Tues-When Wall Street Invades Main Street, It Can't Be Good.

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Today's Worst Joke in the World

Bury me with my old records.  It will be my vinyl resting place.
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I Don't Usually Copy An Entire Opinion Piece, But I Think This Guy Nailed It

The tenacious work of the Jan. 6 committee has transformed how we think about the Jan. 6 rebellion. It should also transform the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Before the hearings, federal agents and prosecutors were performing a classic “bottom up” criminal investigation of the Jan. 6 rioters, which means prosecuting the lowest-ranking members of a conspiracy, flipping people as it proceeds and following the evidence as high as it goes. It was what I did at the Justice Department for investigations of the Genovese and Colombo crime families, Enron and Volkswagen as well as for my part in the investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election led by the special counsel Robert Mueller.

But that is actually the wrong approach for investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. That approach sees the attack on the Capitol as a single event — an isolated riot, separate from other efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the election.

The hearings should inspire the Justice Department to rethink its approach: A myopic focus on the Jan. 6 riot is not the way to proceed if you are trying to follow the facts where they lead and to hold people “at any level” criminally accountable, as Attorney General Merrick Garland promised.

The evidence gathered in the hearings describes a multiprong conspiracy — what prosecutors term a hub and spoke conspiracy — in which the Ellipse speech by President Trump and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol were just one “spoke” of a grander scheme.

This broader approach would avoid the thorny debate that has emerged as to whether Mr. Trump could be criminally culpable for inciting the riot during his Ellipse speech or if, on the contrary, his speech is protected under the First Amendment and the evidence too ambiguous to justify the extraordinary step of indicting a former president. Building a criminal case that looks solely at the riot itself is far more complex legally and factually for those who weren’t at or in the Capitol. These challenges of the current bottom-up approach have led to criticism of the slow pace of the narrow Justice Department approach.

Instead, what the hearings have revealed is evidence of a plot orchestrated by Mr. Trump and his allies in the White House and elsewhere — including players from the Mueller investigation like Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani as well as new players like Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman. The “spoke” of the Jan. 6 riot should be seen and investigated simultaneously with the other “spokes”: orchestrating fake electors in key states, pressuring state officials like those in Georgia to find new votes, plotting to behead the leadership of the Justice Department to promote a lackey who would further the conspiracy by announcing a spurious investigation into election fraud, and pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to violate the law.

Investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection in the context of the other means by which Mr. Trump appears to have sought to undermine the transfer of power serves to strengthen any future case by presenting the complete evidence of the perpetrators’ actions and intent. And it undermines possible defenses.

For instance, the evidence that Mr. Trump lied in a statement about Mr. Pence’s agreeing that he had the power to reject electors undermines the defense that Mr. Trump was acting in good faith and honestly believed he had won the election. And Mr. Trump’s conduct in the White House after his speech at the Ellipse and during the Jan. 6 attack, which includes remarks, reported from testimony by the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, in which Mr. Trump condoned the chants calling for hanging of the vice president of the United States, is strong evidence of his intent for a plan to upend a democratic election.

There are signs that the department, spurred on by the committee, has begun to look into some of these other “spokes." Unsurprisingly, the “spoke” involving the Justice Department itself has attracted acute interest. Recently, federal agents conducted a search of the home of Mr. Clark, whom Mr. Trump considered elevating to be acting head of the Justice Department, and seized the phone of Mr. Eastman, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump on efforts to overturn the election.

But other signs are not so encouraging: Department prosecutors were reportedly surprised by the testimony of Ms. Hutchinson. That is not a sign of a robust investigation into the facts. The department has more tools than Congress does to learn the truth. It could have interviewed Ms. Hutchinson long ago, as well as many others whose evidence is relevant — indeed, Ms. Hutchinson alone provided investigators numerous leads to pursue.

