I was worried this would occur. The Dutch military was magnificent. They were ready for this nightmare.

July 16, 2021
By Thomas Erdbrink

A breach in the dike along the Juliana Canal (click here) in the southern Netherlands on Friday was closed by the Dutch military by dumping hundreds of sandbags into the growing hole. Hours before, thousands had been told to evacuate after the dike was breached along the canal, a 22-mile waterway that regulates the Meuse River.

The river’s water level is at heights not witnessed since 1911, the Dutch national broadcaster NOS reported.

That is no small thing in a water-logged country where taming water has been a matter of survival for centuries and the imperative to keep levels under control is inextricably bound up with Dutch identity. Much of the country sits below sea level and is gradually sinking. Climate change has also exacerbated the twin threats of storms and rising tides.

Residents of the villages of Brommelen, Bunde, Geulle and Voulwames were ordered to evacuate immediately, after initially being told to move to higher floors in their homes. About 10,000 people live in the area....

There is abject destruction in large areas of the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.

July 18, 2021

This is what Olivier Hamelers, (click here) chief production officer of rail operator Crossrail Benelux told sister publication RailTech Belgium. This was also confirmed by Infrabel.
Fifty trains cancelled.

The Belgian rail operator saw its train traffic to Germany come to a standstill from Wednesday after severe weather in the province of Limburg had damaged the track. Crossrail has about thirty trains daily commuting between Belgium and Germany.

“We have tried to shift trains to the Brabant route through the Netherlands, via Venlo. Because this connection is very busy with traffic from the Betuweroute, where work is underway, the options were limited”, continues Hamelers. Fifty trains were impacted at Crossrail due to the problems with the track.
Liège region still impacted

In the Liège region, where a lot of cargo to and from China departs for Germany via the Montzen route, the problems have not yet been solved. “The damage to the track in the Liège area is much bigger”, says Hamelers, who hopes that this traffic will also start again by Monday.

According to Infrabel, the infrastructure manager, the prospects for the Walloon axis between Charleroi and Liège are positive. “If everything goes according to plan, railway lines 125 and 130 could run again on Monday, 19 July. The railway line between Liège and the Dutch border at Maastricht is closed at the border crossing. The water damage is significant there and the recovery is not in sight until 2 August. Infrabel is in close consultation with its customers and foreign infrastructure managers to seek and offer solutions.”...

These are our allies and they are missing by the thousand. This is directly due to the Climate Crisis.

July 7, 2021

Europe (click here) has been battered by days of torrential rain and floods that have left more than 160 people dead and hundreds more injured.

By Saturday, waters were receding across much of the affected regions, but officials feared that more bodies might be found in cars and trucks that were swept away.

Germany has borne the brunt of the extreme weather, with at least 141 people killed in two states.

Belgium’s national crisis centre said the country's confirmed death toll rose to 27.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier travelled to Erftstadt in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where a massive rescue effort unfolded on Friday.

“A lot of people have lost everything they spent their lives building up — their possessions, their home, the roof over their heads,” Steinmeier said.

“It may only be possible to clear up in weeks how much damage needs to be compensated,” he said....

There is a lot of buzz about this book. There should be a lot of buzz, but, Donald John Trump did not have one catastrophic year, he had four. And, why? Because he thought he alone could fix it.

What is IT, in the title of the book? It is the country? What was so wrong with the USA that wasn't identified decades ago that he had to call the country, IT. That was his personal statement, "I alone can fix it." That is not a title pulled out of thin air.

It is a con. He wants whoever believes he is so important to their future that he and only he can carry out the rehabilitation of the USA. Well. If rehabilitation means removing eons of American thought and policy, then anyone able to write with a crayon can do that.

There were so many things wrong with his time in office. The "signing ceremony" where people gather to receive a pen at the signing of the legislature by the President; turned into a political icon whereby his signature was witnessed with special cameras so his followers could scrutinize every word and every stroke of the pen. Like, what? It made the viewer think there is something to the idea that our government is wrong and only one person is even willing to prove he will correct paths of wayward centuries of abuse of power.

It is all a con, played out in front of the American people as if it really is supposed to have status in history.

"The Fix" definitely was in during the Trump years.

