Monthly Archives: July 2020

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the federal government in conjunction with the nations privately-owned central bank the Federal Reserve System has flooded our economy with trillions of dollars in new liquidity to cushion the American people from the fallout from the completely unnecessary economic lockdown. The question we face is whether the roughly $7 trillion in bailout and stimulus funds in the CARES Act and in the Feds unprecedented money-printing will actually spur a rebirth of commercial activity or lead to another decade of slow or non-existent growth.

The last time we tried a massive stimulus effort launched by Washington we got the $700 billion TARP bailout of the big Wall Street banks by the outgoing Bush Administration in 2008. That wholly unjustified food stamps for the rich scheme was loudly opposed by constitutional conservatives such as Congressman Ron Paul and helped launch the Tea Party movement. Why should the very banks that were responsible for the irresponsible lending policies that caused the subprime mortgage collapse get their irresponsibility rewarded by the U.S. taxpayer? The incoming Obama Administration followed with an $800 billion shovel-ready stimulus plan that wound up sending money to congressional districts that did not exist and to bankrupt companies like the infamous Solyndra.

In addition, the Federal Reserve under Ben Bernake began a process of money-printing called Quantitative Easing which meant buying up mortgage-backed securities, Treasury notes and other paper assets. Between 2009 and 2014, the Fed pumped $3.7 trillion into the banking system and slashed interest rates to almost zero. The result of this $5 trillion so-called investment directed by government planners? The slowest economic growth in decades and the worst recovery from a recession in the post-World War II era while the National Debt doubled between 2007 and 2015.

The Bush-Obama money-printing rampage was reminiscent of Franklin D. Roosevelts clumsy efforts to end the Great Depression in the 1930s. Following and greatly expanding on the course laid down by his predecessor Herbert Hoover, FDR tried to cure the Depression by raising taxes, massively increasing spending on phony, dead-end public works projects, paying farmers to destroy their crops amidst widespread hunger, regulating private industry in a Mussolini-like fashion, and empowering labor unions to cripple the nation with strikes. The result was no end to the Depression but another mini-Depression in 1937-38. Unemployment was almost as high as when he took office five years before. In fact, the United States had the slowest and most drawn-out recovery from the Depression than any other industrialized nation.

The Federal Reserve didnt help either, by continuing to contract the money supply during this period of unparalleled economic despair. Most free-market economists agree that had Hoover and Roosevelt maintained a sound gold-based dollar, reduced spending and cut taxes instead of increasing them, the Depression would have been more like the 1920-21 downturn, sharp but short with a highly prosperous decade following it.

With COVID-19, we see that the politicians and central bankers in Washington, D.C. have learned nothing from history. They have no solution to any problem other than to spend and print money and increase debt. With the cost of the so-called CARES Act clocking in at $1.8 trillion, it is twice as expensive as the Obama plan and represents over half of all federal revenues in 2019.

In addition, the Federal Reserve again slashed interest rates to zero, eliminated bank reserve requirements and embarked on another QE of up to $125 billion daily. Yes, boys and girls, you heard that right, daily. We also face the ever-present danger of runaway inflation as all that new unbacked paper money injected into the economy will likely cause rising prices at some point or another. Will we wind up like Venezuela? Probably not, but it wont be pleasant either.

Wealth is not created by a federal program or a federal handout. Government has never created wealth anywhere at any time. Nor does wealth roll off a printing press or a computer entry in the banking system. Wealth is created by investment and work, by millions of producers and consumers utilizing the kind of stable money and honest pricing system only the free market can ensure.

Its time that the course of nearly a century of wealth redistribution and funny money creation by our power elites be brought to an end before the American Dream is permanently lost to our children and grandchildren.

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Government action can't save the economy | Guest - The Trinity Journal

Drone targeting footage, Afghanistan. Photo: USAF.

I hear it all the time. The most crucial decision of this century was the vote to go to war against Iraq. Its meant to serve as a political line of demarcation, a sure-fire way to determine which politicians, celebrities and news personalities you can trust.

