Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Madness: The US Congress

 

Excerpts from American Historian Heather Cox Richardson's September 28, 2021 letter:

Today, the fight over the debt ceiling continued. As Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that breaching the debt ceiling would delay Social Security payments and military paychecks, as well as jeopardizing the status of the U.S. dollar as the international reserve currency, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offered Senate Republicans “a way out” from having to participate in raising the ceiling, despite the fact that the Republicans had added $7.8 trillion to the now-$28 trillion debt during Trump’s term. Schumer asked for unanimous consent to pass a debt ceiling increase with a simple majority that the Democrats could provide alone.

Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) blocked the effort. “There is no chance, no chance the Republican conference will go out of our way to help Democrats conserve their time and energy, so they can resume ramming through partisan socialism as fast as possible,” he said.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that McConnell is deliberately running out Congress’s clock, and it is hard to ignore that the big item on the Senate’s agenda is the Freedom to Vote Act, which Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Jon Tester (D-MT), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Angus King (I-ME) have worked to hammer out in place of the voting rights bills passed by the House.

The Freedom to Vote Act protects the right to vote. It also bans partisan gerrymandering.

---------------------

The Republicans accused Milley of working with “the Chinese Communist Party” and leaking “private conversations with the president.” Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) suggested that Milley was personally responsible for the deaths of the 13 personnel killed in the last days of the Afghanistan evacuation and told him: “General, I think you should resign.”

It’s hard to miss the mechanics and narratives being set up for 2022.

“I have served this Nation for 42 years,” Milley wrote in his statement. “I’ve spent years in combat and buried a lot of my troops who died while defending this country. My loyalty to this Nation, its people, and the Constitution hasn’t changed and will never change as long as I have a breath to give. My loyalty is absolute.”

Click link to see entire letter: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-28-2021

A question: what if the Dems just let the GOP/Mitch have their way and not raise the debit ceiling? Wouldn't the ramifications clearly be the GOP's fault? Wouldn't the GOP end up with that on their record/on their backs? I don't know enough about the chess game of politics to get all the tactical maneuvering. Maybe someone can help.

Darn good questions. The tactical political maneuvering boggles me, too.

I wonder if trying to make each voter's vote count the same is more important at this stage than increasing the national debt?

Perhaps the Dems can get General Milley to opine which he supports most: the military getting paid on time or each American's vote counting the same?

I wonder if General Milley is gravely concerned over the very real threat to America of domestic terrorists represented by Donald Trump and his white January 6 mob, who very much want white votes to count most?

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

legal counterfeiting: every time the U.S. Government increases its debt without increasing its revenues, the effect is it prints more money, which decreases the value of the dollar

Lead into yesterday's letter from American Historian Heather Cox Richardson, click link to see full letter:

September 27, 2021

Today, the Senate considered a bill to fund the government until December and to raise the debt ceiling. The Republicans joined together to filibuster it. Such a move is extraordinary. Not only did the Republicans vote against a measure that would keep the government operating and keep it from defaulting on its debt—debt incurred before Biden took office—but they actually filibustered it, meaning it could not pass with a simple majority vote. The Republicans will demand 60 votes to pass the measure in the hope of forcing Democrats to pass it themselves, alone, under the system of budget reconciliation.

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-27-2021

This Independent wonders if, or when, Uncle Sam not having to live within his means will finally catch up with him?

Every state, county and city government in America have to live within their means. Every school district, water and sewer district, etc. have to live within their means. Every profit and non-profit corporation, every church, every college, etc. have to live within their means.

Even the FDIC has to live within its means. According to a legal opinion by Counsel, the FDIC is not actually backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, but is backed by resolutions of Congress which are not legally binding:

https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/4000-2660.html

Fortunately, the FDIC has been managed well, and, based on what I also read today online, not one depositor in an FDIC insured bank has lost one penny.

Unfortunately, every time the U.S. Government increases its debt without increasing its revenues, the effect is it prints more money, which decreases the value of the dollar.


That's not really true, all of the entities you mentioned incur debts, as do most individuals. The wealthy live on loans taken out against their stock holdings so that they don't have to pay taxes when they sell the stocks. The world economy revolves around debt.

Unlike personal debt, the government borrowing money is not necessarily a bad thing, especially when interest rates are low. It facilitates the implementation of large programs.

