IRS chief tells Elizabeth Warren: More transparent bank data can fight tax evasion

IRS chief Charles Rettig told Sen. Elizabeth Warren that relying on banks to report on their customers' accounts could help cut the tax gap.

Rettig, a Trump administration holdover, touted a provision in the American Families Plan that would require banks to report on their customers' withdrawals and deposits.

The IRS estimates that for every 1% improvement in voluntary tax compliance, federal annual revenues could increase by about $30 billion per year.


© Provided by CNBCA man walks past the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, June 25, 2020.

Thomas Franck - CNBC

TODAY

The head of the IRS believes more rigorous disclosures from the nation's banks could help fix a yawning tax gap and recoup billions in owed revenues.

In a letter viewed by CNBC, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig told Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that relying on banks to report basic information about their customers' deposits and withdrawals could put a big dent in annual tax evasion.

A source provided CNBC access to the letter, which is expected to be released Thursday. The source disclosed its contents on condition of anonymity.

The IRS chief told Warren in Friday's letter that years of budget cuts have left the agency unable to prosecute those who fail to pay their fair share in federal taxes.

"Every measure that is important to effective tax administration has suffered tremendously," Rettig wrote, referring to years of budget reductions.

However, President Joe Biden's American Families Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure deal "would result in significant volumes of new data regarding financial transactions," said Rettig, a Trump administration holdover. "The new data will provide the IRS with a lens into otherwise opaque sources of income with historically lower levels of reporting accuracy."

Specifically, Rettig touted one provision in the American Families Plan that seeks to shrink the tax gap by requiring banks to report on their customers' withdrawals and deposits instead of relying on the taxpayers themselves. The tax gap is the difference between taxes paid and taxes owed by law.

Rettig noted that for every 1% improvement in tax compliance, federal annual revenues are projected to increase by about $30 billion per year. Overall tax compliance — defined as, voluntary, accurate and on time — is estimated by the IRS to fall in the 82% to 84% range.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., joined Warren last month in requesting that the IRS and its commissioner offer a detailed report on how better enforcement could help generate billions for the federal government in owed taxes.

"This new information from the IRS makes clear that unless we significantly increase IRS funding, wealthy tax cheats and big corporations will be able to continue to avoid paying their fair share to the tune of billions of dollars per year while everyone else suffers," Warren said of Rettig's reply letter. "This is why congressional leadership must include in the budget reconciliation package significant, multiyear funding for the IRS to boost enforcement and bring in billions more in revenue each year."

The IRS analysis "makes it clear we need new reporting requirements in order to improve tax compliance among the wealthiest Americans, and to reduce the burden for honest taxpayers," she added.

Central to Rettig's argument is a simple behavioral problem: Few people enjoy paying income taxes.

That statement is likely even more pertinent for Americans with annual incomes greater than $1 million. Those high-income earners are required to pay a greater percentage of their income to the IRS, and therefore have a greater incentive to find ways to skirt the taxman.

The banking industry, which would bear the burden of sending the U.S. government more data, protested the provision in May.

In their springtime letter, the American Bankers Association, the Bank Policy Institute, the Consumer Bankers Association and others argued that the "new reporting requirements for financial institutions would impose cost and complexity that are not justified by the potential, and highly uncertain, benefits."

"Furthermore," the trade groups added, "we believe additional reporting requirements guided by subjective criteria have privacy and fairness implications and the potential to put financial institutions in an untenable position with their account holders."

The collective suggested that financial institution reporting is "already robust" and that providing more funding for audits would be a more efficient and fair approach.

Complicating matters for the budget-strapped IRS is the fact that wealthy earners tend to have access to a variety of ways to obscure the true value of their income or otherwise have more complicated tax returns. The tax return of a business owner, for example, is far more complicated than that of an employee whose hourly wage or annual salary can be verified by third-party reports.

While the specific disclosure requirements would ultimately be hammered out by the Treasury Department, they could inform the IRS about the size and frequency of deposits and withdrawals from those accounts.

On the upside, if the tax gap is caused by human error — honest mistake or intentional — more thorough communication between U.S. banks and the IRS could ease the problem.

Right now, any person who earns $10 or more in interest from an account at a U.S. bank, brokerage firm or mutual fund is required by law to tell the IRS about those earnings. That document is called a Form 1099-INT.

If banks themselves are compelled to provide the IRS with information about their customers' deposits and withdrawals, those customers may be more likely to fill out their returns accurately. And, if not, the IRS would now be armed with information to prosecute those less than honest.

That, Rettig says, could spell a big win for the tax collector.

"Taxpayers are more likely to be compliant when they know the IRS has the information necessary to pursue them should they not meet their tax obligations," the IRS chief told Warren. "Our research shows that compliance is as low as 45 percent when income is subject to little or no information reporting or tax withholding. When there is substantial information reporting, compliance rises above 95 percent."

Using banks to crack down on unreported income would likely represent just one step in narrowing the gap. Simply knowing how much money flows through an account doesn't necessarily alert the IRS to unreported income. People can receive nontaxable gifts or spend on deductible business expenses, which the tax collector would need to consider.

Still, the benefits of moving forward with the provision could offsets the hurdles.

That fact isn't lost on some of the nation's most prestigious economic authorities. Former Treasury Secretaries Tim Geithner, Jacob Lew, Henry Paulson Jr., Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers all defended President Joe Biden's effort in a recent New York Times op-ed.

"Relying on financial institutions to relay some basic information about account holders is a sensible way forward," they wrote in June, after the White House had published the American Families Plan. "With better information for the I.R.S., voluntary compliance will rise through deterrence as potential tax evaders realize there is a risk to evasion."

The IRS letter also noted that the wealthiest taxpayers are also the most likely to have accounts at international banks that may not provide U.S. regulators with regular access or adhere to the same standards.

