Friday, December 24, 2021

It’s not Biden, Trump, the GOP, QAnon or Fox News. United States is number one in COVID deaths because for profit capitalist medical care is a gargantuan failure. In 2024 Trump & the GOP could blame Biden for that failure.

"In early September, amid the delta variant surge, Biden reiterated the promise that “every American, no matter their income, can access free and convenient tests.”

Now, nearly a full year into Biden’s term, as the virus has mutated its way through the Greek alphabet to the omicron variant, testing is in short supply in many places, leaving frustrated Americans waiting in long lines for tests — if they can get them at all.

That is feeding into a wave of concern, despondency and in some places near-frenzy at the likely approach of yet another spike in a pandemic the country has battled for nearly two years. This late-December disarray — crowded testing sites, empty drugstore shelves — is raising fresh questions about how Biden and his team have executed on his pledge to defeat the pandemic.

“We’re going from emergency to emergency. We need a strategic plan, and executing on the strategic plan and just making it happen,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, a physician and bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania who was on Biden’s covid advisory team during the transition. “You need a general getting all this done…" 
"A larger question for many health experts is whether the White House will see this moment as a time to return to the idea of a “wartime footing” — given that the country is seeing about 9,000 covid deaths a week.

'One can make a strong argument that we are at war, but for the White House to recommit to a wartime position, that’s really hard to do,'Kocher said. 'It’s going to end in people saying, ‘Why didn’t you win the war the first time?’ It’s hard to go back. But biology is hard.”

FROM: 

The Washington Post

Inside the administration’s failure to avert a covid testing shortfall

By Annie Linskey

December 23, 2021

***


I came up with a vaccine,” Trump boasted in an interview released Wednesday to right-wing media personality Candace Owens. Despite Owens’s disagreement, Trump insisted that “if you take the vaccine, you’re protected” and “people aren’t dying when they take the vaccine.”

Trump has also been publicly encouraging people to get booster shots. He’s practically sounded like Anthony S. Fauci.

“Retcon” is short for “retroactive continuity,” in which existing stories are retroactively rewritten to accord with a new and contradictory story someone wants to tell. In an early famous case, Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes, then after fans demanded more stories, decided that Holmes had only faked his death. Retcons are particularly common in soap operas (Last season was all a dream!) and comics (That other stuff happened in a parallel universe!)."


MORE AT:

The Washington Post

Opinion: How Republicans will retcon the past to try to reelect Trump

Paul Waldman


"Trump’s “Warp Speed” vaccine push is one of the most underrated achievements of his presidency, and it understandably galls Trump to be blamed for covid-19 deaths when, in fact, he could more justifiably be credited for saving millions of lives…

To his credit, Trump seems undeterred. He considers the vaccines his babies, he believes in their efficacy, and he wants more Americans to embrace them. As Biden pointed out, for once he and Trump are on the same page."

MORE AT:
The Washington Post

***

"Biology is hard" on ordinary people when the health care they can get is managed not for their outcomes but for the profits of a health care system designed to benefit a few wealthy investors:

"Abstract

The current economic crisis in Europe has challenged the basis of the economic model that currently prevails in much of the industrialised world. It has revealed a system that is managed not for the benefit of the people but rather for the corporations and the small elite who lead them, and which is clearly unsustainable in its present form. Yet, there is a hidden consequence of this system: an unfolding crisis in health care, driven by the greed of corporations whose profit-seeking model is also failing. Proponents of commodifying healthcare simultaneously argue that the cost of providing care for ageing populations is unaffordable while working to create demand for their health care products among those who are essentially healthy. Will healthcare be the next profit-fuelled investor bubble? In this paper, we call on health professionals to heed the warnings from the economic crisis and, rather than stand by while a crisis unfolds, act now to redirect increasingly market-oriented health systems to serve the common good."

Conclusions

European citizens today are like those who looked around them in Eastern Europe in 1989 and realised that the systems they inhabited were being run not for them but for a small elite. These systems were becoming increasingly dysfunctional and were failing to deliver on what they had promised. They had to change and they did. Today, it is equally clear that our systems have to change, but so far they have not.