But theres little question, to my mind at least, that the impulsive decision to invade Afghanistan was the more consequential and enduring tragedy, a political bloodletting that nearly every political leader, left and right, fell for, even putative peaceniks like Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul. This was the true moral test of our time and almost everyone failed, except Barbara Lee. She was the lone voice of conscience in the fall of 2001, a vote of dissent in a time of mass hysteria that has been vindicated time and again over the past 18 years.

Remember, the vote to go to war against Afghanistan, enacted only seven days after the 9/11 attacks, was actually a vote for an open-ended war waged against nebulous terrorists anywhere on the planet: Pakistan, Niger, Yemen, Somalia, Algeria. You name it. No questions asked. It was only Barbara Lee foresaw the consequences, how even a highflying critic of the rush to invade Iraq like Barack Obama could 14-years later use the hastily-written AUMF as a legal basis for launching airstrikes on ISIS forces inside Syria. Now, Donald Trump has claimed the same unilateral authority and used it to justify strikes against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and to justify the assassination of Qasem Suleimani. Its the gift that keeps on killing.

What has the AUMFwrought? More than 18 years after the first US airstrikes hit Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad, the Taliban now control more of Afghanistan than they did on October 6, 2001, the day before a cruise missile strike destroyed Mullah Omars house. Last year was the deadliest year for US troops in Afghanistan since 2014 during Obamas ill-fated surge. The Pentagon has long since stopped tracking the Afghan dead, but Neta Crawford, of Brown Universitys Cost of War Project, estimated that by 2016 more than 111,000 Afghans had been killed in the war, at least 31,000 of them civilians.

Trump has repeatedly boasted about having secret plans in his desk draw to win the Afghanistan war in a week, but it would kill 10 million people. On April 13, 2017, US planes dropped a MOAB bomb on a suspected tunnel complex in Khorasan Province, the most destructive non-nuclear bomb in the Pentagons arsenal. Trump has since implied a willingness to consider using tactical nuclear weapons against Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS positions in Afghanistan.

Because of the Pentagons $1.7 trillion secret slush fund for anti-terror operations, its almost impossible to calculate the total cost of the Afghanistan war to date. At a minimum, the US is spending about $52 billion a year waging war in Afghanistan. But, even as Trump expresses a desire to pullout US troops before the fall elections, this number is likely to rise, as US combat missions and airstrikes in Afghanistan have increased steadily since 2017 with little public debate or justification.

As recently as December 2019, top US military brass have described the war as a strategic stalemate. But its hard to determine precisely what this means since under Trump the Pentagon is no longer producing its district-level stability assessments of Afghan government and insurgent control and influencethe only real metric for judging the progress of the war. These reports, known as the SIGAR assessments, had provided quarterly estimates of the amount of land area and population under Taliban control or influence.

The final SIGAR report, issued in January 2019 before Trump pulled the plug, showed that only 53.4 percent of Afghanistan was under government control or influence, the lowest amount since SIGAR began tracking the data in 2015. The clear message is that 18 years into a war that has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of people, the US is losing, even as one administration after another lies about the reasons we are there and the consequences, political and moral, for staying.

The so-called Afghanistan Papers, an internal review of the conduct of the war by the Inspector Generals Office, reveals that the Pentagon knew the war was hopeless from the earliest days and went to extraordinary lengths to hide this reality from the public and from the politicians who hold the purse-strings. The fraudulent depictions of the war spread virulently across three administrations. As Bob Crowley, a counter-terrorism advisor to CENTCOM during the Obama surge said derisively: Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible.

When revealed in the Washington Post, the story made a splash for a couple of days and then, like every other revelation about the Afghan catastrophe, dissipated from the headlines and from the political debate. The tempo of US airstrikes once again increased. A suicide bomber blew himself up in Charikar at a rally for Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, killing 26 and wounding 42.Trump proclaimed negotiations with the Taliban dead and put a hold on reconstruction funds. US troops were ambushed by the Taliban. A CIA special ops plane was shot down. And the UN reported that US airstrikes had killed 579 civilians and wounded 306 in the last year, an increase of 35 percent over 2018.

Just another few weeks in the war that time forgot.

