Why is so little known about the 1930s coup attempt against FDR?

Thank you Laura Sayegh for sharing this with me.

Sally Denton

Business leaders like JP Morgan and Irénée du Pont were accused by a retired major general of plotting to install a fascist dictator

Donald Trump’s elaborate plot to overthrow the democratically elected president was neither impulsive nor uncoordinated, but straight out of the playbook of another American coup attempt – the 1933 “Wall Street putsch” against newly elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

America had hit rock bottom, beginning with the stock market crash three years earlier. Unemployment was at 16 million and rising. Farm foreclosures exceeded half a million. More than five thousand banks had failed, and hundreds of thousands of families had lost their homes. Financial capitalists had bilked millions of customers and rigged the market. There were no government safety nets – no unemployment insurance, minimum wage, social security or Medicare.

Economic despair gave rise to panic and unrest, and political firebrands and white supremacists eagerly fanned the paranoia of socialism, global conspiracies and threats from within the country. Populists Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin attacked FDR, spewing vitriolic anti-Jewish, pro-fascist refrains and brandishing the “America first” slogan coined by media magnate William Randolph Hearst.

On 4 March 1933, more than 100,000 people had gathered on the east side of the US Capitol for Roosevelt’s inauguration. The atmosphere was slate gray and ominous, the sky suggesting a calm before the storm. That morning, rioting was expected in cities throughout the nation, prompting predictions of a violent revolution. Army machine guns and sharpshooters were placed at strategic locations along the route. Not since the civil war had Washington been so fortified, with armed police guarding federal buildings.

FDR thought government in a civilized society had an obligation to abolish poverty, reduce unemployment, and redistribute wealth. Roosevelt’s bold New Deal experiments inflamed the upper class, provoking a backlash from the nation’s most powerful bankers, industrialists and Wall Street brokers, who thought the policy was not only radical but revolutionary. Worried about losing their personal fortunes to runaway government spending, this fertile field of loathing led to the “traitor to his class” epithet for FDR. “What that fellow Roosevelt needs is a 38-caliber revolver wright at the back of his head,” a respectable citizen said at a Washington dinner party.

In a climate of conspiracies and intrigues, and against the backdrop of charismatic dictators in the world such as Hitler and Mussolini, the sparks of anti-Rooseveltism ignited into full-fledged hatred. Many American intellectuals and business leaders saw nazism and fascism as viable models for the US. The rise of Hitler and the explosion of the Nazi revolution, which frightened many European nations, struck a chord with prominent American elites and antisemites such as Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford. Hitler’s elite Brownshirts – a mass body of party storm troopers separate from the 100,000-man German army – was a stark symbol to the powerless American masses. Mussolini’s Blackshirts – the military arm of his organization made up of 200,000 soldiers – were a potent image of strength to a nation that felt emasculated.

A divided country and FDR’s emboldened powerful enemies made the plot to overthrow him seem plausible. With restless uncertainty, volatile protests and ominous threats, America’s right wing was inspired to form its own paramilitary organizations. Militias sprung up throughout the land, their self-described “patriots” chanting: “This is despotism! This is tyranny!”

Today’s Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have nothing on their extremist forbears. In 1933, a diehard core of conservative veterans formed the Khaki Shirts in Philadelphia and recruited pro-Mussolini immigrants. The Silver Shirts was an apocalyptic Christian militia patterned on the notoriously racist Texas Rangers that operated in 46 states and stockpiled weapons.

The Gray Shirts of New York organized to remove “Communist college professors” from the nation’s education system, and the Tennessee-based White Shirts wore a Crusader cross and agitated for the takeover of Washington. JP Morgan Jr, one of the nation’s richest men, had secured a $100m loan to Mussolini’s government. He defiantly refused to pay income tax and implored his peers to join him in undermining FDR.

