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Republican party building an ‘army’ to overturn election results – report
Alleged scheme include installing volunteers as poll workers and getting attorneys who could intervene to block votes, Politico says
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/01/republicans-plan-overturn-election-results-report
Wed 1 Jun 2022 12.08 EDT
The Republican party is building a grassroots “army” to target and potentially overturn election results in Democratic precincts, the Politico website reported on Wednesday, citing video evidence.
The alleged scheme includes installing party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, creating a website to put these workers in touch with local lawyers and establishing a network of district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts.
Many Republicans still believe Donald Trump’s lie that he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden because of widespread voter fraud. At state level the party has passed laws that make it harder to vote while pro-Trump candidates are running for positions that would give them control over future elections.
Politico obtained a series of recordings of Republican meetings between the summer of 2021 and May this year.
It said one from November shows Matthew Seifried, the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) election integrity director for Michigan, urging party activists in Wayne county to obtain official designations as poll workers.
Seifried says: “Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger.”
Some of the would-be poll workers complain that fraud was committed in 2020 and that the election was “corrupt”.
At another training session last October, Seifried promises support for such workers: “It’s going to be an army. We’re going to have more lawyers than we’ve ever recruited, because let’s be honest, that’s where it’s going to be fought, right?”
Politico also obtained Zoom tapings of Tim Griffin, legal counsel to the Amistad Project, a self-described election integrity group that Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani once portrayed as a “partner” in the Trump campaign’s legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Griffin is seen meeting with activists from multiple states and discussing plans for identifying friendly district attorneys who could stage interventions in local election disputes.
He says during one meeting in September: “Remember, guys, we’re trying to build out a nationwide district attorney network. Your local district attorney, as we always say, is more powerful than your congressman.
“They’re the ones that can seat a grand jury. They’re the ones that can start an investigation, issue subpoenas, make sure that records are retained, etc.”
Politico added that installing party loyalists on the board of canvassers, which is responsible for certifying election results, also appears to be part of the Republican strategy.
The revelations are sure to intensify concerns about fresh assaults on American democracy in 2022 and 2024.
Nick Penniman, founder and chief executive of Issue One, an election watchdog group, told Politico: “This is completely unprecedented in the history of American elections that a political party would be working at this granular level to put a network together. It looks like now the Trump forces are going directly after the legal system itself and that should concern everyone.”
The RNC insisted that it is simply trying to restore balance to election oversight in heavily Democratic cities such as Detroit. Gates McGavick, an RNC spokesperson, was quoted as saying: “Democrats have had a monopoly on poll watching for 40 years, and it speaks volumes that they’re terrified of an even playing field.
“The RNC is focused on training volunteers to take part in the election process because polling shows that American voters want bipartisan poll-watching to ensure transparency and security at the ballot box.”
On the subject of murdered children by weapons of war, Putin's war on Ukraine has torn the flesh apart and killed hundreds if not thousands of young children and babies scattering pieces of them hundreds of ft with the bombs. The Russian soldiers raped and mutilated grade school boys and girls then sometimes shot them or their family. Ones who survive are ruined for life, never to really survive.
Putin “legalizes” the abduction of children from Ukraine, says the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
1 June, 01:23 PM
https://english.nv.ua/nation/putin-s-recent-decree-has-legalized-the-abduction-of-ukrainian-children-to-russia-russia-invasion-50246818.html
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The New Voice of Ukraine
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has effectively legalized the abduction of Ukrainian children with his May 30 decree, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on May 31.
The decree in question simplifies the process of granting Russian citizenship to Ukrainian orphans, or those left without parental care.
“Russia's actions grossly violate the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949, which provides for the obligation of the occupying state not to change the civil status of children, as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989,” the statement reads.
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Read also: Russian invaders deport almost 200,000 children from Ukraine, Russian MoD says
“Under international law, Russia's actions may also be qualified as the forcible transfer of children from one human group to another.”
The Foreign Ministry stated that since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russians have forcibly abducted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, including children, to the territory of the Russian Federation.
The Ministry has called on the international community to step up sanctions pressure on Russia in order to force it to stop its aggression against Ukraine and its blatant violations of international law.
“The most serious international crimes against children committed by Russian high-ranking officials and military personnel in Ukraine will be investigated, and the perpetrators will be prosecuted,” the Foreign Ministry asserted.
Read also:
Children are most wanted in Kyiv, Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts (Photo:State bureau of investigation)
Almost 2,000 children missing following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, says ombudsperson's office
“Russia will not be able to avoid the strictest responsibility.”
Russia has forcibly abducted 1.4 million Ukrainian citizens to its territory, former Ombudman for Human Rights in Ukraine, Lyudmyla Denisova, said on May 23.
No Fed rates, stock market rallies, ignorance, or political lies are going to power out of this either. The financial stabilities will be effected sooner than most think or want to believe. They are starting to be effected now, but haven't seen nothing yet.
We cannot adapt our way out of climate crisis, warns leading scientist
Katharine Hayhoe says the world is heading for dangers people have not seen in 10,000 years of civilisation
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/01/we-cannot-adapt-our-way-out-of-climate-crisis-warns-leading-scientist
Katharine Hayhoe warns that if we continue emitting greenhouse gases no adaptation will be possible.
Wed 1 Jun 2022 03.00 EDT
The world cannot adapt its way out of the climate crisis, and counting on adaptation to limit damage is no substitute for urgently cutting greenhouse gases, a leading climate scientist has warned.
Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy in the US and professor at Texas Tech University, said the world was heading for dangers unseen in the 10,000 years of human civilisation, and efforts to make the world more resilient were needed but by themselves could not soften the impact enough.
“People do not understand the magnitude of what is going on,” she said. “This will be greater than anything we have ever seen in the past. This will be unprecedented. Every living thing will be affected.”
While countries can start to adapt to some of the impacts, for instance with seawalls and flood barriers, and by making their infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather, if global heating is allowed to continue then the world will rapidly reach a point beyond what can be adapted to.
“If we continue with business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions, there is no adaptation that is possible. You just can’t,” she said, in an interview with the Guardian.
These impacts would be felt across the world, she warned. “Our infrastructure, worth trillions of dollars, built over decades, was built for a planet that no longer exists,” she said. Changing that infrastructure would cost further trillions, so allowing greenhouse gas emissions to continue to grow would mean ever-rising impacts and costs.
The whole of modern life was at stake, she added. “Human civilisation is based on the assumption of a stable climate,” she said. “But we are moving far beyond the stable range.”
Earlier this month, Stuart Kirk, the head of responsible investment at the global bank HSBC, made headlines by suggesting that financial institutions should discount the risks of the climate crisis as the world could adapt to its impacts. He noted that Amsterdam was built on land below sea level, and suggested that areas climate scientists have predicted would be vulnerable to inundation, such as Miami, could be similarly adapted to cope with the risk.
“Who cares if Miami is six metres under water in 100 years?” he asked an investor conference. HSBC moved quickly to disown Kirk’s comments and suspend him. HSBC Asset Management’s chief executive, Nicolas Moreau, said Kirk’s remarks “do not reflect the views of HSBC Asset Management nor HSBC Group in any way”, and reiterated the bank’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
“HSBC regards climate change as one of the most serious emergencies facing the planet, and is committed to supporting its customers in their transition to net zero and a sustainable future.”
Hayhoe, who has been a lead author on US national climate assessments, said Kirk’s comments seemed to reflect an attitude that was gaining ground among “climate dismissers”, who try to minimise the level of risk from climate change by saying the impacts would be manageable.
However, the world’s leading climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warned earlier this year that continued global heating, beyond 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, would wreak devastation across the globe, in the form of floods, droughts, heatwaves and other extreme weather, with swathes of the planet becoming unsuitable for agriculture and effectively uninhabitable, causing extreme harm to human society in many places.
Hayhoe said the IPCC findings had not been broadly understood by many people. “This is an unprecedented experiment with the climate,” she said.
“The reality is that we will not have anything left that we value, if we do not address the climate crisis.”
We continue to be the most self destructive species ever to have lived on the planet earth.
Swedish Stockholm International Peace Research Institute report outlines risks to human civilization
26 May, 08:26 PM
https://english.nv.ua/nation/human-civilization-faces-a-variety-of-serious-threats-in-the-coming-years-warns-sipri-world-news-50245482.html
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The coming decades are going to be increasingly difficult for the human civilization on Earth, the Swedish Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a report published on May 23.
While we’re unlikely to go extinct, human societies should adapt to the new realities of a rapidly changing world.
More frequent armed conflicts, climate change, resource shortages, widespread famines, and sluggish policy responses all contribute to risks of unprecedented global upheavals.
World leaders are getting worse at dealing with the intertwined and self-compounding mesh of global threats, which hangs like the sword of Damocles over our civilization.
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What are the threats humans face?
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the number of armed conflicts around the world, and the risk of a global war have both declined sharply. However, this new equilibrium lasted for only 20 years.
Between 2010 and 2020, the number of interstate conflicts and war casualties has doubled. The number of refugees has similarly increased to over 80 million people, worldwide.
In 2021, wars have caused more than $2 trillion in damage. World peace remains unattainable due to proxy wars, great power adversarial competition, and emerging geopolitical actors.
“Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, geopolitics was becoming discernibly more fraught,” SIRPI report reads.
“A particular feature has been the increasingly frosty relationship between China and several Western powers, notably the United States.”
The global ecological situation also remains precarious. Nearly a quarter of all species on the planet are facing extinction. There are fewer and fewer insects to pollinate plants, soil quality is decreasing, and human resource consumption is unsustainable.
Climate change continues to drive up average global temperature; hurricanes, fires, storms, and heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense. These conditions are driving crop yields down, exacerbating global food shortages.
Read also:
Ben Connable
Ben Connable
Will Putin use chemical weapons in Ukraine?
The reports outlines examples of these twin crises fueling one another. A lengthy drought in Somalia, coupled with poverty and a weak government, drives people to join Al-Shabab – an extremist Islamic insurgency.
In conjunction with organized crime and wide-spread corruption, climate change-driven declines in Central American crop yields are fueling a surge in migration flows toward the United States.
The Arab Spring was caused not only by civic factors – corruption, authoritarianism, poverty – but also by a heatwave that led to skyrocketing food prices. Flawed political systems couldn’t handle the cost-of-living crises in countries across the Middle East and North Africa.
The report suggests that armed conflicts tend to occur when several entangled problems form a major complex crisis. Current events, however, prove that this a two-way street.
As Ukraine produces a third of the world’s wheat, the Russian invasion of the country is threatening the global supply of grain. Blockaded Ukrainian ports lead to worldwide grain shortages, which, in turn, could provoke a global food panic, hiking prices by 20-30%.