"Increased technology funding is essential to link foreign-held assets back to their beneficial owners and to detect potential non-compliance," Rettig wrote. Added resources will enable the IRS to build "analytical systems that use information reporting to detect unreported income and identify when account holders or foreign financial institutions may be engaging in non-compliant or fraudulent behavior."

In advocating for additional funds, Rettig reiterated the need to modernize IRS technology not only to fend off "increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity attacks," but to increase the agency's speed, reduce errors and allow operations to continue all day instead of relying on staff availability.

The years of budget and staffing cuts have left the IRS with about 74,000 full-time employees, a level not seen since 1973. But the challenges facing the agency, especially in the last 16 months, have only grown, Rettig said.

There is perhaps no better way to document demand for IRS services than the number of customer service phone calls. In 2021 alone, the IRS has received over 199 million calls, about 400% more than the agency receives in an average calendar year.

The agency has answered nearly 50 million of those calls between live "assistors" and automated providers. The IRS received 42 million calls in 2018, 40 million calls in 2019 and 55 million calls in 2020, according to Rettig's letter.

In totality, such fixes could over time generate hundreds of billions in owed revenues.

The Treasury Department's own analysis shows that efforts to close the tax gap will generate $700 billion in additional tax collections over the first 10 years of budgetary relief and an additional $1.6 trillion over the course of the second decade.

The FTC is investigating a very important question: Why are McDonald's McFlurry machines always broken?

esnodgrass@insider.com (Erin Snodgrass) - 

© ShutterstockMcFlurry. Shutterstock

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is looking into the infamously fussy McDonald's ice cream machines, per a new report.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the agency sent letters to franchisees earlier this summer asking for information.

The FTC wants to know how McDonald's reviews suppliers and equipment and how frequently owners work on their own machines.

It's a near-universal experience: It's late at night, you've got a craving, and the only thing that could fulfill it is the sweet, candy-filled ice cream of a McDonald's McFlurry.

You wait in the drive-through line until your turn arrives. But alas! The ice cream machine is broken yet again, an employee tells you.

Now, after years of broken ice cream machines across the country, the well-known, oft-mocked problem at the world's largest fast-food chain is drawing a government investigation.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is tasked with protecting consumers from fraud and unfair business practices, contacted McDonald's franchisees earlier this summer, probing for information on why its ice cream machines so frequently fail, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

According to the Journal, the agency sent a letter to franchisees requesting answers. The FTC did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
A history of breaking down

Among owners and employees, McDonald's ice cream machines - which are manufactured by a brand called Taylor - are notorious for being difficult to fix. They require an automated heat-cleaning cycle each night to ward off bacteria, a precaution that can often lead to failure - making the machines unusable until a repair technician can fix them, owners told The Journal.

Two years ago, a company called Kytch created a diagnostic tool that would help McDonald's franchise owners fix their own ice cream machines, The Journal reported. At one point, McDonald's owners in 30 states employed Kytch's breakdown spotter, per the report.

But late last year, McDonald's told franchisees that the devices were unsanctioned. Kytch's cofounder responded with a lawsuit in May, accusing Taylor of infringing on franchisees' rights to fix their own machines and stealing intellectual property, prompting the FTC to step in, according to the Journal.

In a statement to the Journal, Taylor denied purposely designing the equipment to be confusing. Taylor did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Both Kytch and Taylor told The Journal they had not been contacted by the FTC, and McDonald's said it did not believe it was the focus of a FTC investigation.

The investigation into the machines comes after the Biden administration in July opened a probe into products across a wide swath of industries, investigating whether or not manufacturers obstruct consumers from fixing the projects themselves.

The FTC wants to know how McDonald's reviews suppliers and equipment, including the ice cream machines, and how frequently franchise owners work on their own machines. The agency letter, which was reviewed by The Journal, is preliminary and notes that "the existence of a preliminary investigation does not indicate the FTC or its staff have found any wrongdoing."

McDonald's did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The ice cream machines in question account for nearly 60% of the chain's dessert sales in the US, The Journal reported. Angry customers have even taken to the internet with petitions demanding a solution.

STILL MIA
Alberta premier hosts Facebook chat after government criticized over handling of fourth wave
Tyler Dawson - 

© Provided by National PostA mock missing poster for Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is seen taped to post near Edmonton City Hall. Kenney was last seen in public on August 9.

EDMONTON — As COVID-19 case counts and hospitalizations steadily rise in Alberta, government officials and politicians have been criticized for being unusually quiet in recent weeks, shunning public communications and the daily COVID briefings that had become a mainstay of the pandemic.

The fourth wave is putting pressure on Alberta’s medical system. The province had more than 12,200 active COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday, with 465 COVID-19 patients in hospital, and 107 of them in intensive care units. As of Aug. 29, there were just 31 ICU beds available in Alberta’s hospital system.

Alberta Health Services has announced, in recent weeks, the postponement of dozens of surgeries in the Edmonton area and northern parts of the province; patients have had to be transferred from Grande Prairie — where only 51 per cent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated — to Edmonton due to demand for COVID care in the local hospital.

For weeks, questions have been mounting about the province’s pandemic response, as case counts slowly began to climb, and none of the figures Albertans are used to hearing from made public appearances.

Premier Jason Kenney was last seen in public on Aug. 9, making an announcement at an Edmonton brewery. Tyler Shandro, the health minister, last gave a media briefing in late July. And Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province’s chief medical officer of health, whose presence was ubiquitous for much of the last 18 months, last spoke to reporters on Aug. 13.

On Wednesday night, Kenney appeared in a “fireside chat” to take questions from Albertans.

“I’m hiding in plain view,” Kenney said via Facebook Live .

In it, he spoke about a forthcoming announcement about new incentives to get Albertans vaccinated.

The premier said there is “no viable” COVID-zero policy, but that, should cases keep rising, there would be “targeted” measures to address the spike.

The low visibility has led to considerable criticism, in part from New Democrats, but also groups of concerned doctors and parents, who, as kids head back to school, are wondering what the plan is.

Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University, said it looks like, at this point, “they’re governing by tweet.”

“Where are they?” Bratt said.

Alberta leads other provinces in total number of active cases by a wide margin — nearly double those of British Columbia and Ontario, which both sit around 6,000. Ontario has 336 people in hospital; B.C. has 176 in hospital and 91 in intensive care. On a per capita basis, Alberta has 256 cases per 100,000 people, compared to 40 per 100,000 people in Ontario, 51 per 100,000 people in Quebec and 123 per 100,000 in B.C., according to Public Health Agency of Canada data.

The National Post sought comment from Kenney, Shandro and Hinshaw’s offices about their whereabouts and plans to address the public. No response was received from Kenney and Shandro’s offices. Hinshaw’s said she was not giving an update Tuesday.

Kenney’s office has previously said that he is on holiday, but has still been able to participate in briefings and has been in contact with government officials.

Still, there has been little direction from the highest echelons of government — or even their subordinates — as Alberta’s case rates climb to roughly double that of the next-worst province, and cities, schools and the private sector all move to bring in their own COVID-related health measures.

Alberta’s politicians aren’t alone in their silence — or the criticism they’re facing. Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s top doctor, hasn’t held a briefing since the federal election began, and while she’s expected to give a briefing this week, it’s unclear if they will become a regular occurrence.

© David Bloom/Postmedia/FileAlberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro at a COVID-19 briefing on July 29. He has not given any COVID briefings since July.

Jason Kindrachuk, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Manitoba, said a lack of information from government is concerning, especially considering how the Delta wave has unfolded in the United States.

“You want to have, certainly for the public, a feeling of transparency and a feeling that there is, basically, a response to this,” Kindrachuk said. “Given the way that Delta transmits, there is a significant concern that everybody … that is not vaccinated, will ultimately get infected.”

The closest Albertans came was on Tuesday, when Finance Minister Travis Toews — at a press conference for the province’s fiscal update — was asked about the pandemic by reporters. Toews said “we’re in a fourth wave at this point in time,” and insisted that there has been “daily communication around the pandemic.”

There has, on social media and via news release, such as when, last week, Shandro announced on his Twitter account that Albertans will be able to get proof of vaccination if they need it, but there has been no in-person briefings.

“I have full confidence in our chief medical officer and our health minister to, at the appropriate time, make themselves available for the press,” Toews said.

Also on Tuesday, Alberta Health Services officials held a media briefing about mandatory vaccinations for provincial health-care workers, but it didn’t offer the details about community spread and hospitalization that COVID briefings usually provide.

Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases physician and medicine professor at McMaster University, said that cases are going up, but it doesn’t appear to be as fast as in prior waves. Still, there is concern.

“It is a little bit of a worrisome environment in Alberta, and again (the province is) at significant risk of health-care overload, if things keep going in that direction,” Chagla said.

The current outbreak in Alberta is mostly among the unvaccinated, government data show, with nearly 80 per cent of those in non-ICU beds either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. In the ICU, 94 per cent are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.

In several parts of the province — mainly northern jurisdictions — less than half of all eligible Albertans are vaccinated, government data show. In High Level, the northwestern-most jurisdiction, just 19 per cent of eligible people are fully vaccinated, and only 23 per cent have one dose, the lowest rates in the entire province.

The spike in cases has also prompted municipal officials to act, universities and schools are coming up with mask and testing policies, and a number of major industry players — including Canadian Natural Resources and the Calgary Flames — have also announced vaccine mandates or rapid testing policies.

“Everybody else is responding, except the provincial government,” said Bratt. “Even if they held a press conference to say ‘We’re not doing anything and this is why we’re not doing anything,’ that would be better than simple radio silence.”

On Monday, Edmonton city council voted eight to two in favour of bringing back the city’s mask mandate, which lapsed on July 1. As of Friday, Edmontonians will have to mask up in all indoor areas, such as retail, restaurants and recreation facilities.

“But I’m hearing increasing calls … that some action is required and that some leadership is necessary to fill the vacuum,” said Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson.

Into the breach on Monday stepped a handful of doctors who, over the course of the pandemic, have been consistent, vocal critics of the United Conservative government. It was to them that several thousand Albertans turned for guidance — for information about statistics and suggestions about what to do next.

Among them was Dr. Joe Vipond, a Calgary doctor who has emerged as a leading critic of the government’s pandemic response, and who’s faced criticism from the premier’s office for political donations to the NDP. (Vipond has said his relationship with the NDP ends there and that he has had policy meetings with all parties.)

“There is an obligation from a medical perspective to make sure the public knows the right info,” said Vipond. “We can’t replace the government — we have no power. We don’t make policy…. We’re a poor replacement for real leaders doing their real job.”

With additional reporting by the Edmonton Journal
• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson

SURPRISE!  I GOT A FACEBOOK PAGE
Premier Jason Kenney addresses weeks-long absence during 4th wave of pandemic
Sarah Rieger - Yesterday

© Jason Kenney/FacebookPremier Jason Kenney took questions from viewers on Facebook Live on Wednesday after weeks of vacation. The premier had been criticized by some doctors and the Opposition for his absence at a time COVID-19 cases were surging.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney reappeared after a weeks-long absence on Wednesday with a Facebook livestream where he answered selected questions from Albertans and teased an upcoming incentive to encourage people to get vaccinated.

Kenney's last public appearance was 23 days ago, on Aug. 9, when he announced an expansion to the Labatt's brewing plant in Edmonton.

Since then, there have been frequent public calls from doctors and the Opposition for the premier to step in and communicate a plan to combat the surging, delta-driven fourth wave of the pandemic.

During that time, active cases and ICU hospitalizations have quadrupled; there are currently 12,290 active cases and 465 people in hospital, 107 in ICU.

In response to a viewer question about his absence, the premier said with a laugh, "I'm right here, in the McDougall Centre [the site of the premier's Calgary office], where I've been working this week."