Racism

There is nothing else to call such horrible treatment of Native Americans. Most or all of us never knew this horror existed.

We owe these people sincere means to make up for this horrible destruction of their families.

Between segregation, oppression, blatant racism, and a homogenized culture in the USA, we really aren't the people we believe we are. Diversity and cultural acceptance have to occur. The parts of culture that can enhance the entire country's American experience need to be appreciated and celebrated. 

Juneteenth is a beginning, but, where do we start with the Native American families. This is a horror. Children are dead for taking them and pretending they were an inferior race.

The USA has a lot of penance to do. A lot.

Judy Woodruff is hitting every subject that needs attention. Thank you.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

November 1, 1998
By Nicholas Lemann

I rarely state the title to any article because a sincere reader of the news will move past the attention-getting title quickly to the content. But, the title to this New York Times article is rather compelling and should ring familiar to many liberals in the USA. Today we call it income inequality.

The New American Consensus; Government of, by, and for the Comfortable (click here)

...They huffed and interrupted. Davis made sure to work in a reference to his military service. (Lungren didn't serve.) Lungren made sure to work in a reference to his three children. (Davis is married but childless.) The debate's tonal culmination was Lungren's use of his closing statement to advance a cheerfully out-of-left-field theory about the undetected assonance between the police unions' support of Gray Davis and the notorious incident in which Latrell Sprewell, the basketball player, throttled his coach.

But the larger end to which this fiesta of contempt was directed was the elimination of all meaningful differences between the two candidates. This debate, like the two that had preceded it, conformed to the following structure: Candidate A, with a malicious glint in his eye, accuses Candidate B of taking an unpopular position. Candidate B draws himself up self-righteously and protests that, no, in fact his position is actually almost indistinguishable from Candidate A's. Lungren wants to cut taxes on innovative new businesses. Davis wants to also, in a slightly different way. Lungren is for eliminating the car tax, Davis is for reducing the car tax. Davis supports abortion rights. Lungren insists that during the five terms he served in the House of Representatives, ''we never once voted on denying a woman the right to have an abortion.'' Lungren is for the death penalty. Davis, suspect because he used to be Gov. Jerry Brown's chief of staff, insists, ''I have always believed in the death penalty.'' They are both committed environmentalists. They are both for H.M.O. reform. They are both for establishing tough new standards in public education....

...All over the country, Republicans and Democrats seem to be racing for the center. In New York, the two major-party Senate candidates, Charles Schumer and Alfonse D'Amato, are presenting themselves as pragmatists. Jeb Bush, who lost the Florida Governor's race four years ago, is running again this year as a distinctly more moderate Republican. Even Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina, one of the two or three most conservative members of the United States Senate, is stressing his support for environmentalism and health care reform in his re-election campaign....

I think the New York Times needs to do this type of compare and contrast at least every two years so Americans have a clear measure of where their government is failing them.

This is ridiculous. In the year 1998, the two parties were understanding the need for a national health policy and the confrontation of the climate crisis.

What the heck happened in the decades that followed? Because we were making the right issues front and center. There was no reason to allow the RADICAL shift to the right with such direly important issues before the country. What happened?

Here is my guess. Terrorists that hated The West, rightly or wrongly, caused an enormous catastrophe in Lower Manhattan and Washington, DC and all of a sudden all the benevolent domestic programs were erased from the consensus through trauma and no one came to address them again until the Global Economic Collapse and President Obama was elected.

This vacillation between the extremist right agenda for the USA and the idea we have a right to health care that is affordable and we need to move past the internal combustion engine and natural gas to a clean energy economy with wind and solar a mainstay.

Vacillation on issues only postpones what needs to be done and today we are imperiling our children and our grandchildren's world.

Enough of this. Get rid of the lousy filibuster and pass some real reform to protect the generations of Americans that have the right to health and safety that this country promises them.

It is Sunday Night

To the left is the 1960s actress Brigitte Bardot.

Sexiest Icons of the 1960s (click here)

I remember these women. I was born in 1955. They made an impression on me as I grew up. So did the women marching for equality and asking for an Amendment to the USA Constitution that would bring about equality for women. My value system grew out of the 1960s and the movement to change in the USA. I was thirteen when my mother decided to find her first job. She was 33 years old. She had been married 14 years to my father and wanted more. Imagine that. She was looking at the women marching for equal rights alongside me, and she decided she wanted more out of life than my father's paycheck would bring.

