MikeLigalig.com

Sebastian Smith
AFP Sat, 16 January 2021, 7:49 am

US President Donald Trump boards Marine One as he departs the White House in October 2020

Already shunned from polite society, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner face new cold post-insurrection reality
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/15/politics/ivanka-trump-jared-kushner-next-steps/index.html

(CNN) When Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner shared their decision to pick up and move their family to Washington from New York four years ago, multiple sources who know the couple said the idea was the White House years would allow easy entree to their ambitious next steps: Kushner would become a powerful player in global politics and Trump would become a shoo-in to a higher office of her own.


The couple have never been shy about their combined love of power. When they got engaged, Ivanka Trump said in an interview that she knew Kushner was the one when she found his ambition matched hers.

"Jared and I are very similar in that we're very ambitious. That's what makes it so amazing to be in a relationship with someone who is supportive of that," Trump told New York Magazine in 2009.

Laura BONILLA
AFP News
25 May 2020


The United States is on a chaotic path with no federal plan against the coronavirus pandemic as it reduces public health funding and ignores the advances of climate change, according to activist scholar Noam Chomsky, considered the founder of modern linguistics.

What follows are extracts, edited for clarity, from an AFP interview with the 91-year-old leftist intellectual, who has authored more than 100 books and is currently a professor at the University of Arizona.

For two months he's been confined in Tucson with his Brazilian wife Valeria, his dog and a parrot who can say "sovereignty" in Portuguese.

Coronavirus (Covid-19) Vaccine Latest Update: After Moderna, China's Cansino Biologics claims vaccine breakthrough; Oxford to start advanced human trials; Indian Covid-19 vaccine unlikely within a year
By: Express Web Desk | New Delhi | Updated: May 25, 2020 1:09:06 pm


Days after US biotechnology company Moderna Inc reported successful results from its experimental vaccine for Covid-19, a second breakthrough has been made in China, with Cansino Biologics Inc saying the vaccine appeared to be safe and might protect people from the novel coronavirus.

With Covid-19 infecting more than 5.5 million and killing 338,249 people across the world, a vaccine is considered to be the best long-term solution for allowing countries to reopen their economies by coming out of months-long lockdown.

For Covid-19, there are over 100 vaccines being developed across the world now, some from scratch, some from existing molecules developed for other diseases.

NBC News   
Adela Suliman and Charlene Gubash
May 21, 2020


A huge spike in coronavirus cases in the Middle East, where many have been observing the Islamic month of Ramadan, has led countries to extend and reinforce lockdown measures during this weekend's Eid holiday.

The largest number of cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, has been in Saudi Arabia, which normally sees millions of Muslims descend on the holy cities of Mecca and Medina during Ramadan. In response to the outbreak, the kingdom closed off the religious sites, with stark images of empty mosques and sacred sites circulating online.

But despite such measures, the number of cases has only grown in Saudi Arabia, passing 50,000 on Saturday and ballooning to 62,545 as of Wednesday — with 339 deaths — according to the Ministry of Health.

Europe is abandoning Trump on the world stage as it turns away from the US toward China
Adam Bienkov
https://www.businessinsider.com/europe-abandoning-donald-trump-coronavirus-world-stage-turns-towards-china-2020-5
3 hours ago


President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic has triggered global criticism.

•   Recent polling suggests Europeans are turning away from the US under President Donald Trump's leadership.

•   Public opinion toward America has declined in major European countries since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

•   Seventy-six percent of Germans in a new poll said their view of America had deteriorated because of the crisis.

•   Roughly equal numbers of Germans in the poll favored maintaining close relationships with China and the US in a head-to-head matchup.

•   One poll last week found that just 2% of French people trusted Trump to provide world leadership.

•   China is exerting growing political, diplomatic, and financial power across Europe.