Read also:
Fires in the exclusion zone (Photo:State Emergency Service)
Big fires in Chornobyl Exclusion Zone extinguished
Developing countries would bear the brunt of the crisis, creating political tensions. Hunger could lead to a new series of rebellions and clashes, meaning that the world will be dealing with a scattering of local conflicts, which would be much harder to control.
Could we go extinct?
According to paleontologist Nick Longrich, 99.9% of all species to have ever lived on Earth have since gone extinct. Statistically speaking, the end of human life on the planet is a “when,” not an “if.”
Humans are uniquely vulnerable to large-scale calamities. First, there’s a lot of us, meaning that we require a lot of resources to sustain ourselves. Second, we tend to live for a long time, but our birthrates are declining, says Longrich.
Not all is lost, though. Humans can learn and adapt to new conditions, amend our consumption and rations in a way that other species aren’t able to do. We can adapt to almost any environment.
Read also:
Andrew Zagorodnyuk
Putin’s Black Sea blockade leaves millions facing global famine
The Collingridge dilemma posits that while it’s tricky to foresee the consequences of technological development, it’s even more difficult to manage those consequences, once new technology becomes entrenched.
AI is an example of such a technology. On one hand, academics theorize about the ways our lives will be improved by advances in AI that could solve our health, energy, and climate problems. On the other hand, some hypothesize that AI could spell doom for our entire civilization.
Cars illustrate the other side of the quandary: we keep making and driving cars, despite millions of people dying in car-related accidents every year.
The dilemma will remain in an equilibrium, until a something comes along and is so destructive, that we won’t have a chance to correct the mistake we’ve made. Global nuclear war could very well be that: while humanity won’t be completely wiped out in such a disaster, most people will have very little chances of survival.
The Boston-based Future of Life Institute, with its scientific advisory board that includes dozens of academics from the world’s most prestigious universities outlines four existential threats humanity faces. They include AI, climate change, nuclear weapons, and biotech. The think-tank advises world leaders on these threats, so that corresponding precautionary policies could be put in place.
All these efforts remain just a bit of hot air. Much like war, these threats remain distant and abstract, something people feel they can’t “personally” affect. It’s a natural psychological defense mechanism. It’s crucial, however, that those, who are in a position to do something about them, understand exactly what we’re all facing.
What is there to be done?
SIPRI outlined five guiding principles for people in positions of power:
Think fast, think ahead, act now: it’s much easier to solve a nascent problem than to deal with its consequences in the future.
Cooperate to survive and thrive: common threats require a new model of global cooperation.
Expect the unexpected: humans must be ready to adapt to a rapidly changing world. The “before times” are gone forever, and it’s futile to try and bring them back.
Only a just and peaceful transition will succeed: our civilization doesn’t need any kind of “just ecological wars.”
By everyone, for everyone: decision-making – from the UN to community projects – has to include the people most affected.
The report criticizes the governments of some countries for their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: instead of ameliorating the crisis, they were scoring political points for their political leadership, contrary to scientific advice from experts.
Conspiracy thinking and populist messaging often trumped making difficult decisions to tackle complex problems. That’s the approach certain countries are taking towards the current war: they think Russian troops would never threaten them, and decide to stall security assistance to Ukraine, under the guise of “national interest.”
The emerging new reality leaves no room for unilateral solutions. From climate change, to the Ukrainian war – modern challenges are global by nature, and therefore require global solutions.
The authors of the report say they weren’t trying to throw its readers into despair. They merely attempted to make politicians understand the new reality, and chart a way to tackling the current and future challenges our civilization faces.
Read also:
Ukrainian environmental commission has recorded about 300 environmental crimes and estimated more than UAH 200 billion in losses with about 300 environmental crimes and estimated more than UAH 200 billion in losses (Photo:EastNews)
The war is wreaking havoc on Ukraine’s environment
Perhaps then we may be able to become one of those 0.01% of species that have survived.
I thought most law enforcement carried auto rifles in the trunk or even latched in the front of patrol car now. I do know in several areas that I have been acquainted with, they do. Since 1997 Hollywood shootout and Columbine in 1999, local departments' policies changed and officers even bought their own to carry depending on the policies of the departments.
Supposedly the shooter was in the school for 40 minutes and it is quite surprising that Texas wouldn't have policies that encouraged patrols having more armament or policy to engage any shooters designed for this type of instance and not waiting for the SWAT team. The cops were already involved with chasing this guy.
They have done certain analysis that have proven to save lives in these type of situations if properly trained patrolmen were carrying more aggressive hardware and not just waiting for the SWAT team to handle.
Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman’s rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses have told Associated Press.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2022/may/26/texas-school-shooting-news-victims-uvalde-elementary-school-latest-updates
“Go in there! Go in there!” nearby women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who saw the scene from outside his house, across the street from Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde. Carranza said the officers did not go in.
Javier Cazares, whose fourth grade daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was killed in the attack, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting, arriving while police were still gathered outside the building.
Who are the right blaming for the Texas shooting? Trans people, immigrants and victims’ parents
Arwa Mahdawi
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/25/right-wing-blame-uvalde-shooting-transsexuals-immigrants-parents
From congressmen to TV show hosts, rightwingers are blaming everything but guns for the loss of lives in Tuesday’s massacre
Laura Ingraham on Fox News blamed the parents for the shooting.
Wed 25 May 2022 16.18 EDT
It’s just impossible. Impossible to adequately describe the horror of 19 little children and two of their teachers being murdered in their classroom by an 18-year-old with military-grade weapons. Impossible to adequately articulate the fury and frustration that this just keeps on happening; that what happened in Uvalde, Texas, was not a horrific one-off, but just another day in the USA. And it’s impossible to imagine a scenario in which America’s depraved and dysfunctional relationship with firearms is going to change anytime soon.
The Guardian view on US gun violence: another desperate day
Read more
If you want to see just how dysfunctional the US obsession with guns is, just take a look at how the right is responding to the horrific shooting. You’d think that 19 dead children might weigh on their conscience a little bit; make them reconsider commonsense gun laws. But, no, they are busy regurgitating all the usual talking points and arguing that guns aren’t actually the problem, everything else is.
First, trans people and immigrants were blamed. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the Republican congressman Paul Gosar tweeted that the shooter was a “transsexual leftist illegal alien”. His source for this lie was the rightwing social network 4Chan, which was busy circulating the picture of a transgender artist and wrongly claiming it was the shooter. (He has now deleted the tweet.)
Then the Federalist found a way to blame Ukraine for the shooting in Texas. “Sandy Hook proved the need to enhance K-12 security,” one headline blared. “Congress armed Ukraine instead.” Gold medal for mental gymnastics right there.
Then, last night, Fox News tried to shift blame on to the parents. Host Laura Ingraham strategically brought Andrew Pollack, the father of a Parkland victim who has previously argued that “guns didn’t kill my daughter, Democratic principles did,” on to her show.
“It’s the parents,” Pollack told Ingraham. “It’s your responsibility where you’re sending your children to school … You need to check where your kids go to school. You need to go back to school and see. Is there a single point of entry? Do you have guards at the school?”
He went on to suggest that it’s better for parents to take their kids out “of public school and put them in a private school because a lot of these private schools, they take security way more serious … Parents it’s your responsibility where you take your children.” Ingraham was very pleased with that analysis. “Andrew is exactly right,” she concluded.
Pollack has previously expressed the idea that regulating guns is not the answer to preventing school shootings, and has advocated for schools to put in more “safety” measures like barriers, bulletproof glass and security officers. Ingraham pressed him on that point, stating that “[schools] still don’t have those safety mechanisms in place”.
There you go: it’s all the parents fault! If you don’t have the money to send your kids to private school then it’s your fault if they get shot!
Schools should not resemble prisons. They shouldn’t have to be fitted with barriers and staffed with armed guards to keep kids safe. Parents shouldn’t have to buy their children increasingly popular bulletproof backpacks. Kids shouldn’t have to go through active shooter-drills the moment they get into preschool. Not just because these sorts of measures are completely dystopian but because they aren’t actually effective. The vast majority of public schools – 96% in 2015 and 2016 – now conduct some form of lockdown drill. Rather than preparing kids for a shooting, some experts warn that they are just anxiety-inducing security theater.
Staffing schools with police officers is not the answer either. Since 1998, the government has invested over $1bn to increase police presence in schools; according to one study only 1% of schools reported having police officers on-site in 1975 but by 2018, about 58% of schools reported having a police presence. There were already armed school district police officers at the school in Uvalde and they did not stop the shooter, who was wearing body armor. A sergeant with the Texas department of public safety told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that “there were several law enforcement that engaged the suspect, but he was able to make entry into the school”.
If guns made people safer, then the United States would be the safest place in the world. How many more children have to die before the right accept that the answer to bad guys with guns is not good guys with guns, it’s getting rid of guns.
A good thread to read.
Understanding what’s happening at the Court requires understanding the problem of “regulatory capture” (often called “agency capture”).
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) May 19, 2022
Ginni Thomas urged Arizona Republicans to overturn 2020 result – report
Wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas emailed six days after election already called for Joe Biden
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/20/ginni-thomas-2020-election-arizona-emails
Martin Pengelly in New York
@MartinPengelly
Fri 20 May 2022 16.48 EDT
Ginni Thomas, the wife of the US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Republicans in Arizona to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there in 2020, the Washington Post reported.
Mastriano, pictured with his wife on primary night, is one of a number of Republican candidates who refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election.
The Trump loyalist who could be a major threat to US democracy
Read more
Repeating Donald Trump’s lie that the vote had been marred by fraud, Thomas wrote: “Please stand strong in the face of political and media pressure. Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of electors is chosen for our state.”
Thomas did not mention Biden or Trump. But, the Post said, “the context was clear”.
Biden won Arizona, a swing state vital to the contest, by about 10,000 votes. The call was first made by Fox News, enraging Trump.
Ginni Thomas is an activist with deep ties on the Republican far right. Reports of her involvement in Trump’s attempt to hold on to power have led to calls for her husband’s impeachment and removal, or at least recusal from election-related cases.
In January, Thomas was the only justice to say Trump should be able to withhold from the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack documents which turned out to include texts sent by his wife to Trump’s chief of staff.
On Friday, the Post said Ginni Thomas emailed two Arizona Republicans on 9 November, six days after election day and two days after Biden’s win was called.
She also requested a live or online meeting “so I can learn more about what you are doing to ensure our state’s vote is audited and our certification is clean”.
One of the lawmakers, Shawnna Bolick, replied, saying, “I hope you and Clarence are doing great!” but deflecting the demand for a meeting.
The Post said Thomas replied: “Fun that this came to you! Just part of our campaign to help states feel America’s eyes!!!”
The Post also reported that Thomas emailed the same Republicans on 13 December, a day before the electoral college met to confirm Biden’s victory.
That email said: “Before you choose your state’s electors … consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don’t stand up and lead.”
