Multiple symptoms from a Zika infection.

September 15, 2016
By Gillian Mohney

The Zika virus (click here) has been found in fluid around the eyes of some patients, shedding new light on how the virus affects healthy adults, according to a study published today in Journal for the American Medical Association Ophthalmology.

The eyes of six patients infected in South America were swabbed by researchers from the Guangdong Provincial Institute of Public Health in China. When they tested their eye fluids, they found Zika virus RNA.

"Here we have some evidence when the adult is infected, it would appear that highly specialized neural tissue is infected," Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical School, told ABC News. He said the next step would be examining if the virus caused any vision problems.

The virus was known to cause severe eye damage in developing fetuses. Babies born with microcephaly have exhibited symptoms of eye infection, including lesions in the eye. But it was unclear if the development of microcephaly or the Zika virus itself led to the lesions.

Until now, it was also unclear if the virus was present in the eyes of adults....

September 15, 2016
By Jesi Munguia

Left is Zika rash on an arm.

The Centers for Disease Control (click here) says there are 45 confirmed cases of the Zika virus right here in Michigan.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says Michigan is still considered low risk for the mosquito transmission of Zika.

The health department says the main risk of transmission in the state is from traveling to infected areas, or through sexual transmission.

Symptoms of the Zika virus are not considered severe, but can cause birth defects to pregnant women exposed to the virus.

Stay with Northern Michigan's News Leader as we work to bring you more information on exactly where these cases have been confirmed.

It may be that one in four residents in Puerto Rico is destined to be a victim of the Zika virus.

September 15, 2016
By Michael Kuhne

With more than a thousand new cases (click here) of Zika reported in Puerto Rico for the first week of September, the numbers of those infected may rise even higher as the U.S. territory enters its fall rainy season.

Between Aug. 26 and Sept. 2, there were 1,024 new positive cases of Zika reported in Puerto Rico, according Candice Burns Hoffmann, a press officer with the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.

"These reflect just diagnosed cases," she said. "Because many people with Zika don't have symptoms, the number of people who have contacted Zika is likely much higher."

September 15, 2016

Tropical Storm Julia will linger (click here) and bring gusty winds, rough surf and showers to the coastal Carolinas into this weekend.

"The center of Julia has wandered over the Atlantic Ocean," AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski said.

While Julia remains weak, the combination of east to southeast winds and the full moon will cause minor to moderate coastal flooding at times of high tide through the end of the week.

The greatest risk of coastal flooding and beach erosion stretches from near Charleston, South Carolina, to Wilmington, North Carolina.

The lack of resolve to this virus is going to increase monies spent on disabilities and supportive services. This is the most hideous Congress that has ever existed. There is no loyalty to the people. You know, Americans. Women are going to want contraception and abortions. They will seek all that out anyway and Planned Parenthood is one of the best organizations without conflict of interest to religious priorities.

The time is now to allow women to make their decisions about childbearing. NOW!

September 15, 2016
By Newsday Editorial Board

...Congress is stalemated over a $1.1 billion plan (click here) to fight the mosquito-borne virus. Not because anyone disagrees about the need to keep alive a clinical trial to test a vaccine that’s about to run out of money. Not because they don’t want better and more accurate tests for Zika, more thorough mosquito-spraying programs, or more public education on how to reduce one’s risk of getting Zika.

The fight is over a Republican attempt to make sure that Planned Parenthood gets none of the funding for maternal care and contraception, important issues for a virus linked to severe fetal birth defects and one that can be transmitted sexually. The GOP inserted a poison pill, the Democrats spit it out, and Zika rages on.

Since President Barack Obama requested emergency funding in February, the nation has learned that Zika is spread not only by mosquito bites but also through blood transfusions, semen and, perhaps, via contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids. We’re learning Zika also could affect adult brains and impair memory. We know that the 50 states have reported nearly 3,000 cases, 43 of which were acquired in Florida. More than 15,000 cases were reported in Puerto Rico. We know mosquito season in the Gulf Coast lasts through October. Some experts look at Zika’s rapid spread and the lack of scientific knowledge and see similarities with the start of the AIDS epidemic....

