May Flower: Spot Shooting

It's enough to make you go deaf:

"Groups say gunshot detection systems unreliable, seek review" by Don Babwin and Sara Burnett The Associated Press, May 3, 2021

CHICAGO — The gunshot detection system that set in motion the recent fatal police shooting of a 13-year-old boy in Chicago routinely reports gunshots where there are none, sending officers into predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods for “unnecessary and hostile” encounters, community groups argued in a court filing Monday.

The groups and the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University's law school asked a Cook County judge to scrutinize the ShotSpotter system to determine if it is “sufficiently trustworthy” to be allowed as evidence in a criminal case. The filing supports a request by defense attorneys for a man charged with murder in a case in which prosecutors are using ShotSpotter information as evidence.

The groups say a study of Chicago police data found that over a nearly 22-month period ending in mid-April, almost 90 percent of ShotSpotter alerts didn’t result in officers reporting evidence of shots fired or of any gun crime. The technology is only used in 12 police districts with the city’s largest proportion of Black and Latino residents, which the groups say “inflates statistics about supposed gunfire in these communities, creating a faulty, tech-based justification for ever more aggressive policing.”

[Six years after they rolled the stuff out it was only echoes?]

ShotSpotter, a California-based company that produces the gunshot detection system, has contracts with more than 100 police departments nationwide. In Chicago, it sent an average of 71.4 alerts to officers each day during the period studied, according to the court filing. That included the March 29 alert that led to the fatal shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo by a Chicago officer.

The Chicago Police Department and other agencies have long praised the system, saying it puts officers on the scene of shootings far faster than if they wait for someone to call 911. 

On Monday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the technology, along with cameras and high-tech support centers staffed with police, “no question whatsoever is a lifesaver.”

There was little question that shots were fired in the lead-up to Adam's death in a dark alley in Little Village, a predominantly Latino neighborhood. Days after Police Superintendent David Brown told the media that the sound of gunfire was picked up by ShotSpotter, the materials released to the public included both video that appeared to show someone firing several shots in the neighborhood and a ShotSpotter audio recording of the sound of that gunfire.

[Now my head is spinning, and I guess this wouldn't have helped at Dealey Plaza either]

Police were responding to those shots when Officer Eric Stillman chased Adam and shot him, a split second after the boy appeared to drop or toss a gun.

The court filing tells a different story: one of a system that prompts officers to race to scenes where they think they may encounter armed suspects and are thus more inclined to use lethal force.

[Who needs evidence anymore? The charge is enough (shiver)]

The system is especially dangerous in Chicago, according to the filing, because of the police department’s decades-long reputation for using unnecessary force.

[They were operating a torture center at one point and those "insurrectionists" continue to languish without a peep]

“Residents who happen to be in the vicinity of a false alert will be regarded as presumptive threats, likely to be targeted by police for investigatory stops, foot pursuits, or worse,” the filing says.

Furthermore, dispatching officers to predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods has not reduced crime in those areas.

“To the contrary, academic research has found that ShotSpotter and similar acoustic gunshot detection systems (“AGDS”) do not reduce serious violent crime and do not even increase the number of confirmed shootings that police identify,” according to the filing.

[Leave them to themselves then? Yikes!]

The groups involved in Monday's court filing include the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, which represents residents in a predominantly Latino neighborhood of Chicago, and the digital-rights nonprofit organization Lucy Parsons Labs.....

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I was told the system detected gunshots with 97 percent accuracy, but because it doesn’t accurately distinguish between shots and other loud noises, such as firecrackers and backfiring car, but people who fire guns often run away or, especially in a city where drive-by shootings are routine and gunmen are often blocks and even miles away by the time police arrive so why bother, right?

Related:

"A man who shot and killed two people and wounded a third at a northeastern Wisconsin tribal casino restaurant had been fired from the eatery and ordered by a court to leave his former supervisor alone, according to court records. Bruce Pofahl, 62, walked into the Duck Creek Kitchen and Bar in Green Bay on Saturday and shot Ian Simpson, 32, and Jacob Bartel, 35, at a wait station at close range with a 9 mm handgun as dozens of patrons looked on, Brown County Sheriff Todd Delain said Monday during a news conference in Green Bay. Pandemonium erupted inside the complex, the sheriff said....."

The long arm of the law caught up to him in South Carolina after week on run.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Speaking of guns going off in faraway places:

"Day 1 of the end of the US war in Afghanistan" by Thomas Gibbons-Neff New York Times, May 3, 2021

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Afghans continue fighting and dying with fleeting hopes of peace even while the Americans leave, adhering to a timeline laid out by President Biden to fully withdraw by Sept 11. The decision was opposed by his generals but begrudgingly stenciled on whiteboards in US bases across Afghanistan, such as Kandahar Airfield, a former Soviet base that has been one of the Americans’ largest.

Once the airfield is stripped of everything deemed sensitive by its US and NATO landlords, its skeleton will be handed over to the Afghan security forces.

The scenes over the weekend were almost as if a trillion-dollar war machine had morphed into a garage sale. At the airfield’s peak in 2010 and 2011, its famous and much derided boardwalk housed snack shops, chain restaurants, a hockey rink, and trinket stores. Tens of thousands of US and NATO troops were based here, and many more passed through as it became the main installation for the US-led war in Afghanistan’s south. It stood beside rural villages from which the Taliban emerged; throughout it all, the province has remained an insurgent stronghold.

The US withdrawal, almost quiet, and with a veneer of orderliness, belies the desperate circumstances just beyond the base’s wall. On one end of Kandahar Airfield that day, Maj. Mohammed Bashir Zahid, an officer in charge of a small Afghan air command center, sat in his office, a phone to each ear and a third in his hands as he typed messages on WhatsApp, trying to get air support for Afghan security forces on the ground and in nearby outposts threatened by Taliban fighters.

Sitting in his US-built air-conditioned office, Zahid said he expected that one day soon his requests for help from the Americans would be met with silence. His anger at the US departure was not about the lack of air support but rather, about the sport utility vehicles that he said the Americans had destroyed.

Zahid thought that the Americans were destroying more of those vehicles when an explosion echoed across the runway around 2 p.m. The blast was a rocket, fired from somewhere outside the base and landing somewhere inside, killing no one. Even though the rockets landed on the Afghan side, the Americans viewed it as a Taliban attack on them. The US military had been expecting some kind of assault as it left.

A flight of F/A-18 fighter jets, stationed aboard the USS Eisenhower, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, were in the air, making their way toward Afghanistan. Having received approval to strike, the jets swooped in, dropping a GPS-guided munition on the additional rockets.

[At well over $10,000 a drop]

The end of the war looked nothing like the beginning of it. What started as an operation to topple the Taliban and kill the terrorists responsible for the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, had swelled over 20 years into a multitrillion-dollar military-industrial undertaking, infused with so much money that for years it seemed impossible to ever conclude or dismantle.

Until now.

[Turns out Trump's term was the orange twilight of occupation but without the credit]

Later, at midnight, a gray US C-130 transport aircraft taxied down the same runway, marking the end of the first official day of the US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. The cargo plane was filled with munitions, a giant flat screen television from a CIA base (known as Camp Gecko), pallets of equipment, and — in the real signal of the impending end of a long occupation — departing American troops. It was one of several aircraft that night removing what remained of the US war here.....

[That would be televisions, office printers, and an infinite supply of Pop-Tarts. 

No wonder we lost the war! It was a sugar-high from the start!]

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The plan for the the aftermath means we must think about the unthinkable as the Pentagon accelerates the withdrawal and leaves Afghan forces to cope alone as history repeats itself and the CIA scrambles to find a new approach:

"US officials in Mideast to reassure jittery allies over Iran" by Isabel Debre The Associated Press, May 3, 2021

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Top Biden administration officials and US senators crisscrossed the Middle East on Monday, seeking to assuage growing unease among Gulf Arab partners over America’s reengagement with Iran and other policy shifts in the region.

The trips come as the United States and Iran, through intermediaries in Vienna, discuss a return to Tehran’s tattered 2015 nuclear deal. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf allies, excluded from Obama-era nuclear negotiations, have repeatedly pressed for a seat at the table, insisting that any return to the accord must address Iran’s ballistic missile program and support for regional proxies.

Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat and key Biden ally dispatched on overseas diplomatic missions, told reporters in the UAE’s capital of Abu Dhabi that he hoped to allay the sheikhdom’s “understandable and legitimate concerns” about the return to the landmark deal and to create “broader engagement” with Gulf partners.

Coons said “close consultation” with the UAE about the ongoing talks in Vienna was “important, expected, and happening,” adding that he hopes the Emiratis “may not just be notified, but actually help.”

What that means remains unclear, as Gulf states now watch with resignation as negotiations gain traction in the Austrian capital. When asked to elaborate, Coons balked at the suggestion that the UAE's input had acquired any greater significance in talks with Iran over the last five years. “I did not in any way mean to suggest that there was some deal in the works where the Emiratis would be securing anything,” he said.

Regional tensions are rising. To pressure the Biden administration to lift sanctions and come back into compliance with the deal, Iran has steadily violated the accord’s limitations on nuclear enrichment and stockpiles of enriched uranium. The long shadow war between Israel and Iran has intensified, with suspected Israeli attacks on Iranian ships in volatile Mideast waterways and at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility.

[Wasn't enough to save Netanyahu]

In a tour intended to boost “long-standing political, economic, cultural, and security ties,” several senior Biden administration officials are touring Arab capitals, with Brett McGurk from the National Security Council and Derek Chollet from the State Department, among others, stopping in Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Amman, and Cairo this week.

Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, joined the flurry of diplomatic activity in the region this week, jetting to Oman, Qatar, and Jordan for talks on a political solution to the war in Yemen. In an interview with the Associated Press from Amman, Murphy credited the influence of the Biden administration on recent steps in the region to defuse tensions, such as a Saudi cease-fire initiative floated to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and secret talks between arch-enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia. Earlier this year, Biden announced the end of US support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen; however, the visits follow the Biden administration’s decision to plow ahead with Trump-era arms sales to Gulf countries, including a $23 billion transfer of F-35 combat aircraft, Reaper drones, and other advanced weapons to the UAE, despite objections from Democrats wary of states’ entanglement in the devastating war in Yemen, authoritarian policies, and ties to China.....