For those who do not voluntarily cooperate with a Justice Department investigation, prosecutors can serve grand jury subpoenas and obtain their testimony under oath, subject to criminal penalties like perjury — just as Georgia state prosecutors are doing. And people can be given immunity to compel their testimony if they validly assert the Fifth Amendment. Obtaining grand-jury testimony is indispensable; it forestalls witnesses from credibly claiming later that they had not made certain statements in an interview or that an interview report is inaccurate (or worse).

I have been involved in numerous high-profile investigations that engendered significant congressional interest, and what I have seen in this inquiry is not typical behavior from the Justice Department. Usually, department prosecutors and agents don’t want Congress jumping ahead of their investigation, and they work hard to make sure that doesn’t happen. The department wants to interview witnesses first, and prosecutors make sure that targets are fully truthful about their own potential wrongdoing and that their testimony is corroborated; use tools to flip recalcitrant witnesses; and build a case without revealing evidence to other prospective witnesses — efforts that can falter if Congress is conducting private and public interviews that may inadvertently undermine the strongest possible criminal case.

Department lawyers and congressional committees usually work collegially to avoid these issues, something that can happen when Congress has faith in the diligence and resolve of the Justice Department. That does not appear to be happening here. We have seen the unusual public filing of a letter from Justice Department leadership seeking access to committee evidence, something largely unnecessary if it had already obtained that evidence. And the fact that the letter was sent is a clear sign of a breakdown in the relationship between the two branches, something I did not see even during high-profile investigations like Enron and the Mueller investigation.

The American public is entitled to a thorough, fearless, competent and fair criminal investigation. That is still possible, and what facts that investigation reveals, and what prosecutorial decisions are made thereafter, will surely be subject to debate. But until we pursue all leads, that debate will be truly academic, to the detriment of our democracy.

Merrick Garland Should Investigate Trump’s 2020 Election Schemes as a ‘Hub and Spoke’ Conspiracy

Also, Previous Guy Should Have Been Indicted Last Year Based on the Mueller Report
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees

What Happens When Two of the Worst Nations in the World Get Together?

Iran plans to supply Russia with potentially hundreds of drones for its war in Ukraine, some with combat capabilities, a US official has said.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the information the US had suggested Iran was preparing to train Russian forces to use the drones.

He added that it was unclear whether Iran had delivered them yet.

Iran said technological co-operation with Russia preceded the war, without confirming or denying the US claim.

Meanwhile They Waste Money on "School Resource Officers"

Thousands of schools across the country lack a basic safety feature that experts have recommended for decades: classroom doors that lock from the inside.

Despite billions of dollars that have been poured into hardening schools nationally, 1 in 4 U.S. public schools lack classroom doors that can be locked from the inside, according to a survey conducted two years ago by the National Center on Education Statistics, a federal research office.

The safety feature is missing in much of Texas: 36% of the state’s schools said they did not have interior-locking doors in the majority of their classrooms, according to a 2018 survey commissioned by Gov. Greg Abbott. Outdated locks are especially common in older school buildings that haven’t been renovated, industry representatives said.

How Does an 11-Year-Old Expect to Drive the Car Away?

An 11-year-old boy was arrested early Monday in an attempted carjacking in Chicago, police said.

Police said the boy, who was not identified, was one of the people who tried to take a 48-year-old woman’s vehicle around 3:50 a.m. in a South Side neighborhood.

He was arrested on a charge of of attempted vehicular hijacking, according to police.

The child was not identified by police. More details were not released Monday. The boy is expected to appear in juvenile court Tuesday, police said.

Children around that age have been arrested in carjackings in Chicago in the past.

Police Superintendent David Brown at a February press conference commented on the young age of people being arrested for carjackings, saying half were juveniles, "and many are repeat offenders."

Barr Has Already Said DOJ Investigated and Found No Evidence of Fraud

"Former Attorney General William Barr has been subpoenaed as part of an ongoing 2020 election defamation lawsuit against Fox News brought by voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems, according to the court docket in the case."

To Call This "Treason" Shows a Lack of Reason

Peter Navarro, former trade adviser to Donald Trump, accused Mike Pence of treason for refusing to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election ― a power the vice president does not have.