It is no different than coal. The price of coal is not going anywhere because there are no new markets.

These are the prices for coal used for the production of energy. Lately, the mining to produce mercantile 
coal has gotten the attention of Wall Street.

The mercantile coal is used in the production of steel. It sells for about 3 and a half times higher than energy coal.

There is a businessman that wants to begin mining mercantile coal in West Virginia, Virginia and a power plant in Montana I believe. There is a limited need for mercantile coal so how he can promise 400 jobs or more on a consistent basis is anyone's guess.

I have to wonder if Dr. Moniz has examined the heat intensive energy of producing steel and found better more efficient ways of producing that heat than burning coal?

Singapore (Platts)
19 Aug 2016 418 am EDT/818 GMT

The seaborne premium hard coking coal market (click here) posted its biggest weekly gain August 19 since the 2011 floods in Queensland, Australia, as a supply shortage in China, the world's largest producer of the steelmaking raw material, prompted end-users to scramble for spot cargoes.

Logistical bottlenecks, including road repairs and slower rail haulage in China's coal producing hub of Shanxi, were responsible for the recent supply squeeze, according to industry insiders.

Platts-assessed spot premium low-vol hard coking coal prices jumped $11/mt to $125.50/mt CFR China during the week ended August 19, the largest increase since February 2011, and a price level not seen since September 18, 2014....

Wall Street never asks how much demand there is for mercantile coal. The financial community sees a flashy article in the newspaper about coal production for this particular market and believe this is the next big thing. It is not. The articles are about producing more coal in an election year, NOT, the increase in need through the building of more steel plants. Wall Street is wrong and this is simply a political stunt for the elections. 

Prices of prime hard coals from Australia rose $8.75/mt to date this week, to be assessed at $117.25/mt August 19....

Hello? There are no new steel plants! Hellooooooo........

Every defunct coal mine and bankrupting companies have just played the biggest scam of all times and dumped their shares at hideously high prices. 

Dah!

Saudi Arabia was beginning to move toward a reduction in production to increase reviews.

If the USA increases production to take away market share from Saudi Arabia; the Saudi oil fields will return to maximum production to lower the price of oil again.

The Saudis can do that because the overhead to their oil fields is very low in comparison to the USA oil fields. The overhead of the much beloved $100.00 a barrel oil return is high. The petroleum industry in the USA leveraged their future earnings for a fast return as 90% of inflated values such as $100.00 per barrel. That is exactly why they failed financially and are in bankruptcy.

The Saudis are not about to allow the USA to take their market share and Donald Trump's focus on destroying more American land with hydraulic fracturing is wrong in many ways, including financial.

It is foolish to base an economy on oil and gas. It's desire in future economies will become more and more diminished over time as consumers turn to alternatives.

Oil is not going anywhere. It is not liquidity anymore. The investments currently exceed any return on the wells. It is a losing scheme.

September 15, 2016
By Jim Tankersley

...Trump's economic team (click here) estimated that the complete tax plan, combined with rollbacks to some federal regulations and new initiatives to open up more public and private lands for oil and gas drilling, would deliver 3.5 percent growth per year for the next decade and produce 25 million new jobs....

There is more than ample amounts of oil and gas already drilled and in storage bunkers such as the one in California that chronically leaks. The foreign suppliers are not interested in another price crisis for oil and gas and that is exactly what will occur if the USA increases its market share. Such actions on the part of the USA does not create income to the USA Treasury, quite the opposite. Oil prices will again plummet and decrease the income to the US Treasury because the oil and gas companies will have over extended its credit. Companies will sustain losses and the taxes to the USA will be reduced and not increased in any scheme no matter to what extent they want to fudge the numbers.

The name of this scheme is "Bail out the Petroleum Industry."

The Working Poor have limited time to vote.

Nationally, (click here) the population identifying as Hispanic/Latino represents 17 percent (54 million people) of the U.S. population.^[i] The Latino population in the U.S. grew 43 percent over the decade prior to 2010 and growth increasingly occurred in new communities. Overall population growth in the U.S. was just 10 percent over that time.^[ii]Latinos are disproportionately affected by poverty, food insecurity, and unemployment. They are also more likely to receive emergency food assistance than their White, non-Hispanic peers and less likely to receive SNAP benefits.

