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[greatworldwar2]

• 92nd Infantry Division

The 92nd Infantry Division was a segregated infantry division of the United States Army that served in both World War I and World War II. the American buffalo was selected as the divisional insignia due to the "Buffalo Soldiers" nickname, given to African American cavalrymen in the 19th century.

The 92nd Division was first constituted on paper October 24th, 1917 in the National Army, over six months after the U.S. entry into World War I. The division was commanded throughout most of its existence by Major General Charles C. Ballou and was composed of the 183rd Infantry Brigade with the 365th and 366th Infantry Regiments, and the 184th Infantry Brigade with the 367th and 368th Infantry Regiments, together with supporting artillery, engineer, medical and signal units attached. The division was organized on October 27th, 1917 at Camp Funston, Kansas. A special "negro zone" was to be built at the east end of Camp Funston, with "separate amusement places and exchanges." A.D. Jellison, a banker of Junction City, Kansas, gave a plot of land for a "community house," to be erected by the black men from the seven states which sent African-American trainees. As was the case with the 93rd Division, parts of the 92nd served under and alongside the French Army after both the main American Expeditionary Force, adhering to the racial policies of President Woodrow Wilson, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, and southern Democrats who promoted the "separate but equal" doctrine, refused to allow African-American soldiers serve in combat with them. The 92nd Division saw combat in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive during November 1918.

The 92nd Infantry Divison was reactivated on October 15th, 1942, and was sent overseas on September 22nd, 1944. The division was reactivated as an infantry division with the "colored" designation, under the command of Major General Edward Almond, ten months after the American entry into World War II, at Fort Huachuca, Arizona and spent almost two years training in the United States. In late July 1944, the 370th Infantry Regiment was sent overseas to Italy and temporarily attached to the 1st Armored Division. The rest of the division would be sent overseas in September of that year, and the division as a whole would see heavy combat during the remainder of the Italian Campaign. During the 92nd Division's participation in the Italian Front, the Buffalo Soldiers made contact with units of many nationalities: beyond the attached 442nd Regimental Combat Team (442nd RCT), they also had contact with the colonial troops of the British and French colonial empires (Moroccans, Algerians, Senegalese, Indians, Gurkhas, Arab and Jewish Palestinians) as well as with exiled Poles, Greeks and Czechs, anti-fascist Italians and the troops of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB).

The division's commander, Major General Edward Almond, was for a time highly regarded by General George Marshall, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, who was a fellow Virginia Military Institute (VMI) graduate. This was a major factor in Almond's promotion to major general and subsequent command of the division, a position he held from its formation in October 1942 until August 1945. He led the division in combat throughout the Italian Campaign of 1944–1945. Almond was chosen by General Marshall to command the division because he believed Almond would excel at what was seen as a difficult assignment. However, Almond performed poorly and went on to blame his poor performance on the fact that the division was made up of largely African American troops. He saw his troops as the source of his failure in combat, and went on to advise the army against ever again using African American soldiers as combat troops.

The 370th Regimental Combat Team, attached to the 1st Armored Division, arrived in Naples, Italy, August 1st, 1944 and entered combat on 24th. It participated in the crossing of the Arno River, the occupation of Lucca and the penetration of the Gothic Line. Enemy resistance was negligible in its area. As Task Force 92, elements of the 92nd attacked on the Ligurian coastal flank toward Massa, October 5th. By the 12th, the slight gains achieved were lost to counterattacks. Elements of the 92nd moved to the Serchio sector, November 3rd, 1944, and advanced in the Serchio River Valley against light resistance, but the attempt to capture Castelnuovo di Garfagnana did not succeed. Patrol activities continued until December 26th, when the enemy attacked, forcing units of the 92nd to withdraw. The attack ended on December 28th. The attacking forces were mainly from the Republic of Salò's Fascist Army, the 4th Italian "Monte Rosa" Alpine Division. After continuing poor combat performance including many instances of unauthorized withdrawals upon meeting the enemy, low morale and malingering, the 92nd Infantry Division was considered of inferior quality both by German and U.S. commands and fit for only defensive roles. Things deteriorated to the point that the division was withdrawn from the lines and rebuilt in early 1945 with the removal of the 366th Infantry Regiment (formed into two engineer general service regiments) and the addition of the 473rd and 442nd Infantry Regiments.Many historians have begun to reevaluate the combat record of the 92nd Infantry Division as contemporaneous reports of its honorable performance have continued to surface. Numerous veterans of the division believed that the reports of poor performance were motivated by racist sentiments present within the senior officer ranks. Even as evidence mounts in support of the division's honorable conduct, some still seek to suppress these facts. The famous and highly decorated Nisei 442nd, made up of Japanese Americans, was withdrawn from the fighting in France to bolster the division's combat effectiveness. The 365th and 371st Infantry Regiments became training and security regiments, respectively, and were stationed in rear areas, although still nominally assigned to the division. On April 1st, the 370th RCT and the attached 442nd Regimental Combat Team (Nisei) attacked the Ligurian coastal sector and drove rapidly north against light opposition from the German 148th Infantry Division, which was supported only by Italian coastal units. The 370th took over the Serchio sector and pursued the retreating enemy from April 18th until the collapse of all enemy forces on April 29th, 1945. Elements of the 92nd Infantry Division entered La Spezia and Genoa on 27th and took over selected towns along the Ligurian coast until the enemy surrendered on May 2nd, 1945 when all German forces in Italy surrendered.

The numbers alone tell an impressive story. Of 12,846 Buffalo Soldiers who saw action, 2,848 were killed, captured or wounded. The Buffalo Soldiers did, in fact, break through the Gothic Line. They reached their objective, captured or helped to capture nearly 24,000 prisoners and received more than 12,000 decorations and citations for their gallantry in combat. The soldiers of the 92nd Infantry Division had proved their worth to America once again through months of bitter combat in the Italian Campaign. Two members of the 92nd Infantry Division were medal of honor recipients John R. Fox, and Vernon J. Baker. The Medal of Honor was not awarded to these recipients until 1997. The 92nd Infantry Division was the only African American infantry division to see combat in Europe during World War II, as part of the U.S. Fifth Army, fighting in the Italian Campaign.

[ligiawrites]

#EleNão

I never get tired of discussing politics. Online, I post my opinions, share ideas I find interesting, and I always try to be in the loop of what's happening around the globe as much as I can.

Most of the time, this much-needed exercise leaves me teary-eyed and broken-hearted. But THIS time, reading about the manifestations against Bolsonaro all around Brazil, I felt a profound sense of pride in my people.

Those of you who have been following me for some time probably know how much disgust I feel towards the current Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro.

(long post about Brazilian Politics after the cut. There's a list of amazing NGOs doing awesome work at the end of the text if you can/want to help the situation of the many groups at risk in Brazil right now. They include LGBTQIA+ groups, Indigenous people, Black communities, feminist movements, and NGOs focused on proper education and food for impoverished children).

In 2018, before the presidential elections, I was walking down Paulista Avenue with one of my closest friends.

Filling one of the widest avenues in Brazil, there was a mob of Bolsonaro supporters holding placards that read "É melhor Jair se acostumando." It's a small word-play with Bolsonaro's name; the idea is "You better start getting used to him". Stationed on the edges of the avenue, police officers stood with guns attached to their waists, crossed arms, and expressions that ranged from pure disinterest to clear enjoyment.

My friend stepped closer to me. He is strong, brilliant, and one of the bravest people I know, and yet he was clearly uncomfortable, so—after I managed to recover from the slight shock of seeing him like that—we linked our arms and avoided the mob in front of us, walking back to the intersection with Consolação Avenue.

Once we were away from the mob and the officers, he looked over his shoulders and sighed.

"If you weren't here, they'd probably have stopped me," he said.

The mob was mostly White. I'm White.

My friend is Black.

"I don't wanna think what will happen if that dude wins the elections," he completed.

His fear was justified. Bolsonaro is a racist, misogynist, homophobic ex-military who preaches in favor of the Military Dictatorship period in Brazil, which killed thousands of Black and Indigenous people while also torturing anyone who spoke up against the military government.

"He won't win," I answered. I was born and raised in São Paulo, one of Brazil's industrial, technological, and cultural hubs; I never thought people would turn a blind eye to how much damage Bolsonaro could make as a president. "He can't win," I added. "Not being who he is."

My friend nodded. We hugged and walked and laughed it off (tried to). And when Bolsonaro won, we both cried.

I guess I was a tad too naïve.

He won. He won, and I never got used to the idea of having such a terrible president. Here are a few things that happened in his government and that are directly connected to him:

(most of the links here are from news articles in Portuguese)

The number of neo-nazism sites in favor of white supremacy increased 400% in Brazil in 2020 compared to the same period in 2018 (before Bolsonaro was elected); this is one of the many consequences of his numerous racist speeches and a small proof of just how racist Brazil is.

The number of military police attacks on low-income communities increased along with the number of COVID deaths.

While, since February 2019, the world already knows that the rights of LGBTQIA+ people are threatened under the current far-right government, the advances in LGBTQIA+ rights n Brazil stopped after Bolsonaro was elected, and instead, there was a movement of retrocession.

The fires in the Amazon Forest further increased by 43% in April 2021 (in 2019, after an increase of 63% in comparison to 2018, I wrote about one of the most terrifying fires in Amazon and how I could see the smoke from it from my home in São Paulo, 3000 km away).

After promising to diminish deforestation in order to receive a large sum of money from the US, the Brazilian Senate is preparing to vote for a new Law Project that tries to make the licensing of land in the Amazon Forest more pliable. That means it'd be disgustingly easier for people to buy and explore the lands that should belong to the Brazilian indigenous people; all they'd need is an auto-declaratory license emitted online without the analysis of any environmental body.

Under the pretext of "helping" the indigenous people, Bolsonaro defends mining and agriculture in indigenous peoples' lands. This is one of the public declarations of repudiation written by the Yanomami people (one of the biggest indigenous communities in Brazil) about Bolsonaro and his visit to their land on May 27th, 2021.

And then we have women's situation, which you can see in the Brazilian annual of Public Security.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I didn't add the investigations of corruption (including embezzlement of money for COVID-related services), the liberation of guns, the nepotism, the problem with vaccines, the damage of the far-right religious institutions the president supports, and the disrespect and verbal aggression towards women.

... And that's why I felt so proud of my fellow Brazilians yesterday. :3 We're a young people (Brazil is only 521 years old, while England, for example, is 1094, if you think about the creation of the kingdom of England), but we're still doing our best. I might be away from my Land of Drizzle, but I carry my people in my heart, and I cry alongside them, as loud as I can,

♥♥♥ Fora Bolsonaro! ♥♥♥

---

And even though I can see Brazilians waking up and organizing themselves better, there are still people needing our help right now. If you want to help the situation in Brazil, please consider Donating! Here's a small list of NGOs doing a lot of good in Brazil:

+ APIB ("Brazilian Indigenous People Articulation") - to help the indigenous people in Brazil. (They also have a fantastic documentary subtitled in English you can watch here, showing the situation of the indigenous people in Brazil)

+ CUFA ("Unified Central of Favelas") - to help the impoverished communities and Favelas in Brazil. (I use my credit card to donate to this one; if you're outside Brazil, I think this might work for you too). If you want to help the Covid Relief specifically, CUFA has a project called "Mães da Favela" (Favela mothers), which you can donate to directly through this link.

+ Amigos do Bem - help with famine, donate drinkable water, and improve education in northeast Brazil, one of the areas more impacted by droughts.

+ Omolará (site in Portuguese) - amazing social project focusing on helping Black Woman find education and financial independence.

+ To help the LGBT+ community in Brazil, I'm still searching for NGOs and projects that receive international donations. If you're in Brazil or if you can make wire transfers, I suggest checking this list of fantastic projects (in Portuguese).

[useless-catalanfacts]

9 Dec 2020. Raphael Tsavkko Garcia - Brazilian journalist and researcher.

How Spain, allegedly, came close to being invaded by Russia

The latest far-fetched accusation the Spanish state directed at the leaders of the Catalan independence movement could well be from a cheap spy novella.

