Using the best information available at this time, I think you can double 150,000 deaths from COVID-19 to 300,000 deaths in the United States and still have a low count. - James Pitcherella
“It’s wonderful to see the number of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes going down,” Chester County Coroner Dr. Christina VandePol said. “But our involvement in these deaths has brought to my attention that most deaths in long-term-care facilities are not required to be reported to us. State law should be amended to require all deaths in congregate care settings be reported to the Coroner or Medical Examiner. Most nursing homes are closed loop systems, with the same people who supervise patient care issuing the death certificates. Death certificates are sometimes issued based on information given over the phone to an on-call physician. There is a lot of room for miscommunication and conflict of interest. Our elderly, their families, and our community deserve to have access to an independent and objective review whenever a death occurs in these circumstances.”
"To quote Dr. Ed Donoghue, a forensic pathology colleague at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, "No matter how these deaths are currently being attributed, after this pandemic terminates, an excellent approximation of the true fatality rate of COVID-19 deaths can be made by the calculation of the excess mortality for the period. This calculation was very helpful during the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Almost certainly, because of the scarcity of testing and other reasons, we will find that the number of COVID-19 deaths has been grossly underestimated." The final death toll is going to depend on multiple factors: the density of the population; availability of testing; genetic factors (both host and virus); the public health response; and the robustness of the healthcare system.
A soldier in the heat of battle can't think strategically about the outcome of the wider war. The death toll of COVID-19 is not going to be accurate until epidemiologists and statisticians have time to crunch the numbers. But the excess stresses on our healthcare system are clearly evident in countless firsthand reports from emergency rooms and ICUs in our hardest-hit regions. The challenges of formulating a real-time body count must not be offered as an excuse to abandon or dial back the mitigation measures that we know are working to keep whole populations alive and safe. We are slogging through a slow, brutal, worldwide mass-fatality event. Whatever the final tally, it will be a terrible one."
The Great Depression began in late 1929 as a recession not unlike those experienced previously—a decrease in GDP from one year to the next was common—but it rapidly blossomed into a four-year reduction in economic activity. By 1933, real GDP had fallen by over 25 percent and was only $636 billion.
Black people and by extension all poor & middle class people gaining real political power is a direct threat to capitalism & the .1% wealthy. Police attacks on Black Lives Matter protesters will continue after Trump is out of power.
Nancy MacLain, Benjamin Dixon (SEE HIS PODCAST ON THE SIDEBAR), Cenk Yugar and others at The Young Turks and others understand this. IT IS NOT COMMONLY KNOWN BUT SHOULD BE.
Nancy MacLean William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy Nancy MacLean is an award-winning scholar of the twentieth-century U.S., whose new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, has been described by Publishers Weekly as “a thoroughly researched and gripping narrative… [and] a feat of American intellectual and political history.” Booklist called it “perhaps the best explanation to date of the roots of the political divide that threatens to irrevocably alter American government.” MORE AT: Duke UNIVERSITY SCHOLARS @ DUKE:
"Buchanan, however, also had what MacLean calls a “stealth” agenda. He knew that the majority would never agree to being constrained. He therefore helped lead a push to undermine their trust in public institutions. The idea was to get voters to direct their ire at these institutions and divert their attention away from increasing income and wealth inequality.
This is the sordid tale that MacLean lays out in “Democracy in Chains.” She starts with Buchanan’s early engagement in policy work in the late 1950s, when he offered to help the state of Virginia respond to the federal mandate to desegregate public schools. After the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that public school segregation was unconstitutional, Buchanan and a fellow economist called for the state to issue tax-subsidized vouchers to any parents who wanted to send their children to private schools. What these economists were calling for was essentially the privatization of public education...
Buchanan, however, also had what MacLean calls a “stealth” agenda. He knew that the majority would never agree to being constrained. He therefore helped lead a push to undermine their trust in public institutions. The idea was to get voters to direct their ire at these institutions and divert their attention away from increasing income and wealth inequality.
This is the sordid tale that MacLean lays out in “Democracy in Chains.” She starts with Buchanan’s early engagement in policy work in the late 1950s, when he offered to help the state of Virginia respond to the federal mandate to desegregate public schools. After the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that public school segregation was unconstitutional, Buchanan and a fellow economist called for the state to issue tax-subsidized vouchers to any parents who wanted to send their children to private schools. What these economists were calling for was essentially the privatization of public education.
We know all of this because MacLean found documentation of Buchanan’s plans — including correspondence, meeting minutes and personal papers — in his previously unexplored archives. She came upon her biographical subject “by sheer serendipity,” she writes, while researching how the state of Virginia responded to the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Seeing the name of an unfamiliar economist eventually led her to rooms full of documents that made clear how “operatives” had been trained “to staff the far-flung and purportedly separate, yet intricately connected, institutions funded by the Koch brothers and their now large network of fellow wealthy donors.” Buchanan’s papers revealed how, from a series of faculty perches at several universities, he spent his life laying out a game plan for a right-wing social movement.
