Potato, onion, and corned beef pie - courtesy Chef Angelique, Cape Town campus

 

Potato, onion, and corned beef pie 

- courtesy Chef Angelique, Cape Town campus

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

For the pastry

400g cake flour

200g cold butter

30ml ice-cold water

Pinch of salt

For the filling

400g potato, cooked in salted water and cut into chunks

2 large onions, sliced thinly

1 carrot, chopped

30ml butter or oil

340g or 1 tin corned beef cubed (or any leftover cooked meat)

5ml thyme

5ml garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

For the pastry: Grate the cold butter into the flour then toss to coat butter. Add a pinch of salt and enough cold water to make a firm dough. Do not overwork the dough, large chunks of butter in the pastry will make it beautifully flaky!

For the filling: Heat a pan with the butter or oil and sauté the onions with a pinch of salt on medium heat until translucent. Add the rest of the ingredients and fry gently for 5 minutes. Set aside the filling to cool slightly.

To assemble: Preheat the oven to 190˚C. Lightly oil a pie dish, roll out the pastry, and line the bottom of the tin. Spoon the cooled filling on top and cover with a top layer of pastry.

Crimp the edges of the pastry to seal the pie and cut a small cross on top to let steam escape while baking (and to prevent your pie from exploding!).

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the pastry is golden and delicious.

Rest the pie in the tin for about 5-10 minutes before serving

https://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/food-drink/recipes/celebrate-national-potato-day-with-these-lovely-spud-recipes-c0860b3b-85f3-4d20-935c-1af4d26f5a5b

 Julian Assange: A day in the death of British justice

John Pilger

A supporter in a costume of the Statue of Liberty holds a placard in support of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, outside the Royal Courts of Justice in the City of London on August 11, 2021, during a preliminary appeal hearing of the US case for the extradition of Assange to the US. - Julian Assange's fiancÈe called Wednesday on President Joe Biden to drop the US case against the WikiLeaks founder after a British court granted the US permission to appeal for his extradition. (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP)

I sat in court 4 in the Royal Courts of Justice in London on 11 August with Stella Moris, Julian Assange’s partner. I have known Stella for as long as I have known Julian. She, too, is a voice of freedom, coming from a family that fought the fascism of apartheid. On August 12, her name was uttered in court by a barrister and a judge, forgettable people were it not for the power of their endowed privilege.

The barrister, Clair Dobbin, is in the pay of the regime in Washington, first Donald Trump’s then Joe Biden’s. She is America’s hired gun, or “silk,” as she would prefer. Her target is Julian Assange, who has committed no crime and has performed an historic public service by exposing the criminal actions and secrets on which governments, especially those claiming to be democracies, base their authority.

For those who may have forgotten, WikiLeaks, of which Assange is founder and publisher, exposed the secrets and lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, Syria and Yemen, the murderous role of the Pentagon in dozens of countries, the blueprint for the 20-year catastrophe in Afghanistan, the attempts by Washington to overthrow elected governments, such as Venezuela’s, the collusion between nominal political opponents (George Bush and Barak Obama) to stifle a torture investigation and the CIA’s Vault 7 campaign that turned your mobile phone, even your TV set, into a spy in your midst.

WikiLeaks released almost a million documents from Russia, which allowed Russian citizens to stand up for their rights. It revealed the Australian government had colluded with the United States against its own citizen, Assange. It named those Australian politicians who have “informed” for the US. It made the connection between the Clinton Foundation and the rise of jihadism in American-armed states in the Gulf.

There is more: WikiLeaks disclosed the US campaign to suppress wages in sweatshop countries such as Haiti, India’s campaign of torture in Kashmir, the British government’s secret agreement to shield “US interests” in its official Iraq inquiry and the British foreign office’s plan to create a fake “marine protection zone” in the Indian Ocean to cheat the Chagos islanders out of their right of return.

In other words, WikiLeaks has given us real news about those who govern us and take us to war, not the preordained, repetitive spin that fills newspapers and television screens. This is real journalism; for the crime of real journalism, Assange has spent most of the past decade in one form of incarceration or another, including Belmarsh prison, a horrific place.

Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, he is a gentle, intellectual visionary driven by his belief that a democracy is not a democracy unless it is transparent and accountable.

On August 11, the US sought the approval of Britain’s high court to extend the terms of its appeal against a decision by a district judge, Vanessa Baraitser, in January to bar Assange’s extradition. Baraitser accepted the deeply disturbing evidence of a number of experts that Assange would be at great risk if he were incarcerated in the US’s infamous prison system.