The Exquisite Corpse Will Drink the New Wine

Booked UpWhat Im listening to this week

Sound GrammarWhat Im listening to this week

ExquisiteMekons(Mekorpse)

Four QuestionsArturo OFarrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra(Zoho)

You Make Me FeelDon Bryant(Fat Possum)

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The War That Time Forgot - CounterPunch.org - CounterPunch

Maine Republicans have about two weeks to choose between three 2nd Congressional District candidates who have spent much of their campaigns praising President Donald Trump but have carved out different areas of interest.

The hopefuls vying to challenge freshman Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden real estate agent Adrienne Bennett of Bangor, former state Sen. Eric Brakey of Auburn and former state Rep. Dale Crafts of Lisbon have all built their race around supporting President Donald Trump, often praising him for a strong economy that faltered due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The candidates have shown up at protests led by conservatives blasting Gov. Janet Mills economic restrictions stemming from the coronavirus. Brakey was the only one who did not support the $2 trillion stimulus package passed by Congress and signed by Trump. That libertarian streak carries over into differences with the others on foreign policy and policing.

Those issues are sure to matter to Republicans who put fiscal issues such as taxes and spending at the top of their list this winter in a Bangor Daily News reader survey on election priorities. Behind that was jobs and the economy and national security. Here are the differences between those candidates, taking those priorities and recent events into account.

Brakey has differentiated himself as more of a libertarian, breaking with Bennett and Crafts on foreign policy and federal spending. Brakey came to Maine in 2012 when he worked on the Republican presidential campaign of Ron Paul. His support for more libertarian candidates continued in 2016, when Brakey chaired Kentucky Sen. Rand Pauls primary campaign before eventually supporting Trump in the general election.

That change in alliance is something his opponents try to hit him on frequently, but Brakey has plenty of views that align himself with the president. He is supportive of Trumps stated goal to pull U.S. troops out of the Middle East. It put him directly at odds with Crafts during a February debate. Crafts said that a retreat would cause economic and international instability.

But Brakey has deviated from his support of the president on the CARES Act, which sent billions of dollars in aid to states and corporations, as well as relief money to small businesses and individuals. The $2 trillion bill drew the ire of Brakey, who has made criticism of government spending and the deficit a central part of his platform.

He told the Sun Journal in March that the bill was paid for by stealing from our retirements with inflation and the futures of our children with debt and that the relief checks sent in the mail wouldnt cover the costs to taxpayers in the long run.

Bennett and Crafts pounced on that stance, saying the bill was critical for Americans to weather the pandemic. While both reiterated their support for the bill during the June 10 debate, Crafts and Bennett agreed that federal spending should be reined in.

The three candidates have vocalized support for police, but Brakey has gone furthest in backing accountability measures. Like most Republicans, the candidates responses to protests over instances of police brutality and racism across the country after the deaths of Black people including George Floyd in Minneapolis have been to indicate support for police.

But they take different approaches to police reform while vocalizing support for law enforcement. During a June 10 NEWS CENTER Maine candidate forum, Bennett called for stakeholders to find common ground and identify problems. She argued that the issue should be approached from a budgeting perspective of needs versus wants.

Crafts took a more general approach, saying some sort of reform should happen when a police officer has had multiple complaints lodged against him, as was the case with Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin who knelt on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes before he died. He also said any industry is going to have bad apples and called activist calls to defund police ludicrous.

Brakey, who did not attend the forum, called Floyds death an unacceptable tragedy in a statement. He said he supports banning no-knock raids and policies that protect rotten apples.

The candidates experiences have shaped the issues they want to tackle in office. The three candidates are different in age and background. Brakey, 31, is a longtime political operative. Bennett, 41, is a former TV reporter best known for her tenure as a spokesperson to former Gov. Paul LePage. Crafts, 61, is a businessman who served four terms in the Legislature and has used a wheelchair since he was paralyzed in a 1983 crash.

Bennett has styled herself an unconventional politician shaped by her poor upbringing in rural Waldo county and having her daughter at a young age. During the Lewiston forum, she indicated interest in transportation and infrastructure policy in Congress.