One of the first things that new public health trainees are taught is the importance of looking upstream, to the fundamental determinants of health. To make a difference to population health it is necessary to tackle the causes of the causes.30 The policies of austerity being pursued in Europe today are already impacting adversely on health, with rising suicides and denial of necessary care.6 Yet, as is now increasingly clear, they are not even doing what they were designed to achieve in the economy, instead they are choking recovery. As this paper has shown, many of those who promoted the deregulation of financial markets are now turning to the social sector as the next big opportunity to turn a profit. Yet their actions will not help those who need care and will medicalise the problems, real and imagined, of those who do not need it. Inevitably, scarce resources that could be used to alleviate genuine suffering will be wasted."

More at the Journal of Public Health Research

The Crisis of Capitalism and the Marketisation of Health Care: the Implications for Public Health Professionals

2012 Dec 28; 1(3): 236–239. 


***

There's hope.

ALSO SEE:

"Introduced during the Trump administration, “direct contracting” is a Medicare payment model that allows private medical practices and insurance companies to arrange set payments from Medicare for the year, rather than bill the administration for services. But critics warn that the system, which has continued under the Biden administration, is being exploited by venture capitalists. Merrill Goozner is a reporter who has spent decades covering the slow-moving crisis of American health care, and he joins Ryan Grim to discuss the present and possible future of Medicare.

[Musical introduction.]

Ryan Grim: You may not have heard much about it, but in the Medicare system, there’s now something called direct contracting. It was started under Trump, and it has continued under Biden, and it allows private physician practices, hospitals, or insurance companies to contract directly with Medicare and get a set amount of money over the year. That contrasts with traditional Medicare, in which healthcare providers bill Medicare directly for services. 

The stated point of direct contracting is to experiment with new models that would save money and improve care, but its critics warn that it’s a runaway scam that is being exploited by venture capital and private equity firms, and that it’ll lead to worse care in the long run, based on private equity’s poor record of delivering care in other settings. 

The project in question was designed by Adam Boehler, who was previously a dorm mate of Jared Kushner’s, and also the founder of Landmark Health, a VC-backed healthcare company. He was brought in to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) under Trump, and as he was designing this new model, career staff became concerned about conflicts of interest. 

When a calender alert went out to staff in May 2019 reading “discussion with Landmark on the direct contracting model,” career staff were appalled. I obtained a group text in which they commiserated with one another and expressed their disgust over the corporate influence. This is a family podcast, so I’ll edit the messages, but a sampling: “This stuff is so effing gross,” wrote one. “Ugh. What the eff,” replied another. A third sent a link to the Office of the Inspector General, suggesting somebody report it.

These were not off-the-wall concerns. The Office of the General Counsel for the Health and Human Services Department warned, in comments on a draft of the proposal that I obtained, that it appeared as if the new project was being set up to benefit specific companies: “We are concerned based on the regular references to organizations like Chen Med, Oak Street Health, and Verily in the comments and otherwise, that this model has been designed with specific private sector entities in mind. If accurate, this could create ethics concerns, as the creation of this model would give those entities a leg up in the market.”

And the model has indeed been extremely attractive to VC- and private equity-backed firms. It’s now being overseen by Liz Fowler, who serves as director of CMMI. She was previously the top healthcare aide to Max Baucus during the Obamacare fight, and if you remember, Baucus was the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which wrote the meat of the bill. CMMI itself came out of the Affordable Care Act. Previously, Fowler had worked in the insurance industry, and between her time with Baucus and now, she was an executive at Johnson and Johnson.

This week, I published a story about the roots of the direct contracting program. Not long afterward, Fowler appeared at a conference by video in Washington and responded to the story. She appeared to be reading from a prepared statement. 

Liz Fowler: I have [perceived or received] the concerns that have been raised, some legitimate and some overblown. But as a responsible steward of Medicare, we appreciate the input and we are continuously looking for improvement opportunities, including how the model can help achieve our goals for advancing health equity. So, I know that wasn’t part of the question, but since I had the opportunity and since this issue has been in the press, I wanted to take the chance to weigh in and give you my perspective. 

RG: Now, claiming that your for-profit model is actually in the business of generating equity — and they don’t mean equity as in the stock market — is a rather old corporate trick. But what makes this story so interesting is that the principle behind this new Medicare effort is actually quite a good one."

MORE AT: 

The Intercept

Deconstructed: A New Way to Think About Medicare

Ryan Grim


Monday, December 6, 2021

Boris Johnson's Law to Remedy the Distress of England "Enabling Act" "Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich 1933" "Boris Johnson wants to weaken the power of courts to overrule decisions by ministers through the process of judicial review"

 Boris Johnson wants to weaken the power of courts to overrule decisions by ministers through the process of judicial review, according to reports.