Her first job was ironing clothes at a small factory. She was good at ironing clothes and never thought in her wildest imagination it would bring her a paycheck. It did. She would work from 6 PM to 10 PM, Monday - Friday so she could get dinner ready before she left for work. Being 13 years old, I was expected to see my sisters were in pajamas and with my father's authority would be in bed before she returned home.

My mother's move to work and earn a paycheck was not received well by my father. There were many arguments and as time went by he accepted it because she actually improved the quality of life of the family. Eventually, we would move to a nicer apartment with a really nice neighborhood and from there my parents purchased their first home. I was married by then. My mother was 42 years old when she and my father received Veteran Benefits and bought their first home. 

By the time my parents purchased their first home, my mother had worked in several different jobs, including as a saleswoman in a gift and card store. She blossomed and she eventually would interview for a small company called "Jelco," which would, soon after she was hired into the accounts payable office, become a member of the Johnson and Johnson family of companies.

She retired at the age of 62 from Johnson and Johnson from their accounts payable department with a very nice retirement package of benefits and a pension payment every month.

The women's movement provided a new kind of "female image" to admire with the ideas of a better life with the beginnings of a career became iconic and still pervades most women's understanding of their own ability even today. 

My mother finished high school with a focus on business but wasn't prepared the same as the men in high school. The men in high school never took shorthand and typing as a business major. She was and still is remarkable. She is 86 now. She survived the pandemic because I helped her during that time to adjust to grocery delivery and pick-up, wearing a mask and accepting the fact even though she felt fine all that could end with a slip-up. 

Women do that with each other. We care for each other and our families, even when we have very demanding careers. I marvel at the young women I know. They are dynamic and so are their families.

When it comes to millennials, which my two sons are, they need to accept the idea that even though "The Boomers" were teens or younger in the 1960s, those are the years we bonded with and profoundly defined our values as we grew into adulthood.

When watching the video think of world peace and mutual trust and interest and the climate crisis.

All together now by 

One, two, three, four

Can I have a little more?
Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
I love you

A B C D
Can I bring my friend to tea?
E F G H I J
I love you

Bom bom bom bompa bom
Sail the ship, bompa bom
Chop the tree, bompa bom
Skip the rope, bompa bom
Look at me

All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now

Black, white, green, red
Can I take my friend to bed?
Pink, brown, yellow, orange, and blue
I love you

All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now

Bom bom bom bompa bom
Sail the ship, bompa bom
Chop the tree, bompa bom
Skip the rope, bompa bom
Look at me

All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now
All together now

Let's go through this one more time.

July 17, 2021
By Joel Achenbach

Maria Van Kerkhove, (click here) a World Health Organization epidemiologist, was in her Geneva office last weekend preparing for a keynote address when a simple phrase came to mind. She had been pondering the dismaying rise in coronavirus infections globally during the previous three weeks, a reversal of promising trends in late spring. The surge came as people across much of the Northern Hemisphere were moving around again in a suddenly freewheeling summer — as if the pandemic were over.

She wrote in her notebook: “The world needs a reality check.”...

No one including policymakers has any desire to lock down a country. That concept is counterintuitive to the principles of free people. But, there is still danger in not conquering SARS-CoV-2 and it's many variants. These variants are proof of what was said about the nature of viruses when they are allowed to exist among people, they can mutate over and over and become fatal to their hosts. 

Maria Van Kerkhove is talking about exactly that. The virus is deadly. That is a fact. There are more than 608 thousand dead Americans (click here).

Nebraska (click here) no longer reports county-level data. Florida county-level data is displayed when available, but is not always reported by the state.

This is the United States of America where every life is supposed to count and the statistics of deaths and number of cases is not even accurate! Arkansas has not reported one death since the beginning of this pandemic. Other states are ending their reporting. There needs to be a clear understanding that states that do not report will not receive ANY federal dollars. 

I was absolutely astounded that Asa Hutchinson the Governor of Arkansas has not reported one death in that state. Now, that is a lie. Arkansas is not quarantined to prevent the spread, especially considering it has the two highest states for deaths to the north and south of it's borders.