...The 89 counties in 2013 with a majority Hispanic population compose 3 percent of all U.S. counties. Twenty-seven percent of these majority Hispanic counties fall into the top 10 percent of counties with the highest rates of childhood food insecurity....

I am not real keen on Pew Research, but, this study is taken directly off the 2013 Census data.

Hispanics (click here) are the only major racial or ethnic group to see a statistically significant decline in its poverty rate, according to 2013 Census Bureau figures released this week. The drop in the poverty rate among Hispanics – from 25.6% in 2012 to 23.5% in 2013 – contributed to the first decline in the nation’s overall poverty rate since 2006....

The Hispanic population in the USA need to hang on to the advantage they received under President Obama. These folks are among the working poor. They do rise above poverty because they are probably holding down two jobs or more. They need a minimum wage hike to move into a stabilized income to grow wealth and within reach of purchasing a house.

These are primarily Red State areas.

We know that bankruptcies are frequently occurring in the USA due to medical costs. These states primarily do not have the Medicaid Expansion and people are suffering. They are suffering financially, but, also dying due to lack of health care insurance.

Getting to know these populations with a strong political ground presence will begin to move them to vote. Spanish is a language barrier when it is not addressed to reach potential voters.

September 14, 2016
By Binyamin Applebaum, Patricia Cohen and Jack Healy

...The answer is in plain sight. (click here) While the economy finally is moving in the right direction, the real incomes of most American households still are smaller than in the late 1990s. And large swaths of the country — rural America, industrial centers in the Rust Belt and Appalachia — are lagging behind.

“We ain’t feeling too much of all that economic growth that I heard was going on, patting themselves on the back,” said Ralph Kingan, the mayor of Wright, Wyo. “It ain’t out in the West.

That bleak reality helps to explain why the good news the Census Bureau issued Tuesday about a rise in household income was greeted gleefully by economists but is unlikely to change the complexion of the presidential race....'

The businesses that serve obsolete energy sources should have seen this coming. The climate crisis is real and we know coal burning power plants have produced 35 percent of the greenhouse gases, ie: Duke Energy. Mark Perkins need to take the imitative to be retrained for a new job if he can't continue his coal dependent business.

This is typical of the people Republicans promise to protect when elected. That is a lie. The case in Kentucky is a prime example of the lies. As the Kentucky politicians, including Mitch McConnell, promise to save coal jobs those jobs are shed because of mechanization. They can't save jobs because the CEOs are making this decision and not the politicians.

...“We are waiting on the election with high hopes that we do get a Republican in there who does understand about working men and women,” said Mark Perkins, 49, who shut down his electrical storefront in the coal town of Wright earlier this year as he lost once-plentiful jobs servicing mines and large generators....

Henry Paulson opened his own financial exchange in China (Not Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson) IMMEDIATELY after leaving office in DC.

Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson's chair in his office in DC never got warm before he was off to China again.

He replaced Snow under "W." I don't know why, he certainly didn't give a damn about averting the global economic collapse that was all over the NY Times during Snow as Treasurer in 2005 and 2006.

There are people that started to dump business addresses on the commercial market in 2007 when they realized Paulson was an absent landlord of the USA's path to economic disaster. There were plenty of people that made big money before September of 2008. Many, not just one or two. That is the real hallmark of an economic genius, right? Knowing where the financial markets are headed and not simply following behind to spin a fortune out of the ignorant.

The U.S. (click here) should step up efforts to attract investment from China despite political resistance. That's the message from former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Bloomberg's Haidi Lun reports on "Trending Business." (Source: Bloomberg)

Now that Paulson has all this money tied up in the Chinese economy he is pleading for the USA to INVITE Chinese investors in the USA. Sort of like that of Governor Snyder and his Chinese Visa Initiative.

Just what Michigan needs, Chinese coming to Michigan to steal talent and inventions back to China. Let's just say, I don't consider most Republicans in office these days great Americans. They are predatory with too much money to be trusted.

