Biden's decision to donate 500 million vaccine doses to other countries is the right thing to do morally and will pay dividends. Besides helping people in need, it will help protect the U.S. by curtailing cases globally and create badly needed goodwill post Trump. Now if only more Americans would get vaccinated instead of believing absurd claims about 5G and magnetism.
I read that it would take 11 billion doses of vaccine to vaccinate 70% of the world population. Although 500 million doses are a nice and needed gesture and it sounds like a big number, it is a drop in the bucket.
To perhaps us in this country who have wide access to the vaccine it may seem like a drippy drop. Imagine though if one was living in a country or continent such as Africa where only 2% have been vaccinated, 500 mil doses being offered by the US is more than a drop. It’s a promise.
Thank you Pfizer and the United States for leading. May rest of G7 countries follow suit.
I agree. I was merely illustrating the global need versus a seemingly high number of doses being offered. You have to start somewhere and it is a good first example of putting your money where your mouth is.
Since religious organizations and NGOs provide much of the medical care in Haiti, they should be in charge of distribution and administering. Certainly the powers that be know that.
A push for worldwide vitamin D sufficiency would greatly reduce the toll from the virus far more quickly than waiting for the rest of the world to get vaccinated. People who have sufficient vitamin D who have not been vaccinated get far milder cases, with comparatively few needing ICU care or--likely--even hospitalization.
In the US, 40% of caucasians, 2/3s of those with Hispanic extraction, and 80% of blacks are deficient (NHANES data). Dark skin color reduces catalysis of vitamin D production in the skin relative to light skin.
Vitamin D boosts the immune system in a number of ways, reducing other infectious diseases as well. Since I started taking 3000 IU/day in '04, I've had almost no colds or flu, and the last flu lasted all of a day. Prior, I would get several colds a year and flu probably every couple of years. (I have gotten flu shots in the last 6 years or so, except for this past year.)
There are D receptors in every cell in the body. D influences many genes in the immune system, including genes that code for an antimicrobial and an antiviral.
Vitamin D sufficiency is now considered to be 40-60ng/ml. This is the blood level that hunter-gatherers in the tropics have, and it's the level that I have in summer (in Mass. at 42 degrees latitude) when I run shirtless most days and don't take D, and this is where 3000 IU gets me in the darker months (~55ng/ml to be precise).
Rule of thumb: if your shadow is longer than you are, the relevant rays for catalyzing D production in your skin have been filtered out. I take D from late September until late March or early April if I'm running close to noontime and longer if I'm running later in the afternoon.
Different people need different amounts of vitamin D. The necessary amount increases with age and body mass (I'm early Medicare age and weigh ~140), but people have other physiological differences that influence needs (my requirement has not changed since I started taking D). Fauci takes 6000 IU/day. A dear friend with osteopenia takes 10,000 IU/day as was prescribed. People with multiple sclerosis often take even higher doses, as it is helpful against that condition.
(Docs used to learn in med school that it was very easy to get a toxic dose of D. That's wrong. It takes huge amounts. My primary care physician was initially appalled when she learned how much I was taking. She has since come around.)
D is incredibly inexpensive, and not subject to monopolies.
Despite knowing this, I got myself vaccinated as soon as I could (Pfizer).
Once you start taking vitamin D, at regular doses it takes about a month and a half to gain sufficiency, unless you "load" by starting with high doses. So wait six weeks to get your blood level taken.
I spent 7/9ths of my gestation and my first 3 years and 11 months in Seattle. My baby teeth were terrible, probably as a result of a dearth of D. Our first year in Boston, it seemed like I was getting cavities filled twice a month. My adult teeth, grown mostly in Boston, which besides being much sunnier, is 7 degrees latitude south of Seattle, where I spent most springs, summers, and parts of fall outdoors in the sun, were vastly superior to my baby teeth. So, glad you Seattleites are getting your D from supplements! And I do have tremendous nostalgia for that beautiful city, and the hill on which we lived in Denny Blaine. We had a plain but pleasant Cape Cod house there; the current residents--since ~81 or so--have made it gorgeous.
This is informative article is about the star D vitamin that David talks about. Usually, but not always, blood tests will show D3 deficiency. D3 comes only from animal based sources, D2 from plant sources.
Beware of Vitamin D toxicity. D is a fat soluable vitamin meaning your body does not easily excrete the excess (Vitamin C, for example, is water soluble, and mega doses only make for "expensive urine." ). I have had patients with extreme fatigue, that could only be traced to large Vitamin D doses ordered post orthopedic surgery or treatment of osteoporosis - a typical ordered dose being 5,000 IU/day. One patient came to the hospital in a coma - her doctor had prescribed 50,000 IU injection once a week for over a year. Once this was stopped she had a full recovery.
Docs of a certain age were taught that it's easy to get toxic doses of D. It's not. But 50k IU weekly is probably a bad idea. D works better given on a daily basis. Fauci's daily dose--6k IU/day--gives him 42k/week; my best friend's daily dose, which she's been on for years, gives her 70K/week.
This nurse of a certain age is trying really hard not to be insulted. The hospitalized women I spoke of above would have died if I had not done an indepth pre-discharge assessment and discovered a) that she was on 50,000 IU injections weekly, that b) it was ordered by a physician and given by a home care nurse not listed anywhere in her medical history, that c) her discharge diagnosis was "adrenal insufficiency" because no one could figure out what had caused her coma, that d) she told me, "Oh, yes, I get really really tired after that shot on Saturday morning and sleep all weekend, and that e) she was admitted Sunday evening, and was being rushed out now on Friday, so she could get a shot at home on Saturday. She had been getting progressively more tired over the 2 years she had been on this Vitamin D treatment. When the hospitalist came in to discharge her, I said, "Did you know she is on 50,000 IU Vitamin D every Saturday?" He looked stunned and said, "Not any more she isn't" and added the cancellation to the discharge order. I doubt that the young doctor included this diagnosis in his discharge summary, as they had all missed it. I also see a pattern in long term care facilities where short term prescriptions for 5,000 IU daily are ordered after hip replacements, but are continued for years, decades. Chief Complaint: "I'm tired, but, oh well, I'm old." Lower the dose to 1,000/day, and we see improvements. I highly respect Dr. Fauci, but more research needs to be done, and not funded by vitamin companies.
Each G7 country should have a sister region to help vax. A Marshall Plan like effort but global. For the US, I think we should focus on North, then South America, then the world. Europe should focus on Europe, Easren Europe,then Africa and MIddle East. Australia and South Pacific, and North. China on all of Asia. If the Olympics are going forward, send some expiring does there there. Meld the theme of the Olympics with global community for humanity and public health, showing & telling the story of cooperation to end the pandemic.
It is a significant number already at 5% of your total but when you take out of that 11B those that are fending for themselves in the developed world and then you start to get at the population in the other countries that is "accessible quickly" and are the likely sources of continuing infection...the cities...the number starts to look a little better. In many parts of the world the infrastructure is just not in place to quickly vaccinate everybody.
Doses expire. New doses are made to not only not catch up, but surpass demand. We should have a plan to send doses to other countries 45-30 days of expiration. This way we don’t waste any, we help our neighbors, and we keep on our shelves full with the freshest supply.
Michael, so agree to the plethora of absurdity. Perhaps, with this gesture of largesse by Biden, maybe, just maybe, there will be some still sitting on the vaccine fence that will get the subconscious prod of……”uh-oh, I better get a shot. Looks like Biden is giving away MINE.”
In case people were wondering about Michael's reference to 5G and magnetism, here is the clip of the "expert" saying that forks and spoons could not be attached to people's foreheads after they receive the vaccine. You can't make this stuff up! https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1402408416228806663?s=20
Yes, indeed. The life work of a virus is to mutate, to evolve. Those who are not immune are essentially offering the virus a comfy home to do just that, endangering the rest of us as well as themselves.
I get that it’s vital to Covid-immunize as many people as possible in the U.S. to snuff out any possibility of future waves of the disease.
But it’s also not lost on me nor will be lost on future historians that the various incentives to get vaccinated - million dollar lotteries, free beer and donuts - are the richest symbol yet of American…I don’t know…exceptionalism (?).
The Simpsons - Year 35
Homer Gets Vaccinated
I need hardly add - present company (and tens of millions others) excluded.
This may have been mentioned previously, but it has not gone unnoticed to us that you wrote through the weekend and did not take your usual day of rest (and beautiful Buddy Poland photo). What you're doing, Heather, is really appreciated. Every. Single. Day.
Whenever I used to hear the term, “three dimensional chess“, I would to picture “Spock” sitting there, perplexed as to why his logic can’t overcome the “unconventional strategies” being employed by Captain Kirk. Today, I picture President Biden there, being confronted by the very real and “hard to respond to”, unconventional warfare being waged by Vladimir Putin. While Putin may not waging a conventional war, he is waging an unconventional one by supporting and radicalizing the Conservative opposition of every Western Democracy, touting the benefits of one party rule to them. I really hope President Biden can send these fascists back to the garages and basements they crawled out of.
Indeed. It is infuriating to watch and it's not quite as rosy a picture as Heather paints. The position on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline indicates that the relationship with Germany is causing some real twisted logic in how the U.S. deals with Putin. That pipeline is a major victory for Putin and imperils many countries in the region (not to mention the environmental impact.)
It's a gas pipeline. But regardless, it's more complicated than just moving beyond fossil fuels. The economics, power dynamics, and diplomatic challenges are enormous and intricately interwoven.
Your last sentence sets the stage, the critical importance of 2022. Democrats and Independents showing up at the voting booth must join forces to defeat the Trump wing of the Republican party. No matter the blocks put up by the Koch funded and controlled state legislatures we will overcome.
Do we have any figging rights as a democracy to plug Koch and Mercer-type monies and their mouthpieces that outright lie and are bent on the overthrow of our democracy? Do we have no power at all against domestic seditionist's? Or those blatant liars (we pay for) in our own government who have proven futile and swore to not work with Biden to pass legislation. Where is our power as Americans? There is something so wrong with knowing you are being overthrown and, seemingly, standing idly by for five now six years? We need to make a lot of noise about our power— Would financial sanctions against our own corrupt elected officials and corporations be a way to stop the steal of our democracy? I know, I throw out crazy ideas sometimes, but since we really do not understand what is going on behind the scenes, we need to take action. How patient do we have to be whilst the coup digs in deeper? Why is a seditionist who refuses to accept that he lost allowed to hold rallies and continue his lies and propaganda? Is our fear of their ammunition so palpable?
Do we need protests protected by our military?
Is there anybody out there? out there....out there............out there...........(echo finitum)...
I know, Keep Calm and Carry On. Where is that rotgut? Just another rant of frustration...I am okay. I just need to join a march, en mass across the country, to feel our voices be really heard in the world.
Frustration mounts for us all. Democracy is slow by nature. And Mitch has gummed it up entirely. States are more agile and could help, but, largely controlled by Republicans, they will not. Maddening.