The Times reported the PM wants to allow ministers to effectively throw out any legal rulings they do not agree with.

Boris Johnson ‘planning reforms which would let ministers overrule judicial decisions’

Reported move triggers backlash from lawyers, with one senior QC quoted as saying the prime minister is seeking a ‘more compliant judiciary’

Ella Glover December 6, 2021




Boris Johnson's Law to Remedy the Distress of England "Enabling Act" "Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich



Enabling Act of 1933


The Enabling Act (German: Ermächtigungsgesetz) of 1933, officially titled Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich ("Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich"),[1] was a law that gave the German Cabinet—most importantly, the Chancellor—the powers to make and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag and with no need to consult with Weimar President Paul von Hindenburg. Critically, the Enabling Act allowed the Chancellor to bypass the system of checks and balances in the government and these laws could explicitly violate individual rights prescribed in the Weimar Constitution.[2


Saturday, December 4, 2021

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. You can’t do “Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” if you’re dead. And the Republican Party is intent on killing you.

"President Biden announced an array of measures Thursday to protect Americans from a potential winter surge of coronavirus infections, as five states confirmed cases linked to the omicron variant and international researchers shared data indicating that the still-mysterious variant may be able to reinfect people who had prior infections.

“We’re going to fight this variant with science and speed, not chaos and confusion,” Biden said in a speech at the National Institutes of Health, appealing to Americans to put aside partisan differences and continue to get vaccinated, wear masks and take other precautions. “This is a moment we can put the divisiveness behind us, I hope.”

The president’s plan includes campaigns to increase vaccinations and booster shots, more stringent testing for international travelers and plans to make rapid at-home coronavirus testing free for more people. While some of the measures are new — notably a plan to launch “family mobile vaccination clinics,” where all eligible members of a family could simultaneously get shots and boosters — others build on existing tactics, such as rallying businesses to impose vaccination-or-testing mandates for employees.

Public health experts praised aspects of Biden’s plan but called for further investments in testing, screening and combating misinformation about the vaccines. They also said Biden’s vow that the nation will ward off omicron after it “beat back” the delta variant doesn’t reflect a reality where the virus continues to circulate at high levels, with more than 140,000 coronavirus-linked deaths in the United States since the start of September.

It’s the “most aggressive pandemic plan yet for the United States, but still falls short of all that’s needed now,” said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute.

Omicron mutations alarm scientists, but new variant first must prove it can outcompete delta

Biden’s package of coronavirus strategies comes as officials confirmed omicron-linked infections in California, Minnesota, Colorado, New York and Hawaii, and as South African researchers reported that the new variant appeared to be linked to increased coronavirus re-infections, although the new cases were mild. Scientists caution that it will take days, if not weeks, to fully understand whether the new variant can evade current vaccines and treatments, or cause more severe symptoms in infected people."


MORE AT:

Washington Post

‘We are pulling out all the stops’: White House details strategies to combat delta, omicron variants

Biden to promise at-home test kits for no cost, more access to booster shots, stricter testing of travelers coming to U.S.


***


"For McConnell, the conservative rebellion over vaccine mandates is yet another challenge to band his 50 members together and avert catastrophe. A second one awaits around the corner as a potential U.S. credit default looms later this month. McConnell has vowed there will be no shutdown and no default; both may depend to on whether he can rein in all of his members.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who's as conservative as they come, said that while she wants to defund vaccine mandates, she’s going to trust McConnell to shape the party's strategy.

“My gut tells me, let leadership do the best they can and trust them," Lummis said. "I just am going to trust the people who are leading and negotiating ... that's how flexible I'm willing to be."

With the pandemic still clouding everyday life nationwide, many Republicans believe a shutdown over vaccine mandates will reflect poorly on their party and argue there are way better ways to make their point. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) wants to channel the GOP frustration with required vaccinations into a vote next week to roll back President Joe Biden’s mandate. That would avoid his party taking the hit for a shutdown, even if it’s a short one.

“Most everybody agrees with me,” Braun said. “Almost everybody.”

POLITICO

McConnell's latest challenge: Stopping a shutdown over vaccine mandates

A small group of conservatives wants to force a funding showdown over Covid inoculation mandates. But most in the GOP leader's conference aren't convinced.