An aspect of the elections of 2016 is the real loss of RECOVERY under a leader that believes government is best run as a corporation. Republicans have run the USA as a business since Reagan, best I can measure. It is a failure. The USA's role in the world reaches far beyond that of Wall Street, both domestically and internationally. It is completely unrealistic to believe the hard fought recovery of the country since the global economic collapse will continue under a return to treating the USA as a company.

It is "The United States of America," not The United States of America, inc. or The United States Rights of America. 

Let's get it right and continue to enjoy the local economies we worked so hard to build.

Donald Trump will be measured next to Henry Paulson. Sort of.

No one from Goldman Sachs has ever been president that I am aware of, but, they have served in the cabinet. The latest cabinet position was Treasurer of the United States of America.

Donald Trump will be measured by Congressional Republicans as Henry Paulson.

That may or may not be correct and the people most interested in understanding his relationship with other countries need to address this now. 

Goldman Sachs is not Donald Trump, Inc. There is a difference. That needs to be known today and not when the elections are completed and decided.

Cheney went from being heartless to being pulseless.

I have never witnessed such politicization of health before. If anyone didn't belong in the White House it was Cheney and his 40 percent ejection fraction.

Two years after leaving the White House, Cheney had an artificial heart.

Dick Cheney had a terrible heart condition the entire time he occupied the Vice President's office. I might mention some cardiac conditions are genetic, too. No different than breast cancer and other diseases.

January 5, 2011
By Rosemary Black

He no longer has a pulse, (click here) but Dick Cheney has a mechanical heart pump – and a chance for a normal life.
The 69-year-old former vice president is back in action, albeit a little thinner.
"He really doesn't have a pulse, but he has blood pressure because blood is being pumped out from his ventricle into the aorta at a constant pressure," explains Dr. Kirk Garratt, clinical director of interventional cardiovascular research at Lenox Hill Hospital.
But what exactly is beating in Cheney's chest?...

The USA's FBI was embarrassed by Apple.

April 9, 2016

The federal court fight between (click here) Apple and the FBI over iPhone encryption might be on hold for a while, but that doesn't mean each side isn't still trying to make it appear that its stand is the right one. The latest salvo was delivered by FBI Director James Comey.

"We are all people trying to do the right thing," Comey said April 6, concluding a speech at the Kenyon Center for the Study of American Democracy at Kenyon College. (Side note: Comey's son attends school there.)...

Where are the monies awarded to developers to come up with a unique hardware and software that will bring about better security for the government?

Where is the money? Where is the technology? It should have been done long ago before trillions were spent on a worthless jet fighter called the F-35 Strike Fighter that can't even protect its pilot, yet alone a country.

Ah, but, oops is so much more profitable.

Where is a Congress that actually cares about the country rather than their personal politics?

I am sure Director Comey can provide the needed wish list to Congress. 

THIS IS NOT A JOKE. THE COUNTRY HEARS MORE ABOUT EMAILS THAN THEY HEAR ABOUT THE DEFUNCT F-35 PROGRAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

August 24, 2016
By Anthony Capaccio

A week after the Air Force (click here) declared its version of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 jet ready for limited combat operations, the Pentagon’s top tester warned that the U.S. military’s costliest weapons program is still riddled with deficiencies.

We are not going to kill pilots or risk the country's security because Lockheed-Martin's CEO wants a bonus!

“In fact the program is actually not on a path toward success but instead on a path toward failing to deliver” the aircraft’s full capabilities, “for which the Department is paying almost $400 billion by the scheduled end” of its development in 2018, Michael Gilmore, the Defense Department’s director of operational testing, said in an Aug. 9 memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

“Achieving full combat capability with the Joint Strike Fighter is at substantial risk” of not occurring before development is supposed to end and realistic combat testing begins, he said of the F-35....

Chaffetz is practicing politics and is absolutely not concerned about the USA's national security. Absolutely NOTHING has come out of millions of US $$$ being spent on his vigilantism. NOTHING! While the USA's Air Force budget descends into hell over a jet the Chinese played with when they were bored!

