All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

This is Gibraltar, St. Ann, Jamaica: Save Cockpit Country

Petchary's Blog

These photographs landed in a tweet from Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) on my timeline this afternoon, leaving me with a heavy feeling in my heart. I think they speak for themselves.

“I had never been confronted by bauxite mining in this way before,” confessed CEO of JET, Dr. Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie.

“Beautiful hillsides with lush forests and peaceful communities were now replaced with deep open pits, massive scouring of hillsides, and red dirt, everywhere. Right next to people’s homes, their farmland. There were schools that were right next to bauxite mining pits. And I saw several homes where if they walked right out of their front door or their back yard, there were these massive pits…”

“How is this OK? How are we OK with this? We hear about the importance of bauxite mining to Jamaica’s economy, and in 2020 JET did a study showing that in 2018 bauxite mining contributed…

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Supreme Court Won’t Block Maine’s Vaccine Mandate for Health Care Workers – The New York Times

Maine has required health care workers to be vaccinated against various contagious diseases since 1989, and eliminated exemptions on religious or philosophical grounds under a state law enacted in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic began. The state does exempt workers for whom the given vaccine would be “medically inadvisable” in the judgment of a health care professional.

The 2019 law was the subject of a referendum, with about 73 percent of the state’s voters approving it.

The state included a coronavirus vaccine among the required vaccinations in a regulation issued in August, setting a deadline of Oct. 29. Several health care workers sued, saying the requirement violated their constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.

Judge Jon D. Levy of the Federal District Court in Maine ruled against the plaintiffs.

“Both the serious risk of illness and death associated with the spread of the Covid-19 virus and the efforts by state and local governments to reduce that risk have burdened most aspects of modern life,” he wrote.

The plaintiffs’ “refusal to be vaccinated based on their religious beliefs has resulted or will result in real hardships as it relates to their jobs,” Judge Levy wrote. “They have not, however, been prevented from staying true to their professed religious beliefs which, they claim, compel them to refuse to be vaccinated against Covid-19.”

A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in Boston, affirmed Judge Levy’s ruling.

LA Sheriff Warns Of ‘Mass Exodus’ Of Deputies Because of Vaccine Mandate | LAist (Me: LA County Sheriff supports fake facts, CovidDeathCult, ignores that employees are endangering the public and co-workers by not vaccinating!)

“With the pandemic waning, there is no justification for your mandate,” Villanueva wrote to the supervisors. “This mandate is like putting up storm windows after the storm has passed.”

In a public statement accompanying his letter, Villanueva said, “I am vaccinated and believe the vaccine works,” but added, “the choice to receive the vaccine is a personal one, and an individual who served the community tirelessly before there was a vaccine should not now be fired because they made a decision about their own body.”

Source: LA Sheriff Warns Of ‘Mass Exodus’ Of Deputies Because of Vaccine Mandate | LAist

Founder of Russian Bank Sentenced for Felony Tax Conviction Arising from Scheme to Evade Exit Tax while Renouncing his U.S. Citizenship | OPA | Department of Justice

The founder of a Russian bank was sentenced today for his felony conviction for filing a false tax return. As required under his plea agreement, prior to sentencing, Oleg Tinkov, aka Oleg Tinkoff, paid $508,936,184, more than double what he had sought to escape paying to the U.S. Treasury through a scheme to renounce his U.S. citizenship and conceal from the IRS large stock gains that he knew were reportable. This includes $248,525,339 in taxes, statutory interest on that tax and a nearly $100 million fraud penalty. Tinkov was additionally fined $250,000, which is the maximum allowed by statute, and sentenced to time served and one year of supervised release. Source: Founder of Russian Bank Sentenced for Felony Tax Conviction Arising from Scheme to Evade Exit Tax while Renouncing his U.S. Citizenship | OPA | Department of Justice