Brakey has leaned on his time in the Legislature, often pointing to a bill he sponsored that removed concealed carry permit requirements in Maine. He has made personalizing health care a part of his platform, including expanding health savings accounts and putting Medicaid money into them. In February, he said he would seek a role shaping health policy in Congress.

Crafts, meanwhile, has built his platform on his history as a businessman and a legislator, which won him the endorsement of LePage as he announced his candidacy last fall. He has expressed interest in serving on fiscal committees to leverage that experience.

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GOP candidates in Maine's 2nd District praise Trump but still have differences - Bangor Daily News

In the age of snowflakes, trigger warnings, safe spaces and no platforming, it comes as no surprise that a petition is demanding that Loyola University fire a professor regarded as insufficiently woke.

It comes as no surprise either that the object of this campus ire is Walter Block, a leading proponent of the Libertarian theories embraced by the Austrian school of economics.

Block has a knack for propounding those theories in a fashion that might be calculated to stir up controversy.

But he is not under fire this time for any recent pronouncement. Instead, his detractors are citing remarks quoted by The New York Times six years ago. Block filed a federal lawsuit claiming those quotes were taken out of context with libelous effect, which District Judge Ivan Lemelle, of New Orleans, rejected but the Court of Appeals reinstated. The case was never argued, and the parties eventually settled with no public admission of fault by the Times.

Loyola's then-President, the Rev. Kevin Wildes, however declared he would give Block a failing grade after 17 faculty members averred in a letter to the campus newspaper, The Maroon, that the university should take the long overdue and necessary steps to condemn and censure Block. His fellow faculty members were no doubt sorry that, as the occupant of an endowed chair in the economics department, he could not be banished from the academy.

The hundreds of students demanding Block's dismissal cannot have grasped the concept of tenure, else they would have figured they were wasting their time. And had they valued the academic freedom that tenure safeguards, they might have viewed exposure to unorthodox views as a benefit of higher education.

Current Loyola President Tania Tetlow was left to explain at a town hall the folly of wanting to only be taught by people with whom we agree. Pedants should note that not everyone agrees that split infinitives are a crime.

The petition, in fact, did concede that different opinions should be tolerated, but it maintained that such liberality should not extend to the racist and sexist beliefs which Block has allegedly promulgated. So a difference of opinion is fine so long as it is not about anything important.

Former students of Block responded with a petition of their own calling on Loyola to give Block a raise and repudiating the allegations of racism and sexism.

Such accusations had been leveled even before The New York Times interviewed Block in 2014 about the presidential aspirations of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, of Kentucky. Paul's father, former Congressman Ron Paul, had also been a long-shot presidential candidate as a leading light of the Libertarians, so Block was asked to explain what made them tick.

The reporters must have hoped Block would give them some incendiary quotes, for he had already created a considerable stir by averring, in a lecture delivered at Loyola University in Baltimore, that White men get paid more because they are more productive than women or black men.

Block has said his research shows that there is no pay gap between men and single women; only when motherhood and domestic arrangements intrude does a discrepancy arise. As for the racial divide, Block endorses no explanation, but lists IQ differences among the possibilities. That was clearly asking for trouble.

He did not disappoint The New York Times reporters when they contacted him. In expounding the Libertarian belief that freedom of association is of paramount importance, he opined that its lack was the major problem with slavery, which otherwise wasn't so bad. You could pick cotton, sing songs, be fed nice gruel etc.

He added that Woolworth's right to free association was violated, to a much smaller degree, with the requirement to serve Black customers at its lunch counters.

The appeals court, in reviving the lawsuit, wrote that a jury might conclude that the decontextualized quotation in the newspaper, falsely portrayed (Block) as communicating that chattel slavery itself was not problematic, That would be a bizarre opinion for a Libertarian to hold, but the responsibility for any misunderstanding must rest largely with Block and his evident fondness for provoking those he regards politically correct.

No wonder that his advice to young academics is to get tenure before wading into contentious topics.

Email James Gill at Gill1407@bellsouth.net.