Europe could have looked strikingly different today if Catalan politicians took Russia up on its alleged offer to help Catalonia achieve independence in 2017 – at least according to the Spanish authorities.

If only they said “da” and agreed to recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea as legitimate, a clandestine Russian group founded during the Gorbachev era would have sent 10,000 men to Barcelona to force the Spanish state into submission and, amid much chaos and bloodshed, declare former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont as the president of the independent Republic of Catalonia. The Kremlin, meanwhile, would have paid off all of Catalonia’s national debt and supported the new country in the international arena, leaving the European Union embarrassed and divided.

This is not the plot of a cheap spy novella, but the latest far-fetched accusation the Spanish state directed at the leaders of the Catalan independence movement to undermine the legitimacy of their struggle.

Of course, as we all know, Russia did not try to invade Spain to help Catalan pro-independence activists. In fact, it did not even recognise Catalonia as an independent state in the aftermath of the 2017 independence referendum. Moreover, the only “proof” of such an offer ever being made is a recording the Spanish police allegedly found on the confiscated phone of a Catalan politician. So far, the authorities provided no indication that the offer was ever considered by Puigdemont, nor did they provide any additional evidence that there had been an offer. 

However, the authorities pointed to these unsubstantiated claims as one of the reasons behind a massive police operation against the leaders of the Catalan independence movement, which resulted in the arrests of 21 senior Catalan politicians and activists on October 28. 

While the authorities accused the arrested individuals of a variety of crimes, from misuse of public funds and abuse of office to money laundering, the fact that they codenamed the operation “Volkhov” in reference to the World War II front where Spanish fascists fought alongside the Nazis against the Soviet Union clearly indicated that their primary aim was to add weight to their claims that Russia is tacitly supporting the Catalan independence movement. 

People not familiar with the Spanish state’s relentless harassment and persecution of Catalan activists and politicians may find it shocking that a police operation has been named after such a dark chapter in Spanish history, or that state authorities publicly accused an overwhelmingly peaceful political movement of considering unleashing a 10,000-strong Russian militia on Europe on such flimsy evidence. But the Spanish security forces have long been acting as if they are working not for a democratic European state but an erstwhile fascist dictatorship. And being spied on, unlawfully jailed, and accused of treason and terrorism merely for their political views, sadly, is a daily reality for Catalans fighting for independence. 

Since the 2017 independence referendum, the Spanish state has been working round the clock to intimidate and silence Catalan activists and elected officials. In 2019, the Spanish Supreme Court found nine high-profile Catalan politicians guilty of “sedition” for helping organise the independence referendum and sentenced them to 9-13 years in prison. Amnesty International deemed the verdict “an excessive and disproportionate restriction on the peaceful exercise of [the convicted politicians’] human rights” while the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions called for the immediate release of these political prisoners. However, turning a blind eye to these criticisms, the Spanish prosecutors not only refused to reconsider their position but demanded the “re-education in the Constitution” of Catalan political prisoners in order to allow them to leave prison for a few hours a day. 

Many activists and politicians, including Puigdemont, meanwhile, were forced to flee the country to avoid being detained. But pro-independence Catalans lucky enough to find an opportunity to leave the country before being arrested could not escape the Spanish state’s harassment and persecution either. The Spanish Secret service illegally spied on them across the borders of the EU, and the state used all avenues available to it to stop their political activities and secure their extradition back to Spain. 

Puigdemont, who is currently living in exile in Belgium, has been a member of the European Parliament since 2019. However, Spain is actively working to convince the European Parliament to lift his parliamentary immunity – which prevents Madrid from asking for his extradition. Another Catalan MEP, Toni Comín, is in the same situation. Former Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras, who became an MEP alongside Puigdemont last year, was unable to take his seat in the European Parliament in the first place, as he has been in provisional detention in Spain for the alleged crime of sedition for the last two years. 

Quim Torra, who became the president of the regional government of Catalonia in May 2018 following Puigdemont’s forceful removal from the office, was “disqualified” from the role in September for the unbelievable “crime” of refusing to remove banners in support of the independence movement and Catalan political prisoners from the facade of the Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya – the historic building housing the offices of the regional government. 

It is not only prominent movement leaders whom the Spanish government, judiciary, and security forces are trying to intimidate and silence through politically motivated investigations and trumped-up charges. About 700 Catalan mayors are currently being investigated for taking part in the 2017 independence referendum. Many Catalan activists are facing charges for “crimes” like organising strikes and blocking roads. Several activists have been charged with “possessing explosives” – which turned out to be just fireworks. Even Catalonia’s most senior police chiefs faced charges of “sedition” for “not doing enough” to stop Catalan voters from taking part in the 2017 referendum – in the end, they were all acquitted. 

All these efforts failed to put an end to the Catalan desire for self-determination, so it would seem Spanish authorities have decided now to malign the independence movement with ridiculous accusations of collaborating with Russia to reach their political aims and to bring destruction and war to the EU. 

The Catalan leaders never hid the fact that they are willing and ready to talk to all nations, and influential political activists and journalists like Julian Assange, to increase support for their movement. They have also been open about their plans to create a Virtual Catalan Republic, a digital infrastructure not subject to Spanish control, as a way to broaden popular participation in regional politics and also make it more difficult for Spanish justice to intervene in their political activities. They are even trying to create a Catalan cryptocurrency and alternative means of digital payment to free themselves from the clutches of the Spanish banking system. These efforts are managed by the Consell per la República Catalana (Council for the Catalan Republic), a private organisation based in Belgium headed by Puigdemont. 

But none of these efforts and initiatives signals a desire on the part of the independence movement to go to war with the EU, let alone invite Russian troops to Europe. Moreover, the idea that Russia would risk a war with the EU and NATO to help liberate a nation that is nowhere near its own territory is as absurdly ridiculous as it is embarrassing. 

While the EU did nothing to stop Spain’s determined repression of Catalan political freedoms beyond issuing occasional empty statements, Madrid still failed to extinguish the flames of independence and freedom in Catalonia. As a result, the Spanish authorities now seem determined to stir Europe’s deep-rooted fears of Russian intervention to be allowed to increase the pressure they have long been putting on their Catalan citizens. Nevertheless, not even this newly invented “Russian connection” is going to be enough to make Catalans give up on their dream of independence. It may, however, help Hollywood screenwriters come up with the plot of their next action-filled spy thriller.

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The Daily Prophet’s

2020 Supreme Mugwump Candidate Profile Guide

July 24, 2020

Learn about the candidates for Supreme Mugwump and see where they stand on key issues with The Daily Prophet’s 2020 Supreme Mugwump Candidate Profile Guide.

With the large number of candidates campaigning to become the next Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, it can be difficult to distinguish various candidates from one another.

To assist readers in finding information about the candidates in the 2020 Supreme Mugwump Election, The Daily Prophet has produced a Candidate Profile Guide.

All candidates were given the opportunity to submit a brief statement to let voters know about themselves and their platforms. The view and opinions expressed in the statements are those of the candidates and do not reflect the position of The Daily Prophet.

Ivanna Verynhora, age 34, is one of the youngest Delegates the ICW has seen out of Ukraine. Since Muggle unrest in the region took the life of the previous representative of Ukraine, Delegate Neschadymenko, Ms. Verynhora has taken upon herself to strengthen Ukrainian ties with the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Russia, Spain, and South Korea. An alum of the world-renowned Beauxbatons, Ms. Verynhora was an exemplary student with talents in charms and healing, which she put to use during the 2013 Ukrainian Crisis. With her mastery in Healing magic, she went on to found the ICW’s Committee for Cross Boundary Healers, inspired by the Muggle organization Doctors Without Borders. Funded anonymously—by whom is unclear at this time, but many believe them to be international banking financiers—the committee has expanded into the Middle East, South America, and the United States and Canada. She currently serves on the Committee for International Quidditch and the Committee for International Magical Transportation. Much of Ms. Verynhora's time is spent strengthening Ukraine and little time at ICW meetings or the committees she belongs to—which is to be expected, as the Ukraine has has experienced extreme changes in its government for the last five years, and several turnovers within the Ukranian Ministry, including the loss of Ivannas's late uncle, killed last spring during the Centaur & Giant Uprising in the northern part of the country. 

Despite these tragedies, both personal and nationally, Ivanna hopes that the esteemed title of Supreme Mugwump will be but a stepping stone to her larger goal of facilitating a younger, more progressive, stronger ICW focusing on international ties and bonds between countries for the purpose of mutual aid.

Sitara Noorani, age 35, is one of the most accomplished witches of her age. A graduate of the esteemed school Uagadou, she moved quickly after her schooling to join the Pakistani Ministry of Magic, working with their Control of Magical Creatures division before transitioning into politics to succeed her elder brother in the Pakistani Senate. Since joining the ICW only 3 years ago, she has had notable success in working with Being Outreach as well as in addressing illegal creature movements and breeding across borders in partnership with the Rangers. She has found a friend in Delegate Baptiste, who shares her passion for preventing cross-border illicit activities, and together they have drafted new international law addressing the issue. 

Noorani has only this to say about the upcoming election cycle: “We must continue to strengthen border security across the world, increase education about culture between wizards of all enclaves, and continue monitoring illicit activity among the lower echelons of our society.”

Continuing the procession of younger Delegates tossing their names in the ring for the title of Supreme Mugwump, Estefania Caldera, age 32, comes from one of the largest and most powerful pureblood families in the Caribbean, with branches in Mexico, California, and Brazil. The rising star of the Caldera family, Estefania attended Castelobruxo alongside fellow Caribbean Delegate and classmate Horacio Baptiste—and took special interest in the subject of Magical Eco-Tourism. Her subsequent specialization in the field and her time in the Cuban Ministry for Magic have prepared her to help bring economic prosperity to her region through her practice. Though young, she must not be underestimated by her peers. She has already forged strong connections with the Caribbean, Brazilian, Venezuelan, and Peruvian Delegates, creating a Committee around revitalizing tourism in these regions while highlighting their natural beauty and working closely with Indigenous communities to preserve and celebrate their heritage. 

Caldera says about her candidacy for Supreme Mugwump, “Though I am young, I am not without passion for both Cuba and the magical world at large. For too long, we have idolized industrializing and militarizing our magical nations, but I am calling for peace and for a new age of magical understanding shared by all.”

Horacio Baptiste may be known for his booming voice in ICW meetings, his Caribbean Pride, and his ability to cross the many committee aisles of Nations across the world, but he is more than the handsome face many purport him to be. An alum of Castelobruxo, he first rose to prominence as an Auror for the Commonwealth of the Caribbean Islands. Baptiste’s ambitious track record as an Auror soon gave rise to something far more momentous, as his public image transcended his official title and Baptiste became known as something of a folk hero at the tender age of 24 during his 2010 run for President of the Caribbean Commonwealth. While Baptise lost with grace, he was subsequently offered a position on the ICW with an aging Delegate Ocasio-Cortez’s blessing. As the first-ever Muggleborn elected by the Commonwealth, Baptiste’s position as the Caribbean ICW Delegate is considered boundary-breaking by many. He has not only risen to expectations—he has shattered them. Currently, Baptiste sits on the Committees for International Magical Transportation and International Committee for Human Trafficking and Dark Wizard Tracking, and is a proponent for sanctions against magical nations for Human Rights Violations and Dark Magic Violations. Though only 34, Baptiste has garnered the respect of many other Delegates, and has contributed monumentally to the ICW’s efforts at lowering crime internationally, in collaboration with the Rangers and Delegate Caldera. 

Baptist maintains no comment at this time beyond: “I am entirely too busy to talk about the Supreme Mugwump Election. Bother someone who wants to play nice with the press and has less work to do than me. They’ll be easy to find— go ask the Delegate from Sweden.” Fighting words from everyone’s favorite fighting Caribbean.

