#but the fear mongering has to stop we cannot talk about this like it's 2020 anymore

[likeabxrdinflight]

I have a friend who's still highly cautious around covid because she's high risk but she keeps posting all these screenshots of tweets about covid studies on her instagram in an attempt to convince people that covid is still very dangerous

and it's not that covid isn't still potentially dangerous, but one quick google search has allowed me to find every study that she has referenced, and without fail, every single one of them has been working with pre-vaccine, pre-omicron data. the most recent one she's posting about is about cardiac conditions post covid, and wouldn't you know, the entire sample was taken from people who caught covid between march 2020 and january 2021.

this was pre-vaccine, pre-omicron, hell, it was pre-delta variant (remember that one). this was the wild type covid, which our bodies were least immune to. it was the type that was most known to be causing cardiac symptoms and blood clots. besides delta, it was the most deadly. and no one was vaccinated.

so yes, in that group of people, who were unfortunate enough to catch covid during that period, the results of this study are likely very valid- they are at increased risk of heart disease. and that should be talked about and studied more and if those people end up with cardiac symptoms they need to be receiving proper care.

but we should not be assuming, without further study, that these risks are still the same for those who've been vaccinated, or who only caught covid after the omicron variant became dominant (the omicron lineages have been pretty different from the wild type and other pre-omicron variants, so it's worth noting that). like this is a study that must be replicated with a post-vaccine, post-omicron sample before you will even remotely convince me that those cardiac risks are the same as they were before.

and it is driving me crazy that my friend, who is also fucking trained in how to read science, is posting this shit seemingly without looking at the actual papers or thinking about the context at all. like it is driving me absolutely bananas. these posts aren't even like, direct quotes from the papers, they're screenshots of randos on twitter talking about these papers, as if twitter rando knows jack shit about what they're talking about. like it's all well and good to still care about covid but could you at least do it with less of the fear mongering?

[feelingbluepolitics]

We Can't Overlook Elizabeth Warren.

Behind the early ups and downs of this Democratic primary, there is one quality we are all looking for, both progressives and moderates: The ability to beat trump.

Warren is the one candidate already running directly against trump.

This is about whether we support the anti-corruption candidate who directly confronts and undercuts not just trump, but his entire agenda and everything trump stands for.

Right now, Warren is a bit like Ukraine's anti-corruption candidate, Zelinsky, who is holding out against Russia even while it is uncertain that America has his back. He didn't look like the toughest or the most fierce either, but he ran on a solid and heartfelt campaign against corruption. The strength of those principles resisted trump's attacks time after time, withstood every threat and every trump minion, brought trump's targeted corruption efforts to a standstill, and led to trump being exposed and impeached. The people of Ukraine united against corruption in their Revolution of Dignity, and chose the person who represented anti-corruption as the core of his campaign.

Ukraine versus Russia isn't where we are, though, as Democrats against the trump-led Republicons. Democrats together, with Independents and new voters and shocked, repulsed, moderate Republicons, are unstoppable. But building that coalition begins with Democrats united. Why would others join us if we fragment the power we have? As Blue Voters, as Democrats, we need to be positioned to work together.

"What it takes is a united Party. We can't have a repeat of 2016 when we roll into the general election with Democrats still mad at Democrats, Democrats still angry, some Democrats staying home. We need to have a Party that is united." (Warren, MSNBC's All in With Chris Hayes, 2/12/2020.

Bernie is uniting the progressives.

Buttigieg, maybe Klobuchar, are coalescing the moderates.

For all that many of us say and mean, "Vote Blue No Matter Who," we will lose moderates who are too nervous to support Bernie, the "self-described socialist," at the top of the ticket. People tend to fear the unknown. It is a terrible risk that people could consider trump the "known" factor, the disaster who telegraphs every despicable move so that at least people know what's coming, while seeing Bernie as the unknown, the greater fear of what "socialism" means in America between one day and the next.

Conservatives have long fear mongered against "socialism" and blotted out the distinctions between socialism and democratic socialism. We can start saying, "Well, it's like Denmark, it's like thriving countries in Northern Europe, not like Venezuela." But pictures of unrest hit harder and more viscerally than pictures of foreign success. Fox, dug into the political landscape for a long time now, has a formidable head start. There is also an ingrained version of American exceptionalism, where we Americans want to be who we are and not anybody else. We just want to be better at who we are.

Young Democratic Socialists and leaders like AOC are the brightest future, but we have to get there to reach it. trump stands in the way. As against trump, there will be inevitable, additional, multiple and damaging fights over Bernie and his platform before and after he faces trump directly.

It is unfair, and it is frustrating beyond measure. But ultimately, what most progressives want is the progress represented by Bernie's decades of vision, and they must consider whether that is more important, or if having Bernie himself as the standard bearer is more important.

In a better world, in a better America, Bernie could be president. That isn't where we are.

In a steadier world, a moderate candidate could make a suitable candidate for president, to run the country with small, incremental course corrections here and there.

It isn't as though progressives won't also look for bipartisanship! That is not a qualification unique to moderates! It's just that more progressive leaders don't stall while waiting for it. We cannot afford to do that. That is absolutely not where we are. On so many fronts, we are in a cataclysmic phase in our nation's history and in the future of the world. This is not the time for cautious incrementalism, for trying to back up to a safer-seeming status quo that isn't there anymore, or really never was.

To choose a moderate who seems confident about grasping the reins and taming the runaway is to be looking at the wrong moving picture entirely. What it really is, is pulling a blanket over our heads during a massive earthquake, and imaging that as reasonable because we'll just pat everything back into place afterwards.

We need to stop overlooking Elizabeth Warren. We need to support her before we lose her.

She is a fighter, which is why bloated billionaires and corporate CEOs fear her.

Her authenticity and her resolution are why Mark Zuckerberg is absolutely set against her.

What better protection can there be against the dangers Facebook represents to our elections than Zuckerberg having confessed in advance he will do anything to try to prevent a Warren presidency? She has a built-in shield like no other candidate because he's already on record against her. If people are suspicious about the mass of disinformation coming at us, it can't work as well.