Professor Michael Kopelman, a world authority on neuropsychiatry, had said Assange would find a way to take his own life — the direct result of what Professor Nils Melzer, the United Nations rapporteur on torture, described as the craven “mobbing” of Assange by governments — and their media echoes.

Those of us who were in the Old Bailey last September to hear Kopelman’s evidence were shocked and moved. I sat with Julian’s father, John Shipton, whose head was in his hands. The court was also told about the discovery of a razor blade in Julian’s Belmarsh cell and that he had made desperate calls to the Samaritans and written notes and much else that filled us with more than sadness.

Watching the lead barrister acting for Washington, James Lewis — a man from a military background who deploys a cringingly theatrical “aha!” formula with defence witnesses — reduce these facts to “malingering” and smearing witnesses, especially Kopelman, we were heartened by Kopelman’s revealing response that Lewis’s abuse was “a bit rich” as Lewis himself had sought to hire Kopelman’s expertise in another case.

Lewis’s sidekick is Dobbin, and August 11 was her day. Completing the smearing of Kopelman was down to her. An American with some authority sat behind her in court.

Dobbin said Kopelman had “misled” Baraitser in September because he had not disclosed that Assange and Moris were partners, and their two young children, Gabriel and Max, were conceived during the period Assange had taken refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

The implication was that this somehow lessened Kopelman’s medical diagnosis: that Julian, locked up in solitary in Belmarsh prison and facing extradition to the US on bogus “espionage” charges, had suffered severe psychotic depression and had planned, if he had not already attempted, to take his own life.

For her part, Baraitser saw no contradiction. The full nature of the relationship between Stella and Julian had been explained to her in March 2020, and Kopelman had made full reference to it in his report in August 2020. So the judge and the court knew all about it before the main extradition hearing last September. In her judgment in January, Baraitser said this:

“[Professor Kopelman] assessed Mr. Assange during the period May to December 2019 and was best placed to consider at first-hand his symptoms. He has taken great care to provide an informed account of Mr Assange’s background and psychiatric history. He has given close attention to the prison medical notes and provided a detailed summary annexed to his December report. He is an experienced clinician and he was well aware of the possibility of exaggeration and malingering. I had no reason to doubt his clinical opinion.”

She added that she had “not been misled” by the exclusion in Kopelman’s first report of the Stella-Julian relationship and that she understood that Kopelman was protecting the privacy of Stella and her two young children.

In fact, as I know well, the family’s safety was under constant threat to the point when an embassy security guard confessed he had been told to steal one of the baby’s nappies so that a CIA-contracted company could analyse its DNA. There has been a stream of unpublicised threats against Stella and her children.

For the US and its legal hirelings in London, damaging the credibility of a renowned expert by suggesting he withheld this information was a way, they no doubt reckoned, to rescue their crumbling case against Assange. In June, the Icelandic newspaper Stundin reported that a key prosecution witness against Assange has admitted fabricating his evidence. The one “hacking” charge the Americans hoped to bring against Assange if they could get their hands on him depended on this source and witness, Sigurdur Thordarson, an FBI informant.

Thordarson had worked as a volunteer for WikiLeaks in Iceland between 2010 and 2011. In 2011, as several criminal charges were brought against him, he contacted the FBI and offered to become an informant in return for immunity from prosecution. It emerged that he was a convicted fraudster who embezzled $55 000 from WikiLeaks, and served two years in prison. In 2015, he was sentenced to three years for sex offences against teenage boys. The Washington Post described Thordarson’s credibility as the “core” of the case against Assange.

On August 11, Lord Chief Justice Holroyde made no mention of this witness. His concern was that it was “arguable” that Baraitser had attached too much weight to the evidence of Kopelman, a man revered in his field. He said it was “very unusual” for an appeal court to have to reconsider evidence from an expert accepted by a lower court, but he agreed with Dobbin it was “misleading” even though he accepted Kopelman’s “understandable human response” to protect the privacy of Stella and the children.

If you can unravel the arcane logic of this, you have a better grasp than I, who have sat through this case from the beginning. It is clear Kopelman misled nobody. Baraitser — whose hostility to Assange personally was a presence in her court — said that she was not misled; it was not an issue; it did not matter. So why had Holroyde spun the language with its weasel legalese and sent Julian back to his cell and its nightmares? There, he now waits for the high court’s final decision in October — for Julian Assange, a life or death decision.