What more is there to say about Delegate Lyra Arista that she has not already demonstrated over her many years of service to the ICW? Elected to the ICW in 1958 at the age of 21, she was the youngest Delegate ever elected in America, and has only continued to be a trailblazer in her 62 years of service. Delegate Arista proved to be a powerhouse while helping create the Human Rights Act for Magical Folk, and she has been a vocal proponent for Natural Magic (or Wild Magic) and expanding Magical education across the globe. Arista is renowned for her magical masteries over charmwork, transfiguration, healing, alchemy, and potions. One of the most esteemed graduates of Ilvermorny, Arista’s been a bastion of the ICW, admired cross-generationally. In America, she has been a proponent for Being rights and education, and has helped expand the LGBT+ movement for equal rights in collaboration with Muggle political allies. In the 90's, Arista advocated to expand magical education access to American magical immigrants, refugees, and the Indigenous population. Her election to Supreme Mugwump would only be a footnote to the aggressively progressive acts she is known for. 

Lyra Arista says about the upcoming election, “I am old, and though I have much to offer to the ICW as its leader, it would not surprise me if someone younger takes my place. But I have done my work for over 50 years, and if elected I will do so for another half-century, as is my duty to magical folk across America the Beautiful and Earth the Magnificent. Blessed be.”

Cyprian Patenaude has been nothing but a joy to the ICW Delegate circuit. As the newest ICW Delegate, at the age of 30 they are well-loved and well-known in the Western Hemisphere, having attended both Ilvermorny and Castelobruxo. Patenaude became a rising star in the Canadian Senate for Magic, elected from his home city of Montreal in 2013 through a grassroots campaign after leading several organizations concerned with underserved magical communities, championing early magical education, and combating Auror brutality. His ties to MACUSA through the Patenaude family helped to establish several laws concerning magical secrecy within the United States and Canada. In addressing political unrest in both regions, Delegate Patenaude became a familiar face in the media through his regular attendance at rallies and protests. On the subject, then-Senate member Patenaude said, “It's not political grandstanding that got me to this position, it is empathic standing, with people both magical, Being, and Muggle. I am not doing this for political clout. It is the right thing to help where you can, ease tensions, and create a better atmosphere for healing.” Delegate Patenaude would know a thing or two about healing after having been viciously outed as transgender by American political opponents and instigators. Patenaude took this in stride, advocating fiercely to expand Canadian magical law for privacy protection, and he was elected to the ICW by the Candian government shortly thereafter in 2018. He often jokes that his efforts in this realm are for his own safety, as there have been no less than three attempted assassinations since the debacle. 

Patenaude is a proponent for Being rights, de-militarization of Aurors, blocking illicit animal sales, and raising awareness around LGBT+ issues among magical communities. Though young, Patenaude is respected by his opponents due to his gregarious ability to broker deals and swiftly end infighting in committees. Like Delegate Baptiste, Patenaude has no comment at this time, likely owing to the fact they are currently occupied dealing with political unrest in the Canadian-American district of the world.

Readers have always been fascinated by Delegate Sergio Gutiérrez, who, while proud of his long and unbroken ancestral wizarding line, quite frequently shocks the stately old families of British wizarding society with its high civility and careful social graces. After completing his formal education at the Madrid School Of Magic and Durmstrang Institute, Gutiérrez made Keeper for the Barcelona Eagles, prior to the Spanish Quidditch Association (AQE) and the Catalonian Quidditch Association (AQC) split. While amassing a large fan following with his record-breaking, jaw-dropping saves and daring high-speed maneuvers, Gutiérrez discovered his ability to attract support for political issues and a passion to change lives through his advocacy. Critical to Gutiérrez’s successful transfer into politics was the convergence of several crises within the Spanish wizarding community, which slashed public faith in the current Delegate’s ability and the wizarding political class. These events presented an opportunity for Gutiérrez to prove himself a skilled manueverer both on and off the Quidditch pitch. In addition to tapping into widespread discontent with political elites, Gutiérrez also strongly advocated for a retreat from Spain’s involvement with international affairs to focus on its own issues. At age 51, Gutiérrez, who considers himself a self-styled political outsider among his fellow Delegates, still leads a very public life (one may recall the ongoing investigation into whether Gutiérrez converted campaign funds to rather scandalous personal use in 2019), and can always be counted on for his transparent stance on issues and his commanding approach to diplomacy—in particular, his meteoric clashes with Cyprian Patenaude. To detractors, he’s a dangerous cheerleader for an insular and traditional wizarding community at both a national and international level. To supporters, he is one of the only Delegates with a strong and loud enough voice to bring about real change and unity. 

On the subject of the Supreme Mugwump election, Gutiérrez said, “What I know is that people are tired. Tired and pushed beyond their limit by the demands of this new ‘modern’ wizarding world, as they say, and its politicians that push policy after policy for this new group and that new group down their throats while ignoring our real, shared issues…we have forgotten that in our history there are simple answers to complex problems.”

For Delegate Kotov, age 40, his personal life is his political life. As a young man, Kotov attended Durmstrang to study martial magic for a brief time, withdrawing the same year the institution began to admit Muggleborns and part-goblins under the leadership of Headmaster Matvey Golovin. Kotov’s parents then began his private homeschooling, although many have long speculated Kotov was in fact transferred to the secretive Scholomance to complete his education. Proud of his centuries-long wizarding heritage, and regularly extolling the values of fraternity, tradition, and legacy in his speeches, Kotov is a man who has never forgotten his past while keeping his eye firmly fixed on the future. During his homeschooling years, a group of vampires newly displaced by a freshly implemented Romanian policy attacked and killed Kotov’s childhood friend. The event, followed by sluggish and failed attempts to capture the vampires, left Kotov with a resolve to shake the wizarding world out of its stupor concerning dark creatures. Kotov would work at the Romanian Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for all of six months before quitting; during that time it was his capture of infamously “uncatchable” vampire Sebastian Vântu which catapulted Kotov to international recognition. After resigning, Kotov pivoted immediately into politics, championing an increase in international private and public security for the wizarding world, and pledging to tackle magical creature-related violent crime rates and threats to the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy by cracking down on criminal offenders and allowing Aurors greater freedom and less government oversight. Despite his colleagues’ voiced concerns that his actions may cause further breakdowns in negotiations between the ICW and sentient magical creatures, 

Kotov remains sanguine and determined about the future, though he has some choice words to offer about his fellow Delegates in advance of the upcoming election. “They have no idea what they’re dealing with,” Kotov said grimly, in his statement last Tuesday. “Half of them are idiots who follow Patenaude and his kind–magical creatures are just like us, etc, etc.—and half of them are people like Arista, heads stuck in another century and no idea how to deal with the growing number of strikes and crime rates among the magical creature communities. Either way, while the ICW tries to negotiate and sits in committees, their numbers grow and the violence continues—and something is better than nothing.” It’s a tricky dilemma he raises, and one the magical community has conveniently avoided answering head-on, though Kotov has received campaign funding from many old, well-known wizarding families that suggests he has their support.

Serving his freshman year on the ICW at a shocking 22 years of age, Sven Nordstrøm is the fresh face of Swedish international politics whose influential family name precedes his appointment to the Confederation. The Nordstrøm family have for centuries stood tall (and no, we’re not just referring to their statuesque genetics) as pillars of traditional wix values in the Scandinavian region, with generation after generation passing the political torch on from father to son. Delegate Nordstrøm’s own brother, Gunnar Nordstrøm, is a favorite to take over for current Swedish Minister Engström at the end of his term, which has led to speculation regarding the young Delegate’s novice appointment over Gunnar’s notably more cultivated experience and presence in politics. But don’t write off young Sven just yet! He may thus far be known in delegation meetings for his looming, mountain-like presence and choice few words, but Delegate Nordstrøm has a few tricks yet up those long sleeves, making several controversial statements and voting decisions without any predictable formula that seem to go against every ideal his political platform was built around. Are the boy’s wildcard antics toward shock and awe a crafty plot to attract favor and attention to his icy, old-fashioned country? Or is Delegate Nordstrøm simply having the last laugh at us all? 

When asked for a comment, Nordstrøm just had this to say: “And why the [expletive] would I tell you anything? Who even are you?” Who indeed. We’ll be following Delegate Nordstrøm at the upcoming conference with keen interest.

As recognizable in the society papers as he is on the delegation floor, Atticus Ayers has been an asset to British-French wizarding political relations for upwards of twenty years. Savvy local readers will surely recognize Ayers from his meteoric post-Hogwarts rise through the ranks of Britain’s own International Magical Office of Law, or perhaps from his brief but memorable five-year stint as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, during which time Ayers garnered widespread respect and adoration as a moderate judicial voice amongst the uproarious radicalism and reforms that swept through the Ministry of Magic following the Second Wizarding War. After presiding over a number of landmark Wizengamot proceedings, Ayers settled in the magical district of Montmartre in France with his family, but he’s been a staple French Delegate since day one, where he’s continued his campaigning for Being equality as well as amendments to the Statute of Secrecy in favor of privacy and protection of magicfolk, their livelihoods, and their assets. 

Nowadays, Delegate Ayers is known throughout Europe for throwing outrageous fundraisers in support of the causes he’s backing, with some of the most famous faces in the international magical community making regular appearances. Some may raise brows at Ayers’ “party for politics” methodology, but there’s no arguing that beauty, popularity, and a knack for entertaining are powerful tools when it comes to reaching the upper echelon of magical folk with the means to enact change.

The Daily Prophet will continue to run extended profiles of candidates and bring you updates on the September 9th election.

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Tuesday, May 25, 2021

12 killed, dozens wounded in weekend shootings across U.S. (NBC News) At least 12 people were killed and dozens more were wounded over the weekend in gun violence and mass shootings in five states. The shootings in Minnesota, Ohio, New Jersey, Georgia and South Carolina come amid a yearlong rise in nationwide gun violence and record firearm sales. It isn’t clear why the number of shootings over the last year has risen so dramatically. Experts have said the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on mental and physical health, social services and more are likely to have played a significant role.

Southern Baptist decline continues, denomination has lost more than 2 million members since 2006 (Religion News Service) The nation’s largest Protestant denomination continues to get smaller. There were 14 million Southern Baptists in 2020, according to a new report released Thursday (May 20) by Lifeway Christian Resources, which compiles official denominational statistics. That number is down 435,632 members since 2019 and 2.3 million from 2006, when the Southern Baptist Convention reached 16.3 million members. The biggest decline in the report was seen in baptisms, a key measure for the evangelical denomination. In 2020, baptisms were down by about half, to 123,160, the lowest number since 1919. Southern Baptists, long known for denominational infighting, have seen several high-profile departures of leaders in the past year, including Bible teacher Beth Moore, ethicist Russell Moore, and a number of Black pastors.

NYC mayor: Public schools will be all in person this fall (AP) New York City schools will be all in person this fall with no remote options, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday. The roughly 1 million students who attend traditional public schools will be in their classrooms with some version of the coronavirus protocols that have been in place in the current academic year, including mask wearing and COVID-19 testing, de Blasio said. “It’s time. It’s really time to go full strength now,” he said. The mayor said parents would be invited to visit their children’s schools starting in June to get “reacclimated” to the idea of in-person school.

Mexican parents clean reopening schools where thieves took even toilet doors (Reuters) Wiping away dust from bookshelves and mopping grimy floors, teachers and parents across Mexico are sprucing up vandalised schools ahead of the nationwide reopening on June 7. Mexico has kept state schools shut since March 2020, when students and teachers abandoned them after the coronavirus pandemic triggered the first nationwide lockdown. Since then, between 40% to 50% of all Mexican schools have reported vandalism or theft, according to trade union officials. Alfonso Cepeda Salas, secretary general of the National Educational Workers Syndicate trade union, or SNTE, told newspaper Excelsior last week that power lines, computers, screens, and even doors to toilets have been stolen. "We come to support the school so that everything is clean for the return of children to classes," said Rosa Miron, one of several mothers cleaning a school in Mexico City.