The premier said he has been on a summer holiday — the first lengthy vacation he's taken since 2015. He said earlier in the day, he had attended a briefing with Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw, who also has not been seen in public since Aug. 13.

"It's important that a person in my position doesn't burn out," Kenney said, adding that during his vacation he was on his phone each day receiving regular government briefings. "I don't think people taking a bit of personal time should be a political football."

Kenney said he usually only holds news conferences when he has a significant announcement to make, often about funding, which he said could be seen as inappropriate interference during the federal election campaign.

He added that the government will hold a news conference later this week about the rapidly rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in the province.

'Hiding in plain view'

He also addressed concerns that he chose to make his first appearance after his absence on Facebook, rather than hosting a news conference that would allow reporters to freely ask questions on any topic, and follow-ups.

"I'm hiding in plain view," Kenney joked. "Normally we get tens of thousands of viewers … I think that's public accountability right there."

Some of the questions the premier chose to answer included queries about whether the government plans to bring back a mask mandate or take further public health measures. Kenney replied the government will monitor the situation. He was also asked how the province will encourage more people to get vaccinated.

The premier said there will be an announcement soon on a new and different incentive to encourage more people to get vaccinated.

"We may have to take other measures to encourage people, the unvaccinated, to ensure they are not putting themselves in a position where they're transmitting," Kenney said.

Kenney said he continues to look at public health restrictions as a last resort.

"Indeed, if we do see this wave jeopardizing the health-care system we may have to take some very targeted actions but nothing like lockdowns," he said.

Alberta is currently home to 38 per cent of the country's active COVID-19 cases, even though it makes up less than 12 per cent of Canada's population.

About 66 per cent of all Albertans have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, considerably lower than the national average of 73.3 per cent.

Earlier in the day, Friends of Medicare, a public health non-profit group, issued a release calling on the premier, health minister or chief medical officer to provide a plan to mitigate the "current health crisis."

"Instead of proactive measures to contain the fourth wave, we've seen bed closures, cancellations of elective surgeries, serious staff shortages," said Sandra Azocar, the executive director of the group.

Kenney said the pandemic has been fraught with difficult decisions.

"When this is all said and done we're going to be able to look back in the cold light of day with objectivity."

Strained by COVID-19, Alberta's rural communities desperate for guidance from government

Emily Fitzpatrick - 
cbc.ca

© AHSGary Harris receives a COVID-19 vaccine in Grande Prairie, Alta., on March 11, 2021. The northwestern Alberta city lags behind the rest of the province in vaccine uptake.

Rural Alberta communities are looking for guidance from the government as they tackle rising COVID-19 case numbers.

In Edson, Alta., 200 kilometres west of Edmonton, the town's hospital is seeing its highest hospitalization rates since the start of the pandemic.

"Some of our local health-care professionals that have been working our emergency room over the last number of days, they've been inundated with people coming in with COVID symptoms," said Mayor Kevin Zahara.

"A number of our beds in our acute centre are taken by COVID patients, more so than we have at any other point in the pandemic."

Zahara also said they are inching closer to their highest-ever number of cases. As of Aug. 30, there were 99 active cases in the community.

"Our peak was in wave two, around 112 to 116 cases," he said. "So certainly concerning to see this rise over the last number of days."

Zahara believes the increase in cases could be due to a number of factors including the easing of restrictions, a larger segment of the population being unvaccinated, and various pipeline projects that are bringing out-of-province workers into the community.


© Scott Neufeld/CBC NewsEdson Mayor Kevin Zahara said the town's hospital currently has more patients in acute care than any other point in the pandemic.

He said they are working hard with residents to control the spread of the coronavirus but acknowledged that some guidance from the provincial government would go a long way.

Video: Some Albertans question lack of leadership amid COVID-19 fourth wave warnings (Global News)

"We certainly have a problem here in Alberta," he said. "And it'd be nice to see some leadership on this issue, even to inform us of what the modelling is showing and what the plan is moving forward."

It's a similar situation in Grande Prairie, Alta., 455 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

On Saturday, Alberta Health Services transferred six patients from Grande Prairie's Queen Elizabeth II Hospital to neighbouring health-care centres in order to create room for an increase in patients with COVID-19.

Mayor Jackie Clayton said the town is alarmed that the hospital is nearing capacity.

On behalf of city council, she sent a letter to Health Minister Tyler Shandro looking for guidance on how to deal with rising case numbers.

"We don't have health-care professionals on staff," Clayton said. "We aren't health-care experts as elected officials.

"And we think that its AHS and the province's role to make a plan, implement that plan and provide us with clear guidance in regards to what the municipal response and plan should be."

Vaccination rates in Grande Prairie are lower than the provincial rates of vaccination. The region has about 49.7 per cent of the total population immunized with at least one dose of vaccine, with 43 per cent having received both doses.

Comparatively, 66.3 per cent of Alberta's total population has had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 59.4 per cent are classified as having both doses.

Clayton said masks and vaccines are encouraged, but ultimately, those decisions are made by people within the community.

"We want them [the Alberta government and AHS] to take the lead and the responsibility," she said.

"What this letter says is that as municipal politicians, we don't feel that it's appropriate for us to be making decisions on health-care matters."

WHAT ABOUT NATIONAL REVIEW

Conservative says it’s long past time for Democrats to fight back when Republicans cross the line
Sarah K. Burris
September 02, 2021

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy. 

(john smith williams / Shutterstock.com)

Conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin lamented that when Republicans break the rules to get what they want, Democrats never hold them accountable.

Writing Thursday, Rubin cited House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and his ongoing attempts to bring down the Jan. 6 select committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol. She said that he has attempted to embody Donald Trump's behavior with bullying and threats in an ongoing attempt to obstruct the process.

"Now that the committee has sought phone records from telecom companies to examine the phone history of witnesses of Jan. 6, including members of Congress, McCarthy has threatened the companies in an attempt to keep them from complying," Rubin cited.