World looks on in horror as Trump flails over pandemic despite claims US leads way


Julian Borger in Washington, Helen Davidson in Sydney, Leyland Cecco in Toronto, Daniel Boffey in BrusselsPhilip Oltermann in Berlin,Angela Giuffrida in Rome, Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro and Emmanuel Akinwotu in London
The GuardianMay 15, 2020, 2:00 PM GMT+6'





The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the US is "leading the world" with its response to the pandemic, but it does not seem to be going in any direction the world wants to follow.

https://tuluwatexaminer.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/donald-trumps-compendium-of-full-on-crazy/



The "very stable genius" looks right at the sun

Donald Trump's open-mic riff suggesting government health experts explore injecting patients with bleach or household disinfectants to fight covid-19 made for easy parody. "And then I see the disinfectant, that knocks it out in a minute, one minute," he said at Thursday night's televised news briefing. "Is there a way we can do something like that, by injection, inside, or almost a cleaning." Because the coronavirus "does a tremendous number on the lungs," he went on to say, "it would be interesting to check that." He added his usual disclaimer, "I'm not a doctor," but assured viewers that "I'm, like, a person that has a good you-know-what."

This prompted warnings from state governments and the makers of Lysol about the serious bodily harm that taking this "I'm-not-a-doctor" advice would cause. But as absurd as Trump's comments were, they could hardly have been surprising. His "good you-know-what" has led us down this path before. During his three years in office, Trump has regularly expressed confidence that he knows more than the experts. That confidence is matched only by the ignorance he actually displays about a vast array of topics. Repeatedly, he has sent government officials scrambling on foolish missions, leading them to spend time and personal capital persuading him not to follow through on schemes that are invariably wasteful, ineffective, unrealistic, or dangerous.

"I've stopped worrying about the president's sanity," Cranston wrote on social media in the midst of the president's response to Covid-19.

Zack Sharf
Apr 27, 2020 9:28 am
https://www.indiewire.com/2020/04/bryan-cranston-donald-trump-not-sane-1202227555/


Bryan Cranston shared incendiary words about Donald Trump on social media over the weekend as backlash against the president's Covid-19 response continued to skyrocket. Trump generated controversy for wondering if household disinfectant products could be ingested as a means of fighting coronavirus. The president's remarks prompted Lysol to issue a statement saying buyers should not consume any Lysol products because it is poisonous to do so. According to NBC News, calls to New York City poison control over bleach and Lysol consumption doubled after Trump's statements. Cranston wrote on Twitter that he no longer believed Trump was sane.

"I've stopped worrying about the president's sanity," Cranston said. "He's not sane. And the realization of his illness doesn't fill me with anger, but with profound sadness. What I now worry about is the sanity of anyone who can still support this deeply troubled man to lead our country."

https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2020/0427/1134973-north-korean-kim-jung-un/
Updated / Monday, 27 Apr 2020 16:07


South Korean officials are calling for caution amid reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may be ill or is being isolated because of coronavirus concerns, emphasising that they have detected no unusual movements in North Korea.

At a closed door forum yesterday, South Korea's Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul, who oversees engagement with the North, said the government has the intelligence capabilities to say with confidence that there was no indications of anything unusual.

Rumours and speculation over the North Korean leader's health began after he made no public appearance at a key state holiday on 15 April, and has since remained out of sight.

South Korea media last week reported that Mr Kim may have undergone cardiovascular surgery or was in isolation to avoid exposure to the new coronavirus.

Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul cast doubt on the report of surgery, arguing that the hospital mentioned did not have the capabilities for such an operation.

Still, Yoon Sang-hyun, chairman of the foreign and unification committee in South Korea's National Assembly, told a gathering of experts today that Kim Jong-un's absence from the public eye suggests "he has not been working as normally".

Trump suggests injecting disinfectant to kill coronavirus. Here's why he's wrong
Disinfectants, like bleach and isopropyl alcohol, are toxic and should not be consumed, ingested or injected to fight COVID-19.

Jackson Ryan
April 23, 2020 10:22 p.m. PT
https://www.cnet.com/news/trump-suggests-injecting-disinfectant-to-kill-coronavirus-heres-why-hes-wrong/


During a White House press briefing on Thursday, president Donald Trump floated the idea of injecting disinfectant or using ultraviolet or "very powerful" light inside the body as a coronavirus remedy. Disinfectants are toxic chemicals that are poisonous to the human body and should not be injected. Similarly, ultraviolet light contains energy powerful enough to damage DNA.