By BURGESS EVERETT

12/01/2021 01:48 PM EST

Updated: 12/01/2021 04:47 PM EST

Saturday, November 20, 2021

The Rittenhouse verdict is a victory for violent elections. In the Philippines bodies are counted with votes. Philippine style elections by bullet are coming. Democratic committee people, candidates & county election officers need active shooter training.

 If you have street smarts keep them at the top in you mind wherever you go. Watch & study the FBI training video below. Use it anytime you are in a public place, a store, political rally or at the polls to vote.


“Kyle Rittenhouse’s gun can veto the bullhorn. We have to act: It should be clearly illegal under federal law to menace protestors while armed. The right to keep and bear arms must not obliterate the right to peaceably assemble. We have to consider this an act of political intimidation on its face moving forward, if the ballot is meant to prevail over the bullet.”

MORE AT:

Kyle Rittenhouse’s Acquittal Sets a Dangerous Precedent. But That’s Not What Was on Trial.

Jurors are asked to uphold the law as it stands. We don’t ask jurors to make the law. That’s on us.

George Chidi

November 19 2021, 4:25 p.m.



***

At Philippine elections bodies are counted with votes.

At least 33 people have been killed and 19 others wounded in several poll-related incidents ahead of Monday’s nationwide local elections in the Philippines, the country’s police chief said.

Police chief Oscar Albayalde said on Monday that 18 incumbent local officials, four candidates, three former elected officials and eight civilians were among the dead since the campaign season kicked off on April 14.

ALJAZEERA

Philippines: Election-related violence leaves 33 dead

***

In this FBI training video, customers at a bar are caught in an active shooter event. By employing the run, hide, and fight tactics, as well as knowing the basics of rendering first aid to others, they are prepared, empowered, and able to survive the attack.





https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/active_shooter_booklet.pdf



***

"Newswise — A new report published in the academic journal Pacific Affairs authored by Dr Tom Smith from the University of Portsmouth and Dr Joseph Reyes from Lund University investigates election violence in the Philippines. It is the first academic research published on the issue in 23 years and evidences increasing violence, the armed groups involved and murky role of state security forces across the massacres of journalists, assassinations of candidates and attacks on voters and campaign groups.

• Election Violence in the Philippines has worsened since 2004, contrary to claims by government and previous research.  

  • Election Violence in the Philippines is largely perpetrated by unidentified assassins and fruitful investigations are rare.  

    • The Duterte administration has fostered vigilante violence in its ‘war on drugs’ and risks further fuelling another violent election.

    • Media reporting on the election and the violence around it is increasingly dangerous,  journalists are murdered and media networks under threat.

    • Election Violence is hard to monitor and currently falls between the cracks of various international election monitoring initiatives."

Violence in the upcoming Philippines election will be the bloodiest ever

30-Sep-2021 3:55 PM EDT, by University of Portsmouth




Saturday, November 6, 2021

It’s not astounding at all that Trump’s coconspirators refuse to testify. AG Merritt Garland refuses to prosecute anyone close to Trump. And Congress is not using inherent contempt of Congress. Do Trump & his coconspirators have a Stay Out of Jail card?

 

In 1857, Congress enacted a law that made "contempt of Congress" a criminal offense against the United States.[7]

 

***

“It’s astounding that someone who so recently held a position of public trust to uphold the Constitution would now hide behind vague claims of privilege by a former president, refuse to answer questions about an attack on our democracy, and continue an assault on the rule of law,’ Thompson wrote in his statement, rejecting Clark’s claim of privilege.”

“Thompson did not specify what those measures would be, but the committee last month moved to hold Stephen K. Bannon in criminal contempt for failing to cooperate with its subpoena — and has indicated that they are willing to hold others who stonewall the committee in criminal contempt. The House later voted to find Bannon in contempt, referring the decision to the Justice Department, which has yet to announce whether it will prosecute the former White House chief strategist.”

MORE AT:

Washington Post

Jan. 6 committee warns Trump DOJ official he must cooperate with investigation or it will move aggressively against him

Jacqueline Alemany October 5, 2021 7:21 p.m. EDT




***

"In my view, you don't ignore the crimes that have been committed by a president of the United States. They need to be investigated. You may reach the judgment once you've investigated something that the public interest in not prosecuting a former president outweighs the interests of justice. But I don't think you could ignore the crimes," Schiff added. He called the 2018 report "a factual basis to charge the president with multiple crimes of obstruction."'