And why did Holroyde send Stella from the court trembling with anguish? Why is this case “unusual”? Why did he throw the gang of prosecutor-thugs at the department of justice in Washington -— who got their big chance under Trump, having been rejected by Obama — a life raft as their rotting, corrupt case against a principled journalist sunk as surely as the Titanic?

This does not necessarily mean that in October the full bench of the high court will order Julian to be extradited. In the upper reaches of the masonry that is the British judiciary there are, I understand, still those who believe in real law and real justice from which the term “British justice” takes its sanctified reputation in the land of the Magna Carta. It now rests on their ermined shoulders whether that history lives on or dies.

I sat with Stella in the court’s colonnade while she drafted words to say to the crowd of media and well-wishers outside in the sunshine. Clip-clopping along came Dobbin, spruced, ponytail swinging, bearing her carton of files: a figure of certainty: she who said Julian Assange was “not so ill” that he would consider suicide. How does she know?

Has Dobbin worked her way through the medieval maze at Belmarsh to sit with Julian in his yellow arm band, as Koppelman and Melzer have done, and Stella has done, and I have done? Never mind. The Americans have now “promised” not to put him in a hellhole, just as they “promised” not to torture Chelsea Manning, just as they promised ….

And has she read the WikiLeaks’ leak of a Pentagon document dated March 15, 2009? This foretold the current war on journalism. US intelligence, it said, intended to destroy WikiLeaks’ and Julian Assange’s “centre of gravity” with threats and “criminal prosecution.” Read all 32 pages and you are left in no doubt that silencing and criminalising independent journalism was the aim, smear the method.

I tried to catch Dobbin’s gaze, but she was on her way: job done.

Outside, Stella struggled to contain her emotion. This is one brave woman, as indeed her man is an exemplar of courage. “What has not been discussed today,” said Stella, “is why I feared for my safety and the safety of our children and for Julian’s life. The constant threats and intimidation we endured for years, which has been terrorising us and has been terrorising Julian for 10 years. We have a right to live, we have a right to exist and we have a right for this nightmare to come to an end once and for all.”

https://mg.co.za/opinion/2021-08-19-julian-assange-a-day-in-the-death-of-british-justice/

 

Stop Gaslighting  Parents on Critical Race Theory

By Max Eden*

Proponents of Critical Race Theory are resorting to semantic gaslighting to defend a dogma that most Americans instinctively abhor.

Some pundits claim that CRT is exclusively a school of thought taught in legal academia. On her MSNBC show, Joy Reid claimed that “law school is really the only place it is taught. NBC has looked into everywhere.” Former Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway tweeted: “I don’t think critical legal studies should be taught in elementary schools, and I am ready to die on that hill[.]”

Some journalists, informed by other “experts,” contend that CRT is synonymous with “talking about racism.” NPR defined CRT as “teaching about the effects of racism”; the New York Times called it “classroom discussion of race, racism.” NBC News labeled it the “academic study of racism’s pervasive impact.” 

These definitions are, of course, mutually exclusive. But they both serve to paint parents into a corner. If CRT is defined just as talking about racism, then parental objections to it must be rooted in racism. If CRT is defined just as a thesis discussed in law schools, then parental objections to it must be rooted in ignorance.

There’s no doubt that CRT has become a politicized term. Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo forthrightly explained his strategy on this issue as follows: “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

Liberal writer Freddie DeBoer has argued that CRT is now a “completely floating signifier.” Conservatives label a host of things they don’t like as CRT. Liberals, then, “feel compelled to defend CRT because conservatives attack it,” and defend it by claiming that it has nothing to do with any of the bad things conservatives say.  

But words have meaning. Parents and policymakers should understand CRT not as conservatives or liberals define it, but as it defines itself. Here’s a definition from a 2001 book, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefanic, widely credited as key architects of CRT:

The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. The movement considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies discourses take up, but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, context, group- and self-interest, and even feelings and the unconscious. Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

Although CRT began as a movement in the law, it has rapidly spread beyond that discipline. Today, many in the field of education consider themselves critical race theorists who use CRT’s ideas to understand issues of school discipline and hierarchy, tracking, controversies over curriculum and history, and IQ and achievement testing. Political scientists ponder voting strategies coined by critical race theorists. Ethnic studies courses often include a unit on critical race theory, and American studies departments teach material on critical white students developed by CRT writers. Unlike some academic disciplines, critical race theory contains an activist dimension. It not only tries to understand our social situation, but to change it.  (Emphases added.)