[While I'm glad he's allegedly pushing for peace, one can't but help but see the shameless gaseous spew like his sharp criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and tactics in Yemen where US-backed Saudi coalition airstrikes have killed thousands of civilians, and their nuclear ambitions have “left us with concerns about our ability to trust the Saudis”]

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Get ready for a new wave of refugees, an angry mob from the Middle East.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Now roll up your sleeve:

"Massachusetts plans to close four of the state’s seven mass vaccination sites by the end of June, Governor Charlie Baker said Monday, as Massachusetts and other New England states lead the nation in the rate of people who have received at least the first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. Nearly 4 million Massachusetts residents are either fully or partially inoculated against the virus, almost five months into a massive and expedited effort to stem the spread of a virus. The pace of the campaign will allow the state to suspend inoculations at Gillette Stadium, the Doubletree Hotel in Danvers, Hynes Convention Center in Boston, and Natick Mall, officials said. With the closures, the state will shift its resources to 22 regional sites and expand mobile clinics to reach more people of color and other populations who have shown lower rates of vaccination....."

I think they are simply being mothballed as the population exhales and believes normality is returning.

Either that or they are pulling the plug on the operation because we know, or it is enough already with those who nave been inoculated.

I suppose it could go either way and only time will tell. The ending could be heart-wrenching or uplifting, and one can only hope it is fair.

"He is not as well known as wealthy liberal patrons like George Soros or Tom Steyer. His political activism is channeled through a daisy chain of opaque organizations that mask the ultimate recipients of his money, but the Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has quietly become one of the most important donors to left-leaning advocacy groups and an increasingly influential force among Democrats. Newly obtained tax filings show that two of Mr. Wyss’s organizations, a foundation and a nonprofit fund, donated $208 million from 2016 through early last year to three other nonprofit funds that doled out money to a wide array of groups that backed progressive causes and helped Democrats in their efforts to win the White House and control of Congress last year. Mr. Wyss’s representatives say his organizations’ money is not being spent on political campaigning. But documents and interviews show that the entities have come to play a prominent role in financing the political infrastructure that supports Democrats and their issues.  Beneficiaries of his organizations’ direct giving included prominent groups such as the Center for American Progress and Priorities USA, as well as organizations that ran voter registration and mobilization campaigns to increase Democratic turnout, built media outlets accused of slanting the news to favor Democrats and sought to block Trump’s nominees, to prove he colluded with Russia and push for his impeachment......"

Haven't you ever wondered why Germany bypa$$ed $witzerland in WWII?

"German prosecutors have broken up an online platform for sharing images and videos showing the sexual abuse of children, mostly boys, that had an international following of more than 400,000 members, they said on Monday. The site, named “Boystown,” had been around since at least June 2019 and included forums where members from around the globe exchanged images and videos showing children, including toddlers, being sexually abused. In addition to the forums, the site had chat rooms where members could connect with one another in various languages. German federal prosecutors described it as “one of the largest child pornography sites operating on the dark net” in a statement they released on Monday announcing the arrest in mid-April of three German men who managed the site and a fourth who had posted thousands of images to it. “This investigative success has a clear message: Those who prey on the weakest are not safe anywhere,” Germany’s interior minister, Horst Seehofer, said on Monday. “We are holding perpetrators accountable and doing what is humanly possible to protect children from such repugnant crimes.” Over the past decade, Germany has started a government campaign that includes a special unit to investigate crimes online in an effort to combat the sexual abuse of children. While the endeavor has uncovered several sophisticated networks, tens of thousands of new cases of abuse are reported to the authorities each year....."

Here is what the authorities Germany are doing about:

"Germany’s domestic intelligence service said on Wednesday that it would surveil members of the increasingly aggressive coronavirus denier movement because they posed a risk of undermining the state. The movement — fueled in part by wild conspiracy theories — has grown from criticizing coronavirus lockdown measures and hygiene rules to targeting the state itself, its leaders, businesses, the press and globalism, to name a few. Over the past year, demonstrators have attacked police officers, defied civil authorities and in one widely publicized episode scaled the steps of Parliament. In announcing the decision to keep tabs on conspiracy theorists, intelligence officials noted the movement’s close ties to extremists like the Reichsbürger, a network of groups that refuse to accept the legitimacy of the modern German state. The movement, called Querdenken, German for lateral thinking, communicates and recruits over social media and has a large presence on the encrypted chat service Telegram, where its main channel has 65,000 subscribers. The news comes days after Germany instituted new virus rules that apply nationwide and allow the federal government to enforce lockdowns. Such regulation had previously been in the hands of the country’s 16 states. It also suggests that the authorities believe coronavirus denier groups could continue to flourish and pose a threat after the pandemic ends....." 

They have made themselves illegitimate with the never-ending lies, and isn't Germany part of the NATO that is making orphans out of Afghanis?

Where are the diplomats when you need them, 'eh?

"More than 600 million people worldwide have been at least partially vaccinated against COVID-19 — meaning that more than 7 billion still have not. It is a striking achievement in the shadow of a staggering challenge. Half of all the doses delivered so far have gone into the arms of people in countries with one-seventh of the world’s people, primarily the United States and European nations. Dozens of countries, particularly in Africa, have barely started their inoculation campaigns. As wealthy countries envision the pandemic retreating within months — while poorer ones face the prospect of years of suffering — frustration has people around the world asking why more vaccine isn’t available. Nationalism and government actions do much to help explain the stark inequity between the world's haves and have-nots. So, for that matter, does government inaction, and the power of the pharmaceutical companies, which at times seem to hold all the cards, cannot be ignored, but much of it comes down to sheer logistics, but there is a long way to go. Here is a look at the reasons for the vaccine shortfall....."

It's because the United States remains well behind China and Russia in such “vaccine diplomacy,” and let's hope it doesn't lead to an assault that let's loose the dogs of war and the nightmare that follows.

If so, you better run for the hills and perch like a predatory eagle on the highest tree.

From there you can see the entire city, strike and all, as negotiations continue and terms are hard to swallow (there is simply no other way to put it:).

Oddly enough, it is time for lunch, my lone meal of the day.

Boston Globe Guillotine

They are literally hunting for heads:

"Corporate America isn’t welcoming former Trump Cabinet officials with open arms, headhunters say" by Tory Newmyer Washington Post, April 7, 2021

Before she joined the Trump administration as transportation secretary, Elaine Chao earned millions of dollars over a decade by serving on the boards of big public companies such as Dole Foods, Protective Life, and Wells Fargo, according to corporate filings.

She offered sterling credentials to businesses eager to keep current with the Republican leadership: A former banking executive, she became the first Asian American woman to serve in a Cabinet when President George W. Bush tapped her to serve as labor secretary. She has been a regular at conservative think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation and the Hudson Institute. Her husband is Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, but now Chao is encountering a fraught reentry into the private sector.

Headhunters who have sought similarly prominent work for Chao have found little interest, according to two headhunters she has consulted personally. The headhunters, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions, said top executives wary of backlash from associating with former Trump officials are boiling down Chao’s four-decade Washington résumé to its most recent entry — longstanding ally of Donald Trump — despite her resignation the day after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

One of the headhunters said his team surveyed some companies about their interest in Chao and didn’t find any takers, but while it is clear that Chao’s reentry is more difficult than in the past, a person close to her says she has not been entirely shut out of the corporate world.

They just undercut the entire thesis of this propaganda swill.

If I were smart I would lop the article off now.

’'She’s evaluating a number of invitations to join various corporate boards while helping former colleagues land, as well,’' this person said. ’'She’s interested in new-economy companies, has already accepted board positions, and is currently in various stages of finalizing agreements with them and others.’'

Chao declined to comment.

While the small numbers make comparisons difficult, corporations don’t seem to have an immediate interest in other top Trump administration alums, either. By this point in 2009, four major companies had lined up alums of George W. Bush’s Cabinet to serve as directors: global power company AES, oil and gas company Hess, chemical maker FMC, and United Technologies, the industrial conglomerate that has since merged with Raytheon.

Headhunters and other corporate advisers say the calculus for executives at most large, publicly traded companies is simple. Trump — the only president to be impeached twice, the second time on a charge he incited the mob that assaulted the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the presidential election results — left office with a majority of Americans strongly disapproving of his job performance. He remains a lightning rod for controversy and faces ongoing legal exposure from civil lawsuits and criminal investigations. Offering a board seat to anyone in his inner orbit risks inviting a revolt from customers, employees, or shareholders.

’'Boards don’t need trouble or criticism,’' one headhunter said. ’'If you want to stay away from all that potential tarnish, that’s easy: You just don’t go near it.’'

Yeah, right, they don't Target politics because of violent actions!

Gimme a break!

He says that on the heels of the All-$tar Game fia$co and as they tee off at the Ma$ters, and after corporations have donated billions to the lefti$t radicals and de$troyers of $ociety.

We are nothing but tackling dummies to them!

With Democrats in control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, companies are on the hunt in Washington for help with the new party in power. That is depressing demand for Republicans broadly, including those coming off Capitol Hill, top lobbyists say.

Forever more, folks.

There will soon only be one party if St. Louis is any example.

Can have yourself a "run-off," and the names may change but.... (sigh).

For example, Wells Fargo is still operating under a federal cap on its growth following its consumer abuses. Chao joined its board in 2011 and earned handsome pay for her work there until she resigned in early 2017. In 2016 alone, she pulled in $312,000 in cash and stock, and she collected between $1 million and $5 million in deferred stock options that paid out through this year, federal filings show.

The bank did not include Chao among the nominees for its board that shareholders will approve at its spring meeting.

The three other companies on whose boards Chao sat most recently — Ingersoll-Rand, News Corp., and Vulcan Materials — all declined to comment on whether she would be welcomed back.

Chao may not be alone. William P. Barr was a fixture on elite corporate boards before a tumultuous two-year stint as the second US attorney general in the Trump era. Critics say he used the post to act as the president’s personal counsel rather than the nation’s top law enforcement officer. Thousands of former Justice Department officials called on him to resign in open letters, a step he took in December after his relationship with Trump soured. Barr defended his moves on Trump’s behalf in high-profile cases, arguing his interventions were justified on the merits.

Bill Barr is a Deep $tate $wamp creature whose job was to keep the government's dirty secrets. That's why we never heard back from Durham regarding the Obummer spying operation and why he stepped aside in the midst of massive election fraud that denying an incumbent president a landslide reelection, and he even dispatched of Epstein for them all.