He also seems to think Trump’s vice president should have been more loyal to the president than to the country.

Speaking on the right-wing Newsmax network on Monday, Navarro ― who was indicted last month for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection ― said:

“The reason why I think Pence is guilty of treason, to at least President Trump and perhaps to this country, is that he acted on the basis of a flawed legal opinion concocted by his own general counsel that he did not share with either the president or with the president’s White House legal counsel. Due process plus duty to the commander in chief required you to do that.”

Treason is the only crime specifically defined in the U.S. Constitution. It’s an act of war by an American against the United States or giving aid and comfort to the nation’s enemies.

It is not personal disloyalty to a president who is trying to subvert the Constitution and remain in office despite losing the election.

But Navarro has his own definition ― and then went even further in his attack on Pence, calling him a traitor.

“So by the time Jan. 6 rolled around, Pence’s actions were kind of baked into the cake based on both traitorous activity with respect to the president and flawed legal opinions,” he said:

Herschel Lie-Walker Shows He Isn't a Climate Scientist



But He is Dangerous



When Wall Street Invades Main Street, It Can't Be Good.  Apparently They Are Learning Slum Management from Jared Kushner;

Invitation Homes advertises that it is leading a real estate “revolution.”

Formed by Wall Street investors after the Great Recession and foreclosure crisis, the company accumulated tens of thousands of houses at depressed prices, spent hundreds of millions of dollars on renovations and now leases them out. Never before has a single landlord owned such large swaths of suburban America. As rents have risen in recent years, the value of the publicly traded company has soared to more than $23 billion.

“Top-quality homes,” it promises prospective renters, “maintained by top-level professionals.”

Yet some of the company’s homes have missed basic quality checks: Renovations at the company’s rapidly assembled collection of 80,000 homes often were made without building permits, according to a review of Invitation Homes properties in several states, a California lawsuit and a Washington Post analysis of building data in three cities.

Skipping building permits may have allowed the company to avoid costly delays and save millions in fees, according to estimates based on the number of company homes. But forgoing the permits, which are required by city codes to ensure quality and safety, has led to shoddy repairs and maintenance that puts tenants at risk, renters said.

“We’re paying $4,000 a month to live in hell,” said Celeste Jackson, a Los Angeles entrepreneur who lives with her husband in an Invitation Homes property. Before she moved in, a third bedroom was created in the home without the permits required to do so, according to floor plans of the property and interviews with tenants. Since then, the couple said they have suffered through cracked skylights, rotten wood and flooding so frequent that the company left sandbags at their door for months.

Today's Biggest Loser:  Steve Bannon

Trump appointed Federal District Judge Carl Nichols is no liberal. Nichols has shown more sympathy than most federal judges towards Jan. 6th defendants by rejecting charges of Obstruction of Congress against defendants — something other federal Judges have rejected. Bannon must have felt pretty good about his chances to turn his Contempt of Congress (for refusing to testify before the January 6th Select Committee) trial into a pro-Trump circus or having it delayed for several months when he appeared before Judge Nichols today.

That didn’t happen. Judge Nichols ruled against Bannon on virtually every motion made by Bannon’s defense team and the hearing ended with Bannon’s attorney David Schoen saying:  "What's the point in going to trial here if there are no defenses?"

Specifically, Judge Nichols ruled against Bannon on the following motions:

Prosecutors do not have to prove Bannon knew that refusing to testify was “illegal or wrong.” Prosecutors only have to prove Bannon “deliberately” and “intentionally” defied the subpoena issued by the Jan. 6th Committee. Much lower burden of proof.

Bannon cannot hide behind internal Department of Justice opinions or assertions of executive privilege because they are not relevant to the decision to not comply with the subpoena. THIS IS THE PRIMARY DEFENSE BANNON HAS ASSERTED IN HIS COURT FILINGS!!! Bannon’s only remaining defense is misunderstanding the date of his required appearance or that he had reason to believe the deadline was extended.