Several points here deserve restatement: CRT defines itself in opposition to traditional civil rights and even Enlightenment rationalism. It defines itself not simply as a “Theory,” but also as movement of activists who seek to transform society. Many educators consider themselves to be Critical Race Theorists, and CRT ideology has had a profound impact on a wide range of education policy and pedagogical issues.

Anybody who tries to peddle the line that CRT is just “talking about racism” is either gaslighting or being gaslit themselves. And anyone who maintains that CRT is simply an academic theory discussed in law school, at best, is ignorant of what CRT really is.

By contrast, parent intuitions about CRT are spot on. Given that CRT informs so many aspects of education policy and pedagogy, the real crux of the issue for parents is, as Andrew Sullivan adroitly put it, “not teaching about critical race theory; it is teaching in critical race theory.” (Emphases in original.) 

Public schools may not be commonly assigning Critical Race Theorists like Kimberlé Crenshaw. But they have embraced a host of policies and practices that are rooted in Critical Race Theory. When parents hear terms like: “Equity,” “Anti-Racism,” “Cultural Competence,” “Culturally Responsive Education,” “Restorative Justice,” “Ethnic Studies,” “Equitable Math,” “Whiteness,” they would be fundamentally correct to go to a school board meeting and complain about Critical Race Theory. All of these practices are influenced by and have the same politicized purpose as CRT, which – to reiterate – defines itself not merely as a “theory” but also as an activist practice.

School boards that are implementing CRT-infused programming should not follow the media’s lead and gaslight parents by claiming that they are “not teaching CRT” on the grounds that they are not assigning academic journal articles by self-avowed Critical Race Theorists. Because the more parents look into it, the more may realize that although their schools might not assign canonical CRT academic journal article, they are teaching “in” CRT.

That will further heighten alienation and distrust between schools and families – alienation and distrust that is unavoidable so long as schools educate students through a “lens” intended to train children to oppose the foundations of our liberal order.

*Max Eden is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2021/06/28/stop_gaslighting_parents_on_critical_race_theory_783202.html

 

Any Afghan Migrants Who Reach America or Europe are Undeportable

And after Taliban win, millions of Afghan migrants may head to U.S. and Europe.

Fri Aug 20, 2021 

Daniel Greenfield

 

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The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 30,000 Afghans a week are fleeing their country. However a report in The Guardian states that “30,000 Afghan citizens have left the country each day for the past 10 days”. That would approach a third of a million migrants.

While a small minority can be seen trying to board American aircraft at Kabul airport, the vast majority are moving on foot through Pakistan and Iran. The Shiite terror state is a particularly ideal gateway destination because it allows them easy access to Turkey and then to Europe.

And because Iran, unlike Pakistan, has done little to fortify its border with Afghanistan, Iranian authorities profit from Afghanistan’s lucrative drug trade and allowing Afghan migrants access to Europe undermines its enemies in the European Union under the guise of humanitarian aid.

About half a million of the UN’s refugees were added to the lists this year. That means the flow is just beginning and with as many as a third of a million already underway, it’s possible that Europe, America, and other western nations will see even more Afghan than Syrian migrants.

The UN already lists 2.5 million officially registered refugees, but that’s only a percentage. Iran alone previously claimed that it had around 3 million Afghan refugees inside its borders. Pakistan holds at least 1.5 million officially and, unofficially, a total of as much as 3 million. 

Neither Muslim country has been willing to permanently resettle its fellow Muslims. Especially since Pakistan backs the Taliban and Iran is looking to build closer relations with the Taliban. 

Pakistan's backing for the Taliban created two generations of refugee crises in Afghanistan, but is loudly demanding that western governments take them. The Islamic terror state which harbored Osama bin Laden has alternately proposed that the UN should fund refugee camps inside Afghanistan. UN refugee camps inside Afghanistan would only be able to operate with the sanction of the Taliban and would lead to the United States funding the terror group.

That is exactly what Pakistan, which is behind the Taliban, wants America and the UN to do.

The refugee crisis is a trojan horse of political opportunities for the Pakistani, Iranian, Turkish, and other Islamist allies of the Taliban to finance terrorists and undermine western nations.

Maintaining a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan will lead to a flow of foreign aid to the Taliban. 

Western nations, faced with the threat of millions of migrants showing up on their doorsteps, will be happy, after a few initial protests, to pay off the Taliban, overtly or covertly, to slow the flood. While the aid organizations swear up and down that none of the money is going to the Taliban, it is impossible to operate in a terror state without paying protection money to the terrorists. 