Warren is a fighter, but she fights to unify us. As she says, everybody on the political left, up and down the ticket, can run on anti-corruption as a platform. We need them to.

That is the fight that can completely destroy trump. Every time trump brings up his economy, Elizabeth is positioned to show who "trump's" economy is really working for and why.

For all that people are talking about "electability" -- an amorphous and meaningless quality on its own, whatever it is -- any of our candidates have it if most voters nationwide support that candidate. That is actually what "electability" really comes down to. At this fraught junction, progressives are in no mood to support moderate candidates, although many, with trump as the alternative, will if they must. Moderates are always nervous of progressives; Bernie has long been the unimaginable for them, and Republicons excel at exacerbating fear.

If both progressive and moderate Democrats remain determined to win it all on their own respective merits, we stand to lose all. We need Warren for so many reasons which become more obvious once we look.

Those who hated Hillary saw her as a corrupt insider, with too many set implacably against her from the outset. Warren isn't a career "insider," and she is running against corruption. trump's projections of corruption, his go-to comfort zone, are useless against Warren.

Warren also resolves a deep residual disappointment over American backwardness, of not yet electing our first woman president. Warren also resolves some of the terrible disappointment of having Hillary's extensive knowledge and extraordinary qualifications wasted. Warren not only has detailed plans for every situation we face, she is willing to listen to and adopt a stronger detailed version, like Jay Inslee's climate plan. With Warren we will not face trying to move forward with "one person alone," one "brand," to fix the range of severe problems we face.

Warren parted the political walls to come in first from outside to set up protection for every single American as a financial consumer. Every single American, every person living in this nation, of every age, race, religion, origin, and political affiliation. That is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Warren, before she ran for any office, proposed the CFPB and established it, setting it up so solidly it has withstood incessant Republicon attempts to get rid of it entirely.

Warren stepped up to help protect every American from being cheated financially before she ever ran for office.

Klobuchar believes that she is the one who can best bring everyone together. The single most popular proposal across all of America though? That's Warren's wealth tax, which draws "broad support from voters, across party, gender and educational lines. Only one slice of the electorate opposes it staunchly: Republicon men with college degrees." (The core profile of those who will pay it.)

Klobuchar, a very skilled politician with a solid record, is still promising that as the moderate, she will bring everyone with her, but Warren, with her breakout proposal in the Democratic presidential primary, which appeals across coalitions, already did it.

Warren, a relative political newcomer as of her first election in 2012, mirrors Mayor Pete's freshness in politics, which also dates to 2012. She ran a Senate race and won. He ran for mayor.

Warren is not completely inexperienced with higher government, and it isn't an asset to be completely untested and inexperienced. Brilliance is one thing, but nobody on the debate stage is anything less. It is hubris of an astounding degree to plan with self-confidence to go from young mayor to President of the United States.

Warren, for example, knows exactly who to bring into her administration. She has been working with and reaching out to top people in their fields since before she entered politics herself. She can bring in the leaders who can bring in the staffers and experts who we have critical need for after trump has gutted every department and agency, leaving only hollow props fronted by trump loyalists. Buttigieg, in contrast to Warren, knows few contacts except, presumably, his McKinsey and Company contacts and their lobbyists, which is not a reassuring prospect.

One of the best articles on why Warren should be getting our votes sooner rather than too late is this one:

Warren's own words speak best, though, if we listen to her. On CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, 2/12/2020, Warren said this:

"Jesse Jackson made a wonderful statement,

'It takes two wings to fly.'"

And I think that's where we are right now in the Democratic Party. A lot of good people in this Party. A lot of good ideas.

"But we need someone who's going to be able to unite this Party and to be able to fight hard for core Democratic values. To fight on behalf of hard-working middle-class American families. To fight on behalf of people who've just been getting the short end of the stick over and over and over.

"You know, I came to politics late, but that was my life's work. And I'm running for president because I know how bad it's gotten for hard-working people, but I can see the ways that we can make this better. We get in this fight together. We can turn this around. We can make this a country that isn't just working for rich people, but a country that actually invests in all our children. A country that actually builds a future for everyone. It's what makes this so exciting."

That's Warren for president.

[teafortwo29]

Once Reluctant to Speak Out, an Energized Obama Now Calls Out His Successor

Former President Barack Obama has leveled many attacks on President Trump heading into the 2018 midterm elections. These sharp rebukes, though, are a departure from how past leaders used their post-presidential campaign stops. Published on Nov. 1, 2018, Credit Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

By Peter Baker Nov. 2, 2018

MIAMI — Former President Barack Obama’s voice has a way of lifting into a high-pitched tone of astonishment when he talks about his successor, almost as if he still cannot believe that the Executive Mansion he occupied for eight years is now the home of President Trump.

For most of the last two years, he stewed about it in private, only occasionally speaking out. But as he hit the campaign trail this fall, Mr. Obama has vented his exasperation loud and often, assailing his successor in a sharper, more systematic way arguably than any former president has done in three-quarters of a century.

Although some admirers believe he remains too restrained in an era of Trumpian bombast, Mr. Obama has excoriated the incumbent for “lying” and “fear-mongering” and pulling “a political stunt” by sending troops to the border. As he opened a final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday’s midterm elections, Mr. Obama has re-emerged as the Democrats’ most prominent face, pitting president versus president over the future of the country.

In a fiery speech in Miami on Friday afternoon before heading to Georgia for another rally, Mr. Obama said that even conservatives should be disturbed by Mr. Trump’s disregard for the Constitution and basic decency. “I know there are sincere conservatives who are compassionate and must think there is nothing compassionate about ripping immigrant children from the arms of their mothers at the border,” he said.

“I am assuming that they recognize that a president doesn’t get to decide on his own who’s an American citizen and who’s not,” he continued, referring to Mr. Trump’s vow to sign an executive order canceling birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. “That’s not how the Constitution of the United States works. That’s not how the Bill of Rights works. That’s not how our democracy works.”

“I’m assuming people must get upset,” he went on, “when they see folks who spend all their time vilifying others, questioning their patriotism, calling them enemies of the people and then suddenly pretending they’re concerned about civility.”

