(The Globe is back to raging about police reform this morning and citing "Ithaca, home to about 30,000 people and Cornell University, [who] approved a plan to replace its 63-officer police force with an entirely new agency bearing a friendly new name seemingly designed to repel all associations to police brutality, [and] by next year, the “Community Solutions and Public Safety Department” could become the first public safety entity in the country largely made up of public servants who will not carry guns. They will answer non-emergency calls — including minor infractions and welfare and mental health checks — while a second group of armed officers will respond to more serious or life-threatening reports" as some of the bold local reform efforts now that police reform has moved to forefront of Boston mayoral campaign amidst the moral rot of the BPD in the wake of Walsh and his base)
(The second stabbing or shooting should put an end to such nonsense, and don't get me wrong. I am in no way in favor of the police state. It is the heavy-handed and unnecessary way in which law enforcement is being applied that is the problem. I believe the deeper agenda is to soften up the U.S. public for occupation by U.N. troops, most likely Asian, because U.S. law enforcement can't allegedly handle the alleged civil unrest. That's why the collaborators have indemnified them from human rights charges)
"In state’s least immunized county, vaccine holdouts remain as wariness persists; From small towns to Springfield, Hampden County lags the state in COVID vaccination" by Robert Weisman Globe Staff, May 22, 2021
SPRINGFIELD — It’s one of the most diverse counties in Massachusetts, home to struggling cities with large Black and Hispanic populations, and mostly white small towns known for tobacco farming and bucking the state’s liberal wave to vote for Donald Trump in last year’s presidential election.
(Blog editor's chin drops to floor as one again wonders how in the world that incumbent "lost" his reelection. Of course, the recent audit in Maricopa has shown that Trump was cheated out of Arizona and now Fulton in Georgia is under scrutiny as the dominoes of a stolen election begin to fall. How much it matters is for the reader to decide as it has already resulted in damage done and the moving on from lockdown into vaccinated versus unvaccinated -- calling into question the withdrawing of restrictions, for if the vaccinated are now infected super-spreaders this is exactly the course that would be set by the genocidal monsters and their press. Either that or the jig really is up and the criminals are all deserting the sinking ship because criminal charges are coming, to be followed by imprisonments and executions of some. The overall Great Re$et plan, however, continues apace as the lockdown phase ends and the sorting of population begins)
Hampden County, straddling the Pioneer Valley along the Connecticut border, has another distinction: the lowest vaccination rate in Massachusetts. Just over a third of the county’s residents have been fully inoculated against COVID-19, compared with nearly half of residents statewide.
People of very different backgrounds here offer widely divergent reasons for not getting shots, even as a five-month vaccination push has driven down coronavirus cases in Massachusetts dramatically.
(It's not the genetic modification, 'er, "therapy," 'er vaccines that have done that; it's the deliberate rigging of an inaccurate technique for testing positivity and infectiousness for seasonal cold and flu given a fancy name that contains an inside joke, i.e., Certification Of Vaccination ID-19)
“I’m not a guinea pig,” said Cordelle Simmonds, a 35-year-old Black man who grew up in Springfield’s Hill and McKnight neighborhoods, where distrust of the health care system is common. “This vaccine is an experiment. You hear about how it messes with your reproduction. At this moment, I’m definitely a no.”
Twelve miles away, white Westfield retiree Marie Ryan, who recovered from COVID-19 last year, also said she has no plans to roll up her sleeve. She believes the COVID antibodies she retains from her bout with the virus will protect her from reinfection — and doesn’t believe the federal health officials who urge previously infected people to get inoculated.
“How many times have they flip-flopped?” she asked, referring to President Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci as “Dr. Fraud-ski” for his vaccine advocacy. “I think this [vaccination drive] is a little bit over the top.”
(She is not only correct on the conferred immunity from prior infection, but the feeling here is Fraudci is running for cover after the limited hangout regarding Wuhan and gain of function. I view any narrative that supports CVD as unique outside of seasonal coronaviruses as suspect. It was the excuse to get the real bioweapon into many, and any suggestion that it is real in any way supports vaccination efforts, and again, this article has the tone of defeat to it as it continues to jab the agenda at us. The fact that Biden is dumping the excess vaccines on Africa and Asia is further proof of a surrender, although I put nothing past the bastards and will be forever vigilant now)
The holdouts, and the rationales they offer for resistance, present a challenge to local leaders who want to close the gap between Hampden County and the rest of the state in the run-up to Memorial Day weekend, when COVID-19 restrictions will be lifted.
Shots are now available at dozens of locations across the county, from small-town pharmacies to regional collaboratives, after a rocky start to the vaccination campaign. The virus hit the Western Massachusetts county hard last year, not only in congregate settings like the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke, where 76 veterans died, but also in cities like Springfield and Chicopee and in smaller rural outposts, but the latest state data are a stark reminder of how far the county has to go.
(The Globe threw the Spotlight back on that criminal mass murder from the "good governor" who applauds it, and it is whitewashing what I thought was an indictment into a failure of command with the alleged inside story of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home outbreak, but with the protection from vaccinations kicking in, the pandemic appears to be subsiding even though the pandemic isn’t over because casualties and deaths from the pandemic remind us that only through continued vigorous testing and vaccination will we actually put an end to this pandemic)
The slow uptake at Hampden County worries officials focused on immunizing enough people in Massachusetts to contain the virus. Epidemiologists have said it will be almost impossible to entirely vanquish COVID-19 if outbreaks continue in unvaccinated pockets of the population.