What he wants to do next with his career is unclear. Barr declined to comment, but he’s unlikely to return to at least one of his former employers. Kirkland & Ellis, the firm where Barr practiced before joining the administration, has no plans to rehire him, said a person familiar with the firm, requesting anonymity to discuss private deliberations, and the three companies for which he served as a director before joining the administration — Dominion Energy; Sculptor Capital, the hedge fund formerly known as Ochs-Ziff; and Time Warner, which has since merged with AT&T — declined to comment.

I'm $ure Bill Barr will be ju$t fine.

Barr, who earned a $10.4 million retirement payout from Verizon after stepping down as the telecom giant’s general counsel in 2010, collected $877,000 in cash and stock for board work in 2017 alone, corporate filings show.

I don't ever remember that coming up during confirmation!

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Is this what awaits us or them?

You have to admit, it is a lot more cost-effective.

Related:

Pay no mind to that; he works there and it's only his way of $aying he loves you.

These guys were hired to do the honors (with traditional face coverings as well):

"In bid to boost its profile, Islamic State turns to Africa’s militants; The terrorist group has forged alliances with local militants in symbiotic relationships that have pumped up their profiles, fund-raising, and recruitment" by Christina Goldbaum and Eric Schmitt New York Times, April 7, 2021

Still the leader in flat-out war propaganda.

JOHANNESBURG — The Islamic State group’s self-declared caliphate has fallen, its fighters have dispersed and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been killed, but two years after it suffered stinging defeats in Syria and Iraq, the terrorist group has found a new lifeline in Africa, where analysts say it has forged alliances with local militant groups in symbiotic relationships that have pumped up their profiles, fund-raising, and recruitment.

It's been 15 years of blogging about this crap, and at this point it is more sickening then CVD!

Many of those homegrown insurgencies are only loosely connected to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Still, over the past year, as violence from Islamic extremists on the African continent reached a record high, the Islamic State has trumpeted these battlefield wins to project an image of strength and inspire its supporters worldwide.

All outside of the tent, though.

Most recently, the Islamic State claimed credit last week for a dayslong rampage in war-afflicted northern Mozambique, where militants with distant ties to the terrorist organization ambushed a key port town. The attack left dozens of people dead, including at least one South African and one British citizen, and set off talk on the Islamic State group’s online forums of the establishment of a new caliphate there, according to researchers.

So who we gotta invade now? 

Or is this setting up a big boom-boom (though why they would  waste the false flag on Africa is beyond me)?

“As an organization more broadly, ISIS is hurting,” said Colin Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a New York-based security consulting firm. “To improve morale among its supporters, its leadership is seeking to elevate regional branches showing the most promise in launching attacks and maintaining a robust operational tempo.”

Who or what exactly is the Soufan Group?

It's a $elf-$erving outfit run by a former framer of patsy plotters!

The siege on Palma, the town in Mozambique, was the most brazen attack yet by the local insurgency and is part of an alarming rise of brutal clashes involving militant Islamic extremists across the continent. Violence associated with those groups spiked 43 percent in 2020 compared with 2019, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a US Defense Department research institution.

In recent days, tens of thousands of people who fled the assault in Mozambique have arrived in neighboring provinces and described scenes of devastating violence from the bloody ambush.

For more than a decade, US military and counterterrorism officials have warned that Africa was poised to become the next frontier for international terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda and more recently the Islamic State. Both organizations have forged alliances with local jihadi groups in recent years and established new strongholds in West, North, and Central Africa from which they can carry out large-scale attacks, according to experts and officials in the United States and Europe. 

Then why did we build a $pace Force, and those military and "center" terrori$m officials sure are prescient, 'eh?

More recently, US officials have warned that even in its weakened condition, the Islamic State remains a cohesive organization in its former strongholds in Iraq and Syria, with perhaps 10,000 fighters who have gone underground.

While battlefield defeats and the coronavirus have dented its vaunted online propaganda and recruiting operations, the Islamic State still has a war chest of $100 million and a global network of cells outside the Middle East, from the Philippines to Afghanistan, according to US and United Nations counterterrorism officials.

Iraqi security forces and their Western allies continue to hunt down pockets of fighters. Over two weeks in March, Iraqi security forces backed by US and British warplanes conducted 312 airstrikes against Islamic State strongholds, in one of the largest operations against the insurgents since 2019.

Okay, I need to comment here.

So, TWO WEEKS ago a MASSIVE BOMBING RAID was carried out in IRAQ, and the media masked, 'er, muzzled the sound of the explosions until now?

Beyond that, we have the insult regarding the "war chest and vaunted online propaganda" which stinks of pre$$ projection and propaganda itself.

Yup, Uncle Joe(!!) "wins" and all of a sudden ISIS is back in the midst of a worldwide lockdown of the planet!

Yeah, I think 15 years of reading this shit is enough. 

Time to lop it off nice and clean and quick.

Even as political leaders in Europe and the United States grapple with a new threat of domestic terrorism — from right-wing extremists and white supremacists — the fear of a suicide attack in a Western city by a lone individual inspired by Islamic State ideology lurks just beneath the surface.

Is there NOTHING THEY KNOW other than PEDDLING LUDICROUS FEAR!?

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and foreign ministers from the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, a group of more than 80 nations, met virtually March 30 to address what they said was increased activity in areas once controlled by the group’s fighters.

“The threat remains,” the ministers said in a statement, but as the Islamic State tries to claw back in the Middle East, it has turned to new footholds in Africa where anger against corrupt governments and ill-equipped local security forces have given rise to armed groups, according to analysts.

Really, where? 

Which government?

Which "$ecurity" force, the allegedly defunding city police? 

Otherwise, it's full-on police state militarism worldwide!

The Islamic State has forged ties with many of these local insurgencies in what analysts have described as a marriage of convenience: For the militants, the Islamic State brand brings legitimacy and recognition from local governments that the homegrown guerrilla movements have long craved. The Islamic State, in turn, has been able to broadcast the local militants’ attacks as proof that their global jihad is alive and well.

That was went the print article died, and I didn't think the pious Islamics were into casual arrangements like that.

In some places like northeast Nigeria, the Islamic State exerts influence over its local affiliate, the Islamic State in West Africa, and has provided it with trainers and financing, according to the International Crisis Group, but researchers say the Islamic State maintains much looser ties to other militant groups like the insurgency in Mozambique, which remains a largely homegrown movement born of local grievances.

For decades there, impoverished locals watched as elites in the capital plundered the resource-rich region of Cabo Delgado, along the Indian Ocean, which has served as a hub for illegal timber as well as drug and ivory smuggling. Then in 2009, one of the world’s largest known ruby deposits was discovered in the province, and two years later, oil companies uncovered a natural gas deposit worth tens of billions of dollars. Speculators flocked to the area, locals were forced off their land, and some small-scale miners were beaten and killed.

It is the REAL PANDEMIC across this planet, and it has been going on for centuries!!

By the time the nascent insurgency launched its first attacks in 2017, targeting police stations and local government leaders, it had widespread appeal among petty traders at the ports and disenchanted youths, local researchers say. The violent crackdown from the Mozambican military, which was implicated in serious abuses against civilians, may have also helped the insurgency gain more traction with locals, but over the past year, the nature of the war has changed. The militant group has destroyed entire towns, displacing 670,000 people, killing at least 2,000 civilians and kidnapping scores of others, monitoring organizations say.

I again need to comment because WAR looks like it HASN'T CHANGED AT ALL in the LAST 100 YEARS or so, and I'm sure 312 airstrikes in two weeks didn't do that!

US officials sent a dozen Army Green Berets to train Mozambican marines for the next two months. Portuguese officials said they would soon send 60 troops to Mozambique, a former colony. A Mozambican military official declared on Sunday that insurgents had been flushed out of Palma, but hundreds of thousands of displaced people from Cabo Delgado are living in limbo, relying on the hospitality and humanitarian aid to survive. Others who migrated to the province for jobs related to the huge gas project have returned home after international energy companies suspended operations.

Strange how the "terrori$ts" always gravitate toward those, and another forced migrant crisis to remake the world?

link

Related:

"An Iranian ship believed to be a base for the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and anchored for years in the Red Sea off Yemen has been attacked, Tehran acknowledged Wednesday. Iran’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the attack on the MV Saviz, suspected to have been carried out by Israel — though Tehran did not immediately blame its regional archenemy. The assault came as Iran and world powers sat down in Vienna for the first talks about the U.S. potentially rejoining the tattered deal aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program. The ship’s long presence in the region, repeatedly criticized by Saudi Arabia, has come as the West and U.N. experts say Iran has provided arms and support to Yemen’s Houthi rebels in that country’s yearslong war. Iran denies arming the Houthis, though components found in the rebels’ weaponry link back to Tehran....."

Has the hand of Israel all over it, but why?

"The Biden administration said Wednesday it will provide $235 million in US economic and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, reversing a decision by former president Donald Trump to cut almost all such funding. The State Department had previously said it would provide $15 million in coronavirus relief aid to the Palestinians but had avoided questions about whether it would resume funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the aid includes $150 million for UNRWA, $10 million for peace building initiatives, and $75 million for development programs in Gaza and the West Bank. The Trump administration touted its suspension of aid to UNRWA and accused the organization of exacerbating a cycle of poverty for the Palestinians while raising doubts about whether millions of Palestinians deserve to be called refugees. Blinken said the decision was in line with US interests in the region."

The only place to flee to is Greenland:

"Greenland’s main opposition party, which is against an international mining project involving uranium and other metals on the Arctic island, has emerged as the biggest party after winning more than a third of votes in an early parliamentary election, according to initial results. The result means a power shift and an end to Forward’s long reign at the top of politics in Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory. At the heart of the election was a proposed international mining project by Greenland Minerals, an Australia-based company with Chinese ownership, which is seeking a license to operate the Kvanefjeld mine in southern Greenland....."

The really are buying up the world, and the only time we heard about Greenland during the Trump time was when he asked how much to buy it.

Yeah, there is “never a good time to leave” so one must really ask why the time is right for a changing of the guard at this critical time of cri$i$?

They literally have their knee on our neck area(??), and one need not be Nostradamus to see a kangaroo show trial that is (rightly) set for acquittal -- and then the planned and orchestrated destruction of cities will begin again.

Good thing they are not "terrorists" who will need to be tried in court!

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Now off with their heads:

"Justice Stephen Breyer said Tuesday that advocates of expanding the Supreme Court to dilute the power of its conservative majority should “think long and hard” about the risk of making justices appear more political and eroding public confidence in the court. Breyer, one of the court’s three liberals, defended its independence by pointing to a decision to resist former president Donald Trump’s attempts to draw the court into lawsuits seeking to overturn Trump’s election defeat, in remarks prepared for a speech at Harvard Law School....."

