THE SUPREMES

The Supreme Court rendered a decision on Monday 6/15 which gave LGBTQ individuals the same rights as anyone else.  It ruled that the civil Rights Act is applicable to individuals that have any sexual orientation or gender identity.  The Court affirmed that LGBTQ communities had their rights under 1964 Civil Rights Act Title 7. The suit was brought on by someone that discriminated against and fired an individual after finding out they were gay.

The 6-3 decision was considered odd in that conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch appointed by Trump wrote the majority opinion.  The Chief Justice John Roberts was the other conservative judge that sided with the liberals.  Gorsuch was moved to side with LGBTQ by the language in the 1964 Act that affirmed that gender could not be used to discriminate in employment.  He said of the community, gender is at the base of each of the categories and you could not separate any of the groups without a reference to their gender.

The Trump administration was also rebuked by the justices, not hearing and deferring to the lower court decision on sanctuary cities.  The lower court ruled that the police are not required to inform ICE when releasing any illegal immigrant.  This means Trump cannot withhold funds to cities based on their stated sanctuary city status.  This lets California’s Sanctuary city law stand.

TRANSPARANCY-WHY NOT?

Trump’s corps of sycophantic department heads and advisors have devised a plan to withhold information from the public that could shed some light on who and how much Trump and his base are benefiting from the dole out known as PPP. 

Steve Mnuchin Treasury Secretary said the information on recipients was “proprietary information” which is nothing but a stall.  The PPP application forms state that the information provided will be made to the general public and is subject to a FOYA (Freedom of Information act) request. So why the secrecy? Are there some questionable distributions to large corporations with a myriad of assets?  Is the Treasury embarrassed as to where the taxpayer money went? 

Is this just a distraction from the other 6 trillion dollars the Fed is printing and giving to large corporations, purchasing bonds of companies.  Most large corporations are multinational and some have a foreign origin?  Everyone should know the Treasury and Fed actions are not only unprecedented, but will ultimately result in a serious degrading of not only our economy, but that of money markets through the world.  According to Market Watch “foreigners currently own about 25% of outstanding corporate bonds, 15% of American stocks and 12% of agency securities (a category that includes mortgage-backed debt)”.  Is taxpayer money going to foreigners?  Or at least to the benefit of foreigners that have a stake in companies traded?

Picking winners and losers with taxpayer money should have some common sense associated with the effort.  One reason this action is bad is it’s the last resort tool for the Fed and the Treasury Department and it will ultimately result in hyper-inflation with the dollar being useless.

The grants, loans, and bond purchases of debt is using magical thinking again to wish the outcome gives everyone false hope…and it’s working.  The vaccine is the magic, however, honest medicine does not yield to politics.  The purchase of corporate paper has never been done in the 100-year history of the Fed.  So why now?  The loan interest rate is as low as it can get without hitting zero and that particular arrow in its quiver, has been spent.  Everyone thought the action of lowering the rate was the last tool, but not under this administration.  Economists all had agreed that that was the error they had made in 2018. When the economy was good, Trump insisted on lowering them further, thus no tools available.

Unless you are in an election year and want to feed the corporate donors meat, so they can contribute to his re-election, hide the recipients until after the election using the virus as an excuse why they cannot release the data.  If the vaccine does not come to pass, there will be a second wave of the virus, killing an additional 100,000 soles, and the magical thinking will end next year, with a depression and useless currency.

Let’s all be happy, since Larry Kudlow said it doesn’t matter if the vaccine is not available because the virus will disappear.  Is this in preparation for the reality show ending without a vaccine and printed money used for toilet paper and clogging the sewers next year?  What is he trying to do, soften the impact of no vaccine as promised by the fall?  He did say he has talked to doctors, and yes eventually the virus will go away. Eventually. And at what public health cost?

TESTING CAUSES THE VIRUS

In a phone call to Republican governors, Mike Pence urged them to push the narrative that the added testing is causing the spike in cases and that it is totally safe to open the economy.  The problem is this- eventually with added tests, there should be a corresponding reduction in cases if the virus is diminishing within the general population. The increase in percent of new cases outstrips the percent of new testing thus a problem. 

Unfortunately the virus does not take orders or speak English. The President has said if  testing stops, we would have little or no cases.  It’s like if there was no testing there would be no virus?  This administration is all about optics, not substance and is playing politics with the public’s health.  The action of this administration only enhances the chances of a second wave of the virus. 

Instead of providing a singular message on what to do about protection from the virus, the CDC says one thing and the message from the White House is, there is no problem and not to worry about masks or social distancing.  The mixed messages and no singular uniform national message, along with the premature opening of the economy and summer travel, the prospects for the 2nd wave of the virus by the end of the summer is grim. 200,000 deaths by the end of September is looking more and more realistic.  Virus deaths are closing in on 120,000 in 3 ½ months.  Good job Trump! We’re No. 1 over 26% of the world’s total deaths and only 4.5% of the world’s population!

HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE NEWS

The CDC has finally given up on Hydroxychloroquine having any effective prophylactic effect on the Coronavirus and is withdrawing the emergency authorization for its use. The FDA advisor said the medication does not work for treating COVID-19 and has serious side effects.  The risk of taking the medication far outweighs the benefit.   The CDC study also found it had no effect on duration or any other effective use in fighting the virus.  Trump’s magic is found out to be snake oil.

FDA advisor Stephen Nissen, a Cleveland Clinic researcher said the drug should have never been granted emergency access in the first place and said “There has never been any high-quality evidence that suggests Hydroxychloroquine is effective” for treating or preventing coronavirus infection, however there are serious side effects.

Trump should quit the magical thinking and quit talking to the doctors from Trump University, of whom he is obviously listening to.