OH JOY! - ANOTHER CONSPIRACY THEORY!

 Peter Navarro Says 'Sociopath' Anthony Fauci Will Be 'Gone Within 90 Days'

He also claimed that Fauci had funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan. Fauci has said no such research was funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH).

"Tony Fauci is the father of the virus," Navarro said. "It came from that lab."

Navarro said Fauci had funded the lab through third parties.

"And Tony Fauci greased the skids for gain-of-function experimentation, which weaponizes viruses. We know all that," Navarro said.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/newspolitics/peter-navarro-says-sociopath-anthony-fauci-will-be-gone-within-90-days/ar-AAKorPa?ocid=mailsignout&li=AAggNb9

Federal law enforcement continues to fail: Fire Merrick Garland

“Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.” -- façade of the Justice Department building in Washington, D.C.

“The DoJ should read and act in accord with its own façade.” -- Germaine

In another deep disappointment from federal law enforcement, the Department of Justice looks set to try to defend the ex-president by keeping the public in the dark about his crimes and the crimes of the thugs who worked for him. The Washington Post writes:

The Justice Department late Monday night released part of a key internal document used in 2019 to justify not charging President Donald Trump with obstruction, but also signaled it would fight a judge’s effort to make the entire document public.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a scathing opinion saying that she had read the memo and that it showed that Barr was disingenuous when he cited the document as key to his conclusion that Trump had not broken the law.

She also accused department lawyers of misleading her about the internal discussions that surrounded the memo and ordered the memo be released, though she gave the government several weeks to decide whether to appeal.

As that deadline neared, the government filed papers seeking both to appeal the ruling and to appease the court by offering a partially unredacted version of the document — making the first two pages public, while filing an appeal to try to keep the other half-dozen pages secret.

“In retrospect, the government acknowledges that its briefs could have been clearer, and it deeply regrets the confusion that caused. But the government’s counsel and declarants did not intend to mislead the Court,” the Justice Department lawyers wrote in asking the judge to keep the rest of the document under seal while they appeal her ruling.

The government acknowledges that its briefs could have been clearer? That's a lie. Opacity was the intent from the get go.[1] But the government’s counsel and declarants did not intend to mislead the Court? Another lie. The DoJ is still lying, corrupt and incompetent. The rule of law continues to erode and fascist Republican tyranny keeps moving closer. 

If there is a good reason for Garland to keep the American people in the dark, he owes us an explanation right now. There has been enough time for the DoJ to get its act together and do something. If there's no solid justification, Garland should be fired immediately.

Question: Should Garland be fired for corruption and/or incompetence? Should the ex-president be above the law, as he has mostly been so far?

Footnote: 

1. Former DoJ attorney Andrew Weissmann was one of Robert Mueller’s top deputies in the special counsel’s investigation of the 2016 election. The Atlantic interviewed Weissman and wrote this in September of 2020:

“There’s no question I was frustrated at the time,” Weissmann told me in a recent interview. “There was more that could be done that we didn’t do.” .... Suddenly, in March 2019, the Special Counsel’s Office completed its work. A report, hundreds of pages long, with many lines blacked out, was delivered to the attorney general. Before releasing it to the public, Barr pronounced the president innocent, in a brazen mix of elisions, distortions, and outright lies—for the report presented extensive evidence of cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russian assets, and of the president’s efforts to obstruct justice. The lesson Trump took from the Mueller investigation was that he could do anything he wanted. He declared himself vindicated, vowed to pursue the pursuers, and immediately turned to extorting favors for another election from another foreign country. Uproar over “Russiagate” gave way to uproar over “Ukrainegate.” The Mueller report faded away, as if it had all been for nothing.

So far, it looks like it really was all for nothing. The American people still have not seen the entire, unredacted Mueller report or the underlying evidence. Each day that passes is another lie of omission and another outrageous insult of the American people. A pox and a curse on both corrupt, lying, incompetent political parties.

Is any form of reparation for past racism in America an intractable problem?

Is it justified, or just more illegal discrimination, 

to try to make up for past discrimination?

An article in the New York Times highlights how hard, or maybe impossible, it is to try to equalize the playing field for minorities that have been discriminated against. Expressions of bitterness and resentment from Whites flow freely, along with accompanying lawsuits fighting against federal equalization efforts. The NYT writes:

LaGRANGE, Mo. — Shade Lewis had just come in from feeding his cows one sunny spring afternoon when he opened a letter that could change his life: The government was offering to pay off his $200,000 farm loan, part of a new debt relief program created by Democrats to help farmers who have endured generations of racial discrimination.

But the $4 billion fund has angered conservative white farmers who say they are being unfairly excluded because of their race. And it has plunged Mr. Lewis and other farmers of color into a new culture war over race, money and power in American farming.

The debt relief is redress set aside for what the government calls “socially disadvantaged farmers” — Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and other nonwhite workers who have endured a long history of discrimination, from violence and land theft in the Jim Crow South to banks and federal farm offices that refused them loans or government benefits that went to white farmers.