The governors of Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi all need to be replaced. They aren't part of this country if they can't pull in the same direction to end a pandemic. The Republicans are not a party that loves the people, except, in photo ops.

The facts are this, given ANY chance to continue to infect human beings the virus will ultimately achieve a variant that will kill people without a chance of defending themselves from it. A variant of Delta will cause widespread death. At the point where there is a Level 3 variant that is being transmitted easily among people, the only answer will be to shut down the entire country to bring about a quarantine of infected people to end the spread.

THAT IS WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST, "END THE SPREAD."

It is the nature of viruses to mutate and they do it well because they are mRNA and easily take advantage of human DNA to replicate. The viruses must be brought under control. There WILL BE a variant that is a third-level virus that will kill people. No one should be taking this fact lightly.

The fall and winter of 2021 - 2022 will spawn horrible dynamics again that will cause problems again. The worst is going to be where the worst is now, the cities where minorities are hardest hit.

These viruses are spinning out more than just deaths, there are disabilities and deficits and chronic illness among people because of the tiny blood clots resulting from an infection of SARS-CoV-2. The number of "Long Haulers" is yet to be known. The worst of the outcomes has not been reported yet either. When tiny blood clots call cell death there is always a chance that cell death will ultimately destroy the organ and hence a threat to the human being having contracted a preventable viral infection. 

There will not be a single body system left untouched by these tiny blood clots. People who survived the virus and are having long-haul symptoms will most likely become sicker and sicker as time goes on.

These viruses MUST be contained on a global basis. The USA has had the most infected cases and deaths, it has an enormous moral obligation to end the spread of the virus and the variants. Eventually, the people will be crying for a country-wide shutdown in order to end the spread. It will come too late and more people will die.

DO NOT ALLOW VARIANTS OR THE VIRUS TO MUTATE TO BECOME DEADLY.

AMERICANS MUST PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM THE SPREAD AND BE VACCINATED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. DON'T BE A VICTIM, BE AN ADVOCATE FOR SAFETY.

There was an increase of 8.6 percent fetal deaths during the Flint Water Crisis.

July 16, 2021
By Steve Carmody

A new study finds (click here) there was not a significant increase in fetal deaths in Flint during the city’s drinking water crisis.

Many in Flint have wondered if stillbirths between 2014 and 2016 were due to increased lead levels in the city’s drinking water. A 2017 report suggested Flint had seen a 58% increase in fetal deaths. But the report was criticized by academics and the state health department.

But Virginia Tech researcher Siddhartha Roy says comparing records before, during and after the water crisis shows no evidence of increased fetal deaths or negative fertility rates.

“We have tried to look every which ever way that available models and available data sets could give us signals of possible increase in fetal deaths,” said Roy. “And we found nothing.”...

The study points to other statistics to state there was no increase in fetal deaths less than 20 weeks. That is possible when looking over longer periods of time, but, this increase happened during the poisoning of the water, there is on doubt why the increase occured. Some spontaneous abortions may have happened anyway but not an increase.

A couple of things happen in pregnancy that mitigates the lead in a pregnant woman's body. First there is information from "The March of Dimes." The focus is on the woman because she would have ingested the lead in the water and it would cross the placenta.

...Can lead poisoning affect pregnancy? (click here)

Yes. You can pass lead to your baby through the placenta. The placenta grows in your uterus (womb) and supplies your baby with food and oxygen through the umbilical cord. 

Exposure to high levels of lead before and during pregnancy can cause:

• - Fertility problems, like reduced sperm count or abnormal sperm. Sperm in a man’s semen fertilizes a woman's egg to get her pregnant. Sperm count is the number of sperm in a man’s semen when he ejaculates.
• - High blood pressure (also called hypertension). This is when the force of blood against the walls of your blood vessels is too high. High blood pressure can cause problems during pregnancy.
• - Problems with the development of your baby’s brain and nervous system. The nervous system includes your brain, spinal cord and nerves. Your nervous system helps you move, think and feel. Babies exposed to lead before birth are likely to have learning problems and slow growth.
• - Premature birth. This is birth that happens too early, before 37 weeks of pregnancy.
• - Low birthweight. This is when your baby weighs less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces at birth.
• - Miscarriage. This is when a baby dies in the womb before 20 weeks of pregnancy....