I agree debt is not necessarily a bad thing, and it is commonly done. However, the way the US Government borrows is different from the way city, county and state governments and the private sector borrow. If they can't pay their debts, they go bankrupt. No so, Uncle Sam. He just keeps printing money.

Just after replying to you, I received a call from a friend who once was a professor of economics in a couple of colleges. He said it is exactly as I explained it in my comment and my reply to you, and the Federal Reserve makes it legal. Legal counterfeiting, I asked? Yes, he said.

I once was a tax lawyer. Borrowing money does not get people out of paying their taxes, but it might enable them to pay their taxes. Then, are those who use tax lawyers and other methods to get out of paying their taxes. Donald Trump's claim in 2015 and 2016 and thereafter, that he couldn't reveal his tax returns because he was being audited by the IRS was pure B.S. The IRS had no objection to the public seeing his tax returns.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

Sunday, September 26, 2021

America: one nation under God or the Devil?

Lead into yesterday's letter from American historian Heather Cox Richardson:

September 25, 2021

For weeks now, I have vowed that I would finish these letters early and get to bed before midnight, and for weeks now, I have finally finished around three in the morning. That was not the case two years ago, when I started writing these at the start of the Ukraine crisis: it was rare enough for me to be writing until midnight that I vividly remember the first time it happened.


I got to thinking today about why things seem more demanding today than they did two years ago, and it strikes me that what makes the writing more time consuming these days is that we have two all-consuming stories running in parallel, and together they illuminate the grand struggle we are in for the survival of American democracy. 


Click this link to see all of Heather's letter: 

 https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-25-2021

Thank you, Heather. You well painted how Trump and his MAGAs and the Republican Party are strangling the truth and democracy in America.

There is a third theme, which I never see in news reports. It's the same theme that led to Adolph Hitler and his inner circle rising to power in Germany. It's a theme religious people know about, but don't seem to apply to politics. Nor for that matter, do they apply it to their religion.

Demonic possession is very real. Not just in the someone  being demonically possessed sense, but in the masses being possessed.

That's what happened in Germany. It began with a powerful demon infiltrating Hitler, and then his top aides. From there it spread downward. Compare that to the Republican Party in America, which finally chose a candidate possessed by a demon. Donald Trump.

The Democrats are not entirely innocent. In 2016, they ran a deeply flawed candidate, Hillary Clinton, who turned off so many moderates and alienated so many of Bernie Sanders people, that Trump won.

Too bad Joe Biden did not run that year. Perhaps a deal was made with Hillary, who, with the DNC, "watergated" Sanders.

Anyway, how can America be saved from what looks to me like what happened in Germany, and also in Russia?

Absent something like the parting of the Red Sea and massive Road to Damascus interventions in the right, the only thing I see is the left and the middle vote as if their very lives and souls depend on it. They vote using the same ways of voting the right use.

I think making election day a national holiday will help the the left and the middle at the ballot box more than it will help the right. I imagine the right know that.

The left and middle also might consider movie character John Wick's solution to most things he faces. He needs more guns. Lots more guns. I think the right is far better armed than the left and the middle, and the right believes it is far better armed and takes comfort in that.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com


Saturday, September 25, 2021

Dr. Zelenko's letter

 

Link to interview of Dr. Vladimir  Zelenko:


I introduced some of American Historian Heather Cox Richardson's ardent followers to Dr. Vladimir Zelenko yesterday, and was blitzkrieged

I introduced some of American Historian Heather Cox Richardson's ardent followers to Dr. Vladimir Zelenko yesterday, and was blitzkrieged. Many of them reminded me of very wound up MAGAs and Evangelicals, except they were Democrats.

Lead to Heather's letter, click the link to see the full letter:

September 23, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson 
This evening, the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas to four key figures in the Trump White House who either were working with or had communications with the White House in the days surrounding the January 6 insurrection: former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Daniel Scavino, former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel, and former Trump advisor Stephen Bannon.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-23-2021

Some reader comments and my responses (this is about 1/3 of it): 

Terry
While reading this, I can't help but think of all the time, effort and funds being spent to both to perpetuate and stop the 'Big Lie' while our world crumbles down around us due to climate change and the people dying due to the inability to work together in an effort to control this epidemic. There are certainly some in power intent on destruction.
    
Michele
This is why I call the R party, the party of death....death of individuals from the virus which are now preventable, death of our democracy, and death of the planet.
    
KELTIK_WARRIOR 
All the more fitting that McConnell calls himself "The Grim Reaper"!
    