Doing any kind of business in Afghanistan will mean doing business with the Taliban.

Turkey, the bridge between Muslim refugees and Europe, has openly used the migrant flow to blackmail the European Union. The new flood of migrants will give Erdogan, Turkey’s own Taliban leader, even more leverage against weak European leaders like Germany’s Merkel. 

European countries may decide to preserve their legitimacy by using Turkey to covertly negotiate an arrangement with the Taliban that will slow the flow of Afghan refugees.

Such negotiations may very well be taking place right now.

570,000 Afghans have already applied for asylum in Europe over the past 5 years. While some of these asylum requests were rejected, the Taliban takeover means that the Afghans can no longer be deported. And they are now going to stay on in Europe: legally or illegally.

The same holds true for Afghans illegally in the United States.

Even assuming that the Taliban would take them, the United States is not going to deport Afghans back to Afghanistan. Any Afghan illegal aliens, past or present, who make their way to the United States are effectively here for good unless a non-Taliban government rises in Afghanistan. Or unless an America First administration wins an election in the United States, tears up past UN refugee agreements and finds a combination of countries willing to take them.

In the European Union, a bloc of six countries already overwhelmed with Afghan illegal migrants announced that they would maintain deportations. 

The six countries, some conservative like Austria, others as pro-refugee as Germany, had little in common except that they were already drowning in migrants. But the rebellion against the EU's immigration policy proved short-lived with Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark all changing course. Only Austria is still trying to hold the line on deporting Afghan migrants.

What all of this means is that any Afghans (or migrants who claim to be Afghans) who reach America or Europe are undeportable. They will stay on and receive some quasi-legal status. 

The Taliban’s takeover and the rapid evacuation of western diplomats and organizations will make it all but impossible to verify the identities of even legitimate claimants. Despite all the billions of dollars poured into Afghanistan over the years, much of the country remains rural and backward, and many residents, especially those outside the major cities, have little in the way of identity documents. Afghanistan’s turbulent history and change in administrations, combined with the large unofficial refugee populations in Pakistan and Iran, have created a competing assortment of different identity documents, many of which will be all but impossible to verify. 

American or European immigration authorities won’t be able to screen out Islamic terrorists from refugees. Nor will they be able to do very much except ask some very rudimentary questions.

The United States currently hosts around 100,000 Afghans. The number of SIV visas for Afghans who worked for the United States in some capacity alone was estimated to eventually top 100,000 when accounting for family members. As the Taliban advanced, new lenient regulations were rolled out that put nearly every Afghan who worked for any American organization in just about any capacity eligible as a priority for refugee status in America.

The Afghans being transported out of Kabul airport to U.S. bases will move somewhere and it won’t be the Arab countries that are hosting those bases. They will most likely end up here. Plans are already underway to house them at bases in Texas and Wisconsin. 

Before too long the Afghan population in this country could double practically overnight.

And then go on doubling for as long as the refugee flow continues and our border stays open.

Thousands of Afghans have already been transported to Virginia. It ought to go without saying that it is highly unlikely that any Afghans who make it into the United States will ever leave.

While it’s not unreasonable to feel sympathy for people, some of whom are legitimately fleeing domestic terror, many others are simply taking advantage of an opportunity. Afghanistan’s recent relative prosperity was fed by the billions of dollars that the United States, Europe, and other allied nations invested in its infrastructure, its economy, and its military. Some Afghans genuinely fear being tortured, murdered, or enslaved by the Taliban. Others don’t object to the Taliban, but are seeking economic opportunities that will no longer be available under them.

The opponents of the Taliban also fall into many categories. There are dedicated Islamists who reject the Taliban for a variety of theological, political, and tribal reasons. Afghan Shiites are wary of the Taliban, but their ties to Iran don’t make them friends of the United States. 

Afghanistan contains a number of different ethnic, tribal, and religious groups who might oppose the Sunni Pashtuns of the Taliban without being any kind of fit for America or Europe. That is part of the reason why attempts to build any kind of democratic Afghanistan quickly fell apart.

Proponents of unlimited migration argue that we owe it to the Afghan people to take them in. But if there’s any debt there, it’s not from America to the Afghans, but the Afghans to Americans. 

The United States, Europe, and other countries about to be saddled with a massive refugee surge spent countless billions and sacrificed the lives of their young men to build a country out of the rock and ruin of Afghanistan. They took bread out of the mouths of their own people and filled VA hospitals with the wounded, inside and outside, in a sacrifice that Afghans squandered.