Yes, I think I will call the local activist bookstore to see if we can plan some protests. I was petrified to attend a monthly Gallery Walk last weekend in Brattleboro, that was planned to have blocked off street dancing and music. My beau really wanted to go...I did, too, but I had such an anxious feeling in my gut that, in the end, I stayed home. He went and immediately felt anxious and had to leave because it was impossible to have any safe distance as there were so many people happily, masklessly, crammed together. He said it was impossible to find space to distance and he left.
I want to be with people en masse, but if I am to be exposed to a variant, it will be to help save our democracy. Dancing in the streets can come later.
I do wish that President Biden was as forceful in his stance against the assault of Democracy in this Country as he is with other Countries in the world.
That said, the doses of the vaccines that the US has committed to purchase for less fortunate countries speaks volumes as to the moral high ground Biden is trying to take this country to.
We are at a plateau in this country to have a substantial amount of people get their vaccines. Perhaps it's in spite of the success that Biden has gained in getting vaccines in arms so the July goal will not be met.
Spite is a game piece in the arsenal of hate that comprise the GOP.
I never thought that people would act against their own best interests and health. Wanting Biden to fail in everything, including meeting his vaccination goal, is, as my mom used to say “cutting your nose off to spite your face”.
Annette you are absolutely correct. My Mom used to say that as well. I was just reading comments from my online local paper regarding outdoor concerts in which anyone going must be vaccinated and have proof of that. The comments are disgusting. How people can be that selfish is beyond me.
As it is, Karelia, as it is. And thank you for saying it HCR. I am watching closely for every report coming from his meeting with G7. It will be very meaningful what these these other influential countries and partners in the G7 pact offer to do for OUR country in this time of great stress and precarious balance. You can watch a partner try to keep balance and hope they won’t fall or you can step in and step up and assert to all that they will not fall.
I am curious to see whether their reported disdain and regret of former President Trump’s “reign” is what was reported to the world.
A little off-subject but chew on this article from today's Allentown Morning Call:
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and leading Democratic lawmakers vowed to defend voters’ rights Wednesday, saying they will not negotiate with Republicans attempting to scale back people’s ability to vote.
For nearly an hour Wednesday, Wolf, acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid, state House Minority Leader Joanne McClinton, state Sen. Shariff Street and state Rep. Margo Davidson denounced unnamed Republican lawmakers for pushing a false narrative about the 2020 presidential election and promoting conspiracy theories about the election’s outcome.
The misinformation is damaging to American democracy and feeding conservatives’ demands for election reform that will limit citizens’ right to vote, they argued. Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania have repeatedly introduced legislation seeking to eliminate mail-in voting this year, and Wolf vowed to reject those and other efforts that would infringe on voters’ access to the polling place.
“I will stand up for our freedom to vote. I will not allow bad actors to put up barriers to voting in Pennsylvania. Not only will I veto any legislative efforts to roll back the freedoms Pennsylvanians right now have, I will continue to push for changes that expand our access to the polls,” Wolf said.
The Democrats were unsparing in their comments. Without naming any individuals other than former President Donald Trump, the group accused some Republicans of engaging in dangerous, undemocratic
activities that directly led to the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington. Street compared Trump to segregationist George Wallace, and Davidson cited experts who identified misinformation as the greatest security threat to come out of the 2020 election cycle.
“I cannot sugarcoat this at all. Our democracy continues to be under attack. I repeat, our democracy is under attack,” McClinton said.
A request for comment to Sen. Kim Ward, the Republican majority leader, was not immediately returned.
Wednesday’s news conference came a week after state Sens. Doug Mastriano and Cris Dush and state Rep. Rob Kauffman toured the controversial Arizona audit of the 2020 election. The audit has drawn criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike for playing to conspiracy theories, its flawed process and the lack of qualifications by Cyber Ninjas, the contractor performing the audit.
Wolf and other speakers noted that Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes and razor-thin outcome, was a target of about 20 lawsuits attempting to reverse Trump’s loss in the election, none of which overturned the results. The speakers noted that audits at both the county and state levels confirmed the outcome, and that a federal judge appointed by Trump rejected his argument that the results should be overturned.
The divide over the 2020 election has prevented lawmakers from addressing actual problems that exist with Pennsylvania’s election code. For nearly a year, a bipartisan group of county election officials have requested that lawmakers allow them to start counting mail-in ballots days ahead of Election Day so they can quickly produce results. Instead, many Republicans want to revoke mail-in ballots and some Democrats are pushing for same-day voter registration.
The Republican effort against mail-in ballots is a stark reversal from 2019, when mail-in voting was allowed thanks to Republican support despite overwhelming Democratic opposition in the Senate. At the time, no one believed there would be significant demand for mail-in ballots, but the coronavirus pandemic fed massive interest in the voting method last year.
Since the 2020 election, some Republican-controlled states have sought to change voting laws. The efforts align with Trump, who has continued leveling false claims that fraud cost him the election. Trump’s own Justice Department determined the election was the most secure in American history.
In March, Georgia reduced the number of drop boxes for mail-in ballots and made it a crime for third parties to give food or drink to people waiting in line to vote. Supporters of the bill argue it enhances voting rights because it adds more days for people to vote ahead of Election Day. The changes came after Georgia voters narrowly backed President Joe Biden in the presidential election and then granted Democrats the slimmest control of the U.S. Senate.
Since then, Florida, Montana and Iowa have passed voting changes while other states have introduced similar bills. Texas nearly passed voting restrictions last month but was foiled after Democratic lawmakers fled the statehouse to deny Republicans a quorum.
I saw Pennsylvania AG Josh Shapiro on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow program vow to stop any attempts to further "audit" the 2020 ballots, as the Cyber Ninjas are pretending to do in Arizona. He vowed to immediately file suit if there was any attempt to do so.
Christine, that's an interesting comparison. I'll look for more to gnaw on. The PA Republicans, especially Doug Mastriano, are as bad as the 'Pubs in Congress. Just a bunch of jerkies.
I think this is the kind of thing that HCR was referring to in her late afternoon post that posed question about shift in media response after vote failure of “independent Jan 6 Commission”.
I am wondering why we have so few public demonstrations showing support for our democracy, the government, elected officials, business and social leaders that we need to sustain and improve our democratic nation? And why we allow autocrats, demiguoges, their financiers and militant gun carrying supporters so much air time in their in broad daylight hijacking of our nation?
Clearly the Trump faction emulates Putin's Russia, right down to using courts and departments of justice to protect bad actors. This isn't just a race thing. Russians in every country particularly in the former Soviet countries believe they have no laws to live by, and should be in control of their respective adopted country to maintain support for mother Russia. Trump's allegiances are to a former Confederacy that once ruled roughshod over the US. Then imposed their Jim Crow rule of intimidation, death and destruction over the south like the many Tulsa Massacres. And now election lies, voter suppression and insurrection at the the Capitol with impunity in broad daylight. These are all criminal and unconstitutional acts that require accountability, consequences and prison time. We have enough prison cells in our nation to deal with these Putinesque Trump Republican puppets and players.
Actually we don’t. Prisons are filled with non violent drug offenders. Our extraordinarily high prison population per capita leads the world. Black incarceration is particularly high.
Also particularly high is the population of people with mental illness and neurological disorders, particularly FASD, in prisons. They are fed into the prison system due to a nearly complete lack of systems of service and care. The US Senate will take up THE FASD RESPECT ACT at their session next month in July.
"Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) is an umbrella term describing the range of effects that can occur in an individual whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy. These effects may include physical, mental, behavioral, and/or learning disabilities with possible lifelong implications."
I could not find a way to edit my previous post, so I deleted it and offer this corrected version:
FASD can occur in an individual whose father drank alcohol preconceptually. Evidence and data from research are available, but fairly recent.
FAS - the form of FASD with facial features and most severe cognitive damage, which is 10-15% of FASD cases - can be attributed to maternal binge drinking (4-5 servings) alcohol during the first 3-4 weeks of pregnancy when most women do not yet have awareness of the pregnancy.
The other 85-90% of FASD cases can be linked to paternal or maternal (or both, of course) use of alcohol. It’s important to establish this equity of harm clearly. Shame and blame of women has been one of the most significant hurdles to bringing this epidemic out of the dark hushed corners of every service profession.
Being careful how we read these studies. Alcohol is a teratogenic that effects whatever is developing at the time of being bathed in high doses. The studies actually are saying there is a genetic link between problem behaviors and fathers who drink alcohol. Not that the alcohol level of the father effects the development of the fetus. “ Hence, these data seem to suggest that genetic factors of the biological fathers that relate to their drinking behavior may have a significant effect on the intellectual and behavioral development of their offspring.” Men must abstain from drinking during their partners pregnancy to support their offsprings health, but their drinking has no direct effect on the fetus as the woman’s does. And why are we talking about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders?
It started with a musing that we could put “Putinesque Trump” Republicans in prison =>don’t have space=>too many people with FASD channeled to prison. It took on a life of its own and needs to be a separate post (for which I finally started a publishing account - my apologies to HCR for clogging her turf with this). FASD is not genetic (it cannot be detected by any genetic tests) but rather is epigenetic. Alcohol is a teratogen and not the only, but by far the most common, cause of preventable harm to the fetus. End of thread here, please find my personal substack if interested in further discussion on FASD. 🙏🏻
Just listening to NPR saying this am how the incidence of binge drinking in reproductive age women is way up. Grateful we finally have some decent birth control methods and a lot of women are using them. There is not much more painful than watching a brain damaged by in utero alcohol try to make sense of the world. But the saddest thing there is no safe amount and because we can’t study humans we have no idea how much it takes to cause troubles for the brain in ways that are difficult to know.
It's even worse for children born prenatally exposed to alcohol. First they may have learning disabilities that exacerbate behavioral problems which creates a challenge for any parent. If the parent/family is still abusing alcohol, they are likely to have little patience for appropriately attuning and responding to the child's needs, possibly adding another layer of trauma to the child through abuse or neglect. When the child is school age, his or her behaviors may draw attention for an evaluation. Diagnosis relies heavily on self-report of the parent (addicts tend to deny) and on easily misinterpreted facial features and cranial measurements. Sometimes such children end up being diagnosed and medicated for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The underlying condition is not addressed, the child does poorly in school, and the child cycles downward.
Even though I work with children and families, I did not know the answer to what FASD stood for. Or about the teratogenic effect of alcohol on sperm--which makes total sense. Thank you, Susan Byrne and Christy, for the education and work on the issue.
In the course of writing in the field, I am religious about spelling out acronyms with their first usage in a piece. That said, I would have written simply "ADHD" and only spelled it out because of this thread.