(This is how they intend to keep the jerk-job going, and it has been so played after 14 months. We don't want your shit, period! It's OVER! Time to call it off! WE KNOW!)
Vaccine resistance extends into majority white communities, too. Many there say the vaccines weren’t properly tested and were rushed into use, a claim made by anti-vaxxers on the Internet and talk radio. Some who lean conservative politically don’t trust scientists who insist vaccines are safe and effective.
There are parents, even those who’ve gotten shots, who are reluctant to have their children vaccinated, worrying about as yet unseen side effects, and many healthy young adults won’t get injections, thinking they have little risk of serious illness.
“Some of the young people are suspect of the vaccine,” said Pastor Johnny M. Wilson Jr. of Granville Federated Church in the small town of Granville. “There’s a myth that [COVID-19] is an old-people disease.”
(The "myth" is backed up by the same $cience that says kids don't transmit and only need three feet of distance in school, blah, blah, fucking, blah, blah, blah, and the push to have children injected with a toxic potion they don't need is criminal at this stage)
Kaiser’s survey shows people ages 18 to 29, sometimes called “young invincibles,” are least likely to be vaccinated or say they plan to be soon. US coronavirus cases have declined in recent weeks, as more older people are vaccinated, but younger people have claimed a larger share of those infected.
Misinformation is a persistent issue. More than half of the public either believes or is unsure about some broadly promulgated myths, including that the vaccines can give people COVID, make then infertile, or change their DNA, the Kaiser survey showed. That group includes 58 percent of Republicans, 56 percent of independents, and 44 percent of Democrats.
(Yeah, it sure is -- which is why this is over! My "new$paper" is NOTHING BUT AGENDA-PUSHING MISINFORMATION from front to back!)
In Hampden County, local officials have found that trusted community voices are key to battling the barrage of falsehoods on the Web and on the street.
“I grew up here, everybody knows me,” said Gwendolyn Smith, president of Springfield’s Bay Area Neighborhood Council and a vaccine ambassador who’s knocked on doors urging folks to get injections. Many neighborhood residents have responded, but others “are kind of iffy about taking it,” she said. “Some even say it’s genocide. I say, ‘What are you talking about? I got two shots, and I’m still here.’”
(Meaning she is of the privileged class that got the saline or a liar who got a fake injection, and the COERCION speaks VOLUMES. Beyond that, the idea that the American people put any trust into now-hated celebrity is laughable on its face at this point. Fuck them!)
Vaccinators in rural parts of the county are confronting similar myths. “I’ve run into one or two people who say, ‘No, I’m not getting that, the government’s not putting computer chips in my teeth,’” said McNutt, the Palmer town manager.
At the regional vaccine site in Palmer’s shuttered Converse Middle School, people chose to get shots for the most practical of reasons: “I just wanted to get out and about,” said James Hard of Athol, who works in an auto body shop. “If everyone gets it, you don’t have a problem.”
(Except you do, and that about days it all: a shuttered school turned "vaccination" site and never mind the ridiculous chips in teeth nonsense from a vaccine -- although I wouldn't put anything past the dentists these days after the mercury fillings and all)
Barre resident James Leger, 37, said he decided to be vaccinated because he was living with his in-laws, who are older and more vulnerable to the virus. “I didn’t want to be the one who brought it into the house,” he said, but, even at vaccine sites, not everyone embraced vaccination.....
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"New coronavirus cases in the U.S. have decreased to rates not seen since June. It’s sparking optimism that vaccination campaigns are stemming both severe COVID-19 cases and the spread of the virus. Health experts credit the rollout of vaccines to a dramatic turnaround since January, but they also caution that not enough Americans have been vaccinated to completely extinguish the virus. President Joe Biden is trying to convince people to sign up for shots by reminding them that vaccines offer a return to normal life....."
Declare victory and get out like in, you know.
"For more than 400 colleges and universities, it is being billed as the ticket to a normal year on campus: Require all students to be vaccinated for the coronavirus before they can matriculate next fall. From just one university in March to a dozen by the first week of April, the trickle has become a tide over the past month — depending on just where students are attending school. In a divided nation, college vaccine mandates are mostly following familiar fault lines. As of this weekend, only 34 — roughly 8% — are in states that voted for Donald Trump, according to a tracker created by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Nine of those were added Friday, when Indiana University and its satellite campuses became rare public universities in a Republican-controlled state to mandate vaccines. Although the 400 campuses are only about 10% of the nation’s roughly 4,000 colleges and universities, experts say the political gap is likely to persist. With many colleges facing falling enrollments and financial pressure, the decision whether to require vaccinations can have huge consequences. Particularly in Republican-controlled states, college presidents are weighing a delicate equation — part safety, part politics, part peer pressure and part economic self-interest. A total of 15 conservative-led states, including Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Mississippi and Alabama, do not have a single university that has announced a vaccine requirement. A mandate is seen as the easiest step to protecting students, and for many colleges, the decision is an easy one — especially since many already require other immunizations for the flu or measles, mumps and rubella. Desperate to reopen successfully, college presidents want as many students as possible to be vaccinated but worry about facing a backlash from conservative state governments. They fear losing funding at a time when many universities have seen a dip in tuition revenue, as well as running afoul of state politicians, whose goodwill and budget largesse they rely on. For the most part, the colleges choosing to enforce vaccine mandates in Republican-controlled states are private, name-brand schools not worried about meeting enrollment targets. The list reads like a roster of the most prestigious universities in those states: Tulane University in Louisiana, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, and Duke and Wake Forest Universities in North Carolina. Most others are still trying to figure out what is best for their students and what is best for them....."