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James Gill: Some want to fire Walter Block for 'racist and sexist beliefs.' But he has tenure. - NOLA.com

In the culture wars in the U.S., Twitter Inc. has often been targeted thanks to limiting content and also not limiting content, the latter specifically tweets from President Donald Trump.Some accuse Twitter of having a left-wing bias in banning accounts from those on the right of politics, most recently Carpe Donktum, a conservative who is best known for posting pro-Trump memes.

Various attempts have been made over the years to establish alternatives to Twitter, often with a free speech focus, such as Gabin 2016, but it never took off. Now anewer player in the field Parler, launched in 2018 is surging in popularity amid the culture wars and accusations of bias against Twitter. The site is said to have increased its user base by 50% to 1.5 million users in the last week, primarily driven by conservatives looking for Twitter alternatives.

Parler offers a hybrid free speech platform with limitations. While not banning political speech, Parler will ban users when they break U.S. law such as inciting violence.

Despite attemptsby someto label it as far-right, Parler, which in the last week has topped free app download charts on both iOS and Android, has attracted somewhat of a mixed audience. While it can be said to have a right-leaning bias so far it has also attracted those on the left, particularly so-called trans-exclusionary radical feminists, radfems and others who are seeking an alternative to Twitter.Notably among users of Parler are Senator Ted Cruz and formerU.S. representative and presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Signing up to Parler is easy enough. A phone number is required, with two-factor authentication sent by SMS text to complete the process.

Parler looks like Twitter be it with a different color scheme and different terms. A retweet or a share is called an echo, while loving a post is a vote similar to Reddit. Anyone who has used Twitter or Facebook will easilyget Parlers setup.

That said, there are some issues with the service. On the user experience side, theres no recommendation engine to suggest users people should follow when joining. Thatmeans you have to seek out people to follow.

The biggest issue, though, is that the site and its app are buggy. The Android app occasionally crashes for no obvious reason. Perhaps because of growing pains, logging in through a web browser can take time. For nearly a minute while writing this review, I was stuck waiting for a captcha to log into my account.

Whether Parler can be successful or not depends on a range of issues. The basics are certainly there, but it needs to do more to scale up without issues and thats where it appearsto be having issues.

Their ultimate success may not be in their hands alone, however. Theresspeculation that President Trump may join the service in favor of Twitter. If its having growing pains now with an increased user base, its going to have a lot more if Trump joins.

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Twitter alternative Parler surges in popularity but it's buggy - SiliconANGLE

Floridas top political minds think President Donald Trump and the Republican Party will go through with their Jacksonville conventions plans amid a worsening pandemic. But that doesnt mean they think its a good idea.

In a survey of 220 of Florida campaign operatives, political party leaders, organizers, fundraisers, elected leaders, political scientists and other Insiders, 72 percent agreed that holding the Republican National Convention in Florida is a public health risk.

I do think the Republican Party will be hell bent on this convention and it will happen, one GOP consultant said. The questions is Will it be like Tulsa?' Only time will tell. As of now, you couldnt pay me to attend that convention. Too much risk for silly hats and bourbon.

One Democrat suggested that Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry have a lot to gain if the convention is a success, but also quite a bit to lose if virus numbers spike in Jacksonville afterward. But like 93 percent of respondents, he thinks the quadrennial confab is going to commence.

Another Democrat said his party is scared silly about COVID-19 when its mostly affecting young people right now. Indeed, the average age of those testing positive has fallen substantially since the early days of the virus, though public health experts worry hospitalizations and deaths will follow in the coming weeks.

He added protesters have had rallies without the backlash Republicans have faced.

No one calls them out, he said.

Curry this week moved to require people to wear masks indoors in hopes of mitigating the spread ahead of the convention. Thats a prudent move, according to the Insiders. An overwhelming majority, including two-thirds of the Republican respondents, said masks should be required in restaurants, bars, stores and other indoor public places.

One Democrat put it this way: We shouldnt have to mandate masks, but too many people are morons who apparently dont care if they accidentally kill others.

A Republican warned that requiring masks in public would be nearly impossible to enforce, but he added, It is insanity that even the wearing of masks for the safety of the public has become politicized in our nation, when its proven to be one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of this virus. Our country is broken in many ways.