The Post said the email contained a link to a video of a man who appeared to be Geoffrey Botkin, an activist, “delivering a message meant for swing-state lawmakers, urging them to ‘put things right’ and ‘not give in to cowardice’ [and saying] ‘You have only hours to act’.”
The video is no longer available. Botkin did not comment to the newspaper. Nor did Ginni Thomas. The Post said a supreme court spokesperson did not respond.
On 14 December, the day the electoral college confirmed Biden’s win, Bolick signed a letter calling for Arizona’s electoral votes to go to Trump or “be nullified completely until a full forensic audit can be conducted”.
In 2021, Arizona Republicans conducted a controversial vote audit. It did not reveal substantial electoral fraud. It did increase Biden’s margin of victory.
Time for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from election cases – his wife’s texts prove it
Lloyd Green
Read more
Also in 2021, the New Yorker reported that Bolick had introduced a bill that “would enable a majority of the legislature to override the popular vote … and dictate the state’s electoral college votes itself”.
Like Trump loyalists elsewhere, Bolick is now running for secretary of state, the office which runs elections.
On Friday, the New Yorker reporter Jane Meyer tweeted “one additional detail”, linking Ginni Thomas’s moves in Arizona back to her husband.
Clarence Thomas, Meyer said, is godfather “to Clint Bolick’s child, and Bolick’s wife is the Arizona lawmaker who Ginni Thomas pressured to overturn the 2020 election.
“No conflicts of interest?”
Multiple reasons, but profit or profiteering would be high up on the list and a main cause. Those 10s of millions of dollars to politicians from the health care and pharmaceutical industry aren't paid out for no reason. But the American society is a pretty unhealthy bunch. As a whole, we aren't very health conscious, and a lot of force, backed by big money shoves unhealthy forms of nutrition down the publics throat.
Then we have pollution over the decades, mainly from the fossil fuels that have created more disease, birth defects, and sickness overall. Then back to the profiting on the results and more money to the political control continuing the causes and effects.
Not going to get better it looks like, they are going to wring some more blood from us;
Americans can expect to pay a lot more for medical care in retirement
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/16/americans-can-expect-to-pay-a-lot-more-for-medical-care-in-retirement.html
PUBLISHED MON, MAY 16 20227:00 AM EDT
Stephanie Dhue
@STEPHANIEDHUE
KEY POINTS
A 65-year-old couple retiring in 2022 will spend an average $315,000 in health-care and medical expenses in their retirement, according to Fidelity Investments. That’s 5% higher than last year.
Fidelity also has found that most Americans have underestimated what health-care costs will be in retirement.
Here are some ways to start saving now for higher health expenses later.
Lisafx | Istock | Getty Images
A 65-year-old couple retiring this year can expect to spend an average of $315,000 in health-care and medical expenses in their retirement, according to a new estimate by Fidelity Investments. That’s 5% higher than last year’s estimate.
While much of the increase this year came from higher Medicare Part B premiums for Americans 65 and older, health-care costs are expected to remain elevated.
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“There’s a lot of upward cost pressure in the health-care system right now, due to investments that providers need to make to get ready for the next pandemic, due to issues around labor, particularly hospital nurses,” said Hope Manion, senior vice president and chief health and welfare actuary at Fidelity Investments.
Fidelity also found that most Americans have underestimated what health-care expenses will be in retirement, with the average person expecting costs to be $41,000 — a $274,000 shortfall from its estimate.
The most important thing is that you start saving and you start saving early.
Paul Fronstin
DIRECTOR OF HEALTH BENEFITS RESEARCH AT EBRI
“People do not realize that once they get on Medicare, they’re still going to be on the hook for some number of bills,” said Manion, adding that retirees must pay for premiums, over-the-counter and prescription drugs and some medical devices.
Elevated inflation will add up over time
If health-care costs grow at just 2% above consumer inflation for the next two years, a healthy 55-year-old couple could face $267,000 in additional medical costs when they retire at age 65, according to an analysis by HealthView Services.
That same couple could expect to spend more than $1 million on health-care expenses in their lifetime — nearly the same amount as they could expect to collect in Social Security benefits.
WATCH NOW
VIDEO03:50
Medicare inflation threatens retirement security
“Whether you’re affluent or you’re the average person … when you look at your Social Security check, you’re paying for health care,” said HealthView Services CEO Ron Mastrogiovanni.
It pays to plan
After paying the premiums, Medicare covers about two-thirds of the cost of health-care services, with out-of-pocket spending making up about 12%, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).
“Other than housing, food and transportation, [health care is] probably the most expensive item we’re going to face in retirement,” Mastrogiovanni said. “Know what it is. Be prepared.”
Staying healthy
Jose Luis Pelaez Inc | Digitalvision | Getty Images
While physical fitness may help control some health-care costs, experts say planning ahead for medical expenses over a longer life should also be factored into the equation.
Use tax-advantaged health savings accounts
Health savings accounts are one way to save for future health-care costs, but those require a high-deductible plan and have annual contribution limits.
For 2022, the limit is $3,650 for the single insured and $7,300 for families. For people over 55 years old, each of those limits increase by $1,000 with “catch-up” contributions.
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Increase savings through retirement plans
Increasing savings now can add to security later. Experts say consider adding more money to your 401(k) plan or a Roth individual retirement account, if you qualify.
“The most important thing is that you start saving and you start saving early,” said Paul Fronstin, director of health benefits research at EBRI. “The earlier you do, the better prepared you’re going to be.”
Don’t count on employer coverage
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VIDEO11:25
Why most Americans choose the wrong health insurance plan
There was a time when employers offered health benefits to retirees, but EBRI found only about 4% of companies have those benefits. That’s down from about 45% before an accounting rule change in the late 1980s required firms to put the liability on their balance sheets.
“When they had to do that, it just didn’t look good on the balance sheet, so they started cutting back on the benefit to the point where very few workers are going to be eligible for this kind of benefit in the future,” Fronstin said.
Really hard to be only one, so many things that are interconnected, but DOJ may be doing that. One can only hope that it's just being timed to before the elections. But even if Trump and/or his cohorts were charged with anything, it would just last for years with the GOP ditching documents and investigations, saying it's all just political (any crime is ok if your the ruling party), and they own the courts at the top. If all else fails, then comes the pardons.
We can only hope that the delusions and lack of the facts of republican voters start getting the stink through their ears when they hold their noses and cover their eyes to vote. Doubt it will ever happen though, the GOP has done a really good job with their continued disinformation campaigns.
Why civil wars happen.
Your comparing a part to the whole. Like trying to compare one gushy rotten apple to the the whole bushel of rotten to the core apples. Just because Trump and his party used one tool at his disposal among many for a part, that things he and his party did with all the other tools as a whole are not negated, only strengthened.
Trump with his GOP used his position of power on a constant basis with any and every tool that they could get their hands on to "undermine Covid-19 response". The meat packing incidence was only a small part of that. Using a executive order is no different than using all the other tools in his position of power and persuasion with social media to "liberate Minnesota" or his donors to spend a million on organizing and creating a mask or vaccine protest or using Putin's help in their disinformation campaigns. Or the hundred other things and tools they used against the people and for their benefit. The dead and maimed are just as dead and destroyed, doesn't matter if it's a automatic weapon, biological weapon, or the stroke of a pen.
Everything has to be taken as a whole. The whole is what was a "total disregard for human life". The Covid and Mitigation Wars killed and is continuing to kill and destroy unarguably 100's of thousand of lives more than Covid would have had without the help of Trump and his GOP.
As far as bringing criminal charges, won't happen, the companies had the backing and support of the Federal Government. The meat companies were only co-conspirators, not even the main ones. Yes, the companies put out statements about a meat shortage, but the Presidency and "leader of the free world" definitely has information on and power over the record meat exports to China at the same time.
Do you really think that the meat packing companies would have attempted to lobby or even consider anything like this under a Biden administration?
Out of an article I posted on this a couple of days before you noted it.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=168837371
Trump officials “collaborated” with the meatpacking industry to downplay the threat of Covid to plant workers and block public health measures which could have saved lives, a damning new investigation has found.
Internal documents reviewed by the congressional Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis reveal how industry representatives lobbied government officials to stifle “pesky” health departments from imposing evidence-based safety measures to curtail the virus spreading – and tried to obscure worker deaths from these authorities.
According to internal communications, the companies were warned about workers and their families falling sick within weeks of the virus hitting the US. Despite this, company representatives enlisted industry-friendly Trump appointees at the USDA to fight their battles against Covid regulations and oversight.
In addition, company executives intentionally stoked fears about meat shortages in order to justify continuing to operate the plants under dangerous conditions.
The fears were baseless – there were no meat shortages in the US, while exports to China hit record highs.
Yet in April 2020, Trump issued an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to keep meat plants open following a flurry of communication between the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, the vice president’s office, USDA allies and company executives.
The order, which was proposed by JBS and Tyson (whose legal department also wrote the draft), was an overt attempt to override health departments and force meat plant workers – who are mostly immigrants, refugees and people of color – to keep working without adequate protections while shielding the industry from lawsuits.
Trump’s political appointees at USDA collaborated with large meatpacking companies to lead an administration-wide effort to force workers to remain on the job during the coronavirus crisis despite dangerous conditions, and even to prevent the imposition of commonsense mitigation measures. This coordinated campaign prioritized industry production over the health of workers and communities, and contributed to tens of thousands of workers becoming ill, hundreds of workers dying, and the virus spreading throughout surrounding areas.”
The report, Now to get rid of those pesky healthy departments!, reveals how USDA Trump appointees did the industry’s bidding in order to carry on with business as usual. The report is based on more than 151,000 pages of documents collected from meatpacking companies and interest groups, as well as interviews with meatpacking workers, former USDA and CDC officials, and state and local health authorities among others.
As reports of Covid clusters at meatpacking plants increased, industry officials and the USDA jointly lobbied the White House to dissuade frightened workers from staying home or quitting.
It worked. At a press briefing soon after, Mike Pence told meatpacking workers that “we need you to continue … to show up and do your job”, admonishing recent “incidents of worker absenteeism”.
emptywheel
@emptywheel
Zelenskyy meeting with a bunch of people who thought extorting him wasn't worth impeaching a President over.
Zelenskyy meeting with a bunch of people who thought extorting him wasn't worth impeaching a President over. pic.twitter.com/8WiD3hXEsb
— emptywheel (synonym: dissect) (@emptywheel) May 14, 2022
Need to also include this one.
"It was a disconnect, they say, that was only exacerbated by misinformation – particularly by Republican leaders’ undermining of scientists’ recommendations."
The Republican leaders and their party premeditated and purposely put at least 10's of millions of dollars, probably upwards to 100 million plus towards the disinformation campaigns knowing full well the results would kill and maim mass amounts of citizens. All for their own purposes and greed.