Chaffetz is not qualified to rewrite the FBI director's testimony. Millions more $$$ US to be spent on Republican politics.

There is much Congress can do from the testimony of FBI Director Comey, including standardizing the type of hardware providing the best security for government use. 

AGAIN.

This is the first White House to use cyber as a means of conducting government business. There were no regulations providing for the best hardware and software. Congress has the obligation to provide guidance to the security for the federal government. The day President Obama was inaugurated there was a struggle with the national security officials regarding the use of his Blackberry. 

With over seven years of experience regarding the technology and national security, the Congress can pass legislation as a guide to the hardware used by the USA government. As a matter of fact, Congress should provide funding to establish a state of the art technology without going to commercially available telecommunications. After seven years of experience it seems all too obvious the USA needs to develop it's own unique hardware and software to insure the best possible protections for the country.

Bozos coming forward as an expert in such development and only screws it up is a reason to arrest and try for fraud. Any contractor should not be Russian or Chinese nationals.

Chaffetz is an idiot. He didn't know the information he wanted from those subpoenaed to testify was classified? And he should be the one to say what of the Clinton emails is classified or not? I don't think so.

Chairman Comey made testimony and that is all that is needed. Chaffetz is pathetic. When is Colorado going to send real Congresspersons to DC?

September 12, 2016
By Richard Lardner

..."As far as I can tell, (click here) the only 'emergency' is that the election is less than two months away," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., dismissing the "emergency" hearing late on a Monday.
Chaffetz issued the subpoena to Jason Herring, the acting assistant director for congressional affairs. Herring and six other Obama administration officials appeared before the committee to discuss the investigative files. The witnesses on several occasions said they could not answer the questions from lawmakers in an open forum.

The committee later voted to hold the remainder of the hearing in closed session....

Trump is chasing one voter at a time. Extremists welcome.

February 13, 2016

By Asher Schechter

While we were all distracted by Hillary Clinton’s health, (click here) the Trump campaign said something about Israel and the Palestinians that should have us all very worried....

...Leave it to Trump’s camp to endorse an incendiary, nonsensical piece of demagoguery, and then double down on it with shockingly farcical Nazi analogies.

This argument is, of course, ludicrous for many reasons, but let’s focus on two: First, it makes no sense. Flawed as it may be, the two-state solution at least has some logic to it. Friedman’s (and by assertion, the Trump campaign’s) vision does not. No one – certainly not Netanyahu and (probably) not Friedman – is suggesting that settlers become Palestinian citizens who pay taxes to Palestine and abide by its laws, as the Palestinians citizens of Israel do. Presumably, settlements should be allowed to function as Israeli enclaves within the hypothetical Palestinian state? How is that supposed to work?

Secondly, it’s preposterous to claim that Palestinian refugees, descendants of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians expelled during Israel’s War of Independence (talk about ethnic cleansing)  bear no connection to Israel (née Palestine), while at the same time standing up for the rights of American-born Jews who became settlers to live in their “ancestral homeland.”

But logic, reason, or factual accuracy matter very little to Trump and his people. The point of their support for Netanyahu’s latest statement wasn’t part of a coherent plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but a clear attempt at pandering to right-wing, pro-Israel voters (including the 60,000 eligible American voters who live in West Bank settlements and whose votes they seek). 

In the last few weeks, Trump’s supporters in Israel have been working very hard to get the GOP nominee a majority of Israel’s 200,000-plus eligible American votes. In the last month alone the Israeli pro-Trump campaign opened four campaign offices across Israel, including one in a West Bank settlement – a first for a U.S. presidential nominee. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign and its Israeli supporters have been ramping up the pro-settlement rhetoric.

It’s classic Trump behavior: entice the far-right crowd by espousing the most incendiary rhetoric imaginable (“Judenrein” as Israel-Palestine’s “Mexicans are rapists”), and then present outlandish fringe ideas as if they were serious and well-thought-out policy plans....              

The family has been called to the former president's bedside. He is in an induced coma after surgery.

It sounds like it was a blood clot after surgery. 