The blame game over the fall of Afghanistan will go on for years, but the simple fact of the matter is that the majority of the Afghan military surrendered to the Taliban or ran away. 

Any debt here is owed to us by the Afghans. We have paid our debts in blood and treasure.

The Afghan refugee crisis shows that the Taliban still have any number of ways that they can hurt us even once we have left Afghanistan. Their ability to turn the refugee tap on and off will allow not only the Jihadists, but their allies in Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey to blackmail us and our NATO allies by using Afghan refugees as a weapon. That’s a weapon we have to take away.

America is already staggering under the massive weight of illegal aliens arriving south of the border. We cannot accommodate the illegal aliens we have, let alone hundreds of thousands of people arriving from a stone age society whose values are fundamentally at odds with our own.

The Biden administration created the Afghan refugee crisis. It should not expect Americans in Texas, Wisconsin, Virginia, and anywhere else it’s plotting to dump its new wave of aliens, to shoulder the burden for a crisis that it created. 

The collapse of Afghanistan is one disaster. An Afghan refugee surge would be a second disaster. We can survive the collapse of Afghanistan, we can’t survive the collapse of America.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/after-taliban-win-millions-afghan-migrants-may-daniel-greenfield/

5-ingredient Saint Louis grilled ribs from ‘Dr. BBQ’: Try the recipe

 

Dr. BBQ’s Championship Saint Louis Ribs 

Recipe Courtesy of Ray "Dr. BBQ" Lampe

Prep time: 5 hours total (3.5 hours cook time)

Serve time: Rest 15 minutes before serving

Makes 4 servings

Lempe told Fox that he loves that the recipe is "so easy" and that it’s "perfect for beginners or any BBQ lover looking for a great weekend meal." (Courtesy of Dr. BBQ)

Ingredients:

•⅓ cup of your favorite BBQ Rub

•2 full slabs (about 2 pounds each) Saint Louis cut pork ribs, back membrane removed

•1 cup honey

•½ cup brown sugar

•1 ½ cups barbecue sauce

Directions:

1. Sprinkle the rub on the ribs. Use about ⅔  on the meaty side and ⅓  on the boney side.
2. Prepare the grill for cooking over indirect at 275°F, using a combination of cherry and hickory smoking chips for flavor.
3. Cook the ribs until they are nicely caramelized and looking great. This should take about 2 1/2 hours.
4. Remove the ribs to a platter or sheet pan. Lay out two double-thick layers of heavy-duty aluminum foil, each big enough to wrap a whole slab. Transfer each slab of ribs to a piece of foil. Top each slab with ⅓  cup of the honey. Sprinkle half of brown sugar over each slab. Fold the foil up around the ribs and seal the packets snugly, being careful not to puncture the foil with the rib bones.
5. Return them to the grill for one hour.
6. Unwrap the ribs and return to the grill. Brush both sides with barbecue sauce and cook for 15 minutes to set the sauce.
7. Cut each slab into three pieces.

https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/st-louis-grilled-ribs-dr-bbq-recipe

Political cartoon of the day: Didn't see it coming

 

Didn't see it coming

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow

FBI Reportedly Has Little Evidence US Capitol Riot Coordinated, No Proof Trump Was Involved

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The FBI has found hardly any proof that the January 6 riot at the US Capitol was coordinated and has no evidence that former President Donald Trump was involved in the event, Reuters reported on Friday.

The FBI considers the events of January 6 not to be an organised plot by far-right groups or supporters of then-President Donald Trump, the report said citing four current and former law enforcement officials.

Ninety-five percent of the involved are "one-off cases," the report cited a former senior law enforcement official as saying. Of the remaining 5 percent, there were some militia groups that were more closely organised, but there was no grand scheme to storm the Capitol and take hostages, the report said.

Senior lawmakers have been briefed in detail on the results of the FBI's probe and consider them credible, the report said.FBI has found, however, that some protesters, such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups, had aimed to break into the Capitol, but the investigators did not find any evidence these groups had serious plans on what to do inside, the report said.