Why you may see a NYPD motorcade in Sao Paulo's streets (AP) Stunned by the swirl of red lights and blaring sirens, confused pedestrians who spot a New York City Police Department motorcade screaming down the streets of Brazil's biggest city may need a second to get their bearings. Behind the spectacle is a group of Brazilian fans obsessed with one of the world's most recognizable police forces, whose hobby is refurbishing NYPD cars and motorcycles, inspired by nostalgia for cop movies and shows such as "Law & Order." "To tell you the truth, it creates some confusion sometimes," said Fabio Denzin, who owns not just a Ford Crown Victoria painted as a NYPD car, but also a van and motorcycle. "People even think that it is the real police from New York on patrol, as if they came to Brazil to help the local police."

EU calls for probe after plane diverted to arrest journalist (AP) Western leaders decried the diversion of a plane to Belarus in order to arrest an opposition journalist as an act of piracy and terrorism. The European Union and others on Monday demanded an investigation into the dramatic forced landing of the Ryanair jet, which was traveling between of the bloc’s two member nations. The airline said Belarusian flight controllers told the crew there was a bomb threat against the plane as it was crossing through the country’s airspace and ordered it to land in the capital of Minsk. A Belarusian MiG-29 fighter jet was scrambled to escort the plane. Raman Pratasevich, who ran a popular messaging app that played a key role in helping organize massive protests against Belarus’ authoritarian president, was on board and he and his Russian girlfriend were led off the plane shortly after landing. The plane, which began its journey in Athens, Greece, was eventually allowed to continue on to Vilnius, Lithuania. Western leaders forcefully condemned the move. A group of the chairs of the foreign affairs committees of several Western countries’ legislative bodies called it an act of piracy. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the plane’s diversion was “shocking,” while Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called it a “state-sponsored terror act.” (Washington Post) European leaders on Monday agreed to impose sectoral sanctions on Belarus and to bar E.U. airlines from flying over the country’s airspace, dealing a potentially crushing blow to the economy. E.U. leaders asked the bloc’s foreign policy team to draw up a list of targeted economic sanctions to impose “without delay," and said that the country’s national airline would be barred from the European Union.

Turkey’s drones (Foreign Policy) Poland become the first NATO member to purchase Turkish drones, Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Saturday. The contract for 24 armed Bayraktar TB2 drones is due to be signed by Polish President Andrzej Duda when he travels to Turkey next week. The sale underlines Turkey’s status as the world’s fourth largest drone producer and comes after its unmanned aircraft were seen as crucial in securing victory for Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia last year.

India virus death toll passes 300,000 (AP) India crossed another grim milestone Monday of more than 300,000 people lost to the coronavirus as a devastating surge of infections appeared to be easing in big cities but was swamping the poorer countryside. India’s death toll is the third-highest reported in the world, accounting for 8.6% of the nearly 34.7 million coronavirus fatalities globally, though the true numbers are thought to be significantly greater. From the remote Himalayan villages in the north, through the vast humid central plains and to the sandy beaches in the south, the pandemic has swamped India’s underfunded health care system after spreading fast across the country.

Samoa’s first female leader locked out of her own swearing-in ceremony (Washington Post) The first woman elected prime minister of Samoa showed up for her swearing-in ceremony on Monday to find her opponents had locked the doors to prevent her from taking office. Fiame Naomi Mata’afa and her followers pitched a tent on the statehouse lawn, where she took the oath of office instead. The bizarre scenes capped six weeks of election turmoil that escalated into a constitutional crisis over the weekend as Mata’afa’s fierce rival refused to cede power. “This is an illegal takeover of government,” Mata’afa said Sunday of the efforts to keep her from office. “Because it’s a bloodless coup, people aren’t so concerned or disturbed by it.” “Samoa is a young democracy,” said Iati Iati from Victoria University of Wellington. “What you have then is a number of institutions whose power has not been accurately defined, so you have the head of state pushing the limits of his power, you’ve got the speaker coming in with his, you’ve got the courts asserting their power and you’ve got the prime minister saying he won’t listen to the courts.”

Regret (CJR) Ronen Bergman reports, for the New York Times, that some Israeli officials privately now regret the decision to bomb the building housing the AP’s offices last weekend. “In light of the international furor over the airstrike, some high-ranking officials in government and the military now call it a mistake, arguing that Israel needs the media to be open to hearing its version of events, and the bombing made that harder,” Bergman writes. “One official said that while the airstrike was justified militarily, the doubters had been right, and the harm done to Israel’s international standing outweighed any benefit from destroying the Hamas equipment” officials say was inside the building [and which everyone except the Israeli military denies was present].

Before Rage Flared, a Push to Make Israel’s Mixed Towns More Jewish (NYT) Years before the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Lod erupted in mob violence, a demographic shift had begun to take root: Hundreds of young Jews who support a religious, nationalist movement started to move into a mostly Arab neighborhood with the express aim of strengthening the Israeli city’s Jewish identity. A similar change was playing out in other mixed Arab-Jewish cities inside Israel, part of a loosely organized nationwide project known as Torah Nucleus. For decades, hard-line Israeli nationalists have sought to shift the demographics of the occupied West Bank by building Jewish settlements, undermining the prospect of a two-state solution to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With West Bank settlement firmly entrenched—about 450,000 Jews now live among more than 2.6 million Palestinians—Torah Nucleus supporters see Israeli cities as a new horizon. Most of the world considers Jewish settlements in the occupied territories a violation of international law, but this was an attempt to create change within Israel’s recognized boundaries. And many cast it as the new Zionism.

For Gaza shop owners, building back could take years (Washington Post) Naji Dwaima’s family is known as “the watch family” in Gaza. On Sunday morning, he sat on a folding chair and stared at the spot where his watch store used to be. It was buried under 12 stories of rubble, destroyed by Israeli missiles. Gaza was already one of the poorest corners of the region. Before the coronavirus and airstrikes hit, an estimated 80 percent of the population relied on international aid, according to Oxfam International. Youth unemployment, estimated at 50 percent, was perhaps the highest in the world, the group said. More than 525 businesses were damaged or destroyed in the fighting, the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor estimated, including at least 50 factories and hundreds of small businesses, the backbone of Gaza’s commercial life. Rebuilding those will take international aid and the willingness of owners to start over. Dwaima, 46, said he came to sit by his ruined shop in part because he didn’t know, after 26 years of 13-hour days, six days a week, how else to spend his time. “This is as much my home as my home,” he said. “All of my impressions, all of my dreams are attached to this place.”

Volcanic eruption, ensuing chaos kill at least 15 in Congo (AP) Torrents of lava poured into villages after dark in eastern Congo with little warning, leaving at least 15 people dead amid the chaos and destroying more than 500 homes, officials and survivors said Sunday. The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on Saturday night sent about 5,000 people fleeing from the city of Goma across the nearby border into Rwanda, while another 25,000 others sought refuge to the northwest in Sake, the U.N. children’s agency said Sunday. Goma ultimately was largely spared the mass destruction caused by the volcano’s last eruption in 2002. Hundreds died then and more than 100,000 people were left homeless. But in outlying villages closer to the volcano, Sunday was marked by grief and uncertainty.

Pope to Vatican’s own media workers: Who reads your news? (AP) Pope Francis challenged the Vatican’s own media employees Monday to essentially justify their continued work, asking them how many people actually consume their news in a critique of the office that costs the Holy See more than all its embassies around the world combined. Francis appeared to use the occasion to lay down the gauntlet at a fraught financial time for the Holy See. Facing a major pension funding shortage and a projected 50 million euro ($61 million) deficit this year, Francis has ordered salary cuts from 3% to 10% for Vatican employees, both lay and religious. In his visit with media employees, he said their work was good, their offices nice and organized, but that there was a “danger” that their work doesn’t arrive where it is supposed to. He warned them against falling prey to a “lethal” functionality where they go through the motions but don’t actually achieve anything.

[things2mustdo]

Face it, the mainstream media is not only full of contradictions, but deep-seated, institutionalized biases. When a male or conservative does something, it is often considered horrendous. Yet when a female, liberal or a member of another “special” group does the same thing, passes are given or journalists’ eyes are averted.

Social media users with common sense political opinions have already started to compile these glaring double standards. Return Of Kings and its supporters should continue doing the same thing.

So here are five of the most egregious recent examples of hypocritical mainstream media madness:

1. Use of dead veterans’ families at political rallies or conventions

When Khizr and Ghazala Khan appeared at the Democratic National Convention to lambaste Donald Trump for his views on Muslim immigration and supposed behavior, commentators and journalists went wild with fanfare. Their son Humayun, a Muslim soldier, had died in Iraq. Trump was attacked for allegedly grandstanding about and minimizing Humayun’s death.

Meanwhile, many of these same newsmen and women, including Rachel Maddow’s stooge Steve Benen, derided the Republicans for featuring Pat Smith, mother of Benghazi fatality Sean Smith, as a speaker at their own Convention. Mrs. Smith had laid into Hillary Clinton over the latter’s role in and perceived indifference to her son’s death in Libya. So one family became heroes to the media for going public after their tragic loss, while another was portrayed as so weak in their grief that they were manipulated by big, bad Republicans into talking.

Moreover, Trump had nothing to do with Sean Smith’s death. Compare this to Clinton, who was the Secretary of State at the time of the American deaths at Benghazi and whose State Department had received numerous calls for assistance. Considering that Sean Smith and others died alongside U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, the first American ambassador to be killed whilst serving since 1979, the woefully insufficient security precautions taken by the Obama Administration and Secretary Clinton should not have transpired. But this spotlight on Clinton does not make for good (liberal) news.

2. Psychiatric records for a war hero vs. medical records of a pathological liar

Countless liberals, both in the media and within other leftist cabals like mainstream Hollywood, have attacked those questioning Hillary Clinton’s health as “misogynists,” “sexists” and other undesirables. When these tags are unable to be used, leftists claim that even piecemeal doubts about her physical condition are nothing but conspiracy theories on par with Roswell UFOs and lizard people running the world.

Yet eight years ago, these same people were frothing at the bit to out John McCain for his supposedly poor health. Most perversely of all, they homed in on his decorated military service, suggesting he had Presidentially disqualifying mental health conditions from his service in the Vietnam War and the multiple years he spent as a prisoner-of-war. “Where are his psychiatric records?” bellowed one piece from Salon, in addition to a number of other articles that more than hinted at the same topic.

Whilst I, like many of you, revile his putrid, watered-down “Republican” policies on many issues, McCain had gargantuan balls in Vietnam. Here is a man who spent more time as a tortured prisoner-of-war, including a stay in the notorious Hanoi Hilton, than Barack Obama spent in the US Senate. As the son of the commander of US forces in Vietnam, McCain received numerous offers of repatriation from the North Vietnamese. He refused and would only accept being returned home once fellow American soldiers captured before him were released. By contrast, Hillary lacks the mental fortitude to tell the truth most of the time, not even after she’s had seizures, coughing fits, and dramatic collapses on camera!

3. Sexualizing political candidates (and removing their genitals)

When an artist by the name of Lushsux painted a mural of a scantily-clad Hillary Clinton, a local Melbourne, Australia council and numerous global commentators derided it as “misogyny” and “sexual objectification.” “Take female politicians seriously!” was the crux of their shrill arguments against the rendering. Lushsux then trolled his critics by repainting the mural so Hillary was dressed in an Islamic burqa. Soon after, multiple statues of a nude and testicle-less Donald Trump appeared in American cities. Unlike the Hillary artwork, the proliferation created huge fanfare and delight amongst both prominent leftists and run-of-the-mill liberal voters. Why is one act so offensive and the other so funny, particularly in age where body-shaming and mocking someone’s appearance is meant to be so taboo?

Most of the critical commentaries about the Trump statues that appeared in the mainstream media, of which there were few, failed to take into account one glaring significance of the testicle-less Trump. Short of them being violently taken or hacked off, how exactly could Trump have no balls? Imagine the furore if a statue, mural or other representation of Hillary Clinton had lacked breasts or shown her vagina circumcised/mutilated. “They’re condoning violence against women!” would be the stock-standard answer from liberals and their even more deranged SJW cousins.

