Minnesota State Senator Being Investigated by Board of Medical Practice over COVID-19 Comments
July 9th, 2020Via: Star Tribune:
State Sen. Scott Jensen, a physician and Republican from Chaska, said Sunday that he is being investigated by the Minnesota State Board of Medical Practice for public statements he’s made about COVID-19.
Jensen criticized the state Department of Health in April for following federal guidance stipulating when doctors should characterize deaths as due to COVID-19. He said he feared that the death toll might be inflated if each state’s allocation of federal funds depended on the number of COVID-19 deaths.
His comments, made in a series of interviews with TV personalities from North Dakota to Fox News in New York, went viral. Some charged they fueled conspiracy theories and disinformation about the coronavirus. He told the Star Tribune in April that he felt his words were taken out of context.
Trump Has Begun to Withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization
July 9th, 2020Hmm. Not sure what to make of this. This might seem like a positive development, but Trump’s COVID 19 vaccine push and involvement of the military for distribution are serious red flags.
Via: USA Today:
The Trump administration has officially begun to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to grip the globe and infections spike in many states across the U.S.
Congress received formal notification of the decision on Tuesday, more than a month after President Donald Trump announced his intention to end the U.S. relationship with the WHO and blasted the multilateral institution as a tool of China. The White House said the withdrawal would take effect on July 6, 2021.
Economic Relief for Billionaires, Crooks of Every Description
July 7th, 2020Via: AFP:
A centerpiece of US President Donald Trump’s economic relief program was under renewed scrutiny Tuesday following revelations it aided white-shoe lobbying firms and businesses linked to Kanye West and other billionaires.
Besides West’s Yeezy brand and law firms connected to famed trial lawyer David Boies and Trump defense attorney Marc Kasowitz, recipients of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans included the PF Chang’s restaurant chain and businesses linked to several members of Congress, according to US media reports.
The controversy is the latest to befall the PPP, which was launched in April as a key job-saving program in the immediate wake of coronavirus shutdowns that shuttered countless businesses and led to tens of millions of layoffs.
The program provides forgivable loans to coronavirus-impacted small businesses to cover employee salaries and some expenses.
Architects of the program at the US Treasury Department and Small Business Administration emphasized the need to make money immediately available to embattled companies.
That led to heavy criticism after large, publicly traded firms such as Ruth’s Chris steakhouse snagged loans from the program, which had been pitched as a savior for mom-and-pop businesses.
The Treasury Department subsequently tightened the rules to exclude larger companies with access to funds from public markets.
The Trump administration defended the program Monday as it released identifying data on firms accounting for about 75 percent of the more than $520 billion lent so far. The administration had resisted releasing the information, but relented following bipartisan calls for transparency.
“The PPP is providing much-needed relief to millions of American small businesses, supporting more than 51 million jobs and over 80 percent of all small business employees, who are the drivers of economic growth in our country,” US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.
– ‘Limited safeguards’ –
But the latest revelations seem certain to amplify questions about how the program has been administered.
The recipients include the Church of Scientology, various businesses connected to the family of Jared Kushner, a White House advisor and the husband of First Daughter Ivanka Trump, and Foremost Group, a shipping business owned by the family of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to reports in US media.
Also receiving funds were several entities that rent space in buildings belonging to the Trump Organization, as well as a company whose investors include the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who leads the Democratic opposition to Trump in Congress.
“Zhanna” from AllatRa TV
July 7th, 2020A CGI gimmick to promote the videos???
Via: AllatRa TV:
More: “Zhanna” from AllatRa TV continues to display reptilian eyes
Deutsche Bank Hit with $150 Million Penalty for Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
July 7th, 2020Via: CNBC:
New York state financial regulators said Tuesday that they have slapped Deutsche Bank with a $150 million penalty “for significant compliance failures” in the bank’s dealings with accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a now-dead investor, as well as with two client banks.