Christy22 hr ago
I’m stealing this for FB. I’m guessing you won’t mind in the least. 😁❤️
    
Micheleo
Please do. I post this all the time on Facebook.

mlbrowne
Thanks, Michele. I riffed on it today, too.

Sloan Bashinsky
I was put in FB's jail several times for writing about Dr. Zelenko and hydroxychloroquine and zinc. In my opinion the Left and its media and Fauci and Big Pharma caused America as much harm as Trump, the January 6 mob, the MAGAs and the Republicans.

FERN
Subscribers, LFAA does have software, which would block disinformation. The following represents information from a highly reputable sources of medical science:
'Recently, several physicians hosted a press conference in which one physician claimed that the combination of hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin and the mineral zinc could cure COVID-19. The video footage of that press conference went viral on social media, and soon many social media platforms removed the videos for providing inaccurate, non-scientifically backed claims. But questions from the public may still remain.
According to Johns Hopkins experts, there are no significant clinical trials to date showing that these drugs are an effective treatment against COVID-19. At least three controlled, large trials showed either no advantage or higher risk of cardiovascular complications in patients receiving the drug.
“Patients infected with COVID-19 often have compromised heart and vascular systems, and receive other drugs that can interact with hydroxychloroquine and can put patients at increased risk of arrhythmias or irregular heartbeats,” says cardiologist Oscar Cingolani, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “These cardiovascular side effects in some COVID patients aren’t often seen in patients receiving the drug for other purposes like autoimmune disorders, so therefore the safety observed in these other patients can’t be inferred for COVID-19 patients.”
To date, Johns Hopkins physicians endorse the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations on not using these drugs for treatment of COVID-19.' (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Newsroom)
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/covid-19-story-tip-hydroxychloroquine-not-recommended-for-treatment-of-covid-19
Q: Are chloroquine phosphate or hydroxychloroquine sulfate approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19?
A: No. Hydroxychloroquine sulfate and some versions of chloroquine phosphate are FDA-approved to treat malaria. Hydroxychloroquine sulfate is also FDA-approved to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
On March 28, 2020, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine sulfate to treat adults and adolescents hospitalized with COVID-19 for whom a clinical trial was not available or participation was not feasible. Based on FDA’s continued review of the scientific evidence available, the criteria for an EUA for chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine sulfate as outlined in Section 564(c)(2) of the FD&C Act are no longer met. As a result, the EUA for these two drugs was revoked on June 15, 2020. Read more about this action. (FDA)
    
FERN 
Correction: '...LFAA does not have software to block...'

Nancy
Darn! I was hoping we had a troll/aggravation solution. It would be nice if LFAA could block some blather here, but I'm guessing that we can manage to find reality on our own in most cases.
    
FERN
It repels me as well, particularly on the forum where we work hard to share and learn from one another.
    
Nancy
I agree, but I've seen here a few people who seem to have some issues with reality. Of course, then there are some who are simply trolls. I guess the only comfort is that the "herd" isn't easily led.
    
Sloan Bashinsky
Isn't this Heather's platform, which she gracefully lets other people use to freely express their views and paint their on canvasses of how they perceive reality?
 
Daniel 
You know that you're talking Science...
...right?
    
Chuck
Your opinion has no basis in reality. Or, rather, it's based on your ideologically-driven alternate reality, in which the real world has no place.
Ultimately, one's views are either based on reality and routinely tested against it. Or they are based on what one wants or needs to believe and never tested against reality. Indeed, reality is something to be ignored or, at best, selectively edited to conform to ideology. It's called confirmation bias.
My experience is that there is no way past this bias.

Elaine
Who’s reality?
    
Chuck
You don't get a personal reality, sorry. Unless you're delusional, of course.

Talia
Everybody shares the same reality. Opinions may differ, but facts are the same for everyone.
    
Daniel
Being put in FB jail is not the Badge of Honor that you think it is.
    
Robert
I beg to differ. I've had multiple accounts deleted for "dealing in guns, drugs, or other contraband on the Facebook platform". All from pushing back on trump-sheep. Never sold a thing on Facebook in my life.
    
Daniel
OK. It is NOT an honor when bestowed. It is ONLY an honor for one who earned it.
    
Robert
👍
    
Chuck 
Not that it matters, of course, since you are obviously just trolling here to generate traffic to your blog.
    