4. Lesbian’s Olympic marriage proposal vs. heterosexual male’s Olympic marriage proposal

This is bad and misogynistic:

This is love and should be applauded:

Leftists rejoiced when Olympic official Marjorie Enya asked her partner, rugby sevens player Isadora Cerullo, to marry her using a microphone. Love wins, right, especially when it’s gay love? But when Chinese athlete Qin Kai asked silver medalist He Zi to marry him, the knives from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) came out. The BBC, unfortunately taxpayer-funded, published an article insinuating that Qin Kai was attempting to control He Zi with the very public marriage proposal. Not only could it be control, it could be awfully pernicious “male control.” Coverage of Enya’s proposal to Cerullo, however, got the broadcaster’s tick of approval.

If either of the two proposals is a form of control or narcissistic, it was the lesbian one. Unlike the Chinese diver, who was competing individually, the lesbian proposed to was part of the Brazilian team, which had not even been awarded a medal. Brazil had come ninth and that night Australia had beaten New Zealand for the gold medal. He Zi may not have won the gold medal, but she had actually participated in the final. But do not let facts get in the way of a good male-bashing.

5. Objectifying men vs. objectifying women

Cosmopolitan has established itself as a dual enabler of both ditzy female airheads and SJW political freaks. Over time, the magazine has come out strongly against countless normal displays of male sexuality, admonishing men who appreciate female breasts and buttocks for being “horrible.” Of the many Cosmopolitan pieces to take this line, an article in mid-2014 takes the cake for its ridiculous shaming of harmless, healthy behaviors. Ironically, though, covers for this publication feature the same sorts of thin, healthy women that men desire most in the first place.

Fast-forward a mere two years and Cosmopolitan went to the extraordinary effort of cataloguing 36 men whose crotch bulges tickled their fancy. Of course, numerous other articles during that time had objectified men in a way considered misogynistic when males do it to women, but the timing was amusing. After so much talk of valuing female athletes, whose physical accomplishments are far less than men, for their work and not their bodies, Cosmopolitan celebrated the years of sacrifice of male athletes by effectively taking photos of their barely clothed genitalia.

We could keep on going

Many other hypocritical pieces were penned about these situations, not just the ones I have referenced. Then there’s the great number of other articles we could assess and critique on separate issues. You may be convinced, and rightfully so, that the mainstream media is inherently biased. But we need to take this to the next level and disseminate the proof to wider audiences.

Journalists and commentators will continue their bad habits, that much is clear. What matters now is fighting back. Complaining about double standards only goes so far. Exposing them in an organized fashion stands a better much chance in helping us to arrest and then reverse this institutional bias.

As Return Of Kings readers, you are our extra eyes and ears. If you find more examples of extreme leftist media bias, bring it to our attention.

https://www.returnofkings.com/19995/anti-female-stem-bias-a-bayesian-explanation

The New York Times recently ran a long piece exploring the history of women in STEM fields and attempting to explain the ever-present difference between men and women in performance and participation in these fields. The article begins by citing research on perceptions of female aptitude in math and science:

“Researchers at Yale published a study proving that physicists, chemists and biologists are likely to view a young male scientist more favorably than a woman with the same qualifications. Presented with identical summaries of the accomplishments of two imaginary applicants, professors at six major research institutions were significantly more willing to offer the man a job. “

She shares an anecdote that is supposed to display the prejudice of professors against females in the field, but instead illustrates one valid reason for the bias displayed by the Yale study:

“Other women chimed in to say that their teachers were the ones who teased them the most. In one physics class, the teacher announced that the boys would be graded on the “boy curve,” while the one girl would be graded on the “girl curve”; when asked why, the teacher explained that he couldn’t reasonably expect a girl to compete in physics on equal terms with boys.”

Enter Bayes’ Theorem

Bayes’s theorem is a foundational principle of statistics and probability that allows us to update our estimations about the trueness of a fact based on new evidence. The math of Bayes’ theorem is simple and elegant, and the overarching idea is powerful — we can use evidence in a formalized manner to change the probability that something may be true, and this can often have non-intuitive results.

The classic example of Bayes in action is medical tests — for example, if 1% of women have breast cancer, and a mammogram detects the cancer 80% of the time with a 10% false positive rate, what is the probability that a positive result means the woman has cancer? If a mammogram is positive, the chance of cancer is less than 8% due to the presence of false positives, as well as the low baseline population rate of cancer.

What does this have to do with women and STEM fields? Readers of this site are familiar with the allure that even a plain looking girl can have at the height of her availability and youth. This isn’t just a factor when getting free drinks at the bar – it extends to the classroom, hiring for jobs, treatment in everyday life, and many other areas. Girls in primary and secondary school are judged to be better students, despite boys showing a significant advantage in standardized tests starting around middle school. The article highlights the ways that women are supposedly discouraged by the system, but makes no mention of the advantages they enjoy.

Put simply, women are more likely to be handed accomplishments without having to work for them, both due to the power of their sexuality and as unconscious overcorrection for their supposed disadvantages in opportunity. Given an applicant with a certain pedigree – a Ph.D, say, from a top graduate program —we will have a certain estimation of that person’s intelligence and aptitude. However, the “false positive” rate on those qualifications identifying extremely high aptitude is likely to be much lower for a man, who has not enjoyed the advantages of a feminized education system, catch-up programs, and the hint of his sexuality influencing the evaluations of his superiors.

The bias against hiring a woman whose qualifications are equal to a man, and their subsequent lower salary offer, is simply a use of Bayesian inference. It accounts for the implicit probability that the female will not be as good as her résumé suggests, to say nothing of the chance that she will leave her job to begin a family and leave her employer empty-handed at some point in the future. If, as the example above states, both men and women implicitly behave as if men are superior in math and science, we must give some consideration that this is a possibility.

If Men Are Better At Math/Science — What’s The Big Deal?

The media is encouraged to sing the praises of women where they excel compared to men, and females indeed show demonstrated advantages in many cognitive areas. They are better at language acquisition, picking up on non-verbal cues, and we are all familiar with their evolved capacity for psychological manipulation. Many would suggest that women have better organizational skills. They are incarcerated for violent crimes less often, are less prone to risky behavior, and are more resilient to psychological trauma such as PTSD.

But when it comes to exploring why men have long-demonstrated advantages in certain disciplines, the media scrabbles to ascribe the boogeyman of injustice perpetrated on the protected class. The article is quick to dismiss the repeatable and longitudinal difference between males in females in standardized testing, a long-standing form of evaluation that every college and grad school uses to give out valuable admissions spots. It also does not mention the lack of female representation in technology entrepreneurship, a field that is less dependent on credentials and more on individual drive, creativity, and aptitude.

It could certainly be true that women are discriminated against AND that they are simply less common at the far right of the aptitude bell curve necessary for competitive positions in academia. But I challenge you to find this idea entertained in any mainstream publication despite the mountains of circumstantial evidence. Larry Summers was tarred and feathered for even mentioning research on population dynamics as a potential driver of this difference. The lesson here is that, when you begin an “inquiry” by presupposing the conclusion, you will end up with a politically correct and eminently intellectually dishonest worldview.

Read More: The Anti-Male Commercial

[go-redgirl]

Tags: border control | illegal immigration | gaffes Biden's Border Chaos: Ignorance or Malfeasance?

It is more evident than ever that President Joseph R. Biden is "president in name only." Because of numerous gaffes, and downright confusing flipflops on key policy issues, Biden's mental capacity has rightly or wrongly been questioned since the 2020 Democratic primaries. Arguably, his handlers protected him from media scrutiny during the presidential election campaign by invoking the Covid-19 virus for his non-campaigning.

As Newsmax reported, 50 percent of Americans now believe that Biden is mentally unfit for the job. His public speeches routinely suffer from non-sequiturs or incoherent interruptions, which the Biden camp blames on a speech impediment issue. While a stutter may explain some of the mishaps, it can’t explain all of them nor does it explain his poor border control policy.

The world sees this problem. The American news media ignores it. Beginning with inauguration day executive orders, Biden and his handlers have shown dictatorial streak of ruling by executive order. The Democratic-controlled Senate and House acquiesce holding the commander-in-chief to account, as they agree with his radical leftist orders.

Because of this, Biden's immigration program failures are due to ignorance at best or they are purposely destructive at worse.

Biden's and his administration's actions have shouted that America is now an open leftist state. Foreign criminal cartels, foreign terrorists, foreign nation-states, and foreign nationals all see opportunity to ravage America for their individual advantage.

Crime cartels have increased their drug and migrant smuggling exponentially under the Biden administration. Biden is a boon to the crime cartels, adding to the border chaos.

This arguably began with Biden's decision to stop construction of the border-wall, which left portions of the U.S.-Mexico border completely open and unsecure. This construction stoppage, left roads built to aid wall-construction now open for criminals.

Sheriffs in Arizona opine, "We just built roads for the cartels," at least 4.7 miles are now open for cartel use.

Biden's Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has suggested unused border-wall money go to help new migrant-crossers, legal or illegal. Mayorkas, like all Democratic open-border advocates, believes American tax money is an open-pocket book for illegal open-border crossers.

One border official said, "Foreigners think everything in America is free."

The American news media has to admit the numbers of illegal border-crossers is in the thousands a day. Between 3500-5000 apprehended border-crossers per day are clogging the necessary official paperwork, which in turn takes many Border Patrol agents off-the-line od uty, which means the border is even more porous. While hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens cross the border voluntarily surrender to Border Patrol and local police officials, untold thousands of migrants are crossing illegally, according to the Washington Times.

Still, Sec. Mayorkas parrots the Democratic party-line, "No border crisis, just a challenge." At the same time, Mayorkas admits the Southern-border has an overwhelming number of migrants crossing into the U.S.

The Times also reported that Mayorkas recently begged for help, "Today, I activated the volunteer force to support Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as they face a surge in migration along the Southwestern border." The volunteers will be used in a non-law enforcement capacity.

The number of unaccompanied minors that have crossed the border has grown so fast since February 1 that the Biden administration has no accurate number. We do know that shelters are at capacity and re-location of the children is helter-skelter as they say.

While Texas border surge is getting most of the attention, Arizona and California illegal border-crossings goes unnoticed nationally.

As of March 9, 2021, Tucson, Arizona migrant shelters are also over-flowing. Tucson officials are asking the Biden administration for help via incrreased funding, while busloads of foreign nationals being deposited in record numbers across America.

Arizona towns are complaining that of the Biden administration merely drops off migrants/asylum-seekers and most of them do not speak English, adding to the problem. The migrants and asylum-seekers are Cubans, Brazilians, Romanians, Haitians, Africans, and other nationals. Ironically, San Luis, Ariz. is on the Mexican border. So, Biden's people are just moving some migrants around the Southwest, and others  are moved everywhere in the country--- all without a plan.

In San Luis, there is the Campesinos sin Frontera’s (Farmworkers without Borders) group, a local organization to help farm workers and other in need. Executive Director of the organization Emma Torres has been quoted as saying to ABC 15 on March 8, 2021 that Border Patrol agents are "overwhelmed" and her group is assisting in locating the migrants.

Torres also says her organization is running out of money. Arizona charity groups along the border are being overwhelmed just like the border, and the busiest months are ahead. The Biden administration is silent on moneys for the impacted locales.

From reports of the sheltering personnel, the immigrants include children with little clothing, no shoes, pregnant women, even a three-day-old baby and a three-month-old baby. Here and in other rural communities, they lack the necessary infrastructure to adequately deal with the hundreds of migrants that arrive each day. This is a humanitarian mess.

Testing for Covid-19 and other and diseases is spotty at best. Criminal history of the migrants is unknown, as well as their medical condition and immigrant status.

Tp this extent, Governor Greg Abbott, R-Texas is quoted as saying, "The crisis at our southern border continues to escalate because of Biden administration policies that refuse to secure the border and invite illegal immigration."

It is clear, whether aware of the immigrant surge or not, the Biden administration has demonstrated an incapacity or unwillingness to control the United States border.

James H. Walsh was associate general counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1983 to 1994. Read James H. Walsh's Reports

[bountyofbeads]

Trump Names Mike Pence to Lead Coronavirus Response https://nyti.ms/391M7tj

The president’s budget request for the fiscal year that begins in October would slash the C.D.C.’s budget by almost 16 percent, and the Health and Human Services Department’s by almost 10 percent. Tens of millions of dollars would come from the department’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response and its Hospital Preparedness Program, which helps hospitals handle surges of patients during disease outbreaks." I'm sure it seemed like a great idea at the time."