Nor can Bannon assert entrapment by estoppel or public authority as a defense — in other words, Bannon cannot say he is innocent because he believed Trump had asserted executive privilege.

Even if Trump had asserted executive privilege — Trump is now a civilian, not a Federal official. But Trump did not instruct Bannon to defy the subpoena anyway.

The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinions on executive privilege are irrelevant — Bannon is only a former aide to a former president.

Judge Nichols again affirms that the Jan 6th Committee is legally constituted and Bannon may not claim otherwise as part of his defence.

Bannon may NOT grill witnesses about their political affiliations.

Bannon may NOT introduce evidence that Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino defied Jan. 6th Committee subpoenas and were not charged with contempt of Congress. Nor may Bannon introduce evidence related to the DOJ decisions not to charge these two with Contempt of Congress.

BIG ONE: Bannon REALLY wanted to subpoena Nancy Pelosi and Jan. 6th Committee members to turn the trial into a circus. Judge Nichols ain’t having it — members of congress are protected by the “speech and debate” clause of the Constitution

And, to top off Bannon’s VERY BAD NO GOOD HORRIBLE DAY, Judge Nichols denied the motion to delay the trial noting that voir dire would remove jurors who had already formed opinions based on the news coverage of the Jan. 6th hearings.

Trial starts July 18th.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees

Forcing the QOP to Vote Against It

Just over two weeks after the Supreme Court handed a historic victory to anti-abortion Republicans by repealing Roe v. Wade, Senate Democrats are moving to protect interstate travel for abortion care.

The Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act of 2022, shared exclusively with HuffPost, aims to counteract some of these attacks by protecting the right to travel freely from state to state to seek reproductive health care services. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) introduced the bill Tuesday morning, along with nearly three dozen Democratic co-sponsors, including Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that Democrats in the lower chamber will soon vote on similar legislation, aimed at “addressing the GOP’s disturbing threats to restrict Americans’ freedom to travel — reaffirming the Constitutional right to seek care freely and voluntarily throughout the country.”

This Isn't Ironic, But ..



In England, They Don't Hunt Squirrels With AK-47s

“Jimmy Kimmel Live” guest host Anthony Anderson took on Texas’ relentless attacks on women’s rights in his monologue on Monday night, and he did it by referring to a recent news report about squirrels.

“In England, they’ve got so many gray squirrels running around they’re thinking about putting them on birth control,” the actor/comic and star of “Black-ish” said. “For real. You know things are messed up when squirrels in London have more rights than women in Texas.”
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Invasions Have Consequences

Day 139

Fighting

At least seven people have been killed and 40 injured as a result of a Ukrainian air raid on the city of Nova Kakhovka in the Russian-occupied Kherson region, according to Moscow’s state news agency TASS, citing a Russian-backed official. 




The death toll from a Russian rocket attack that hit an apartment block in the Donetsk town of Chasiv Yar over the weekend has risen to 33, Ukraine’s ministry of internal affairs reported.

Russian troops are making small, incremental territorial gains in the Donetsk region, with Russia claiming to have seized control of the village of Hryhorivka, the United Kingdom’s defence ministry said.

About 80 percent of residents have been evacuated from the Donetsk region since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said, according to Ukrinform.







Diplomacy

The United States alleged Russia is turning to Iran to provide it with “hundreds” of unmanned aerial vehicles, including weapons-capable drones, for use in Ukraine.

The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), a Russian-backed secessionist territory in eastern Ukraine, will open an embassy in Moscow today, Monocle magazine reported.

The prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv and reaffirmed his country’s support for Ukraine “politically, militarily and economically”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree expanding a fast track to Russian citizenship to all citizens of Ukraine, a document published on the government’s website showed.

Economy

Europe’s dependence on Russian energy was preoccupying policymakers and businesses as the biggest pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany began 10 days of annual maintenance. Governments, markets and companies are worried the shutdown might be extended because of the war.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has offered to mediate on the grain issue, discussed it with Putin by telephone. The Kremlin said the talks took place in the run-up to a Russian-Turkish summit scheduled for the near future.