(I'm further told that Michael V. Drake, a physician and the president of the University of California system, said “the vaccine is one of the best things we can do to help us get back to normal life,” but at the University of Idaho, in one of the nation’s most conservative states, it is also an easy choice — not to have mandatory vaccinations and that not a single college in the state has announced a vaccine requirement as the immunization rate there is among the lowest in the country and along with needing to be on the right side of the law, universities are very aware of being on the right side of state politics. In Florida and Texas, the governors have issued executive orders prohibiting businesses from requiring customers to provide proof of immunization, but whether the same rules apply to schools is not always clear, but the signals from state government are hard to miss.
How odd is it that 155 years after the Civil War it is the Southern states that are now free with the North now living under the mask of slavery?)
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(Better watch where you step because there is a literal pile of dog shit ahead)
"No, people are not returning pandemic dogs in droves" by Michael Levenson New York Times, May 22, 2021
Animal welfare advocates were delighted when the pandemic prompted thousands of bored and isolated Americans to adopt dogs last year.
They also worried that when offices reopened and social life began returning to normal, those new pet owners would cast aside their dogs, like children who had outgrown their teddy bears.
Despite some alarmist news reports, the story so far is much happier than that.
Shelter data and interviews with animal welfare experts point to a confirmed shift in pet ownership in the United States, as people bonded with their new animal companions during an incredibly stressful period.
Giving up their pets borders on the unthinkable for many.
(Oddly enough, today is the one-year anniversary of a loss of my beloved pet but she was a cat who was 19 years old, and as I type this it is near the very time of day that her presence on this Earth ended although she visited me in a dream that was incredibly visceral afterwards to let me know she was okay on the other side and I continue to believe that she visits me every night during my slumber while not leaving me a vision that may make me cry when I wake)
As coronavirus restrictions were lifted in recent weeks, fears of mass pet abandonment have been fanned by local news reports that shelters in Florida, Virginia, and other places were taking in more dogs, compared to the same time last year.
“It is so hard for them,” one animal rescue worker told the British Broadcasting Corp. in a video that suggested U.S. shelters were struggling to accommodate returns from a “pandemic puppy boom,” but national animal welfare groups say that, in fact, dogs adopted during the pandemic are largely remaining in their new homes, and shelters nationwide have not reported alarming increases in adopted pets being abandoned now that workplaces and schools are reopening.
“We don’t have any evidence to show that shelters are seeing an increase,” said Michael San Filippo, a spokesman for the American Veterinary Medical Association.
(Be it CVD, WMD in Iraq, or anything else for that matter, that is the agenda-pushing pre$$'s modus operandi, and why anyone would trust the BBC is beyond me -- not to mention the $kank royalty with a deeply personal narrative by the runaway prince being rolled out in a series of episodes of a new documentary series, called “The Me You Can’t See,” that the prince is co-creating with Winfrey for the streaming service Apple TV Plus. The series deploys celebrities — Harry, singer Lady Gaga, actress Glenn Close, basketball star DeMar DeRozan — to both de-stigmatize mental illness and draw more eyeballs. Of course, you would have to be crazy to watch it and a picture says a thousand words -- which is why Twitter and removed it and Facebook did not)
“We will be watching this closely over the next several months,” San Filippo said. “Certainly we’ve been aware of this as a possibility since we began hearing about more people bringing pets home during the pandemic, but so far we haven’t seen any evidence of a corresponding increase in surrenders.”
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals also said in a statement there was no evidence of “an increase in owner surrenders or stray intakes” across the United States.
It said one reason was that shelters and rescue organizations “continue to have conversations with adopters to ensure they are making good matches and that pets match their adopters’ lifestyles, even when those owners return to a post-pandemic schedule.”
(How amazing is it that most people have found their dogs to be essential in a tumultuous time, huh? Only a misanthrope and genocidal mind couldn't fathom the bond between man and his best friend)
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"In the Russian Arctic, the first stirrings of a very cold war" by Andrew E. Kramer New York Times, May 22, 2021
FRANZ JOSEF LAND, Russia — As the sea ice melts, Russia is deploying ever more soldiers and equipment to the Far North, becoming essentially the first military to act on the strategic implications of climate change for the region in what some have called the beginnings of a Very Cold War.
At a meeting this week in Reykjavik, Iceland, Russia assumed the chair of the Arctic Council, a diplomatic club of nations, including the United States, that share interests in the region. On the sidelines of the meeting, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, in the first face-to-face meeting between a Biden administration Cabinet member and a Russian counterpart.
For its entire history, Russia was effectively defended from the north by the frozen Arctic Ocean, but the minimum summertime ice pack on the ocean in recent years is about one-third less than the average in the 1980s, when monitoring began, researchers with the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center said last year. The ocean has lost nearly 1 million square miles of ice and is expected to be mostly ice-free in the summertime, including at the North Pole, by around the middle of the century.
The big melt is Russia’s strategic “worst nightmare,” said Michael Kofman, a senior researcher at CNA, a think tank based in Arlington, Virginia. “It opens an entire new theater in the event of conflict with the United States” that will prove difficult to defend, he noted. Of the five nations with significant Arctic coastline — Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States — Russia has by far the longest.