A divided country and FDR’s emboldened powerful enemies made a plot to overthrow him seem plausible

So, when retired US Marine Corps Maj Gen Smedley Darlington Butler claimed he was recruited by a group of Wall Street financiers to lead a fascist coup against FDR and the US government in the summer of 1933, Washington took him seriously. Butler, a Quaker, and first world war hero dubbed the Maverick Marine, was a soldier’s soldier who was idolized by veterans – which represented a huge and powerful voting bloc in America. Famous for his daring exploits in China and Central America, Butler’s reputation was impeccable. He got rousing ovations when he claimed that during his 33 years in the marines: “I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”

Butler later testified before Congress that a bond-broker and American Legion member named Gerald MacGuire approached him with the plan. MacGuire told him the coup was backed by a group called the American Liberty League, a group of business leaders which formed in response to FDR’s victory, and whose mission it was to teach government “the necessity of respect for the rights of persons and property”. Members included JP Morgan, Jr, Irénée du Pont, Robert Sterling Clark of the Singer sewing machine fortune, and the chief executives of General Motors, Birds Eye and General Foods.

The putsch called for him to lead a massive army of veterans – funded by $30m from Wall Street titans and with weapons supplied by Remington Arms – to march on Washington, oust Roosevelt and the entire line of succession, and establish a fascist dictatorship backed by a private army of 500,000 former soldiers.

As MacGuire laid it out to Butler, the coup was instigated after FDR eliminated the gold standard in April 1933, which threatened the country’s wealthiest men who thought if American currency wasn’t backed by gold, rising inflation would diminish their fortunes. He claimed the coup was sponsored by a group who controlled $40bn in assets – about $800bn today – and who had $300m available to support the coup and pay the veterans. The plotters had men, guns and money – the three elements that make for successful wars and revolutions. Butler referred to them as “the royal family of financiers” that had controlled the American Legion since its formation in 1919. He felt the Legion was a militaristic political force, notorious for its antisemitism and reactionary policies against labor unions and civil rights, that manipulated veterans.

The planned coup was thwarted when Butler reported it to J Edgar Hoover at the FBI, who reported it to FDR. How seriously the “Wall Street putsch” endangered the Roosevelt presidency remains unknown, with the national press at the time mocking it as a “gigantic hoax” and historians like Arthur M Schlesinger Jr surmising “the gap between contemplation and execution was considerable” and that democracy was not in real danger. Still, there is much evidence that the nation’s wealthiest men – Republicans and Democrats alike – were so threatened by FDR’s policies that they conspired with antigovernment paramilitarism to stage a coup.

The final report by the congressional committee tasked with investigating the allegations, delivered in February 1935, concluded: “[The committee] received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country”, adding “There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.”

As Congressman John McCormack who headed the congressional investigation put it: “If General Butler had not been the patriot he was, and if they had been able to maintain secrecy, the plot certainly might very well have succeeded … When times are desperate and people are frustrated, anything could happen.”

There is still much that is not known about the coup attempt. Butler demanded to know why the names of the country’s richest men were removed from the final version of the committee’s report. “Like most committees, it has slaughtered the little and allowed the big to escape,” Butler said in a Philadelphia radio interview in 1935. “The big shots weren’t even called to testify. They were all mentioned in the testimony. Why was all mention of these names suppressed from this testimony?”

While details of the conspiracy are still matters of historical debate, journalists and historians, including the BBC’s Mike Thomson and John Buchanan of the US, later concluded that FDR struck a deal with the plotters, allowing them to avoid treason charges – and possible execution – if Wall Street backed off its opposition to the New Deal. The presidential biographer Sidney Blumenthal recently said that Roosevelt should have pushed it all through, then reneged on his agreement and prosecuted them.

What might all of this portend for Americans today, as President Biden follows in FDR’s New Deal footsteps while democratic socialist Bernie Sanders also rises in popularity and influence? In 1933, rather than inflame a quavering nation, FDR calmly urged Americans to unite to overcome fear, banish apathy and restore their confidence in the country’s future. Now, 90 years later, a year on from Trump’s own coup attempt, Biden’s tone was more alarming, sounding a clarion call for Americans to save democracy itself, to make sure such an attack “never, never happens again”.