Sloan Bashinsky
My blog has very little traffic. Older blogs had much more traffic. A friend told me about Heather's letters and suggested I should check that out, so I did, and I found someone writing her guts, heart and soul out, putting herself in the crosshairs of legions of loonies mostly in the red spectrum. I really admired and respected that. I admired and respected that Heather allowed her readers to comment freely. I once read the very mostly white right wing Patriot Post. The readers there really didn't like me, then I asked how many of them were not white people? Oh, that didn't go over well. There were lots of right wing comments, some really strung out. I was the only commenter who was not right wing. I quit participating, because what I viewed as patriotism was nothing like their view. And, because I wondered if they might retaliate against me through people I cared about. Later, the owner of that platform disallowed reader comments. I emailed him that he wasn't much on free speech. He did not reply.
    
Robert
You sound as nutty as a Trumper.
    
Ashley
Robert, if you’re referencing SB’s BS above (Fauci caused as much harm as iDJT?!?!), I completely agree with your take.
    
Robert Kriegar2
Yes, absolutely.
    
Chuck
I think there's no "as" involved. I would bet money Bashinsky is a true believer is Trumpism. Or maybe just a paid troll. Hard to tell the difference.
    
Sloan Bashinsky
Heh, I think Donald Trump is a grotesque, despicable human being, who, along with his white supremacist mob that assaulted, breached and invaded the Capitol on January 6, should have been shot dead months ago. I started banging Trump on my blog and on Facebook in 2015, and never let up. I have banged him here. He and his fanatical mobs caused me to fear for the physical safety of my children, and that is one reason I reluctantly voted for Joe Biden. The other reason was Biden at least was talking about saving the planet from humanity. I put that on my blog and Facebook many times, as well.
    
Chuck
OK, I stand corrected on that point.
Your advocacy of COVID-19 quackery, however, still brands you as a loon, at least in that area.
    
Sloan Bashinsky
I have been called nutty and worse by Trumpers, and conservative Christians, and Republicans, and liberal Christians, and Democrats, and lots more "sects".
    
Cathy 
Troll sensors activated
    
Chuck
Not to put too fine a point on it, but being dismissed as a nut by a wide spectrum of people of vastly differing viewpoints is not, in fact, a point in your favor. It is, in fact, rather the opposite. And labeling everyone who suggests you are a loony as a member of a "sect" doesn't change that.

Elaine
Agreed agreed agreed! Thank you for your courage. You’ll get more harsh razzing for this. Stay strong!

Chuck
He deserves all of it for spreading lies about a dangerous pandemic. So do you if you believe that drivel.
How many more people have to die and how badly stressed does our medical system have to become before you people start facing reality instead of pushing your quackery and paranoia?
I have seriously had it with you fools.
    
Sloan Bashinsky
I'm used to harsh razzing. What I hope still is something will change and hydroxychloroquine and zinc will be freely available without prescription. That would really infuriate Big Pharma and its captured federal agencies.
Unfortunately for America and humanity, Trump was handed a cheap, 5-day early stage Covid-19 infection cure in March 2020, which led to the Hassidic doctor Vladimir Zelenko, who developed it in his very large family practice in a tightknit Hassidic New York community being interviewed by Sean Hannity and Trump promoting the cure on Television. Then, came massive Democrat and its media and Dr. Fauci, CDC, WHO, The Lancet, FDA and Big Pharma, CNN, MSNBC and other mainstream media witch hunts, which killed the cheap fast early stage infection cure that would have saved America and humanity from Red China's bioweapon. Trump could have used the power off his office to make the cure freely available to all people in America, but he caved to the political pressure and went for Operation Warp Speed, which, heh, much of his own base rejected, as did more Republicans than Democrats and Independents. The cheap 5-day cure, which saved the doctor's patients from even going to hospitals, if they were treated as soon as symptoms appeared, even before testing positive, was hydroxychloroquine, zinc and azithromycin. HCQ transports zine into body cells, where zinc inhibits C-19 replication. Azithromycin dealt with any secondary infection. No big money to made in that by Big Pharma.
    
Robert 
The last thing that anyone here wants are insane people like you pushing this abject stupidity.
Fauci was struggling to work in the middle of Trump's smoke & mirrors bullshit as Americans paid the price with their lives, and idiots- like you- assisted in disseminating this propagandist manure.
Enough. Seek help. Get medicated. Dry up and blow away.

mlbrowne
He's a conspiracy theorist of the first order. I had a look at his substack postings. Pay him no mind.
    