(The $tink tank is literally the MIC, sigh)
“In a sense, Russia is acquiring new external borders that need to be protected from potential aggressors,” the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a Berlin-based think tank, wrote of Russia’s problem of disappearing ice.
Although the Russian military has little in common with liberal Western politicians or environmental groups like Greenpeace, it does share a view that the ice is indeed vanishing. That has allowed it to steal a march on the United States.
The Russian government, in contrast to the Department of Defense under the Trump administration, openly acknowledged climate change in its latest Arctic strategy, published last year. The latest U.S. military strategy for the Arctic, published in 2019, refers euphemistically to vanishing ice as the “changing physical environment.”
The U.S. document did, however, note that Russia had the largest military presence above the Arctic Circle, and its avoidance of any mention of climate change is certain to change under the Biden administration.
(They have always been best at Arctic wars. Just ask the Germans and Japanese)
Seemingly in anticipation of the scheduled meeting between Blinken and Lavrov, the normally opaque Russian military recently took reporters on a tour of sites that included Trefoil Base, Russia’s northernmost military installation.
With journalists standing around shivering, Eminov presided over a demonstration of the Bastion anti-ship missiles, raising them to launch position as soldiers in white camouflage kept watch. “We are defending the borders of our homeland,” he said. “This is deterrence.”
(As they spew their climate change garbage)
In a briefing Thursday aboard the battle cruiser Peter the Great, Adm. Alexander Moiseyev, commander of the Northern Fleet, painted the Russian buildup as a response to increased Western military activity in the Arctic Ocean.
“The navies of NATO have taken to regularly sailing single surface warships or even convoys” into the ocean and lingering longer than they had before, Moiseyev said. He called it the most significant military activity in the region since World War II. On the Russian side, the Northern Fleet will run sea trials on 13 new ships this year, he said, adding to the more than four dozen already in service.
One goal of the Russian buildup is to seize the day economically as the ocean thaws. “Climate change enables the appearance of new economic possibilities,” Moscow asserted in its Arctic plan, envisioning a new Klondike.
The Russian government and companies have developed various moneymaking ideas to take advantage of climate change. Exploiting newly accessible reserves of oil, gas and coal — the very resources causing the problem in the first place — is high on the list. Moscow also hopes to turn an Arctic Ocean seaway between Europe and Asia, the Northern Sea Route, into essentially a toll road by requiring payments for pilots and icebreaker escorts.
(Yeah, the U.S. government would never do anything like that)
That could become a flash point, because Washington sees the waterway as an international trading route. The Department of Defense says it reserves the right to conduct freedom of navigation exercises in the Arctic, as it does now in the South China Sea.
(You want to take on Russia and China? We will lose, and it looks more like the Chinese will be asked in to patrol our streets anyway despite the insults in Alaska last month)
For now, the military standoff has played out with ships shadowing one another’s vessels during exercises, long-range bomber overflights and jamming of navigation broadcasts, a Russian specialty.
In March, the Russian navy surfaced three submarines simultaneously through pack ice and, lest the feat go unnoticed, filmed it with a drone and posted the footage online. The United States this month sailed the USS New Mexico, a Virginia-class submarine, into Tromso, Norway, for a rare call at a civilian port.....
Related:
"Top diplomats from the United States and Russia are set to square off this week in Iceland for their first face-to-face encounter that comes as ties between the nations have deteriorated sharply in recent months. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russia’s longtime Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov plan to talk Wednesday on the sidelines of an Arctic Council meeting in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik, a city with deep history in U.S.-Russian relations. Even before the talks — that are ostensibly to prepare for a summit between President Joe Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin next month — the two diplomats laid down near diametrically opposed positions for the meeting, previewing what is likely to be a difficult and contentious exchange. This follows a spate of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions as U.S.-Russian relations threaten a return to Cold War lows. The nuclear powers are at odds on myriad issues including Ukraine, the Arctic, Russia’s treatment of opposition figure Alexey Navalny and accusations of cybermalfeasance, including claims that Russia-based hackers were responsible for a ransomware attack on a key U.S. pipeline. On Tuesday, Blinken also tweeted Tuesday U.S. condemnation of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Perhaps anticipating Blinken’s position, Lavrov had offered a prebuttal at a news conference Monday in Moscow. Blinken said his meeting with Lavrov would be an important opportunity to test the proposition that the U.S. and Russia can work collaboratively on certain issues, like climate change, the Mideast, Iran and North Korea, despite bitter disagreements on others. The meeting comes as much of the world is focused on the Israel-Palestinian war. Blinken noted that despite the vitriol, the U.S. and Russia had agreed early in the Biden administration to a five-year extension of a key arms control pact that President Donald Trump had declined to renew before he left office....."
(Russia didn't annex Crimea, they accepted them into the Russian Federation after Crimea exercised the United Nations right-of-self-determination and seceded from the Ukraine after the 2014 Obama-coup and petitioned to join. I know I'm spreading misinformation by correcting them for the umpteenth time, but there it is.
I'm sorry, but the guy has become a joke as he spews hollow words and Biden's bull$hit while ignoring Africa and Central America as the flood of dictatorships rise and allies fall like huge slabs of stone.