The thing about pregnancy is that women can mitigate the potency of the lead in their bodies by taking vitamins. All pregnant women receiving prenatal vitamins cause competition with lead by those vitamins and the possibility of a woman passing lead to her in utero infant is diminished, but, not completely stopped.

Zinc, selenium and iron are only three of the minerals that will mitigate toxicity of lead to the mother and the baby.

January 14, 2014

By Qixiao Zhai,  Arjan Narbad, and Wei Chen

...In summary, (click here) these essential metals decrease intestinal Cd and Pb absorption, recover the essential metal homeostasis and alleviate the oxidative stress caused by Cd and Pb toxicity. Diet associated essential metal supplementation should be regarded as important for essential metal-deficient people, such as children and pregnant women. Because without sufficient essential metal stores to prevent heavy metal absorption, these people are especially susceptible to heavy metal toxicity [16,21,50,51]. It should also be noted that Cd and Pb exposure cause the loss of essential metals, which leads to complications such as iron-deficiency anaemia and osteoporosis [52,53]. Appropriate concentrations of essential metal supplementation is therefore also beneficial for preventing these complications....

The article goes on to explain that a vitamin-deprived mother is more susceptible to lead poisoning. 

The author of the study at the top openly admits while when looking through the looking glass of statistics this could simply be a cycle of increase over time, but, he cannot conclude through their analysis that the increase was not due to lead in the drinking water. Of course, it was due to the water. It is ridiculous to think otherwise.

The infants conceived and born during the lead poisoning in Flint need to be followed along with their mothers. Any man attempting to conceive a family in Flint but couldn't was due to Flint Water and it's lead content. Lead ingested by men leads to low sperm counts.

Erik Prince was involved in training the Columbian mercenaries.

There is a chance that Trump, though Prince, could have his own assassins. Who paid the Columbian mercenaries and why? This is a year before the 2016 elections were decided and while the campaigns were still raging. Erik Prince and his mercenary army have been working at killing, not security, since the Iraq War.

The assassins are basically hit - men willing to kill national leaders at will. 

May 14, 2015
By Mark Mazetti and Emily B. Hager

Erik Prince’s (click here) residency visa for the UAE, showing that he was, at the time, employed by Assurance Management Consultancy. Some personal information has been redacted for privacy.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Late one night last November, (click here) a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.

The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.

Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.

The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year....

November 25, 2015

By Emily B. Hager and Mark Mazetti

Washington — The United Arab Emirates (click here) has secretly dispatched hundreds of Colombian mercenaries to Yemen to fight in that country’s raging conflict, adding a volatile new element in a complex proxy war that has drawn in the United States and Iran.

It is the first combat deployment for a foreign army that the Emirates has quietly built in the desert over the past five years, according to several people currently or formerly involved with the project. The program was once managed by a private company connected to Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide, but the people involved in the effort said that his role ended several years ago and that it has since been run by the Emirati military.

The arrival in Yemen of 450 Latin American troops — among them are also Panamanian, Salvadoran and Chilean soldiers — adds to the chaotic stew of government armies, armed tribes, terrorist networks and Yemeni militias currently at war in the country. Earlier this year, a coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia, including the United States, began a military campaign in Yemen against Houthi rebels who have pushed the Yemeni government out of the capital, Sana.

It is also a glimpse into the future of war. Wealthy Arab nations, particularly Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates, have in recent years embraced a more aggressive military strategy throughout the Middle East, trying to rein in the chaos unleashed by the Arab revolutions that began in late 2010. But these countries wade into the new conflicts — whether in Yemen, Syria or Libya — with militaries that are unused to sustained warfare and populations with generally little interest in military service....

July 12, 2021
By Kelly Beaucar

Suspects in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, who was shot dead early Wednesday at his home, are shown to the media, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti July 8, 2021.

This weekend we found out that the Colombian men (click here) arrested in connection with the assassination of Haitian president Jovenal Moïse may have been hired by a Florida private security company with Venezuelan connections. Furthermore, they might have been deployed on behalf of an Haitian ex-pat in Miami who wanted to replace Moïse as president.

Why does this sound so familiar?

