Concentration camp guard convicted in one of the last Nazi trials in history

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/23/europe/nazi-guard-germany-conviction-intl/index.html

The 93-year-old man, identified as Bruno D., was charged with 5,230 counts of accessory to murder over his time as an SS guard at the Stutthof concentration camp from 1944 to 1945.

 

Trump scraps Republican convention in virus 'flare-up'

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53521896

A Democratic strategist involved in their conference planning said: "I wonder who will have the better convention - the party who recognised the limitations early on and have been planning for a mostly virtual/digital television production to capitalise on a prime-time audience of millions, or the clowns who keep moving theirs from place to place and have no concrete plan a month out."

 

US move to shut China's Houston consulate draws questions about political motives

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/22/politics/us-china-consulate-analysis/index.html

Jeff Moon, a former assistant US trade representative for China, noted the State Department said the Houston order was a response to Chinese intellectual property theft and said that raised questions about why only one consulate was targeted.

 

"If that were the real reason, the US would close the San Francisco consulate, which covers Silicon Valley," said Moon, who was among those who suggested politics might be at work. "This action is red meat for Trump supporters who are eager to retaliate against China and divert attention from Trump's disastrous Covid-19 policy."

Judge suggests Cohen was jailed as payback for Trump book

https://www.ft.com/content/12f093c8-3b43-4225-ac54-dd7eeface6a

A federal judge has ordered Michael Cohen released from prison again and accused the Trump administration of payback over the president’s onetime lawyer penning an unflattering book as a motive for his latest incarceration. “How can I take any other inference but that it was retaliatory?” Judge Alvin Hellerstein said at a court hearing in Manhattan on Thursday, according to media reports. He ordered Cohen released from prison by Friday.

 

Trump's legal authority to deploy agents to U.S. cities may be limited, experts say

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-race-protests-law/trumps-legal-authority-to-deploy-agents-to-us-cities-may-be-limited-experts-say-idUSKCN24M2WF

Legal experts said Trump can deploy federal agents to enforce federal laws, but lacks carte blanche.

“The president is not the king,” said Kent Greenfield, a Boston College law professor specializing in constitutional law. “The president does not have the ability to require states to enforce their laws in a certain way, or to elbow aside their law enforcement abilities.”

Federal law gives Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf power to deputize agents to protect federal properties, such as the federal courthouse in Portland, and people there.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Tuesday that this enforcement power may extend beyond the physical boundaries of federal properties.

This Is Still Happening: Chad Wolf

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/this-is-still-happening-chad-wolf-family-separation-portland.html

Multiple parts of the Bill of Rights bar unidentified federal agents from conducting secret abductions and tear-gassing peaceful protesting moms. While Wolf has attempted to use a bizarre and narrow legal interpretation to justify these clearly unlawful practices, he and his roving paramilitaries have already been sued by the ACLU as well as Oregon’s attorney general.

 

The power of the placebo effect

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect

"The placebo effect is more than positive thinking — believing a treatment or procedure will work. It's about creating a stronger connection between the brain and body and how they work together," says Professor Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, whose research focuses on the placebo effect.

 

Placebo: the Belief Effect

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC539455/

 A whole chapter is devoted to the power of belief and its effects on physiology, highlighting the possible differences between individuals, however well matched they are in statistical terms. What the book does not discuss is the conflict between such personal characteristics and evidence-based medicine (EBM), which depends on observations in groups rather than individuals.⁴ Evans' analysis suggests that there are ‘complex ways in which people come to believe their treatment will be effective, sometimes putting the evidence of their senses above the voice of authority, while at other times doing completely the opposite’. Many within the medical profession continue to be guided by similar instincts, describing their thought processes as clinical judgment. It is issues of this sort that have made EBM so hard to implement. As discussed in chapter 5, a dampening effect of placebo on the acute phase response could be interpreted as reflecting the uniquely human social expectation of care from others.⁵ Perhaps the most intriguing part of the book, coming from this former psychotherapist, is the exploration of the role of psychotherapy. His conclusion is that, even if psychotherapy proves to be no more than placebo, this does not necessarily detract from its usefulness; and, if it is better than placebo, our failure to understand how it acts on the brain may be analogous to our ignorance of exactly why certain drugs are effective. Evans is at his best when writing from personal experience. Whatever the reader's conclusions about the scientific arguments, his examples and delivery provide a thoroughly engaging way into this debate.

 

Trump accused of deploying 'secret police' as part of 'authoritarian' law enforcement surge

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/23/world/meanwhile-in-america-july-23-intl/index.html

American presidents generally don't try to invade their own country.

Yet that's effectively what local officials say Donald Trump is up to, as he prepares to send hundreds of federal law enforcement officers to Chicago and to Albuquerque, New Mexico. "Donald Trump's troops" will not be allowed to "terrorize our residents," Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has warned. Albuquerque leaders say they don't need "Trump's secret police."

The President, however, says he's just trying to quell street violence -- which he claims has been fostered by the anti-police policies of radical Democratic leaders. "This bloodshed must end," he said Wednesday.

 

Trump on Epstein confidante Ghislaine Maxwell: I wish her well

Merkley: Trump Has Brought Authoritarian Tactics To The Streets Of Our Country | Deadline | MSNBC

Trump tells his ambassador to UK to "get" British Open for his Turnberry golf course. Grift much?

Classified Status Hides Fired IG Report On Trump Golf Club Scheme | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

Fact-check: Trump suggests protests led to rise in Covid-19 cases