If ivermectin ever made a difference to COVID-19 outcomes in Africa, it sure didn't in Latin and South America

Wide distribution of ivermectin in Africa to combat river blindness does not appear to have had anything to do whatsoever with low death rates from COVID-19 in places like Angola (62 deaths per million of population), Kenya (120), and Nigeria (16).

It turns out that ivermectin was widely distributed in eight Latin and South American countries from June, August, and December 2020, but all of them had steeply higher death rates from the disease:

Peru 6,945

Brazil 3,396

Mexico 2,654

Panama 2,089

Bolivia 1,974

Guatemala 1,222

Honduras 1,165

El Salvador 652.

 

Exposure to fresh air and full spectrum sunlight with its infrared and ultraviolet radiation has been shown to speed recovery from the disease:

 

 

Did VP Harris develop a long-term strategy to stem the tide of migration?

 

Biden taps VP Harris to lead response to border challenges

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... Harris is tasked with overseeing diplomatic efforts to deal with issues spurring migration in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as pressing them to strengthen enforcement on their own borders, administration officials said. She’s also tasked with developing and implementing a long-term strategy that gets at the root causes of migration from those countries. ...

For Harris, the assignment gives her the first big opportunity to step to the front of the stage on a matter of enormous consequence for the administration. As the first Black woman elected vice president, Harris arrived on the job as a trailblazer. It has remained opaque how Biden would utilize her.

LOL POLITICO January 2016: Opponents of family deportations under Obama leaked raid info to WaPo

Obama administration kicks off family deportation raids:

 

Johnson said the batch of deportees were among immigrants who crossed the southern U.S. border illegally since May 2014. That's when the U.S. began experiencing a surge of families and unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Officials say such crossings decreased by early last year, but began to pick up again in recent months. ...

The proposals to increase deportations appear to have stirred some dissent within the Obama administration. Just before Christmas, unnamed "people familiar with the operation" disclosed the plans to the Washington Post — a highly unusual leak about planned law enforcement actions. ...

Both Earnest and Johnson said DHS remains focused on deporting "felons, not families" — a curious talking point given that families were the targets of the weekend sweep. ...

Democrats in Congress — which is currently in recess — have been mostly quiet on the raids.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum, GOP poll leader Donald Trump — whose candidacy has been characterized by hardline rhetoric against immigrants here illegally — took credit for the raids in his typical flair.

“Wow, because of the pressure put on by me, ICE TO LAUNCH LARGE SCALE DEPORTATION RAIDS,” Trump tweeted when news of the planned raids broke. “It's about time!”

The fact that Trump was proudly taking credit for the raids wasn’t lost on advocates, who used that point to draw comparisons between the real estate billionaire and Obama’s immigration policies."The president's actions are far more harmful than Trump's demagoguery,” said Pablo Alvarado, the executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “While Trump's dangerous rhetoric stigmatizes our loved ones, President Obama actually deports them.”

 

Trump is president, but we are being invaded: 1% of Guatemala and Honduras population has entered US since Sep 2018

WE LIVE IN A COUNTRY WITH NO ONE WILLING TO ENFORCE THE BORDER, SO IT'S NOT A REAL COUNTRY.

Shock: Over 1% of Guatemala, Honduras entered US since September:

[O]ver 1% of the populations of Guatemala and Honduras have entered the United States since September, according to the Homeland Security Department chief.

Border Patrol in Rio Grande Valley has apprehended illegals from 44 countries, on track for 60, not like before when it was the same people over and over again

Border Patrol: 25,000 Illegal Aliens Evaded Capture in Southeast Texas:

"So far, here in south Texas, we’ve apprehended folks from 44 different countries. These are from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, you name it.” Although most illegal aliens hail from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, Ortiz estimates that by the end of the year, Border Patrol will have apprehended people from 60 different countries. ... Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said that although Border Patrol apprehended more than 1 million people in the early- to mid-2000s, it was often the same people, from Mexico, and it was easy to return them. ... “But now, that’s not what we’re dealing with. We’re on pace to have about 900,000 arrests, but that’s 900,000 people that we’re dealing with. Whereas back in the early-2000s, we were dealing with somewhere around 500,000, 600,000 people. We were just arresting the same person over and over and over again. So we’re dealing with something that’s just never been dealt with before. And if we don’t get the support from Congress, we’re going to fail. Period.”