The current president fired back later in the afternoon. Mr. Trump, who has made more than 6,400 false or misleading statements since taking office, according to a count by The Washington Post, said his predecessor had lied by telling Americans they could keep their doctor under his health care plan, which ultimately turned out not to be the case.

“Twenty-eight times he said you can keep your doctor if you like your doctor,” he told a small crowd at a West Virginia airport hangar. “They were all lies. Used it to pass a terrible health care plan we are decimating strike by strike.”

He also criticized Mr. Obama’s trade policies and treatment of the news media. “Lie after lie,” Mr. Trump said. “Broken promise after broken promise. Unlike President Obama, we live under a different mantra. It’s called promises made, promises kept.”

Since leaving office, Mr. Obama has risen in the esteem of many Americans, as former presidents often do. A poll by CNN this year found that 66 percent had a favorable view of him, far more than those who approve of Mr. Trump’s performance in office.

When he left the White House in January 2017, Mr. Obama said he intended to follow the tradition of his predecessors by staying out of the spotlight unless he perceived what he considered broader threats to American values. Advisers said Mr. Trump’s performance in office has qualified, justifying his decision to abandon restraint this fall.

“He cares very deeply,” said Valerie Jarrett, his longtime friend, and adviser. “His language has been very direct and he’s made an appeal to citizens across our country that now’s the time to stand up for our core ideals.”

He has issued 350 endorsements that candidates then trumpeted on social media and he has helped raise millions of dollars for Democrats. A video op-ed he taped generated 17 million views and a voter registration video drove nearly 700,000 viewers to Vote.org, according to his team. He is taping dozens of recorded telephone messages that will be sent out this weekend.

Mr. Obama’s red-meat speech on Friday delighted the crowd at the Ice Palace Film Studios in Miami. But if he has become the Democrats’ “forever president,” as Andrew Gillum, the party’s candidate for governor of Florida, called him, there are trade-offs for an opposition party trying to groom a new generation of leaders as the start of the 2020 presidential election approaches.

“President Obama wants to make room for the next generation of Democratic leaders to step up, which is why he’s largely stayed out of the day-to-day fray over the past two years,” said Eric Schultz, a senior adviser to the former president. “But too much is at stake in these midterms and this moment is too consequential to sit out.”

To Republicans, Mr. Obama’s decision to directly take on his successor smacks of violating norms just as he accuses Mr. Trump of doing.

“I was taken aback by the amount of space in President Obama’s speeches that are devoted to a full frontal assault on Donald J. Trump and his administration,” said Karl Rove, the political strategist for former President George W. Bush. “He spends a considerable amount of his time to get up there and trash Trump.”

Ron Kaufman, who was White House political director for the first President George Bush, said Mr. Obama’s language had been strikingly harsh from one president about another. “If you go back and dig up some of the pretty nasty things President Obama has said, I think you would be a bit surprised,” he said. “He gets away with it because of his style.”

Not since Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover has a president hit the campaign trail after leaving office to actively take on his successor in quite the way Mr. Obama has. Roosevelt actually mounted a comeback against his handpicked replacement, William Howard Taft, while Hoover castigated Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program as “despotism” at the Republican convention in 1936.

Other former presidents have been critical of their successors, too. Jimmy Carter became a vocal opponent of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, calling his administration the “worst in history.” But with Mr. Carter and others, these were one-off comments in interviews or other public settings, not a systematic indictment on the campaign trail.

Until this cycle, Bill Clinton has been a regular campaigner for fellow Democrats, not least his wife, but even as he assailed Republican ideas, he generally refrained from directly attacking his successors. As in previous years, the younger Mr. Bush has been out on the trail this fall but has largely kept his post-White House campaigning to closed-door fund-raisers and studiously avoided criticizing either Mr. Obama or Mr. Trump.

Mr. Obama’s criticism of Mr. Trump reflects a deep antipathy he feels for his successor, whom he called a “con man” and a “know nothing” during the 2016 campaign. Mr. Trump was the leading promoter of the lie that Mr. Obama was not born in the United States, a conspiracy theory that irritated the 44th president.

Mr. Obama has never been effective at translating his own popularity to other Democrats — the party lost all three elections while he was president when his name was not on the ballot — but he seems liberated as he finally unloads on Mr. Trump. “He wants to be in the game and he’s really energized doing it,” said Bill Burton, a former aide who caught up with Mr. Obama at a campaign stop in California.

Now 57, Mr. Obama has turned even grayer on top but has otherwise not changed much. For rallies, he still doffs coat and tie for his trademark white collared shirt with rolled up sleeves. He has dispensed with the professorial history lessons that slowed his stump speech down at the beginning of the fall and sharpened his argument into an animated, finger-pointing, crowd-riling indictment of his successor.

While he did not use Mr. Trump’s name in Miami on Friday, Mr. Obama left no doubt who he was talking about. He pointed to Mr. Trump’s use of a cellphone that advisers have told him is being monitored by foreign powers, contrasting that with the Republican criticism of Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecure email server.

“You know they don’t care about that because if they did, they’d be worrying about the current president talking on his cell phone while the Chinese are listening in,” Mr. Obama said. “They didn’t care about it. They said it to get folks angry and ginned up.”

“Now in 2018, they’re telling you the vestigial threat to America is a bunch of poor refugees a thousand miles away,” he added, referring to a migrant caravan in Mexico. “They’re even taking our brave troops away from their families for a political stunt at the border. And the men and women of our military deserve better than that.”

In just a few days, he will find out whether voters see it his way or Mr. Trump’s.

Michael D. Shear contributed reporting from Huntington, W.Va., and Alan Blinder from Atlanta.

Follow Peter Baker on Twitter: @peterbakernyt.

[your-dietician]

Stock Markets and the Economy: Live Updates

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/economy/stock-markets-and-the-economy-live-updates/

Stock Markets and the Economy: Live Updates

June 21, 2021Updated 

June 21, 2021, 9:52 a.m. ET

June 21, 2021, 9:52 a.m. ET

Analysts and airline executives have expressed optimism in recent weeks that demand for travel is strong.Credit…Nitashia Johnson for The New York Times

Airline ticket sales fell a little in May after rising steadily in the first four months of the year, according to a firm that tracks bookings, suggesting that demand for tickets for summer travel might not be quite as strong as airlines had hoped.