"I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute," said Trump, turning to Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator in the White House task force and Bill Bryan, head of the science and technology directorate at the Department of Homeland Security. "Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?" he asked.

Both claims were immediately criticized by doctors and physicians.

by: Caroline Kelly, CNN
Posted: Apr 21, 2020 / 03:30 PM PDT / Updated: Apr 21, 2020 / 03:30 PM PDT


WASHINGTON (CNN) — A second coronavirus outbreak could emerge this winter in conjunction with the flu season to make for an even more dire health crisis, the director of the Centers for Disease Control told The Washington Post in an interview.

"There's a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through," CDC Director Robert Redfield said in a story published Tuesday. "And when I've said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don't understand what I mean."

"We're going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time," he added, predicting a dual assault on the health care system. The current flu season, which began September 29, is projected to be one of the worst in a decade, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

His comments come as several governors look to partially reopen their states' economies by loosening some restrictions aimed at limiting the spread of the virus — despite concerns of subsequent increases in coronavirus cases.

Trump Boasts He Likely Saved 'Billions' Of Lives In A Nation With 330 Million People
Mary Papenfuss
HuffPost
April 19, 2020, 11:57 AM GMT+6





President Donald Trump busted his boastful exaggeration record Saturday when he claimed he likely saved "billions" of lives with his measures against COVID-19. The entire population of the U.S. is just 330 million.

Trump claimed Monday he saved "tens of thousands" or possibly "hundreds of thousands" of lives because in late January he restricted foreign nationals from entering the country if they had been in China the previous two weeks. The restrictions did not apply to Americans, however, allowing a conduit for the disease to enter the U.S.

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream

China's 'success' in stopping pandemic a 'sheer fabrication,' says US China expert
Real enemy is not the new coronavirus, but the Chinese Communist Party, warns author of 'Bully of Asia'

By: Lito B. Zulueta     Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:02 AM March 30, 2020





The recent claims of the Communist Party of China (CPC) of "success" and "zero domestic transmissions" in the fight against the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are "propaganda" and "sheer fabrication," according to American China expert and author Steven W. Mosher.

"It is sheer fabrication, no sturdier than the shoddy warehouses that were put up in a week to house the victims of the Wuhan virus," wrote Mosher in an article on the website of the Population Research Institute, which he heads (pop.org).

Lockdown, what lockdown? Sweden's unusual response to coronavirus
By Maddy Savage
Stockholm
2 hours ago
https://www.bbc.com/


While swathes of Europe's population endure lockdown conditions in the face of the coronavirus outbreak, one country stands almost alone in allowing life to go on much closer to normal.

After a long winter, it's just become warm enough to sit outside in the Swedish capital and people are making the most of it.

Families are tucking into ice creams beneath a giant statue of the Viking God Thor in Mariatorget square. Young people are enjoying happy-hour bubbles from pavement seating further down the street.

Elsewhere in the city, nightclubs have been open this week, but gatherings for more than 50 people will be banned from Sunday.

Compare that to neighbouring Denmark, which has restricted meetings to 10 people, or the UK where you're no longer supposed to meet anyone outside your household.

The inspiration...

Trump again defends use of the term 'China virus'
By Maegan Vazquez and Betsy Klein, CNN
Updated 2210 GMT (0610 HKT) March 18, 2020


(CNN)President Donald Trump was pressed for the second straight day on why he is calling the coronavirus the "Chinese virus," amid instances of bigotry against Asian Americans.

After consulting with medical experts, and receiving guidance from the World Health Organization, CNN has determined that that name is both inaccurate and is considered stigmatizing.

Trump claimed that he is using the term because China tried to blame the virus on US soldiers.

" 'Cause it comes from China. It's not racist at all, no, not at all. It comes from China, that's why. I want to be accurate," Trump said on Wednesday.

Ellen ScottFriday 3 Jan 2020 10:31 am
https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/03/dry-january-health-benefits-see-ditching-alcohol-week-week-11994992/



It's easy to think of Dry January – a time when people give up alcohol for a month – as something that can't make a real difference to your wellbeing. It's just a month, after all. How much can change? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Taking a month off from alcohol poses major benefits for your wellbeing, even if you don't plan to keep up your sobriety once the month is done. In fact, you can see benefits just a week into the challenge. Here's the good you're doing by committing to Dry January, week by week.