We’re fighting so many battles on so many fronts Fern. It really does take all of us. Yet almost half of us are just trying to burn it all down. From Medscape “ n May 25, Jena Hausmann, CEO of Children's Hospital Colorado, in Aurora, Colorado, declared a state of emergency in youth mental health in response to an astronomical increase in pediatric mental health cases, including suicide, which has overwhelmed the institution. From April 2019 to April 2021, the demand for pediatric behavioral health treatment at the hospital system increased by 90%. In Colorado, suicide is now the number one cause of death among youth and occurs in children as young as age 10 years.“ Can’t imagine any state has the resources to deal. Very long waitlist everywhere. 😥 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/952464?src=WNL_trdalrt_210610_MSCPEDIT&uac=122620HN&impID=3431144&faf=1
Christy, With the exception of a couple other matters, I have not stopped thinking about what you, Susan Byne, Ellie and Nancy have been sharing. I read the medscape piece. A close friend is a teacher in the Denver area. I have to digest this information some more and will then send your link to her. She's a teacher to the bone. It was a very hard year for her and the kiddos (her word). Don't think about the arsonists now. You are dealing with enough. I listened to a podcast today. These words from it will stay with me: 'Do well by doing good'.
Please, everyone, spell out the full title in first use of an acronym. Not everyone will understand what the acronym stands for, and few of us will stop reading to go research it. We'll just be irritated by the poster's assumption that *everyone* knows...
You mean most people don't investigate what they don't know because they're irritated at others for presuming they know? What? Are the egos here so sensitive and delicate they get so easily insulted and their drive to know the truth so easily frustrated by having to google? No wonder the streets are empty of activists! And the comment sections loaded.
Whoa there Selina, we’re just trying to communicate more clearly here.
Actually I didn’t know what it meant either and did google it to find the acronym has several meanings. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was the likeliest given the context here.
While we can stop to look up definitions, it often means loosing our place in reading comments. And since the point of communication is to convey an idea to others, it’s not unreasonable to ask for clarity. ☮️
For crying out loud, Selina, I refer only to use of acronyms with which everyone may not be familiar. Please reread my opening sentence (request). In no way does that imply "most people don't investigate what they don't know". But, from occasional comments by others, it's clear that there are others who would prefer that an acronym be spelled out on first use in a thread.
I get that you are angry. I admit that I hold an impossible idealization - that of people growing whatever they need to speak for themselves - which gets me into trouble with you.
While your comment about Russians in other countries may be true some of the time, people vary enough so it cannot be true all of the time. Broad-brushing any group of immigrants to the US, in particular, as primarily loyal to and/or identified with their "old country" has historically been a recipe for unjust harm due to both official action (example: internment of Japanese Americans during WW II, recent 'Muslim ban') and private action of the kind we now call hate crimes (recent examples: attacks on Asian Americans, Jews, and Muslims).
I was thinking mostly about Russians living in countries like the Ukraine and other former Russian satellite countries who believe their adopted countries belong under Russia's umbrella if not part of Russia. This has been the Ukraine's principle challenge for their independence and democracy.
They should all be reading Tim Snyder's Bloodlands. In France past waves of Russian immigrants...pre-revolution white emigrés...brought a great deal of cultural value but recent flows have mostly been of oligarchs hiding their ill-gotten gains from Putin, buying up the Riviera and acting as if they own wherever they find themselves. Not quite what the french people have been used to!
Me too. People in Hong Kong massed in the streets by the thousands. You raise an excellent question David Souers - I'm curious. How many times in the past 5 years have all the contributors to this comment section been out in the streets protesting? If few or none. Then, please inform us how come? Chris Hedges (author, pastor, x-NYTimes journalist, activist, often writes in Counterpunch) who's witnessed first hand at least a couple of revolutions says it's only by massive organization, including in-the-street presence that will change the steady absorption of our democracy into "inverted Totalitarianism" ....If we know why USA people don't protest, then we can learn how to effectively light their sparks.
You wrote: “ Russians in every country particularly in the former Soviet countries believe they have no laws to live by, and should be in control of their respective adopted country to maintain support for mother Russia.”
You are so right! I have recent personal experience with Russians here in Portugal. They are lawless outlaws
What struck me most about today's post is contained here:
"Biden is trying to reinforce democracy even while it is under threat at home. For the first time in our history, the office of the presidency did not change hands peacefully, and former president Trump continues to rally his supporters by insisting—falsely—that he won the 2020 election. Rather than reinforcing the rules of our democracy, the leaders of his party have chosen to throw their weight behind the former president."
Then, of course, dear Prof. HCR, you end with words that are decidedly more unsettling, perhaps even, ominous: "Biden's message about the strength of the world's democracies is a hopeful one, but it is not necessarily one on which European allies can rely."
To that, I would add: nor can we. Our world has changed so dramatically since the millennium was ushered in with such pomp and ceremony just over two decades ago. The problem is that we didn't see it coming until the Trump regime took over.
2001: the 9/11 tragedy, US invades Afghanistan;
2002: Israel begins Operation Defensive Shield and construction of West Bank barrier begins;
2003: US invades Iraq, Dafur war begins, deadly battle of Falluja,
2004: Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, Hurricane Katrina;
2005: Valentine's Day bombings;
2006: Lebanon War, Mumbai bombings;
2007: protests in Myanmar, assassination of Benazir Bhutto;
2008: Gaza War begins, Mumbai attacks, Great Recession;
And I could go on and on until 2016 when a contemptible, self-centered autocrat was elected POTUS. As our country diminished in morals and accountability, we started to look at the world around us and recognize a pattern -- an abundance of totalitarian regimes taking over so-called democratic nations. We weren't alone, but this wasn't meant to happen to the USA, this was not to be our lot. So we scrambled, demonstrated, wrote letters, and showed our dismay using all the resources available to us and managed to vote him out in 2020. Yet, the threat remains and none of us know how to reverse this trend here or abroad. It is a frightfully dangerous situation, and if President Biden and the DNC don't begin to address the 6th January insurrection and its leaders in the Florida Swamp and in Congress in the strongest terms possible, hope will be a term that will regress to its tangled roots from bygone days.
Rowshan…..you add ..”nor can we” regarding reliance on Pres Biden’s message of strength of democracy.
I say…. Perhaps European allies cannot rely on it…yet. Pres Biden is not yet 6 mos in reversing 4 yrs of negligible example of strong democracy.
But we are here, and personally I’m not letting 4 dimwit years replace my knowledge, confidence, and joy of living in a working democracy. No model is perfect. But I’ll take democratic socialism with a good dash of capitalism and 3 branches of government and checks and balances and never just one political party. I prefer debate and exchange of ideas. I believe more than anything, even with the low grade fear promulgated by a huge 4 yr deviation from the guardrails of our system, that democracy and the Republic will prove stronger than any traitorous attempt to dissolve the Union. So….I’m cheering loudly and will absolutely fake it ‘til we make it.
Europe will start to believe it when Biden is re-elected or Harris succeeds him in 2024 and till then we'll judge each day one at a time. The only message here that really resonates is that Europe itself had better get its act together in this increasingly difficult world. It is currently a eternal shambling mess of a debating society that awards points for nice speeches but leaves the action to someone else.
Christine, I am 100% in support of "democratic socialism with a ... [healthy] dash of capitalism and 3 branches of government and checks and balances and never just one political party." But what I witnessed over four years comprised the makings of a totalitarian state run by a tyrant and his yes-men/lackeys who were about to rip our system of government apart. Even now, I see the workings of the despot and his gang fingering our freedoms and toying with our right to vote. Even our new DOJ is giving him a break!
I voted for President Biden and will continue to support him fully. That said, it worries me that nothing has been done to try and arrest members of Congress who so blatantly supported the insurrection. It frightens me that they can wield such power and be totally unrepentant of their participation in such a dastardly deed. It pains me that 74 million citizens supported and continue to support bigots and people who "other" human beings who are unlike them regarding skin tones, customs, and religious affiliations or practices. It breaks my heart that women and children are still being turned away at the border. Did you know that Guatemala has the highest incidences of femicide in the Americas?
I hear you friend. I think about the Britons during WWII. Just as an example of free people brought to brink of defeat in their darkest hour. Bombs dropping everywhere. But somehow holding it together. With Churchill helping them to keep the faith. Full of pluck, as it were.
Thanks also to "a little help from our friends"....across the water. The french were pulled out of a hole twice in the 20thC and still can't really get themselves to appreciate their luck....that is was done at times almost despite them.
Thanks Rowshan for the list indicating the degree of misdirected policy and resources.
Laugh if you want, but my comparison is familiar to farmers or gardeners: Undernourished plants are subject to every manner of disease and failure.
An insightful BBC producer early in this century produced three documentaries under the title, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear. It's thesis was that governments used to promise citizens a better life, but instead they now pretend to defend us from nightmares.
When populations have positive economic prospects, or steady economic security, delusional politics and scapegoating have little chance, and a reliance on arms exports plus the temptation for world domination don't have the same allure.
"...the U.S. wants to be sure “that democracies and not anyone else, not China or other autocracies, are writing the rules for trade and technology for the 21st century."
I did check my memory against the statement above from a few sources, and the ill-fated TPP of 2016 involved a very different process in being written largely by multi-national corporations and completely shrouded in secrecy from the American people and even their elected representatives. Corporations are not democracies, and neither are nations that are actually governed by corporatocracies while claiming to be democracies. <https://emorywheel.com/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-secrecy-concerning/>.
I'm hoping to be happily surprised that the enacted process will have good semblance to the described process Biden provided above. We now have benchmark from which to watch and evaluate what actually happens.
We've already seen what can be done to laws when corporations write them. A prime example is the "Digital Millenium Copyright Act," aka "The Mickey Mouse Copyright Act" since it was written to allow Disney to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain for another century. Trust me, the "mickey mouse" it puts one through (say good-bye, "Fair-Use Doctrine") will drive anyone up the wall (I just went through it with my next book, obtaining permissions from publishers who no longer care about books written 20 years ago, but the day you don't is the day you'll get served). The MM Copyright Act basically stood all the principles and intellectual defenses of copyright on their head. And the TPP would have done that "on steroids." Letting the US write the rules for trade and technology in the 21st century is to let the corporations do it. The United States is no longer trustworthy internationally, no matter who is in office.
It's not as harmless as Mickey Mouse either. The essence is to place the primary information system beyond affordable reach of anyone without a corporate or university account. I found some of my own papers once published with an academic organization that used to be public domain after a few months. The organization had sold all of those archives to a corporate publisher that put them all behind a paywall without ever speaking to the authors, who already contributed page charges to the journal when it was under control of the academic organization. i could not even affordably now access my own papers.
Yeah, there is waaaayyyy too much of that. I didn't mean for anyone to think I meant it was harmless by calling it "mickey mouse" - I was using the words as the slang they became in the military for "all this mickey mouse horse hockey" (only we didn't use "hockey"), as in worthless BS that makes things harder without making them better, in fact making them worse.
Yes. I did not get anything other than a good meaning from your comment. What I meant was that even though what Disney did was all about money, we can all do without accessing a Mickey Mouse logo. The same may not be true if we are trying to research materials needed for our awareness of politics, our nutrition, our health, or the actual controversial history of a nation like our own or Israel's to separate truth from government propaganda.