Natural selection? I guess it's natural for to have the old, weak, minorities, and the less rich against the richest and most powerful. It becomes an attack on the innocent more than the guilty and giving aid to the enemy (the virus).
100's of yrs of science has taught us mitigation has proven to minimize and even stop disease and death to our human bodies. Trump and his GOP used that information to minimize and eliminate the mitigation and spread the disease all for their own benefit, not caring what death and destruction they did to complete their goals. Or care how the lack of control over the virus and it's mutations would play out basically forever now killing and maiming people at 10 times the rate as the flu every year.
Covid deaths no longer overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated as toll on elderly grows
Experts say numbers show importance of boosters — and the risks the most vulnerable still face
By Fenit Nirappil and Dan Keating
April 29, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/04/29/covid-deaths-unvaccinated-boosters/
Unvaccinated people accounted for the overwhelming majority of deaths in the United States throughout much of the coronavirus pandemic. But that has changed in recent months, according to a Washington Post analysis of state and federal data.
The pandemic’s toll is no longer falling almost exclusively on those who chose not to or could not get shots, with vaccine protection waning over time and the elderly and immunocompromised — who are at greatest risk of succumbing to covid-19, even if vaccinated — having a harder time dodging increasingly contagious strains.
The vaccinated made up 42 percent of fatalities in January and February during the highly contagious omicron variant’s surge, compared with 23 percent of the dead in September, the peak of the delta wave, according to nationwide data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by The Post. The data is based on the date of infection and limited to a sampling of cases in which vaccination status was known.
As a group, the unvaccinated remain far more vulnerable to the worst consequences of infection — and are far more likely to die — than people who are vaccinated, and they are especially more at risk than people who have received a booster shot.
Tracking the coronavirus vaccine
“It’s still absolutely more dangerous to be unvaccinated than vaccinated,” said Andrew Noymer, a public health professor at the University of California at Irvine who studies covid-19 mortality. “A pandemic of — and by — the unvaccinated is not correct. People still need to take care in terms of prevention and action if they became symptomatic.”
A key explanation for the rise in deaths among the vaccinated is that covid-19 fatalities are again concentrated among the elderly.
Nearly two-thirds of the people who died during the omicron surge were 75 and older, according to a Post analysis, compared with a third during the delta wave. Seniors are overwhelmingly immunized, but vaccines are less effective and their potency wanes over time in older age groups.
Experts say they are not surprised that vaccinated seniors are making up a greater share of the dead, even as vaccine holdouts died far more often than the vaccinated during the omicron surge, according to the CDC. As more people are infected with the virus, the more people it will kill, including a greater number who are vaccinated but among the most vulnerable.
What to know about the omicron variant and subvariant BA.2
The bulk of vaccinated deaths are among people who did not get a booster shot, according to state data provided to The Post. In two of the states, California and Mississippi, three-quarters of the vaccinated senior citizens who died in January and February did not have booster doses. Regulators in recent weeks have authorized second booster doses for people over the age of 50, but administration of first booster doses has stagnated.
Even though the death rates for the vaccinated elderly and immunocompromised are low, their losses numbered in the thousands when cases exploded, leaving behind blindsided families. But experts say the rising number of vaccinated people dying should not cause panic in those who got shots, the vast majority of whom will survive infections. Instead, they say, these deaths serve as a reminder that vaccines are not foolproof and that those in high-risk groups should consider getting boosted and taking extra precautions during surges.
“Vaccines are one of the most important and longest-lasting tools we have to protect ourselves,” said California State Epidemiologist Erica Pan, citing state estimates showing vaccines have shown to be 85 percent effective in preventing death.
“Unfortunately, that does leave another 15,” she said.
‘He did not expect to be sick’
Arianne Bennett recalled her husband, Scott Bennett, saying, “But I’m vaxxed. But I’m vaxxed,” from the D.C. hospital bed where he struggled to fight off covid-19 this winter.
Friends had a hard time believing Bennett, co-founder of the D.C.-based chain Amsterdam Falafelshop, was 70. The adventurous longtime entrepreneur hoped to buy a bar and planned to resume scuba-diving trips and 40-mile bike rides to George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate.
Bennett went to get his booster in early December after returning to D.C. from a lodge he owned in the Poconos, where he and his wife hunkered down for fall. Just a few days after his shot, Bennett began experiencing covid-19 symptoms, meaning he was probably exposed before the extra dose of immunity could kick in. His wife suspects he was infected at a dinner where he and his server were unmasked at times.
0:00/0:35
Arianne Bennett recalls her husband's disbelief that he was hospitalized with covid-19.
An urn holding Scott Bennett's ashes in the D.C. apartment he shared with his wife. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
A fever-stricken Bennett limped into the hospital alongside his wife, who was also infected, a week before Christmas. He died Jan. 13, among the 125,000 Americans who succumbed to covid-19 in January and February.
“He was absolutely shocked. He did not expect to be sick. He really thought he was safe,’” Arianne Bennett recalled. “And I’m like, ‘But baby, you’ve got to wear the mask all the time. All the time. Up over your nose.’”
Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida College of Public Health, said the deaths of vaccinated people are among the consequences of a pandemic response that emphasizes individuals protecting themselves.
“When we are not taking this collective effort to curb community spread of the virus, the virus has proven time and time again it’s really good at finding that subset of vulnerable people,” Salemi said.
While experts say even the medically vulnerable should feel assured that a vaccine will probably save their lives, they should remain vigilant for signs of infection. As more therapeutics become available, early detection and treatment is key.
When Wayne Perkey, 84, first started sneezing and feeling other cold symptoms in early February, he resisted his physician daughter’s plea to get tested for the coronavirus.
Wayne Perkey, front, celebrating his 80th birthday with friends and family in 2018. (Family photo)
The legendary former morning radio host in Louisville had been boosted in October. He diligently wore a mask and kept his social engagements to a minimum. It must have been the common cold or allergies, he believed. Even the physician who ordered a chest X-ray and had no coronavirus tests on hand thought so.
Perkey relented, and the test came back positive. He didn’t think he needed to go to the hospital, even as his oxygen levels declined.
0:00/0:24
Rebecca Booth describes her father’s struggle to accept the severity of his covid-19 case.
“In his last voice conversation with me, he said, ‘I thought I was doing everything right,’” recalled Lady Booth Olson, another daughter, who lives in Virginia. “I believe society is getting complacent, and clearly somebody he was around was carrying the virus. ... We’ll never know.”
From his hospital bed, Perkey resumed a familiar role as a high-profile proponent for vaccines and coronavirus precautions. He was familiar to many Kentuckians who grew up hearing his voice on the radio and watched him host the televised annual Crusade for Children fundraiser. He spent much of the pandemic as a caregiver to his ex-wife who struggled with chronic fatigue and other long-haul covid symptoms.
“It’s the 7th day of my Covid battle, the worst day so far, and my anger boils when I hear deniers talk about banning masks or social distancing,” Perkey wrote on Facebook on Feb. 16, almost exactly one year after he posted about getting his first shot. “I remember times we cared about our neighbors.”
In messages to a family group chat, he struck an optimistic note. “Thanks for all the love and positive energy,” he texted on Feb. 23. “Wear your mask.”
As is often the case for covid-19 patients, his condition rapidly turned for the worse. His daughter Rebecca Booth, the physician, suspects a previous bout with leukemia made it harder for his immune system to fight off the virus. He died March 6.
“Really and truly his final days were about, ‘This virus is bad news.’ He basically was saying: ‘Get vaccinated. Be careful. But there is no guarantee,’” Rebecca Booth said. “And, ‘If you think this isn’t a really bad virus, look at me.’ And it is.”
Hospitals, particularly in highly vaccinated areas, have also seen a shift from covid wards filled predominantly with the unvaccinated. Many who end up in the hospital have other conditions that weakens the shield afforded by the vaccine.
Vaccinated people made up slightly less than half the patients in the intensive care units of Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California hospital system in December and January, according to a spokesman.
Gregory Marelich, chair of critical care for the 21 hospitals in that system, said most of the vaccinated and boosted people he saw in ICUs were immunosuppressed, usually after organ transplants or because of medications for diseases such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.
“I’ve cared for patients who are vaccinated and immunosuppressed and are in disbelief when they come down with covid,” Marelich said.
‘There’s life potential in those people’
Jessica Estep, 41, rang a bell celebrating her last treatment for follicular lymphoma in September. The single mother of two teenagers had settled into a new home in Michigan, near the Indiana border. After her first marriage ended, she found love again and got married in a zoo in November.
As an asthmatic cancer survivor, Estep knew she faced a heightened risk from covid-19, relatives said. She saw only a tight circle of friends and worked in her own office in her electronics repair job. She lived in an area where around 1 in 4 residents are fully vaccinated. She planned to get a booster shot in the winter.
Jessica Estep. (Family photo)
“She was the most nonjudgmental person I know,” said her mother, Vickie Estep. “It was okay with her if people didn’t mask up or get vaccinated. It was okay with her that they exercised their right of choice, but she just wanted them to do that away from her so that she could be safe.”
With Michigan battling back-to-back surges of the delta and omicron variants, Jessica Estep wasn’t able to dodge the virus any longer — she fell ill in mid-December. After surviving a cancer doctors described as incurable, Estep died Jan. 27. Physicians said the coronavirus essentially turned her lungs into concrete, her mother said.
0:00/0:29
Vickie Estep on why the immunocompromised depend on covid precautions.
Estep’s 14-year-old daughter now lives with her grandparents. Her widower returned to Indianapolis just months after he moved to Michigan to be with his new wife.
Her family shared her story with a local television station in hopes of inspiring others to get vaccinated, to protect people such as Estep who could not rely on their own vaccination as a foolproof shield. In response to the station’s Facebook post about the story, several commenters shrugged off their pleas and insinuated it was the vaccines rather than covid causing deaths.
Immunocompromised people and those with other underlying conditions are worth protecting, Vickie Estep said. “There’s life potential in those people.”
0:00/0:40
Vickie Estep on why covid-19 with other health problems shouldn’t be dismissed.
Arianne Bennett is overcome with emotion before getting her booster shot in late March. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Family photos of Scott Bennett. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
A delayed shot
As Arianne Bennett navigates life without her husband, she hopes the lesson people heed from his death is to take advantage of all tools available to mitigate a virus that still finds and kills the vulnerable, including by getting boosters.
Bennett wore a music festival shirt her husband gave her as she walked into a grocery store to get her third shot in March. Her husband urged her to get one when they returned to D.C., but she became sick at the same time he did. She scheduled the appointment for the earliest she could get the shot: 90 days after receiving monoclonal antibodies to treat the disease.
“My booster! Yay!” Bennett exclaimed in her chair as the pharmacist presented an updated vaccine card.