Consumers spent more than $5 billion for flights within the United States in May, a 4 percent drop from April and 20 percent lower than the same month in 2019, according to an analysis based on the Adobe Digital Economy Index. The estimates are drawn from website tracking data from six of the top 10 U.S. airlines. The airlines sold more than $21 billion in domestic tickets from January through May.

It is not clear why bookings were lower in May and whether the trend has continued into June. But analysts and airline executives have expressed optimism in recent weeks that demand for travel is strong. The number of people flying has risen relatively steadily since January, according to the Transportation Security Administration. On Sunday, the T.S.A. screened 2.1 million passengers at airport checkpoints, the most in a single day since the pandemic began.

Other countries are increasingly opening up, too. United Airlines said it set booking records each of the past three weeks for flights across the Atlantic Ocean, and the European Union urged its member states on Friday to lift a ban on nonessential travel for Americans.

People are also buying more tickets for later in the year than they were this time in 2019, the year before the pandemic took hold. Bookings for travel in November and December are up 30 percent compared with sales at this time in 2019.

In a securities filing earlier this month, American Airlines said strong summer sales helped it generate a cash profit in May for the first time in more than a year. Delta Air Lines has said it expected leisure travel within the United States to be fully restored this month.

Several of the most popular destinations this summer are in Hawaii, according to Adobe. Other popular stops include Bozeman, Mont., Nantucket, Mass., Las Vegas, Richmond, Va., and Orlando and Fort Myers in Florida.

Most analysts and airline executives expect that a full recovery will take years — airport traffic is still down about 20 percent from 2019 — but hotels are faring much better. Slightly more people booked hotel rooms in April and May than in the same months in 2019, according to the index, which is based on data from eight of the top 10 U.S. hotel chains.

People are also spending more on travel related goods. Luggage sales, for example, were up 9 percent in May, compared with the same month in 2019, and sales of camping gear were up 130 percent.

Read more

The meatpacking industry was a flash point during the pandemic as thousands of workers fell ill, many of them fatally.Credit…Benjamin Rasmussen for The New York Times

Smithfield Foods was one of the first companies to warn that the country was in danger of running out of meat as coronavirus infections ripped through processing plants in April 2020 and health officials pressured the industry to halt some production to protect workers.

Now, a lawsuit filed last week by Food and Water Watch, a consumer advocacy group, accuses the giant pork producer of falsely stoking consumer fears and misleading the public.

The suit says the nation was never in danger of running out of meat. It claims there were ample supplies in cold storage, while at the same time pork exports to China, in particular, were surging. The suit was filed in Superior Court in Washington, where a law allows a nonprofit group to sue on behalf of consumers without needing to show that they suffered direct harm.

“This fear mongering creates a revenue-generating feedback loop,” Food and Water Watch said in its lawsuit. “It stokes and exploits consumer panic — juicing demand and sales — and in turn, provides the company with a false justification to keep its slaughterhouses operating at full tilt, subjecting its workers to unsafe workplace health and safety conditions that have caused thousands of Smithfield workers to contract the virus.”

Smithfield defended its safety efforts while criticizing the consumer advocacy group. “The advocacy organizations who make these claims have a stated goal of dismantling the efforts of our hard-working employees, who take great pride in safely producing food products,” Keira Lombardo, Smithfield’s chief administrative officer, said in a statement.

The meatpacking industry was a flash point during the pandemic as thousands of workers fell ill, many of them fatally. Smithfield and other companies mounted an aggressive advertising campaign to highlight their worker safety efforts and to emphasize the industry’s important role in feeding the nation.

Despite these assertions, Food and Water Watch, which is represented in its lawsuit by Public Justice, a legal advocacy group, points out that Smithfield was cited by regulators for failing to adequately protect workers at its plants in California and South Dakota.

In her statement, Ms. Lombardo said, “Our health and safety measures, guided by medical and workplace safety expertise, have been comprehensive.”

Read more

Rental car prices have skyrocketed as travel has resumed.Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

The Federal Trade Commission is warning travelers about schemes that lure them into booking phony car rental reservations through fake customer service numbers and websites, Ann Carrns reports for The New York Times.

Rental cars have gotten scarce and prices have risen. That may leave customers vulnerable to bogus offers that appear to provide the car not only that they want but at a seemingly more reasonable rate, said Emily Wu, a lawyer with the Federal Trade Commission’s division of consumer and business education.

The sequence may start when a shopper searches online for a general term like “cheap rental cars,” said Amy Nofziger, director of victim support for the AARP Fraud Watch Network.

They call the number that shows up in the search, thinking it belongs to a legitimate rental company.

The fake rental agency typically will insist that the caller reserve by paying with a gift card or prepaid debit card, saying there is a special promotion or discount associated with the card.

Once the caller buys a card and relays its PIN to the bogus agency, the criminal can quickly convert the card to cash, and the consumer is left without the money or a car.

“A website that requires payment or asks for the purchase of a gift card, and to provide the card number and PIN, should cause alarm,” said Lisa Martini, a spokeswoman for Enterprise Holdings, which includes the Enterprise, Alamo and National brands.

Read more

Shell executives say they want to put their chips on technologies and businesses that may evolve into key cogs in the cleaner energy system that is emerging, like batteries.Credit…Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Ben van Beurden, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, has been talking about the need to cut emissions since 2017. In the view of some, though, Shell has dragged its feet.

The company’s clean energy investments since 2016 add up to $3.2 billion, Stanley Reed reports for The New York Times, while it has spent about $84 billion on oil and gas exploration and development, according to estimates by Bernstein, a research firm.

“You cannot claim to be in transition when you only invest” such a small percentage of capital in new businesses, said Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This, a Dutch investor activist group.

All of the big oil companies, especially in Europe, share a similar dilemma. Their leaders see that demand for petroleum products is likely to eventually fade and that their industry faces growing disapproval, especially in Europe, because of its role in climate change. Shell is responsible for an estimated 3 percent of global emissions, mostly from the gasoline and other products burned by its customers.