After Trumps Tulsa rally underwhelmed and drew criticism from public health experts, his campaign has reportedly pulled back from plans to hold future rallies. Seven in 10 of the Insiders said he should put them on ice for a while.

Trump misread the twitters on arenas. Republicans do wear masks and social distancing despite media narratives, and no one is rushing to get in a crowd for the night, the Republican said. Better to hold a small event and leverage Zoom. He needs an in-person audience, but needs a tactically different approach.

Or, as one Republican wrote in all caps: Anyone who is organizing or endorsing large-scale gatherings is an idiot. Full stop.

Trumps November foe, former Vice President Joe Biden, has not held an in-person rally since the outbreak began. In fact, he has been relatively quiet overall. Until Tuesday, it had been weeks since Biden faced reporters and the Democratic nominee is quieter than even some from his own party are comfortable with.

Overall, two-thirds of Florida Insiders said Bidens campaign should be more active, including 56 percent of the Democrats polled.

Biden needs to get active and make the case he is a viable alternative, a Democrat wrote. Otherwise Trumps hes not fit to do the job message will take over.

But others made a compelling case for keeping a lower profile. They pointed to polls that show Biden leading Trump, including in Florida and many other swing states. Why change what isnt broke, one non-partisan participant wrote.

Biden needs to do what hes doing which is to say, virtually nothing and let Trump continue to alienate 70% of the electorate, the Insider said. Never interrupt your opponent in the middle of a mistake.

Of those who responded to this months poll, 100 were Republicans, 99 were Democrats and 21 were people who said they are registered no party affiliation or with another party. They included:

Erin Aebel, Tom Alte, Jason Altmire, Fernand Amandi, Fernand Amandi, Gayle Andrews, Peter Antonacci, Scott Arceneaux, Donna Arduin, Donna Arduin, Dave Aronberg, Brad Ashwell, Brad Ashwell, Brad Ashwell, Jon M. Ausman, Roger Austin, Ryan Banfill, Christina Barker, Scott Barnhart, Rodney Barreto, Patrick Baskette, Ashley Bauman, Geoffrey Becker, Allan Bense, Wayne Bertsch, Taylor Biehl, Ron Bilbao, Barney Bishop III, Greg Blair, Katie Bohnett, Paul Bradshaw, Bob Buckhorn, Alex Burgos, Dominic M. Calabro, Kristy Campbell, Dean Cannon, Tim Canova, Chip Case, Gabriela Castillo, Kevin Cate, Mitch Ceasar, Johanna Cervone, Jean Clements , Brad Coker, Gus Corbella, Brian Crowley, Husein Cumber, Carlos Curbelo, Justin Day, Ingrid Delgado, Richard DeNapoli, Pablo Diaz, Victor DiMaio, Tony DiMatteo, Doc Dockery, Paula Dockery, John Dowless, Bob Doyle, Peter Dunbar, Barry Edwards, Eric Eikenberg, Mike Fasano, Peter Feaman, Mark Ferrulo, Damien Filer, Mark Foley, Kirk Fordham, Pamela Burch Fort, Brian Franklin, Towson Fraser, Keith Frederick, Ellen Freidin, John French, Jack Furnari, Wayne Garcia, Stephen Gaskill, Steve Geller, Richard Gentry, Julia Gill Woodward, Brian Goff, Alma Gonzalez, Ron Greenstein, Thomas Grigsby, Joe Gruters, Ralph Haben, Mike Hamby, Marion Hammer, Chris Hand, Mike Hanna, Abel Harding, James Harris, Jack Hebert, Rich Heffley, Bill Helmich, Cynthia Henderson, Laura Hernandez, Don Hinkle, Jim Horne, Yolanda Jackson, Jeff Johnson, Eric Johnson, David Johnson, Christina Johnson, Stafford Jones, Eric Jotkoff, Fred Karlinsky, Joshua Karp, Henry Kelley, Chris Kise, John Konkus, Chris Korge, Jeff Kottkamp, Kartik Krishnaiyer, Zach Learner, Jackie Lee, Bill Lee, Matt Lettelleir, Alan Levine, Jack Levine, McKinley Lewis, Beth Leytham, Shannon Love, Javier Manjarres, William March, Beth Matuga, Brian May, Stephanie McClung, Kim McDougal, Nancy McGowan, Clarence McKee, Kathy Mears, David Mica, Jamie Miller, Jon Mills, Paul Mitchell, Travis Moore, Lucy Morgan, John Morgan, Meredith ORourke, Stephanie Owens, Maurizio Passariello, Alex Patton, Darryl Paulson, Jorge Pedraza, Scott Peelen, Juan Penalosa, Evelyn Perez-Verdia, Joe Perry, Sean Phillippi, Ron Pierce, Van Poole, Van Poole, David Ramba, Ryan Ray, Nan Rich, George Riley, Jim Rimes, Franco Ripple, Terrie Rizzo, Monica Rodriguez, Jason Rosenberg, Sarah Rumpf, Ron Sachs, Steve Schale, Tom Scherberger, Jack Seiler, Kathleen Shanahan, Stephen Shiver, Bud Shorstein, Kyle Simon, Alex Sink, Patrick Slevin, Stephanie Smith, Daniel Smith, Adam Smith, Susan Smith, Eleanor Sobel, John Stemberger, Alan Stonecipher, Nancy Texeira, Cory Tilley, Frank Tsamoutales, Ryan Tyson, Christian Ulvert, Jason Unger, Karen Unger, Ashley Walker, Robert Watkins, Nancy Watkins, Screven Watson, Jonathan Webber, Andrew Weinstein, Susie Wiles, Marley Wilkes, Mike Williams, Gregory Wilson, Jamie Wilson, Rick Wilson, Leslie Wimes, Jon Woodard , Zachariah Zachariah, Christian Ziegler and Mark Zubaly.