AshleyR
Indeed, Robert!!
(And I am well acquainted with legitimate, career, legal professionals who can factually speak to SB’s decades-long, whackadoo BS.)
 
 
Sloan Bashinsky
I wonder if those career legal professionals saw themselves in my 3rd book, KILL ALL THE LAWYERS? A CLIENTS GUIDE TO HIRING, FIRING, USING AND SUING LAWYERS? Prentice-Hall Division of Simon & Shuster?
 
 
Robert
This sort of thing really makes it difficult for people (like myself) who have to help guide less than astute people safely through things like this. And I mainly have to deal with my own family members. What Trump and his cult have done is not only tragic, but criminal, in my personal opinion.
    
Michael
Willful ignorance knows no bounds when it comes to the pandemic. I'll never understand it given the 244 years of scientific proof in the U.S. that vaccines work. People like Bashinsky spread lies that sicken and kill fellow citizens, cripple our healthcare systems, and cause financial ruin. Yet they think of themselves as heroic patriots.
    
Marlene
Good Grief!! Their drinks were spiked right from the git go!
    
Catherine
Ugh! Heartbreaking!
    
Sloan Bashinsky
I, too, think it's criminal. I got the Pfizer shots early this year. I say, and have said many times at my blog and on Facebook, that unvaccinated adults, who catch Covid-19, should not be allowed into hospitals that receive federal funds in any way, shape or form, and President Biden should have used executive orders to enforce it. I have been ripped to shreds by the right and conspiracy freaks for taking that position. I get ripped to shreds a lot, actually.
    
Gail 
Give up your trust fund and put your money where your mouth is Jr.
    
Sloan Bashinsky
Heh. I gave up several trust funds and finally ran out of money and lived on the street off and on for several years, and all the while I kept putting my money on what I said and wrote. Living on the street , in shelters, etc. brings entirely new perspectives of just about everything. Don't recommend it, though. It's no damn fun.
    
Dirk 
(sigh) While I can see why your approach has generated so much outright rejection, I mislike simply calling names and yelling, "Go Home!" Nevertheless, you should not, Mr. Bashinsky, be making so many outre and complicated assertions without some citation to authority. You seem to be simply listing a bunch of baseless claims, then hoping the people on this forum will to the work of fact-checking you.
No dice, sir. You wanna make claims that a 5-day regimen of oral medications can kill a virus attack in delicately vascularized deep lung tissue? Go right ahead, but cite your sources. Who is this Dr. Zelenko who has done in his little clinic what 20 years of research into SARS-CoV infections has not been able to do? Has he published his research? Does he have a website? If the combined efforts of the "Democrat and its media and Dr. Fauci, CDC, WHO, The Lancet, FDA and Big Pharma, CNN, MSNBC and other mainstream media witch hunts" were marshalled to suppress news of this "miracle," where did you hear about it?
Again, quit being lazy and CITE YOUR SOURCES!
    
Sloan Bashinsky
I'm actually amazed that it seems some or a lot readers here do not know about Dr. Zelenko. Yes, he published his research, and published more, and he did YouTube presentations, and it all was banned on Facebook. I have read online of a number of doctors using same cure for early stage infection getting same results. Note, early stage infection. I have heard of doctors prescribing hydroxychloroquine off label to bypass the pharmaceutical and medical boards, because they liked using hydroxychloroquine with zinc. I have read many studies slamming hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19, it's dangerous, it doesn't work. None of the studies used zinc with hydroxychloroquine, and without zinc, hydroxychloroquine isn't effective against Covid-19. Hydroxychloroquine is the caddy, zinc is Tiger Woods. Covid-19 does not like zinc. Hydroxychloroquine is so dangerous it has been used for decades to prevent and treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. It is derived from chloroquine, which is derived from quinine, which is derived from the bark of a tree. I told a friend today that some of the people of this blog are as reactionary and hysterical as MAGAs and Evangelicals. Imagine what would have happened if President Trump had made Zelenko's cure freely available in April 2020. Imagine the bioweapon being stopped in its tracks. Imagine Trump being viewed a the guy responsible for that. He would have won the 2020 election in a LANDSLIDE!!! I detest the man. But he would still be president. Too damn bad Trump didn't have big enough balls to ignore the backlash against Zelenko's cure, which Trump himself took to prevent catching Covid-19 after some of his staff tested positive. Some doctor prescribed it for Trump. Later, after Trump caught Covid-19, he did not take the Zelenko cure and got in really bad shape and was taken to ICU, where he was given Regeneron's new still not yet approved for general use very expensive monoclonal antibody treatment, which saved his sorry ass. Trump went for vaccines, which also were far more lucrative for Big Pharma than hydroxychloroquine and zinc. Now the irony, the right is a lot less vaccinated than the left. But from what I've heard on grapevines, the right and its doctors are more inclined to prescribe Zelenko's cure off label, and ivermectin, which Zelenko later came to say was a good early stage treatment. Also quercetin with zinc. Quercetin also transports zinc into body cells, and it does not require prescription. I've been taking quercetin and zinc since May 2020, and C and D-3, and I have not had even a sniffle. I also have now received 3 Pfizer shots. You folks who think I'm crazy might try doing your own research on Dr. Zelenko and his cure. There is gobs of stuff online. If you go looking for what agrees with you, then, well, isn't that way Republicans, MAGAs, Evangelicals, KKK, Nazis, Fascists, Communists do research?