One part of his plan involved Social Security. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 was a watershed for conservatives, yet it quickly became clear that he, too, would succumb to political pressure. By 1982, Reagan’s fight to end Social Security — long a bugbear of Buchanan’s — was faltering. Amid that debate, the libertarian Cato Institute, funded by the brothers Charles and David Koch, made privatization of Social Security its top priority and turned to Buchanan for a master plan. Buchanan told them that “those who seek to undermine the existing structure” must do two things: Make people doubt the viability of Social Security, and divide the public by suggesting high earners be taxed at higher rates — which might sound progressive but would ultimately undo the universal foundation of the program itself...
With this book MacLean joins a growing chorus of scholars and journalists documenting the systematic, organized effort to undermine democracy and change the rules. In “Dark Money,” Jane Mayer tells the tale of the Koch brothers. In “Invisible Hands: The Businessmen’s Crusade Against the New Deal,” the historian Kim Phillips-Fein shows how a small group of businessmen initiated a decades-long effort to build popular support for free market economics. The political scientist Steven M. Teles writes about the chemicals magnate John M. Olin in “The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement.”
John C Calhoon would immediately see “Black Lives Matter” as a threat to property rights and capitalism.
Calhoon might also see “Blue Lives Matter” symbolic of, and an extension of the rights of fugitive slave hunters.
From-Democracy In Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America
"Hang around libertarians long enough and eventually one of them will start talking about "public choice theory" (I last heard it raised by a prominent libertarian scholar to justify corporations imposing adhesion contracts on their customers to force them to buy expensive consumables and service). It's a kind of catch-all theory that can handwave away any negative outcome from unregulated capitalism, the "freedom" of which is key to a kind of libertarian thought, above freedoms like "the freedom not to starve to death".
The theory has its origin in John C. Calhoun, a proponent of slavery, and James M. Buchanan, an opponent of the civil rights movement. Both used the language of oppression and freedom to defend elitism, characterizing any kind of redistributive movement as a form of oppressive control exercised by the majority (poor people, which, in America, overwhelmingly means racialized people) against a downtrodden, endangered minority (the one percent, again, overwhelmingly white people).
The connection between the libertarian right and white supremacy is forcefully made in Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America, Nancy MacLean's 2017 book, which attracted such a vitriolic response from the genteel face of oligarch-apologism that it bears scrutiny for that fact alone -- anything that pricks those consciences so thoroughly must be pretty interesting!"
Trump, Republicans & coronavirus has unearthed the insane worms in the USA that once were all but unnoticed.
The Republican Party has collapsed into a snake pit for insane white supremacists.
"A Republican Senate candidate recently declared herself “one of the thousands of digital soldiers” in service of QAnon, a convoluted pro-Trump conspiracy theory about a “deep state” of child-molesting Satanist traitors plotting against the president. A congressional candidate in Colorado who made approving comments about QAnon bested a five-term Republican incumbent in a primary last month.
More than two years after QAnon, which the F.B.I. has labeled a potential domestic terrorism threat, emerged from the troll-infested corners of the internet, the movement’s supporters are morphing from keyboard warriors into political candidates. They have been urged on by Mr. Trump, whose own espousal of conspiracy theories and continual railing against the political establishment have cleared a path for QAnon candidates.
And even as party leaders publicly distance themselves from the movement, they are quietly supporting some QAnon-linked candidates — demonstrating the thin line they are trying to walk between radical elements among their base and the moderate voters they need to win over.
Precisely how many candidates are running under the banner of QAnon is somewhat open to interpretation — estimates range to more than a dozen, with many more defeated in primaries — and nearly all are expected to lose in November. Some candidates have clear connections to the movement and use its language and hashtags on social media and in real-world appearances.
The QAnon Candidates Are Here. Trump Has Paved Their Way.
The conspiracy theorists accuse Democrats and even fellow Republicans of being beholden to a cabal of bureaucrats, pedophiles and Satanists. President Trump has cheered them on.
By Matthew Rosenberg and Jennifer SteinhauerJuly 14, 2020
Democrats please give up on recruiting Republicans. Sit back & watch Republicans murder their own insane white supremacist base.
Everyone else wear a mask so you’re alive to vote the Republican genocide masters out of office.
If you call that a violent political campaign strategy, keep in mind that Republicans are murdering their own. Democrats are just watching.
Manafort and Gates surrendered to federal authorities, and were expected in court later Monday to face charges brought by Mueller’s team.
The indictment lays out 12 counts including conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, acting as an unregistered foreign agent and several charges related to failing to report foreign bank and financial accounts. The indictment alleges that they moved money through hidden bank accounts in Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Seychelles. In total, more than $75 million flowed through the offshore accounts. Manafort is accused of laundering more than $18 million, according to the indictment.
