by Jacob Grier, Motive, June 17, 2024.
Excerpt:
Since March of final 12 months, the Australian state of Victoria has been rocked by a collection of arsons and firebombings. A few of the targets are victims of extortion; others are caught in an escalating turf warfare between rival gangs. Two males with hyperlinks to organized crime have been publicly murdered, one in a broad-daylight taking pictures at a shopping center in a Melbourne suburb. Violent battle isn’t sudden in organized crime, however what’s uncommon is the drug on the heart of this battle: nicotine.
DRH remark: The Australian authorities might reply by eliminating the laws that led to the issue within the first place, however as a substitute decides to go the Saudi route:
A brand new invoice anticipated to move the Australian Senate would take much more drastic measures, threatening imprisonment for importing, manufacturing, supplying, and even possessing business portions of vaping items with out authorization. Well being Minister Mark Butler defined that penalties will embody as much as seven years imprisonment and fines as much as $2.2 million. “We’re critical about stamping this public well being menace of leisure vaping out,” mentioned Butler. The invoice consists of an exemption for private use, however as it’s at the moment written possession of even noncommercial portions of vaping merchandise might be punished with as much as one 12 months in jail.
By Jeffrey H. Anderson, Thomas D. Klingenstein, June 20, 2024.
HHS now overtly asserts that PEPFAR has saved “over 25 million lives.” The only real foundation for this doubtful declare appears to be that over 25 million folks (counting infants within the womb) have been given antiviral medicine. HHS’s obvious twin assumption is that each a type of folks would have died with out the medicine, and each considered one of them has subsequently survived due to the medicine. That is what passes for scientific rigor at HHS.
Each throughout AIDS and through Covid-19, Fauci and firm fought the usage of cheap, repurposed medicine to assist folks’s immune techniques battle off the threats. Kennedy argues that they have been motivated by a need to convey pharmaceutical merchandise to market—each antivirals and vaccines—with out going through low-cost competitors, as a portion of Huge Pharma’s income would make their means into the general public well being officers’ pockets. Certainly, NBC Information experiences that NIH researchers have personally collected as much as $150,000 a 12 months in royalty funds for medicine they’ve helped develop at taxpayer expense. NBC says that in 2004 NIH researchers pocketed a complete of $8.9 million. That’s along with their taxpayer-funded salaries. Extra lately, royalties from Covid vaccines seem to have been fairly a boon to NIH, as in 2022 the company’s total royalties (not simply the portion paid out to staff) skyrocketed to 9 instances what they have been within the pre-Covid 12 months of 2019.
Quite than debate Duesberg or present persuasive proof to debunk him, the general public well being institution merely ostracized him. Kennedy writes that each Larry King and Good Morning America scheduled joint appearances with Fauci and Duesberg solely to cancel on Duesberg on the final minute and provides Fauci the stage to himself (presumably at Fauci’s insistence). He writes that, when Reagan wished the 2 to have a “pleasant debate” in entrance of him, the concept was referred to as off as a result of, within the phrases of a member of the Reagan administration, Fauci “threw a ‘small match’…and demanded to know why the White Home was interfering in scientific issues.” (Think about the gall of a president wanting an govt department worker to defend his idea on one of the urgent problems with the day!)
DRH notice: My quoting from this overview does NOT imply that I endorse all the pieces that RFK Jr. says. I do assume that he and the reviewer have good insights.
by Emma Camp, Motive, June 21, 2014.
Excerpt:
In 2024, the federal funds deficit is estimated to achieve almost $2 trillion, in response to new projections launched by the Congressional Price range Workplace (CBO) this week. In February, the company predicted that the deficit would solely be $1.58 trillion. Nonetheless, spending will increase have prompted the projected deficit to extend by $400 billion, a staggering 27 % hike.
In line with the CBO, 80 % of the spike within the deficit may be blamed on 4 sources of presidency spending.
The most important supply, liable for $145 billion of the rise, is adjustments to the federal scholar mortgage program which have resulted in huge waves of federal scholar mortgage forgiveness and elevated forgiveness going ahead.
by Sharon Lerner, ProPublica, Could 20, 2024.
Excerpt:
Kris Hansen had labored as a chemist on the 3M Company for a couple of 12 months when her boss, an affable senior scientist named Jim Johnson, gave her an odd project. 3M had invented Scotch Tape and Submit-it notes; it offered all the pieces from sandpaper to kitchen sponges. However on at the present time, in 1997, Johnson wished Hansen to check human blood for chemical contamination.
A number of of 3M’s most profitable merchandise contained man-made compounds referred to as fluorochemicals. In a sprig referred to as Scotchgard, fluorochemicals protected leather-based and material from stains. In a coating referred to as Scotchban, they prevented meals packaging from getting soggy. In a soapy foam utilized by firefighters, they helped extinguish jet-fuel fires. Johnson defined to Hansen that one of many firm’s fluorochemicals, PFOS — quick for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid — typically discovered its means into the our bodies of 3M manufacturing unit employees. Though he mentioned that they have been unhurt, he had lately employed an outdoor lab to measure the degrees of their blood. The lab had simply reported one thing odd, nonetheless. For the sake of comparability, it had examined blood samples from the American Pink Cross, which got here from the final inhabitants and will have been freed from fluorochemicals. As a substitute, it saved discovering a contaminant within the blood.
DRH notice: That is the primary time I’ve linked to a ProPublica story with out making a crucial remark. Whereas I believe their ethics on revealing folks’s taxes have been shoddy, as was their analytic capability, I discovered this piece persuasive.
With respect to the final 2 objects above, as Arnold Kling would say, “Have a pleasant day.”