French carmaker Renault reported a plunge in its vehicle sales by 30 percent in the first half of 2022 after shutting down activities in Russia, its second-biggest market.

Latvia may have to increase its defence spending and introduce compulsory military service for citizens regardless of their gender to contain any possible security risks arising from Russia, President Egils Levits said.



Kyselivka Leads to Kherson?

Monday, Ukrainian forces reportedly liberated the town of Kyselivka.

In the last census, Kyselivka had a population of just over 2,500. Compared to the Russian capture of a town like Severodonetsk (pop. 101,000 before the invasion), this may not seem like that big a deal. And it’s not—this isn’t the capture of a major city. However, Kyselivka is important because it was one of the points where Russian forces had dug in, fortified the area, and established a line that Ukrainian forces had been unable to budge in weeks of fighting. Now that line is broken.

Rather than being comparable to the capture of Severodonetsk, this is more like when Russia breached Ukrainian defenses at Toshkivka. It wasn’t the capture of a major city, but it set up that capture. Kyselivka wasn’t just one of Russia’s two hard points along the M14 road running into the heart of Kherson, it may be the first time in this part of the battlefield that Ukrainian troops have successfully dislodged Russian forces from a well-fortified position.

What happens in the immediate fall of Kyselivka isn’t clear. It’s extremely unlikely to lead to a rapid capture of Kherson. But it does bring Ukrainian troops and weapons closer to the city, as well as making it more difficult for Russia to hold positions north and south of Kyselivka. Ukrainian forces have ranged south and west of Kyselivka on Tuesday, though it’s not clear that any additional towns or villages have been secured.



When it comes to the remainder of the region, Kyselivka may not be the only place where Russian lines are getting bent back. At the far northern end of the line, the positions of Vysokopillya seem more and more tenuous. In fact, some posts are claiming that Ukraine is largely in control of the area, with some of that wince-worthy euphemistic “mopping up” still underway. One Russian Telegram post described actions there as Russia attempting to “take back” the town from Ukrainian control. Both of these descriptions may be optimistic, and there is no doubt that fighting is still going on in the area, but Ukraine’s position seems to be improving.

There are a few other points worth noting before we leave Kherson:

Way up on the northeast corner of the map, Zolota Balka is listed as in dispute. For weeks I had it as liberated by Ukraine, then somewhere when I wasn’t paying close attention, it seems to have slipped back into Russian occupation. Now there does seem to be active fighting for control of the town.

When it comes to that bridgehead south of Davydiv Brid, in spite of many sites wiping it from their maps, multiple reports from Russian sources that it was completely destroyed, and more recent reports that Russia was “pushing those troops back across the Inhulets,” the only thing I can say is it’s not gone. It’s not even clear that Ukraine has lost control of the villages it secured after making the crossing.

Southwest of Snihurivka there’s a new bulge of yellow on this map, and several villages that had been marked as under Ukrainian control are now marked as in dispute. This doesn’t represent a fresh offensive by Russia. It’s another in the long line of reports that I missed from days/weeks ago. Russian troops are reportedly operating in this area with only limited Ukrainian presence, but they don’t seem to be attempting to occupy/fortify positions in this area.

Nova Kakhovka, which stands on the eastern side of one of the two critical bridges across the mighty Dnipro River, was the site of that absolutely spectacular explosion on Monday in which a HIMARS system took out a Russian ammunition depot with semi-apocalyptic results that seem to have made Russians very sad. At midday on Tuesday, there are still reportedly explosions going off at the site of this strike.

Ukrainian artillery has been absolutely hammering the area around Kherson airport for days, and reportedly took out the Russian base at Chornobaivka on Monday. This strike reportedly took down a series of warehouses, destroyed equipment on the ground, and killed over a dozen senior officers. Chornobaivka is that second “hard point” on the road to Kherson. It seems as if it may be a lot softer than it was a week ago.

Are the Quilters Leaving?