Now, raw conversations about discrimination in farming are unfolding at farmers’ markets and on rural social media channels where race is often an uncomfortable subject.

“It’s a bunch of crap,” said Jeffrey Lay, who grows corn and soybeans on 2,000 acres and is president of the county farm bureau. “They talk about they want to get rid of discrimination. But they’re not even thinking about the fact that they’re discriminating against us.”

Even in a county that is 94 percent white, Mr. Lay said the federal government’s renewed focus on helping farmers of color made him feel like he was losing ground, a sign to him of the country’s demographic shifts.

“I can’t afford to go buy that 5,000-acre piece of ground,” he said. “Shade Lewis, he’d qualify to get it. And that’s fine. That doesn’t bother me. But I can’t.”

Many farmers of color have welcomed the debt relief, which was tucked into the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief act, as well as even more ambitious measures proposed by Democrats to grant plots of up to 160 acres to Black farmers.

But rural residents upset with the repayments call them reverse racism.

White conservative farmers and ranchers from Florida, Texas and the Midwest quickly sued to block the program, arguing that the promised money amounts to illegal discrimination. America First Legal, a group run by the former Trump aide Stephen Miller, is backing the Texas lawsuit, whose plaintiff is the state’s agriculture commissioner.  

“It’s anti-white,” said Jon Stevens, one of five Midwestern farmers who filed a lawsuit through the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative legal group. “Since when does Agriculture get into this kind of race politics?”

“We’re getting the short end,” said John Wesley Boyd Jr., a Virginia bean and grain farmer who is also founder of the National Black Farmers Association. “Anytime in the United States, if there’s money for Blacks, those groups speak up and say how unfair it is. But it’s not unfair when they’re spitting on you, when they’re calling you racial epithets, when they’re tearing up your application.”

The NYT points out that banks are opposing the fund, ostensibly fearing loss of interest income form loan defaults. White farmers have started their own "All Farmers Matter" movement. Lewis stated that banks in his area of Missouri scoffed at his requests for loans and federal farm agents refused to even speak to him. 

Clearly, some or most White farmers see no role for federal support targeted to any race. Presumably the reasoning is that past injustices either did not happen or that even if discrimination did happen in the past, that still does not justify targeting federal support based on race. The fact that discrimination is still happening appears to be lost on some or most White farmers. The two sides seems to be mostly polarizing and talking past each other.

Questions: Is past discrimination against black and other minority farmers (i) a myth, or (ii) not a myth, but also not adequate justification for federal support based on race?[1] Should the federal government never offer any help to any group or economic sector based on race based on past discrimination, e.g., because it amounts to unconstitutional discrimination against Whites? 

Footnote: 

1. The National Black Farmer Organization and public records indicate that discrimination against black farmers has existed for decades, including discrimination against Black farmers by federal farm agencies, e.g., the Department of Agriculture. One federal discrimination survey document written in 1965 included this: "(1) that in the CES [Cooperative Extension Service] many thousands of Negro farmers are denied access to services provided to white farmers which would help them to diversify, increase production, achieve adequate farming operations or train for off-farm employment; .... and  (4) that there were no Negroes among the almost 5,000 ASCS [Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service] county committeemen in 11 Southern States."

Demographic good news!

https://vizhub.healthdata.org/population-forecast/

The New York Times reports on some incredibly good news for a change. According to current projections, the global human population is probably going to start declining sometime around 2050. The NYT writes:

All over the world, countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history that will make first-birthday parties a rarer sight than funerals, and empty homes a common eyesore.

Maternity wards are already shutting down in Italy. Ghost cities are appearing in northeastern China. Universities in South Korea can’t find enough students, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of properties have been razed, with the land turned into parks.

Like an avalanche, the demographic forces — pushing toward more deaths than births — seem to be expanding and accelerating. Though some countries continue to see their populations grow, especially in Africa, fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere else. Demographers now predict that by the latter half of the century or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first time.  

The 20th century presented a very different challenge. The global population saw its greatest increase in known history, from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6 billion in 2000, as life spans lengthened and infant mortality declined. In some countries — representing about a third of the world’s people — those growth dynamics are still in play. By the end of the century, Nigeria could surpass China in population; across sub-Saharan Africa, families are still having four or five children.

But nearly everywhere else, the era of high fertility is ending. .... Even in countries long associated with rapid growth, such as India and Mexico, birthrates are falling toward, or are already below, the replacement rate of 2.1 children per family.

The NYT goes on to point out a couple of things. For example, lower populations will take some pressure off the environment and governments world wide. Detrimental climate change could slow, assuming it's not already too late to slow the damage. 

Over a period of decades, an exponential downward population spiral could occur. Fewer births means fewer girls grow up to have children. If they have smaller families than their parents did the population decrease accelerates. These days, family size in most countries is decreasing, so the downward spiral could happen.

It's all just good news.