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Florida Insiders fear Trumps Jacksonville convention will be a public health risk - Tampa Bay Times

RYE BROOK, N.Y., July 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Seeking to ignite the next major breakthroughs to treat blood cancers, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), The Mark Foundation, and The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group today announced more than $6.75 million awarded to nine of the most exceptional scientists in the field.

The innovative Blood Cancer Discoveries Grant Program is designed to encourage researchers with deep experience in the blood cancers to conduct critical basic research in hopes of unleashing the next wave of novel approaches to treating leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma and myelodysplastic syndromes; together, these cancers are the 2nd leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S.

"Over our 70-year history, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has been at the forefront of revolutionary cancer treatments from the early days of chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation to the leading edge discoveries of immunotherapy and precision medicine; our investment in research is nearly $1.3 billion over that time," said Lee Greenberger, LLS's chief scientific officer. "With this new initiative, LLS maintains its role as a driver of innovation, supporting early stage research to propel discoveries that might lead to the next generation of treatments and cures, and help accelerate promising therapies to patients."

The grants are awarded to researchers seeking to understand the biological underpinnings of various blood cancers, what causes them to develop and grow, or become resistant to treatments. Each project will be supported by an award of $750,000 over a three-year period.

"In science, collaboration can accelerate the pace of achievement," said Michele Cleary, Ph.D., CEO ofThe Mark Foundation for Cancer Research."Similarly, this three-way partnership among foundations will accelerate our understanding of cancer biology by empowering some of the brightest scientists to simultaneously probe unique but challenging areas of unmet need. We look forward to the discoveries that will result from these efforts."

Added Kathryn Richmond, Ph.D., MBA, director of the Frontiers Group, a division of the Allen Institute,"Our organizationis committed to pushing the boundaries of bioscience and accelerating discoveries to make a difference for humankind, and we believe these grants will be a catalyst that will spark innovative new directions in blood cancer research."

"We are grateful that the Frontiers Group and Mark Foundation have aligned with us to fund some of the greatest minds in cancer discovery," said LLS's Greenberger. "Collaboratingwith foundations who share a common goal of fueling leading-edge research to advance cures and better, safer treatments for cancer patients is critical to advancing our mission."

The Blood Cancer Discoveries Grant Program recipientsare:

Robert Bradley, Ph.D. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Dr. Bradley is investigating the mutations in the SF3B1 protein and their connection with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and leukemias, and exploring this protein as a therapeutic target.