The New York State Department of Financial Services said that Deutsche Bank, which agreed to the payment under a consent order, “failed to properly monitor account activity conducted on behalf of the registered sex offender despite ample” public information about Mr. Epstein’s earlier criminal misconduct.
…
The Financial Services Department said that because of the bank’s oversight failure with Epstein, the “bank processed hundreds of transactions totaling millions of dollars that, at the very least, should have prompted additional scrutiny in light of Mr. Epstein’s history.”
Those transactions include payments to people who were publicly alleged to have been Epstein’s co-conspirators in sexually abusing young women, and settlements totaling more than $7 million and payments to law firms of more than $6 million “for what appear to have been the legal expenses of Mr. Epstein and his co-conspirators,” the department said.
Other payments were made “to Russian models, payments for women’s school tuition, hotel and rent expenses, and (consistent with public allegations of prior wrongdoing) payments directly to numerous women with Eastern European surnames,” according to the department.
Also noted were Epstein’s “periodic suspicious cash withdrawals — in total, more than $800,000 over approximately four years,” the department said.
New York City Suffers Highest Number Of June Shootings In Over 20 Years
July 7th, 2020Via: New York Post:
Gun violence exploded across the city after the NYPD disbanded its anti-crime unit of plainclothes cops on June 15, with three times as many shootings in the last two weeks of the month over the same period in 2019, police stats show.
And the shocking rise in gunfire — to 116 incidents from 38 between June 15 and July 2, a 205 percent increase — meant scores more victims were hurt or killed by bullets this year over last year.
Gunshot injuries skyrocketed to 157 from 47 in 2019, a 238 percent increase.
With a total of 205 shootings during the month, it was the bloodiest June in 24 years — going back to 1996, when the NYPD logged 236 incidents, the department said.
More:
Man shot dead in Bronx while walking with 6-year-old daughter
Disturbing video shows moment two men are fatally shot in the Bronx
Open Seeds: Biopiracy and the Patenting of Life
July 7th, 2020This is from 2012. It will be old, sad news for many of you, but it’s worth a look if you are new to the topic.
Via: Corbett Report Extras:
The Cost of AI Training is Improving at 50x the Speed of Moore’s Law
July 5th, 2020Via: Arc Invest:
The cost to train an artificial intelligence (AI) system is improving at 50x the pace of Moore’s Law. For many use cases, the cost to run an AI inference system has collapsed to almost nil. After just five years of development, deep learning – the modern incarnation of AI – seems to have reached a tipping point in both cost and performance, paving the way for widespread adoption over the next decade.
During the past ten years, the computing resources devoted to AI training models have exploded. After doubling every two years from 1960 to 2010, AI compute complexity has soared 10x every year, as shown below.
Judge Rules Virginia Giuffre’s Lawyers Must ‘Destroy’ Jeffrey Epstein Files
July 5th, 2020Via: Newsweek:
Attorneys for Virginia Giuffre, who publicly accused Jeffrey Epstein of sex trafficking, must destroy files they obtained on Epstein after a Wednesday ruling by a federal judge.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking. Allegedly, Epstein procured women to have sexual relations with high-profile individuals, such as Prince Andrew. Information about Epstein, culled from a 2015 civil suit filed against Epstein by Giuffre, allegedly contained the names of individuals with whom Epstein had conducted business.
Senior U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled Wednesday that Giuffre’s lawyers had come into possession of the documents improperly, noting that the protective order could only be enforced during the civil lawsuit proceedings which had already been settled. Preska wrote that all the materials in the files “shall be destroyed.”
Preska also requested proof that the documentation had been destroyed. “Counsel shall submit an affidavit detailing the steps taken to do so,” Preska’s ruling added.
“On America’s Birthday, Celebrate The Corporate-Sponsored Revolution”
July 5th, 2020Via: ZeroHedge:
It’s the Fourth of July, and revolution is in the air. Only in America would it look like this: an elite-sponsored Maoist revolt, couched as a Black liberation movement whose canonical texts are a corporate consultant’s white guilt self-help manual, and a New York Times series rewriting history to explain an election they called wrong.