Questioning the standard pharmaceutical industry defense of high drug prices

Katie Porter asking some interesting questions

The pharmaceutical industry has long defended astronomically high drug prices for Americans by arguing they need to spend billions and billions of dollars to find new drugs. The industry threat is that if drug prices are regulated by government negotiation, the industry will go extinct and new drugs will cease to come forth from the miracle of the operation of the unfettered free market.

The following 2-minute video of Democratic California Representative Katie Porter (Harvard Law School (2001), Yale University (1996), Phillips Academy — Andover) questioning AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez is of some interest in this matter.

Questions: If the AbbVie financials presented in the video are reasonably representative of the entire big pharma industry, how well has unregulated free markets served the public interest in this economic sector compared to the private sector? Will Porter's questioning of Gonzalez make any noticeable difference in drug prices or industry propaganda? Does any difference need to be made? Katie Porter for president 2024?

Attacks on the free press by autocratic radical right capitalism continue

NPR segment on media consolidation

Under the ex-president's corrupt, anti-democratic, autocratic administration, political attacks on the free press and news media were stepped up enormously. Before then, news media had been under severe economic stress. Media presence was shrinking ever since cable TV came along and converted news from news to infoTAIMNET, i.e., little information, lots of entertainment and corporate restrictions on what could even be reported. The owners did not, and still do not, want to offend advertisers or themselves via reporting inconvenient truths.  

In 2017, the FCC repealed its rule limiting concentration of media ownership in different markets. A single owner could now legally dominate entire markets with their propaganda and anti-democratic demagoguery. The Washington Post wrote: "Federal regulators rolled back decades-old rules on Thursday, making it far easier for media outlets to be bought and sold — potentially leading to more newspapers, radio stations and television broadcasters being owned by a handful of companies. .... With the rise of blogs, websites and podcasts, [FCC Chairman Ajit Pai] said, traditional media outlets now face more competition than ever — and rules that once enforced a diversity of viewpoints are no longer needed."

That was a lie. The FCC rules were intended to reduce the diversity of viewpoints in major news outlets. That is what happened in the wake of the 2017 rule change. A central goal of the radical right Republican propaganda Leviathtan has been to consolidate media ownership into the hands of fewer and fewer politically radical right owners. After the FCC rule change, the radical right Sinclair Broadcasting Leviathan bought dozens of media outlets. Sinclair immediately ramped up its fascist propaganda output. People in newsrooms who objected to spewing propaganda and lies were fired (some even faced having to pay Sinclair for quitting) and replaced with people willing to do the job right. Doing the job right meant deceiving and polarizing the American people.

Media consolidation and direct attacks on journalism continue today. The New York Times reports on a new wave of consolidation with an imminent dismantling of news reporting in the name of profitability. The NYT writes:

Tribune Publishing, the owner of some of the largest metropolitan newspapers in the United States, will be acquired by a hedge fund with a reputation for slashing costs and cutting newsroom jobs, after shareholders voted to approve the deal on Friday.

The sale of Tribune, whose titles include The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and The New York Daily News, to Alden Global Capital comes at a time of crisis for local news. The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated the headwinds facing small newspapers as spending from advertisers collapsed. But even before the pandemic, more than 2,000 American newspapers closed between 2004 and 2019 and about half of the jobs in the industry were lost, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina.

The losses have hollowed out local news coverage across the country, and with growing polarization and rampant disinformation, reliable coverage of institutions like state houses and city councils is more important than ever. The slump has crippled outlets that people rely on to know about everything from school board decisions to local sports scores.

Alden, the second-largest newspaper owner in the country, will gain control of nine daily newspapers, adding them to a stable of about 200 other publications. Alden says its intention is to ensure newsrooms can survive, but its critics point to a record of slashing spending and cutting back on reporting as it focuses on extracting profits for its shareholders.  

“The purchase of Tribune reaffirms our commitment to the newspaper industry and our focus on getting publications to a place where they can operate sustainably over the long term,” Heath Freeman, the president of Alden, said in a statement Friday.

There is no reason to believe that Aldon has any concern for loss of journalists in pursuit of sustainable operations. Its track record speaks for itself. Aldon is ruthlessly for-profit, but at least it is honest about it. Other than making money, it has no social conscience or moral compass. Journalists just cut into profits and thus need to go. Good looking entertainers are what's needed for these hurly burly days of capitalism.

Questions: Is it fair and/or rational to believe that under current circumstances, (1) capitalism is generally inimical to professional journalism, and (2) waves of media consolidation is part of an overall fascist conservative political goal to control political messaging in as many outlets as possible? What response, if any, would be good for the pubic interest, or should capitalism be allowed to run free and wild as most or all Republican elites and billionaires believe it should? Do podcasts or small blogs, such as, say, Dissident Politics, really provide meaningful diversity of viewpoint compared to major broadcast and print media sources? Is this another conservative attack on democracy by weakening news reporting, or is it just capitalism doing its free and wild thing and needs to be left alone?