TRUMP NAMES MIKE PENCE TO LEAD CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE

President Trump sought to reassure the country that his government was controlling the spread of the coronavirus after his administration weathered days of criticism.

By Michael D. Shear, Noah Weiland  and  Katie Roger's | Published Feb. 26, 2020 Updated 9:54 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted February 26, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — President Trump named Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday to coordinate the government’s response to the coronavirus, even as he repeatedly played down the danger to the United States of a widespread domestic outbreak.

Mr. Trump’s announcement, at a White House news conference, followed mounting bipartisan criticism that the administration’s response had been sluggish and came after two days of contradictory messages about the virus, which has infected more than 81,000 people globally, killing nearly 3,000.

“The risk to the American people remains very low,” said Mr. Trump, flanked by top health officials from several government agencies. “We have the greatest experts, really in the world, right here.”

The president said he would accept whatever amount of money congressional Democrats wanted to give for the virus response, adding, “We’re ready to adapt and we’re ready to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads.”

“We’ll spend whatever is appropriate,” he said.

Several top health care experts at the news conference echoed Mr. Trump’s optimism but also offered a more sober assessment of the future risks. Dr. Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned Americans that there would be more infections.

“Our aggressive containment strategy here in the United States has been working and is responsible for the low levels of cases that we have so far. However, we do expect more cases,” she said as the president stood behind her. “The trajectory of what we’re looking at over the weeks and months ahead is very uncertain.”

About a half-hour later, Mr. Trump contradicted Ms. Schuchat’s assessment, telling reporters that “I don’t think it’s inevitable.” He left the door open to travel restrictions beyond China, to other hard-hit countries such as South Korea and Italy and said his early decision to stop flights from China had held the virus at bay.

But the C.D.C. confirmed minutes later that a new infection in California was contracted by a person who did not appear to have traveled to countries hard hit by the virus or been exposed to a known coronavirus patient. That raised the prospect that the virus was spreading through unknown means.

Health experts have questioned the C.D.C.’s decision to limit testing for the virus to people who have traveled in China or have come into contact with someone who has. Other countries are testing more broadly for the coronavirus among people from countries where outbreaks have been growing, including Italy, Iran and South Korea.

“We’re testing everybody that we need to test,” Mr. Trump insisted, “and we’re finding very little problem, very little problem.”

Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump had accused journalists of making the situation “look as bad as possible” even as government health experts warned that the coronavirus threat in the United States is only beginning. Without offering any details on transmission, Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary, confirmed the new case on Wednesday afternoon, bringing to 60 the total number of infections that have been counted in the United States. Mr. Azar said that health officials were still figuring out how the new person became infected.

The politics of coronavirus shifted drastically on Tuesday when Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the C.D.C.’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters that “it’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen.” She said that hospitals and schools should begin preparing for an outbreak, and that she had even spoken to her own family about “significant disruption of our lives.”

Mr. Trump sought on Wednesday to counter that message with a much less dire one, holding up a Johns Hopkins University study that he said showed the United States as the most prepared country in the world to confront a virus. He said he was “amazed” that tens of thousands of people died from the flu each year, contrasting that number with the several dozen currently infected with coronavirus.

“We’re very, very ready for this, for anything, whether it’s going to be a breakout of larger proportions or whether or not we’re, you know, we’re at that very low level,” Mr. Trump said.

The president, who is a well-known germophobe, urged Americans to be vigilant about covering their coughs and washing their hands, and he told the story of a man who recently came up to him and hugged him.

“I said are you well? He says no,” Mr. Trump said. “He said, ‘I have the worst fever, and the worst flu.’ He’s hugging and kissing me. I said, ‘Excuse me,’ I went and started washing my hands.”

Mr. Trump has been reluctant to give in to what he considers an “alarmist” view about the virus, an administration official said. The president has repeatedly said that, like the flu, the new coronavirus will dissipate with warmer, more humid weather even though officials have warned him that relatively little is known about the virus, and it may not behave as others do.

The possibility of the virus spreading in the United States comes as the administration grapples with budget cuts and personnel moves that critics say have weakened the system for dealing with such health crises. The White House in 2018 eliminated a dedicated position on the National Security Council to coordinate pandemic response, the same year that the Trump administration narrowed its epidemiological work to 10 countries from 49.

In November, a task force at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which included five current and former Republican senators and House members, warned that “the United States remains woefully ill prepared to respond to global health security threats” and recommended the reinstatement of an N.S.C. coordinator and a recommitment of funding and attention to global health programs.

Instead, the president’s budget request this month for the fiscal year that begins in October would cut the C.D.C.’s budget by almost 16 percent, and the Health and Human Services Department’s by almost 10 percent. The proposal’s $3 billion in cuts to global health programs included a 53 percent cut to the World Health Organization and a 75 percent cut to the Pan American Health Organization.

And his naming of Mr. Pence as his point person immediately drew partisan fire even as he vowed to ensure that the “full resources of the American government” were deployed to protect Americans from the coronavirus.

The Democratic National Committee immediately pointed out that as governor of Indiana, Mr. Pence was blamed for aggravating a severe AIDS outbreak among intravenous drug users in a rural Indiana county when he opposed calls for a clean needle exchange program on the grounds it would encourage more drug use.

It has fallen to Mr. Azar to make the case that the government is up to the task of containing the virus as anxiety grew around the world about vulnerability to a still-mysterious affliction that does not respect international borders.

New cases popped up across Europe, dozens of infections in Iran raised fears of an unbridled spread through the Middle East, and the first confirmed case was reported in Latin America — a Brazilian man who had returned from Italy just as Brazil is in the midst of its Carnival celebrations.

For the first time, more new cases were reported outside China — where the outbreak began two months ago — than inside, according to figures from the World Health Organization.

The Chinese authorities cautioned that the falling infection rate might be only temporary, while South Korean officials scrambled to contain the largest outbreak of cases outside China — including an American soldier deployed in South Korea. Across the United States, universities began bringing students home from abroad and canceling overseas study programs.

Mr. Trump has privately expressed frustration to numerous officials about his administration’s efforts confront the virus, according to someone familiar with his comments.

[ VIDEO 01:12‘Someone Needs to Be in Charge’: Alex Azar Grilled in Coronavirus Hearing

The secretary of health and human services, Alex M. Azar II, testified to lawmakers about efforts to respond to the coronavirus outbreak.Feb. 26, 2020Image by T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times]

As recently as last weekend, the president grew furious that he had been sidelined from a decision to return some Americans infected with the virus to the United States, and he made his anger to Mr. Azar known. Officials in the White House have since wrestled with how best to present Mr. Trump with information during a fast-moving situation, one aide said.

The White House’s muscular internal messaging efforts kicked in on Wednesday. Supporters were pelted with multiple emails assuring them that Mr. Trump was overseeing an “aggressive coronavirus response,” and that the “full weight of the U.S. government” was working to safeguard Americans from illness, according to one message.

Mr. Trump’s attempts to calm the American public have also occasionally been laced with a degree of alarm, with Mr. Trump telling reporters at a news conference in India on Tuesday that “there’s a very good chance you’re not going to die.”

Some of Mr. Trump’s political allies tried to question the motivation of some of his top health officials for warning the public about the spread of the virus.

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk radio host, on Wednesday argued without foundation that Dr. Messonnier was being purposely alarmist to undermine Mr. Trump because she is the sister of Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general who was a frequent target of Mr. Trump’s ire.

“In that town, I’m telling you, everything is incestuous,” Mr. Limbaugh said on his show. “Most of that town is establishment oriented or rooted, which means they despise Trump.”

Mr. Trump’s reassurances to the public appear at least in part aimed at calming global markets. On Tuesday, a day after its worst one-day slide in two years, the S&P 500 closed down 3 percent. The S&P 500 ended Wednesday down about 0.4 percent, bringing its losses for the week to close to more than 6 percent.

Moody’s Analytics predicted a 40 percent chance that the virus would grow into a global pandemic that would push the United States and the world into a recession. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he believed that “the stock market will recover. The economy is very strong.”

For a second day, Mr. Azar was on Capitol Hill Wednesday defending his work, telling lawmakers that he was overseeing “the smoothest interagency process I’ve experienced in my 20 years of dealing with public health emergencies.”

Mr. Azar said that the C.D.C. had already exhausted the $105 million rapid response fund that the federal government had been using in its initial response efforts. He has proposed shifting $136 million from other health programs to the coronavirus to replenish the government’s efforts.

A day earlier, he told a Senate panel that medical supplies were badly needed for the nation’s emergency stockpile, including 300 million masks for health care workers alone.

But on Wednesday, he faced bipartisan concern about the administration’s $2.5 billion request. Lawmakers from both parties have said the White House request is far short of what is needed and relies on the transfer of existing funds — including $535 million intended to counter the spread of the Ebola virus.

“These cuts are shameful,” Representative Anna G. Eshoo, Democrat of California, said Wednesday evening at a separate House hearing with Mr. Azar.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, proposed on Wednesday to increase the president’s emergency request drastically, to $8.5 billion in new funds, including$3 billion for a public health emergency fund, $1.5 billion for the C.D.C., $1 billion for vaccine development and $2 billion for reimbursing states and cities for efforts they have so far made to monitor and prepare for potential cases of the virus.

Mr. Trump said he would gladly accept the additional funds.

_____

Reporting was contributed by Emily Cochrane, Maggie Haberman, Jim Tankersley, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Catie Edmondson, Eileen Sullivan and Carl Hulse.

_____

"The problem with the president speaking up now is that no matter what he says -- from expecting the worst pandemic the world has ever seen to the best administration response to what is really no health issue at all -- who is going to believe him? When Nancy Messonnier speaks, I will believe her. But Trump has proven that he never tells the truth. Why should he change now? Anything coming from Trump and his administration I will totally disregard as propaganda meant to salvage Trump's reelection campaign and the failing stock market. Nothing more. Nothing less." AVRDS, MONTANA

"Here's the actual Trump record on protecting its citizens and public health: In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. In May 2018, Trump ordered the National Security Council’s entire global health security unit shut down, calling for reassignment of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer and dissolution of his team inside the agency. The month before, then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton pressured Ziemer’s DHS counterpart, Tom Bossert, to resign along with his team. Neither the NSC nor DHS epidemic teams have been replaced. The global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10. Meanwhile, throughout 2018, the U.S. Agency for International Development and its director, Mark Green, came repeatedly under fire from both the White House and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And though Congress has so far managed to block Trump administration plans to cut the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by 40%, the disease-fighting cadres have steadily eroded as retiring officers go unreplaced. Trump - and his GOP aiders and abetters - are singlehandledly responsible for 'small government' incompetence, negligence and abandonment of the American people. Americans will die because Donald Trump and the GOP hate the government." SOCRATES, VERONA NJ

"This is a potential event of a magnitude of impact we haven't seen since World War II. At this point, the bombers are headed toward Pearl Harbor, and it's unlikely our radar will find them before it's too late. We are sitting ducks and the current administration has already eliminated much of the infrastructure we need to address this. As a retired physician, I worry greatly about the coming impact on our health care system, the "soldiers" in this response. When health workers get sick, and they will because of the contagiousness no matter how well they try to protect themselves, then the system will be even more severely stressed. Patients with seemingly benign presentations will be infectious. Those who in "normal times" need advanced care in hospitals will be impacted. Supplies of protective gear are inadequate at this time. Every facet of life - work, school, public transit, food distribution, social events - may see profound impacts. And at the top of the heap, our president is the worst possible person to be in charge at this time. We need truth, transparency, and compassion from this man, and he is incapable of delivering those things. We need competent leadership (Jared can't be the czar of this too!) and a huge amount of resources - not borrowing from other important programs. We're in trouble." JOE, LAFAYETTE CA