If the plotters had been held accountable in the 1930s, the forces behind the 6 January coup attempt might never have flourished into the next century.

  • Sally Denton is the author of The Plots Against the President: FDR, a Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right. Her forthcoming book is The Colony: Faith and Blood in a Promised Land

A Very Important Message To All Of Us

I’m sure you heard about this Opinion Piece from Norman Lear. Everyone is talking about it. Here is your very own copy.

OPINION

GUEST ESSAY

On My 100th Birthday, Reflections on Archie Bunker and Donald Trump

By Norman Lear

Mr. Lear, a father of six, is an Emmy-winning television producer and a co-founder of the advocacy organization People for the American Way.

Well, I made it. I am 100 years old today. I wake up every morning grateful to be alive.

Reaching my own personal centennial is cause for a bit of reflection on my first century — and on what the next century will bring for the people and country I love. To be honest, I’m a bit worried that I may be in better shape than our democracy is.

I was deeply troubled by the attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 — by supporters of former President Donald Trump attempting to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Those concerns have only grown with every revelation about just how far Mr. Trump was willing to go to stay in office after being rejected by voters — and about his ongoing efforts to install loyalists in positions with the power to sway future elections.

I don’t take the threat of authoritarianism lightly. As a young man, I dropped out of college when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and joined the U.S. Army Air Forces. I flew more than 50 missions in a B-17 bomber to defeat fascism consuming Europe. I am a flag-waving believer in truth, justice and the American way, and I don’t understand how so many people who call themselves patriots can support efforts to undermine our democracy and our Constitution. It is alarming.

At the same time, I have been moved by the courage of the handful of conservative Republican lawmakers, lawyers and former White House staffers who resisted Mr. Trump’s bullying. They give me hope that Americans can find unexpected common ground with friends and family whose politics differ but who are not willing to sacrifice core democratic principles.

Encouraging that kind of conversation was a goal of mine when we began broadcasting “All in the Family” in 1971. The kinds of topics Archie Bunker and his family argued about — issues that were dividing Americans from one another, such as racism, feminism, homosexuality, the Vietnam War and Watergate — were certainly being talked about in homes and families. They just weren’t being acknowledged on television.

For all his faults, Archie loved his country and he loved his family, even when they called him out on his ignorance and bigotries. If Archie had been around 50 years later, he probably would have watched Fox News. He probably would have been a Trump voter. But I think that the sight of the American flag being used to attack Capitol Police would have sickened him. I hope that the resolve shown by Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, and their commitment to exposing the truth, would have won his respect.

It is remarkable to consider that television — the medium for which I am most well-known — did not even exist when I was born, in 1922. The internet came along decades later, and then social media. We have seen that each of these technologies can be put to destructive use — spreading lies, sowing hatred and creating the conditions for authoritarianism to take root. But that is not the whole story. Innovative technologies create new ways for us to express ourselves, and, I hope, will allow humanity to learn more about itself and better understand one another’s ideas, failures and achievements. These technologies have also been used to create connection, community and platforms for the kind of ideological sparring that might have drawn Archie to a keyboard. I can only imagine the creative and constructive possibilities that technological innovation might offer us in solving some of our most intractable problems.

I often feel disheartened by the direction that our politics, courts and culture are taking. But I do not lose faith in our country or its future. I remind myself how far we have come. I think of the brilliantly creative people I have had the pleasure to work with in entertainment and politics, and at People for the American Way, a progressive group I co-founded to defend our freedoms and build a country in which all people benefit from the blessings of liberty. Those encounters renew my belief that Americans will find ways to build solidarity on behalf of our values, our country and our fragile planet.

Those closest to me know that I try to stay forward-focused. Two of my favorite words are “over” and “next.” It’s an attitude that has served me well through a long life of ups and downs, along with a deeply felt appreciation for the absurdity of the human condition.