Yet Shell and other companies still make nearly all their profits from fossil fuels, and they are naturally wary of shedding the bulk of their vast oil and gas and petrochemical assets, especially when the consumption of petroleum is forecast to continue for years.

Shell appears to be playing a longer, more cautious game than some rivals, like BP, that are pouring money into renewable energy projects. Shell executives seem to be skeptical about the profit potential of just constructing and operating renewable generation assets, like wind farms.

Shell executives say they want to put their chips on technologies and businesses that may evolve into key cogs in the cleaner energy system that is emerging. They want to not only produce clean energy but make money from supplying it to businesses like Amazon and retail customers through large, tailored contracts, or electric vehicle plug-in points or utilities that Shell owns. The investment numbers will increase, they say, to up to $3 billion a year of a total of about $20 billion annual capital expenditure.

“We are thinking ahead; where is the future going?” said Elisabeth Brinton, Shell’s executive vice president for renewables and energy solutions.

Read more

Stocks on Wall Street rebounded in early trading on Monday, after the S&P 500 fell 1.3 percent on Friday, capping its worst week since late February. The drop on Friday was the fourth consecutive daily decline for the index, which came as projections showed most Federal Reserve officials expected interest rates to start to rise in 2023.

The S&P 500 was up 0.5 percent in early on Monday, while the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.8 percent and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 0.2 percent. The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes climbed to 1.47 percent from 1.44 percent on Friday.

Bitcoin was down 3.7 percent to $32,562 as the call from Chinese authorities to crack down on mining and trading of the cryptocurrency continues.

Asian stocks closed sharply lower on Monday, following losses in European and American indexes on Friday. The Nikkei 225 closed 3.3 percent lower and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong dropped 1.1 percent.

Most European stock indexes rose. The Stoxx Europe 600 climbed 0.3 percent, after dropping 1.6 percent on Friday.

Shares in Morrisons, a large British supermarket company, jumped 32 percent on Monday after the grocer said it had rejected an offer to be bought by an American private equity firm. The firm, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, had offered the buy the company for 230 British pence a share, 29 percent above Friday’s closing price. Shares in other supermarket companies also rose with Sainsbury’s up 3.9 percent, the best performer in the FTSE 100.

Eshe Nelson contributed reporting.

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[mineofilms]

The Facebook of Passive Aggression Part 2…

No matter what one believes on the COVID Gimmick there are always gonna be sources of info/data that fits in everyone's donut hole logic bubble.

All I am saying is; if one is for or whatever the other side of it is. People will find data/info that fits their belief structure.

One's opinion of it will never change people's minds on it. This goes for any subject matter. We can debate a movie. It's bad... It's good... We will both find data to support each other's belief of it.

Even if you have fake facts or real facts, or science.

It's why FB sucks so much right now. People cannot help themselves.

It doesn't matter if it "is" or "isn't."

People in general and the INTERNET will always find data, info, pseudoscience to support their belief structure.

It doesn't matter if they are right or wrong.

Our paradigm shifted about 10 years ago with Social Media.

It doesn't matter if the facts are facts or are pseudo-facts. Pseudo literally means made up.

Most will not be able to change minds like this.

If one can. Quit whatever career and become a car salesperson, because they will make a killin'.

You can disagree. I am just stating what I see on social media since 1998.

Should be noted the word "social media," used to be social networking, sphere of influence and just networking before that.

Granted, this is just my opinion. Not an attack or anything on other's opinions.

Just see how people behave on here. What I have said is very dominant in my FB feed.

You are not gonna change someone's mind that the world is a sphere if they believe it is flat.

They will always find something to suggest it is real or at least real to them.

People can/will hate on me for my opinions.

I have to write 1000 words just to explain myself most of the time with disclaimers and laws of logic.

Especially, because, I do not believe what the world is up to lately is correct, at least from my point of view.

My bubble is very self-contained.

It's not that I do not agree with the quarantine.

It's how people are behaving on My Facebook about it. The name-calling. The bullying. Turning it into politics, Left / Right / For Trump / Against Trump.

The opinion that people are pieces of shit because they have opinions that do not slide into their donut hole logic bubble.

The fear-mongering and guilt-tripping. It's ALL I see on here.

I am not quarantined... I am purposely hiding... All this talk, its FK'n MORE dangerous than the Covid man.

I do not have an issue with the virus and/or the quarantine, 3rd time I have mentioned this now.

It is an issue with people forcing their opinions and ideologies on others and them shaming others if they do not agree.

And it's been subtle... An off comment here. The use of certain words within a sentence.

An elbow jab here as An uncomfortable joke there or just straight-up name-calling.

No matter what the subject matter is. This attitude and behavior is NEVER ENDING.

There is caring and there are people dictating how EVERYONE else should live.

If most on social media would mind their own most probably would not see so much of this on FB.

However, people cannot help themselves. They are addicted to this behavior pattern.

They feel compelled to force their opinions on the lot that do not agree with what their version of what, how, why, when, should and could is.

There is a disease out there. AND... It is people's inability and instability to mind their own.

You see it with voting. You see it with this Covid thing. You see it in religion. You see it in politics.

You see it in anything where one has an opinion and options to govern the masses.

People cannot help themselves. On the Facebook, Twitter, wherever, whatever.

Has very little to do with this subject or another.

Mind your own. Stop worrying about things you cannot control, which is very little.

You can control you and yours but not what others do, think, feel. So just stop already. It is total bullshit.

Stop trying to tell the world on how to deal with their business which is not yours.

Pretty simple to me.

Has nothing to do with this specific situation. It is whatever situation arises.

Happens all the time something is afoot and people take to social media.

They do not even notice they are doing it. They always believe they are right. Hey, they might be right.

FOR THEM, but not the lot. The lot has nothing to do with them. I have probably spent way too much time trying to explain the live small and simple mentality.

All I can do is do me and mine own. I try to put my thoughts and feeling down on a word document and blog just to give it some purpose. Just to give it some meaning for me.

If it means something to you all, great... 