Maybe because it was only last year that 13 men led an unsuccessful coup attempt — known cheekily as the “Bay of Piglets” — against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Their alleged leader was a former Navy Seal, who also runs a security company in Florida. Jordan Goudreau was allegedly working with ex-Venezuelan military exiles who wanted to help overthrow Maduro for opposition leader Juan Guaido (he has denied any involvement). They led an elaborate plan to train fellow ex-Venezuelan military soldiers at a training camp in Colombia. Goudreau wasn’t on the boat that day when the May 2020 plot was foiled, but two former Green Berets (ages 34 and 41) were, and they are doing 20 years in a Venezuelan jail right now, convicted on charges of conspiracy, illicit trafficking of weapons, and terrorism....

The USA does not train assassins.

People that believe they are above the law because they have weapons to kill anyone who challenges them are found in any military in the world. The USA has had it's military members come back and take a piece of the USA as a marker of THEIR TRUTH. Timothy McVeigh and the members of the gang that stormed the USA Capitol building are among them.

Columbia was no different than the Northern Triad at one point, including child soldiers. The USA was able to train a Columbian army to end the terrorists of the drug cartels that ran Columbia. That country is no longer polluted with terrorists or gangs of killers for the drug cartels.

What I want to know is if the assassins knew each other and who created the operational group to carry out the assassination. Where did the weapons come from because they didn't come through Customs or Airline Security. Where is the boat harbored in or near Haiti that brought the weapons that killed the Haitian President?

International law prohibits the assassination of any country's leadership. Where is the connection that someone of Western affiliation mastermind this killing? There is none and there won't be. This was done by an organized group of men who believed they were above the law and carried weapons to correct the wayward course of Haiti.

These people are no different than McVeigh and the Michigan militia members that wanted to kidnap and kill a Michigan governor. They are no different than those that carry out terrorists' agendas. They have weapons and they believe they are more powerful than the world order. People like this will be written into every chapter of history. 

No one believes these men were taking orders from Trump. If that connection is ever made that trial will result in prison or worse for the former president of the USA. International Relations need to be stable regardless of its content. Episodes like this disrupt the global understanding of the balance of power. No country will tolerate such individuals to exist.

9 July 2021
By Joe Parkin Daniels and Tom Phillips

The hit squad that killed President Jovenel Moïse (click here) is alleged to be largely drawn from veterans of Colombia’s civil conflicts.

When Manuel Antonio Grosso Guarín jetted into Punta Cana’s tourist-clogged airport early last month on Avianca Flight 252, immigration officials are unlikely to have given the 41-year-old Colombian a second glance. Visitors from around the globe flock to this Dominican resort town each week in search of sun, sea and Caribbean sands.

Grosso appears to have had rather different plans, though: to sneak over the border into neighbouring Haiti and help assassinate that country’s president.

“Colombian mercenaries: trained, cheap, and available,” read a headline in Colombia’s largest newspaper, El Tiempo, on Friday after the Bogotá-based former special forces fighter was identified as one of Jovenel Moïse’s 28 alleged killers....

The country is going to have some serious flooding with some people displaced.

TORNADO WATCH 379 (click here) IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1200 AM CDT FOR THE

FOLLOWING LOCATIONS
WI

. WISCONSIN COUNTIES INCLUDED ARE
COLUMBIA CRAWFORD DANE
...More
Expires in 2 hr.

It is a heat transfer system crossing the Rocky Mountains.

Iowa is a part of that system, too. That big green splotch is the problem. It is a chronic collection of heat and there are some wicked storms there right now. It doesn't pass over the area, it continues to regenerate. That heat is traveling from the West Coast of the USA and Baja Peninsula to the Midwest. In the Midwest, the two systems come together and have an accumulation that has resulted in a sustaining heat storm. It is starting to collect over the southwest, too. A couple of storm systems west coast of Mexico. These storms are dumping an excess of 1 to 2 inches of rain every hour and the storms are not moving. It is not stagnant. The air is moving, but, the heat accumulation is consistent to create a sustained rainstorm.

California is getting some relief from the temperatures because of the wind moving the head east.

Link to system satellite below (click here)

''

Why are Millennials upset ?

Why do I think Whitmer won't see a second term?

She is making a lot of enemies among the electorate. No one wants their water poisoned, but, they don't want to fall into bankruptcy either.

