In September of 2017, an obscure government official stood before a small audience at an obscure think tank and described a catastrophe that was unfolding. “Obscure” to the average citizen, that is — but not at all obscure to the “insiders” and journalists who attend these sorts of gatherings in DC, or sign up for the pertinent email lists, or read acronym-filled trade publications.

He doesn't give a damn about black or brown people unless he can use them as a political prop or a Halloween costume.

MISSED THIS, just read it, deserves it's own post because: it's basically an ACCUSATION OF WAR BY RUSSIA AGAINST AMERICAN CIVILIANS!

A new campaign appears to be spreading falsehoods about the potential for forced inoculations against Covid-19.

By Julian E. Barnes @ NYTimes.com, Aug. 5

The cartoon posted on the far-right discussion forum showed police officers wearing Biden-Harris campaign logos on bulletproof vests and battering down a door with a large syringe. A caption read in part, “In Biden’s America.”

The cartoon appears to be an example of the latest effort in Russian-aligned disinformation: a campaign that taps into skepticism and fears of coronavirus vaccination to not just undermine the effort to immunize people but also try to falsely link the Biden-Harris administration to the idea of forced inoculations. The image was one of several spotted by Graphika, a company tracking disinformation campaigns.

Both Russia and China have worked to promote their own vaccines through messaging that undermines American and European vaccination programs, according to the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. But in addition to overt messaging promoting their own vaccines, Moscow has also spread conspiracy theories. Last year, the department began warning about how Russia was using fringe websites to promote doubts around vaccinations.

It is difficult to quantify the amount of disinformation being produced at any time by the Russians or other adversarial powers, government officials and outside experts said. But the rise of the Delta variant of the coronavirus — and shifting scientific advice on how to defend against a more infectious strain and the need for booster shots or masks — has created an atmosphere for misinformation to more easily spread, experts said [....]

The jump in benefits, the biggest in the program’s history, comes after a revision of the initiative’s nutrition standards that supporters say will reduce hunger and better reflect how Americans eat.

By Jason DeParle @ NYTimes.com, Aug. 15

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has revised the nutrition standards of the food stamp program and prompted the largest permanent increase to benefits in the program’s history, a move that will give poor people more power to fill their grocery carts but add billions of dollars to the cost of a program that feeds one in eight Americans.

Under rules to be announced on Monday and put in place in October, average benefits will rise more than 25 percent from prepandemic levels. All 42 million people in the program will receive additional aid. The move does not require congressional approval, and unlike the large pandemic-era expansions, which are starting to expire, the changes are intended to last.

For at least a decade, critics of the benefits have said they were too low to provide an adequate diet. More than three-quarters of households exhaust their benefits in the first half of the monthly cycle, and researchers have linked subsequent food shortages to problems as diverse as increased hospital admissions, more school suspensions and lower SAT scores.

Under the new rules, average monthly benefits, $121 per person before the pandemic, will rise by $36. Although the increase may seem modest to middle-class families, proponents say it will reduce hunger, improve nutrition and lead to better health [....]

IDENTARIANS, TRIBALISTS & NEO-SEGREGATIONISTS LOSE more ground! More mixing mingling & miscegenating and admitting mixed backgrounds every day 

Only posting this because it is currently #1 most popular story over there! By Alexandra Kelley @ TheHill.com, Aug. 10

• Four cases of melioidosis have been reported in the U.S., with two being fatal.
• Human-to-human transmission is rare.

Alongside the rampant delta variant outbreaks, public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are now contending with new incidents of a rare tropical disease that has emerged in parts of the continental U.S. 

Melioidosis, also known as Whitmore’s disease, is a bacterial infection usually found in Southeast Asia and northern Australia. The bacteria causing the infection is usually found in contaminated waters and soils and spread within both animals and humans through contact with the contaminated source. Ingestion and contact with skin abrasions are the most common vehicles of infection.

Recent genome sequencing at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta confirms that four cases of melioidosis are in the U.S., with two being fatal.

No other information on the patients has been released by the CDC. One case was confirmed in Georgia and was traced to three prior cases in different states, namely Kansas, Texas and Minnesota.

After testing more than 100 soil and water samples near the patients’ homes, none came back positive for the bacteria that causes melioidosis [.....]

Gambled big time on popular narrative for ratings and lost in the worst way possible. More like him coming down the pipeline, no doubt. (More's the pity for the rest of us as to accessing heath care; I've been trying that lately and even the best really suck as they are so burned out they don't really care about your quality of life as long as you're alive, they want a vacation, it's really a damn scary situation for anyone with other medical problems.)

How does that work?