“It’s been challenging, but we got through it,” the pharmacist said, unaware of Scott Bennett’s death.
Tears welled in Bennett’s eyes as the needle went in her left arm, just over a year after she and her husband received their first shots.
“Last time we got it, we took selfies: ‘Look, we had vaccines,’” Bennett said, beginning to sob. “This one leaves me crying, missing him so much.”
The pharmacist leaned over and gave Bennett a hug in her chair.
“He would want you to do this,” the pharmacist said. “You have to know.”
0:00/0:33
Arianne Bennett on the emphasis on the low death rates in vaccinated people.
Lenny Bernstein contributed to this report.
Methodology
Death rates compare the number of deaths in various groups with an adjustment for the number of people in each group. The death rates listed for the fully vaccinated, the unvaccinated and those vaccinated with boosters were calculated by the CDC using a sample of deaths from 23 health departments in the country that record vaccine status, including boosters, for deaths related to covid-19. The CDC study assigns deaths to the month when a patient contracted covid-19, not the month of death. The latest data published in April reflected deaths of people who contracted covid as of February. The CDC study of deaths among the vaccinated is online, and the data can be downloaded.
The death rates for fully vaccinated people, unvaccinated people and fully vaccinated people who received an additional booster are expressed as deaths per 100,000 people. The death rates are also called incidence rates. The CDC estimated the population sizes from census data and vaccination records. The study does not include partially vaccinated people in the deaths or population. The CDC adjusted the population sizes for inaccuracies in the vaccination data. The death data is provisional and subject to change. The study sample includes the population eligible for boosters, which was originally 18 and older, and now is 12 and older.
To compare death rates between groups with different vaccination status, the CDC uses incidence rate ratios. For example, if one group has a rate of 10 deaths per 100,000 people, the death incidence rate would be 10. Another group may have a death incidence rate of 2.5. The ratio between the first group and the second group is the rate of 10 divided by the rate of 2.5, so the incidence rate ratio would be 4 (10÷2.5=4). That means the first group dies at a rate four times that of the second group.
The CDC calculates the death incidence rates and incidence rate ratios by age groups. It also calculates a value for the entire population adjusted for the size of the population in each age group. The Post used those age-adjusted total death incidence rates and incidence rate ratios.
The Post calculated the share of deaths by vaccine status from the sample of death records the CDC used to calculate death incidence rates by vaccine status. As of April, that data included 44,000 deaths of people who contracted covid in January and February.
The share of deaths for each vaccine status does not include deaths for partially vaccinated people because they are not included in the CDC data.
The Post calculated the share of deaths in each age group from provisional covid-19 death records that have age details from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. That data assigns deaths by the date of death, not the date on which the person contracted covid-19. That data does not include any information on vaccine status of the people who died.
We're only at the beginning of the season. I like to say it couldn't happen to a better state, but I'm sure there are good people in Texas too and it's a world climate problem. We haven't seen nothing yet and again in this country (second biggest polluter in the world), the GOP have been the number one party against climate change, against the science, and for profits of the major contributors to the earths demise. Now we will all reap what has been sown.
Texans asked to turn up thermostats after sweltering heat knocks six power plants offline
May 14, 2022, 6:00 PM
https://ksltv.com/492862/texans-asked-to-turn-up-thermostats-after-sweltering-heat-knocks-six-power-plants-offline/
BY AMY SIMONSON, TAYLOR WARD, SHARIF PAGET AND RAY SANCHEZ, CNN
KSLTV.com
TEXAS (CNN) — With an early-season heat wave searing much of Texas over the weekend, the nonprofit that manages power to more than 26 million customers wants them to turn up their thermostats.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) made the appeal in a statement Friday, saying that soaring temperatures increased demand and caused six power generation facilities to trip offline. That resulted in the loss of about 2,900 megawatts of electricity.
“We’re asking Texans to conserve power when they can by setting their thermostats to 78-degrees or above and avoiding the usage of large appliances (such as dishwashers, washers and dryers) during peak hours between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. through the weekend,” interim CEO Brad Jones said in the statement.
The appeal comes as record temperatures across most of the southern US this weekend are expected to worsen a deepening drought.
From Phoenix to Amarillo, Texas, record temperatures are expected to reach triple digits, with a chance for some parts of Texas to break daily records over the next seven days.
ERCOT came under scrutiny last year after record cold temperatures in February caused the state’s highest electricity demand and more than 200 people died during the power crisis, with the most common cause of death being hypothermia.
In March 2021, ERCOT’s president and CEO, Bill Magness, was fired following widespread power outages during a series of winter storms that left many residents in the dark for days.
Now the heat is testing Texas’ power grid.
On Wednesday, ERCOT asked power plants to postpone outages and return from outages already in progress “to serve Texans this weekend.”
Temperatures Saturday were to be in the 90s across all of Texas — 10 to 15 degrees above average, according to CNN meteorologists. Temperatures from the mid-90s to the low 100s are expected on Sunday, with much of central and western Texas reaching 100 to 105 degrees — approximately 10 to 15 degrees above average.
ERCOT accounts for about 90% of the state’s electric load, according to a statement from the organization.
The unseasonably hot weather is driving record demand across the state, the statement said.
Ideology; Nice and soft wording for "to gain power by any means possible" including psychological and biological warfare against your own people and killing them. The GOP has also been the number one party against public healthcare and the number one party for prioritizing profits over the health of the American people.
‘Failure of an American ideology’: why Covid has an outsized impact on the US
As the US records 1 million Covid deaths, experts note underinvestment in long-term care, primary care and public health all contributed to the toll
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/15/us-public-health-healthcare-covid-society
Eric Berger
Sun 15 May 2022 02.00 EDT
David Rosner continually talks to colleagues who are distraught about the American response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“When you are in a school of public health and a public health environment, people really feel when they are failing,” said Rosner, who studies public health and social history at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
That defeated feeling is compounded by the fact that 1 million people in the US have died from Covid-19 – the highest Covid death rate among large wealthy countries.
According to public health experts, the virus’s outsized impact on the US can be attributed in part to underinvestment in long-term care, in primary care and in public health departments. As a result, some people were more vulnerable to Covid and had little connection to – or trust in – the healthcare providers who urged them to socially distance, to wear masks and to get vaccinated.
It was a disconnect, they say, that was only exacerbated by misinformation – particularly by Republican leaders’ undermining of scientists’ recommendations.
“This is more than just a failure of a health system,” said Rosner. “It’s a failure of an American ideology.”
A history of poor healthcare quality and access
The problems in US society and healthcare that lead to the high death toll predate the pandemic.
In 2018, the country spent an average of $10,637 on healthcare per person, almost twice as much as other large and wealthy countries, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. And yet, compared with those countries, the US had a significantly lower life expectancy and the worst healthcare quality and access.
Almost $4,000 of that additional spending comes from higher payments to hospitals for inpatient and outpatient hospital care. Meanwhile, over the last decade, US spending for state public and local health departments decreased by 16% and 18% respectively.
“We have really valued the hospital care to the exclusion of public health and community healthcare in this country,” said Sheila Davis, CEO of the non-profit Partners in Health, which tries to bring healthcare to the world’s poorest places.
She argues that reimbursement patterns in the US focus on care delivered at hospitals, “which is the most expensive place to deliver care, with the most expensive providers”, she said.
As an alternative, she points to a comprehensive model, “which has excellent hospital care but also has a strong public health department, as well as community care”, such as federally qualified health centers in underserved communities.
The one health area where the US spends significantly less than other countries is on long-term care, including nursing homes. In 2018, the country spent $516 a person on long-term care, less than half of what comparable countries spent, according to KFF data.
The pandemic exposed these disparities. About three-quarters of Americans who died from Covid were 65 or older – including more than 150,000 nursing home residents, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
A majority – more than two-thirds – of nursing homes in the US are for-profit institutions. They often don’t pay their workers much, are understaffed and have high turnover rates: the mean US wage for nursing assistants and orderlies in 2020 was $14.82 an hour, and the mean turnover rate for nurse staff in 2017 and 2018 was 128%, according to a study.
That understaffing saw some nursing homes fail to follow best practice for infection control, said Dr Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist at New York University and editor-at-large for Kaiser Health News.
“If you have workers who are paid poorly and have very difficult working conditions, they are not going to trust the employer as much,” Gounder said. “So in a crisis when you have lack of trust, that’s going to create barriers to everyone working in synchronicity to address problems.”
Almost half of the aides and personal care workers, who often make little money, are Black or Hispanic. Nursing homes whose staff come from “less white” neighborhoods saw larger Covid-19 outbreaks, probably because those neighborhoods are also generally denser and have residents who rely more on public transportation, according to a report from a Harvard University economist.
Nursing home residents “were the most vulnerable population – so if Covid made it into the building, bad outcomes were likely to follow shortly thereafter”, said Brian McGarry, a University of Rochester professor who studies long-term care.
In general, life just appeared to be more difficult for seniors in the US than those in similar countries – even before the pandemic. For example, US seniors tend to be more likely to worry about having enough money for meals or medical needs, and to not fill a prescription or skip doses because of the cost, according to a 2017 Health Affairs study.
In the US, 36% of older adults reported having three or more chronic conditions, such as chronic lung diseases and heart conditions, which placed people at greater risk of becoming severely ill from Covid. In New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland, the figures were 17% or under. The US also had the highest rate – 55% – of people taking four or more prescriptions regularly.
Gounder’s grandparents lived in Normandy, France, and never had to worry about medical bills or whether they could see a doctor, she said. “There might be a wait to get an appointment, but they could always get the medical care they needed,” she said.
Americans are also less likely to have a primary care provider, which contributed to the high death toll here. In the Netherlands, 71% of adults have had a regular doctor or place of care for five years or more; in the US, the number is 43%, according to a study from the Commonwealth Fund, a non-profit focused on improving the health system.
“It’s especially a factor when it comes to the vaccination campaign,” said Dr David Blumenthal, president of the Commonwealth Fund. “We know from survey data that people like to get vaccinated in their primary care physician’s office, but too few Americans have primary care physicians.”
That shortage is due in part, Blumenthal said, to tuition fees and to the wage gap between primary care doctor and specialists – again, both figures where the US tops the charts.
“Compensation is an important factor: it’s not just how much people are paid but how hard they have to work to get that level of income,” said Blumenthal, who was a primary care physician himself. Without a primary care provider, he said, many sick people end up visiting emergency rooms – or not seeking care at all.
“In the pandemic, when you are going to an emergency room, you are surrounding yourself with tens or hundreds of other people, many of whom will not have been infected until you show up, so it’s not an epidemiologically helpful way to manage sick people,” Blumenthal said.
The approach to the pandemic became enmeshed in people’s party affiliation and in their views towards government
Dr David Blumenthal
Meanwhile, the US counties that were hit hardest after vaccines became available were those in which a majority voted for Donald Trump in 2020, according to a National Public Radio study.