He says it “would be our preference to have a more stable and more predictable relationship with Russia,” as they spar firmly but politely with the Russians, who are escalating fights with US-funded journalists, but at the same time they are preparing for all-out war with Russia and they“have concerns about some of the recent military activities in the Arctic,” but as calls in Washington and around the world grew for the Biden administration to take a tougher, more active stance on increasing Israeli-Palestinian violence, Blinken largely held to his initial agenda in meetings with Danish leaders and officials from Greenland and the Faroe Islands as he cancelled only one scheduled event to make calls on the Israeli-Palestinian situation and climate change dominated the discussions)
Speaking of those devils, the New York Times is oddly noting that life under occupation is the misery at the heart of the conflict -- a sign that I take to mean Netanyahu is ruling on borrowed time. His regime is coming down into a heap of rubble as forming a government has become elusive, and speaking of elusive.... my print copy was AP and I'm interested in the tone of coverage after Israel took their offices down)
"Hamas defiant with military parade, appearance of top leader" by Wafaa Shurafa and Samy Magdy Associated Press May 22, 2021
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hundreds of masked Hamas fighters brandishing assault rifles paraded in Gaza City and the group’s top leader made his first public appearance on Saturday, in a defiant show of strength after the militants’ 11-day war with Israel.
Saturday marked the first full day of a cease-fire, and Egyptian mediators held talks to firm up the truce which ended the fourth Israel-Hamas war in just over a decade.
In Gaza City, residents began assessing damage.
One of Gaza City’s busiest commercial areas, Omar al-Mukhtar Street, was covered in debris, smashed cars and twisted metal after a 13-floor building in its center was flattened in an Israeli airstrike. Merchandise was covered in soot and strewn inside smashed stores and on the pavement. Municipal workers swept broken glass and twisted metal from streets and sidewalks.
“We really didn’t expect this amount of damage,” said Ashour Subeih, who sells baby clothes. “We thought the strike was a bit further from us, but as you can see not an area of the shop is intact.” Having been in business for one year, Subeih estimated his losses were double what he has made so far.
Drone video and photos showed some city blocks reduced to rubble, in between homes and businesses left standing.
Both Israel and Hamas have claimed victory.
On Saturday, hundreds of Hamas fighters wearing military camouflage paraded past the mourning tent for Bassem Issa, a senior commander killed in the fighting. The top Hamas leader in Gaza, Yehiyeh Sinwar, paid his respects in his first public appearance since the war began.
Israel bombed the house of Sinwar, along with that of other senior Hamas figures, as part of its attack on what it said was the group’s military infrastructure. Israel’s defense minister, Benny Gantz, has said Israel delivered a punishing blow to Hamas, and that top Hamas figures remained targets.
Still, there was a widespread expectation that the cease-fire would stick for now, even if another round of fighting at some point seems inevitable. Underlying issues remain unresolved, including an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade, now in its 14th year, that is choking Gaza’s more than 2 million residents and a refusal by the Islamic militant Hamas to disarm.
(I take the above to mean that this has become a public relations nightmare for Israel and therefore must cease, and what is noticeable in the AP report is the exclusive focus on Gaza. No Israeli victimhood in this one)
The U.N. Security Council released a statement Saturday, welcoming the cease-fire and stressing “the immediate need for humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian civilian population, particularly in Gaza.”
Thousands rallied in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, calling for coexistence between Jews and Arabs.
(Yeah, the whole world stands in unison be it this or CVD or anything else, save for a sick cabal of psychopaths that are allowed to rule)
The war has further sidelined Hamas’ main political rival, the internationally backed Palestinian Authority, which oversees autonomous enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Hamas’ popularity seemed to be growing as it positioned itself as a defender of Palestinian claims to Jerusalem.
On Friday, hours after the cease-fire took effect, thousands of Palestinians in the Al-Aqsa compound chanted against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his self-rule government. It was an unprecedented display of anger against Abbas. The conflict also brought to the surface deep frustration among Palestinians, whether in the occupied West Bank, Gaza or within Israel, over the status quo.
Despite his weakened status, Abbas will be the point of contact for any renewed U.S. diplomacy, since Israel and the West, including the United States, consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is to meet with Abbas and Israeli leaders when he visits in the coming week. Abbas is expected to raise demands that any Gaza reconstruction plans go through the Palestinian Authority to avoid strengthening Hamas.
(The absolute level of incompetence and delusion exhibited by Blinken under Biden leaves me speechless. They are going to use a discredited agent with zero credibility and no power to advance their goals. At least the Trump team had competence even if they had their heads just as far up Israeli ass. Lord help us!)
Abbas met Saturday with Egyptian mediators, discussing the rebuilding of Gaza and internal Palestinian relations, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
An Egyptian diplomat said that two teams of mediators were in Israel and the Palestinian territories to continue talks on firming up a cease-fire deal and securing long-term calm.....
(Well, I guess Israel took the encouragement after the Palestinians went on strike and the Globe finally editorialized on the issue with standard hypocritical boilerplate as they preach to the choir while breaking the code of silence and allegedly giving time to both sides.
So who benefits again? It's on the tip of my fingers and is a harbinger of things to come; however, ousting Netanyahu and fellow collaborators should solve everything as they rewrite history once again and the bad guys are paid off before disappearing into the dustbin of history before literally boring in hell)
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(The masks are literally off now)
"Hugs are in; masks are (mostly) out at the White House" by Jonathan Lemire and Darlene Superville The Associated Press, May 22, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is springing back to life.