Russia Will Have to Try to Pick Up the Pieces After This

Lego, the Danish toymaking giant, has said it will stop operating in Russia indefinitely due to "continued extensive disruption".

The firm stopped delivering products to Russia in March following the invasion of Ukraine, but its shops remained open as most rival retailers pulled out.

Lego said it would now end its partnership with Inventive Retail Group which runs 81 shops on Lego's behalf.

How Swede It Would Be!  Cool Video.



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A Terrifying Headline

"Americans may get the one presidential race the country doesn’t want in 2024: Trump vs Biden"  

Apparently this is not no country for old men.
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Medical News

12 for 12

Scientists and healthcare professionals are excited by the new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June. The study, carried out at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, followed 12 patients who had a specific form of rectal cancer and were given the new drug, dostarlimab, developed by pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline.

The drug was given to the patients every three to six months at a cost of $11,000 for each dose. Some of the participants also had standard chemo/radiotherapy and surgery, but for those who responded well to the drug, this step could be skipped.

At the end of their treatment, all 12 participants were found to be in remission and no trace of cancer was found on physical examination or scans.

The type of cancer being treated was a specific mismatch repair deficient (MMRd) locally advanced rectal cancer. Mismatch repair genes are involved in correcting mistakes made when DNA is copied in a cell. When they are deficient, as is the case with these tumours, DNA mutations can take place and lead to cancer.

Dostarlimab is from a group of drugs called anti-programmed death-1 (anti-PD1) monoclonal antibodies. These specific rectal tumour cells being treated have special immunosuppressive properties known as programmed death-1 (PD-1), which down-regulate immune cells known as T-cells which are needed to destroy them. Dostarlimab, an anti-PD1, interferes with this process so the cancer cells can no longer protect themselves against the T-cells and the immune system is then able to attack and kill them.

The new study takes us a step closer to the ultimate goal of cancer treatment, to provide individual personalised care to each patient specific to their tumour. Every person’s cancer will have subtle differences in the type of mutations the cancer cells have, by giving drugs that are targeted to that individual’s specific cancer type and, more importantly, the very specific mutations that patients have will improve positive outcome rates.

Pigs Hearts for Dead People

New research in which doctors transplanted genetically modified pig hearts into people who were clinically dead could pave the way for human trials and a future with more organ transplants that can prolong lives.

In the past month, researchers at NYU Langone Health transplanted pig hearts into two people who had recently suffered catastrophic heart failure and were left brain dead but remained on life support.

In both cases, the new hearts beat strongly and were not immediately rejected by the host bodies. The hearts continued to function well until the conclusion of the three-day experiment, doctors said.

“The heart was literally banging away. It was contracting completely normally,” Dr. Nader Moazami, a surgeon who was part of the transplant team, said of the moments after the heart restarted. “We learned a tremendous amount.”

Doctors at the University of Maryland last year implanted a pig heart into a living patient, but it failed after 49 days. The NYU research in subjects considered deceased is different because it allows researchers to rigorously test, refine treatments and collect detailed data without fear that experimentation will take a patient’s life.

The doctors hope that their research model — of testing pig organs in clinics with deceased patients — can help prepare the medical community for clinical trials and reduce the chances that living patients’ immune systems will turn on new organs. Nationwide, fewer organs are available for transplant than are needed by patients; pig organs could expand access to transplants and allow doctors to broaden who is eligible for such procedures.

“It’s all about going into the first living human trials with as much data as we can possibly have and make it as safe as possible — and effective,” said Dr. Robert Montgomery, the director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute.

Doctors have long pursued new ways to meet the nation’s need for transplant organs.

In 2021, more than 116,000 people in the United States were accepted to waiting lists for an organ transplant, according to the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

The same year, 6,166 people died while waiting for their number to be called.

Another Dark Side of COVID

The coronavirus pandemic caused a surge in superbug infections and deaths in U.S. hospitals, reversing years of progress fighting one of the gravest public health challenges in modern medicine, according to a new analysis released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, infections and deaths among several serious pathogens increased about 15 percent overall from 2019, the report said. Infections of one especially dangerous drug-resistant bacteria that causes bloodstream and urinary tract infections skyrocketed 78 percent in one year.