Swimsuit? check. Sunglasses? Gucci transitional frames on deck. Camera? Inside cross-body case. Passport? Pack it inside a clear, sanitized pouch, and oh yeah — don’t forget your CDC protocol mask. It’s time to travel!
COVID-19 forced a shut down that halted travel and tourism. Travelers can now safely return
While coronavirus travel restrictions may vary from country to country, much of the world is united in one aspect of their current response: Travelers from the United States are not welcome.
A U.S. passport, long seen as a golden ticket to visa-free travel in much of the world, h
as long provided its holders with the ability to trot around the globe with ease. Now, that sense of passport privilege Americans are used to is fading.
As countries across the world ease coronavirus restrictions but block American travelers, a long-held sense that the U.S. passport was a golden ticket is losing its luster.
We need to tell their stories while some are living
AI Watts director of the “York Academy of Arts” in York PA was a RCAF U Boat killer bomber pilot.
A friend of Mr. Watts who was a writer that was published in National Geographic was also a RCAF pilot. They did a pilot to tower comedy routine.
No. 10 (Bomber) Squadron RCAF was a new, unrelated unit that was formed by the Royal Canadian Air Force on 5 September 1939 for anti-submarine warfare using the same, now disused squadron number, and was active for the duration of the Second World War.[3]
I met a guy in York PA that was on a Royal Navy Corvette on convoy support duty. He woke up in the North Atlantic blown completely out of the ship. He was terrified of cold water ever since. Ed Jaslow my boss at Jaslow Dental Lab in Jenkintown PA was a Navy Signalman assigned to convoy duty. To my knowledge Ed is 96 years old and still living.
When Ed sufficiently imbibed at lab holiday parties he did a flag signal thing. Hopefully he can still do it.
"Imagine yourself on a beach in Sea Isle City in the winter of 1942. It’s night, and a cold, steady breeze off the Atlantic numbs your nose. The shock and horror of the attack on Pearl Harbor remains fresh and raw as you look out toward a distant orange glow on the horizon.
You know it’s an American ship, probably an oil tanker from how long that fire has been burning out on the open ocean. It’s the opening days of America’s involvement in a war that has already spread around the world, with dire, implacable enemies to the east and the west. Even as thousands volunteer to fight in Europe, Africa and the Pacific, war has come to our shores."
He went to a restaurant in West Chester. My son ate outside. The rest went into the restaurant where the servers wore masks and costumers ate at tables as though there was no coronavirus.
SAN ANTONIO — A 30-year-old patient died after attending what's being called a "COVID Party," said Methodist Hospital Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jane Appleby.
"This is a party held by someone diagnosed with the COVID virus, and the thought is that people get together to see if the virus is real if anyone gets infected," Appleby said.
Appleby said she heard the heartbreaking story from a member of her staff this week.
"Just before the patient died, they looked at their nurse and said, 'I think I made a mistake. I thought this was a hoax, but it's not,'" Appleby said.
We got an early start with Republican Party corruption and destruction here in Coatesville. We learned how to survive it.
I believe that Patsy Ray, Bob Saucier and Ernie Campos all suffered from some form of mental illness. And that John Birch Society Chapter Leader Pat Sellers manipulated them for his own extremist right wing political outcomes. The Republican Party is now manipulating the mentally ill for the 2020 Elections. The Republican Party targeted racists, those who took pride in ignorance, those terrified of brown people, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, gays & conspiracy believers terrified of change. Republicans corralled the insane & called them their base. A political Party of the insane.
Saucier & Campos passed away. Bob Saucier's apparent suicide attempt was stopped by Downtown Police when they "bean bagged" him and detained him with 302 involuntary commitment. In spite of our political differences I got along well with Bog.
Ernie was a kind of early Alt-Right political activist. As an example: This is a link to the barely disguised voice of Ernie Campos as "Moses Coates" on the "Patsy Ray Show:" https://app.box.com/s/133h2qxbtixj017cv6oa I believe Patsy Ray is in recovery from her problems. Ms. Patsy Ray is doing an excellent job in her very challenging position as Judge of Elections in Coatesville's 2 Ward Precinct 080.
When Patsy Ray ran for Coatesville City Council went to Thomas Cloud Detective Agency for background information. We could have taken her off the ballot.
Dave said Patsy couldn't win because everyone knows she's crazy.
Dave barely campaigned. I tried and failed to convince Dave that Patsy could win.
Previous to the 2006 elections $1,000 would be a lot to spend on a Coatesville City Council election. Pat Sellers and the John Birch Society changed that.
JBS Chapter Leader Pat Sellers is the man who asked Patsy to run. Along with several others I believe Pat funneled cash through the John Birch Society from Coatesville’s billionaire Mary Alice Dorrance Malone.