And of course, we tend to forget, that the TPP's are lethal for environment or policies to combat global warming, as any policies by member governments to address these issues, can be blocked by this mysterious court.
The question before these courts is often whether corporations should be "compensated" for any loses due to changes in national legislation; a total denial of sovereignty and an imposition of the "rules of the economy" over the "rule of the people". Business has to deal with risk and when they bet wrong, the people shouldn't pay for it. When one does business in countries where excessive poliltical pressure can be, and is often, brought to rob the investor of legitimate profit, one should not be surprised if it happens; one plans for it just in case.
The one possible, if sometimes debateable, exception being the receipt of "fair" compensation for nationalization of property when no criminal matters are concerned. These courts however would hardly have the jurisdiction to impose the sort of compensatory " international property and wealth seizures" that compensation might require.
These courts are also often set up on the model of "binding arbitration" from which their is no appeal; a method that would not allow social and political questions to be considered and have little time for the "wellbeing of the people".
Intergovernmental agreements take it outside the possibility of popular influence.....and keeps it between those and such as those that have the money in the first place!
And we can’t forget the 1999 Seattle riots opposing the WTO. It brought labor (AFL-CIO), students and religious organizations together in shared opposition. Believing WTO and NAFTA were multinational power grabs to defang environmental protections, threaten human rights, lower wages and damage sovereign rights they formed a powerful coalition of unlikely partners.
One of their greatest concerns was the secret international trade court who would be allowed to adjudicate any disputes. It threatened the sovereign rights of member countries to enforce their own laws. The US isn’t the only problem.
Thank you, Dr. R. Your penultimate paragraph says it all. We are under attack from within our country. Biden and his administration must stand firm against the domestic terrorists from within our own government, as well as within our borders.
I came to this calm and rational news roundup after seeing a short, salivary burst from Texas Senator Ted Cruz on the NBC news, decrying President Biden as soft on our adversaries. It made me wonder if you (Dr Richardson) can imagine and explain how it is that well-educated opportunists like Cruz can convince themselves that their political rhetoric is even close to truth and justice. I wish that someone who studies this for a living (unlike me, I'm a scientist) could please make the rest of us understand people like Cruz and Rubio from a place of compassion, not horrified disgust. I fear that compassion is the only way forward, because brutishness is the way of the autocrat.
Add this Diane…. We are all in this together. THERE IS ENOUGH TO GO AROUND. I’ve always believed if every single human was compelled to say that on awakening in a day around the world, everything would change instantly. Compassion, patience, joy, sureness of our Earth’s bounty, sharing, caring, peace would immediately replace greed and the insatiable need to wage war to get more.
Cruz is well educated. (His wife is Phi Beta Kappa -- do intelligent women marry men who are that much less intelligent than they are???)
Cruz knows he's spouting nothing close to the truth. But it gets him on the news. It's a sound bite that sounds good to the Trumpsters and irritates the rest of us. Job done.
He's auditioning for Republican donors to be the 2024 candidate. Or 2028. He's the worst of American politics.
Is there anyone one the Right who produces a daily review like HCR's who is intelligent like her? I'd love to read a daily review from the other side's perspective. As always, thank you HCR for all you do to keep us informed. You ignited in me a passion for history and for fighting for Democracy that was not there until I found your YouTube videos.
I do not actually believe HCR writes from the Left’s perspective. She believes in democracy and in giving us all the opportunity to agree/ disagree/ and discuss with arguments based on factual information.
I used to be a Conservative Republican. There are some that make valid points in an intelligent manner. They would not agree with HCR take on most things. I don't think she is biased in a negative way. Based on her daily reviews, I assume she has personal values and ethics that align with what I categorize as Liberal Democratic. Although I haven't read many things he's written, I would suspect a good example of someone like HCR on the Right would be former Senator John Danforth. He's intelligent and not a heartless Conservative Republican. He just has different values. He wrote a public apology for helping Senator Josh Hawley in Hawley's early years. Danforth said it is his greatest regret in life. He despises the behavior of Hawley and Republicans like him. I would like to find a daily review from someone like Danforth.
I don't know whether Heather leans one way or another politically. She seems like an Independent to me. Perhaps, way back when, she would have been a moderate Republican. Heather is clearly anti-racist.
Have you heard of Bulwark? I have listened and seen several who write for it and they were intelligent, not rabid and moderate to conservative Republicans, the old fashioned kind.
The Bulwark is a news network launched in 2018 dedicated to providing political analysis and reporting free from the constraints of partisan loyalties or tribal prejudices.
'Visit TheBulwark.com. Listen to our podcasts. Sign up here for our daily newsletters—which are original stuff, every day, that you can’t get anywhere else.
'The Bulwark is a project of Defending Democracy Together Institute,'
Chris, I hope that you find rewarding perspectives and information. I also would recommend the historian Timothy Snyder. If you google his name you will find the titles of books by him. He also has a podcast: Thinking about... I cannot label his political philosophy. He is a critical thinker and masterful writer. It is his depth that attracts me. Tim Snyder is I believe politically more to the left. His clarity is unmatchable from my point of view.
Interesting question. I have no idea. I'd be curious to see that also. I do know when I see conservative columnists like Ross Douthat, or Wall Street Journal editorials, they usually annoy the snot out of me and I often can't finish reading them!
Kathy, when I think of the top news and political commentary sites that are considered Right leaning and compare them with those that are considered Left leaning, the difference in tone, intelligence and maturity is massive. I'm using the link below to determine which outlets lean Left and which lean Right.
The next few days with Biden meeting with allies and then our enemy, Putin, will be a tell-tale sign if he succeeds in reviving the trust that Americans have mostly always had. I am guessing Biden has a definite plan to squeeze Putin’s scrotum tightly but we will see. In the meantime, Kamala will be holding down the fort while she deals with Mexico, Central and South Americas. Now if someone could just toss a big ole firecracker at Mitch, I’d be real happy.
Professor, I am perplexed by how forceful President Biden can be in foreign policy and how tentative he seems in domestic matters.
The Vandenburg Resolution, "Politics stop at the water's edge" is used/interpreted in a number of ways other than maintaining solidarity in foreign policy. What it means currently is that we will not hear much about our domestic policies these eight days that the President is abroad.
I think he has to be as forceful at home as he is foreign policy matters.
The only problem being that the President of the United States of America essentially has a lot less power at home than he does abroad. He certainly has less power to do as he pleases at home than the young little fellow that is currently and for the next 11 months President of France. Since the start of the Covid epidemic he has essentially rule dy decree. Every 3 months or so he renews the permission given to ignore parliament by his own obedient, dependant majority.
Biden can effectively threaten Putin and put his threats into practice causing real harm to this autocrat and his oligarch friends using existing legislation and Presidential decree almost whatever the subject other than declaring war....just like Macron can do at home on any subject of his choosing. Should he try such a thing abroad, he'd be laughed off the stage.
I know there have been issues and rumblings before, but the last 4 years, coupled with the lack of peaceful transfer of power "for the first time in our nation's history" have proven that we are, in truth, unreliable.
We are “complicated.” It’s very powerful for HCR to remind us of the lack of peaceful transfer of power "for the first time in our nation's history" and it should be repeated often. The idjt killer of hundreds of thousands has no sense of responsibility, no sense of decency, remorse or humanity and neither do his followers whether brainwashed, blackmailed or blockheaded. They are power hungry bullies requiring the hammer of justice.
Gigi had not participated in the separate thread that came to the matter of spelling out acronyms, and in this case, the context of a term of derision also used by others in this forum is different from a technical term, so it warrants an internet search by the reader who's not familiar with it.
Biden's decision to donate 500 million vaccine doses to other countries is the right thing to do morally and will pay dividends. Besides helping people in need, it will help protect the U.S. by curtailing cases globally and create badly needed goodwill post Trump. Now if only more Americans would get vaccinated instead of believing absurd claims about 5G and magnetism.
I read that it would take 11 billion doses of vaccine to vaccinate 70% of the world population. Although 500 million doses are a nice and needed gesture and it sounds like a big number, it is a drop in the bucket.
To perhaps us in this country who have wide access to the vaccine it may seem like a drippy drop. Imagine though if one was living in a country or continent such as Africa where only 2% have been vaccinated, 500 mil doses being offered by the US is more than a drop. It’s a promise.
Thank you Pfizer and the United States for leading. May rest of G7 countries follow suit.
I agree. I was merely illustrating the global need versus a seemingly high number of doses being offered. You have to start somewhere and it is a good first example of putting your money where your mouth is.
The problem often in the poorer countries is that there is no money or trained personnel to get the vaccine out into the rural areas.
In addition, Stuart, many places do not have the refrigeration capacity.
Add to that, corruption. See Haiti.
The vaccine would likely be reserved for the supporters of the regime or sold . It would never be widely and fairly distributed.
Since religious organizations and NGOs provide much of the medical care in Haiti, they should be in charge of distribution and administering. Certainly the powers that be know that.
Mmmm. Not so sure of that. Let’s keep our eye on where it goes.
Doctors Without Borders. Involve NGO’s as needed.
Exactly Claudia, you warrior.
A push for worldwide vitamin D sufficiency would greatly reduce the toll from the virus far more quickly than waiting for the rest of the world to get vaccinated. People who have sufficient vitamin D who have not been vaccinated get far milder cases, with comparatively few needing ICU care or--likely--even hospitalization.
In the US, 40% of caucasians, 2/3s of those with Hispanic extraction, and 80% of blacks are deficient (NHANES data). Dark skin color reduces catalysis of vitamin D production in the skin relative to light skin.
Vitamin D boosts the immune system in a number of ways, reducing other infectious diseases as well. Since I started taking 3000 IU/day in '04, I've had almost no colds or flu, and the last flu lasted all of a day. Prior, I would get several colds a year and flu probably every couple of years. (I have gotten flu shots in the last 6 years or so, except for this past year.)
There are D receptors in every cell in the body. D influences many genes in the immune system, including genes that code for an antimicrobial and an antiviral.
Vitamin D sufficiency is now considered to be 40-60ng/ml. This is the blood level that hunter-gatherers in the tropics have, and it's the level that I have in summer (in Mass. at 42 degrees latitude) when I run shirtless most days and don't take D, and this is where 3000 IU gets me in the darker months (~55ng/ml to be precise).
Rule of thumb: if your shadow is longer than you are, the relevant rays for catalyzing D production in your skin have been filtered out. I take D from late September until late March or early April if I'm running close to noontime and longer if I'm running later in the afternoon.
Different people need different amounts of vitamin D. The necessary amount increases with age and body mass (I'm early Medicare age and weigh ~140), but people have other physiological differences that influence needs (my requirement has not changed since I started taking D). Fauci takes 6000 IU/day. A dear friend with osteopenia takes 10,000 IU/day as was prescribed. People with multiple sclerosis often take even higher doses, as it is helpful against that condition.
