August 26, 2021

Anti-parasite drug used on Arkansas jail's inmates for COVID

Inmates at a northwest Arkansas jail have been prescribed ivermectin to combat COVID-19, despite warnings from federal health officials that the antiparasitic drug should not be used to treat the coronavirus

By ANDREW DeMILLO Associated Press
August 25, 2021, 8:24 PM
• 4 min read

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Inmates at a northwest Arkansas jail have been prescribed ivermectin to combat COVID-19, despite warnings from federal health officials that the antiparasitic drug should not be used to treat the coronavirus.

Washington County's sheriff confirmed Tuesday night that the jail's health provider had been prescribing the drug. Sheriff Tim Helder didn't say how many inmates at the 710-bed facility had been given ivermectin and defended the health provider the jail uses that has been prescribing the medication.

“Whatever a doctor prescribes, that is not in my bailiwick," Helder told members of the Washington County quorum court, the county's governing body. Helder did not immediately respond to a call from The Associated Press, and a spokesperson for the sheriff's office referred questions to Karas Correctional Health, the jail's health provider.

It's not clear what information inmates who were prescribed the drug have been given about it, including warnings that it isn't approved to treat COVID-19.

more
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/anti-parasite-drug-arkansas-jails-inmates-covid-79649447

August 23, 2021

Wall Street calls moderates' bluff, urges investors to prepare for infrastructure and budget...

Wall Street calls moderates’ bluff, urges investors to prepare for infrastructure and budget reconciliation bills

PUBLISHED MON, AUG 23 202111:17 AM UPDATED AN HOUR AGO

Thomas Franck
@TOMWFRANCK

KEY POINTS

Wall Street thinks moderates are bluffing and says investors should prep for both an infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

Morgan Stanley and others say it’s unlikely a group of nine Democrats will hold up President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion package of health-care and climate provisions.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., said Congress should send infrastructure to Biden’s desk first and then consider the $3.5 trillion reconciliation plan.

Major Wall Street brokerages are urging clients to look past Democratic infighting and prepare for a torrent of new government spending as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi brings two historic measures up for a vote.

Strategists say that moderate Democrats hoping to persuade Pelosi, D-Calif., to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill before a $3.5 trillion budget resolution will ultimately concede for fear of risking their reelection chances in 2022.

“Our base case has been and remains that Congress will approve” a significant expansion of fiscal policy, Morgan Stanley’s head of public policy, Michael Zezas, wrote in a note published Monday.

“Democratic leadership is behaving as if they’ve made the calculation that neither bill has the votes to pass independently of the other one,” he added. “Our base case assumes that this reality ultimately persuades the group of House moderates to support the budget resolution vote and allow the dual track process to continue, though perhaps not without some attendant headlines and/or modest concession.”

more
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/23/wall-street-says-to-prep-for-infrastructure-and-budget-reconciliations-bills.html

August 17, 2021

In hindsight, suddenly everyone knows why the Afghan army collapsed

author Kevin DrumPublished onAugust 14, 2021 – 12:33 pm

Why did the Afghan army collapse so quickly? Here's the New York Times:

As positions collapsed, the complaint was almost always the same: There was no air support or they had run out of supplies and food.

But even before that, the systemic weaknesses of the Afghan security forces — which on paper numbered somewhere around 300,000 people, but in recent days have totaled around just one-sixth of that, according to U.S. officials — were apparent. These shortfalls can be traced to numerous issues that sprung from the West’s insistence on building a fully modern military with all the logistical and supply complexities one requires, and which has proved unsustainable without the United States and its NATO allies.

And here's the Times again:

Commanders [knew] that the afflictions of the Afghan forces had never been cured: the deep corruption, the failure by the government to pay many Afghan soldiers and police officers for months, the defections, the soldiers sent to the front without adequate food and water, let alone arms. In the past several days, the Afghan forces have steadily collapsed as they battled to defend ever shrinking territory, losing Mazar-i-Sharif, the country’s economic engine, to the Taliban on Saturday.

more
https://jabberwocking.com/in-hindsight-suddenly-everyone-knows-why-the-afghan-army-collapsed/

August 1, 2021

Murder Rate Rose In Republican Cities, Too

Joe Conason

July 31 | 2021

-snip-

Murder rates are indeed going up in cities around the country. And because most cities are governed by Democratic mayors, it is accurate to say that violent crime rates are rising in "Democrat-run cities." But, as the Republicans parroting that line of propaganda know, it's also accurate to say that violent crime is rising in "Republican-led cities."

While the murder rate has gone up in Chicago and Detroit and Philadelphia, all run by Democrats, the murder rate has likewise gone up in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; in Fort Worth, Texas; in Fresno, California; and in Miami, Florida. Every one of those cities is run by a Republican mayor and overseen by a Republican governor. Jacksonville, Florida, is known as the "murder capital" of the Sunshine State — and has had a Republican mayor for the past six years. Fort Worth survived its most violent year in the past quarter-century in 2020, with a murder rate that nearly doubled from the previous year. Betsy Price has been the city's Republican mayor for the past 10 years.

The point is not, of course, that Republican mayors are culpable for the shocking upsurge in violence that beset their cities last year — nor were they probably responsible for the sharp drops in crime that the entire country experienced over the past two decades. The underlying causes of crime rates, whether trending up or down, have puzzled criminologists, cops and other honest experts for many years.

Equally inaccurate is the claim that "defund the police" — a wrongheaded and confusing slogan briefly popular in the aftermath of George Floyd's 2020 murder — has sparked the growing number of urban killings. But the data show clearly that the same trend is evident across cities, whether they increased or decreased police funding. Even stupid slogans don't kill people.

-snip-

https://www.nationalmemo.com/republican-cities-murder-rate

August 1, 2021

At GOP Fundraising Dinner, Kevin McCarthy Jokes About Hitting Nancy Pelosi With Gavel If...

At GOP Fundraising Dinner, Kevin McCarthy Jokes About Hitting Nancy Pelosi With Gavel If He Becomes Speaker

By Sarah RumpfJul 31st, 2021, 9:50 pm

At a GOP fundraising dinner in Nashville, Tn., House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) joked about hitting Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) with a gavel if Republicans retake the majority in the 2022 midterm elections, allowing him to take over as Speaker.

McCarthy has made no secret of his desire to become Speaker, as he has treaded water since Republicans lost the House in the 2018 elections and former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) retired.

At the Tennessee dinner, members of the state’s Republican congressional delegation gave McCarthy an oversized gavel that said “Fire Pelosi” on it, as photographed by Tennessean reporter Yue Stella Yu.

https://twitter.com/bystellayu_tnsn/status/1421626874707447808

-snip-

https://twitter.com/michaelscherer/status/1421628453032505344

more
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/at-gop-fundraising-dinner-kevin-mccarthy-jokes-about-hitting-nancy-pelosi-with-gavel-if-he-becomes-speaker/#comment-5477730813