4 color printed 4 page political fliers I estimated costing more than $60,000 were distributed in Coatesville to elect the “Bloc of Four.”
I believe about 1/2 were printed at Rep. Tim Hennessey’s office after hours possibly at taxpayer expense. Dave DiSimone and I drove by Hennessey’s Coatesville Office frequently because we lived nearby. Ricky Saha's car was unmistakable. It was plastered with "Save our Farm" posters. We saw it parked at Hennessey's office at times from 9:00 pm until early in the morning. We saw Patsy Ray bringing reams of paper out of Hennessey's Office. Two days later an issue of, John Birch Society member and White Supremacist, Pat Seller's "Coatesville Recorder" would be on every doorstep in Coatesville. Did Sellers print his campaign broadsides on the PA taxpayers dime?
The "articles" in the Coatesville are mostly a few facts embellished with lies. Many are outright fabrications. I asked then District Attorney Joe Carroll about this. Joe said this is a political broadside, that none of it needs to be accurate.
Some undeniable facts did come out of that despicable period in Coatesville's history:
Hennessey’s business manager Lisa Johnson was convicted of manufacturing & distribution of crack cocaine.
Everything swirls around Hennessy's Coatesville Office
State Representative Tim Hennessey was allegedly censured by the PA House Republican Caucus for his long time Coatesville Office Business Manager Lisa Johnson having a crack cocaine manufacturing business operating under Hennessey's nose for about decade.
Ricky Saha's car was unmistakable. It was plastered with "Save our Farm" posters. We saw it parked at Hennessey's office at times from 9:00 pm until early in the morning. We saw Patsy Ray bringing reams of paper out of Hennessey's Office. Two days later an issue of, John Birch Society member and White Supremacist, Pat Seller's "Coatesville Recorder" would be on every doorstep in Coatesville. Did Sellers print his campaign broadsides on the PA taxpayers dime?
Below is one page of the Pat Seller's "Coatesville Recorder". There were six issues of the "Coatesville Recorder" Some issues had six pages. All issues were four color, printed on a laser printer. There were enough printed each issue for every household in Coatesville plus extra issues. I estimated the cost of printing, not including the cost of distribution, to be somewhere between $30,000 and $60,000. Who paid for this? Did taxpayers pay to have them printed at Hennessey's Office?
Hennessey's staff was deeply involved in "Mosaic Partners LLP" scam to put a fake company onto Coatesville's "Flats" brownfield. I believe it was designed to go bankrupt and then sell to Andrew Lehr's, Harry Walker's and Al Baxter's Florida Power and Light to build a gas fired electric power generation station in the center of Coatesville.
The Republican Party targeted racists, those who took pride in ignorance, those terrified of brown people, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, gays & conspiracy believers terrified of change. Republicans corralled the insane & called them their base. A political Party of the insane.
See Daily Local News article about this event below:
POLICE / COMMUNITY FORUMS produced by Concerned Citizens of Coatesville:
Police forum held at New Life in Christ Fellowship in Coatesville
By Lucas Rodgers, lrodgers@dailylocal.com
POSTED: 06/19/15, 7:00 AM EDT |
‘Know Your Rights’ meeting held at New Life in Christ Fellowship
By Lucas Rodgers, lrodgers@dailylocal.com
POSTED: 08/27/15, 10:06 PM EDT | UPDATED: ON 08/27/2015
Police chiefs speak at forum in Coatesville
By Adam Farence, Daily Local News
POSTED: 11/08/15, 5:47 PM EST | UPDATED: ON 11/08/2015
For some reason these are politically partisan events, by default. Republicans were invited but no Republican officials showed up. State Representative Harry Lewis was asked to speak at one of these events: With 3 witnesses present Harry said, “No”, he did not support the police community meetings. When asked, "Why?' Harry allegedly said, “Police think they cause trouble”. Our local police chiefs, District Attorney representative at the meetings were asked if they said the meetings “cause trouble”. Their answer of course was, "no." When Harry Lewis was asked, Who told you the forums cause trouble?” Harry would not answer. Maybe it was these police: Fraternal Order of Police union endorses Trump
By Tom Jackman September 16 I'm just guessing but I think the Tea Party racist extremist and now Donald Trump have the Republican Party in a headlock and cannot be "soft" on any hint that "Black lives matter." Even a black man like Rep. Harry Lewis can’t take that chance. MORE AT:
There was a highly informative, emotionally charged, coming together of clergy, police, law enforcement, educators and community at the Coatesville Community Day, August 28, 2016 at Abdela Park in the City of Coatesville.
You might say that Coatesville Police Sergeant Rodger Ollis was the 'Star', deservedly so.
The forum was the main attraction, for adults. There was also food.