"So how is Trump going to blame the media when the virus does get here? The progression of the disease is just beginning. It's early, very early. So far, it appears the virus can be carried and passed around for a week or two before any symptoms develop. That is a sure fire mechanism for widespread infection. In the US and other free societies, we don't lock people up just to prevent the spread of disease. We do quarantine people after they get sick, but by then the disease would have been passed on to others. With international travel commonplace, especially in the business world, there will be no way to stop the spread of the disease short of locking down borders. That would cripple the global economy. Won't happen. Besides, the virus is already widespread. The proverbial genie is already out of the bottle. Keep in mind that for most people, the symptoms are mild, like a cold. So now everyone who sniffles gets quarantined? That won't happen either. So far, the death rate is about 3% which is slightly greater than the death rate of the flu pandemic of 1918-19. The potential for deaths ranges in the many tens of millions. This is the real deal. This is not a time for political spin and disinformation from government officials, especially from the President of the United States."BRUCE, KANSAS CITY MO

"First and foremost, we need to have a reliable testing kit. The CDC tests are barely working. Not all states have the test kit. Therefore, a large reason we are not seeing the virus in the US is because we are NOT testing for it! The infection is most likely brewing at a low level in some cities already. Oh yea, we also need masks, ventilators, antibiotics (for superimposed bacterial infections), classes online, social distancing, and a different president." MIDWEST DOC, CLEVELAND

"Our lack of universal health care and social safety net can only exacerbate the spread and the damage the virus causes. When workers don't have paid sick leave, can't afford the loss of income, and fear the loss of their job, they will come to work when they're sick. When a sick person fears destitution from lack of health insurance, or from copays, deductibles, and/or surprise bills, they will avoid or delay medical care. When the emergency room is the only available access to health care, crowded waiting rooms will offer the virus an ideal place to propagate. When American health care corporations outsource manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and raw ingredients to China and rely on just-in-time supply chains, all in the name of maximizing short-term shareholder value, shortages of critical drugs and supplies will compromise treatment and result in needless deaths. When vaccines and antivirals are eventually developed, the manufacturers will gouge Americans with exorbitant unregulated prices. By limiting availability to the wealthy and those with the best insurance, an opportunity to curb the spread of infection will be sacrificed in the name of shareholder value. But maybe some good may ultimately come from this virus. By exposing the indefensible failures of a system focused on wealth care for Wall Street rather than health care for people, it may be what finally forces the US to join the rest of the civilized world and adopt universal health care." TED, CALIFORNIA

"“A great job?!” Most states don’t even have testing kits yet." SUMMER, SEATTLE WA

"@Joe As a retired Microbiologist (virology) I couldn't agree with you more. We have the people who are experts at CDC. and they need to be totally supported in every way. We have capacity in terms of providing the resources as well. What we need is is a big, broad-based, organized education program since we are seeing a lot of mis-information being spread already. Despite what Rush Limbaugh says it is more than the common cold. What Trump says is true, in that it eventually will die out, but that will be when the supply of potential victims disappears. That will be quite a while." GSS, AUGUSTA GA

"When I was a kid half the city of Chicago were quarantined in their homes----especially in the summer when polio raged, but also for an array of other diseases--it was one of the few weapons we had. Walking to school, every other house had a huge "quarantine" sign on it. At the time we had not been blessed by having a president who knows absolutely everything about everything. What we did have was a stable government and a well funded and managed system of public health. Public Health agencies now will march to the anti-science, anti public health tune being boomed by the GOP over the loudspeakers. Hup, two, three." MARY, ARIZONA

"As I prepare to cast my vote on Super Tuesday what is guiding my choice at this moment is which of the current democratic candidates would I most want in office during this type of potential global health crisis."

REDBED, NH

Again POTUS shows more concern on how a crisis affects him and not the country. Instead of being concerned that there are people infected in this country and containing the virus for the sake of the American people, his concern is to whether it will hurt his chances at re-election. Attacking the media again to shift the blame to them instead of on his decision to cut funding to another Dept. that would have been our first line of defense. I think Nancy Pelosi stated correctly, "I don't think the President knows what he is talking about, again!" RUSSELL SMITH, FLORIDA

*********

C.D.C. CONFIRMS FIRST POSSIBLE COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION OF CORONAVIRUS IN U.S..... A case in California may be the first infection without a known link to travel abroad.

By Roni Caryn Rabin | Published Feb. 26, 2020 Updated 9:03 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted February 26, 2020

A person in California who was not exposed to anyone known to be infected with the coronavirus, and had not traveled to countries in which the virus is circulating, has tested positive for the infection.

It may be the first case of community spread in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.

“At this point, the patient’s exposure is unknown,” the C.D.C. statement said. “The case was detected through the U.S. public health system and picked up by astute clinicians.”

The case was announced shortly after President Trump concluded a news briefing in which he said that aggressive public health containment measures and travel entry restrictions had successfully limited the spread of coronavirus in the United States.

It brings the number of cases in the country to 60, including the 45 cases among Americans who were repatriated from Wuhan, China — the epicenter of the outbreak — and the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was overwhelmed by the virus after it docked in Japan.

Until now, public health officials have been able to trace all of the infections in the country to a recent trip abroad or a known patient, and to identify the sources of exposure.

Though C.D.C. officials said it was possible the patient was exposed to a returning traveler who was infected, the new case appears to be one of community spread — one in which the source of infection is unknown.

“The thing that would immediately make all of us uneasy is if this person has no direct contact with someone who comes from an affected country,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.

“That would suggest there are other undetected cases out there, and we have already started some low-grade transmission.”

Public health officials said the infected individual was a resident of Solano County, Calif., and was receiving medical care in Sacramento County, but they have not disclosed any other information to protect the patient’s privacy.

Doctors in the patient’s community may want to expand testing for the coronavirus among their patients in order to identify other infected individuals there, Dr. Schaffner said.

“Physicians are going to want to start testing everybody with a fever and a cough,” he said. “They’re going to want to do that and the patients are going to want to do that.”

Right now, however, testing capacity is limited in the United States.

The C.D.C. developed a diagnostic test and distributed testing kits to local health departments around the country.

But the kits were flawed, and the agency must manufacture new ones. Although a dozen states are capable of testing for coronavirus infection, confirmatory tests must still be done by the C.D.C., a process that can take days.

*********

TRUMP HAS A PROBLEM AS THE CORONAVIRUS THREATENS THE U.S.: HIS CREDIBILITY Even his allies worry that Mr. Trump has undermined his ability to appear presidential in a moment of national emergency,

By Annie Karni, Michael Crowley  and Maggie Haberman | Published Feb. 26, 2020 Updated 10:10 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted Feb 26, 2020 |

WASHINGTON — When Hurricane Dorian crashed into the Atlantic Coast in September, President Trump assumed a take-charge role in response. But he undermined his own effectiveness after it became apparent that before displaying a map in front of the television cameras in the Oval Office, he had altered it with a Sharpie pen to match his inaccurate forecast of where the storm was headed.

For years, experts have warned that Mr. Trump has been squandering the credibility he could need in a moment of national emergency, like a terrorist attack or a public health crisis.

Now, as the coronavirus races across the globe and has begun to threaten the United States, Mr. Trump could face a moment of reckoning. Maintaining a calm and orderly response during an epidemic, in which countless lives could be at stake, requires that the president be a reliable public messenger.

“I think the president has a unique opportunity to dispel fears and calm the situation — if people believe he is telling the truth,” said Kathleen Sebelius, who served as secretary of health and human services in the Obama administration. “And I think that’s really where a great disconnect occurs.”

On Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump delivered an almost casual account of the administration’s response to the coronavirus, leaving it to the experts appearing with him to relay the real information and assure a jittery public. Still, he kept trying to suggest the risk was low.

“We will see what happens,” the president said as he addressed the nation. “But we are very, very ready for this, for anything.”

Mr. Trump said that Johns Hopkins University rated the United States “No. 1 for being prepared,” holding up a chart printed on an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of paper.

“This will end,” he said, comparing the coronavirus to the everyday flu. “We really have done a very good job.”

During a crisis, presidents are looked to for direct and honest assessments of threats and for reassurance to the public about their impact.

During the swine flu outbreak of 1976, President Gerald R. Ford announced at a news conference that the government planned to vaccinate “every man, woman and child in the United States.” Mr. Ford himself was photographed receiving the vaccine in the White House as part of a public awareness campaign.

Responding to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, President Barack Obama visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to announce that the administration would send as many as 3,000 people to the region.

Mr. Trump, in contrast, contradicted his own health experts in a news conference Wednesday evening, insisting that the spread of the virus was not inevitable, and excoriating two of his favorite foils, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, for “trying to create a panic.”

For three and a half years, Mr. Trump has repeatedly proved an unreliable narrator on a range of subjects.

At times, he has exaggerated threats, like talking up the caravans of migrants he claimed were storming the southern border before the 2018 midterm elections. Other times, he has minimized potentially serious dangers that could be politically damaging, like the renewed nuclear threat posed by North Korea after the failure of his talks with its leader, Kim Jong-un, and now, the global spread of the coronavirus, which he has persistently tried to play down.

In his response to the coronavirus, Mr. Trump has made inaccurate or questionable claims, twice misstating the number of Americans infected with the virus and insisting that it “miraculously goes away” when warmer spring weather arrives — a prediction that health experts have said is premature.

He based that prediction on a comment made at one of his briefings, when an expert noted that temperatures can affect the spread of viruses. Mr. Trump has used that data point as evidence in saying in public and in private to guests at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., that the global outbreak will be behind him by April.

The president, as he often does, has also focused on coverage of his response, complaining that he is being treated unfairly and blaming the news media. “If the virus disappeared tomorrow, they would say we did a really poor, and even incompetent, job,” he tweeted on Tuesday. “Not fair, but it is what it is. So far, by the way, we have not had one death. Let’s keep it that way!”

Before he took office, Mr. Trump was an outspoken critic of the Obama administration’s handling of the Ebola outbreak, arguing that infected people should not be allowed back into the United States.

Current Trump allies said the fact that the president chose to address the growing public health crisis quickly after returning from a trip to India showed how seriously he was taking the outbreak.

But privately, they say he has been reluctant to give in to what he has called an “alarmist” view of the virus’s potential to cause damage as he warily watches the effect of the outbreak on the stock market. He has been rattled by the Wall Street reaction to the spread of the virus in places like Italy, lashing out at the news media in tweets and accusing journalists of intentionally trying to harm the stock market.

And polls show that Mr. Trump’s credibility with much of the United States is low after an impeachment inquiry in which a majority of voters said they did not believe that he was telling the truth about his actions involving Ukraine.

Federal health officials had been bracing for the arrival of the virus in the country with minimal intervention by the White House.

As Ebola presented both a health and political threat to his administration in 2014, Mr. Obama carefully hewed to proven science, which he repeatedly invoked in his carefully calibrated public messages.

“We have to be guided by the science. We have to remember the basic facts,” he said in an October 2014 radio message.

Mr. Trump, in contrast, has not been focused on scientific detail. The secretary of health and human services, Alex M. Azar II, has told officials they should give the notoriously impatient president simple, paint-by-numbers briefings on coronavirus.

But a larger fear among experts in the field has been that he would contradict scientific experts. “That’s where Trump is most pernicious, potentially,” said Ron Klain, who served as Mr. Obama’s “Ebola czar,” and now is an adviser to the presidential campaign of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “When he contradicts those experts, when he suggests they have biases, or when he intimidates them not to be straight, that’s when the risk really grows.”

As Mr. Trump faces this emergency, his history of issuing false claims could make it harder to sell the public on any plans to address coronavirus.

“When you’re trying to build trust in the government’s response, people have to have trust,” said Leslie Dach, a senior counselor at health and human services during the Ebola outbreak.

“Making false promises and them turning out not to be true undermines people’s confidence,” Mr. Dach said. He pointed to Mr. Trump’s claim this month about the virus that, “We did shut it down, yes.”

As recently as this week, the president appeared to simply want to put the coronavirus response in his rearview mirror. “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away,” he said in remarks on Tuesday to a group of business leaders in New Delhi.

