount of American cash from a raid on a Taliban outpost that prompted suspicions. Interrogations of captured militants and criminals played a central role in making the intelligence community confident in its assessment that the Russians had offered and paid bounties in 2019, another official has said.

    Armed with this information, military and intelligence officials have been reviewing American and other coalition combat casualties since early last year to determine whether any were victims of the plot. Four Americans were killed in combat in early 2020, but the Taliban have not attacked American positions since a February agreement to end the long-running war in Afghanistan.

    The emerging details added to the picture of the classified intelligence assessment, which The New York Times reported on Friday was briefed to President Trump and discussed by the White House’s National Security Council at an interagency meeting in late March. The Trump administration had yet to act against the Russians, the officials said. ...

    ReplyDelete
  62. Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill US Troops, Intelligence Says

    NY Times - Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt and Michael Schwirtz - June 26

    WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.

    The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.

    Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion.

    The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said. ...

    ReplyDelete
  63. Yet another murder in the Seattle CHOP zone, this time of a 16 year old, and again nobody stepping forward to name the murderer. Really time for that site to close down for good.

    ReplyDelete
  64. For better or worse, reportedly the CHOP zone in Seattle has now been dismantled, I gather reasonably peacefully, although I do not know more details.

    ReplyDelete
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