She went on to call it "intolerable," telling Democrats, including the White House, that it's time to hold this behavior accountable by referring it "to the House ethics committee, if not the Justice Department."

McCarthy obviously isn't the only one spouting threats. Rubin cited Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), who threatened "bloodshed" if Democrats win more "rigged" elections. "There's nothing I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American," he said.

While violent Republican hyperbole isn't unusual, after Jan. 6 there is an increased sense of fear for future acts of domestic terrorism.

"This advertisement for future violent insurrection is precisely the type of conduct from Republicans that defenders of democracy feared would become more regular," she wrote. "It would be bad enough for a private citizen to make such a statement; it is inexcusable from a member of Congress."

Past examples include Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) threatening to execute members of Congress and McCarthy joking about hitting Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) with the gavel. Then there's the bizarre case of Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), who attempted to enter Taliban-controlled Afghanistan with large amounts of cash, claiming he was going to "rescue American citizens." The U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan refused to allow him passage

"Mullin was outraged by the response, the officials said — threatening U.S. ambassador John Mark Pommersheim and embassy staff and demanding to know the name of staff members he was speaking with," the Post reported at the time. He then disappeared, leaving many concerned he attempted to enter Afghanistan alone. Rubin said it was "nuts" and called for him to be disciplined.

She argued that the behavior is indicative of a "MAGA mentality" that the former president has been using since the early days of his 2016 campaign.

"Disdain for law and order and reliance on extralegal actions and threats of violence are yet further signs that another Jan. 6 may indeed have been a dress rehearsal for further attacks on our democracy," she closed.

It puts President Joe Biden in an awkward position. Any attempt at accountability would appear partisan, but Rubin argued that at the very least he should encourage Congress to act on the "shameless thuggery" of the GOP.

Read the full column at the Washington Post.

BEHIND A BEZOS PAYWALL

Australia’s Victoria state advances ban on swastika display

A young boy carries a placard titled "No Nazis" during a demonstration in Melbourne on Dec. 4, 2017. Australia's Victoria state is drafting legislation that would make it the first in the country to ban the public display of Nazi symbols as local neo-Nazi activity increases. (James RossAAP Image via AP)

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s Victoria state is drafting legislation that would make it the first in the country to ban the public display of Nazi symbols as local neo-Nazi activity increases.

The proposed ban on Nazi symbols such as the swastika, except for educational or historical purposes, will be presented to parliament early next year, and appears certain to become law with opposition lawmakers expressing support.

The law was recommended by a parliamentary inquiry earlier this year that cited a recent rise in neo-Nazi activity in Australia’s second-most populous state.

“This announcement is a resounding triumph for the victims of the Holocaust, the survivors and our brave diggers (Australian soldiers) who died to vanquish the evil Third Reich regime, and a defeat of homegrown neo-Nazis who seek to keep Hitler’s legacy alive,” said Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, a Jewish-Australian community organization.

Counter-terror intelligence chief Mike Burgess warned last month that Australians as young as 16 were being radicalized to support a white-power race war, and that half of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization’s most important domestic anti-terrorism cases now involve neo-Nazi cells and other ideologically motivated groups.

Burgess, director-general of ASIO, told media the shift in the national security threat away from religiously motivated terrorism was being fueled by disinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and other global events.

THINK ULSTER PARAMILITARY

The civilian wing of the Republican Party has lost control of its paramilitary wing

Lindsay Beyerstein, Alternet
September 01, 2021

Armed "security" from Pacific Patriot Network arrives in Oregon 

(YouTube/Screenshot)

Recently, an exclusive Reuters report claimed the FBI has little evidence of a single overarching plot to overturn the election on January 6. The headline: "FBI finds scant evidence US Capitol attack was coordinated — sources." The story kicked off a self-serving game of telephone by right-wingers spinning an already threadbare dispatch into ever-more exculpatory narratives. Steve Bannon pronounced it a "massive win" while Republican Senate hopeful JD Vance tweeted, "Another narrative collapses." These strained readings of the report culminated in the bizarre Washington Examiner headline: "FBI confirms there was no insurrection."

In fact, the government has already uncovered far-reaching conspiracies to attack the Capitol and stop the certification of the election. It alleges that three major paramilitary groups — the Oath Keepers, The Proud Boys, and the Three Percenters — conspired within their own ranks to commit violence to keep Donald Trump in power. In addition to plotting within their own ranks, these groups reportedly coordinated with each other. The point that Reuters' anonymous sources were making was that there is as-yet little evidence these paramilitary operations were part of a single overarching plot orchestrated by a "civilian" leader, like Trump confidante and self-proclaimed dirty trickster Roger Stone. Maybe the paramilitaries acted on their own. This is a truly terrifying possibility given it would indicate the civilian wing of the Republican Party has finally lost control of the party's paramilitary wing.

Members and associates of the Oath Keepers militia have already pleaded guilty to conspiring to disrupt the certification of the election, and many others are working their way through the courts on similar charges. The government alleges extensive coordination among the Oath Keepers in the run-up to January 6 and ongoing communication with their leader while they stormed the Capitol. Multiple Proud Boys have also been charged with conspiracy and other serious offenses stemming from the assault on the Capitol. The government alleges, and independent media reports confirm, that teams of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys were in the vanguard of the assault on the Capitol.

Moreover, all three paramilitary groups were an integral part of the Trumpist "Stop the Steal" movement that staged a series of violent protests to intimidate election officials in swing states, cement the myth of voter fraud, legitimize the Trump team's frivolous legal challenges and radicalize supporters. "Stop the Steal" had an established M.O. by January 6: besiege public officials and attempt to bully them into certifying the contest for Trump based on wild allegations of voter fraud and the ever-present threat of violence.