Thanks to growing availability of the coronavirus vaccine and a recent relaxation of federal guidance on masks and distancing, the Biden administration is embracing the look and feel of pre-pandemic days on Pennsylvania Avenue. More West Wing staffers are turning up there for work and more reporters will be doing so as well, as the White House spreads the message that a return to normal is possible with vaccinations.
(Without, too)
There are lingering concerns about safety and mixed messaging — the same contradictions and confusions that are popping up across a nation that is gingerly re-opening, but the images of a reopened, relaxed White House stand in striking contrast to the days when it was the site of several COVID-19 outbreaks last year, a sign of just how far the pandemic has begun to recede in the United States.
(For how long?)
"We’re back," White House press secretary Jen Psaki declared at Friday's daily briefing. “I can confirm we’re a warm and fuzzy crew and we like to hug around here.”
(She makes me sick)
The changes within the White House over the past week were swift and sweeping. Hugs were in, masks were (mostly) out. There was no need to stand six feet apart, and no one seemed to enjoy the shift more than Biden, the most back-slapping and tactile of politicians.
(That last part is gross, but the abrupt reversal is strange)
The president had been happy to announce the relaxed mask guidance when he appeared in the Rose Garden on May 13 without a mask, just hours after the CDC said those who are fully vaccinated don't need to wear masks in most settings. That cheerfulness carried over this past week into a series of larger public events that would have been out of bounds earlier in Biden’s presidency.
For the second straight day, the White House on Friday opened the East Room –- the executive mansion’s largest room –- to scores of outside guests. Smiling broadly, Biden awarded the Medal of Honor for the first time as commander in chief, giving it to 94-year-old retired Col. Ralph Puckett Jr. for acts of bravery during the Korean War some 70 years ago.
The White House timed Friday’s ceremony to coincide with the visit of South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, who joined Biden at the event before their policy meetings. Both world leaders repeatedly clasped Puckett’s hands and crowded in for a photo with the war hero’s extended family.
(They discussed what Biden intends to do about the Korean bully)
A day earlier, an even larger group of lawmakers and other guests were on hand to witness Biden sign legislation to counter an alarming spike in crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, were among the lawmakers trading hugs and kisses.
“The nicest part is being able to shake hands again and to see people’s smiles,” Collins marveled at one point.
(That's funny in light of this photograph:
Yes, that is Senator Susan Collins as the FBI has been reviewing a possible scheme to funnel illegal donations to the 2020 re-election campaign of Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican)
Afterward, lawmakers who helped shepherd the legislation through Congress surrounded Biden as he signed the measure into law. The president also engaged in an act that had largely disappeared from official Washington during the pandemic: He shook hands with a few guests before leaving.
Earlier that day, he had welcomed the newest Kennedy Center honorees to the White House for a visit that marked the return of celebrity wattage to the property.
(They still those sickening people appeal to Americans. How sad)
By multiple accounts from Kennedy Center Honors recipients, the White House event was high-spirited, with Biden seemingly thrilled to have visitors.
Joan Baez said the official visit “turned into a jolly romp,” included a tour of the Rose Garden and culminated in Baez singing for Biden.....
(That's when the print music thankfully stopped as the band played on)
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(Time to get migrating and finish off the front section)
"The Biden administration is dealing with a growing number of single adult migrants crossing the border; they made up nearly two of every three encounters in April. This elusive group is less likely to surrender to U.S. authorities to seek asylum than families and children, often choosing risky routes away from Border Patrol checkpoints and intake sites, where agents process families and children traveling alone. Unlike deportations, expulsions carry no legal consequences, and many migrants try crossing multiple times. The Border Patrol says 29% of people expelled in April had been expelled before, but it's not that simple....."
(Except, it is after I'm told storms, floods, wildfires — and to a lesser degree, conflict — uprooted 40.5 million people around the world in 2020, the the largest number in more than a decade, according to figures published Thursday by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, a nonprofit group based in Geneva that tracks displacement data annually, and it was all the more notable as it came during the worst global pandemic in a century, according to of the New York Times.
I don't mean to be a prude, but I'm against the abortion article in the second trimester of my paper. I mean no offense and it has nothing to do with skin color)
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"With the end of the COVID-19 state of emergency, a new question: What will the Legislature keep from it?" by Matt Stout Globe Staff, May 18, 2021
Governor Charlie Baker is ending the state of emergency in Massachusetts. Now, the Legislature has to decide what aspects of pandemic-era life they want to keep from it.
Faced with a suddenly ticking clock, state lawmakers are being pressed to extend, or make permanent, a host of COVID-related rules governing sidewalk lunches, to-go margaritas, and virtual town council meetings before Baker lifts his emergency declaration on June 15.
Their ability to pass a string of new laws in four weeks — and on short notice — is a test for a 200-member legislative body not typically known for nimbleness. “We all know that our Legislature loves waiting until the last minute,” Greg Reibman, president of the Newton-Needham Regional Chamber, quipped in the group’s morning newsletter Tuesday, yet, whatever action lawmakers take, it will be crucial in determining what life will look like in Massachusetts for the months and perhaps years ahead. Their decisions will guide the state into the next phase when public health restrictions will be gone but many remain eager to keep some vestiges of pandemic life.