(Docs used to learn in med school that it was very easy to get a toxic dose of D. That's wrong. It takes huge amounts. My primary care physician was initially appalled when she learned how much I was taking. She has since come around.)
D is incredibly inexpensive, and not subject to monopolies.
Despite knowing this, I got myself vaccinated as soon as I could (Pfizer).
Once you start taking vitamin D, at regular doses it takes about a month and a half to gain sufficiency, unless you "load" by starting with high doses. So wait six weeks to get your blood level taken.
On the Olympic Peninsula, we take D every day.
Damn straight we do!
I spent 7/9ths of my gestation and my first 3 years and 11 months in Seattle. My baby teeth were terrible, probably as a result of a dearth of D. Our first year in Boston, it seemed like I was getting cavities filled twice a month. My adult teeth, grown mostly in Boston, which besides being much sunnier, is 7 degrees latitude south of Seattle, where I spent most springs, summers, and parts of fall outdoors in the sun, were vastly superior to my baby teeth. So, glad you Seattleites are getting your D from supplements! And I do have tremendous nostalgia for that beautiful city, and the hill on which we lived in Denny Blaine. We had a plain but pleasant Cape Cod house there; the current residents--since ~81 or so--have made it gorgeous.
https://www.singlecare.com/blog/vitamin-d-vs-d3/#
This is informative article is about the star D vitamin that David talks about. Usually, but not always, blood tests will show D3 deficiency. D3 comes only from animal based sources, D2 from plant sources.
Very easy supplement to take.
But won’t stop viral pneumonia, the cytokine storm, or bacterial pneumonia that follows. Get people vaccinated is the only way to end the Pandemic.
Beware of Vitamin D toxicity. D is a fat soluable vitamin meaning your body does not easily excrete the excess (Vitamin C, for example, is water soluble, and mega doses only make for "expensive urine." ). I have had patients with extreme fatigue, that could only be traced to large Vitamin D doses ordered post orthopedic surgery or treatment of osteoporosis - a typical ordered dose being 5,000 IU/day. One patient came to the hospital in a coma - her doctor had prescribed 50,000 IU injection once a week for over a year. Once this was stopped she had a full recovery.
Docs of a certain age were taught that it's easy to get toxic doses of D. It's not. But 50k IU weekly is probably a bad idea. D works better given on a daily basis. Fauci's daily dose--6k IU/day--gives him 42k/week; my best friend's daily dose, which she's been on for years, gives her 70K/week.
This nurse of a certain age is trying really hard not to be insulted. The hospitalized women I spoke of above would have died if I had not done an indepth pre-discharge assessment and discovered a) that she was on 50,000 IU injections weekly, that b) it was ordered by a physician and given by a home care nurse not listed anywhere in her medical history, that c) her discharge diagnosis was "adrenal insufficiency" because no one could figure out what had caused her coma, that d) she told me, "Oh, yes, I get really really tired after that shot on Saturday morning and sleep all weekend, and that e) she was admitted Sunday evening, and was being rushed out now on Friday, so she could get a shot at home on Saturday. She had been getting progressively more tired over the 2 years she had been on this Vitamin D treatment. When the hospitalist came in to discharge her, I said, "Did you know she is on 50,000 IU Vitamin D every Saturday?" He looked stunned and said, "Not any more she isn't" and added the cancellation to the discharge order. I doubt that the young doctor included this diagnosis in his discharge summary, as they had all missed it. I also see a pattern in long term care facilities where short term prescriptions for 5,000 IU daily are ordered after hip replacements, but are continued for years, decades. Chief Complaint: "I'm tired, but, oh well, I'm old." Lower the dose to 1,000/day, and we see improvements. I highly respect Dr. Fauci, but more research needs to be done, and not funded by vitamin companies.
I agree, David. I think this is valid info worth taking seriously.
The body absorbs Vitimin D through body hair and the body can only use D if it also has iron.
I'm all over D; I've never heard the first statement, and as for the second, the body would be dead without iron as iron is necessary for blood cells.
And I read that Haiti has 0% of it’s population vaccinated.
Each G7 country should have a sister region to help vax. A Marshall Plan like effort but global. For the US, I think we should focus on North, then South America, then the world. Europe should focus on Europe, Easren Europe,then Africa and MIddle East. Australia and South Pacific, and North. China on all of Asia. If the Olympics are going forward, send some expiring does there there. Meld the theme of the Olympics with global community for humanity and public health, showing & telling the story of cooperation to end the pandemic.
It is a move in the right direction and an example to encourage other nations to join in!
It is a significant number already at 5% of your total but when you take out of that 11B those that are fending for themselves in the developed world and then you start to get at the population in the other countries that is "accessible quickly" and are the likely sources of continuing infection...the cities...the number starts to look a little better. In many parts of the world the infrastructure is just not in place to quickly vaccinate everybody.
Bottom line....it's complicated
Yes. World population is closing in on 8 billion. 500 million is one-sixteenth of that.
For our own safety and national security, I think we should focus these does on North America first, then South America.
Doses expire. New doses are made to not only not catch up, but surpass demand. We should have a plan to send doses to other countries 45-30 days of expiration. This way we don’t waste any, we help our neighbors, and we keep on our shelves full with the freshest supply.
Yup!
Michael, so agree to the plethora of absurdity. Perhaps, with this gesture of largesse by Biden, maybe, just maybe, there will be some still sitting on the vaccine fence that will get the subconscious prod of……”uh-oh, I better get a shot. Looks like Biden is giving away MINE.”
😜
Good one!
In case people were wondering about Michael's reference to 5G and magnetism, here is the clip of the "expert" saying that forks and spoons could not be attached to people's foreheads after they receive the vaccine. You can't make this stuff up! https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1402408416228806663?s=20
Stephen Colbert skewered the Ohio doc in his monologue last night .... if only it were that funny ....
and that's the problem of the fact that people can broadcast conjecture, speculation, distortion, and misinterpretation that spirals.
For anyone curious, here is how the Pfizer vaccine is made:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/health/pfizer-coronavirus-vaccine.html?smid=tw-share
so true - and curtailing cases globally will curtail variants...
Yes, indeed. The life work of a virus is to mutate, to evolve. Those who are not immune are essentially offering the virus a comfy home to do just that, endangering the rest of us as well as themselves.
I get that it’s vital to Covid-immunize as many people as possible in the U.S. to snuff out any possibility of future waves of the disease.
But it’s also not lost on me nor will be lost on future historians that the various incentives to get vaccinated - million dollar lotteries, free beer and donuts - are the richest symbol yet of American…I don’t know…exceptionalism (?).
The Simpsons - Year 35
Homer Gets Vaccinated
I need hardly add - present company (and tens of millions others) excluded.
And don't forget the "joint for jabs," Washington state's cannabis giveaway for getting vaccinated.
This may have been mentioned previously, but it has not gone unnoticed to us that you wrote through the weekend and did not take your usual day of rest (and beautiful Buddy Poland photo). What you're doing, Heather, is really appreciated. Every. Single. Day.
Whenever I used to hear the term, “three dimensional chess“, I would to picture “Spock” sitting there, perplexed as to why his logic can’t overcome the “unconventional strategies” being employed by Captain Kirk. Today, I picture President Biden there, being confronted by the very real and “hard to respond to”, unconventional warfare being waged by Vladimir Putin. While Putin may not waging a conventional war, he is waging an unconventional one by supporting and radicalizing the Conservative opposition of every Western Democracy, touting the benefits of one party rule to them. I really hope President Biden can send these fascists back to the garages and basements they crawled out of.
And churches.
Indeed. It is infuriating to watch and it's not quite as rosy a picture as Heather paints. The position on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline indicates that the relationship with Germany is causing some real twisted logic in how the U.S. deals with Putin. That pipeline is a major victory for Putin and imperils many countries in the region (not to mention the environmental impact.)
There is an imperative need to move beyond oil. It is not greasing our wheels. It is about to drive us to extinction.
It's a gas pipeline. But regardless, it's more complicated than just moving beyond fossil fuels. The economics, power dynamics, and diplomatic challenges are enormous and intricately interwoven.
That already includes churches. Churches have “basements” too.
Your last sentence sets the stage, the critical importance of 2022. Democrats and Independents showing up at the voting booth must join forces to defeat the Trump wing of the Republican party. No matter the blocks put up by the Koch funded and controlled state legislatures we will overcome.
Do we have any figging rights as a democracy to plug Koch and Mercer-type monies and their mouthpieces that outright lie and are bent on the overthrow of our democracy? Do we have no power at all against domestic seditionist's? Or those blatant liars (we pay for) in our own government who have proven futile and swore to not work with Biden to pass legislation. Where is our power as Americans? There is something so wrong with knowing you are being overthrown and, seemingly, standing idly by for five now six years? We need to make a lot of noise about our power— Would financial sanctions against our own corrupt elected officials and corporations be a way to stop the steal of our democracy? I know, I throw out crazy ideas sometimes, but since we really do not understand what is going on behind the scenes, we need to take action. How patient do we have to be whilst the coup digs in deeper? Why is a seditionist who refuses to accept that he lost allowed to hold rallies and continue his lies and propaganda? Is our fear of their ammunition so palpable?
Do we need protests protected by our military?
Is there anybody out there? out there....out there............out there...........(echo finitum)...
I know, Keep Calm and Carry On. Where is that rotgut? Just another rant of frustration...I am okay. I just need to join a march, en mass across the country, to feel our voices be really heard in the world.
Frustration mounts for us all. Democracy is slow by nature. And Mitch has gummed it up entirely. States are more agile and could help, but, largely controlled by Republicans, they will not. Maddening.
All good questions!!!
Thank you, I feel a wee bit unhinged today.
You are in excellent company. Every big wave of protest coming on has that urgency!
We The People!
Time to start organizing NOW. They are.
Yes, I think I will call the local activist bookstore to see if we can plan some protests. I was petrified to attend a monthly Gallery Walk last weekend in Brattleboro, that was planned to have blocked off street dancing and music. My beau really wanted to go...I did, too, but I had such an anxious feeling in my gut that, in the end, I stayed home. He went and immediately felt anxious and had to leave because it was impossible to have any safe distance as there were so many people happily, masklessly, crammed together. He said it was impossible to find space to distance and he left.
I want to be with people en masse, but if I am to be exposed to a variant, it will be to help save our democracy. Dancing in the streets can come later.
Thank you Heather.
I do wish that President Biden was as forceful in his stance against the assault of Democracy in this Country as he is with other Countries in the world.
That said, the doses of the vaccines that the US has committed to purchase for less fortunate countries speaks volumes as to the moral high ground Biden is trying to take this country to.
We are at a plateau in this country to have a substantial amount of people get their vaccines. Perhaps it's in spite of the success that Biden has gained in getting vaccines in arms so the July goal will not be met.
Spite is a game piece in the arsenal of hate that comprise the GOP.
Be safe, be well.
I never thought that people would act against their own best interests and health. Wanting Biden to fail in everything, including meeting his vaccination goal, is, as my mom used to say “cutting your nose off to spite your face”.