The State of Michigan cannot change the rules of the game at halftime. This is a self-inflicted wound for Whitmer.

There is such a thing as State's Rights and if a state believes it's unemployed need their benefits beyond that of the federal regulations it can take place. All of this money is not federal money either. The State of Michigan sets down rules for unemployment that is in addition to the federal rules and regs. The federal government is not in the Governor's office.

Basically, Whitmer is reverting to the Trump standard for unemployment.

President Joe Biden has expanded the federal standards for unemployment in the country during the pandemic. But, some states like Michigan is using this opportunity to shrink requirements that were originally allowed under States Rights. There should be no recertification necessary. The reasons for rejection of any claim can be reviewed by those in the unemployment agency for certification based on the new standard.

President Biden intended for an expansion of certifications and not an opportunity to redefine claims dating back to January 2020 for rejection. Whitmer’s administration are bullies in redefining state requirements for unemployment and basing decisions only in federal standards. She can’t change the rules at her convenience now that people are back to work.

February 12, 2021

By Rachel Louise Just

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (click here) released a record-setting $67.1 billion budget proposal for fiscal year 2022 on Thursday, but some are wondering if it would pull from Michigan's shrinking rainy day fund.

State Budget Director David Massaron said it wouldn't, because the proposed budget would add $175 million into the state's rainy day fund. Michigan's rainy day fund, or budget stabilization fund as the state refers to it, is its lifeline. It was emptied out to keep Michigan afloat during the 2008 recession, and the last time it was used was to pull Detroit out of bankruptcy in the mid-2010s.

“The idea of a rainy day fund or a stabilization fund is they give government the ability to continue to deliver those services as it gradually changes its operating costs to meet what the new revenue reality is,” Massaron said.

The fund was down $350 million from early 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the state dipped into the rainy day fund, as Massaron explains, "to keep government operating."...

The Michigan Unemployment Agency has been playing political games with the federal monies that were supposed to go to the people. They wanted to first rack up the political idea that all is well and the Michigan Rainy Day Fund is back. Well, there is a lot wrong and a recent letter to unemployment recipients is the last straw.\

First, the state claims there is a mass number of people registering that is actually identity theft.

WRONG!

Those were Michigan residents attempting to pass along their ID after three months of unemployment, but, the computer system in Michigan was so foreign to most people they registered as thieves. Even after soliciting the state's unemployment agency via phone or internet the benefits were not returned to those previously qualifying for them.

If that wasn't enough, along comes letters making it known there are no more benefits for those attempting to rightfully receive them. Now, a new letter that wants to change ALL THE QUALIFICATIONS for Michigan Unemployment, but, this one goes a little further, in placing a new reality in front of the Michigan workers, PAY IT BACK!!!!!!

The State of Michigan unemployment agency has been seeking to keep every penny of federal monies for the state treasury by demonizing PUA. People have been forced into poverty by the state seeking help with private housing agencies to pay rent, mortgages, and utilities to keep people housed during a pandemic. As one agency supervisor said, "She is doing no one any favors, that's for sure." 

This administration is victimizing every person that ever applied for unemployment during the pandemic because it is profitable for the state to do so. After the most recent letter takes hold and demands repayment the rest of the unemployment recipients will receive their letters, too.

July 13, 2021
By Paula Gardner

Nearly one-fifth of the Michigan residents (click here) who received unemployment payments during the pandemic are now learning their eligibility for jobless benefits didn’t meet federal standards.

Michigan officials will reevaluate claims filed by 690,092 people. The vast majority — 648,000 — will have to confirm their jobless status from a different set of criteria and may learn they weren’t eligible for funds they already received....

The man that would be king in Ukraine, Arsen Avakov, resigns his power.

From left, (click here) Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, acting Prosecutor General of Ukraine Oleh Makhnitskyi and Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Valentyn Nalyvaichenko hold a news conference in Kiev, Ukraine, on Thursday. 

Arsen Avakov is not a Putin Pundit. As a matter of fact, he appears to be a Putin watcher to the extent he is able to understand the Russian dictator's next move. Former Internal Prime Minister Arsen Avakov (click here) openly accused exiled former president Yanukovych for the deaths of peaceful protesters.