Your honor, I simply ask how you can erode something that doesn't exist?

Boehner blasts Trump

Maggie Haberman of the New York Times is helping that orange, chain-smoking, irrelevant fossil promote his book as they take names:

"A group of 10 Democratic members of Congress on Wednesday joined a federal lawsuit against former president Donald Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, claiming that they violated a 19th-century statute when they tried to prevent the certification of the presidential election Jan. 6. Representatives Karen Bass of California, Steve Cohen of Tennessee, Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Hank Johnson Jr. of Georgia, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Barbara Lee of California, Jerrold Nadler of New York, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, and Maxine Waters of California on Wednesday joined the lawsuit that originally also named the Proud Boys, the far-right nationalist group, and the Oath Keepers militia group, but since the official dissolution of the Proud Boys organization in February, the suit now names as defendants The Van Dyke Organization LLC, Warboys LLC, and Jazu Transport LLC, which it describes as successors to the Proud Boys. The legal action accuses Trump, Giuliani, and the other groups of conspiring to incite a violent riot at the Capitol, with the goal of preventing Congress from certifying the election. It contends that Trump and Giuliani violated the Ku Klux Klan Act, an 1871 statute that includes protections against violent conspiracies that interfere with Congress’ constitutional duties. The NAACP originally brought the suit on behalf of Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi in February, adding to a host of legal problems that Trump is facing since leaving office. A spokesman for Trump, Jason Miller, said at the time that Trump did not “plan, produce, or organize the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse.” Thompson and the other plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and punitive damages in the lawsuit that was filed in US District Court in Washington, as well as injunctive relief. The dollar amounts would be determined by a jury at a trial, an NAACP spokesman said. The lawmakers joining the suit were in the House gallery when pro-Trump rioters breached the Capitol on Jan. 6. Many of the lawmakers who were in the building that day continue to suffer from the trauma of hearing gunshots and seeing broken windows and the faces of rioters on the other side of the doors, the NAACP said. That includes ongoing nightmares and difficulty sleeping. “As I sat in my office on Jan. 6 with rioters roaming the hallways, I feared for my life and thought that I was going to die,” Cohen said in a statement, even contemplating whether he would want to be buried with his family in Memphis, Tenn., or at the Congressional Cemetery. “This violence was anything but spontaneous,” Nadler, who sought refuge in the Judiciary Committee Office for hours, said in a statement. “It was the direct result of a conspiracy to incite a riot, instigated by President Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers.”

Meet your cellmate:

"In the week since news broke that the Justice Department is investigating claims that Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, paid for sex with multiple women, including a 17-year-old girl, the Donald Trump ally has largely stayed out of the public eye save for an interview on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to deny the allegations. Now, Gaetz is planning to take center stage later this week as a keynote speaker at a conservative women’s group’s conference at Trump’s Miami golf course. Women for America First, a nonprofit organization of Trump loyalists, orchestrated and publicized a rally on Jan. 6 before the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol, and also led bus tours nationwide spreading unfounded claims of election fraud. “We know firsthand what it is like to be treated unfairly by the main stream media,” Amy Kremer, the group’s chairwoman, said in a statement to The Washington Post that defended Gaetz as “innocent until proven guilty.” The event, called the “Save America Summit,” begins Thursday at Trump’s Doral golf resort and also includes appearances from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas, all Republicans. Gaetz’s appearance comes as he faces an ongoing Department of Justice investigation into accusations of sexual relationships with underage women in violation of sex trafficking laws. The probe began after Joel Greenberg,a former Florida tax collector now charged with stalking and sex trafficking of a minor, told investigators that Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her travel with him.  Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and claimed that his family is being extorted. The FBI is separately looking into those allegations. Meanwhile, Trump said Wednesday that Gaetz had never asked him for a pardon in a statement in which Trump also noted that Gaetz has “totally denied” accusations of a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old that violated sex trafficking laws. Trump’s statement came in response to a New York Times story that Gaetz privately asked the White House in the final weeks of Trump’s term for blanket preemptive pardons for himself and unidentified congressional allies for any crimes they may have committed. The Times report said that aides told Trump of Gaetz’s request but that it was unclear whether Gaetz discussed the matter directly with Trump. “Congressman Matt Gaetz has never asked me for a pardon,” Trump said in his statement Wednesday. “It must also be remembered that he has totally denied the accusations against him.” The statement was notable for its limited defense of Gaetz, who emerged as a vigorous congressional ally of Trump during his term. The Times reported that some Trump associates have speculated that Gaetz’s request for a group pardon was an attempt to camouflage his own potential criminal exposure in a Justice Department investigation into his sexual conduct. A Gaetz spokesman denied to the Times that Gaetz had privately requested a pardon in connection with the continuing Justice Department inquiry." 

The Wa$hington Compo$t further reported that Gaetz repeatedly bragged to several Florida politicians about meeting women through Greenberg, and that on multiple occasions Gaetz showed colleagues images of naked women.

Oooh, naked pictures!

If true the charges he is bordering on pedophilia; however, it is nothing like the world of Epstein and Clinton, et al, and the pre$$ never really goes there other than to run cover for them.

Speak of the devil:

"President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he was open to compromise with Republicans on how to pay for his approximately $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure package but insisted that inaction was unacceptable. The remarks reflect a rapidly changing political calculus for Biden as he seeks to build momentum for another of his top campaign promises. Biden on Wednesday was unapologetic about the scope of his proposal, saying the money was needed to finance projects beyond just roads and bridges. He said, for example, that new spending was needed to do things like improve waste treatment plants and remove asbestos from schools. ’'Maybe it’s because I come from a middle-class neighborhood, but I’m sick and tired of ordinary people being fleeced,’' he said. Biden has not backed down on his insistence that the proposed spending increases be offset by a range of corporate tax hikes. This has prompted bipartisan unease....."

The guy makes one want to vomit. 

He's tired of the middle class being fleeced after helping do just that the last 50 years and as he attempts to fleece them again, and I don't ever remember promising this during the "campaign."

It was the direct payments of as much as $1,400 per person was the cornerstone of Biden’s promise to contain the pandemic and revive the US economy as they keep quiet about the increasing deficit!

Related:

"Wall Street capped another choppy day of trading Wednesday with a mixed finish for stock indexes and another all-time high for the S&P 500. The benchmark index inched up 0.1% after spending much of the day wavering between small gains and losses. Technology, communication and financial companies helped lift the market, offsetting a pullback led by industrials, materials and health care stocks. The broader market has been mostly subdued this week as investors remain cautiously optimistic about the economic recovery. Small company stocks, which have been outgaining the broader market this year, took the brunt of the selling....."

What does it matter anyway?

Both parties are on board with the election fraud and illu$ion of "democracy."

"Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Wednesday there would be “no national lockdown,” ignoring growing calls from health experts a day after the nation saw its highest number of COVID-19 deaths in 24 hours since the pandemic began. “We’re not going to accept this politics of stay home and shut everything down,” Bolsonaro said, resisting the pressure in a speech in the city of Chapeco in Santa Catarina state. “There will be no national lockdown.” Brazil’s conservative president also defended the use of so-called early treatment protocols, which include anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine. No scientific studies have found the drug effective to prevent or treat COVID-19....."

They have but the pharmaceutical pre$$'s job is to obfuscate those, and Bolsonaro is one of the handful of world leaders who have tried to resist those up their noses regarding the CVD genocide plan, along with Obrador, Lukashenko, and the magnificent Dr. Magufuli, may God rest his soul.

At least you have healthcare in the U.S.S.A.:

"More than a half million Americans have taken advantage of the Biden administration’s special health insurance sign-up window keyed to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government announced Wednesday in anticipation that even more consumers will gain coverage in the coming months. The reason officials expect sign-ups to keep growing is that millions of people became eligible effective Apr. 1 for pumped-up subsidies toward their premiums under President Biden’s coronavirus relief legislation. The special sign-up opportunity for Affordable Care Act plans will be available until Aug. 15....."

Then there is the good guvernor:

“The vaccine is obviously a crucial part of how we get past the pandemic,” Baker said, adding that more than 4 million doses have been administered in Massachusetts, with 1.5 million residents fully vaccinated. The state is focused on vaccinating the senior population and communities of color, groups disproportionately affected by the pandemic, he said. “My hope is, as more people in their community, whatever their community might be, get vaccinated, they’ll look them up and down, realize that, you know, it’s OK and they’ll come out and get vaccinated,” Baker said.

What for? 

Based on a nonexistent virus that isn't detected by a test that is rigged to register false positives of non-infectious people?

So what if you don't want to get an unnecessary, experimental, and harmful vaccine?

"Mobile vaccination clinics are a key piece of the effort, he said. “That’s a big opportunity, and I really do hope that as we move forward, we see more and more [of the single-shot] J&J [vaccine] in the mix,” Baker said. “To go to senior centers and community centers and ... housing projects, all these places where a one-dose solution would actually be the sort of thing you could almost create a little bit of a rally around in those communities and in those particular places and spaces, is very real, but it’s really hard to do that.” Whether mobile efforts can be expanded depends on the amount of vaccine Massachusetts receives from the federal government, he said. “The feds have made really clear that they view the retail pharmacy channel as the primary channel, from their point of view, with respect to geographic distribution,” Baker said. 

Why would you ever trust the pharmacies that foisted the opioid epidemic upon us is beyond me, but it does explain the need for a house call.

So what happens if you refuse?

More gaseous spew from the mass-murdering criminal:

“When they talk about on April 19 getting to the point where it’s open for every, everybody should be open and eligible — which we think is great, since we picked that day too, I’m glad they followed our lead — the big thing they say is by then, everybody in America will be within five miles of a [vaccination] site, and a huge part of the way they think about that is driven 100 percent by the pharmacy, the retail pharmacy rollout.” The federal government is “also putting a lot of doses into community health centers, as are we, to make sure that we have plenty of available supply to serve those communities,” Baker added, “but the more people talk about, you know, where else and how else this can be done, for me that all comes down to how much supply is actually going to be available.” Currently, the state is administering between 60,000 and 90,000 doses a day, Baker said. “I want you to think about the fact that right now without adding a single additional site in our current network, we could probably do double or triple that,” he said. He said he hopes to soon learn more about the vaccine supply for May. “I think by April 19, I’m hoping we’ll get more guidance from the feds about what they think the month of May is going to look like, because obviously that will be in many ways the first real opportunity we’ll all have to vaccinate a population that’s completely eligible,” Baker said. Baker got his first shot of the Pfizer vaccine Tuesday after preregistering and on Wednesday said, “I feel good.” 