Schiff also turned to Garland's response to the failed, Trump-led nationwide efforts to overturn election results and touched on the challenges facing the January 6 committee.

"For example, a taped conversation of Donald J. Trump on the phone with Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state from Georgia, trying to coerce him into fraudulently finding 11,780 votes. Because I think if you or I did that, we'd be under indictment by now," Schiff said.

Business Insider 

Adam Schiff says he 'vehemently disagrees' with AG Merrick Garland's reluctance to investigate Trump

Azmi Haroun



***

Glenn Kirschner

"Let’s get the justice ball rolling. 

Have the courts learned their lesson or will they continue to let nefarious litigants to weaponize the inherent delay in the courts…Don’t let Donald Trump play games. The courts shouldn’t let themselves be used to the nefarious litigants end…to run out the clock.


Donald Trump filed a lawsuit trying to prevent information about his possible role in the insurrection from being provided to the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol.?


In today's court hearing, Judge Tanya Chutkan dismantled each and every argument Trump's lawyer, Justin Clark, made in his desperate attempt to stop the House select committee from getting what is very likely damaging information about Trump's role in the insurrection."




***

Glenn Kirschner


The Washington Post printed a 3-part series taking an extraordinary deep dive into the before, during and after of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. This again raises the question many have been asking throughout the 10 months since the attack on our democracy: is Attorney General Merrick Garland's Department of Justice criminally investigating Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the results of the presidential election. This video discusses the goals and principles of prosecution, focusing on general deterrence - deterring others from committing the same or similar crimes 


This video reviews today's court hearing and discusses what is likely to come next after Judge Chutkan issues her ruling in the coming days.   


Nov. 4, 2021 










Tuesday, November 2, 2021

WRITE-IN HOLLY CHAREST. She is an educator. James Bookman is on the ballots as School Director in the City of Coatesville PA. He can no longer serve on the School Board since he now works in the evening. This happened after the ballots were printed


UPDATE

MAYBE IT'S NOT OVER, BUT IT APPEARS THAT HOLLY CHAREST HAD 8 VOTES. 

IT LOOKS LIKE THE COATESVILLE SCHOOL BOARD WILL SELECT THE SCHOOL DIRECTOR FOR REGION - 1.  

I don't know if this is done at a public meeting.




 


Holly Charest is running for School Director Coatesville Region 1 as a write-in.


James Bookman is on the ballot.

James Bookman cannot serve since he is employed on a night shift and cannot attend Coatesville School Board meetings. 

The ballots were printed before this occurred.


HOLLY CHAREST'S LINKEDIN PROFILE:


THE BALLOT LOOKS LIKE THIS I BLOCKED OUT THE OTHER RACES.

JAMES BOOKMAN APPEARS IN TWO PLACES. 
WRITE IN HOLLY CHAREST IN BOTH PLACES.



Sorry to put this out so late. I didn't know about it until I voted today.



Friday, October 29, 2021

The Statute of Northampton of 1328 is the historic basis for current gun laws. In 1328 a “hand cannon or “hand gonne” was the state of the art hand weapon. In 2021 one AR can kill everyone in a courtroom in less than 1 minute.


Hand cannon.JPG

Turkish Hand Cannon  CC BY-SA 3.0Link


The Statute of Northampton of 1328 remains central to the current debate surrounding the limits and protections the Second Amendment provides to carry arms in public.[1] The Statute provided that “no man great nor small, of what condition soever he be, except the king’s servants in his presence…come before the King’s justices, or other of the King’s ministers doing their office, with force and arms, nor bring no force in affray of the peace, nor to go nor ride armed by night nor by day, in fairs, markets, nor in the presence of the justices or other ministers” (2 Edw. 3, c.3). Certain Second Amendment scholars hold that the Statute was “not interpreted literally” and was only enforced when weapons were carried with the intent to terrify or threaten or when dangerous and unusual weapons were carried.[2] While the Statute has been much studied, some key sources remain neglected, namely the reliance of Sir. Edward Coke on 13th Century English legal scholar Henry de Bracton in Coke’s interpretation of the Statute. Coke’s quotations from de Bracton, which have usually been ignored because they are written almost entirely in Latin, offer additional evidence that the Statute of Northampton was understood to be a broad-based prohibition on the carrying of arms.