Since vaccines became widely available in May 2021, people in counties where more than 60% of voters supported Trump were 2.73 times as likely to die from Covid than those in counties where that same percentage supported Joe Biden.
The US also trailed other large wealthy countries in its vaccination rate – and a contributor to that was the low vaccination rates among Republicans. As of November 2021, 91% of Democrats had received at least one dose of the vaccine, while only 53% of Republicans had, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
“You can’t separate our failure in the pandemic from conflicts over ideology and politics,” said Blumenthal. “The approach to the pandemic became enmeshed in people’s party affiliation and in their views towards government.”
That’s in large part due to Republicans such as Trump, said Rosner. After the then-president contracted Covid in October 2020 and became much sicker than he publicly acknowledged, Trump wrote on Twitter: “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.” During a presidential debate, Trump also said of Biden: “I don’t wear masks like him. Every time you see him, he’s got a mask.”
Contrast that with another conservative politician, Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, Rosner said. After also being hospitalized with Covid, Johnson thanked his nurses and said the National Health Service had saved his life “no question” and that “things could have gone either way”.
“It’s not like [Johnson] is some angel, but he acknowledged something deeper in British culture that in some sense trusted medicine, trusted public health, trusted the health system, in a way that Trump didn’t even feel was necessary,” said Rosner.
Preparing for the next emergency
Despite their dismay over the number of preventable Covid deaths, public health experts say they are encouraged by federal government efforts to make sure the US is better prepared for the next emergency, which they say is inevitable.
For example, the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (Cares) Act included $300m for community health worker services to try to improve, among other things, health and mental health care access.
“We were very pleased with the inclusion of community health workers in a lot of the Biden administration funding during the emergency,” said Davis. “Now the goal – and the hope – is that that will [become] a permanent part of our health structure.”
Remember the collusion made an appearance that there was a shortage emergency in meat while at the same time meat exports to China increased. It was just one more of the thousand of TFG manipulative lies. It's not just murder or homicide, its mass homicide. This instance with the meat packing plants was not a isolated event, but a general policy and purposely planned knowing that many would die. The people that were most exposed to his criminal negligence were only a nuisance and replaceable.
Trump and his GOP party is responsible for 100s of thousands of lives, using biological and psychological warfare on their own people. All for just a raw abusive grab for power. He didn't really mean he could shoot someone on the street and get away with it, he meant he could kill as many as he wanted, wherever he wanted, using any weapon of choice (the virus) for his own means and get away with it.
Homicide and murder is just fine and dandy, as long as the new GOP are the ones doing it. They know there won't be any consequences for it, they own the courts and they own the disinformation campaigns (with a lot of help from Putin).
There's no difference between the guy who just killed 10 people with bullets and killing with a virus, the only difference is Trump and his GOP ilk are worse and killed way more of the masses and a much larger danger to our lives than the killer in New York. It was because of Trump's GOP and their continued political methods that the racist extremist was created and given a big push to kill even more. These are the times we live in.......or die in.
Remember this post when I used the GOPs favorite states laws 5 months ago.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=167175767
Keep an eye on the commodities charts. Have made pretty good buck on some of those. It was being said that things like wheat prices were peaking, going to stabilize and market priced in. Those opinions are changing and now looking for those prices to continue upward and continue inflationary pressures due to supply and demand issues.
No matter how much some want to push that it's not, we are a world economy, and things that happen in other parts of the world can have devastating effects in our little world. Can't change very quickly what has been created over generations.
World wide climate change is real and very high on my list of things to be watching. Generations of ignorance, non beliefs, and the forces to hide those facts are real also. The effects of extreme heat, cold, drought, and weather events that are becoming less and less "rare", are very real and will become more real in the market and our economic stability.
These things are going to have effect in the markets short, medium, and long term. The costs to all of our financial worth will be effected. We are going to see very shortly more and more of what they probably call "black swan" (although can be very expected) events that are created by climate extremes.
What the Fed is doing with interest rates may be considered "normal", but we are not in normal times, "normal" is changing not for the better. No interest increase is going to deal with Mother Nature. No "demand destruction" is going to happen when there isn't enough supply for even the minimum of demand.
Too much heat, cold, extreme weather, lack of water and fertilizer will be lowering a lot of yields, even effect employment. Lack of wheat or corn supply and it's effect of pricing is not going to stop the hunger to eat it, livestock needing feed, needs for paper down to gel caps for prescriptions, or loss of jobs at the cannery. Won't stop the basic demand, only high costs and ability to satisfy the demand.
Problems will expand out to pressures on other supply. Housing, material, labor, and energy for a few examples. They already are, but we haven't seen nothing yet.
With the environmental and supply issues, company's share prices that are stated to be solid and "good buys" right now with lower than "normal" PEs have not priced in the upcoming expenditures and lower profits that will have to happen.
The list is long, and there are many issues that can't be fixed by the Fed and some that can't be fixed at all. Gloom and doom? Maybe, but just realities. How we deal with these realities will be the key to any recovery.
No matter how we deal with the "perfect storm" that is happening, the market will be worth less in the near future, at least in the next yr or two, but I believe that it will be longer. I can't really see our society today dealing with these issues on a necessary "team" basis. That alone will incur higher expense to most and inefficiencies, taking even longer for any recovery.
ASIA ECONOMY
India bans wheat exports to try and tame prices as a scorching heatwave curtailed output
PUBLISHED FRI, MAY 13 202211:08 PM EDTUPDATED AN HOUR AGO
Reuters
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/14/india-blocks-all-wheat-exports-with-immediate-effect.html
KEY POINTS
India has prohibited wheat exports, the government said in a notification late on Friday.
The world’s second-biggest wheat producer is trying to calm local prices.
Global buyers were banking on the world’s second-biggest wheat producer for supplies after exports from the Black Sea region plunged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February.
Wheat sacks at a Punjab Grains Procurement Corp. facility in the Ludhiana district of Punjab, India, on Sunday, May 1, 2022.
A blistering heat wave has scorched what fields in India, reducing yields in the second-biggest grower and damping expectations for exports that the world is relying on to alleviate a global shortage. Photographer: T. Narayan/Bloomber
India, the world’s second-biggest wheat producer, has blocked all exports of the grain with immediate effect.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
India banned wheat exports on Saturday, just days after saying it was targeting record shipments this year, as a scorching heatwave curtailed output and local prices hit an all-time high amid strong export demand.
The government said it would still allow exports for letters of credit that have already been issued and on the request from countries that are trying “to meet their food security needs.”
Global buyers were banking on the world’s second-biggest wheat producer for supplies after exports from the Black Sea region plunged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February. Prior to the ban, India was targeting to ship out a record 10 million tonnes this year.
The Indian ban could drive up global prices to new peaks and hit poor consumers in Asia and Africa.
“The ban is shocking,” a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm said. “We were expecting curbs on exports after 2-3 months, but seems inflation numbers changed government’s mind.”
Global wheat prices since Russia invaded Ukraine
Chart
Rising food and energy prices pushed India’s annual retail inflation up towards an eight-year high in April, strengthening economists’ view that the central bank would have to raise interest rates more aggressively to curb prices.
Wheat prices in India have risen to a record high, in some spot markets to as high as 25,000 rupees ($322.71) per metric ton, versus the government’s fixed minimum support price of 20,150 rupees.
Heat wave shrinks crop
Earlier this week, India outlined its record export target for the 2022/23 fiscal year that started on April 1, adding it would send trade delegations to countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Indonesia and the Philippines to explore ways to further boost shipments.
But a sharp and sudden rise in temperatures in mid-March means the crop size could be smaller than expected at around 100 million tonnes or even lower, a New Delhi-based dealer with a global trading firm said, versus a government estimate for an all-time high of 111.32 million tonnes.
Read more
India’s record-setting heat wave in pictures
“The government’s procurement has fallen more than 50%. Spot markets are getting far lower supplies than last year. All these things are indicating lower crop,” the dealer said.
In April, India exported a record 1.4 million tonnes of wheat and deals were already signed to export around 1.5 million tonnes in May.
“Indian ban will lift global wheat prices. Right now there is no big supplier in the market,” the second dealer said.
the-russia-ukraine-conflict-is-impacting-wheat-and-corn-yields-says-teucrium
Oh I'm participating big time, just in my own way and belief system. But I'm no couch potato, working full time. TTS dba on M2M to a CPA. Just not going in long and expecting and setting up for a lot of crud to hit for the demise of many that aren't expecting and belief that because we didn't go below some arbitrary index number (missing by pennies practically depending on who's number), that everything is hunky dory and life happily ever after with continued irrational exuberance and gains as before. Not going to happen, things will be a changing.
That's your opinion, not mine. Everybody to each their own. Good luck. I said market sentiment will show and be very apparent to me for my money, people can do whatever they want with their money. I beat the market last yr and really beating it this year (although that's not saying much, but gains are above inflation figures) and for my money, I'll stay with my thoughts. None of the things I mentioned have been "priced in" and there are many things I didn't list. Too many are still in denial, head buried in the sand, and more ignorant than they should be or could be.
Maybe give it six months and we'll revisit this conversation. I truly hope I'm wrong, but you can only kick the can down the road so much before you run into a dead end and the can bounces back and hits you in the face. We've been kicking the cans for too long and eating our cake and haven't payed the baker yet or even got the final bill to "factor in".
After the bubbles pop, and at least half the big crud hits the fan. All the war consequences come into full view. Water shortages and food shortages, energy costs with that connected inflation start to get handled, unsustainable RE prices comes down and the over average amount of repos begin. When economic realities no longer can be ignored by more than just the poor and lower middle class. Companies stock prices closer to what they earn.
Those things could be the start and will be shown with the general market sentiment. Exactly the point? No idea, your guess is as good as mine. My guess is SPY will be down to a 355 level before I'll start looking for a bottom. If things get really bad (possibility that they will), it will go further than that.
There's a lot of people that follow boards that don't even post. And I'm assuming that there may be some of the ones who do, normally has long positions also. In normal times, I would be mostly long and trade with a smaller percentage of my whole, but like many others,
am waiting for the "bottom". That bottom isn't close yet, that's all I'm saying.
2 weeks? That's short term stuff, of course any selling should try to go near the peak of any rally. Trading is not the issue here, only talking longer term with the fact that we have a bottom coming that's way below what's been seen at this point. I expect there's going to be a lot of volatility up and down in the next few months and a lot of margin calls with ones who play with margins. We're going to see very erratic movements in the market, real dangerous position for ones who are maxing out out their margins buying here for long term.
Yea, sure the market does nothing but goes up over time (at least it has so far over the decades), but many of us may not have decades to wait (too flippen old), and I'm projecting that the recovery might be quite a bit longer this time around than many are expecting.