Piers Morgan: Trump is kicking Democrats' ass

Piers Morgan, here:

According to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Trump is now at 47% approval, compared to Obama’s 45% two weeks before the midterm elections in 2010. ...

And I see a President who’s growing stronger by the day.

Trump’s become a political Godzilla, crushing everyone who dares challenge him and bulldozing his way through an agenda that is beginning to pay real dividends.

In less than two years, Trump’s got two nominees onto the Supreme Court, entrenching a Conservative majority.

He’s slashed taxes, and regulations – sparking a boom in the US economy that shows no sign of stopping, a surge in jobs and record low unemployment.

Trump’s forged a peaceful dialogue with North Korea, launched a trade war with China that many think is long overdue, withdrawn from the obviously flawed Iran nuclear deal and Trans-Pacific Partnership, forced Mexico and Canada to update NAFTA, bullied NATO countries into paying their bills, and bombed ISIS out of Iraq and Syria.

He’s also clamped down hard on illegal immigration.

As I write this, a ‘caravan’ of more than 7,000 Central American migrants – most of them from Honduras - is moving towards the Southern border.

They intend trying to enter the United States illegally.

It’s hard to think of a more powerful image to vindicate Trump’s much criticized demand for a new ‘Wall’, isn’t it?

Laugh of the Day: Christian Science Monitor suggests "alien invasion" could unite Americans, or "climate change"

Talk about being out of touch.

The latest invasion is on the way from Honduras as we speak and the last thing I expect to see is Democrats and Republicans unite to stop it.

Instead Democrats intend to welcome the invasion with open arms.

Here:

The parties could also unite to solve an overarching national goal. The problem here is, what? Absent an alien invasion requiring Americans to pull together, what goal would suffice? Some experts suggest climate change, but that would require Republicans to change position and favor more active intervention on the issue.

Ehhhh ... puto! In the race for most fines for anti-gay slurs, Hispanic soccer fans have everyone else beat

Well, Spain was ruled by Muslims from 711 to 1492 AD.

From the story here:

Homophobia and homophobic chants are not exclusive to Mexico fans. Fifa issued 51 disciplinary actions over homophobia during 2018 World Cup qualifiers. Of these, 11 were handed to the Mexican federation, with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and Peru also receiving multiple fines. Fifa additionally cited Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Greece, Hungary and Serbia once each for homophobic chants.

But there is no doubt the chant is most prominent among Mexico fans. “To call your opponent homosexual is definitely along a spectrum of machismo, whereby your opponent is weaker – less masculine,” says Joshua Nadel, author of Fútbol!: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America.

Illegal immigrant flood is Bush's fault, and Mexico's: W's 2008 anti-human trafficking law prohibiting immediate deportation is the magnet

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports here that Mexico just sends their problem north to us, and Bush's law requires us to waste time and resources tracking down the traffickers, all while it's in Obama's political interests to be lenient:

Fleeing punishing poverty and brutal gangs, tens of thousands of people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras started surging across the border in 2014. Their numbers fell toward the end of that year and stayed lower in early 2015 before rising sharply again. Between October of 2015 and January of this year, apprehensions on the southwest border were more than double the number from the same period the year before. Most of those who were caught are from Central America. Some are from Mexico. ...

A 2008 anti-human trafficking law — signed by President George W. Bush — prevents the government from immediately deporting them. Instead, the government is required to feed, shelter and provide medical care to them until they can be released to the care of sponsors, who are usually relatives. Meanwhile, the children undergo deportation proceedings in federal immigration courts in Georgia and other states where they can seek relief to stay in the U.S. ...

[T]he government is in a better position to respond to the surges this year because it has opened several processing centers — converted warehouses — for the apprehended immigrants in McAllen, Texas. At those centers, authorities try to identify their smugglers and the routes they took to get into the U.S.

One impediment to building a decent wall to stop this flood is that much of the border land is privately owned.

Now you understand why Trump is talking up eminent domain. Talking about taking land to build a pipeline from Canada to the Gulf is simply preparation for taking land to build the Great Wall of Trump.

Trump is serious, folks.