OMFG!!! 

He must have either gotten the saline or completely lied about it!

The ultimate goal from which they have never wavered is to get the entire population vaccinated, and by that they mean of the entire Earth although it is entirely unnecessary.

And with that, the blade falls.

The Bo$ton Globe Has Spring Fever

Gee, this was the first advertisement I was offered before even clicking on an article, but we will get to that later.

Spring fever is real

The Globe says it’s a mess, what with the clocks moved forward an hour and daylight stretching past 12 hours.

The only problem is, like the entire paper, the phenomenon they are describing is totally manufactured. Moving the arms of a clock around means nothing when it comes to the actual world outside. 

Did the birds make note of the time change do you think, or did it just throw off the dolphins?

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Here i$ the cau$e of your $pring cold:

"AstraZeneca vaccine could boost US supply next month, but heighten skepticism; Formula showed strong protection against COVID-19 in US clinical study" by Robert Weisman Globe Staff, March 22, 2021

Surprisingly strong US clinical trial results reported by AstraZeneca on Monday raised the prospect of a fourth COVID-19 vaccine in the United States soon — and a potential supply surplus just as the general public becomes eligible for shots in Massachusetts and most other states next month.

“This could have a huge impact,” said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “When it comes to COVID vaccines, you can’t have too many of them,” but there was also caution around AstraZeneca’s vaccine. About a dozen countries temporarily paused using it last week due to safety concerns, though the concerns were later dismissed by European regulators and didn’t surface in the US study. Even so, some worried the pause could heighten the broader vaccine skepticism that public health authorities have been fighting.

AstraZeneca said Monday that its two-shot vaccine candidate, already authorized in scores of countries, showed a 79 percent efficacy rate in stopping symptomatic COVID-19 across all adult age groups in the large-scale US study. More crucially, it showed a 100 percent rate in preventing severe illness and hospitalization.

All for a virus that has a 99.97% survival rate, one so deadly you didn't even know you had it and needed a fraudulent te$ting proce$$ to tell you.

This reprehensible, folks, the way they keep pushing Big Pharma's bull$hit.

“This vaccine can play an important role in protecting millions of people worldwide against this lethal virus,” said Mene Pangalos, an AstraZeneca executive vice president for biopharma research and development. He said the company is preparing to submit its findings to American regulators and seek emergency use authorization.

He is already preparing or has timed the announcement to help his $tock $ales, but that's the price to pay for the hope of humanity.

The announcement, released overnight from AstraZeneca’s headquarters in the United Kingdom, injected a wild card into the US vaccination drive. Adding a fourth vaccine to the mix could be a windfall, but federal officials were circumspect, noting the Food and Drug Administration staff and a group of independent medical advisers will have to study the full data from the AstraZeneca study, which have yet to be published, before the FDA green-lights the vaccine.

The "journali$tic $tyle" is enough to make one sick, and a a piece of "unexpected good fortune" that typically one that involves receiving a large amount of money for who?

The vaccine, developed by Oxford University researchers, uses a harmless cold virus to prime the immune system to fend off the coronavirus. It was initially considered a global leader in the race to field a vaccine against COVID-19, but the company stumbled in sorting out the appropriate vaccine dose and the interval between doses in European trials, which delayed its US clinical study and allowed rival vaccines to take the lead.

It's not the mRNA technology but something as equally ghastly, but "even so."

Even so, AstraZeneca’s vaccine had become a backbone of Europe’s vaccine program until last week, when France, Germany, Italy, and other countries suspended its use, against the advice of regulators, after reports that it was linked to blood clots.

The vaccine was returned to use in those countries later in the week after European Medicines Agency investigators concluded the vaccine carried no increased risk of blood clotting.

Medical experts said the AstraZeneca vaccine appears safe.

Appears safe?

Well, APPEARANCES can be DECEIVING!

So WHAT is with the WEASEL WORDING, doc (with all due respect and profuse apologies to weasels who would never push this genocide)?

“There was no evidence of a cause-and-effect relation, and no evidence of an increased risk of blood clots,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan, director of Boston College’s global public health program. “So we’re in a happy position to have a fourth vaccine in a matter of weeks. It’s clearly a very good, very effective vaccine,” but with vaccine skepticism already a problem on both sides of the Atlantic, as health officials struggle to subdue the virus and a growing number of variants, doctors worry that the blood clot scare could add to a toxic mix of anti-vaccination fear and misinformation.

“There is certainly concern that anything that even temporarily casts some doubt about the safety of the vaccine can fuel hesitancy,” said Kuritzkes, at Brigham and Women’s. “It’s concerning to those of us in public health if people are hesitant, because it’s not justified.”

This has really reached the point of criminality regarding the "doctors" that appear in the pre$$, and the $olution is obvious, right?

Of course, it now turns out the AZ was using outdated information and that could mean the company provided an incomplete view of efficacy data in what $ure $mells like FRAUD to me!

Yeah, just trust them all as Nevada has struck a $45 million settlement deal with McKinsey & Company for the global consulting firm’s role in advising opioid makers how to sell more prescription painkillers amid a national overdose crisis.

So where is the $tock price anyway?

In the White House briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Biden’s chief medical adviser, said the US study found the virus effective for all of the groups studied, including people over 65 and those with chronic health conditions. He emphasized there were “no specific safety concerns related to the vaccine,” including no evidence of blood clotting.

“There are very many countries in Europe and throughout the world who have already authorized this,” Fauci said. “So the fact that a US-run study has confirmed the efficacy and the safety of this vaccine I think is an important contribution to global health in general.”

He's endorsing a device that results in criminal mass murder now at worst, and at best he is seen as having a flippant attitude to each and every one of those lives that have been lost in the last year by whatever cause. 

What a MONSTER is HE!

The FEVER is a BLOODLU$T with some people.

Although President Biden has said that there should be enough vaccines nationally to inoculate every adult who wants them by the end of May, Governor Charlie Baker has said that supply continues to be tight in Massachusetts. He said that a dramatic ramping up of the federal vaccine supply will be critical on April 19, when all state residents over 16 become eligible for a shot.

What if you DON'T WANT THEM, Joe, what then?

About 800,000 more Massachusetts residents qualified for shots Monday, including people ages 60 to 64 and some categories of essential workers. Baker last week said his goal is to vaccinate more than 4 million adults by July 4. The number of state residents fully vaccinated topped 1 million Friday.....

That would be the ENTIRE ADULT POPULATION says the new Stalin!

link

The Globe tells you what you need to know about AstraZeneca’s vaccine in this order:

What is the latest news?

What are this vaccine’s advantages?

Will the shot be available to Americans soon?

Could this create a surplus of shots?

Why has the vaccine gotten some bad press?

What about reports of blood clotting?

OMG, poor AZ has gotten bad pre$$ because of the blood-clot killings!

No offense, but it looks to me like the New York Times is putting on weight.

Related:

"Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, again warned Americans on Monday about the spread of the coronavirus, saying that with increased travel, looser pandemic restrictions and worrisome variants bearing down on the United States, another surge could erupt if Americans did not take protection efforts seriously “for just a little bit longer.” Virus variants are making up a bigger share of cases, she said at a White House briefing. A variant first discovered in California that now accounts for over half of the state’s cases is spreading in Nevada and Arizona. A fast-spreading variant first detected in Britain is now responsible for 9 percent of cases in New Jersey and 8 percent of cases in Florida, she said. The C.D.C.’s efforts to track down the variants have substantially improved in recent weeks and will continue to grow, in large part because of $1.75 billion in funds for genomic sequencing in the stimulus package that Biden signed into law this month. Walensky told lawmakers last week that between 10,000 and 14,000 test samples were being sequenced each week to locate variants, and that the C.D.C. was aiming for about 25,000. By contrast, Britain began a highly touted sequencing program last year. On Monday, Walensky also cautioned that the Northeast and upper part of the Midwest were again seeing a troublesome rise in cases. If states continue to relax their pandemic restrictions while cases are still high, she said, progress could be halted....."

Are you sick of being led around by the nose by these monsters, because I am.

She also added that “we are at a critical point in this pandemic, a fork in the road, where we as a country must decide which path we are going to take. We must act now, and I am worried that if we don’t take the right actions now, we will have another avoidable surge, just as we are seeing in Europe right now and just as we are so aggressively scaling up vaccination. We’re reaching out to individual states, trying to encourage them. We are having weekly governors’ calls. We’re doing outreach with states, territories to encourage them to look at their case data, to look at what’s happening with the variants, and to do as much outreach as we can to try and — to slow down the relaxation,” while saying that air travel also threatened to increase cases around the country, and that Americans should avoid it because “we’re worried not just for what happens when you are on the airplane itself, but what happens when people travel. We just don’t want to be at this rapid uptick of cases again, and that is very possible that that could happen. We’ve seen that. We’re behind the eight ball when that starts to happen, and that results in uptick of cases, hospitalizations and then death.”

Still, there have been signs of progress, and she must not have seen the the Defense Department study of the risk of catching the coronavirus on a packed commercial flight that concluded that a person would have to be sitting next to an infectious passenger for at least 54 hours to receive a dangerous dose of the virus through the air -- thus shredding any argument for any distancing or masks whatsoever in daily life down here!

"More than 1.5 million people streamed through US airport security checkpoints on Sunday, the largest number since the pandemic tightened its grip on the United States more than a year ago. It marked the 11th straight day that the Transportation Security Administration screened more than 1 million people, likely from a combination of spring break travel and more people becoming vaccinated against COVID-19. Airline executives say they have seen an increase in bookings during the last few weeks; however, passenger traffic remains far below 2019 levels. The TSA said Monday that it screened about 1.54 million people on Sunday, which appeared to be the largest number since March 13, 2020. It was more than triple the 454,516 people that TSA reported screening on the comparable Sunday a year ago, and the seven-day rolling average of screenings has doubled since Feb. 1. Still, the number of people passing through airport checkpoints Sunday was about one-fourth below the number on the closest Sunday in 2019."