The Facebook of Passive Aggression Part 2… by David-Angelo Mineo 865 Words 3-28-2020

[bountyofbeads]

Attacks Spur Debate on Extremism and Guns, With Trump on Defense https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/us/politics/trump-guns-white-supremacy.html

Mass shootings have nothing to do with video games or mental health. When countries are compared statistics show clearly a relation between the number of guns and mass shootings. US makes up less than 5 % of the world's population but holds 31 % of global mass shooters. It is guns and Trump’s toxic racism.

Below are some comments from Americans around the country.

"If our president won’t call for new gun laws to protect everyone in this country, we need to call for a new president. Loudly, united in voice and resolute that mass shootings and domestic terrorism will not become our new normal."

"Usual GOP responses are worthless. Research on video games has shown no difference in violent tendencies for those playing violent video games and those that do not. Mental illness remedies would be included in health insurance, but wait...there's more...the GOP wants to kill Obamacare, which has mandatory mental health coverage. The only remedy is for Mr Trump to leave office and stop his spewing divisive words. Then we can start working on solutions. Unfortunately real solutions may not come anytime before all 3 branches of government are controlled by the Dems."

"Trump 2006: "I Could Stand In the Middle Of Fifth Avenue And Shoot Somebody And I Wouldn't Lose Any Voters." The man is a walking, talking violence-monger yet he faults video games."

"The mass shooting in El Paso was based on anti-immigrant hatred. Trump wants to "solve" the problem by tying any gun legislation to his hateful anti-immigrant agenda. Now, is there any further need to ask whether Trump's rhetoric of hate is contributing to a climate of violence? He cannot even conceive of an answer to the problem which does not, by definition, make the problem worse. Trumpism is the problem."

"This morning's speech was not Trump, but his writers stringing together statements they think will play well at this moment. Trump is no more than a marketer, which is why he can race-bait one day and call for condemnation of racism and bigotry the next -- focus-group testing whatever might play best. He voluntarily given up any agency in these matters, as has the party he has bought and co-opted. The same group that automatically points to "mental illness" as the problem wants to reduce health care benefits -- which have never been sufficient for mental health anyway -- for millions. The hypocrisy is breathtaking, but may well be tolerated if fear and hatred are the primary motivators for political decision-making. That will be the only way they can win."

"Trump is a hypocrite! He shores up racism on the one hand and condemns racist acts on the other. Does he think people are stupid, or what? The world is watching. Trump's words are empty and meaningless; his modus operandi is plain to see. People don't need his thoughts and prayers; rather, they need to be kept safe. Americans' lives are precious. As a Brit looking in, nothing could be clearer to me: it's the guns, stupid! What is also clear to me is this: for many Americans, the right to bear arms is more important than people's lives. Until this changes, the killing sprees will go on. All decent Americans should stand up and be counted; they should demand that there be meaningful gun control. Without meaningful gun control, America will continue to be a killing field."

“In one voice our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy,” Mr. Trump said. That comes from the man who tells elected representatives of color to "go back where they came from." That from the man who started his campaign by calling immigrants from Mexico drug dealers, rapists and criminals. That from the man who bans Muslims from coming to the US. That from the man who talks about "invasions" at his political rallies. Today's comments are pablum, read from a TelePrompter, written by one of his flunkies. Somehow, I have a really hard time ascribing any sincerity to his remarks today."

Shootings Spur Debate on Extremism and Guns, With Trump on Defense

By Alexander Burns | Published August 5, 2019 | New York Times | Posted Aug. 5, 2019 |

The politics of American gun violence follow a predictable pattern in most cases: outraged calls for action from the left, somber gestures of sympathy from the right, a subdued presidential statement delivered from a prepared text — and then, in a matter of days or even hours, a national turning of the page to other matters.

But after a white supremacist gunman massacred 22 people in El Paso, the political world hurtled on Monday toward a more expansive, and potentially more turbulent, confrontation over racist extremism. Though the gun lobby was again on the defensive, it was not alone; so were social media companies and websites like 8chan that have become hives for toxic fantasies and violent ideas that have increasingly leaked into real life, with fatal consequences.

Perhaps most of all, President Trump faced intense new criticism and scrutiny for the plain echoes of his own rhetoric in the El Paso shooter’s anti-immigrant manifesto.

Mr. Trump’s usual methods of deflection sputtered on Monday: His early-morning tweets attacking the news media and calling vaguely for new background checks on gun purchasers did little to ease the political pressure. A midmorning statement he recited from the White House — condemning “white supremacy” and warning of internet-fueled extremism, but declining to address his own past language or call for stern new gun regulations — did nothing to quiet the chorus of censure from Mr. Trump’s political opponents and critics, who are demanding presidential accountability.

No statement better captured how the gun violence debate was giving way to a reckoning on extremism than a statement on Monday afternoon from former President Barack Obama. Mr. Obama, who has weighed in sparingly on public events since leaving office, called both for gun control and for an emphatic national rejection of racism and the people who stoke it.

“We should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments,” Mr. Obama wrote, “leaders who demonize those who don’t look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life, or refer to other people as subhuman, or imply that America belongs to just one certain type of people.”

Mr. Obama did not mention Mr. Trump or any other leaders by name.

The Democrats seeking the presidency in 2020 did not hesitate to do so: Mr. Trump had scarcely finished speaking from the White House on Monday when his Democratic challengers blamed him explicitly for giving succor to extremists. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the former vice president and current Democratic front-runner, accused Mr. Trump on Twitter of having used the presidency “to encourage and embolden white supremacy.” And in an interview with CNN, Mr. Biden said Mr. Trump had “just flat abandoned the theory that we are one people.”

Other political leaders reacted with their own raw distress and alarm. Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor who has bankrolled a yearslong crusade for gun control,  wrote in a column that the “new atrocities need to change the political dynamic” around guns, and said Mr. Trump’s remarks were little more than “the usual dodge.”

And Democratic presidential candidates rounded on Mr. Trump in a front that transcended ideological and tonal divisions in the party. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a populist liberal, said Mr. Trump must be held responsible for “amplifying these deadly ideologies,” while Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who has campaigned as an advocate for racial justice and national healing, derided Mr. Trump’s speech as a “bullshit soup of ineffective words” in a text message that his campaign manager posted on Twitter.