Beth
Hallejulah! It's all on YouTube! Why didn't you say so in the first place?!

Jane
Looks like she lost you at "Source".....Oxford suggests...
Noun:
Similar: reference authority informant documentation
~ a book or document used to provide evidence in research
Zelenko ...so show us the studies...
it will be all the proof we need......
    
FERN
Counsel, Might there be some some cognitive hindrance concerning the defense's ability to coherently respond?
    
Sloan Bashinsky
Fern, Google search "Dr. Zelenko" and read everything that comes up, and watch all the videos that come up, which will tale you a while. I am amazed that it seems you and all but person in this discussion seem to know nothing about Zelenko. Plain and simple, because Trump touted Zelenko's cure (without naming Zelenko), the left's media and the left and medical-industrial complex went haywire. The left, because anything that made Trump look good was anathema. The medical-industrial complex, because it had humongous money-making plans for new cures, vaccines, etc., which Dr. Zelenko's cure made unnecessary. I read article after article, supposedly scientific, slamming hydroxychloroquine as being dangerous (bull shit, it was used extensively for decades to treat and prevent malaria, and to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis). I read article after article on studies showing hydroxychloroquine was ineffective against Covid-19, but no mention of zinc, which, Zelenko kept saying was the key ingredient, the bullet, and hydroxychloroquine was the gun that shot the bullet into body cells, where the bullet inhibited coronavirus replication. 
In his March 23, 2020 letter to All World Health Professionals, copied to Trump and Mark Meadows, Zelenko mentioned old research about zinc being effective against coronaviruses. He described his reasoning and how he evolved it and then used it to treat his patients. I see no vehicle for posting that letter here, but I'm happy to provide a copy to anyone who wants to see it; sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com. That letter was read to America by Sean Hannity, who interviewed Zelenko. The left and its media went haywire. Looked like mass insanity to me. The right looks like mass insanity to me. Heather paints that beautifully most days. 
I don't belong to a political party, or to the left or to the right. I am not loyal to either side's cannons, liturgies, catechisms, rituals, mantras. I see both sides spinning and twisting. And I see the truth buried in both sides, but only the truth they wish to claim. 
One wee example. I was banged here for quoting Gloria Steinem saying the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. I was banged for not saying that saying came much earlier in time. And, it was a spin off of Jesus' words in the Gospels, Nobody here gave Steinem credit for saying it, but it's the title of one of her books, which I was obliged to point out a few times, and not a dent seemed to be made in the people who had banged me for quoting Steinem. I view that, Fern, as insanity. 
There is a passage in the Letter to the Hebrews that reminds me of you. It was addressed to Jewish followers of Jesus who had fallen into bad habits:
Hebrews 5:12 Although by this time you ought to be teachers ...https://biblehub.com › hebrews
Instead of eating solid food, you still have to drink milk. ... By now you should be teachers. Instead, you still need someone to teach you the elementary truths ...ss
    