(That last phrase is ludicrous. It implies that we want continued tyranny and not a doing away with all restrictions and the entire CVD fraud. Beyond that, it is as I have stated the last two days. They are ending the lockdown phase as it has accomplished its purpose and they have other levers to pull)
“There’s no such thing as an easy transition when suddenly the emergency order is lifted,” said Geoff Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, which represents cities and towns. “They’ve adjusted to the new world, and it’s not even possible to go back to the old world.”
(It is possible, it could be done like that, but that's not the agenda-pushing goal to which governments are committed)
Baker issued more than 60 orders, plus various amendments, since he announced the state of emergency in March 2020, creating a set of ever-shifting rules that governed businesses and local governments for months.
Baker’s surprise announcement Monday that he’s ending them created a new challenge. The shift caught lawmakers off-guard, and Senate President Karen E. Spilka and House Speaker Ronald Mariano have requested the Baker administration send them a list of orders impacted by his decision. Aides to both Democrats said they intend to work with the Republican governor to “provide a seamless transition out of the State of Emergency and back to a ‘new normal.’”
(Not the normal you were promised, and I am also surprised at the king's announcement because it now opens him up to criminal charges. Is he just trying to preemptively get out from under before the jig is up, and is that why he is diverting attention with the call for an independent investigation into the death of Mikayla Miller with rats deserting the sinking ship and the mob coming to tar and feather him?
It's a tragic case that is at the Root of the racial troubles -- not her fault --in Hopkinton. There are still many unanswered questions, but here is an update on what we know and do not know at this point: she died by suicide, according to a death certificate obtained by the Globe, and the circumstances are unclear)
A Baker adviser said Tuesday the administration has not taken a position on what orders it believes should remain.
Mariano is urging advocates and others to contact lawmakers with their input on the “time-sensitive measures,” suggesting the Legislature may have to move quickly on bills without typical public hearings.
“The condensed timeframe in which the Baker Administration plans to end the State of Emergency impacts the Legislature’s ability and responsibility, as a deliberate body, to engage in a public process and hear from all stakeholders on the expiring executive orders and emergency regulations,” the Quincy Democrat said in a statement to The Boston Globe.
(My worry isn't what they keep, it is what garbage they will attach)
What the Legislature will ultimately keep is the question. As warm weather settles in, many municipal officials and restaurant owners want to keep the flexibility restaurants have enjoyed since last year in expanding outdoors onto sidewalks, parking lots, and streets to create al fresco dining spots, but any approvals restaurants won under the order would end 60 days after the state of emergency is lifted — or in this case in mid-August during the height of the summer season. Senator Nick Collins, a South Boston Democrat, filed an amendment in the Senate budget to extend it for another year.
“Outdoor dining, without question, was the only silver lining in the pandemic for restaurants,” said Bob Luz, president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. He said Baker and state lawmakers have repeatedly sought to help restaurants since last year, adding: “I suspect they’re going to want to make sure they don’t leave us in the lurch here.”
(I know part of job description is to be optimistic, but the only silver lining to the plannedemic fraud has been to reveal the face of evil amongst us)
Restaurateurs are also pressing legislative leaders to extend rules allowing eateries to offer to-go cocktails. That option, nonexistent before COVID-19, has been a small lifeline for businesses struggling to get customers in the door, advocates said, but it’s faced opposition from package store owners who say the option could erode their own businesses.
Simultaneously, some legislators want to extend a law capping the fees restaurants pay delivery apps, such as Grubhub or DoorDash, at 15 percent, which ends when the state of emergency does.
“If it wasn’t allowed to price gouge the pandemic, it shouldn’t be allowed after the pandemic,” said state Senator Diana DiZoglio, a Methuen Democrat who’s filed an amendment to the Senate budget to extend the measure by two years.
(We have all been gouged)
The Senate is slated to debate its budget proposal next week, and the House last month passed its own, but the hulking spending plan, while often a vehicle for passing policy, may not be viable for extending a variety of pandemic-era laws.
(The House voted to maintain the state’s film tax credit permanently -- gasp -- as the Senate trims it, and this is how they usually put together a state budget)
Lawmakers typically don’t reach an agreement on the budget until the summer, and for the last decade, they’ve continually relied on interim spending plans to keep state government funded in the new fiscal year that starts in July while they hash out a deal. That likely puts its passage well beyond the June 15 expiration.
“Whether we act quickly or not relies essentially on the Senate president’s office and the speaker’s office allowing these provisions to come to the floor,” DiZoglio said.
A spokesman for Spilka said her office will review Baker’s orders, and that the chamber has been focused on postpandemic policy, including with the creation a special committee to make recommendations. “The Senate has been intentional in laying a foundation for our postpandemic future,” spokesman Antonio Caban said.
(The lockdowns are over. Now the harassment phase of medical tyranny and vaccine passes begins)
Municipal leaders are also urging the Legislature to keep parts of one of Baker’s first emergency actions easing the state’s open meeting law to allow local boards, state commissions, and other committees to meet virtually.
Some city and town halls still remain partially shuttered to the public, and others have repurposed conference rooms that before COVID-19 hosted regular meetings but now function as office space to give staff extra distance, said Beckwith, of the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
In Boston, some city councilors are already pushing to make remote participation permanent, arguing it gives those with disabilities better access to city meetings. While the Legislature is not bound by the open meeting law — and will continue to operate remotely for now — the vast majority of local and state bodies would be legally forced to meet in person again without a new law allowing for the virtual option.