Also see:

"Two Chicago hospital executives have been reprimanded for COVID-19 vaccine events that improperly gave shots to people far from the West Side facility, including one held for workers at Trump Tower. Loretto Hospital's Board of Directors released a statement Friday saying they had “taken appropriate actions of reprimand” against Loretto’s president and CEO, George Miller, and Chief Operating Officer Dr. Anosh Ahmed. A hospital spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email Monday requesting comment from Miller and Anosh in reaction to the board's decision. City health officials said last week they would withhold first doses of COVID-19 vaccines from the hospital as authorities investigate the events. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday that the hospital needs better controls and data to guide and track vaccine administration, adding that she doesn't expect the hospital “to be coming back online anytime soon." “They’ve got work to do, I think, to rebuild trust in their own community,” she said. The backlash followed local media reporting on several vaccination events held outside the hospital, which primarily serves Black and Latino residents in West Side neighborhoods. The hospital was chosen last year to administer Chicago’s ceremonial first COVID-19 vaccination as part of the city’s efforts to encourage people to get the shot....." 

You are not supposed to give them the placebo!

So they close the hospital(?) over it?

Won't that make the death rate soar?

"A top World Health Organization expert on the coronavirus pandemic said Monday the weekly global count of deaths from COVID-19 is rising again, a “worrying sign” after about six weeks of declines. Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on COVID-19 at the U.N. health agency, said the growth followed a fifth straight week of confirmed cases increasing worldwide. She said the number of reported cases went up up in four of the WHO’s six regions....."

Interestingly, COVID is now spiking in states with high vaccination rates as the SCRIPT is on schedule so enjoy the FINAL DAYS of LIMITED FREEDOM:

"Massachusetts has moved to Phase 4, Step 1 of its reopening plan. Those entering Massachusetts are no longer required to quarantine for 10 days upon arrival if they have been out of the state for longer than 24 hours but are encouraged to do so. As of Monday, indoor and outdoor stadiums — including Gillette Stadium, TD Garden, and Fenway Park— can run at 12 percent capacity after submitting a plan to the Department of Public Health. Public gatherings are now limited to 100 people indoors and 150 people outside, while private gatherings will remain limited to 10 indoors and 25 outside. City officials in Boston are taking a more cautious approach. Public gatherings in the city can increase to 60 people indoors and 100 people outdoors, according to the Boston Public Health Commission. Outdoor dining also began in Boston Monday, except in the North End, where restaurants will be allowed to serve diners outdoors starting on April 1. More than 1 million people in the state have been fully vaccinated....." 

This is as they are "in the midst of a high-stakes campaign to vaccinate 4.1 million adults in an effort to bring an end to a pandemic that has wracked the state for a year(?) -- which is why Boston school officials announced on Monday they will seek state approval to delay a return of full-time in-person learning in its elementary schools on April 5, but remain committed to bringing students back to classrooms five days a week later in the month.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Of course, it is a new day in Bo$ton as they say goodbye to old friends with a toast and welcome (just joking) a new one even as $ome things never change so live long and prosper, Mr Walsh.

"Attorney for ride-hailing service driver charged with Allston kidnapping claims language barrier led to confrontation" by Charlie McKenna Globe Correspondent, March 22, 2021

A ride-hailing service driver from Acton pleaded not guilty Monday to an allegation that he kidnapped a woman who was riding in his vehicle in Allston Thursday, an incident his defense lawyer attributed to a “miscommunication.”

Kamal Essalak, 47, was arraigned in Brighton Municipal Court on a single count of kidnapping after the passenger reported Essalak triggered the child locks on his car, preventing her from leaving the car.

I hailed this ride down on page B3 for whatever it is worth.

Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Margaret Hegarty said in court that the passenger told police she felt something was “off right away” when she got into the vehicle. Prosecutors allege Essalak turned around and began staring at the passenger after she entered the 2017 Toyota Corolla he drove for Uber.

Essalak allegedly told the passenger, “This is going to be an hourlong ride” even though they were only going to a destination a few minutes away and Essalak repeatedly referred to her as “babe” and said “it will be fine,” according to Hegarty.

At one point during the ride, Hegarty said, Essalak turned on the vehicle’s light, put his hand on the passenger seat, turned around, looked the passenger up and down and started laughing. As Hegarty recited the allegations, Essalak could be seen shaking his head in disagreement.

The passenger asked to be released as Essalak was driving along Commonwealth Avenue, Hegarty said, but Essalak refused.

“It’s just a joke. Come on, we are going to have fun,” Essalak responded, according to Hegarty.

The passenger then began pounding on the windows after discovering the vehicle’s child safety locks were on, according to Hegarty. Essalak allegedly veered to the side of the road and double-parked at 509 Cambridge St., then began touching her after climbing over the car’s center console into the backseat.

The passenger later told police she “was not groped or anything like that,” according to Hegarty.

The passenger said she then dodged him, climbed into the front seat, and let herself out of the vehicle. Essalak allegedly took out his phone and began recording her and laughing as she ran away toward her apartment.

The passenger told police she was “really afraid” because Essalak was outside her apartment.

Hegarty asked the court to institute a no-contact, no-abuse, and stay-away order from the victim.

What this also does is make the case for driverless transportation. 

Thanks, sex-offending asshole who should be forgiven(?).

Essalak, a father of two, works long hours to support his family, his defense attorney, Thomas J. Chirokas said. He grew up in Morocco and earned a high school degree there before spending 10 years working as a technician for Airbus, then coming to the US. Essalak became a US citizen in 2019, Chirokas said.

Oh, now I understand the B3 placement. Don't want to make those migrants or administration look bad.

In court, Chirokas said of the allegations that “objectively some of this does not make sense.” He attributed the incident to a language barrier between Essalak and the victim.

Essalak has operated as an Uber driver for four and a half years totaling 7,800 rides and had a driver’s rating of 4.97 stars out of 5 prior to the incident, the attorney said.

Essalak has no violations or sanctions on his driving record, according to records obtained by the Globe.

“There was some miscommunication along the way, or else we wouldn’t be here today,” Chirokas told reporters following the hearing. He declined further comment.

I'm sorry, but WHAT HAPPENED to I BELIEVE the WOMAN?

That's only to be arbitrarily used against those who stand in the way of the agenda and are not members of the Party, huh?

Friends and family of Essalak stood outside the courthouse as the arraignment proceeded. Chirokas described Essalak as an “upstanding member of his community.”

Judge Myong Joun ordered Essalak released on personal recognizance and barred him from having contact with the passenger in the case.

That must make the victim feel all safe and secure!

link

Not only is a potential rapist driving around Bo$ton, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins has decided to drop the charges.

The guy is lucky he isn't dead:

"A Brookline woman has been charged with manslaughter in the death last year of her former husband, a well-known environmental consultant and a Democratic aide to former governor Michael S. Dukakis. Penelope McGee, 54, pleaded not guilty Friday in Norfolk Superior Court to a charge that she caused the January 2020 death of Andrew Savitz, who also lived in Brookline. Savitz, who was 66 at the time of his death, was a longtime political operative in Massachusetts, and helped run Dukakis’s 1988 presidential campaign before turning his focus to the environment and sustainability. Officials say that Savitz’ death resulted from a domestic dispute that turned physical and was witnessed by one of the couple’s children....."

That's when I decided to give them their privacy as Boston’s in a strange place these days as it feels like the city is moving in the right direction, but there’s no clearly charted path ahead and no one holding the compass.

Also see:

Donations pour in for families of Atlanta shooting victims

Then a Boulder came along and eclipsed it:

10 people are killed in a shooting at a Colorado supermarket

The New York Times tells you what you need to know and I will tell you what I saw. 

I saw them leading away a shirtless guy in handcuffs bleeding from the shoulder and knee with what I presumed were gunshots and HE WAS WALKING!

I no sooner had noted the lack of the gun-seizing, mass-casualty events under Trump and Biden is not in office two months even and we have two inside a week! 

THE STENCH of skullduggery is overwhelming!

14th juror seated for ex-officer’s trial in Floyd’s death

It's not easy being blue, and it looks like it is going to be a long, hot summer so stay away from the Post Offices or there will be hell to pay.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

There is also a war fever in the air:

"Saudi Arabia offers cease-fire in Yemen and lifting of blockade" by Rick Gladstone and Shuaib Almosawa New York Times, March 22, 2021

Saudi Arabia proposed what it described as a new peace offering Monday to end the kingdom’s nearly six-year-old war on the insurgency in neighboring Yemen, pledging to lift an air-and-sea blockade if the Houthi rebels agree to a cease-fire.

From AmeriKa's lead war paper?

Don't make me laugh.

The offering, announced by Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, came as pressure has escalated on the country to help break a stalemate in the Yemen conflict, which the United Nations has called the world’s worst man-made humanitarian disaster.

Millions of Yemenis, including children, are verging on famine partly because of the blockade, which has choked the delivery of food and fuel to the country, the Arab world’s poorest.

There is also a cholera epidemic, and if you scan my Yemen label you will see the pre$$ has mostly ignored this the last five years or so and I'm sure this is a one-day blip.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan was quoted by Arab news media as saying at a news conference that if the Houthis agreed to a cease-fire monitored by the United Nations, his country would allow the reopening of the airport in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, and would permit fuel and food imports through Hodeida, a major Yemeni seaport. Both are controlled by the Houthis.

The Houthis appeared to reject the Saudi proposal. A spokesman for the group, Muhammad Abdussalam, said on al-Masirah, a Houthi-affiliated television channel in Yemen, that the Houthis would not agree to discuss a cease-fire until Saudi Arabia first lifted its blockade. The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, he said, was “trying to have the Yemeni people buckle under tightening the blockade in an attempt to pressure us to accept demands they were unable to achieve militarily and politically.”

Yeah, they rejected the po$ offer so they are the ones responsible for the famine and conditions, not the war-criminal aggressors offering the "peace deal."

If I'm not mistaken, the Saudis just completed a months worth of bombing runs to soften them up for peace.

See: 

Saudi-led coalition intensifies Yemen air raids, hits grains port

Oh, that was YESTERDAY! 

So they OFFER PEACE then BOMB?

I'm sure the NYT will mention it.

Many prior attempts aimed at halting the conflict have failed.

Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman, said the global body welcomed the Saudi announcement, but he declined to specify if it had been made as part of a coordinated move with Martin Griffiths, a special UN envoy. Griffiths has been seeking to restart negotiations, with a formula that also includes a monitored cease-fire and lifting of the blockade.