September 14, 2016

By Judith Siegel-Itzkovitch, Geere Fay Cashman and Tovah Lazaroff

News of his falling ill aroused much concern, (click here) with calls from all over the country and the world.

Former president Shimon Peres was in critical condition and fighting for his life at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer after suffering a severe stroke Tuesday night.

The veteran 93 year old politician had just last week undergone placement of a cardiac pacemaker at the hospital and was discharged in good condition. He returned to the hospital for a checkup, but suddenly, suffered a stroke....

Wind energy is a benefit for every citizen in Iowa.

Iowa leads the country in wind energy with bipartisan support in their legislator. It is shameful the entire southeast has ignored winds benefits. Shameful! The regressive political paradigm of the southeast has to end!

September 8, 2016

A $3.6 billion wind energy project (click here) recently approved by the Iowa Utilities Board is just one more example of the real benefits federal wind production tax credits are bringing to Iowa.

Not only will Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy’s Wind XI farm be the largest renewable energy project in the state to date, company officials expect it to be fully funded by the credits, which Congress extended last year after considerable debate.

Another $1 billion wind project proposed by Alliant Energy also would reap the benefits of the credits, should the Iowa Utilities Board approve it.

But the real winners are Iowans who already benefit from a large share of low-cost electricity generated by wind power — 31 percent at last count, more than any other state can boast. And we can credit around 7,000 jobs in our state to wind and affiliated industries, according to State Economic Development Director Debi Durham.

Research at our universities supports and enhances the industry, and educational trade programs prepare technicians to care for the sky-high machines.

Landowners directly benefit from the extra income turbines provide, and counties reap the rewards of additional property taxes.

In short, wind is good for Iowa and for the country’s energy future....

A Tea Party Republican is running as a Democrat?

I hope the DNC is not planning to spend money on this election.

September 12, 2016

By Jennifer Fitch

Chambersburg, Pa. — Four Franklin County (Pa.) Republican Committee members, (click here) including the vice chairman, resigned their positions Monday, reflecting the party divide related to Pennsylvania's 9th Congressional District race.

Tea-party backed Art Halvorson is running as the Democratic nominee to unseat eight-term incumbent Bill Shuster in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Both candidates are registered Republicans who squared off in the primary election. Shuster obtained the most votes in his own party, but Halvorson won enough write-in votes from Democrats to appear as the Democratic nominee on ballots Nov. 8 in the 12-county district....                  

Wall Street is a direct threat to human longevity.

Add to the chemical profile, greenhouse gases!

September 12, 2016
By Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH

Industry-sponsored nutrition research, (click here) like that of research sponsored by the tobacco, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries, almost invariably produces results that confirm the benefits or lack of harm of the sponsor’s products, even when independently sponsored research comes to opposite conclusions. Although considerable evidence demonstrates that those industries deliberately influenced the design, results, and interpretation of the studies they paid for, much less is known about the influence of food-company sponsorship on nutrition research. Typically, the disclosure statements of sponsored nutrition studies state that the funder had no role in their design, conduct, interpretation, writing, or publication. Without a “smoking gun” it is difficult to prove otherwise.

In this issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, Kearns and colleagues report on having found a smoking gun. From a deep dive into archival documents from the 1950s and 1960s, they have produced compelling evidence that a sugar trade association not only paid for but also initiated and influenced research expressly to exonerate sugar as a major risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD). Although studies at that time indicated a relationship between high-sugar diets and CHD risk, the sugar association preferred scientists and policymakers to focus on the role of dietary fat and cholesterol. The association paid the equivalent of more than $48 000 in today’s dollars to 3 nutrition professors—at Harvard no less—to publish a research review that would refute evidence linking sugars to CHD.

The sponsored review appeared in 2 parts in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967. Its authors acknowledged support from the industry-funded Nutrition Foundation, but they did not mention the sugar association’s specific funding of their review. Their first article demonstrates a close correlation between sugar and fat “consumption” (actually amounts in the food supply) and mortality in 14 countries (Figure). To minimize the association with sugar, the authors seem to have cherry-picked existing data. Despite their having previously published studies linking both fats and sugars to CHD risk, their review gave far more credence to studies implicating saturated fat than it did to those implicating sugars....

