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Voltaire2

Voltaire2's Journal
Voltaire2's Journal
November 18, 2019

Head of Vatican financial regulator leaves job weeks after police raids


The Vatican said on Monday the head of its financial regulator would leave, weeks after unprecedented police raids on his organization and another key arm of the Catholic Church’s bureaucracy.

Rene Bruelhart, a 47-year-old Swiss lawyer, told Reuters he had resigned from the top job at the Financial Information Authority (AIF), but did not go into further detail.

Vatican police entered the offices of the AIF and of the Secretariat of State - the administrative heart of the Catholic Church - on Oct. 1, as part of an investigation into an investment the Secretariat hade made in London real estate.

The officers, operating under a search warrant secured by the Vatican’s own prosecutor, seized documents and computers.



Surprisingly enough, this scandal at the vatican is not about child abuse.
November 5, 2019

Its EXTORTION. "Quid pro quo" is deliberately obscure and confusing framing.

This is "enhanced interrogation" all over again. The word has gone out to not refer to what the Trump administration was doing to the government of Ukraine as extortion. but instead to use the somewhat obscure latin phrase quid pro quo.

Fuck that nonsense.

November 4, 2019

How One Employer Stuck a New Mom With a $898,984 Bill for Her Premature Baby

This is the crap system some of our candidates are defending.


Dignity Health said its employee, an ER nurse, failed to meet the deadline to add her premature newborn to its health plan, so she was responsible for the medical bills. It rejected her appeals for a year until ProPublica called.

Lauren Bard opened the hospital bill this month and her body went numb. In bold block letters it said, “AMOUNT DUE: $898,984.57.”

Last fall, Bard’s daughter, Sadie, had arrived about three months prematurely; and as a nurse herself, Bard knew the costs for Sadie’s care would be high. But she’d assumed the bulk would be covered by the organization that owned the hospital where she worked: Dignity Health, whose marketing motto is “Hello humankindness.”


https://www.propublica.org/article/how-one-employer-stuck-a-new-mom-with-a-bill-for-her-premature-baby
October 29, 2019

Sanders leads, Biden slumps in N.H. poll

Elizabeth Warren was in second place, while Pete Buttigieg was fourth and clinched a ticket to the POLITICO/PBS NewsHour debate in December


DURHAM, N.H. — Former Vice President Joe Biden suffered a precipitous drop in the latest New Hampshire poll, falling to the lowest point his campaign has seen this election, while Sen. Bernie Sanders recaptured his first-place spot narrowly over Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Sanders was the first choice of 21 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 18 percent, Biden at 15 percent and South Bend (Ind.) Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 10 percent, according to the Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire and co-sponsored by CNN.

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/29/bernie-sanders-joe-biden-new-hampshire-poll-061068
October 27, 2019

Biden Faces Fundraising Woes as Buttigieg Appears to be Snatching Up Some of His Donors


Even though polls largely show that Biden continues to be in the lead, the apparent limit for Biden to appeal to big donors and his failure to light a fire among small-money donors “has served as a flashing warning sign about the potential limits of his appeal,” notes the Times. Where are all the would-be donors? Maybe with Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The host of a recent fundraiser for Buttigieg claimed that the crowd was filled with “a lot of those people you would have thought would be Biden people. And they weren’t.” Many of those who were there had an overwhelming feeling that “Biden has already lost,” according to the Bradley Tusk, who was manager of Michael Bloomberg’s reelection campaign for mayor of New York City.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/biden-faces-fundraising-woes-super-pac-cash-on-hand.html

October 25, 2019

Bernie Sanders wants to pile $50 billion from legal marijuana tax revenue into business grants


Bernie Sanders releases a plan to legalize marijuana nationwide, expunge certain marijuana convictions and invest in grants to boost communities disproportionately affected by current drug laws.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/24/bernie-sanders-unveils-legal-marijuana-plan-in-2020-democratic-primary.html

Actual proposals to address the damage that the war on drugs has inflicted disproportionately on African American communities.

October 23, 2019

Yang and Sestak at our local NH town dem fall dinner

One of the advantages of living in a small new hampshire town is that come primary season you get presidential candidates showing up for all sorts of minor occasions. As Yang pointed out, due to our unusual circumstances one New Hampshire voter is equivalent to about 1000 California voters. Back when the primary was in early march, I used to joke that you could get the flock of hopefuls to rake the snow off your roof for votes.

Last night we had Andrew Yang and Joe Sestak (who I hadn't even heard of) at our Democratic Fall Bash. Earlier we've had Sanders and Warren in town too.

Andrew Yang might just be the smartest candidate out there. I know he's been dismissed as a Silicon Valley flake, but he is actually operating on a different level than all the other candidates. No doubt his candidacy won't survive past February, but whoever our nominee is, when they win the White House, they should bring Yang into the cabinet and seriously listen to what he is talking about.

Sestak is in the 'also running' gang of nobodies. He has an impressive resume as a career naval officer, and a personal story filled with tragedy (a daughter with brain cancer). I'm glad we offered him dinner and a spot at the podium.

We have a lot of really good candidates. We should keep that in perspective. Whoever wins, the fight is to remove Trump, to take back the Senate, to increase our hold on the House, and to put Democrats back in control of more of our states.

September 4, 2019

Biden campaign says Iowa is not a must-win state


Joe Biden’s campaign on Tuesday said Iowa is not a must-win state on the former vice president’s path to the Democratic presidential nomination and signaled that the campaign is already “ramping up” its Super Tuesday efforts.
...
Still, the campaign downplayed expectations in first-in-the-nation Iowa as well as in the first primary state, New Hampshire, which borders the home states of Warren and Sanders.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/03/joe-biden-iowa-super-tuesday-1479854


Odd.
August 29, 2019

FYI: posting idiocy from RNS is frequently a Real Bad Idea.

You might want to:

a) do a slow read of the entire article.
b) google the author and screen for rightwing christian fascism
c) think twice post once.

On the other hand there is always self-delete when shit hits the fan.

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