Ned
Sloan Bashinsky’s information is clear, detailed, and essentially correct. You could dispute the information he provides, but instead, the mob here calls him “insane,” an “idiot,” calls the information “abject stupidity” and “manure,” and wishes for his demise. Notice the response contains no content, just rage. Which side should we listen to, the one with information (which we can research and debate) or the one that wants to stone the witch?
Dr. Zelenko himself is clear and humble, with no apparent motive other than to help people (for which, of course, he is defamed by the New York Times.) Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are among the safest drugs the world has ever known. Hydroxychloroquine is 65 years old, prescribed to hundreds of millions with virtually no ill side effects. Ivermectin is 40 years old and has been called one of the three “wonder drugs” along with aspirin and penicillin. It also has been prescribed safely to hundreds of millions of people. From a 2011 paper (before COVID politics) from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, which is supported and funded by the U.S. government:
“There are few drugs that can seriously lay claim to the title of ‘Wonder drug’, penicillin and aspirin being two that have perhaps had greatest beneficial impact on the health and wellbeing of Mankind. But ivermectin can also be considered alongside those worthy contenders, based on its versatility, safety and the beneficial impact that it has had, and continues to have, worldwide—especially on hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people.”
It’s hard to know the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin as COVID prophylactics or treatments because the media smear them as “dangerous” (“horse-de-wormer,” in the case of ivermectin). The Lancet published a study purporting to demonstrate the danger of hydroxychloroquine, which they had to retract because it was bogus. They hadn’t even tried to vet the source before they ran the article. Fauci (of course) cited the study favorably. He is a menace, telling us that “authority” is “science.” Not once have I heard him advocate for protecting old people, exploring novel treatments, or advising people to lose weight and improve their immune systems. He talks only of lockdowns, masks, and vaccines. He just likes being on TV, and he knows what will keep him there.
Seth Meyers does 20 minutes on the stupid and vile people who seek ivermectin as a treatment. I have a friend who has long-COVID. She had to call multiple pharmacists before finding one that would fill her doctor’s prescription, then had to drive 90 miles for it. Thank you, Seth Meyers and the New York Times.
The only thing wrong with these drugs is that they are inexpensive. Maybe they don’t help in every situation, but they certainly help in some, and we should be allowed to study and discuss the results. The media love huge corporations and expensive technology but they seem to have an irrational hatred of human beings.

Sloan Bashinsky
Amen, Ned. Good darn luck getting through to the reactionaries here. 
 
Mary
Big Pharma is not a friend of the people who need certain prescriptions, but that doesn't mean you should push ineffective remedies of the virus. If you've got a gripe against Big Pharma (and many do) attack them for exorbitant prices on drugs. But don't push your pet remedies, for whatever reason.
    
Sloan Bashinsky

I am not pushing Zelenko's cure for whatever reason. I'm pushing it because it worked on his patients, and it has worked and is working on other doctors' patients. I also push getting vaccinated, I had 3 Pfizer shots, because Zelenko's cure was burned at the stake by the left, its media, Fauci, FDA, CDC, WHO, Big Pharma, and the MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, which could not have made gobs of money if Zelenko's cure had been made freely available by Donald Trump, whom I despise.

Sloan Bashinsky
Here is a link to a recent YouTube interview of Dr. Zelenko, I'm about 20 minutes into it, he's describing how this began for him and how he responded and why, and now he and Trump and Mark Meadows got involved, and now he's talking about why there was so intense blow back which at first made no sense to him. I've heard all of this in other YouTube interviews of him. If this man is a liar, then he's a darn good one. But I leave for you to watch the YouTube, or not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhLD1P5nH30
    
Sloan Bashinsky
Was wrong about length of presentation, it's over 100 minutes. He's covering the basics, including his own nearly dying from medical troubles, and now he's explaining the hydroxychloroquine and zinc dynamic. All I have heard from him before.
    
Sloan Bashinsky
Here's the text of an email from a friend who has a friend working in CDC:
Dear Sloan: I know a young woman who is a MD. She chose to work for the CDC and became an epidemiologist. Her comment on COVID is that the best thing anyone can do is to continue with a prophylactic regime as recommended by Dr. Zelenko. There are multiple subtypes of COVID, alpha and delta and gamma variants are the most commonly occurring. Because they have different RNA sequences, they also have no guarantee that the vaccines people have taken will protect them. Commingling of these subtypes of COVID could result in a superbug version of COVID- such a consequence could prove disastrous. In addition, her comment on vaccine side effects is that we do not have enough data on people properly and completely vaccinated. Look at the population 18+ and the number who reported receiving the vaccine. We simply don't have a complete enough picture to determine the whether the vaccine is responsible for the problems reported. At the same time, we cannot dismiss the allegations of severe complications due to taking the vaccine- that would be terribly irresponsible. We do need to examine the cofactors that could possibly cause vaccine complications.
    