There's no question that the civilian architects of "Stop the Steal" wanted to intimidate the lawmakers certifying the election. Organizer Ali Alexander explained his plan was to put "maximum pressure" on the lawmakers in a bid to coerce the GOP representatives they had not been able to lobby to join their cause. "If they [certify the election], everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building," Alexander tweeted on Dec. 30. "1776 is *always* an option""

"I want to hear a huge shout-out for Enrique and the Proud Boys right now," "Stop the Steal" organizer Cindy Chafian commanded the crowd gathered in Washington on January 5 on the eve of the certification of the election. Chafian went on to thank the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters and other paramilitary groups as unsung heroes. "I'm tired of the left telling us we can't talk about them," Chafian said.

Chafian was referring to Enrique Tarrio, the supreme leader of the Proud Boys, who had been scheduled to speak at the gathering, but found himself unable to attend because he'd been arrested two days earlier for burning a Black Lives Matter flag at a previous "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington. Chafian's fellow speaker, Cordie Williams thundered that, "Enrique is in jail right now for burning a flag that bastardizes everything we stand for, it makes me sick."

The "Stop the Steal" slogan was coined by Stone in 2016 and revived by his protegé Ali Alexander to transmute lies about election fraud into incandescent rage that it hoped to harness to keep Donald Trump in power. "'Stop the Steal' is a highly coordinated partisan political operation intent on bringing together conspiracy theorists, militias, hate groups and Trump supporters to attack the integrity of our election," Ben Decker, the CEO and founder of Memetica, a digital investigations consultancy, told CNN in November of 2020.

As the votes were being counted, Alexander organized a series of armed, violent protests in swing states geared at intimidating state election officials. The Oath Keepers provided security for "Stop the Steal" organizers, including Stone. The Proud Boys turned out in force to brutalize counter-protesters and even organized their own protest at the home of United States Senator Marco Rubio to pressure him not to certify. Stone addressed the crowd by speaker phone.

Tarrio and other high-ranking Proud Boys were so close to Stone they were allowed to post to his social media accounts. Stone was even kicked off instagram for his ties to the Proud Boys. Stone was so accustomed to surrounding himself with Proud Boys that The Daily Beast proclaimed the neo-fascist street brawlers "Roger Stone's Personal Army" in 2019.

Stone and Alexander's longstanding relationships with the paramilitaries are tantalizing circumstantial evidence, but hard proof that they or any "civilian" ordered shock troops to attack the Capitol remains elusive.

Stone and Alexander like to cast themselves as skilled operatives very much in control, even as they deny responsibility for the violence swirling around them. But if Reuters' sources are correct, they paint a very different picture: That Stone, Alexander and all their Republican allies and enablers are ineffectual dupes who have lost control of the toxic forces they sought to command.

Unhinged threats against nurses and school boards rage on as mainstream GOP stands by

Jay Bookman, Georgia Recorder
September 02, 2021

Stock photography of an angry white man yelling. (Shutterstock)

In a press conference at the state Capitol this week, Georgia's public health commissioner condemned a campaign of bullying, intimidation and threats directed at health care workers attempting to improve the state's abysmal vaccination record against COVID- 19.

This article was originally published at Georgia Recorder

“Many of our line workers are receiving threats, are receiving hostile emails, harassing emails," Dr. Kathleen Toomey said. “That's something that has happened to me early on. Maybe it comes with the territory of someone in my position, but it shouldn't be happening to those nurses who are working in the field to try to keep this state safe."

According to Toomey, the harassment has become so threatening that one mobile vaccination effort in north Georgia had to be shut down entirely. “Aside from feeling threatened themselves, staff realized no one would want to come to that location for a vaccination under those circumstances, so they packed up and left," Toomey's spokeswoman, Nancy Nydam, later explained.

Think about that: These people are not only refusing to get vaccinated themselves — and by doing so facilitating the spread of this deadly virus — they are using harassment and intimidation to try to prevent other people from getting life-saving vaccination. That's outrageous. Yet later in that same press conference, when Gov. Brian Kemp had the chance to strongly condemn such behavior and promise that it would not be tolerated, that it would be investigated aggressively by law enforcement and prosecuted, he did not meet the moment, issuing only a mild call for “unity."

A few months earlier, at the very spot in the Capitol where Toomey and Kemp stood, Gabe Sterling of the Georgia secretary of state's office had been far more courageous. State and local elections workers were being threatened, harassed and intimidated by people who bought into false claims by Donald Trump that the election had been stolen from him, Sterling said, and it was up to leaders to intervene.

“You need to step up and say this … stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence," Sterling said, addressing Trump directly. “Someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get shot, someone's going to get killed, and it's not right."

As we know, Trump did not condemn the violence, and people did get killed.

We're also seeing similar threats of violence directed at school boards around the country, both over mask mandates and the manufactured controversy over “critical race theory." Again, the idea seems to be that what cannot be won at the ballot box or through debate can and should be won through physical intimidation, even violence. In Pennsylvania, to cite just one of many examples, a GOP candidate for county executive bragged in a campaign video that he would confront the local school board over its mask mandate not with facts or data, but with “20 strong men."

“I'm going to speak to the school board, and I'm going to give them an option: They can leave or they can be removed," Steve Lynch said.

Not surprisingly, Lynch is a Trump supporter who attended the January 6 rally that ended in an assault on our nation's Capitol. Instead of an act of shame, that attempted coup is increasingly being described by Republicans such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia as an heroic act of patriotism, with the attackers cast as champions of freedom.

In North Carolina over the weekend, U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn told a campaign rally that if he knew where those arrested in the coup attempt were being imprisoned, he might try to “bust them out." He also told the crowd that the 2020 elections had been stolen from Republicans, and “if our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it's going to lead to one place — and it's bloodshed."

These are people who have been told for decades that they have an inherent right to rule this country, that if they are losing election after election it is only because those elections are rigged against them, and that they have not just the right but the obligation to turn to violence to correct that injustice.

You could argue that this is only the lunatic fringe of the GOP, but we have seen too many times how yesterday's GOP lunatic fringe becomes tomorrow's GOP mainstream. And the people who might be able to rein it all back in remain in ominous silence.


Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on Facebook and Twitter.

'Vanilla ISIS' white nationalists are starting to sound 'very similar to the Taliban': CNN national security analyst

Bob Brigham
September 01, 2021

Southerners rally for succession, photo via the League of the South Facebook page.

White nationalists were called out on CNN on Wednesday after a shocking report that white supremacists were citing the Taliban as a model for successfully taking over a country.

For analysis, CNN's Anderson Cooper interviewed Harvard professor and CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem.

"We used to joke in our gallows humor...the radicalization of the right we used to call 'Vanilla ISIS' — in other words it was just about radicalization," she explained. "What we have to remember is they're really focused on an image of America — that they don't like this America, the white supremacist groups and right-wing groups."

She said the white supremacists were opposed to "a diverse America one in which women are equal, one in which there is diversity." She said it "sounds very similar to the Taliban."

"And so there is a nexus in terms of both the international sentiment of a radicalization or a sort of fascism that we see in the terrorist groups, but that's then repeated by the members of Congress, as we've heard recently sort of radicalizing and talking about violence," she said. "And, of course, the right-wing media machine."

 

White supremacist praise of the Taliban takeover concerns US officials


By Geneva Sands, CNN
Wed September 1, 2021

(CNN)As the United States-backed government in Afghanistan fell to the Taliban and US troops raced to leave the country, White supremacist and anti-government extremists have expressed admiration for what the Taliban accomplished, a worrying development for US officials who have been grappling with the threat of domestic violent extremism.
That praise has also been coupled with a wave of anti-refugee sentiment from far-right groups, as the US and others rushed to evacuate tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan by the Biden administration's August 31 deadline.

Several concerning trends have emerged in recent weeks on online platforms commonly used by anti-government, White supremacist and other domestic violent extremist groups, including "framing the activities of the Taliban as a success," and a model for those who believe in the need for a civil war in the US, the head of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, John Cohen, said on a call Friday with local and state law enforcement, obtained by CNN.

Cohen said on the call that DHS has also analyzed discussions centering on "the great replacement concept" a conspiracy theory that immigrants, in this case the relocation of Afghans to the US, would lead to a loss of control and authority by White Americans.

"There are concerns that those narratives may incite violent activities directed at immigrant communities, certain faith communities, or even those who are relocated to the United States," he added.

Far-right extremist communities have been invigorated by the events in Afghanistan, "whether by their desire to emulate the Taliban or increasingly violent rhetoric about 'invasions' by displaced Afghans," according to recent analysis from SITE Intelligence Group, an American non-governmental organization that tracks online activity of White supremacist and jihadist organizations.

Some people are commending the Taliban's takeover as "a lesson in love for the homeland, for freedom, and for religion," SITE said in its weekly bulletin on far-right extremists.

Neo-Nazi and violent accelerationists -- who hope to provoke what they see as an inevitable race war, which would lead to a Whites-only state -- in North America and Europe are praising the Taliban for its anti-Semitism, homophobia, and severe restrictions on women's freedom, SITE found.

For example, a quote taken from the Proud Boy to Fascist Pipeline Telegram channel, said: "These farmers and minimally trained men fought to take back their nation back from globohomo. They took back their government, installed their national religion as law, and executed dissenters ... If white men in the west had the same courage as the Taliban, we would not be ruled by Jews currently," SITE found.

"Globohomo" is a derogatory word used to insult "globalists," the term used by conspiracy promoters to describe their enemy (the evil global elite who control the media, finance, political system etc), according to SITE.

For months, US officials have warned that domestic violent extremism is the greatest threat to the homeland, pointing to the January 6 attack at the US Capitol as a stark illustration of the potential for violence that can occur when conspiracy theories and false narratives flourish.

A significant part of the current threat environment comes from individuals who are influenced by what they see online, Cohen told CNN in an interview last month.
At this time, Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, is not seeing any observed credible threats, or mobilization of online extremist activity, but is concerned that the current online rhetoric highlights ideological concerns and possible threats to public safety, said Joanna Mendelson, associate director of the center.

Extremists often take current events and weave them into their own narrative and worldview, said Mendelson, which is what is taking place in the aftermath of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and amid the humanitarian and military crisis.
"They're taking the same kind of core tropes and themes, and kind of bigoted views of the world, and injecting them into this current event," Mendelson told CNN.

There has been a lot of Islamophobia and xenophobia echoed by White supremacists and anti-Muslim activists, claiming that public safety and national security is threatened because they see refugees through a stereotypical lens as being dangerous criminals or terrorists, according to Mendelson.

A core conspiracy guiding White supremacist ideology is the "the great replacement," the belief that ultimately, the White race is facing its ultimate extinction, she said.
There is also "almost this infatuation and admiration" of the Taliban, Mendelson said, pointing to the notion that an under-equipped insurgent group could successfully defeat a global power.

"The fact that the Taliban at the end of the day could claim victory over such a world power is something that White supremacists are taking note of," she said.
Megan Squire, a professor of Computer Science at Elon University, who researches US-based domestic extremist groups, has seen three main Afghanistan-related trends emerge in platforms used by a range of far-right groups, such as White supremacists, neo-Nazis and Proud Boys-style forums.

The first narrative to emerge among the extreme far-right groups was "reveling in the humiliation" of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan as images emerged of Taliban fighters taking over city after city, along with US equipment left behind, Squire said, both celebrations of defeat and feelings humiliation as Americans.
When one goes deeper into the neo-Nazi groups, you see some celebration of the Taliban, usually related to extremely misogynistic or extremely anti-Semitic discussion, she added.

This type of cross-ideological praise has historical precedent, according to Squire, citing as an example, a meme that circulated in neo-Nazi communities during a particularly misogynist period about "white Sharia," the concept that women should be treated the way the Taliban treats women.