Annette you are absolutely correct. My Mom used to say that as well. I was just reading comments from my online local paper regarding outdoor concerts in which anyone going must be vaccinated and have proof of that. The comments are disgusting. How people can be that selfish is beyond me.
Nice one Linda! Especially, "[s]pite is a game piece in the arsenal of hate that comprises the GOP."
That last sentence. Gulp.
As it is, Karelia, as it is. And thank you for saying it HCR. I am watching closely for every report coming from his meeting with G7. It will be very meaningful what these these other influential countries and partners in the G7 pact offer to do for OUR country in this time of great stress and precarious balance. You can watch a partner try to keep balance and hope they won’t fall or you can step in and step up and assert to all that they will not fall.
I am curious to see whether their reported disdain and regret of former President Trump’s “reign” is what was reported to the world.
Linda Karell! How dare spell check Vivian changed your name.
A little off-subject but chew on this article from today's Allentown Morning Call:
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and leading Democratic lawmakers vowed to defend voters’ rights Wednesday, saying they will not negotiate with Republicans attempting to scale back people’s ability to vote.
For nearly an hour Wednesday, Wolf, acting Secretary of State Veronica Degraffenreid, state House Minority Leader Joanne McClinton, state Sen. Shariff Street and state Rep. Margo Davidson denounced unnamed Republican lawmakers for pushing a false narrative about the 2020 presidential election and promoting conspiracy theories about the election’s outcome.
The misinformation is damaging to American democracy and feeding conservatives’ demands for election reform that will limit citizens’ right to vote, they argued. Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania have repeatedly introduced legislation seeking to eliminate mail-in voting this year, and Wolf vowed to reject those and other efforts that would infringe on voters’ access to the polling place.
“I will stand up for our freedom to vote. I will not allow bad actors to put up barriers to voting in Pennsylvania. Not only will I veto any legislative efforts to roll back the freedoms Pennsylvanians right now have, I will continue to push for changes that expand our access to the polls,” Wolf said.
The Democrats were unsparing in their comments. Without naming any individuals other than former President Donald Trump, the group accused some Republicans of engaging in dangerous, undemocratic
activities that directly led to the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington. Street compared Trump to segregationist George Wallace, and Davidson cited experts who identified misinformation as the greatest security threat to come out of the 2020 election cycle.
“I cannot sugarcoat this at all. Our democracy continues to be under attack. I repeat, our democracy is under attack,” McClinton said.
A request for comment to Sen. Kim Ward, the Republican majority leader, was not immediately returned.
Wednesday’s news conference came a week after state Sens. Doug Mastriano and Cris Dush and state Rep. Rob Kauffman toured the controversial Arizona audit of the 2020 election. The audit has drawn criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike for playing to conspiracy theories, its flawed process and the lack of qualifications by Cyber Ninjas, the contractor performing the audit.
Wolf and other speakers noted that Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes and razor-thin outcome, was a target of about 20 lawsuits attempting to reverse Trump’s loss in the election, none of which overturned the results. The speakers noted that audits at both the county and state levels confirmed the outcome, and that a federal judge appointed by Trump rejected his argument that the results should be overturned.
The divide over the 2020 election has prevented lawmakers from addressing actual problems that exist with Pennsylvania’s election code. For nearly a year, a bipartisan group of county election officials have requested that lawmakers allow them to start counting mail-in ballots days ahead of Election Day so they can quickly produce results. Instead, many Republicans want to revoke mail-in ballots and some Democrats are pushing for same-day voter registration.
The Republican effort against mail-in ballots is a stark reversal from 2019, when mail-in voting was allowed thanks to Republican support despite overwhelming Democratic opposition in the Senate. At the time, no one believed there would be significant demand for mail-in ballots, but the coronavirus pandemic fed massive interest in the voting method last year.
Since the 2020 election, some Republican-controlled states have sought to change voting laws. The efforts align with Trump, who has continued leveling false claims that fraud cost him the election. Trump’s own Justice Department determined the election was the most secure in American history.
In March, Georgia reduced the number of drop boxes for mail-in ballots and made it a crime for third parties to give food or drink to people waiting in line to vote. Supporters of the bill argue it enhances voting rights because it adds more days for people to vote ahead of Election Day. The changes came after Georgia voters narrowly backed President Joe Biden in the presidential election and then granted Democrats the slimmest control of the U.S. Senate.
Since then, Florida, Montana and Iowa have passed voting changes while other states have introduced similar bills. Texas nearly passed voting restrictions last month but was foiled after Democratic lawmakers fled the statehouse to deny Republicans a quorum.
I saw Pennsylvania AG Josh Shapiro on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow program vow to stop any attempts to further "audit" the 2020 ballots, as the Cyber Ninjas are pretending to do in Arizona. He vowed to immediately file suit if there was any attempt to do so.
Dennis, your “chew on” selections are as good as some juicy venison jerky, something my brother makes in Ohio.
Christine, that's an interesting comparison. I'll look for more to gnaw on. The PA Republicans, especially Doug Mastriano, are as bad as the 'Pubs in Congress. Just a bunch of jerkies.
Hahahahahahaha!
Here's the link to the Morning Call article about the press conference for anyone who wants to share it, perhaps on their FB page as I will. https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-wolf-voting-rights-protections-20210609-nscd5afk4jhjnk3bifoogoyt4u-story.html
An interesting follow-on Opinion piece in the Allentown Morning Call. At the end, there's a link to another Opinion by the same writer, "Why I Had to Leave the Republican Party". https://www.mcall.com/opinion/mc-opi-pennsylvania-election-audit-mastriano-muschick-20210610-asmfqy7ufbdjfevddcndqxlx4m-story.html
I think this is the kind of thing that HCR was referring to in her late afternoon post that posed question about shift in media response after vote failure of “independent Jan 6 Commission”.
I am wondering why we have so few public demonstrations showing support for our democracy, the government, elected officials, business and social leaders that we need to sustain and improve our democratic nation? And why we allow autocrats, demiguoges, their financiers and militant gun carrying supporters so much air time in their in broad daylight hijacking of our nation?
Clearly the Trump faction emulates Putin's Russia, right down to using courts and departments of justice to protect bad actors. This isn't just a race thing. Russians in every country particularly in the former Soviet countries believe they have no laws to live by, and should be in control of their respective adopted country to maintain support for mother Russia. Trump's allegiances are to a former Confederacy that once ruled roughshod over the US. Then imposed their Jim Crow rule of intimidation, death and destruction over the south like the many Tulsa Massacres. And now election lies, voter suppression and insurrection at the the Capitol with impunity in broad daylight. These are all criminal and unconstitutional acts that require accountability, consequences and prison time. We have enough prison cells in our nation to deal with these Putinesque Trump Republican puppets and players.
Actually we don’t. Prisons are filled with non violent drug offenders. Our extraordinarily high prison population per capita leads the world. Black incarceration is particularly high.
Also particularly high is the population of people with mental illness and neurological disorders, particularly FASD, in prisons. They are fed into the prison system due to a nearly complete lack of systems of service and care. The US Senate will take up THE FASD RESPECT ACT at their session next month in July.
FASD RESPECT ACT.
https://nofaspolicycenter.org/?page_id=16
This Act requests national action to address the national epidemic of FASD. National coordination to build systems of care is long past due.
"Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) is an umbrella term describing the range of effects that can occur in an individual whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy. These effects may include physical, mental, behavioral, and/or learning disabilities with possible lifelong implications."
I could not find a way to edit my previous post, so I deleted it and offer this corrected version:
FASD can occur in an individual whose father drank alcohol preconceptually. Evidence and data from research are available, but fairly recent.
FAS - the form of FASD with facial features and most severe cognitive damage, which is 10-15% of FASD cases - can be attributed to maternal binge drinking (4-5 servings) alcohol during the first 3-4 weeks of pregnancy when most women do not yet have awareness of the pregnancy.
The other 85-90% of FASD cases can be linked to paternal or maternal (or both, of course) use of alcohol. It’s important to establish this equity of harm clearly. Shame and blame of women has been one of the most significant hurdles to bringing this epidemic out of the dark hushed corners of every service profession.
Being careful how we read these studies. Alcohol is a teratogenic that effects whatever is developing at the time of being bathed in high doses. The studies actually are saying there is a genetic link between problem behaviors and fathers who drink alcohol. Not that the alcohol level of the father effects the development of the fetus. “ Hence, these data seem to suggest that genetic factors of the biological fathers that relate to their drinking behavior may have a significant effect on the intellectual and behavioral development of their offspring.” Men must abstain from drinking during their partners pregnancy to support their offsprings health, but their drinking has no direct effect on the fetus as the woman’s does. And why are we talking about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders?
Cannabis is also a teratogenic. Will be interesting to read more.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3252200/
It started with a musing that we could put “Putinesque Trump” Republicans in prison =>don’t have space=>too many people with FASD channeled to prison. It took on a life of its own and needs to be a separate post (for which I finally started a publishing account - my apologies to HCR for clogging her turf with this). FASD is not genetic (it cannot be detected by any genetic tests) but rather is epigenetic. Alcohol is a teratogen and not the only, but by far the most common, cause of preventable harm to the fetus. End of thread here, please find my personal substack if interested in further discussion on FASD. 🙏🏻
I have started a sub stack thread at FASD Scope - https://susanbyrne.substack.com/p/this-could-change-everything?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy
Read
Broken Cord
By Michael Dorris
All new information for me. Thank you.
Just listening to NPR saying this am how the incidence of binge drinking in reproductive age women is way up. Grateful we finally have some decent birth control methods and a lot of women are using them. There is not much more painful than watching a brain damaged by in utero alcohol try to make sense of the world. But the saddest thing there is no safe amount and because we can’t study humans we have no idea how much it takes to cause troubles for the brain in ways that are difficult to know.
It's even worse for children born prenatally exposed to alcohol. First they may have learning disabilities that exacerbate behavioral problems which creates a challenge for any parent. If the parent/family is still abusing alcohol, they are likely to have little patience for appropriately attuning and responding to the child's needs, possibly adding another layer of trauma to the child through abuse or neglect. When the child is school age, his or her behaviors may draw attention for an evaluation. Diagnosis relies heavily on self-report of the parent (addicts tend to deny) and on easily misinterpreted facial features and cranial measurements. Sometimes such children end up being diagnosed and medicated for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The underlying condition is not addressed, the child does poorly in school, and the child cycles downward.
Even though I work with children and families, I did not know the answer to what FASD stood for. Or about the teratogenic effect of alcohol on sperm--which makes total sense. Thank you, Susan Byrne and Christy, for the education and work on the issue.
In the course of writing in the field, I am religious about spelling out acronyms with their first usage in a piece. That said, I would have written simply "ADHD" and only spelled it out because of this thread.
Lots of good hearts and minds here!
https://susanbyrne.substack.com/p/this-could-change-everything?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy
Oh, there is no end to awful news. Alcohol.... so much pain going on.