The article was also making the point that ones who are buying on the dip are going to be in the "meat grinder" later. I agree with you on the selling earlier part, but selling now would have to depend on one's beliefs of the future, tax ramifications (took a big hit there, but the lower prices have gone down further than the hit at this point, except for my RE exits, but that too is coming), and their own financial situations.
At least people should be out of any margin at this point and betting on their own money, if not, then I would recommend sells to that point. But I'm nobody for recommendations, to each their own decisions.
Timing when to sell or buy is as elusive as the meaning of life and depends on everybody's own situation. Me, I've already sold most when I saw this crud coming before it started showing it's ugly face and when certain supports have broken. Just short term making the bread, but definitely not a buyer for the long bulk here, that's for sure.
Part of everything is just drivel, Fed should have been raising rates long before they did. This situation that we have now has been created and set in place years ago (yrs before this administration). But the macro economics, multiple bubbles, ignorance, and the irrational exuberance, with the denial of all those factors is not dribble. If someone thinks that this is the bottom, buy away long, only to be devastated in the future. Trading fine, up and down, short term, but we have got the main crud still coming, that's a fact.
MARKETS
Strategist says stock market may become a ‘meat-grinder of forlorn hope’ for dip-buyers
PUBLISHED FRI, MAY 13 202210:31 AM EDT
Elliot Smith
KEY POINTS
Fears that central banks will have to hike interest rates aggressively to curb inflation have led to broad selling across global markets in recent months.
Tech and growth stocks, which are most vulnerable to sharp rises in interest rates, have suffered particularly steep declines.
The negative start to the year followed a rally that had propelled global stocks from the depths of the initial coronavirus crash in March 2020 to record highs.
WATCH NOW
VIDEO03:06
Investors looking to buy the dip may be deluding themselves, strategist says
LONDON – Investors looking for value in the stock market during the ongoing downturn may be “deluding themselves,” according to Sean Corrigan, director at Cantillon Consulting.
Fears that central banks will have to hike interest rates aggressively to curb inflation — at the risk of quashing growth as the global economy suffers concurrent hits from the war in Ukraine and other supply shocks — have led to broad selling across global markets in recent months.
The S&P 500 closed Thursday’s session down 18% from its all-time high, approaching bear market territory, while the pan-European Stoxx 600 is down almost 12% year-to-date and the MSCI Asia ex-Japan has shed 18.62% since the turn of the year.
Tech and growth stocks, which are most vulnerable to sharp rises in interest rates, have suffered particularly steep declines, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 down more than 29% from its record high last year.
The negative start to the year followed a rally that had propelled global stocks from the depths of the initial coronavirus crash in March 2020 to record highs, with growth companies and tech titans leading the charge.
Some investors have chosen to see recent weakness as a buying opportunity, but Corrigan suggested that faith in the bull run could be misplaced given the macroeconomic condition.
WATCH NOW
VIDEO04:18
We have to prepare for a ‘stagflation scenario,’ says Schaeffler CEO
In a note Friday, he suggested that since a substantial portion of holders of the growth stocks that had performed so well up to this year were using borrowed capital, others might be “swept away when the tide at last begins to ebb.”
“People always say the market comes down on profit taking – it comes down on loss realization. The guy who sells at the top sells to the next two guys, who realize it’s not going to hold, who sell to the next guys and if any of those are leveraged, we’re in trouble,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday.
“And if they’re losing a lot of money in one market, which might be somewhat peripheral to the real thing, there’s another old expression – pulling up the flowers to water the weeds. You sell the other thing to pay your margin calls or to try and reconstitute our finances, so it can spread, and we are clearly in that phase at the moment.”
Despite the risk-off sentiment that has prevailed of late, the S&P 500 remains more than 16% above its pre-Covid high in early 2020, and Corrigan argued that the world is not in a better place than it was at that stage.
“Even people who are trying desperately to convince themselves that somewhere down here, there must now be value just because the asking price is lower, are possibly still deluding themselves,” he said.
WATCH NOW
VIDEO05:16
We are not quite at levels of full-on capitulation in financial markets yet, CIO says
Given shortages and spiraling costs for “staples of life” such as energy and food, which are squeezing household incomes the world over, Corrigan contended that consumer focus has shifted from the companies whose shares most enjoyed the post-Covid rally.
“We have problems with energy, we have problems with food, we have problems with all the staples of life. Is this a time you’re worrying about spending $2,000 to buy a cycle to pedal away in your own home? Well clearly not, which is why Peloton has been crushed,” he said.
“But how many other types of companies like that are now somewhat superfluous to the basic problems of existence with which we for the first time possibly in two generations have been confronted?”
Peloton shares have plunged almost 60% since the start of the year.
Acronym arguments deteriorating
Other speculative assets, such as cryptocurrencies, have also cratered as growth concerns supersede inflation worries as the primary fear for investors, while bonds and the dollar – traditional safe havens – have rallied.
In a research note Friday, Barclays Head of European Equity Strategy Emmanuel Cau said the typical acronym-based arguments that keep investors in equities — such as TINA (there is no alternative), BTD (buy the dip) and FOMO (fear of missing out) — were being challenged by the worsening growth-policy trade-off.
Central bank policy and rhetoric has been a key driver of daily market action in recent months as investors look to assess the speed and severity at which policymakers will tighten in order to curtail runaway inflation.
Having adopted unprecedentedly loose monetary policy to support economies through the pandemic, central banks now face the tough task of unwinding that stimulus amid a new barrage of threats to growth.
WATCH NOW
VIDEO03:10
Market sentiment is incredibly bearish, but JPMorgan says valuations look quite reasonable
“Without a trigger to ease recession anxiety, this may continue, but the panic button has not been hit yet. And while highly speculative assets have collapsed, we see little evidence of retail (investors) giving up on equities,” Cau argued.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell acknowledged on Thursday that the U.S. central bank cannot guarantee a “soft landing” for the economy, in terms of containing inflation without triggering a recession.
Corrigan does not expect this faith in the bull market from retail investors to bear fruit, however.
“As for the idea that inflation (i.e. price rises) will soon meaningfully recede, that still seems a distant prospect though, doubtless, every minor abatement will be seized upon as an ‘opportunity to buy’,” he said in Friday’s note.
“The market could well become a meat-grinder of forlorn hope.”
Powell says he can’t guarantee a ‘soft landing’ as the Fed looks to control inflation
PUBLISHED THU, MAY 12 20225:09 PM EDTUPDATED FRI, MAY 13 202212:00 AM EDT
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/12/powell-says-he-cant-guarantee-a-soft-landing-as-the-fed-looks-to-control-inflation.html
I take it as we've not landed yet, so more downside to come. Of course there will be spikes and bounces along the way, but we have many bubbles to pop and the big crud hasn't even hit the fan yet.
Got one of my stamp orders yesterday, the F series. Another one, the W series has been tracked going through the New York customs the last couple of days and should get them in the next week hopefully. One set has been cancelled and money returned, and the last one is kind of iffy, shows has gone into system still in Ukraine, but may have been blown up, burned, or lost. As of 4/30, the tracking ended.
But at least I got one in hand and one set showing in the US. So I'm good.
WASHPOST PR BLOG
Isabelle Khurshudyan and Max Bearak to lead new Washington Post bureau in Kyiv
The Post’s continued coverage of the conflict will also draw on a rotation of correspondents, photographers and video journalists on-the ground.
By WashPostPR
Yesterday at 7:00 a.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/2022/05/11/isabelle-khurshudyan-max-bearak-lead-new-washington-post-bureau-kyiv/
The Washington Post has named Isabelle Khurshudyan Ukraine bureau chief and Max Bearak chief Ukraine correspondent. (Marvin Joseph and Bonnie Jo Mount/TWP)
Read the announcement in Ukrainian.
The Washington Post will establish a new bureau in Kyiv, with Isabelle Khurshudyan leading coverage as Ukraine bureau chief, and Max Bearak serving as chief Ukraine correspondent. The move signals The Post’s long-term commitment to covering Russia’s war in Ukraine and the people affected.
“For many months, The Post has dedicated significant resources to covering the increasing tensions along Ukraine’s Russian border and, ultimately, the ensuing Russian invasion,” said Foreign Editor Douglas Jehl. “As the war enters a prolonged phase, this bureau will allow us to maintain our intensive on-the-ground reporting and ensure that we continue to deliver the distinctive and authoritative journalism that readers around the world count on us for.”
Khurshudyan, former Moscow correspondent, has been reporting in Ukraine since January, and Bearak, former Nairobi bureau chief, has reported there for two months. They’ll steer a team composed of Ukraine-based contributing reporter David Stern and rotating correspondents, photographers and video journalists.
Elements of The Post’s expansive coverage dedicated to the war in Ukraine include a 24-hour live updates page on The Post’s site, a Telegram channel for news updates and a database of verified, on-the-ground footage.
The Washington Post’s Ukraine bureau can be reached at: wpukraine@washpost.com
US newspaper the Washington Post opens a bureau in Kyiv
11 May, 18:33
https://english.nv.ua/nation/washington-post-finally-to-open-ukraine-bureau-in-kyiv-50241352.html
The Washington Post is opening a bureau in Kyiv (Photo:mob mob/flickr.com)
Support NV
U.S. newspaper the Washington Post has said it is opening a new bureau in Kyiv, to be headed by Isabelle Khurshudyan.
Read also:
Volodymyr Zelenskyy explained that the Azov Regiment is not a volunteer (formation), but part of the National Guard (Photo:Office of the President of Ukraine)
Zelensky refutes Russian propaganda claim that Azov Regiment is ‘neo-Nazi’
Max Berak will become the chief correspondent of the Ukrainian bureau, the Washington Post statement says.
This move signals the Post's long-term commitment to covering Russia's war in Ukraine as it will continue to be this year's top story.
“For many months, The Post has dedicated significant resources to covering the increasing tensions along Ukraine’s Russian border and, ultimately, the ensuing Russian invasion,” said the Washington Post’s foreign editor, Douglas Jehl.
“As the war enters a prolonged phase, this bureau will allow us to maintain our intensive on-the-ground reporting and ensure that we continue to deliver the distinctive and authoritative journalism that readers around the world count on us for.”
Read also: Ukrainian journalist Oleksandr Makhov killed near Izyum
Former Moscow bureau correspondent, Isabelle Khurshudyan has been consistently reporting in Ukraine since January, and Max Berak has been working in Ukraine for two months.
They will lead a team of reporters including David Stern, as well as other reporters, photographers and video journalists working on a rotating basis.
Republican's SC can call abortion of a pea size bunch of cells or even the morning after pill murder, but killing and murdering 100's of thousands of lives with the trumps GOP Covid Wars is just fine and dandy.