MORE AT:

MORE AT:

DUKE CENTER FOR FIREARMS LAW


Observations Regarding the Interpretation and Legacy of the Statute of Northampton in Anglo-American Legal History





In 1328 the only hand carried firearm was a “gonne or handgonne.” A metal tube with a hole in one end to light with a wick.


The hand cannon (Chinese: shŏuchòng, or huŏchòng, French: escopette), also known as the gonne or handgonne, is the first true firearm and the successor of the fire lance.[1] It is the oldest type of small arms as well as the most mechanically simple form of metal barrel firearms. Unlike matchlock firearms it requires direct manual external ignition through a touch hole without any form of firing mechanism. It may also be considered a forerunner of the handgun. The hand cannon was widely used in China from the 13th century onward and later throughout Eurasia in the 14th century. In 15th century Europe, the hand cannon evolved to become the matchlock arquebus, which became the first firearm to have a trigger.[2]



60 MINUTES

The explosive force of AR-15 style rifles

Nov 4, 2018






From The Washington Post Courts and Law

At issue is New York’s requirement that a gun owner obtain a special license to carry by satisfying local authorities that the gun owner has “proper cause” for doing so. Seven other states — California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island have similar laws.

The two people challenging the law — Robert Nash and Brandon Koch — have licenses to carry handguns for hunting and target practice. But New York authorities denied their requests for “unrestricted” licenses for self-defense because officials said they could not show a “special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.”

During the two-year period of 2018 and 2019, at least 65 percent of applicants in New York were approved for an “unrestricted” license, according to a state analysis of records submitted to the court.

The challengers — joined by the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, an NRA affiliate — want the justices to overturn a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit saying that the state’s regulations do not violate the Second Amendment and are consistent with the government’s interest in public safety and crime prevention.

At times, the dueling sides examine in their briefs the same founding-era statutes, court rulings and even 14th-century English law. Both quote the Statute of Northampton — the ancient law that prohibited people from traveling armed “by night nor by day” and in places where people were likely to gather such as “fairs” and “markets.”

But they have different interpretations and reach opposite conclusions.

Clement, the lawyer for the gun owners, says there is a broad right to carry in public for self-defense.

“When the founding generation enshrined that right in the Constitution, it understood the right to entitle the people to ‘have arms for their own defence’ and ‘use them for lawful purposes’ wherever the need should ‘occur,’ ” according Clement’s brief.

Founding father Patrick Henry went armed in town on his way to court in early America, the court filing states, and John Adams defended the right to go armed in Boston.

Even those assertions are being disputed by gun-control advocates in a new report titled “Historical Myth-Making and the Second Amendment: Founders and Firearms.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) says 700 years of history, “from the Middle Ages onward,” including “laws on both sides of the Atlantic broadly restricted the public carrying of firearms and other deadly weapons, particularly in populous places,” and that New York’s law is “less restrictive” than the measures in place before the founding era.

Striking down New York’s law, James said, would jeopardize firearm restrictions that other states and the federal government have in place at courthouses and airports, and in subways, houses of worship, bars and other settings.

New York’s position is backed by more than a dozen professors of English and American history who say limitations on carrying firearms in public are “of ancient vintage.” Saul Cornell, a Fordham University professor, said those challenging the law are wrong on the history. They fail to acknowledge, he said, the “staggering array” of gun laws enacted in the post-Civil War era, including permitting laws and bans on concealed carry.

MORE AT:

Washington Post

In battle at Supreme Court over N.Y. gun law, a surprising split among conservatives

Ann E. Marimow5:00 a.m. EDT


Thursday, October 28, 2021

The Chester County Republican Party has been linked to organized crime since criminal gangs went international during Prohibition. When the Mafia switched to much easier to run heroin law enforcement & political connections were already in place.

 As a small boy I looked forward to visiting Sante and Concetta Giunta Piscoglio at Christmas. There was a large Lionel Train layout in the basement.


Sante Piscoglio once lived in a 1920s style stone home overlooking Coatesville at the top of 13th Avenue. Sante ran Scotch Whisky from Canada to Chester County Common Pleas judges. 


He got 2 pops in the back of the head at 8th Avenue & Harmony Street. 