We’re fighting so many battles on so many fronts Fern. It really does take all of us. Yet almost half of us are just trying to burn it all down. From Medscape “ n May 25, Jena Hausmann, CEO of Children's Hospital Colorado, in Aurora, Colorado, declared a state of emergency in youth mental health in response to an astronomical increase in pediatric mental health cases, including suicide, which has overwhelmed the institution. From April 2019 to April 2021, the demand for pediatric behavioral health treatment at the hospital system increased by 90%. In Colorado, suicide is now the number one cause of death among youth and occurs in children as young as age 10 years.“ Can’t imagine any state has the resources to deal. Very long waitlist everywhere. 😥 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/952464?src=WNL_trdalrt_210610_MSCPEDIT&uac=122620HN&impID=3431144&faf=1
Christy, With the exception of a couple other matters, I have not stopped thinking about what you, Susan Byne, Ellie and Nancy have been sharing. I read the medscape piece. A close friend is a teacher in the Denver area. I have to digest this information some more and will then send your link to her. She's a teacher to the bone. It was a very hard year for her and the kiddos (her word). Don't think about the arsonists now. You are dealing with enough. I listened to a podcast today. These words from it will stay with me: 'Do well by doing good'.
The good news is that this can be fixed, it can be prevented, and next month the US Senate will be asked to do just that.
Please stop repeating the same message. Thank you.
Please, everyone, spell out the full title in first use of an acronym. Not everyone will understand what the acronym stands for, and few of us will stop reading to go research it. We'll just be irritated by the poster's assumption that *everyone* knows...
You mean most people don't investigate what they don't know because they're irritated at others for presuming they know? What? Are the egos here so sensitive and delicate they get so easily insulted and their drive to know the truth so easily frustrated by having to google? No wonder the streets are empty of activists! And the comment sections loaded.
Whoa there Selina, we’re just trying to communicate more clearly here.
Actually I didn’t know what it meant either and did google it to find the acronym has several meanings. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was the likeliest given the context here.
While we can stop to look up definitions, it often means loosing our place in reading comments. And since the point of communication is to convey an idea to others, it’s not unreasonable to ask for clarity. ☮️
For crying out loud, Selina, I refer only to use of acronyms with which everyone may not be familiar. Please reread my opening sentence (request). In no way does that imply "most people don't investigate what they don't know". But, from occasional comments by others, it's clear that there are others who would prefer that an acronym be spelled out on first use in a thread.
I get that you are angry. I admit that I hold an impossible idealization - that of people growing whatever they need to speak for themselves - which gets me into trouble with you.
FASD: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Please use “FASD Scope” for further replies to the FASD thread
What do you mean?
Besides spelling out acronyms, two other things are helpful in this forum:
1. Spell out what you mean, rather than posting a cryptic comment difficult to trace in a long thread for help from context.
2. Avoid cluttering the thread with multiple copy and pastes of the same comment or link.
Thank you for this link Susan.
While your comment about Russians in other countries may be true some of the time, people vary enough so it cannot be true all of the time. Broad-brushing any group of immigrants to the US, in particular, as primarily loyal to and/or identified with their "old country" has historically been a recipe for unjust harm due to both official action (example: internment of Japanese Americans during WW II, recent 'Muslim ban') and private action of the kind we now call hate crimes (recent examples: attacks on Asian Americans, Jews, and Muslims).
I was thinking mostly about Russians living in countries like the Ukraine and other former Russian satellite countries who believe their adopted countries belong under Russia's umbrella if not part of Russia. This has been the Ukraine's principle challenge for their independence and democracy.
They should all be reading Tim Snyder's Bloodlands. In France past waves of Russian immigrants...pre-revolution white emigrés...brought a great deal of cultural value but recent flows have mostly been of oligarchs hiding their ill-gotten gains from Putin, buying up the Riviera and acting as if they own wherever they find themselves. Not quite what the french people have been used to!
Me too. People in Hong Kong massed in the streets by the thousands. You raise an excellent question David Souers - I'm curious. How many times in the past 5 years have all the contributors to this comment section been out in the streets protesting? If few or none. Then, please inform us how come? Chris Hedges (author, pastor, x-NYTimes journalist, activist, often writes in Counterpunch) who's witnessed first hand at least a couple of revolutions says it's only by massive organization, including in-the-street presence that will change the steady absorption of our democracy into "inverted Totalitarianism" ....If we know why USA people don't protest, then we can learn how to effectively light their sparks.
Do not tell that to the millions that protested last summer in spite of the risk to themselves. And that included many on this stream.
The streets are lonely places right now...My sign says "Be Fearless: Choose Love"
And amazing the manifestations possible of love when supported by truth, wisdom and power‼️
You wrote: “ Russians in every country particularly in the former Soviet countries believe they have no laws to live by, and should be in control of their respective adopted country to maintain support for mother Russia.”
You are so right! I have recent personal experience with Russians here in Portugal. They are lawless outlaws
In France too
What struck me most about today's post is contained here:
"Biden is trying to reinforce democracy even while it is under threat at home. For the first time in our history, the office of the presidency did not change hands peacefully, and former president Trump continues to rally his supporters by insisting—falsely—that he won the 2020 election. Rather than reinforcing the rules of our democracy, the leaders of his party have chosen to throw their weight behind the former president."
Then, of course, dear Prof. HCR, you end with words that are decidedly more unsettling, perhaps even, ominous: "Biden's message about the strength of the world's democracies is a hopeful one, but it is not necessarily one on which European allies can rely."
To that, I would add: nor can we. Our world has changed so dramatically since the millennium was ushered in with such pomp and ceremony just over two decades ago. The problem is that we didn't see it coming until the Trump regime took over.
2001: the 9/11 tragedy, US invades Afghanistan;
2002: Israel begins Operation Defensive Shield and construction of West Bank barrier begins;
2003: US invades Iraq, Dafur war begins, deadly battle of Falluja,
2004: Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, Hurricane Katrina;
2005: Valentine's Day bombings;
2006: Lebanon War, Mumbai bombings;
2007: protests in Myanmar, assassination of Benazir Bhutto;
2008: Gaza War begins, Mumbai attacks, Great Recession;
And I could go on and on until 2016 when a contemptible, self-centered autocrat was elected POTUS. As our country diminished in morals and accountability, we started to look at the world around us and recognize a pattern -- an abundance of totalitarian regimes taking over so-called democratic nations. We weren't alone, but this wasn't meant to happen to the USA, this was not to be our lot. So we scrambled, demonstrated, wrote letters, and showed our dismay using all the resources available to us and managed to vote him out in 2020. Yet, the threat remains and none of us know how to reverse this trend here or abroad. It is a frightfully dangerous situation, and if President Biden and the DNC don't begin to address the 6th January insurrection and its leaders in the Florida Swamp and in Congress in the strongest terms possible, hope will be a term that will regress to its tangled roots from bygone days.
Rowshan…..you add ..”nor can we” regarding reliance on Pres Biden’s message of strength of democracy.
I say…. Perhaps European allies cannot rely on it…yet. Pres Biden is not yet 6 mos in reversing 4 yrs of negligible example of strong democracy.
But we are here, and personally I’m not letting 4 dimwit years replace my knowledge, confidence, and joy of living in a working democracy. No model is perfect. But I’ll take democratic socialism with a good dash of capitalism and 3 branches of government and checks and balances and never just one political party. I prefer debate and exchange of ideas. I believe more than anything, even with the low grade fear promulgated by a huge 4 yr deviation from the guardrails of our system, that democracy and the Republic will prove stronger than any traitorous attempt to dissolve the Union. So….I’m cheering loudly and will absolutely fake it ‘til we make it.
Europe will start to believe it when Biden is re-elected or Harris succeeds him in 2024 and till then we'll judge each day one at a time. The only message here that really resonates is that Europe itself had better get its act together in this increasingly difficult world. It is currently a eternal shambling mess of a debating society that awards points for nice speeches but leaves the action to someone else.
Christine, I am 100% in support of "democratic socialism with a ... [healthy] dash of capitalism and 3 branches of government and checks and balances and never just one political party." But what I witnessed over four years comprised the makings of a totalitarian state run by a tyrant and his yes-men/lackeys who were about to rip our system of government apart. Even now, I see the workings of the despot and his gang fingering our freedoms and toying with our right to vote. Even our new DOJ is giving him a break!
I voted for President Biden and will continue to support him fully. That said, it worries me that nothing has been done to try and arrest members of Congress who so blatantly supported the insurrection. It frightens me that they can wield such power and be totally unrepentant of their participation in such a dastardly deed. It pains me that 74 million citizens supported and continue to support bigots and people who "other" human beings who are unlike them regarding skin tones, customs, and religious affiliations or practices. It breaks my heart that women and children are still being turned away at the border. Did you know that Guatemala has the highest incidences of femicide in the Americas?
Hope escapes me at this moment in time.
I hear you friend. I think about the Britons during WWII. Just as an example of free people brought to brink of defeat in their darkest hour. Bombs dropping everywhere. But somehow holding it together. With Churchill helping them to keep the faith. Full of pluck, as it were.
Let’s keep the faith.
Thanks also to "a little help from our friends"....across the water. The french were pulled out of a hole twice in the 20thC and still can't really get themselves to appreciate their luck....that is was done at times almost despite them.
Thanks Rowshan for the list indicating the degree of misdirected policy and resources.
Laugh if you want, but my comparison is familiar to farmers or gardeners: Undernourished plants are subject to every manner of disease and failure.
An insightful BBC producer early in this century produced three documentaries under the title, The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear. It's thesis was that governments used to promise citizens a better life, but instead they now pretend to defend us from nightmares.
When populations have positive economic prospects, or steady economic security, delusional politics and scapegoating have little chance, and a reliance on arms exports plus the temptation for world domination don't have the same allure.
Thanks, JC! I would never laugh at anything that reveals our interconnectedness to nature and life. She is, after all, the very source of our being.
Thank you for the title of the BBC series. I shall look it up to see if it is still available.
"...instead of delivering dreams politicians promise to protect us
from nightmares"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsh6F6gMch0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwvSQ56HYg8
youtube wants you to confirm you're old enough for this one ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB8m6nNWpMA
Wow! Thank you, jc! I shall enjoy all three sections on the weekend! You're the best!
"...the U.S. wants to be sure “that democracies and not anyone else, not China or other autocracies, are writing the rules for trade and technology for the 21st century."
I did check my memory against the statement above from a few sources, and the ill-fated TPP of 2016 involved a very different process in being written largely by multi-national corporations and completely shrouded in secrecy from the American people and even their elected representatives. Corporations are not democracies, and neither are nations that are actually governed by corporatocracies while claiming to be democracies. <https://emorywheel.com/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-secrecy-concerning/>.
I'm hoping to be happily surprised that the enacted process will have good semblance to the described process Biden provided above. We now have benchmark from which to watch and evaluate what actually happens.