An aide to Mr. Booker said he would deliver a major speech on gun violence on Wednesday morning in South Carolina, at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston where a white supremacist gunman killed nine people in 2015.

And the entwined issues of gun violence and racist extremism began to tumble into elections for offices well beyond the presidency. In Colorado, Mike Johnston, a former state lawmaker and gun-control advocate who is challenging Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican, blamed Mr. Trump for having “created this toxic culture that incites white nationalists.” In 2020, he said, candidates would have to make a stark binary choice.

“Either you’re on the side of the white nationalist holding the AR-15, or you’re on the side of the millions of Americans living in fear of them,” Mr. Johnston said in an interview.

Mr. Trump, for his part, said he was open to “bipartisan solutions” that would address gun violence, and blamed “the internet and social media” for spreading what he termed “sinister ideologies.” He was not specific about any next steps his administration would take, though he stressed his strong support for the death penalty and seemed to express skepticism that gun restrictions would be an appropriate remedy.

“Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump’s campaign responded to criticism of the president with a statement deploring Democrats for “politicizing a moment of national grief.”

“The president clearly condemned racism, bigotry and white supremacy as he has repeatedly,” said Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign. “He also called for concrete steps to prevent such violent attacks in the future.”

Mr. Murtaugh added that “no one blamed Bernie Sanders” when one of his supporters attempted to kill a group of Republican lawmakers at a Virginia baseball diamond in 2017. “The responsibility for such horrific attacks,” he said, “lies ultimately with the people who carry them out.”

If Mr. Trump and his allies are adamant that he is blameless in the rise of extremist violence, much of the public believes he has not adequately separated himself from white supremacists. A survey published in March by the Pew Research Center found that a majority of Americans — 56 percent — said Mr. Trump had done “too little to distance himself from white nationalist groups.” That group included about a quarter of people who identified themselves as Republicans or as leaning toward Mr. Trump’s party.

It has not only been liberals who have argued that the mass shooting in El Paso, and another one hours later in Dayton, Ohio, represented a crisis for the country, and a major test for Mr. Trump. The conservative magazine National Review published an editorial on Sunday evening calling on Americans and their government to take on “a murderous and resurgent ideology — white supremacy” in much the same way the government has confronted Islamic terrorism.

Mr. Trump, the magazine said, “should take the time to condemn these actions repeatedly and unambiguously, in both general and specific terms.”

Frank Keating, the former Republican governor of Oklahoma, who led his state through the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City by domestic terrorists, said in an interview that the moment called for both new restrictions on firearms and a new tone from the White House. He urged Mr. Trump to “carefully choose your words” to avoid instilling fear or inciting anger.

“He needs to realize the lethality of his rhetoric,” Mr. Keating said.

“The truth is, the president is the secular pope,” he added, “and he needs to be a moral leader as well as a government leader, and to say that this must not occur again — exclamation mark.”

It was not clear whether the El Paso shooting had the potential to become a pivot point in national politics, much as the Oklahoma City bombing had in the 1990s. After that attack, which killed 168 people, President Bill Clinton  delivered a searing speech against the “loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible” — a denunciation widely understood as being aimed at the extreme right. Mr. Clinton’s handling of the attack helped restore voters’ confidence in him as a strong leader after a shaky start to his presidency.

Mr. Trump has shown no inclination in the past to play a role of such clarifying moral leadership, or to engage in any kind of searching introspection about his own embrace of the politics of anger and racial division. In the aftermath of a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 that resulted in the murder of a young woman, Mr. Trump said there had been  “very fine people on both sides” of the unrest there. In recent weeks, he has engaged without apology in a sequence of attacks on prominent members of racial minority groups, including five different Democratic members of Congress.

While few Republican lawmakers had anything critical to say about Mr. Trump in public after the El Paso and Dayton shootings, the party harbors profound private anxieties about the impact of his conduct on the 2020 elections. During last year’s midterm elections, Mr. Trump campaigned insistently on a slashing message about illegal immigration, and was rewarded with a sweeping rejection of his party across the country’s diverse cities and prosperous suburbs.

Punctuating the final weeks of the 2018 elections were a pair of traumatic events that may have deepened voters’ feelings of dismay about the president’s violent language and appeals to racism: a failed wave of attempted bombings  by a Trump supporter aimed at the president’s critics, and a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, carried out by a gunman who had railed about immigrant “invaders.”

Mr. Trump responded to the Pittsburgh massacre in a tone similar to the one he used on Monday, lamenting the “terrible, terrible thing, what’s going on with hate in our country,” before taking up his caustic message again on the campaign trail. He paid no price for that approach with his largely rural and white political base, which has remained fiercely supportive of his administration through all manner of adversity, error and scandal.

In the Democratic presidential race, the weekend of bloodshed had the effect of muting, at least temporarily, the divisions in the party that were showcased in last week’s debates. The outbreak of solidarity may not last, but it underscored how much the 2020 campaign is likely to take shape in reaction to Mr. Trump’s worldview and behavior.

Even as they aired their disagreements last week, some Democrats appeared to recognize that political reality. In fact, on the morning after his party’s back-to-back debates concluded, Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington State predicted to a reporter in Detroit that his party would have little difficulty rallying together in the 2020 election.

“We’ve got the most unifying gravitational force, outside of a black hole,” Mr. Inslee remarked, “and that’s a white nationalist in the White House.”

[gyrlversion]

JANET STREET-PORTER: Don’t worry about starving after a no-deal Brexit

Batten down the hatches and start stockpiling now – according to the British media the country is enduring a major constitutional crisis.

Yesterday, the Commons speaker (who is supposed to keep parliamentary business moving along like a smoothly oiled machine) dropped what has become known as the Bercow Bombshell, announcing triumphantly that Mrs May cannot make MP’s vote on her wretched Brexit deal for a third time, unless she can offering new terms – about as likely as me giving birth to twins at the age of 72.

Mr Bercow looked as pleased as punch amidst this chaos, a smirking ring master of the world’s most arcane and disorganised puppet show. MP’s shouted abuse, moaning and whimpering. Some want another vote – but only if the result will be remain.