Reaching this birthday with my health and wits mostly intact is a privilege. Approaching it with loving family, friends and creative collaborators to share my days has filled me with a gratitude I can hardly express.

This is our century, dear reader, yours and mine. Let us encourage one another with visions of a shared future. And let us bring all the grit and openheartedness and creative spirit we can muster to gather together and build that future

Just A Few Things I Read

James Patterson On James Patterson

Just finished “James Patterson on James Patterson.” He had a major confession. It was difficult to believe considering Patterson is such an upstanding citizen. In the 1960’s, he actually stole a two-tone Pontiac GTO convertible, powder blue and white, for a joy ride. The owner left the keys in the parked car at a state fair in upstate New York. Jimmy spotted the opportunity, jumped in, revved up the engine and took off. Lucky for him, he was able to return the car without getting caught. I just can’t imagine this best selling author taking such a chance. You and me maybe, but not Jimmy.

🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪🌪

Report: In New Memoir, Jared Kushner Says He Wasn’t Willing to Turn His Back on Saudi Prince Over One Measly Murder-by-Bone Saw
He’s also pinkie-promised that the $2 billion investment he got from the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund had nothing to do with sweeping the killing under the rug.

Read in Vanity Fair: https://apple.news/AvB7lpKpCSq-lgaVoBeucqA

👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

Joy Behar is immune to cancellation
After 25 years on The View, Joy Behar knows the strong reaction she provokes in people. She’s fine with it

Read in TIME: https://apple.news/AaKkB7y2sRYS_k6UdLCqvDA

Just Remember I’m One Of The Few Mature Women On Earth Who Has Never Had Any Work Done On My Face.

So when you take a photo with me, keep that in mind. Last week I had dinner with a plastic surgeon. I’m sure I ruined his appetite when he had to stare at my turkey neck. Never did a man desire to overtake a woman in his life. I will probably stay knife free forever. If I change my mind, you will be the first to know. It may be too late for me to be a Vogue girl.

30 Pictures That Prove Goldie Hawn Is an Ageless Summer Beauty Muse

BY 

From her iconic golden shag to her famous sunny disposition, Goldie Hawn embodies the spirit of summer. It only makes sense she’d shoot right to the top of our beauty moodboard as the temperatures begin to soar.

Throughout her four-decade career, Hawn has served up an irresistible summer beauty aesthetic: a bright, fluttery gaze, a fresh-from-the-beach glow, and variations on effortlessly cool, slightly rumpled hair. An aspiring dancer, Hawn first came into public view in the mid-’60s with a windswept blonde bob that paired perfectly with a set of kittenish flicks. She then came out swinging on the late ’60s scene in sketch variety show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,dazzling viewers with her comedic chops and an It-girl cut: a tousled pixie with eyelash-grazing fringe.

Into the ’70s, Hawn let her blanched crop grow down to her collarbones, her extended lengths shaped into a smooth, feathered shag that would come to be her signature. Who could forget the bloom-adorned half-up style and stacks of false lashes she wore to accept her Oscar for 1969’s Cactus Flower? Looking nothing short of the California girl the Beach Boys waxed on about, Hawn spend the rest of the decade (a standout moment being her turn as wannabe actress Jill Haynes in 1975’s groovy Shampoo) and the ’80s finessing the texture of her shaggy mane, embracing everything from crispy waves to a fanned-out blowout with a sun-kissed complexion and a slick of shimmering lip gloss. It’s no wonder her longtime partner, Kurt Russell, fell for her on the set of 1987’s Overboard, their relationship a Hollywood love story that’s as enduring as Hawn’s charm.