Sloan Bashinsky
Here's a link to my blog post that contains a photo of Dr. Zelenko and his March 23, 2020 letter to All World Health Professionals, cc President Donald J. Trump and Mark Meadow, Chief of Staff. This is the lies and quackery I am spreading. If the New York Medical Board thought it was lies and quackery, they would have been all over Dr. Zelenko.

Sloan Bashinsky
Link to a New York study of using hydroxychloroquine with and without zinc:
https://www.neurologyinsights.com/2020/12/01/study-zinc-hydroxychloroquine-combination-reduces-covid-19-mortality-rates/
Zelenko now is talking about treating at risk patients this way, older people and younger people with serious medical problems. He did not treat low risk covid patients with hydroxychloroquine and zinc.

I don't think those patients were treated nearly as quickly as Dr. Zelenko treated his patients. His explanation in the YouTube I furnished earlier of treatment of high-risk patient before Covid-19 sets in around day 6 is ... devastating, if treatment is delayed 

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com



Friday, September 24, 2021

American politics: Silence in the face of Evil is itself evil

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. Wikipedia
Born: February 4, 1906, Wrocław, Poland
Died: April 9, 1945, Flossenbürg concentration camp, Germany


Lead to yesterday's letter from American Historian Heather Cox Richardson:

September 23, 2021
Heather Cox Richardson 
This evening, the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas to four key figures in the Trump White House who either were working with or had communications with the White House in the days surrounding the January 6 insurrection: former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Daniel Scavino, former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel, and former Trump advisor Stephen Bannon.
[Click this link to see Heather's entire letter: 
    
Sara T
HCR WRITES: “According to a new poll by NORC at the University of Chicago, 26% of Americans now believe that ‘[t]he 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,’ and 8% believe that ‘[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.’” My question is are those numbers up or down from previous NORC polls? I’d like to have something to compare them to.
   
Daniel
"because he needs to keep his supporters convinced that our elections are fraudulent. That conviction will come in handy in 2022, but I wonder if the former president isn’t stoking it for a more immediate reason.
"...If Trump holds true to form, as the damning evidence of that conspiracy mounts, he will egg on his loyalists to back his bid to regain power based on the Big Lie that he has convinced them to believe. According to a new poll by NORC at the University of Chicago, 26% of Americans now believe that “[t]he 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president,” and 8% believe that “[u]se of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.”
And don't forget there's money to be made from his Followers. He uses the Television Evangelist preach model in this. (He does have a BIG bag of schemes).
    
Ian
On one hand, I can't stop laughing at the fact that even the Cyber Ninjas sham audit showed that Biden won Maricopa County. On the other hand, it is horrifyingly clear now that wherever Republicans lose elections (or as Texas shows, where they win but it is still close), they will scream "fraud" and claim that the Democrats cheated.
This goes to a point I have frequently made: The Republicans and their supporters believe that they should be in power permanently, and they will do anything to make that happen.
    
Terry
While reading this, I can't help but think of all the time, effort and funds being spent to both to perpetuate and stop the 'Big Lie' while our world crumbles down around us due to climate change and the people dying due to the inability to work together in an effort to control this epidemic. There are certainly some in power intent on destruction.

Sloan Bashinsky
Oops, Terry, I think Gloria Steinem said the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
For years, I voted for 3rd party presidential candidates, or didn't vote. I reluctantly voted for Joe Biden because he and his legions didn't cause me to fear for the physical safety of my children and their families, and because he at least was talking about saving the planet from humanity. 
Yet, Joe Biden and his boss Barack Obama had staunchly continued the two Bush Cheney wars, after Obama was awarded, incredibly, and accepted, incredibility, the Nobel Prize for Peace. Then, the Democrats nominated the candidate Donald Trump could beat, Hillary Clinton, after she and the DNC Watergated Bernie Sanders.
There is plenty of evil on both sides of the aisle, where I imagine a special place in hell is reserved.
However, the Trump train took America to its lowest level since the Vietnam war, and even since the Civil War. The election fraud claims are veiled allegations that black Americans stole the presidential election and gave the Democrats a majority in the House of Representatives.
How can anyone with half a brain think this giant cluster F is going to be satisfactory resolved? Yet, to do nothing, to let the bastards get away without at least trying them in the court of public opinion, even if the law courts don't stand to muster, well, I would not want that in my epitaph.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com