On 6 January, a group of supporters of former President Donald Trump entered the US Capitol in a bid to protest the lawmakers certifying the 2020 election results from several states that Trump said were fraudulent. One protester was shot dead during the incident and the law enforcement authorities charged 500 people for participating in the event.

https://sputniknews.com/us/202108201083670949-fbi-reportedly-has-little-evidence-us-capitol-riot-coordinated-no-proof-trump-was-involved/

Monoclonal antibodies are free and effective against covid-19, but few people are getting them

 https://news.yahoo.com/monoclonal-antibodies-free-effective-against-152854132.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

When Mike Burton came down with a breakthrough case of covid-19 earlier this month, the infection posed a double threat to his family. At 73, the retired surgeon faced elevated risk of serious illness. His wife, Linda, has a suppressed immune system, the result of drugs she takes after two liver transplants that put her in greater danger of life-threatening illness. 

The Burtons, both vaccinated, moved to separate parts of their Mt. Sterling, Ky., home, masked up and hoped for the best.

Then a friend called and insisted they ask their doctors about monoclonal antibodies - an effective, widely available covid-19 therapy that few people are receiving.

Related video: How doctors hope antibodies can help fight coronavirus

 

3:55

 

3:55

 

 

 

How doctors hope antibodies and convalescent plasma can help fight coronavirus

The drugs often prevent severe disease, keeping people like Mike Burton out of the hospital if taken within seven to 10 days after symptoms begin. And since last month, they can be given prophylactically to millions of people like Linda Burton who have been exposed to the coronavirus and are at high risk of serious consequences.

"That was all news [to me], when my friend Rita called," said Linda Burton, a retired nurse. "I want everybody to know about this. I'm telling people that I know that are older. I'm saying 'if you get exposed, you need to talk to your doctor about it.'"

Monoclonal antibodies are free to patients and there have been almost no side effects. They are accessible on an outpatient basis, via a single infusion or four injections. Hospitals, urgent care centers and even private doctors are authorized to dispense them.

But Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, maker of the only authorized, free monoclonal antibodies, said it is reaching fewer than 30% of eligible patients, up from fewer than 5% a month ago.

 The White House COVID-19 Response Team reported last week that just more than 600,000 people have received the treatment since Regeneron and Eli Lilly received approval for separate versions in November. (Lilly's product is no longer authorized because it is not effective against the delta variant.)

"We have a long way to go on how do we reach the general public where they are," said Erin McCreary, director of stewardship innovation at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which has treated 3,427 patients with the drugs since Dec. 9.

"It is absolutely the standard of care for covid-19," she said. "It is my hope that clinics know that."

In interviews, experts cited a federal government that has not done enough to promote monoclonal antibodies alongside vaccines; logistical issues that can make delivery of the drugs complicated and costly for medical facilities; and the difficulties the pandemic presents for providers of all kinds of medical care.

"Momentum is a tough thing to get going and I'm glad it's starting to," said Jason C. Gallagher, clinical professor of pharmacy practice and infectious diseases at Temple University School of Pharmacy. "But it still needs to be improved."

Earlier in the pandemic, neither the National Institutes of Health nor the Infectious Diseases Society of America included monoclonal antibodies in treatment guidelines they released for covid-19, said Alexandra Bowie, a spokesperson for Regeneron.

"Awareness was kind of low among physicians for a long time," she said. 

It has been boosted this month by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, R, who last week vowed to expand provision of the antibodies as the virus tears through his state and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, R, who tested positive for covid Tuesday and is being treated with monoclonals. Both governors have resisted coronavirus restrictions and worked to thwart mask or vaccine mandates. 

And last year, former president Donald Trump received Regeneron's medication when he was infected with the virus, before the treatment was available to the public. Trump, who was given the drug in early October under a "compassionate use" program that allows people to receive unapproved drugs, later credited it for his recovery, inaccurately calling it a cure.

James Hildreth, president and CEO of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., said access to monoclonal antibodies has been an issue for many people in vulnerable communities hit hardest by the pandemic - one of the reasons he found use of the treatment by Abbott unjust.

 "Joe Smith, working guy, or Mary Jane, who might be vaccinated against covid, they don't have that same access," he said.

Mike Burton, the Kentucky surgeon, experienced a turnaround after he received his infusion of monoclonal antibodies last week. He went to bed that night still plagued by fever, chills, a bad cough, clogged sinuses and fatigue. He woke up the next morning without any of the symptoms except fatigue and a milder cough, Linda Burton said. She did not become infected.

It's impossible to know how Burton might have fared without the drug, but his wife credits it and prayer for their protection. "I just knew I didn't want to get sick like he got sick," she said. "I would've gotten sicker and I would not have recovered as well."

The antibodies mimic the body's own immune response to the coronavirus, moving quickly into action while the natural response is gearing up. The Regeneron product is authorized for people 12 and over with mild to moderate covid-19 who are not hospitalized and don't need supplemental oxygen. 