When the Mafia switched to much easier to run heroin law enforcement & political connections were already in place. 



 It’s universal. The war on people to profit on drugs. 


CIA in Vietnam ran H using U.S. Air Force, wealthy Philly Narcotics Detectives?, ChesCo DA Bill Lamb’s witness Daniel Joseph’s murdered while in witness security for fingering 2 PA State Police & ChesCo FBI selling heroin.



Watching “The Informer” on Amazon & remembering former Chester County DA Bill Lamb’s star witness Daniel Joseph who fingered 2 PA State Police for selling “French Connection heroin. Joseph was murdered while in federal protection.




***



“SIU operations include the infamous 2011 Allende massacre, in which an entire town was virtually wiped out by organized criminal groups operating under the eye of Mexican federal law enforcement and military units.”


"A trial date has been set in the high-profile prosecution of a former top-ranking Mexican federal police official once considered the United States’ leading ally in the war on drugs. Genaro García Luna, the former head of public security in Mexico who was arrested in 2019 on charges of cocaine trafficking, listened in from jail Wednesday as Judge Brian M. Cogan of the Eastern District of New York set a tentative October 24, 2022, date for the potentially historic trial.

Noting the complexity and sensitivity of the case, which would be roughly comparable to an FBI director accused of colluding with the mafia, Cogan set backup dates for early January 2023. Federal prosecutors have accused García Luna of accepting millions of dollars in bribes to allow Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera’s Sinaloa drug cartel to “operate with impunity in Mexico” for more than a decade, while at the same time working side by side with the most powerful officials in the U.S. national security and law enforcement apparatus. García Luna has denied the charges.

Given García Luna’s extensive U.S. government connections, his trial has the potential to peel back the secrecy surrounding drug war cooperation at the highest levels of the U.S. and Mexican governments and upend commonly held misperceptions of the Mexican drug war as simple two-sided struggle between drug traffickers and law enforcement alone."

MORE AT:


High-Stakes Prosecution of U.S.-Backed Mexican Drug War Commander Set for Trial

The development in Genaro García Luna’s case in New York comes amid rising concerns over DEA operations abroad.

Ryan Devereaux

October 27 2021, 6:44 p.m




***




When is the “War on Drugs” that’s murdering & killing thousands of people and that police & politicians profit from going to stop?







***



History of CIA Involvement in Drug Trafficking

“In my 30­year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA.” — Dennis Dayle, former chief of an elite DEA enforcement unit.

The foregoing discussion should not be regarded as any kind of historical aberration inasmuch as the CIA has had a long and virtually continuous involvement with drug trafficking since the end of World War II.

1947 to 1951, France

CIA arms, money, and disinformation enabled Corsican criminal syndicates in Marseille to wrest control of labor unions from the Communist Party. The Corsicans gained political influence and control over the docks–ideal conditions for cementing a long-term partnership with mafia drug distributors, which turned Marseille into the postwar heroin capital of the Western world. Marseille’s first heroin laboratories were opened in 1951, only months after the Corsicans took over the waterfront.

Early 1950s, Southeast Asia

The Nationalist Chinese army, organized by the CIA to wage war against Communist China, became the opium baron of The Golden Triangle (parts of Burma, Thailand, and Laos), the world’s largest source of opium and heroin. Air America, the CIA’s principal proprietary airline, flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia.

1950s to early 1970s, Indochina

During U.S. military involvement in Laos and other parts of Indochina, Air America flew opium and heroin throughout the area. Many GI’s in Vietnam became addicts. A laboratory built at CIA headquarters in northern Laos was used to refine heroin. After a decade of American military intervention, Southeast Asia had become the source of 70 percent of the world’s illicit opium and the major supplier of raw materials for America’s booming heroin market.

1973 to 1980, Australia

The Nugan Hand Bank of Sydney was a CIA bank in all but name. Among its officers were a network of U.S. generals, admirals, and CIA men–including former CIA Director William Colby, who was also one of its lawyers. With branches in Saudi Arabia, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America, and the U.S., Nugan Hand Bank financed drug trafficking, money laundering, and international arms dealing. In 1980, amidst several mysterious deaths, the bank collapsed, $50 million in debt.