On Wednesday, before Mr. Trump’s news conference, his allies on television and radio appeared to be speaking to the proverbial “audience of one” as they sought to give their unsolicited advice to the president.

Jason Miller, a top adviser to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign who hosts a podcast that is currently focused on the coronavirus, tweeted that the president had to “make clear full Administration working around the clock on this, and explain in everyday, layman’s terms what we need to both do and avoid to remain safe.”

On Fox News, daytime hosts noted the news conference presented an “opportunity for him to act presidential.”

Mr. Trump, however, chose to conduct the news conference his own way.

“It is what it is,” he said of the potential for a virus with a higher fatality than the flu to spread through communities. “We’ve got the greatest people in the world.”

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Noah Weiland contributed reporting from Washington, and Donald G. McNeil Jr. from New York.

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WHAT WOULD A CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK IN THE U.S. MEAN FOR SCHOOLS? Districts have infectious disease protocols. But few have detailed plans to teach online if schools were closed for long periods.

By Dana Goldstein and Julie Bosman | Published Feb. 27, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET| New York Times | Posted Feb 27, 2020 |

Schools in the United States prepare for all manner of disasters and threats, whether hurricanes, mass shooters, tornadoes, influenza or head lice.

But this week, a stark new order came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Get ready for the coronavirus.

Around the nation, school officials and parents were flummoxed by the sudden warning that if a coronavirus epidemic hit the United States, school buildings could be shut down for long periods of time, leaving children sequestered at home and schools scrambling to provide remote instruction.

In warning that the coronavirus will almost certainly spread in the United States, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said she had contacted her own local school superintendent this week and asked if the district was prepared. She advised parents to do the same. And she suggested that a temporary system of “internet-based teleschooling” could replace traditional schools.

It was not clear how such a system would work.

The obstacles to teaching remotely were evident: American children have uneven access to home computers and broadband internet. Schools have limited expertise in providing instruction online on a large scale. And parents would be forced to juggle their own work responsibilities with what could amount to “a vast unplanned experiment in mass home-schooling,” said Kevin Carey, vice president for education policy at New America, a think tank.

Across the country, as federal authorities announced that 60 people in the United States had been infected with the virus, mainly from travel abroad, families were grappling with the new alarm raised over the virus and how a possible outbreak could play out in their own communities.

In Denver, Meg Conley’s 11-year-old daughter, Margaret, interrupted breakfast on Wednesday morning with a worried question. She told her mother that her elementary school classmates were gripped by fears about the coronavirus, and she asked when it was coming and how many people it would kill.

“I had no idea,” Ms. Conley, 35, a freelance writer, said of the children’s anxieties. “Apparently it’s all the kids are talking about on the playground.”

Schools are hastily making their own plans, or updating those drafted during previous scares over viruses like H1N1 and Ebola. The Washington State health department held a webinar for about 250 school superintendents on Tuesday to discuss coronavirus preparations, including plans to close schools and allow students to continue to do schoolwork at home.

Dennis Kosuth, a nurse for Chicago Public Schools, said his district’s ability to handle an outbreak could be compromised by circumstances like families who could not afford child care costs to keep sick children at home. Nursing shortages are a concern, too, he said. Mr. Kosuth said he was responsible for nursing care at four schools.

Some Chicago schools also lack rooms dedicated to health needs, Mr. Kosuth said. In one school where many students and staff members became ill with an ordinary infection last semester, “Patient Zero was sitting in the main office coughing and sneezing all over the place” as the sick child waited to be picked up, he said.

On a more positive note, Mr. Kosuth said that evidence from China suggested that children were more resilient to the coronavirus than adults were.

In Miami-Dade County, Fla., Alberto M. Carvalho, superintendent of one of the nation’s largest school districts, said his system’s preparation for hurricanes put it at an advantage in preparing for the coronavirus. The district has provided laptops, tablets and smartphones for some students to take home, as well as internet connectivity for some low-income students. Teachers would be asked to assign work remotely and could even teach some high school courses live online.

“I was a bit surprised that it took this long to offer national guidance specifically to school districts,” Mr. Carvalho said of the C.D.C. statement this week.

Many districts have already sent home letters about the coronavirus, asking parents to keep sick children away from school and to remember basic prevention measures such as hand washing, cough covering and vaccination against the flu. They have highlighted C.D.C. advice issued early this month, calling for all travelers returning from China to “self-quarantine” for 14 days.

School officials have often tried to ratchet down panic among parents, reminding families that face masks are not broadly recommended and that the overall risk of infection is low.

But few districts have publicly addressed what would happen to classes in the case of widespread infection and school closings like those that have taken place in China, Italy and Bahrain.

The vast majority of districts have access to broadband internet, but they do not necessarily have expertise in how to effectively organize and teach classes online when schools are shuttered. Further complicating matters, not all families have home computers and high-speed internet. While 90 percent of households with children under 18 had broadband access in 2016, according to federal data, gaps remained along the lines of income, race and education level.

Less affluent families were more likely to depend on smartphones but to lack computers or tablets, which are often needed to fully participate in online learning.

While school districts may not be ready for widespread remote learning, many of the larger districts have had plans for the possibility of pandemics for years, according to Chris Dorn, a school safety consultant with the nonprofit Safe Havens International.

Districts without such plans will need to work with local health agencies to come up with protocols, he said. Among the questions to tackle: Should students at risk for coronavirus who show symptoms at school be transported immediately to hospitals or should they be kept on school grounds until a parent or caretaker can pick them up?

In the San José Unified School District in California, Melinda Landau, who manages school nursing, said the district’s response to flu season would also help in the case of a coronavirus outbreak.

It has ordered additional thermometers and hand-washing lesson kits, which allow nurses to sprinkle powder that glows when exposed to ultraviolet light, demonstrating how thoroughly students have washed their hands and how important simple personal-hygiene measures can be.

The district also asks parents who call their children in sick to describe symptoms. Schools with clusters of sick students are cleaned more deeply with disinfecting products.

There have been no confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the district, Ms. Landau said. Two students returned from trips to China in late January. Their parents voluntarily kept them home from school for a time to monitor their health.

Going forward, the district is waiting to see how the coronavirus progresses, Ms. Landau said.

She added, “We don’t quite know where to move yet.”

Closing schools may not be the best option, especially since children appear to be at lower risk of infection, said Amy Acton, the director of Ohio’s health department. Beyond contingency plans for closing, she said, schools need to consider lining up substitute teachers and planning for absences of other staff members, like cafeteria workers. And Dr. Acton said schools can also play another, more traditional, role: science and health education.

“Schools can be telling families what they can be doing to stay healthy, and we can teach about viruses, and what is a zoonotic disease? Why is it important to get a flu vaccine?” Dr. Acton said. “This is a teachable moment.”

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Jack Healy, Amy Harmon and Sarah Mervosh contributed reporting.

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WELCOME TO THE AGE OF PANDEMICS

We need to stop what drives mass epidemics rather than just respond to individual diseases.

By Peter Daszak, Mr. Daszak is a disease ecologist. | Published Feb. 27, 2020, 5:01 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted February 27, 2020 |

In early 2018, during a meeting at the World Health Organization in Geneva, a group of experts I belong to (the R&D Blueprint) coined the term “Disease X”: We were referring to the next pandemic, which would be caused by an unknown, novel pathogen that hadn’t yet entered the human population. As the world stands today on the edge of the pandemic precipice, it’s worth taking a moment to consider whether Covid-19 is the disease our group was warning about.

Disease X, we said back then, would likely result from a virus originating in animals and would emerge somewhere on the planet where economic development drives people and wildlife together. Disease X would probably be confused with other diseases early in the outbreak and would spread quickly and silently; exploiting networks of human travel and trade, it would reach multiple countries and thwart containment. Disease X would have a mortality rate higher than a seasonal flu but would spread as easily as the flu. It would shake financial markets even before it achieved pandemic status.

IN A NUTSHELL, COVID-19 IS

DISEASE X.

Even as there are signs that the epidemic’s spread might be slowing in China, multiple communities and countries have now reported sustained transmission in their midst. The number of confirmed cases has exploded in South Korea in recent days. In Italy, villages and towns are on lockdown, Fashion Week in Milan has been disrupted and festivals are being canceled while public health authorities search for patient zero to identify who else is likely infected and may spread the disease in Europe. Iran appears to have become a new hub of transmission. The looming pandemic will challenge us in new ways, as people try to evade quarantines, and misinformation campaigns and conspiracy theorists ply their trade in open democracies.

But as the world struggles to respond to Covid-19, we risk missing the really big picture: Pandemics are on the rise, and we need to contain the process that drives them, not just the individual diseases.

Plagues are not only part of our culture; they are caused by it. The Black Death spread into Europe in the mid-14th century with the growth of trade along the Silk Road. New strains of influenza have emerged from livestock farming. Ebola, SARS, MERS and now Covid-19 have been linked to wildlife. Pandemics usually begin as viruses in animals that jump to people when we make contact with them.

These spillovers are increasing exponentially as our ecological footprint brings us closer to wildlife in remote areas and the wildlife trade brings these animals into urban centers. Unprecedented road-building, deforestation, land clearing and agricultural development, as well as globalized travel and trade, make us supremely susceptible to pathogens like coronaviruses.

Yet the world’s strategy for dealing with pandemics is woefully inadequate. Across the board, from politicians to the public, we treat pandemics as a disaster-response issue: We wait for them to happen and hope a vaccine or drug can be developed quickly in their aftermath. But even as Covid-19 rages, there still is no vaccine available for the SARS virus of 2002-3, nor for HIV/AIDS or Zika or a host of emerging pathogens. The problem is that between outbreaks, the will to spend money on prevention wanes, and the market for vaccines and drugs against sporadic viral diseases isn’t enough to drive research and development.

During its World Health Assembly in 2016, the W.H.O. set up the R&D Blueprint to bridge this gap and announced a priority list of pathogens that most threaten global health and for which no vaccines or drugs were in the pipeline. SARS made the list, as did MERS, Nipah, Ebola and other rare but serious diseases caused by epidemic viruses. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations — a global partnership between public, private, philanthropic and civil society organizations launched at Davos in 2017 — stepped up to the plate and sourced funding to develop vaccines and therapeutics against some of these.

To escape from the Age of Pandemics, we’ll need to treat them as a public health issue and start working on prevention in addition to responses. Our first goal should be to broaden our armory against potential mass epidemics. When some of us added “Disease X” to the W.H.O.’s priority list two years ago, we wanted to make the point that it’s not sufficient to develop vaccines and drugs for known agents when the next big one is likely to be a different pathogen — a virus close to SARS, say, but not close enough that the same vaccine can work against both.

As Covid-19 strikes today and a spate of other pathogens are ready to emerge in the future, we continue to butt up against nature. Scientists estimate that there are 1.67 million unknown viruses of the type that have previously emerged in people. Discovering and sequencing them should be a priority — a simple case of “know your enemy.” In the aftermath of SARS, research on coronaviruses originating in bats has discovered more than 50 related viruses, some of which have the potential to infect people; this information can now be used to test for broad-action vaccines and drugs. Scaling up this effort to cover all viral families, as the Global Virome Project proposes to do, is a logical first step toward prevention.

A radical shift is also needed in the way that tests, vaccines and drugs are designed so that entire groups of pathogens are targeted instead of individual pathogens that are already known. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States is working on a universal flu vaccine that would cover all known strains of influenza; a universal coronavirus vaccine, an Ebola-virus vaccine and others will also be needed.

With a smaller investment, we can also try to get ahead of pandemics by working with communities in hot spots of emerging diseases. Disease surveillance should be focused on farmers, rural communities and anyone who has extensive contact with wildlife, to look for unusual illnesses, test for novel pathogens and work with people to develop alternatives to high-risk activities such as the wildlife trade.

Pandemics are like terrorist attacks: We know roughly where they originate and what’s responsible for them, but we don’t know exactly when the next one will happen. They need to be handled the same way — by identifying all possible sources and dismantling those before the next pandemic strikes.

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Peter Daszak is a disease ecologist and the president of EcoHealth Alliance, in New York.

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