Ukraine's special police (click here) were behind the killings of dozens of anti-government protesters in Kiev in February, a government inquiry says.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told reporters that 12 members of the Berkut police had been identified as snipers and arrested.

He presented what he said was new evidence from the shootings on 18-20 February, when 76 people were killed.

Months of mass protests led to the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych.

More than 100 people - including police officers - are now known to have died in Ukraine since the unrest began in November over Mr Yanukovych's last-minute rejection of a landmark deal with the European Union in favour with closer Russian ties....

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov (click here) says the whole world has been convinced that the Putin regime is a dangerous anomaly on the other side of civilizational values, therefore the Russian leader will hit on brakes brake or raise the stakes once more pressure is imposed on Russia....

Speaking (click here) exclusively to the Daily Beast, Ukraine’s interior minister says revolutionaries must accept the internal battle is over and help to face down Russia.

The change of government in Ukraine in 2019 (click here) has boosted the political position of Arsen Avakov, the longest-serving interior minister in the history of independent Ukraine (he has been in five consecutive governments since February 2014). He was the only member of Volodymyr Hroysman’s cabinet to remain in office following Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s presidential victory. Zelenskiy came to power demanding that the political class should be renewed and the ‘old politicians’ removed, among other things. According to some Ukrainian politicians and media outlets, Avakov is an essential and highly influential politician, a guarantor of internal stability and a possible candidate for prime minister. Over the last six years, the interior minister has built up a strong position for himself in the internal security sector (for example, he supervises the National Police and the National Guard) and has successfully neutralised attempts by other politicians to limit his power. Moreover, any talk of his dismissal is frequently viewed as a threat to the country’s stability. Avakov has a big media presence and positions himself as an experienced official, a statesman and a guardian of justice and order above the divisions that run along party lines. While maintaining control of the Interior Ministry agencies, he has become politically independent and has built up an exceptionally strong position for himself. However, it seems that his media image as an omnipotent and increasingly influential politician does not correspond completely to his actual status. His attempts so far to extend his influence beyond the Interior Ministry (in politics in general, as well as in numerous institutions of the judiciary) have had less impressive results than he had expected. Alongside this, Avakov is among Ukraine’s least popular politicians; he has no political party base, no sufficient funds and no media assets that could enable him to have any effective influence on the work of the government and parliament.

A businessman turned minister: what is Avakov’s background?

Avakov is a typical representative of his generation, an individual who started his business career in the perestroika period and then made a smooth transition to politics in a newly created state....

Trump supporters as well as those that organized and particpated in January 6th plot against the USA Constitution...

...have the same if not the very same personality disorders that Trump exhibits including Toxic Narcissism. This reality check to this Trump Die Hard probably won't change his point of view. He would have to admit he acted wrongly against the USA Constitution. He won't.

Let me make this clear. The events of January 6th had a very clear definition besides the "Big Lie." The organizers and participants had one very, very clear goal, to stop the process of seating a freely elected President. There is no doubt in that. That was the goal and they were successful in that they delayed and traumatized the freely elected government officials, including the highest levels of Congressional leadership and their families visiting that day.

That is an act against the USA Constitution. I don't care if there were other ideas floating around as to the reason or outcome, there was a common thread that ran between all that day, STOP THE SEATING OF A FREELY ELECTED USA PRESIDENT.

That is treason. Treason is often confined to military movements. Well, there was plenty of that by Trump during his 4 years including his first day at work and the arrival of Russians to the Oval Office. January 6th action was to end the authority of the USA Constitution. If that doesn't affect the status of our military, then I don't know what does.

July 2, 2021
By Marshall Cohen

A Trump-appointed federal judge (click here) on Friday rejected claims from a US Capitol riot defendant that he had been "selectively charged" because he is a supporter of former President Donald Trump.

Federal Judge Trevor McFadden shot down that accusation and upheld the criminal charges against Couy Griffin, a county commissioner from New Mexico who founded the "Cowboys for Trump" group and was featured in a recent CNN documentary about the January 6 insurrection.

The judge also rejected Griffin's technical arguments about the federal trespassing statutes that the Justice Department used to prosecute him and hundreds of other riot suspects. The ruling could influence other judges who are considering similar challenges regarding the trespassing law....