“There is no doubt that every effort must be made to end the conflict in Yemen and address the suffering of the Yemeni people, and the United Nations looks forward to continuing its work with the parties to achieve this goal,” Haq told reporters in New York.

Asked about the apparent Houthi rejection, he said Griffiths would “be in touch with the Houthis, as with all parties, to see whether we can go further on this.”

Saudi Arabia began an intense bombing campaign six years ago this week aimed at routing the Houthis, who had forced the Saudi-backed government to flee and still control a vast swath of Yemen. The Houthis are backed by Iran, which Saudi Arabia regards as its regional adversary, and they have frequently responded to Saudi aerial assaults by sending missiles across the border into Saudi territory.

Saudi-led bombings and Houthi attacks have devastated Yemen’s fragile economy and led to widespread civilian casualties, and 80 percent of the country’s roughly 30 million people require humanitarian help. By some estimates nearly a quarter million Yemenis have been killed in the conflict, and millions face acute hunger or starvation.

The Saudi announcement came just a few weeks after President Biden, breaking with the previous administration of Donald Trump, announced an end to US logistical and intelligence support for the Saudi war effort in Yemen.

So Biden is FORCING THEM to OFFER "PEACE."

UN humanitarian officials have been pleading for eased access to vulnerable Yemenis isolated by the war, warning that famine already is beginning to take hold. After a visit to Yemen in early March, David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Program, the UN’s antihunger agency, said “the famine is on a worsening trajectory.”

Six years of war, Beasley said, had “completely devastated the people, in every respect.”

link

The White House is looking to move up a weight cla$$:

"The United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada each announced sanctions against China over human rights abuses in Xinjiang, a coordinated effort aimed at holding Beijing accountable for a years-long campaign against Uyghurs and other minority groups in the northwestern Chinese region. The diplomatic push, announced Monday, comes after a tense meeting between U.S. and Chinese officials and amid growing calls for democracies to work together to take on an increasingly authoritarian and assertive Beijing. The European Union was first to move. China quickly responded, leveling similar measures against a long list of its European critics....."

Once again, it looks like western aggression -- which is where help for the Chinese will come from:

"The Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday that Washington has rejected President Vladimir Putin’s offer to arrange a quick public call with U.S. President Joe Biden to help defuse tensions raised by Biden’s recent remark that the Russian leader was a killer. Asked by reporters Friday if he’ll take Putin up on his offer to have a call, Biden said, “I’m sure we’ll talk at some point.” Russia initially responded to Biden’s comment by recalling its ambassador in Washington for consultations. During a public event on Thursday, Putin gave an “it-takes-one-to-know-one” response, pointing at the U.S. history of slavery, slaughtering Native Americans and the atomic bombing of Japan in World War II....."

All for guys like this:

"Israelis vote Tuesday in their fourth parliamentary election in just two years. Once again, the race boils down to a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, who has served as prime minister for the past 12 years, hopes voters will reward him for leading the country’s successful coronavirus vaccine rollout and his diplomatic outreach to the Arab world. His challengers have highlighted his earlier missteps in combatting the virus, his ongoing corruption trial, and his reliance on divisive religious and ultra-nationalist allies. Over the years, Netanyahu has developed a reputation as a political magician and master manipulator capable of surviving any crisis. With witnesses set to take the stand against him next month, Netanyahu is hoping for another miracle that could deliver a friendlier parliament willing to grant him immunity or freeze his trial. Opponents portray him as a serial liar who has caused two years of political paralysis by putting his political survival and legal troubles ahead of the country’s interests. Opinion polls forecast an extremely tight race, raising the possibility of continued deadlock and even an unprecedented fifth consecutive election. Netanyahu appears to hold a slight advantage because of the intricacies of Israel’s political system....."

What "intricacies" of the only "democracy" in the Middle East?

You mean the rampant election rigging that is worldwide?

Sure getting a whiff of something from the past over there but I can't quite place it:

Germany introduces a strict five-day lockdown over Easter

There it is, and not even the evil Nazis cancelled Easter.

{@@##$$%%^^&&}

Of cour$e, like all wars, there is MONEY to be MADE!!!

"The Kimpton Nine Zero Hotel, a high-end property in downtown Boston, has terminated the majority of its staff, at least the fourth hotel in the city to cut furloughed workers as the industry struggles to recover from devastating financial losses brought on by the pandemic. The mass termination at the union hotel comes a year after workers were initially laid off and within days of a contract provision running out that guaranteed the right for workers to return with full seniority for up to a year after being laid off for economic reasons. “This is an act of war,” said Carlos Aramayo, president of Local 26....."

It sure is, and keep reading because that became a frightening theme in my bu$ine$$ $ection.

Btw, word is Big Joe is going to put migrants up in them and you won't be able to linger on the $treet and $trike, either:

Street vendors outside Fenway Park told they can’t open until at least June

I'm told the city has decided that they will place vending at Fenway Park on hold for the next two months due to COVID concerns,” in an e-mail that was shared with the Globe.

My initial reaction?

WTF and WHY? 

It's OUTSIDE AND EVERYTHING!

This comes as a pittance of fans will be allowed back in; however, it is clear that the overall agenda is to put the street vendors out of business so you can by Aramak crap inside!

Look, I don't like $ports anymore, I'm not watching $ports anymore, but taking away something that is quintessential Boston is unforgivable and they should be a$hamed of them$elves.

Maybe you can find a new $pot:

"Stores that defined American malls eye a freestanding future" by Jordyn Holman and Lauren Coleman-Lochner Bloomberg News, March 22, 2021

(Bloomberg) — Quintessential mall stores from Macy’s to Kay Jewelers to Gap are plotting out a post-Covid future — and traditional shopping centers won’t play as much of a role in it.

Signet Jewelers Ltd., which owns chains such as Kay and Zales, said this past week it will expand in off-mall locations while continuing to pull back from the old-school gallerias where it has long had a major presence. The company also plans to add more kiosks in underserved markets.

The move brings “an opportunity for a better economic model,” Joan Hilson, Signet’s chief financial officer, said in an interview.

Leaving like a thief in the night and CUI BONO?

Retailers are abandoning enclosed malls in growing numbers as the rise of online shopping transforms the industry — a trend that has accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic. Almost a third of retail CFOs are planning to scale back their mall presence, according to a recent survey from consulting firm BDO USA.

Yes, the fake viru$ has been a cover for many things that globali$t $cum want to advance.

That’s throwing into question the future of hundreds of traditional malls, already financially struggling before the pandemic, as they grapple with expensive real estate and fewer tenants who want to be there.

Yes, WHAT will be DONE with THEM?

I have some ideas of what I think will happen, as the photo below here would show.

“Even the ones that haven’t been distressed are being hurt by the lack of foot traffic in the mall,” said David Berliner, head of the restructuring and turnaround practice at BDO. Some are talking about relocating stores from malls to nearby centers anchored by merchants like Walmart “because they’re going to get more foot traffic than they’re getting at the mall now.”

Signet exemplifies that kind of shift. 

For retailers, there are many advantages to leaving the old-school shopping centers. Rent can be “substantially” lower elsewhere, the hours of operation are more flexible, customer parking is easier, and building costs are lower, said Ivan Friedman, chief executive officer of RCS Real Estate Advisors.

The pandemic has accelerated what some see as a long overdue culling of locations.

I said there would be a theme, right?

Enclosed malls have already seen a pullback in specialty shops like record and card stores, making them overly concentrated in apparel. That feeling of sameness is driving shoppers instead to a newer generation of open-air centers that include housing or office space, BDO’s Berliner said.

“A lot of these mixed-use centers now are trying to recapture that town hall feel,” he said. “That’s where people want to go again, instead of just these rectangular indoor boxes, where everything is the same.”

link

Sorry, but I will never go to a mall or shopping center ever again unless I'm dragged there by totalitarian goons, although I hope to be long dead before then.

Time to take the bull by the horns:

"Stock market’s historic run began year ago" by Stan Choe Associated Press, March 22, 2021

NEW YORK — It was one year ago that the terrifying free fall for the stock market suddenly ended, ushering in one of its greatest runs.

That evokes memories of a fateful September morning, and how could those three towers defy the immutable laws of physics by turning into dust and dropping into their own footprints?

On March 23, 2020, the S&P 500 fell 2.9 percent. In all, the index dropped nearly 34 percent in about a month, wiping out three years’ worth of gains for the market.

That turned out to be the bottom, even though the coronavirus pandemic worsened in the ensuing months and the economy sank deeper into recession. Massive amounts of support for the economy from the Federal Reserve and Congress limited how far stocks would fall. The market recovered all its losses by August.

Maybe you can find a T-shirt at the mall that says Wall Street was propped up and all I got was a lousy $1400 chump change check.

As time passed, the quick development of coronavirus vaccines helped stocks shoot even higher. So did growing legions of first-time investors, who suddenly had plenty of time to get into the market using free trading apps on their phones.

Wait, wait, what?

Those guys were troublemakers a mere two months ago!

It all led to a roughly 75 percent surge for the S&P 500 over the last 12 months and a shocking return to record heights. Consider that over the last 50 calendar years, the median gain for the index has been 12.4 percent.

All the furious movement has also raised worries that stock prices may have gone too far, too fast.

Here’s a look at five trends that helped shape the market over the last year:

Two bull markets in one: Wall Street’s big rally actually had two distinct stages. Early on, Big Tech stocks and winners of the suddenly stay-at-home economy pulled the market higher. Amazon benefited as people shopped more online, Apple hoovered up sales as more people worked from home, and Zoom Video Communications surged as students and adults started meeting online. Tech stocks as a group are the market’s biggest by value, so their gains helped make up for weakness across other sectors as the economy continued to struggle.

Since last autumn, though, excitement for an economic liftoff has caused a more widespread upturn. Banks, energy producers, and smaller companies whose profits would be the biggest beneficiaries of a stronger economy have led the way, as coronavirus vaccines roll out and Washington delivers even more financial aid. Those gains are also picking up the slack for technology stocks, which have lost momentum as interest rates rise on worries about higher inflation.

I didn't see me, you, or the rest of the 99% in there did you?

Of course, it's all AP bull$hit anyway.

First time investors join in: Stuck at home with little to do, people looked for ways to use some dollars that might have otherwise been spent on a movie, restaurant meal, or vacation. Many turned to the stock market via their phones, as trading apps made it easy to buy and sell shares with a few taps, commission free.

Clients under the age of 40 accounted for 35 percent of trading last month at Charles Schwab, nearly double the rate of two years earlier. Accounts less than a year old are doing more trading in total at Charles Schwab than accounts that have been around more than 10 years.

