Researchers found that Covid vaccines reduced the risk of emergency room and urgent care visits by 56% to 76%. It comes as some federal health officials have sowed doubt in the shots. read more
Germany accused Russia of repeated hostile actions, including acts of sabotage, cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns aimed at influencing elections.
Federal tax prosecutions fell to their lowest level in decades this year, declining more than 27% from the year before as the Trump administration cut the ranks of attorneys and agents who pursue those cases, a Reuters examination has found. read more
A sharply divided Federal Reserve cut interest rates on Wednesday but signaled borrowing costs are unlikely to drop further in the near term as it awaits clarity on the direction of a job market showing signs of softening, inflation that "remains somewhat elevated" and an economy it sees picking up steam next year. read more
NASA has officially lost contact with a spacecraft that has been orbiting Mars since 2014. read more
Camper Van Beethoven - Good Guys and Bad Guys (1986)
www.youtube.com
Lyrics excerpt ...
...
[Verse 1]
Well, there are good guys and there are bad guys
And there are crooks and criminals
There are doctors and there are lawyers
And there are folks like you and me
[Chorus]
So let's get high while the radio's on
Just relax and sing a song
Drive your car up on the lawn
Let me play your guitar
[Verse 2]
Well, this here verse is for the people in Russia
Though it is a long long ways away
They couldn't hear this song in Russia
But couldn't understand the words anyway
[Chorus]
So let's get high while the radio's on
Just relax and sing a song
Drive your car up on the lawn
Let me play your guitar
[Verse 3]
So just be glad you live in America
Just relax and be yourself
Cuz if you didn't live here in America
You'd probably live somewhere else
...
:)
Camper Van Beethoven, a fun group.
Soup Dragons - Pleasure (1992)
www.youtube.com
Lyrics excerpt ...
...
[Verse 1]
Take it to the limit
Live it to the full
Everybody's got to get some
Everybody wants you
So keep on driving higher
And never slow down
A silver sensation
That sends you around
[Chorus]
Everybody needs somebody else
'Cause we all need to get
A little bit of some pleasure
And everybody wants somebody else
'Cause we all need to get
A little bit of some pleasure
...
... and ...
Paul Manafort Was Deep in Debt. He Saw an Opportunity in Trump. (2018)
www.nytimes.com
... Paul Manafort's services did not come cheap. His consulting work helped prop up foreign strongmen, who in turn kept him in $12,000 bespoke suits from Beverly Hills.
But by 2016, Mr. Manafort was broke. His longtime cash cow, the Ukrainian president Viktor F. Yanukovych, was out of office, living in exile. Mr. Manafort had $1 million in clothing debt alone, his business was hemorrhaging money and he was angling for bank loans to stay afloat.
He was in such bad shape that one of his accountants, Cynthia Laporta, who testified on Friday at Mr. Manafort's fraud trial, said she had agreed in 2015 to fraudulently lower his reported income on a tax return because she had been told he was unable to pay what he owed. She saved him about a half-million dollars in taxes.
The problems did not go away by 2016, so it was a peculiar time to volunteer his services to the Trump campaign. "I am not looking for a paid job," Mr. Manafort wrote in a memo proposing he help Donald J. Trump secure the Republican nomination for president. ...
Mr. Manafort's lawyers say he almost certainly would not have faced charges if not for his brief, unpaid stint with the Trump campaign. ...
@#10 ... If a presidential candidate chooses a russian asset as their campaign manager ...
Paul Manafort?
Russian charged with Trump's ex-campaign chief was key figure in pro-Russia strategy (2018)
www.cnbc.com
... Kilimnik -- who special counsel Robert Mueller believes is currently in Russia and has ties to Russian intelligence -- helped formulate Manafort's pitches to clients in Russia and Ukraine, according to the records. Among Manafort's clients were Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and other mega-wealthy Russians with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. ...
Deripaska has denied hiring Manafort for any pro-Russian political work, and unsuccessfully sued the AP last year over reporting that he had paid Manafort more than $10 million to influence political decisions and news coverage in Eastern Europe and Western capitals. Manafort also denied to the AP last year that he had performed political work for Deripaska.
A new filing by the U.S. government in Manafort's court cases showed that Manafort acknowledged that work in a 2014 FBI interview, and files seized by the FBI showed that Deripaska was the source of a $10 million loan to a Manafort-controlled company in 2010. ...
@#3 ... The Fed is slow to lower rates because they feel the economy doesn't need stimulus. ...
The Fed has two mandates regarding rates:
1) inflation
2) strong job market
Currently, those two mandates seem to be at odds.
Along those lines, as Fed Chairman Powell stated ...
Fed Meeting Today: Central Bankers Can't 'Do Two Things At Once,' Powell Said
www.investopedia.com
... "A very large number of participants agree that risks are to the upside for unemployment and to the upside for inflation, so what do you do?" Powell said. "You've got one tool. You can't do two things at once." ...
Meanwhile, Pres Trump wants the Fed to lower interests significantly so the budget-busting aspects of the Trump deficit (caused by his billionaire tax-cuts) will matter less.
@#5
Good viewpoint.