Maybe he's still in Algeria. Response twits aren't too supportive. lol
🇷🇺🇩🇿 In Algeria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey #Lavrov took part in the wreath-laying ceremony at the monument to the heroes of the Algerian War of Independence#RussiaAlgeria #RussiaAfrica pic.twitter.com/Ix8F1oD10e
— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) May 10, 2022
Agreed, that why I stated heat waves (included with the "on and on" and extreme weather events was the cold ), and even though the energy supply reductions from lower water levels are in the lesser energy supplied overall, it still will be having major effect on the demand for other energy cost's such as the LNG and it's already demand pressures from Putin's/Russian War.
Most of the effects from low supply of water is everything else besides the electricity generation that it involves, mostly our food supplies, but it does involve other energy uses that will be increased by the disappearing water supply beyond just the percentage of energy not produced by the dams.
Our nations economics are so interconnected that when one domino (major domino) falls it starts a chain reaction and effects other areas of supply of everything including all the other sources of energy. There is so much "on and on" and "dominos" falling right now, the chance of NOT going into a recession or even a depression is pretty small.
It's called a housing bubble, even though many won't admit it, until it crashes. Interest rates increasing and inflation has a big effect on abilities to buy or live in a home, especially with an overpriced housing market (taxes have also been increasing with the exuberant home prices).
Yea, there's no recession going to happen, r...i...g...h...t. Google; water shortage and it's economic effects to so many things, especially in one of our main agricultural areas. Decreased ability to produce energy due to low water levels, creating higher utility costs for millions. Heat waves coming, along with Putin's War on Ukraine creating high demand for LNG and soring prices in energy. Lack of fertilizers (and water) lowering yields in our food supply raising prices there. Covid is not done with it's expenses, ignored, but reality still bites. Fires, extreme weather events increasing reconstruction and insurance costs, and material shortages.
On and on, no fed action is going stop what's coming, their only goal is to "soften the landing". Irrational exuberance has been going on in the market for some time, there always is some point for a major correction to happen, the longer it doesn't, the harder the correction. Don't care if it's called a "recession" (until it is), it's still going to be a very reduced disposable income for most, and not enough for just the essentials for many, and it's going to hurt. To many, it's hurting now. We've been eating cake for quite a while, at some point the baker got to be paid.
Jan 31, 2022, the ratio was 7.72. It's higher now.
Home Price to Median Household Income Ratio (US)
Interpretation
Historically, an average house in the U.S. cost around 5 times the yearly household income. During the housing bubble of 2006 the ratio exceeded 7 - in other words, an average single family house in the United States cost more than 7 times the U.S. median annual household income.
The Case-Shiller Home Price Index seeks to measure the price level of existing single family homes in the United States. Based on the pioneering research of Robert J. Shiller and Karl E. Case the index is generally considered the leading measure of U.S. residential real estate prices. The index has a base of Jan 2000=100 and is multiplied by 1800 in order approximate the Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States.
According to Mike Maloney this ratio is heavily influenced by interest rates. When interest rates go down the affordability of a house goes up, so people spend more money on a house. Interest rates have now been falling since 1981 when they peaked at 15.32% (for a 10-year US treasury bond).
Data Sources
Recent data
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: Median Income since 1983
Historical data
census.gov Median Income from 1947 until 1965
DaveManuel.com: Median Income from 1967 until 1983
Online Data Robert Shiller: Historical US Home prices until 1983
Interpretation
Historically, an average house in the U.S. cost around 5 times the yearly household income. During the housing bubble of 2006 the ratio exceeded 7 - in other words, an average single family house in the United States cost more than 7 times the U.S. median annual household income.
The Case-Shiller Home Price Index seeks to measure the price level of existing single family homes in the United States. Based on the pioneering research of Robert J. Shiller and Karl E. Case the index is generally considered the leading measure of U.S. residential real estate prices. The index has a base of Jan 2000=100 and is multiplied by 1800 in order approximate the Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States.
According to Mike Maloney this ratio is heavily influenced by interest rates. When interest rates go down the affordability of a house goes up, so people spend more money on a house. Interest rates have now been falling since 1981 when they peaked at 15.32% (for a 10-year US treasury bond).
Data Sources
Recent data
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: Median Income since 1983
Historical data
census.gov Median Income from 1947 until 1965
DaveManuel.com: Median Income from 1967 until 1983
Online Data Robert Shiller: Historical US Home prices until 1983
https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/
Even though it's supposed to be, currently religion and state are NOT separate. If it is allowed to continue, will only their religion be ok (most probable) or will all religion, even the Muslim religion be allowed. How about the the religious rite of serpent handling out there in the fields before or after every football game. QAnon has some pretty out there "religion" connected to them. There are many religions all having their different "one and only true" gods and different interpretations to different scriptures and violent conflicts will definitely arise. Wars are started and fought over religious ideals and opinions on who's religion should be followed or dominantly applied and forced upon all others. Despot leaders corruptly use religion as a weapon to abusively gain their power, as examples of todays politics display.
I would argue that the religion being prominent in our political system today are the extremist, with a whole lot of corruption and hypocrisy mixed in. The same corruption and hypocrisy that are controlling our future elections, ignoring science, and are making the rules and decisions against the majority on what is "good" or "bad" religions accepted, all contributing to our direction of civil war or a totalitarian state.
Might be too academic for some, but an interesting paper to read titled "A Multidimensional Analysis of Religious Extremism" in which this excerpt comes from.
I don't think Ginni is completely out of the realm of possibilities, but all this about the "leak" is only what the new GOP wants to have the attention on instead of the fact that the SC is only just the republicans political arm now. There is no longer three branches of government, but only two, mostly just one. All leading to a modern civil war in which we are now in the beginning stages. By forcefully stacking the courts to do their political power bidding and among other things (like murdering 100s of thousands of people including children with their Covid Wars), the new GOP has in essence declared that war. Of course it won't ever be officially called that, maybe "political discourse" or some other GOP lies and deflection, but the realities will be saying something else.
Jan 31, 2022, the ratio was 7.72. It's higher now. We're not in a housing bubble, pay no attention to the Zillow person behind the curtain.
Home Price to Median Household Income Ratio (US)
Interpretation
Historically, an average house in the U.S. cost around 5 times the yearly household income. During the housing bubble of 2006 the ratio exceeded 7 - in other words, an average single family house in the United States cost more than 7 times the U.S. median annual household income.
The Case-Shiller Home Price Index seeks to measure the price level of existing single family homes in the United States. Based on the pioneering research of Robert J. Shiller and Karl E. Case the index is generally considered the leading measure of U.S. residential real estate prices. The index has a base of Jan 2000=100 and is multiplied by 1800 in order approximate the Average Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States.
According to Mike Maloney this ratio is heavily influenced by interest rates. When interest rates go down the affordability of a house goes up, so people spend more money on a house. Interest rates have now been falling since 1981 when they peaked at 15.32% (for a 10-year US treasury bond).
Data Sources
Recent data
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: Median Income since 1983
Historical data
census.gov Median Income from 1947 until 1965
DaveManuel.com: Median Income from 1967 until 1983
Online Data Robert Shiller: Historical US Home prices until 1983
https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/
Ukrainian film director releases documentary about siege of Mariupol
6 May, 21:14
https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukraine-film-director-makes-documentary-about-siege-of-mariupol-50240082.html
"The world needs to know what is happening in Mariupol" (Photo:A shot from the movie)
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Ukrainian film director Yelyzaveta Tatarinova on May 3 released documentary film "Mariupol. Chronicles of Hell" about Russia's siege of the Ukrainian port city on the coast of the Azov Sea.
The film features the stories of people who managed to escape from the besieged city.
"Mariupol. Chronicles of Hell" is the story of life in the city from the first days of the war, told by those who have managed to survive in hellish conditions.
Read also: Ukrainian weightlifting champion killed in Mariupol
The film contains documentaries, monologues about the city, and interviews with people who managed to escape from Russian troops.
"The world should know what's going on in Mariupol." Each of the 11 heroes of the film began their story with the words: "The world should know what's going on in Mariupol."
The documentary features local journalists, volunteers and ordinary housewives.
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In particular, the subjects include Mariupol journalists Nadiia Sukhorukova, Mykola Osychenko and Maks Hrabovsky, volunteer Kateryna Yerska, the commandant of the largest bomb shelter in the Mariupol's Terra sports complex, Yevhen Tuzov, and family of the deceased photographer Viktor Diedov.
The film contains eyewitness accounts of the Russian airstrike on the drama theater in Mariupol, which killed about 600 people, and on the city’s maternity hospital, as well as other events that may go down in history as Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian people.
Subtitled
We are nowhere near the bottom,’ top economist says as global markets crater
PUBLISHED FRI, MAY 6 20226:39 AM EDT
Matt Clinch
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/06/nowhere-near-the-bottom-top-economist-says-as-global-markets-crater.html
KEY POINTS
“Now it’s time for a reappreciation of the economic fundamentals around the world in terms of growth,” Brunello Rosa told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” Friday.
“It’s hard for markets to be totally optimistic when inflation is going up, growth is going down and interest rates are rising fast across the globe,” he added.
The New York Stock Exchange on May 3, 2022. Brunello Rosa, the CEO and head of research at Rosa & Roubini, believes there is much more monetary tightening to come from central banks, and more bad news on economic activity.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Stock markets are set for more heavy selling this summer as central banks around the world ramp up interest rates to try to combat spiraling inflation, according to one economist.
Brunello Rosa, who is the CEO and head of research at Rosa & Roubini, a consultancy he co-founded alongside well-known market bear Nouriel Roubini, believes there is much more monetary tightening to come from central banks, and more bad news on economic activity.
“Now it’s time for a reappreciation of the economic fundamentals around the world in terms of growth,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” Friday.
“It’s hard for markets to be totally optimistic when inflation is going up, growth is going down and interest rates are rising fast across the globe.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 1,000 points on Thursday and the Nasdaq Composite fell nearly 5%, erasing a rally on Wednesday. Initial relief over the U.S. Federal Reserve’s ruling out of more aggressive hikes seemingly gave way to fears that a sharp hiking cycle in order to rein in red-hot inflation could harm economic growth.
Rosa said investors initially welcomed the news that a 75-basis-point hike is off the table, but he warned that this means there would be several 50-basis-point hikes over the next few months. He also said that the Bank of England is the only central bank currently being realistic, after policymakers in London on Thursday warned of the recession risks that the U.K. economy is facing.
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“It’s clear that all of them [central banks] are talking tough at this stage. But the reality is that lots of tightening will eventually lead to economic contraction,” he said.
“In the euro zone and in the U.S. they are nowhere near realizing that actually there will be some form of contraction of economic activity,” he later added.
Rosa said he expects the war in Ukraine to last much longer than many market participants are anticipating, adding to other headwinds such as supply chains issues, soaring inflation, and rising interest rates.
— CNBC’s Elliot Smith contributed to this article.