“I don’t think we should go back as a state to a time prepandemic when people may have had to take off work or to obtain costly child care” to attend a public meeting, said Kade Crockford, director of the ACLU of Massachusetts’ Technology for Liberty program.
(What the hell is she blabbering gibberish about, and why was the ACLJU AWOL when it came to the massive and unconstitutional violations of all our civil rights during lockdown, and why are they still AWOL as we come out of it?)
A host of other rules and laws also face expiration, though to date, the debate over keeping them has been less intense.
The Legislature in April 2020 passed a law allowing notaries public to remotely perform work central to estate planning and mortgages, but only until three business days after the state of emergency ends.
Health insurers are supposed to set the same rates for virtual or in-person visits on a number of services, but only for 90 days after the emergency declaration lifts. The same goes for a law waiving the one-week waiting period for anyone filing an unemployment benefits claim.
(The telltale sign will be if masks are mandated for grocery stores, although you may want to wear one outside -- especially if you are just in from Israel)
Related:
(That is, by my count, the fourth story by the Globe on the strike, two of which were within the first two days, and there is no longer a need for nurses what with telehealth and AI coming on line, so give them the 21st-century version of a gold watch and say goodbye)
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(Time to play ball!)
"Former Boston youth baseball league manager convicted on child rape charges years after deportation" by Caroline Enos Globe Correspondent, May 22, 2021
(I'm sure he was just trying to put food on the table of his family, and I sure hope he hasn't recrossed)
The co-founder of a popular Boston youth baseball league who was deported from the United States seven years ago was convicted last week of raping a young player over a period of years, starting the abuse when the boy was 9 years old.
Jose “Brujo” Ortega, 49, was found guilty Friday on multiple counts of child rape and other charges stemming from his time as manager of the Boston Broncos youth baseball league, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins said in a statement.
(She finally prosecutes someone on her way to the USDA's office and he is nowhere to be found?
That is the face of the social justice movement in Massachusetts, a champion for rehabilitation over incarceration and for accountability in policing, who in less than three years has made waves with the progressive platform that propelled her into office, with her work has positioned her to become the next US attorney for the district of Massachusetts, the state’s top federal law enforcement post, a larger stage for Rollins to advance her reforms and broaden the footprint of the progressive movement, and who is the mobster and NOI bodyguard behind her?)
Ortega began grooming the boy and abusing him in 2000, the statement said. For the next six years, Oretga continued the abuse and intimidated the victim into silence through multiple methods, including not playing the boy in games if he did not participate in sexual acts.
In 2012, Ortega was convicted of child enticement for sending sexual Facebook messages to another player in the league, who was 12 years old. Prosecutors said at the time that Ortega had invited the boy to shower at his home and asked him for nude pictures shortly after recruiting him to play on a Broncos team.
He was indicted and arraigned in the case involving the 12-year-old in 2014 and released from custody on personal recognizance in May of that year, under the condition that he attend his court dates, the statement said, but ahead of his next court date slated for that June, Ortega was deported to the Dominican Republic by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Federal immigration officials told the Globe in 2012 that Ortega’s real name is Frank Nina, and that he immigrated legally to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1989. His legal status was revoked when he was convicted of dealing cocaine on a Boston street corner in 1998, officials said.
(Systemic racism, no doubt)
Prosecutors issued a default warrant for Ortega’s arrest once he failed to appear in court for the June 2014 date because of his deportation. He was found, taken into custody, and returned from the Dominican Republic in August 2019.
“We want to hold serious offenders accountable regardless of their immigration status,” Rollins said in the statement. “We were forced to be patient, but this man, who groomed this victim robbing him of his childhood and love of baseball, was held accountable in Suffolk County.”
(Just as the plannedemic has turned me off of $ports)
A sentencing date has not been set following Ortega’s latest conviction.
He will serve his sentence in Massachusetts and be deported back to the Dominican Republic following his release, Rollins said in the statement.
Rollins commended the victim for coming forward with the abuse and confronting Ortega during the trial.
“Sexual assaults and rapes can happen to anyone, of any age, and gender or gender identity.” Rollins said in the statement. “[T]his survivor – now a grown man with a loving wife, family and children of his own – has taken control back over this incredibly traumatizing part of his life.”
(It will still never be the same, just like Epstein's victims)
I was briefly told that State Fire Marshal Peter J. Ostroskey is warning residents not to set off backyard fireworks, and State Police have already started to crack down on offenders because “it is illegal to bring fireworks into Massachusetts, even if they were legally purchased elsewhere.” This was before a 19-year-old man was seriously injured in a shooting on William Day Boulevard in South Boston late Friday night and before three men were stabbed outside a Speedway gas station in South Boston early Saturday morning. One man’s body was found in the Connecticut River by a boater around 6 p.m. before a 62-year-old man was struck and killed by a Jeep on Newport Avenue early Saturday morning and a 93-year-old woman died in a three-alarm fire early Saturday morning that “might’ve been careless smoking” in bed.
She is now history, just as the kids who line up for the shots, and it looks like the Globe thought it would be a good Idea to take a bike ride through Jerusalem to see the silver lining in abortion and golf with a utopian book that envisioned a more inclusive society -- from one of the most historically prejudiced and segregated institutions of all, even if is now a sport in the Olympics with a storybook ending.
Nevertheless, my interest in the Globe is shrinking and I'm about ready to abort, cui bono? For some reason, it is like we are speaking different languages and are on different frequencies)