As Hawn continued to rule the silverscreen in the ’90s—for proof, look no further than 1992’s Death Becomes Her or 1996’s The First Wive’s Club—she rounded out her 40s and rung in her 50s by sticking to her smoke-show signatures including her tell-tale golden shag, full lashes, ruby-tinged lips, and flushed cheeks. And proving there’s no age limit on a true bombshell, over the last two decades the one and only Goldie Hawn has continued to be a year-round summer beauty muse. See some of her standout hair and makeup moments over the years—and get inspiration for your own seasonal style—below.

  • 1964Photo: Getty Images1/301964
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  • Image may contain Electrical Device Microphone Human Person and Goldie HawnPhoto: Getty Images13/301990MORE FROM VOGUE
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  • Image may contain Human Person Sunglasses Accessories Accessory Goldie Hawn Face Necklace Jewelry Hair and BlondePhoto: Getty Images22/302005
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  • Image may contain Human Person Sunglasses Accessories Accessory Finger Evening Dress Fashion Clothing and GownPhoto: Getty Images24/302008
  • 2017Photo: Getty Images29/30

Mr. Watusi,

Don’t ever let me hear you say another negative word about Biden’s walk, speech, age, hugging, and family. Biden is a prince amongst men. We owe him a lifetime of thanks for being exactly who he is. I love him no matter what.

🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀

Dear Ron,

You really need to worry about your soul. All the hate you have for people who want to live in the modern world is going to poison your health and the health of your immediate family. Change before it’s too late. You are going to wake up years from now and realize you lived a life of negativity. You spent your best years trying to destroy others. You are suppose to be helping, not grandstanding on hateful issues. Look in the mirror. Do you want to be remembered as a clueless politician who was an old school thinker? That’s exactly what is going to happen to you. Your children will have to spend their adult years apologizing for what you said and did. Don’t do that to them. I pray you see the light.

Love,

Lois

Scientists are narrowing in on why some people keep avoiding Covid. BA.5 could end that luck.Most

NBC News

Beyond behavior, a person’s genetics, T cells and the effects of inflammatory conditions like allergies could influence their Covid risk — but only to a point.

by Aria Bendix | NBC NEWS

Most people in the U.S have had Covid-19 at least once — likely more than 70% of the country, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha said on Thursday, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Many have gotten infected multiple times. In a preprint study looking at 257,000 U.S. veterans who’d gotten Covid at least once, 12% had a reinfection by April and around 1% had been infected three times or more.

This raises an obvious question: What is keeping that shrinking minority of people from getting sick?

Disease experts are homing in on a few predictive factors beyond individual behavior, including genetics, T cell immunity and the effects of inflammatory conditions like allergies and asthma.

But even as experts learn more about the reasons people may be better able to avoid Covid, they caution that some of these defenses may not hold up against the latest version of omicron, BA.5, which is remarkably good at spreading and evading vaccine protection.

“It really takes two to tango,” said Neville Sanjana, a bioengineer at the New York Genome Center. “If you think about having an infection and any of the bad stuff that happens after that, it really is a product of two different organisms: the virus and the human.”

Genetics could decrease the risk of Covid

In 2020, NYU researchers identified a multitude of genes that could impact a person’s susceptibility to the coronavirus. In particular, they found that inhibiting certain genes that code for a receptor known as ACE-2, which allows the virus to enter cells, could reduce a person’s likelihood of infection.

Sanjana, who conducted that research, estimated that about 100 to 500 genes could influence Covid-19 susceptibility in sites like the lungs or nasal cavity.

Genetics is “likely to be a large contributor” to protection from Covid-19, he said. “I would never say it’s the only contributor.”

In July, researchers identified a common genetic factor that could influence the severity of a coronavirus infection. In a study of more than 3,000 people, two genetic variations decreased the expression of a gene called OAS1, which is part of the innate immune response to viral infections. That was associated with an increased risk of Covid-19 hospitalization.

Increasing the gene’s expression, then, should have the opposite effect — reducing the risk of severe disease — though it wouldn’t necessarily prevent infection altogether.