Soleimani is no anti-imperialist hero
And Trump's reckless decision to assassinate him will not result in 'World War III'.



by Malak Chabkoun
https://www.aljazeera.com/



Anti-war protesters gather near the White House to condemn the US air strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, in Washington, on January 4, 2020 [Reuters/Jan Wolfe]


Immediately after news broke of the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, some leftist circles in the West proclaimed with great confidence - yet again - that World War III is around the corner. Previously, these same warnings of global doom were evoked when US President Donald Trump ordered rather toothless strikes on empty military targets in Syria and escalated his rhetoric against North Korea's Kim Jong-un.

And just as a world war did not break out on these previous occasions, it will not break out now either.

A priest from Cincinnati, a Philippine village, and decades of secrecy
Tim Sullivan, Associated Press
Published 7:55 a.m. ET Sept. 9, 2019



In this Feb. 19, 2019 photo, Philippine National Police, National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) agents escort Catholic priest Father Pius Hendricks to be served five additional arrest warrants at the Regional Special Operations Unit at Camp Bagong Diwa in suburban Taguig, east of Manila, Philippines. Investigators say about 20 boys and men, one as young as 7, have accused the priest of sexual abuse at his parish in Talustosan village, Naval township, Biliran province in central Philippines. (AP Photo) (Photo: AP)


TALUSTUSAN, Philippines  — The American priest's voice echoed over the phone line.

"Happy days are gone," he said in the 2018 call, recorded by a young man whose accusations would shake this little island village and reveal how allegations of sex crimes by priests are still ignored, sometimes for decades, in one of the world's most Catholic countries. "It's all over."

Forgotten Genocide: How a Quarter of Europe's Roma Were Murdered by the Nazis, then Erased From History

Documents that have surfaced in an exhibition in London show how the world turned its back on half a million Roma victims of Hitler's Holocaust.


Nico Hines
London Editor
Published Nov. 17, 2019 5:18AM ET





LONDON—It's impossible to fathom the scale of the depravity. An eyewitness account by a Holocaust survivor—unearthed for a new exhibition in London—describes the conditions in the "gypsy" section of Auschwitz as even more inhumane than the rest of the appalling facility.

"The conditions were worse than in the other camps," wrote eyewitness Hermann Langbein in 1945. "The route between the huts was ankle deep in mud and dirt. The gypsies were still wearing the clothes that they had been given upon arrival... footwear was missing... The latrines were built in such a way that they were practically unusable for the gypsy children. The infirmary was a pathetic sight."

by Vince Rizzo
May 31, 2017





The question is asked precisely to raise eyebrows, but is it true? Many Americans feel that, although Mr. Trump has been elected President, his actions to date are more indicative of a foreign agent having taken over the Office of Presidency shared previously by patriots like Washington, Lincoln and the Roosevelts. Migrating into this group of Trump detractors are some who actually voted for and supported his ascendancy. Treason and its instrument, the traitor, are best identified in context. To King George, for example, the colonial uprising leading to our nation's founding was an act of treason and its leaders, traitors.

Nyahaha...

 



Imelda Marcos Is Here to Teach Us How Wannabe Autocrats Like Trump Really Think

Nico Hines,The Daily Beast 23 hours ago



Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty


LONDON—At the 80th birthday party of comedian Joey Adams in the ballroom of an upmarket hotel overlooking Central Park in 1991, Donald Trump and Imelda Marcos sat side by side; two vulgar icons of '80s greed and ambition.

Imelda and her husband Ferdinand Marcos had been ousted from power five years earlier by a popular uprising in the Philippines where people had grown sick of their corruption and brutality. Trump was a loud-mouthed but ultimately powerless New York real estate mogul.

By DAVID FEAR
https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-kingmaker-movie-review-imelda-marcos-doc-899778/



Imelda Marcos, the subject of Lauren Greenfield's documentary 'The Kingmaker.'
Lauren Greenfield