The treatment is effective within ten days after symptoms appear, according to the Food and Drug Administration, which is why it's critical that people seek treatment as soon as they receive a positive test result. Some medical centers are reaching out to anyone who tests positive to inform them of the treatment's availability.

 Regeneron's drug is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies, casirivimab and imdevimab. Research that has not yet been peer reviewed shows it reduced the chances of hospitalization and death by 70% and shortened the duration of symptoms by four days. 

Last month, the FDA also approved it as a prophylactic medication for people who are unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated, have been exposed to the virus and are at higher risk for complications. That population includes millions of people, among them immunocompromised patients like Linda Burton, but also anyone older than 65 or with a body mass index of 25 or greater. 

A study showed the medication reduced the risk of developing a symptomatic infection from an infected household contact by 81%. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services bought the first 300,000 doses of Regeneron's product for $1,500 per dose in July 2020, then added another 1.25 million at $2,100 per dose. It provides the medication free, but medical centers can charge to cover their costs of administering it. Those costs are covered by Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance.

Until recently, very few people were receiving it. Through the week of July 19, an average of less than 25,000 doses per week were being shipped, Bowie said. But that has jumped to more than 125,000 doses delivered the week of Aug. 9, she said, as states respond to the spread of the delta variant of the virus. 

HHS data shows that 1.3 million doses have been shipped and 637,000 used. Most have gone to states where the virus is surging, including Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas.

Another single monoclonal antibody, sotrovimab, made by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology, was given emergency use authorization in May. It is not free to patients, with a wholesale acquisition cost of $2,100 per dose. But a spokeswoman said the company has experienced a nearly 300% increase in orders between July and August. 

"The monoclonal antibodies work. They are safe, they're free, they keep people out of the hospital, and help keep them alive," Marcella Nunez-Smith, chair of the government's COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force, said at a briefing Aug. 12.

Her statement marked one of the few times since the Biden administration took office that the antibodies have been promoted by the response team. A review of its 52 briefings or news conferences shows they were discussed mostly when Anthony S. Fauci, the team's infectious-disease specialist, offered a research update.

"For the administration, mum's the word on monoclonal antibodies, rapid home tests, high quality masks . . . anything except vaccines," Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said in an email. "Which is wrong, since we need every tool in the kit to effectively take on delta; we're not doing that well at all."

An HHS spokeswoman said the agency has worked hard this year to expand access to the therapy, helping cities across the United States set up treatment centers. Weekly calls with state and territorial health officials include distribution of covid-19 therapies and a web site has been established to help consumers find the treatments, she said. The agency also has purchased ads and released information about the treatment on satellite radio, she said.

But on the ground, the effort to stand up a nationwide program has run into obstacles.

"The government sends drugs, but it doesn't send nurses," said McCreary, the University of Pittsburgh official. The medical center had to supply intravenous lines, crash carts, transportation and rescue medications. After dripping the medicine into a patient, which takes about half an hour, medical personnel must watch for another hour to ensure there is no serious reaction such as difficulty breathing. Private doctors generally do not have the capacity to do that, she said.

"None of those things are sent and none of those things are free," McCreary said. "So you have to invest in the infrastructure."

Monoclonals "are logistically difficult to get to people," said Gallagher, the Temple pharmacist. People with mild to moderate symptoms may not seek a coronavirus test for days, he said. After a positive test, they usually talk to their primary care provider, who refers them to an infusion center or hospital. By the time they get to one, the window of effectiveness may be closing, he said.

At Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, few patients want an injection in each limb or four in their abdomen, said Brandon Webb, chair of the health system's covid therapeutics committee. The subcutaneous injections have proved most useful in congregate settings such as nursing homes where health care workers offer the therapy to many people at once, he said.

The health center is also focusing on treatment rather than prophylaxis. For every seven patients offered the treatment, an average of one hospitalization is prevented, the hospital's data show. But giving the drug prophylactically prevents only one hospitalization in 100 patients, he said.

Still, the HHS is working hard to increase access, expanding the number of sites it supports from 800 in June to about 2,000 now. The drugs have been shipped to 6,288 sites during the pandemic, the department's data show.

Even with increased use, "access is still uneven and way below the number of people who could potentially benefit" from the drugs, said Mark McClellan, a former FDA commissioner and director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy.

The Biden administration has taken "some very important steps but there is still a big gap, an opportunity to get more people treated and get control of the pandemic, especially with hospitals getting full in many parts of the country," he said.

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