Mr Bercow looked as pleased as punch amidst this chaos, a smirking ring master of the world’s most arcane and disorganised puppet show

Some want trade deals few of us can understand, with names like Norway plus one or Sweden plus two – which sound like invites to a swingers’ party.

Some dreamers talk of a new coming together in the middle, a new centrist grouping but time is not on their side. Meanwhile, 100% of the public (most of whom voted for Brexit) are totally fatigued.

All they want – like someone suffering from painful piles – is an end to the suffering, the blathering and the waffle. If it takes radical surgery and the removal of the Prime Minister, bring it on.

Outside Westminster, the nation’s mood is being tested by scare-mongering journalists and business leaders, busily exploiting Brexit chaos to the max. A climate of fear is being encouraged every single day.

Yesterday, the Commons speaker (who is supposed to keep parliamentary business moving along like a smoothly oiled machine) dropped what has become known as the Bercow Bombshell, announcing triumphantly that Mrs May (pictured)

A few weeks ago we were told that everyday food was toxic – cooking a roast dinner was ‘as polluting as inner city traffic’. Then ‘toast is more toxic than traffic fumes’. I switched to stews and gave up toast. Then, eggs were linked to heart disease. 

So my breakfast has been switched again to a slice of bread (not toasted) with slices of tomato (not avocado because another scare story told me that was full of fat and the mafia are allegedly moving into avocado farming because it is so lucrative).

It was inevitable that the people promoting fear stories about food and flab would turn their attention to Brexit. 

Last weekend, I learned that ‘families are lining up to learn survivalist skills of hunting, foraging and fighting’ because of the threat of post-Brexit chaos. 

According to one newspaper, expensive courses in survival skills like unarmed combat, self defence and ‘urban foraging’ are seeing a surge in the number of applicants.

Supermarkets are stockpiling non-perishable goods and filing vast warehouses. The biggest supplier of frozen food to the NHS has stockpiled one million ready-meals in case of disruption

It costs £299 to spend two days learning how to deal with prolonged food shortages, how to survive mass blackouts and deliver emergency first aid. All these skills will be essential (according to the ‘experts’) if Britain faces rioting and a breakdown in law and order. The course will show you how to send smoke signals and navigate by the stars! A shame that light pollution in our cities means those signals will be useless.

Attendees will learn what food they should start stockpiling, and how to hunt and eat ‘natural meat sources’ (ie roadkill because there aren’t that many tasty fish in most city canals).

Supermarkets are stockpiling non-perishable goods and filing vast warehouses. The biggest supplier of frozen food to the NHS has stockpiled one million ready-meals in case of disruption.

Like everyone else, I am not sure when Brexit will happen – it might be March 29th (which I have ringed in black in my diary), it might be the end of June, according to some politicos, or it might be 2020, according to Amber Rudd and her band of wishful thinkers.

Why not guess at the length of time Theresa May can still wear that trusty pale blue coat without sending it to the dry cleaners? Or simply throw a lot of sticks in the air and see what pattern they make when they fall. That’s what we used to do in the old dope smoking hippie days of the late 1960’s.

Business leaders have stopped complaining about the Brexit deal, they just want a date. Meanwhile, they issue daily press releases telling us how well prepared they are- designed to get their brand names mentioned on the radio and telly as much as possible.

Others have seen an opportunity in the chaos, and have come up with ‘Brexit boxes’ offering 30 days of food rations which will stay fresh for 25 years, if the current mess lasts that long. A box costs nearly £300 and contains liquid to light fires, emergency water filters and 108 servings of freeze dried food.

Start shopping now, because if Britain leaves the EU on March 29th without a deal, the government has brought in new trade tariffs which mean food like beef, pork, butter and cheese from the EU and imported cars will cost more. Stock up on bananas too, because they will be more expensive for some reason no one can understand since they don’t even grow in the EU.

If you aren’t already scared, then one newspaper revealed last weekend that supermarkets are planning to introduce rationing. Suddenly it seems like Britain will be re-living episodes of Dad’s Army, with the hapless Defence Minister Gavin Williamson inevitably in a starring role.

Sainsbury’s say they are ‘looking at a range of scenarios’- well, one might be NOT to introduce rationing, but that doesn’t suit the scare-mongerers, does it?

Stockpiling has already started- with foreign brewers sourcing more barley ready to supply us with extra beer should the going get tough. And water companies are rushing to announce that there will be no disruption to our drinking water, even though the chemicals used to purify it will run out within days of a no-Brexit deal.

One of the main suppliers of organic vegetables says supplies will run out at the end of March, because British veg won’t yet be ready and they will not be able to bring fresh stuff in from Europe.

 My dwindling supply of home-grown purple sprouting broccoli is down to three ageing plants – will I make it past March 29th? The potatoes are all eaten, and the first ones of the new crop will not be ready until May. All I have from the vegetable garden are last years mushy pears and apples and a few turnips – a bit of chard and some parsley.

Forget what lovely veg you see Monty Don growing on Gardener’s World every Friday on BBC2 – that’s in the South. Post no-deal Brexit, the North will be starved of vegetables and will live on potatoes and swedes meant for cattle. We’ll survive on dried pasta, tinned beans and chickpeas, according to one Tesco delivery driver.

I cannot see what ‘urban foraging’ might yield in my part of North London – just a lot of dog poo, some very dirty herbs from the path by the canal (where a lot of pets wee) and perhaps some edible flowers steeped in diesel fumes.

There’s not a lot of roadkill in Islington- a 20 miles an hour speed limit, means a fox can easily move faster than your car or bike. 

My freezer is full of venison – we found two animals hit by lorries in Yorkshire in the last two weeks – the drivers were probably supermarket delivery men, dropping off tons of bottled water and dried spaghetti.

My partner watched a YouTube video on how to slaughter a deer, and now we’re dining on venison bolognaise, and braised deer shoulder. I stopped him picking up a squirrel and a wild boar by the side of the M2 in Kent – they were too small. 

If we have another week of Bercow bombshells and no-deal madness, I won’t be so choosy, and might turn my mini lawn into a potato patch. 

Just like my dad did in the 1950’s. We Brits don’t need survival courses, when we’ve got so many old telly series to inspire us. Keep calm, and stock up, I say.

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