Catriona Jamieson, M.D., Ph.D. University of California San Diego Dr. Jamieson is examining the role of two enzymes (APOBEC3 and ADAR1) known to mutate DNA and RNA and their role in AML and disease relapse, particularly in elderly patients.

Ronald (Ron) Levy, M.D. Stanford University School of Medicine Dr. Levy is investigating a pre-clinical "off-the-shelf" CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) T-cell immunotherapy approach where the CAR cells are generated directly in the patient's body.

Ravindra (Ravi) Majeti, M.D., Ph.D. Stanford University School of Medicine Dr. Majeti is generating cell-based models to test the progression of preleukemic cells into acute myeloid leukemia (AML). His lab will use these models to test potential therapies and the role of the microenvironment in disease progression.

Markus Mschen M.D., Ph.D. City of Hope Dr. Mschen studies mechanisms of tumor-initiation in B-cell malignancies, including acute lymphoblastic leukemia, mantle cell lymphoma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. These studies focus on negative regulators of the WNT/b-catenin pathway as potential diagnostic marker and therapeutic target.

Susan Schwab, Ph.D. New York University Dr. Schwab is examining the mechanism of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) cells that allow them to enter and accumulate in the central nervous system when the disease spreads to the brain.

Margaret Shipp, M.D. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/ Harvard Medical School Dr. Shipp and her colleague, Scott J. Rodig, MD, Ph.D.,are mapping the immune microenvironment in classical Hodgkin lymphoma.

Robert Signer, Ph.D. University of California San Diego Dr. Signer is investigating how the biological process of building defective proteins (inaccurate protein synthesis) plays a role in the development of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in the hopes of developing targeted therapies to treat this condition.

Daniel T. Starczynowski, Ph.D Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation Dr. Starczynowski is investigating the role and potential therapeutic benefit of targeting of a protein called UBE2N in acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Click herefor more details on each awardee.

About The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is a global leader in the fight against cancer. The LLS mission: cure leukemia, lymphoma, multiplemyeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. LLS funds lifesaving blood cancer research around the world, provides free information and support services, and is the voice for all blood cancer patients seeking access to quality, affordable, coordinated care.

Founded in 1949 and headquartered in Rye Brook, NY, LLS has chapters throughout the United States and Canada. To learn more, visitwww.LLS.org. Patients should contact the Information Resource Center at (800) 955-4572, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., ET.

The LLS Children's Initiative: Cures and Care for Children with Cancer TheLLS Children's Initiativeis a $100 million multi-year effort to take on children's cancer through every facet of LLS's mission: research, patient education and support and policy and advocacy. The LLS Children's Initiative includes: more pediatric research grants, a global precision medicine clinical trial, expanded free education and support services for children and families and driving policies and laws that break down barriers to care. To learn more, visitwww.lls.org/childrens-initiative.

About The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research actively partners with scientists to accelerate research that will transform the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. The Mark Foundation fulfills its mission by supporting groundbreaking science carried out by individual investigators, multi-disciplinary teams, and inter-institutional collaborations in the United States and across the globe. Recognizing the obstacles that prevent scientific advances from improving patient outcomes, The Mark Foundation maintains a nimble, high-impact approach to funding research through grants for basic and translational cancer research and investments in early-stage companies that bridge the gap between bench and bedside. Since its launch in 2017, the Mark Foundation has awarded over $90 million in grant funding to over 50 institutions in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe. To learn more, visit http://www.themarkfoundation.org

About The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, a division of the Allen Institute,is dedicated to exploringthe landscape of bioscience to identify and foster ideas that will change the world. The Frontiers Group directs funding through award mechanisms to accelerate our understanding of biology, including: Allen Discovery Centers at partner institutions forleadership-driven, compass-guided research, and Allen Distinguished Investigatorsforfrontier explorations with exceptional creativity and potential impact.The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Groupwas foundedin 2016 by the late philanthropist and visionary Paul G. Allen. For more information, visit allenfrontiersgroup.org.

Contact: Andrea Greif [emailprotected] (914) 821-8958

SOURCE The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS)

https://www.lls.org

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The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research and The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group Partner to Award $6.75M in New...