1970s and 1980s, Panama

For more than a decade, Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega was a highly paid CIA asset and collaborator, despite knowledge by U.S. drug authorities as early as 1971 that the general was heavily involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. Noriega facilitated “guns-for-drugs” flights for the contras, providing protection and pilots, safe havens for drug cartel officials, and discreet banking facilities. U.S. officials, including then-CIA Director William Webster and several DEA officers, sent Noriega letters of praise for efforts to thwart drug trafficking (albeit only against competitors of his Medellín cartel patrons). The U.S. government only turned against Noriega, invading Panama in December 1989 and kidnapping the general, once they discovered he was providing intelligence and services to the Cubans and Sandinistas. Ironically, drug trafficking through Panama increased after the U.S. invasion.

1980s, Central America

The San Jose Mercury News series documents just one thread of the interwoven operations linking the CIA, the contras, and the cocaine cartels. Obsessed with overthrowing the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Reagan administration officials tolerated drug trafficking as long as the traffickers gave support to the contras. In 1989, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations (the Kerry committee) concluded a three-year investigation by stating: “There was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zones on the part of individual contras, contra suppliers, contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the contras, and contra supporters throughout the region. . . . U.S. officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua. . . . In each case, one or another agency of the U.S. government had information regarding the involvement either while it was occurring, or immediately thereafter. . . . Senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the contras’ funding problems.”

In Costa Rica, which served as the “Southern Front” for the contras (Honduras being the Northern Front), there were several CIA-contra networks involved in drug trafficking. In addition to those servicing the Meneses-Blandon operation (detailed by the Mercury News) and Noriega’s operation, there was CIA operative John Hull, whose farms along Costa Rica’s border with Nicaragua were the main staging area for the contras. Hull and other CIA-connected contra supporters and pilots teamed up with George Morales, a major Miami-based Colombian drug trafficker who later admitted to giving $3 million in cash and several planes to contra leaders. In 1989, after the Costa Rica government indicted Hull for drug trafficking, a DEA-hired plane clandestinely and illegally flew the CIA operative to Miami, via Haiti. The U.S. repeatedly thwarted Costa Rican efforts to extradite Hull to Costa Rica to stand trial.

Another Costa Rican-based drug ring involved a group of Cuban Americans whom the CIA had hired as military trainers for the contras. Many had long been involved with the CIA and drug trafficking. They used contra planes and a Costa Rican-based shrimp company, which laundered money for the CIA, to channel cocaine to the U.S.

Costa Rica was not the only route. Guatemala, whose military intelligence service–closely associated with the CIA–harbored many drug traffickers, according to the DEA, was another way station along the cocaine highway. Additionally, the Medellín cartel’s Miami accountant, Ramon Milian Rodriguez, testified that he funneled nearly $10 million to Nicaraguan contras through long-time CIA operative Felix Rodriguez, who was based at Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador.>

The contras provided both protection and infrastructure (planes, pilots, airstrips, warehouses, front companies, and banks) to these CIA-linked drug networks. At least four transport companies under investigation for drug trafficking received U.S. government contracts to carry nonlethal supplies to the contras. Southern Air Transport, “formerly” CIA-owned and later under Pentagon contract, was involved in the drug running as well. Cocaine-laden planes flew to Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and other locations, including several military bases. Designated as “Contra Craft,” these shipments were not to be inspected. When some authority wasn’t apprised and made an arrest, powerful strings were pulled to result in dropping the case, acquittal, reduced sentence, or deportation.

Mid-1980s to early 1990s, Haiti

While working to keep key Haitian military and political leaders in power, the CIA turned a blind eye to their clients’ drug trafficking. In 1986, the Agency added some more names to its payroll by creating a new Haitian organization, the National Intelligence Service (SIN). SIN’s mandate included countering the cocaine trade, though SIN officers themselves engaged in trafficking, a trade aided and abetted by some Haitian military and political leaders.

1980s to early 1990s, Afghanistan

CIA-supported Moujahedeen rebels engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting the Soviet-supported government, which had plans to reform Afghan society. The Agency’s principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading drug lords and the biggest heroin refiner, who was also the largest recipient of CIA military support. CIA-supplied trucks and mules that had carried arms into Afghanistan were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The output provided up to one-half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe. U.S. officials admitted in 1990 that they had failed to investigate or take action against the drug operation because of a desire not to offend their Pakistani and Afghan allies. In 1993, an official of the DEA dubbed Afghanistan the new Colombia of the drug world."


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