Many of those traders have been using money they got as stimulus payments from the US government. The Robinhood trading app popular with many novice investors saw an increase in the percentage of deposits of exactly $1,200 or $2,400 after the government sent out checks for those amounts last spring, just after the stock market hit bottom, for example. A new round of government payments — $1,400 to individuals — is underway.

Social media has only amplified the trend, as traders talk on Reddit, Twitter, and elsewhere about what stocks to buy. They’ve been helping to push up the stock market broadly, but their influence is most evident in what have come to be known as “meme stocks.” GameStop surged 1,625 percent in January, for example, even though the video game retailer has struggled financially. The gains for GameStop, AMC Entertainment, and other meme stocks defied gravity — and, in the opinion of nearly every professional investor on Wall Street, common sense.

As if Wall Street had any common sense!

SPACs raise concerns: All the mania around stocks has raised worries along Wall Street that prices may have shot too high. Much of the criticism is focused on how much faster stock prices climbed than corporate profits.

Another potential signal of too much greed and not enough fear: Investors are so hungry for the next big thing that they’re pouring billions of dollars into investments, before they even know what the money could go toward. These investments are called special-purpose acquisition companies, though they’re better known by their acronym, SPACs. Armed with cash raised from investors, SPACs look for privately held companies to buy so that the company can easily list its stock on an exchange.

Last year, SPACs raised $83.4 billion, more than six times the prior year. They’ve already surpassed that level in less than three months this year.

All of a $udden the blank checks that are a gift from heaven are worthle$$?

WTF?

A global recovery: The coronavirus really knows no geographic boundaries. As it devastated populations and economies around the world, global financial markets sustained sharp losses.

The recovery has also been worldwide. Stocks from China, South Korea, and other emerging markets as a group are up almost the exact same percentage as the S&P 500 since March 23, 2020. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index is also up a similar amount.

European markets have been lagging, although their performance is much better when seen in dollar terms instead of euros. Worsening infection rates are raising worries of a “third wave” on the continent and are forcing governments to bring back some restrictions on daily life, but the hope is that the continued rollout of vaccines will get economies and trade back to normal across the world.

Then why are we all locked in the house as the Globe continues to peddle false hope and as traders are betting that growth will swell corporate profits as vaccines work to curb the global pandemic despite warnings from Powell.

Who’s getting left behind? Even with so many first-time investors joining the market stocks, not everyone is benefiting from rising stocks. Only a little more than half of all US households owned stocks in 2019, whether by day-trading stocks or holding an S&P 500 index fund in a 401(k) account.

How ironic that the rest of us are an afterthought in the pre$$.

link

The truth is, they couldn't be more $elf-$erving:

"Bill to help news publishers take on Google, Facebook rises again as Congress eyes antitrust laws" by Tali Arbel Associated Press, March 22, 2021

A congressional effort to bolster US news organizations in negotiations with Big Tech has supporters hoping that the third time’s the charm.

The bill, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, was introduced in March for the third time since 2018. Its odds of passage may have improved in a Democrat-run Congress that’s working on overhauling antitrust laws.

Australia and other countries have started pushing mechanisms to support news publishers against Facebook and Google, which dominate online advertising. Publishers argue that Big Tech squeezes news organizations out of digital ad revenue and exerts undue control over who can see their journalism.

Oddly enough, Google is who the Globe apparently contracts to run the racy clothing ads(?) on their website so.... ????

The bill would offer a four-year antitrust exemption to publishers so they can negotiate as a group with “dominant online platforms.” Facebook and Google get the majority of online ad dollars in the United States. The measure aims to give publishers better leverage with the tech companies, while only allowing coordination that benefits the news industry as a whole, amid a long-running decline in local news.

How odd that they want to break their own unions.

Representative David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors, said in prepared remarks for a hearing earlier this month that the legislation would provide news publishers an “even playing field” to negotiate deals with major tech platforms. The news industry is struggling with falling revenue, shrinking newsrooms, and failing publications — which Cicilline and others call a threat to democracy — while Google and Facebook rack up billions in profits.

They have KEPT OTHERS OFF the "playing field" while calling us "conspiracy theorists," so f**k them!

That doesn't mean I'm for Google or Facef**k; I'm just tired of pre$$ liars whining.

“This bill is a life-support measure, not the answer for ensuring the long-term health of the news industry,” the congressman said.

If it looks like it, feels like it, and $mells like it, then it probably is $TATE MEDIA!

While the bill has Republican cosponsors in both the House and Senate, some Republicans in the same hearing expressed reservations. Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, said he worried about giving more power to large media companies that would suppress conservatives’ opinions. Republicans often assert without evidence that tech companies censor conservatives and right-wing media.

If that isn't the pot hollering kettle I don't know what is, and don;'t take that as support for Jordan because he still takes the tech loot.

The News Guild, a union that represents journalists, says the bill would work best with additional provisions to support jobs. It has long objected to media consolidation and criticizes many publishers for impeding unionization and slashing newsroom jobs, particularly at chains owned by hedge funds and private equity firms.

You know who owns and publi$hes the Globe and how he got his money, right?

News Guild president Jon Schleuss would like the legislation to require publishers to spend 60 percent of the revenue won from bargaining to hire more journalists and support small papers and fund start-ups in “news deserts,” areas where papers have folded. He is worried that instead it might be spent on things like dividends, stock buybacks, and squeezing out higher profit margins.

Microsoft, whose president testified during the hearing, supports the bill. Google and Facebook on Friday declined to comment.

That's because Gates' Microsoft has its own MSN news site, which I will not link.

In February, however, Facebook took the extraordinary step of banning Australian news from its platform to protest a law that would have required it to negotiate with publishers to compensate them for its use of news content. Facebook lifted the ban once the government agreed to modify the law. Microsoft, meanwhile, has teamed up with European publishers to support measures similar to the Australian law in Europe.

Over the past few years, Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple have all come under increasing scrutiny from Congress and regulators. The Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission, and state attorneys general are suing the Internet giants, alleging a variety of antitrust violations, some of which are related to the woes of publishers.

Oh, the poor propagandists, 'er publi$hers as they PUSH LIES!

link

Time to check the archives:

"Microsoft will begin bringing workers back to its suburban Seattle global headquarters on March 29 as the tech giant starts to reopen more facilities it largely shuttered during the coronavirus pandemic. In a post Monday on the company’s corporate blog, executive vice president Kurt DelBene said Microsoft has been monitoring local health data and decided it can bring more employees back to its Redmond, Wash., campus. DelBene said workers will have the choice to return to headquarters, continue working remotely, or do a combination of both. More than 50,000 people work at the company’s headquarters campus in Redmond, 15 miles east of Seattle."

They hope you didn’t get too attached to remote work and it will be good to get back to the office, but getting coffee will never be the same:

"Nestle wants to get in on the back-to-office push with new Nespresso machines for COVID-protected workplaces, without turning its back on coffee drinkers who’ve grown attached to their home devices during months of lockdowns. The maker of Nespresso and Nescafe is set to reassure virus-wary office workers with a new generation of touchless coffee machines, while a rollout of new products seeks to win over those looking to spice up their at-home coffee consumption. The contactless machines can be controlled via smartphone and are being distributed globally, with introductions in Russia and China in coming weeks, David Rennie, head of Nestle’s coffee brands, said in an interview."

"Starbucks set targets to cut emissions and conserve water in the production of coffee it buys from farmers as it seeks to achieve its goal to store more carbon than it emits. The Seattle-based company will take steps including distributing climate-resistant trees, working with growers to cut fertilizer use, and restoring at-risk forests in key coffee areas. It may also buy carbon offsets to bridge the gap in areas where it can’t reduce emissions, ensuring supplies of unroasted coffee are carbon neutral by 2030. It also plans to conserve 50 percent of water in coffee production by then."

Will there be food on the table still, and did you know there would be a new dre$$ code, too?

"Ralph Lauren Corp. seeks to drastically reduce water waste by changing the way it dyes clothes. The retailer plans to start the new method that will reach 80 percent of its solid cotton products by 2025 — a major undertaking for a company that sells millions of polo shirts, T-shirts, and blue jeans each year. The first phase, which cuts water use by 40 percent, involves a textile treatment developed by Dow. The process lets the material absorb color more easily with the company’s existing equipment, lessening water and energy use."

You can try this French negligee on for size:

"Ikea’s French subsidiary and several of its former executives went on trial Monday over accusations that they illegally spied on employees and customers. Trade unions reported the furniture and home goods company to French authorities in 2012, accusing it of collecting personal data by fraudulent means and the illicit disclosure of personal information. The unions specifically alleged that Ikea France had paid to gain access to police files that had information about targeted individuals. Ikea France denied spying on anyone, but Sweden-based Ikea fired four executives in France after French prosecutors opened a criminal probe in 2012. One accusation alleged that Ikea France used unauthorized data to try to catch an employee who had claimed unemployment benefits but drove a Porsche. Another says the subsidiary investigated an employee’s criminal record to determine how the employee was able to own a BMW on a low income." 

"Leon Black, the Wall Street billionaire who appeared to be a main client of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, is stepping down as chief executive officer of Apollo Global Management Inc. months ahead of schedule. Black’s departure from that role had been announced in January, though the firm said at the time that he would leave by July 1. A statement Monday confirmed his immediate exit from the position as well as the chairmanship he’d been expected to keep. It’s an abrupt turn for Black, 69, a Wall Street legend who built Apollo into one of the most fearsome — and profitable — names in American finance. He cited unspecified health issues for himself and his wife in announcing his exit. Black and Apollo have been dealing with the fallout from his extensive links with convicted sex offender Epstein, which brought unprecedented scrutiny and unsettled clients and shareholders."

Weak!

I'll bet he goes on a cruise:

"Carnival Cruise Line extended its COVID-19 shutdown through May 31, while the company works to resume operations. A restart date hasn’t been determined, the company said Wednesday. As it has done throughout the shutdown, Carnival is providing guests on canceled trips the choice of a future cruise credit plus an onboard credit package, or a full refund. The industry has essentially been on hold since it paused operations in mid-March, almost a year ago, after a series of dramatic and deadly outbreaks at sea, but the companies themselves don’t have the ultimate say in when they sail again." 

Who does then? 

Tyrannical governments?

Banks?

Time to GET OUTSIDE and ENJOY GOD'S GIFT myself!