“It’s very natural to get infected once you are exposed. There’s no magic bullet for that. But after you get infected, how you’re going to respond to this infection, that’s what is going to be affected by your genetic variants,” said Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, the study’s lead researcher and chief of the Laboratory of Translational Genomics at the National Cancer Institute.

Still, Benjamin tenOever, a microbiology professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine who helped conduct the 2020 research, said it will be difficult for scientists to pinpoint a particular gene responsible for preventing a Covid infection.

“While there might still be certainly some genetics out there that do render people completely resistant, they’re going to be incredibly hard to find,” tenOever said. “People have already been looking intensely for two years with no actual results.”

T cells could remember past coronavirus encounters

Aside from this new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, four other coronaviruses commonly infect people, typically causing mild to moderate upper respiratory illnesses like the common cold.

A recent study suggested that repeated exposure to or occasional infections from these common cold coronaviruses may confer some protection from SARS-CoV-2.

The researchers found that T cells, a type of white blood cell that recognizes and fights invaders, seem to recognize SARS-CoV-2 based on past exposure to other coronaviruses. So when a person who has been infected with a common cold coronavirus is later exposed to SARS-CoV-2, they might not get as sick.

But that T cell memory probably can’t prevent Covid entirely.

“While neutralizing antibodies are key to prevent an infection, T cells are key to terminate an infection and to modulate the severity of infection,” said Alessandro Sette, the study’s author and a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology.

Sette said it’s possible that some people’s T cells clear the virus so quickly that the person never tests positive for Covid. But researchers aren’t yet sure if that’s what’s happening.

“It’s possible that, despite being negative on the test, it was a very abortive, transient infection that was not detected,” Sette said.

At the very least, he said, T cells from past Covid infections or vaccines should continue to offer some protection against coronavirus variants, including BA.5.

Allergies may result in a little extra protection

Although asthma was considered a potential risk factor for severe Covid earlier in the pandemic, more recent research suggests that low-grade inflammation from conditions like allergies or asthma may have a protective benefit

The researchers found that T cells, a type of white blood cell that recognizes and fights invaders, seem to recognize SARS-CoV-2 based on past exposure to other coronaviruses. So when a person who has been infected with a common cold coronavirus is later exposed to SARS-CoV-2, they might not get as sick.

But that T cell memory probably can’t prevent Covid entirely.

“While neutralizing antibodies are key to prevent an infection, T cells are key to terminate an infection and to modulate the severity of infection,” said Alessandro Sette, the study’s author and a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology.

Sette said it’s possible that some people’s T cells clear the virus so quickly that the person never tests positive for Covid. But researchers aren’t yet sure if that’s what’s happening.

“It’s possible that, despite being negative on the test, it was a very abortive, transient infection that was not detected,” Sette said.

At the very least, he said, T cells from past Covid infections or vaccines should continue to offer some protection against coronavirus variants, including BA.5.

Allergies may result in a little extra protection

Although asthma was considered a potential risk factor for severe Covid earlier in the pandemic, more recent research suggests that low-grade inflammation from conditions like allergies or asthma may have a protective benefit

“You’ll hear these stories about some individuals getting sick and having full-blown symptoms of Covid, and having slept beside their partner for an entire week during that period without having given it to them. People think that they must have some genetic resistance to it, [but] a big part of that could be if the partner beside them in any way has a higher than normal inflammatory response going on their lungs,” tenOever said.

A May study found that having a food allergy halved the risk of a coronavirus infection among nearly 1,400 U.S. households. Asthma didn’t lower people’s risk of infection in the study, but it didn’t raise it, either.

One theory, according to the researchers, is that people with food allergies express fewer ACE2 receptors on the surface of their airway cells, making it harder for the virus to enter.

“Because there are fewer receptors, you will have either a much lower grade infection or just be less likely to even become infected,” said Tina Hartert, a professor of medicine and pediatrics at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine who co-led that research.

The study took place from May 2020 to February 2021, before the omicron variant emerged. But Hartert said BA.5 likely wouldn’t eliminate cross-protection from allergies.