The report analyzed antimicrobial resistance in the United States, focusing specifically on superbug infections that started in hospitals.

Public health efforts had driven down these resistant infections in hospitals by nearly 30 percent between 2012 and 2017. But in 2020, the pandemic pushed hospitals, health departments and communities “near their breaking points,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky wrote in the report.

Sicker patients overwhelmed hospitals. They needed more frequent and longer use of medical devices, such as catheters and ventilators. Devices that break the body’s natural protective barrier — the skin — increase infection risk.

Clinicians unfamiliar with the new covid-19 disease relied heavily on antibiotics as the first option to treat patients with fever and shortness of breath — symptoms of the viral illness. From March 2020 to October 2020, almost 80 percent of patients hospitalized with covid-19 received an antibiotic, the report said. Those lifesaving drugs work against bacteria, not against viruses. High levels of antibiotic prescribing can put patients at risk for side effects and allow drug-resistance to develop and spread.

And Another

As far as Long Covid is concerned, I believe neuro-Covid to be one of the most insidious of the lingering effects. COVID has been shown to induce the shrinkage of brain tissue as well as the formation of microclots (thrombi), among other effects, leading to what has been euphemistically called “brain fog.”

I prefer to call this brain damage, as that more accurately describes what is going on. In fact, more scientists have been willing to liken what is happening in the coronavirus-infected brain to a concussion or other traumatic brain injury. Considering the gross physiological insults the brain sustains in this process, that is exactly what is going on. COVID causes traumatic injury to one of the most complex and sensitive organs in the body.

So this new study comes from the journal Brain, and it fills in many gaps in the current understanding of how COVID-induced “brain fog” occurs. The research team was led by Dr. Avindra Nath, clinical director at National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

For some time, scientists have speculated that the virus, which has been found in the parenchyma (i.e., tissue) of the brain, may enter through one or more of several routes. A direct route would be through the olfactory bulb and related nerve in the nose. Another would be via the vagus nerve. Alternatively, the virus could infect endothelial cells and thereby gain access to neurons and their supporting cells known as glia. Lastly, the virus could enter through a disrupted blood-brain barrier (BBB), along with other cells such as leukocytes (aka white blood cells).

It’s important to note that any combination of these may be taking place; or some other, not yet described pathway may be involved.

The researchers found specifically that the process of neurological damage in COVID implicates at least one of these pathways: that of a disrupted BBB. Yet they also demonstrate that in this cascade glia become activated as well, which further damage various areas in the brain.

Scientists discover how COVID-induced brain "fog" (i.e., brain damage) may occur
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Are They Counting Fetuses and Embryos?

The United Nations estimated Monday that the world’s population will reach 8 billion on Nov. 15 and that India will replace China as the world’s most populous nation next year.

In a report released on World Population Day, the U.N. also said global population growth fell below 1% in 2020 for the first time since 1950.

According to the latest U.N. projections, the world’s population could grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and a peak of around 10.4 billion during the 2080s. It is forecast to remain at that level until 2100.

The report says more than half the projected increase in population up to 2050 will be concentrated in just eight countries: Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.
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Is Inflation Slowing?

Several early warning signs of inflation — including commodity prices and inflation expectations — are easing, and economists say that should lead to softer price increases in a few months.

"There does seem to be a lot of things taking shape that (indicate) declining price increases will materialize," says Barclays economist Jonathan Millar.

The bad news: The encouraging data isn’t expected to show up in the June consumer price index (CPI), due out Wednesday, with the annual rise likely to notch another new 40-year high of 8.8%.

And that ugly report will probably prompt the Federal Reserve to jack up its key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point for a second straight month later in July, according to economists and fed fund futures. Friday’s jobs report also helped solidify the move because it showed strong employment gains of 372,000 and a big drop in the number of workers looking for jobs, a dynamic that tends to push up wages.
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