We've already seen what can be done to laws when corporations write them. A prime example is the "Digital Millenium Copyright Act," aka "The Mickey Mouse Copyright Act" since it was written to allow Disney to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain for another century. Trust me, the "mickey mouse" it puts one through (say good-bye, "Fair-Use Doctrine") will drive anyone up the wall (I just went through it with my next book, obtaining permissions from publishers who no longer care about books written 20 years ago, but the day you don't is the day you'll get served). The MM Copyright Act basically stood all the principles and intellectual defenses of copyright on their head. And the TPP would have done that "on steroids." Letting the US write the rules for trade and technology in the 21st century is to let the corporations do it. The United States is no longer trustworthy internationally, no matter who is in office.
It's not as harmless as Mickey Mouse either. The essence is to place the primary information system beyond affordable reach of anyone without a corporate or university account. I found some of my own papers once published with an academic organization that used to be public domain after a few months. The organization had sold all of those archives to a corporate publisher that put them all behind a paywall without ever speaking to the authors, who already contributed page charges to the journal when it was under control of the academic organization. i could not even affordably now access my own papers.
Yeah, there is waaaayyyy too much of that. I didn't mean for anyone to think I meant it was harmless by calling it "mickey mouse" - I was using the words as the slang they became in the military for "all this mickey mouse horse hockey" (only we didn't use "hockey"), as in worthless BS that makes things harder without making them better, in fact making them worse.
Yes. I did not get anything other than a good meaning from your comment. What I meant was that even though what Disney did was all about money, we can all do without accessing a Mickey Mouse logo. The same may not be true if we are trying to research materials needed for our awareness of politics, our nutrition, our health, or the actual controversial history of a nation like our own or Israel's to separate truth from government propaganda.
Yes indeed.
And of course, we tend to forget, that the TPP's are lethal for environment or policies to combat global warming, as any policies by member governments to address these issues, can be blocked by this mysterious court.
The question before these courts is often whether corporations should be "compensated" for any loses due to changes in national legislation; a total denial of sovereignty and an imposition of the "rules of the economy" over the "rule of the people". Business has to deal with risk and when they bet wrong, the people shouldn't pay for it. When one does business in countries where excessive poliltical pressure can be, and is often, brought to rob the investor of legitimate profit, one should not be surprised if it happens; one plans for it just in case.
The one possible, if sometimes debateable, exception being the receipt of "fair" compensation for nationalization of property when no criminal matters are concerned. These courts however would hardly have the jurisdiction to impose the sort of compensatory " international property and wealth seizures" that compensation might require.
These courts are also often set up on the model of "binding arbitration" from which their is no appeal; a method that would not allow social and political questions to be considered and have little time for the "wellbeing of the people".
And the other question is - who what where gives these courts the power?
Intergovernmental agreements take it outside the possibility of popular influence.....and keeps it between those and such as those that have the money in the first place!
And we can’t forget the 1999 Seattle riots opposing the WTO. It brought labor (AFL-CIO), students and religious organizations together in shared opposition. Believing WTO and NAFTA were multinational power grabs to defang environmental protections, threaten human rights, lower wages and damage sovereign rights they formed a powerful coalition of unlikely partners.
One of their greatest concerns was the secret international trade court who would be allowed to adjudicate any disputes. It threatened the sovereign rights of member countries to enforce their own laws. The US isn’t the only problem.
I did NOT wanr to know this.
Thank you, Dr. R. Your penultimate paragraph says it all. We are under attack from within our country. Biden and his administration must stand firm against the domestic terrorists from within our own government, as well as within our borders.
I came to this calm and rational news roundup after seeing a short, salivary burst from Texas Senator Ted Cruz on the NBC news, decrying President Biden as soft on our adversaries. It made me wonder if you (Dr Richardson) can imagine and explain how it is that well-educated opportunists like Cruz can convince themselves that their political rhetoric is even close to truth and justice. I wish that someone who studies this for a living (unlike me, I'm a scientist) could please make the rest of us understand people like Cruz and Rubio from a place of compassion, not horrified disgust. I fear that compassion is the only way forward, because brutishness is the way of the autocrat.
My Quaker friend Christine O’Brien once proposed - not quite jokingly - a new world religion with 2 elemental tenets:
1. The compassionate YES would always prevail over the heartless NO.
2. The compassionate NO would always prevail over the heartless YES.
She believed this would change everything.
Add this Diane…. We are all in this together. THERE IS ENOUGH TO GO AROUND. I’ve always believed if every single human was compelled to say that on awakening in a day around the world, everything would change instantly. Compassion, patience, joy, sureness of our Earth’s bounty, sharing, caring, peace would immediately replace greed and the insatiable need to wage war to get more.
I'd wear that t-shirt!
Nancy, I have always found scientists to be so compassionate in their souls. Thus, their quest for proof, not fiction.
Onward!
Proof is a red herring; we have only evidence
Excellent Susan. Their quest for evidence, not fiction.
Cruz is well educated. (His wife is Phi Beta Kappa -- do intelligent women marry men who are that much less intelligent than they are???)
Cruz knows he's spouting nothing close to the truth. But it gets him on the news. It's a sound bite that sounds good to the Trumpsters and irritates the rest of us. Job done.
He's auditioning for Republican donors to be the 2024 candidate. Or 2028. He's the worst of American politics.
Compassion is the key
Is there anyone one the Right who produces a daily review like HCR's who is intelligent like her? I'd love to read a daily review from the other side's perspective. As always, thank you HCR for all you do to keep us informed. You ignited in me a passion for history and for fighting for Democracy that was not there until I found your YouTube videos.
I do not actually believe HCR writes from the Left’s perspective. She believes in democracy and in giving us all the opportunity to agree/ disagree/ and discuss with arguments based on factual information.
I used to be a Conservative Republican. There are some that make valid points in an intelligent manner. They would not agree with HCR take on most things. I don't think she is biased in a negative way. Based on her daily reviews, I assume she has personal values and ethics that align with what I categorize as Liberal Democratic. Although I haven't read many things he's written, I would suspect a good example of someone like HCR on the Right would be former Senator John Danforth. He's intelligent and not a heartless Conservative Republican. He just has different values. He wrote a public apology for helping Senator Josh Hawley in Hawley's early years. Danforth said it is his greatest regret in life. He despises the behavior of Hawley and Republicans like him. I would like to find a daily review from someone like Danforth.
I don't know whether Heather leans one way or another politically. She seems like an Independent to me. Perhaps, way back when, she would have been a moderate Republican. Heather is clearly anti-racist.
Have you heard of Bulwark? I have listened and seen several who write for it and they were intelligent, not rabid and moderate to conservative Republicans, the old fashioned kind.
The Bulwark is a news network launched in 2018 dedicated to providing political analysis and reporting free from the constraints of partisan loyalties or tribal prejudices.
'Visit TheBulwark.com. Listen to our podcasts. Sign up here for our daily newsletters—which are original stuff, every day, that you can’t get anywhere else.
'The Bulwark is a project of Defending Democracy Together Institute,'
https://thebulwark.com/
Thank you, Fern! I am checking it out right now.
Chris, I hope that you find rewarding perspectives and information. I also would recommend the historian Timothy Snyder. If you google his name you will find the titles of books by him. He also has a podcast: Thinking about... I cannot label his political philosophy. He is a critical thinker and masterful writer. It is his depth that attracts me. Tim Snyder is I believe politically more to the left. His clarity is unmatchable from my point of view.
Fern, thank you again. I added a shortcut to The Bulwark on my home screen. I love podcasts. I'm looking up Thinking About right now.
Interesting question. I have no idea. I'd be curious to see that also. I do know when I see conservative columnists like Ross Douthat, or Wall Street Journal editorials, they usually annoy the snot out of me and I often can't finish reading them!
Chris, as humans we are all on one side when it comes right down to it. I respect HCR’s Herculean efforts to keep us there.
So sad that this question needs to be asked. Where are those people and why can’t they drown out the frantic antics of Trump Republicans?
Who said Republicans are anti intellectuals?
Kathy, when I think of the top news and political commentary sites that are considered Right leaning and compare them with those that are considered Left leaning, the difference in tone, intelligence and maturity is massive. I'm using the link below to determine which outlets lean Left and which lean Right.
https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings
The next few days with Biden meeting with allies and then our enemy, Putin, will be a tell-tale sign if he succeeds in reviving the trust that Americans have mostly always had. I am guessing Biden has a definite plan to squeeze Putin’s scrotum tightly but we will see. In the meantime, Kamala will be holding down the fort while she deals with Mexico, Central and South Americas. Now if someone could just toss a big ole firecracker at Mitch, I’d be real happy.
Morning, Marlene!!
Good day to you Marlene! Obv a firecracker this morning in our midst! LOL
What? Awesome!
Professor, I am perplexed by how forceful President Biden can be in foreign policy and how tentative he seems in domestic matters.
The Vandenburg Resolution, "Politics stop at the water's edge" is used/interpreted in a number of ways other than maintaining solidarity in foreign policy. What it means currently is that we will not hear much about our domestic policies these eight days that the President is abroad.
I think he has to be as forceful at home as he is foreign policy matters.
The only problem being that the President of the United States of America essentially has a lot less power at home than he does abroad. He certainly has less power to do as he pleases at home than the young little fellow that is currently and for the next 11 months President of France. Since the start of the Covid epidemic he has essentially rule dy decree. Every 3 months or so he renews the permission given to ignore parliament by his own obedient, dependant majority.
Biden can effectively threaten Putin and put his threats into practice causing real harm to this autocrat and his oligarch friends using existing legislation and Presidential decree almost whatever the subject other than declaring war....just like Macron can do at home on any subject of his choosing. Should he try such a thing abroad, he'd be laughed off the stage.
I think he is exercising less power than he does have here at home, though.
Thank you for this response, Stuart.
Challenging, it is, to be considered an unreliable ally. But truth.
I know there have been issues and rumblings before, but the last 4 years, coupled with the lack of peaceful transfer of power "for the first time in our nation's history" have proven that we are, in truth, unreliable.
We are “complicated.” It’s very powerful for HCR to remind us of the lack of peaceful transfer of power "for the first time in our nation's history" and it should be repeated often. The idjt killer of hundreds of thousands has no sense of responsibility, no sense of decency, remorse or humanity and neither do his followers whether brainwashed, blackmailed or blockheaded. They are power hungry bullies requiring the hammer of justice.
Sing it, sister
Hammer of justice, may it pound out a sweet tune 🔨
Until we hear the bell of freedom
May I assume “idjt” is an adjective and not an acronym?
IDJT refers to the idiot DJT otherwise known as he who shall not be named or his orange ness or the Cheeto or the thief in chief, etc,
Gigi had not participated in the separate thread that came to the matter of spelling out acronyms, and in this case, the context of a term of derision also used by others in this forum is different from a technical term, so it warrants an internet search by the reader who's not familiar with it.
Winston Churchill said "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities."
Oh, that is SO Churchill. 💯✅
But many others don't even get to the right thing at the end of the day.
Challenged. But not defeated