Close Epidemiological Correlations Between Sugar and Saturated Fat “Consumption” and Mortality in 14 Countries


Investors and stockholders should be held responsible for profits at any cost. In addition, class action lawsuits are needed.

These are human rights abuses no differently than weather related deaths with the climate crisis. 

Local economies win the USA's steadfast growth and income increases.

Americans cannot afford to change horses in midstream, we have to complete our work.

September 13, 2016

By Don Lee

Steady job growth (click here) and the biggest earnings boost on record helped sharply lower the nation's poverty level last year and finally provided relief to the long-running problem of stagnant incomes.

In its annual report on income and poverty, the Census Bureau said Tuesday that the share of people in the U.S. living in poverty dropped to 13.5% in 2015, marking one of the biggest annual declines in decades.

That was down from 14.8% in the prior year, but still considerably higher than the 12.3% poverty rate in 2006, the year before the Great Recession began, and the 40-year low of 11.3% in the year 2000....

We, as a country, have come a long way from the global economic collapse of 2008. We need to finish the job.

2015 Income and poverty census report (click here)

There are definitely Republicans that benefit at the election box by racists and bigots. I am quite sure Mr. Pence has benefited from his two faced statements.

Pence will not denounce the KKK. In the 1920s the KKK ruled the government in Indiana. There is still an element in Indiana that while not organized into a political party still brings brevity to the Indiana Republican party.

The Republican Party caters to racist as an electorate base. Indiana has a denser population than other states.

It is notable that Donald Trump's attacks on Hillary Clinton increased the gap to Libertarian candidate Governor Gary Johnson. He may not have the 15 percent for the debates.

September 13, 2016
By Theodore Schleifer

Washington - Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence (click here) blasted Hillary Clinton Monday for her comment referring to "half" of Donald Trump's supporters as belonging to a "basket of deplorables."
But Pence declined to categorize Trump backer -- and white nationalist -- David Duke as "deplorable."

Exactly. Why call a bigot a bigot when the elect box of the Republican Party is served by bigots?

"I'm not in the name-calling business," Pence told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, while at the same time repeating Trump's disavowal of Duke's support.

"We don't want his support and we don't want the support of the people who think like him," he said.

Clinton jumped on Pence's response, tweeting: "If you won't say the KKK is deplorable, you have no business running the country."

It is very easy to concentrate comments on David Duke, he could not care less about the insults. He knows the personal attacks on him deflects insults on the electorate of bigots and racists. The answer from the Trump camp that they denounce David Duke as deplorable is easy to do, but, they never ever call racists and bigots deplorable and risk their support at the ballot box. 

Are all the confederate flags removed from the American landscape, except for museums?

The political density is still there to tap by Republicans.

July 31, 2016

Charleston, SC The South Carolina Secessionist Party (click here) is making plans for something it’s calling “Operation Retaliation.”

The Post and Courier of Charleston reported Sunday that Chairman James Bessenger says the party is looking for help securing large Confederate battle flags that it can display along major interstates and in cities and towns.

Bessenger says his organization is looking for land on which to fly the flags around the state and has gotten several offers.

Earlier this month, several hundred people gathered at a rally and temporarily raised a Confederate flag at the State House. The event marked the one-year anniversary of the day the Confederate battle flag was furled and sent to a museum.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/south-carolina/article92980272.html#storylink=cpy

Weekly

September 4, 2015 / 64(34);944-947

Two pneumococcal vaccines (click here) are currently licensed for use in the United States: the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13 [Prevnar 13, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a subsidiary of Pfizer Inc.]) and the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23 [Pneumovax 23, Merck and Co., Inc.]). The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) currently recommends that a dose of PCV13 be followed by a dose of PPSV23 in all adults aged ≥65 years who have not previously received pneumococcal vaccine and in persons aged ≥2 years who are at high risk for pneumococcal disease because of underlying medical conditions (Table) (1–4). The recommended intervals between PCV13 and PPSV23 given in series differ by age and risk group and the order in which the two vaccines are given (1–4)....