“If something like allergic inflammation is protective, I think it would be true for all variants,” Hartert said. “The degree to which it could be protective could certainly differ.”

Avoiding infection is more challenging with BA.5

For many, the first explanation that springs to mind when thinking about Covid avoidance is one’s personal level of caution. tenOever believes that individual behavior, more than genetics or T cells, is the key factor. He and his family in New York City are among those who’ve never had Covid, which he attributes to precautions like staying home and wearing masks.

“I don’t think for a second that we have anything special in our genetics that makes us resistant,” he said.

It’s now common knowledge that Covid was easier to avoid before omicron, back when a small percentage of infected people were responsible for the majority of the virus’s spread. A 2020 study, for example, found that 10–20% of infected people accounted for 80% of transmission.

But omicron and its subvariants have made any social interaction riskier for everyone involved.

“It’s probably far more of an equal playing field with the omicron variants than it ever was for the earlier variants,” tenOever said.

BA.5 in particular has increased the odds that people who’ve avoided Covid thus far will get sick. President Joe Biden is a prime example: He tested positive for the first time this week.

But even so, Jha said on Thursday, “I don’t believe that every American will be infected.”

My Take on Ivana Trump’s Death


Lois Whitman-Hess
Miami Life Editor
The Three Tomatoes
https://www.thethreetomatoes.com/miami-life-ivana-espanola-way-boating-polo-week

Ivana Trump lived in our Miami condo building, the Murano at Portofino, for many years. She only spent the winter months with us. Her other home was the New York City townhouse. It’s interesting to note that she lived in Miami, not Palm Beach. We would see her all the time in the lobby, walking her dog, at our beach club, and at condo meetings. She was friendly to all and was always smiling. The staff loved her because she stopped and chatted with them every chance she got. She called them by their first names. They were all very flattered.

I just don’t believe she accidentally fell down the stairs in her townhouse and instantly died. Something doesn’t add up. The Guardian just reported that on last Thursday afternoon, emergency responders investigating a call from Ivana Trump’s home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side found her unconscious.

No one ever says who made that call. Why was she alone? Most folks of her fame and fortune have staff that live in. I know she had a personal assistant in the past. Whenever I called her New York residence for business over the years, the same woman answered. Where is she now? Why would Ivana live alone in a large, multi-level, townhouse? I find that strange.

The newspapers quoted the police who said they found her dead at the scene and noted that there did “not appear to be any criminality.” Appear to be? There should be a full investigation. I just feel that something else happened and someone close to her should keep digging for the truth.

Again, I don’t buy that Ivana died accidentally of blunt impact injuries to her torso. This sounds like jargon to me. What were the exact details that caused her to stop breathing? Someone is hiding something.

The New York City’s chief medical examiner announced that there would be no further comment on the death of Ms. Trump, 73. Why was a statement like this ever made so quickly?

The U.S. health officials consider falls to be the leading cause of injury-related death for people who are 65 years of age or older. About 64 out of 100,000 elderly people die as a result of accidental falls, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I want to know what the injury was that caused her to die. Don’t talk to me in euphemisms. Give it to me straight. Otherwise, I will just keep publicly asking.

You’re Never Too Old To Jump From A Plane

A Podcast ———
.

At 73 years young, Doug Garr has jumped out of a plane more than 2000-times. Doug has been on several age-group formation world record skydives.

He’s part of the SOS Skydiving Over Sixty and JOS Jumpers Over Seventy
Doug has a professional exhibition rating, which allows him to jump into stadiums. His website is douggarr.com

Doug is also a Member of the Author’s Guild since 1999 and today is mostly a retired writer and editor.

Fun Fact— Doug was New York State Governor Mario Cuomo’s speech writer from 1992-94.

Please listen to our podcast with Sky-diving Senior— Doug Garr


Happy Birthdays

Sandy Goodwin


Ana Thue
Any Gilroy
Heather Gold
Marcos Andreos