There have been recent examples of right-leaning groups supporting movement overseas that appear ideologically distant. For instance, earlier this summer, QAnon and Donald Trump-supporting online forums celebrated the deadly military coup in Myanmar and suggested the same should happen in the United States so Trump could be reinstated as President. CNN also spoke to followers of the former President in Ventura, California, in February who said they wanted to see a Myanmar-style coup happen here.
However, the most common narrative is around the idea that the US is "importing the Taliban" through the relocation of Afghans and that Afghan refugees are too different to become real citizens, according to Squire.

"It's really an anti-Muslim idea, anti-immigration idea," she said.
The Pentagon announced Monday that the last US military planes left Afghanistan, departing after weeks of chaotic and deadly evacuation efforts that were punctuated by the devastating suicide attack last Thursday that killed more than 170 people, in addition to the 13 US service members who were also killed.

Some of the Afghanistan narratives are focused on "the Taliban did it right" and that it should be a "lesson learned" for how we should operate in the US, a US law enforcement official told CNN about the rapid rise of the Taliban as the US withdrew troops.

"That's got us a little concerned," because it suggests an escalation in violence, the official added. For example, there were references to the fact that only 80,000 Taliban were able to defeat an Afghan army of several hundred thousand supported by the US, the official said.

As of February, the Afghan forces numbered 308,000 personnel, according to a United Nations Security Council report released in June -- well above the estimated number of armed Taliban fighters, which ranged from 58,000 to 100,000, CNN previously reported. Though number of Afghan forces has been considered by many to be inflated.

"There are some significant discussions," in which people are expressing support of what the Taliban has done and are looking at it as an example of what anti-government extremists should be doing in the US, the official said, adding that the reaction has been a "little bit surprising."

In Europe and the US, there has also been an "outpouring" of anti-refugee commentary from White nationalists and Neo-Nazis responding to the Taliban's takeover, SITE found.

Commentary on anonymous forums has been particularly violent, according to SITE, which found users discussing taking up arms, and in one case, threatening attacks on refugee assistance organizations in Florida.

The hateful rhetoric is similar to that seen amid Libyan and Syrian refugee waves in the 2010s, which paved the way for violent terrorist attacks in Christchurch and Pittsburgh, according to SITE.

Amid anti-immigrant sentiment, DHS officials have been bracing for whether Afghans themselves will be targeted once they land in the US and are resettled here, a DHS official previously told CNN.

"Will they be the potential target? Will Afghans themselves become targets?" the official said, noting the concern.

Joe Rogan shamed by public health scientist for pushing ivermectin to fans over vaccine after catching COVID
Brad Reed
September 01, 2021


Public health scientist Eric Feigl-Ding on Wednesday shamed podcast host Joe Rogan for continuing to push his fans to treat COVID-19 with ivermectin even as he's said in the past that many of them don't need to get vaccinated.

Feigl-Ding, who is currently a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, used Rogan's recently revealed COVID-19 diagnosis to review some of his past statements about the virus.

"Rogan, who was rebuked by federal officials last spring for suggesting that young healthy people don't need vaccinations, now says that he started feeling sick after performing," he wrote on Twitter. "He pushed ivermectin (not proven to work) and for rescheduling his Nashville show, he says 'obviously nothing that I could control' -- ummm, yes you can, Joe Rogan."

Feigl-Ding then made a list of things that Rogan could have done to prevent himself from getting infected, including staying "masked indoors" and "telling people to vaccinate more forcefully."

Rogan explained in a video released Wednesday that he rushed to treat himself with as many drugs as possible after being diagnosed with COVID-19.

"We immediately threw the kitchen sink at it," he said. "Monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, Z-Pak, prednisone."

Read Feigl-Ding's full thread here

Joe Rogan reveals he has COVID -- and took a 'kitchen sink' drug cocktail including ivermectin
Brad Reed
September 01, 2021

RIGHT WING Commentator Joe Rogan looks on during the UFC Fight Night event at Prudential Center on April 18, 2015, in Newark, New Jersey. - Alex Trautwig/Getty Images North America/TNS

Popular RIGHT WING  podcaster Joe Rogan revealed on Wednesday that he's come down with COVID-19 -- and he's taking a wide cocktail of drugs to treat it, including ivermectin.

Vice News reports that Rogan revealed his diagnosis in a video in which he appeared "exhausted."

In the video, Rogan explains how he rushed to treat himself with as many drugs as possible.

"We immediately threw the kitchen sink at it," he said. "Monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, Z-Pak, prednisone."

In fact, ivermectin is not recommended as a treatment for COVID-19, as science officials say there has not been nearly enough research into its effectiveness as a treatment.

All the same, Rogan said the cocktails left him feeling "like a new man," writes Vice.

Vice's report notes that Rogan has drawn criticism for hosting several vaccine skeptics on his podcast, including notorious anti-vaxxer Alex Berenson.

Rogan has also told fans he'll pay for their fake vaccination cards if they are dealing with businesses that have vaccine passport systems.

"If someone has an ideological or physiological reason for not getting vaccinated," he said, "I don't want to force them to get vaccinated to see a f*cking stupid comedy show."

Editorial: Passing up approved coronavirus vaccine for horse dewormer is nuts

2021/9/2 ©St. Louis Post-Dispatch

For months after the coronavirus vaccines were released, many Americans who refused to take them cited the fact that they were initially approved by federal regulators on an emergency fast-track basis rather than under the normal drug-approval process. That fear, never fully valid to begin with, should have finally been laid to rest by the recent full, formal approval of the first of the vaccines.

Yet even now, significant numbers of vaccine-skeptical people are instead turning to a drug meant to deworm horses, which has repeatedly failed to protect against the coronavirus in clinical trials and in some cases has proven dangerous. This should stand as further evidence (if any was still needed) that the anti-vaccination movement lacks any credibility whatsoever and should have no sway over public policy.

Ivermectin has been effectively used in small doses in humans to treat parasites, but human trials haven’t produced evidence it’s effective on the coronavirus. That hasn’t stopped people from buying up the human version to the point that pharmacies are running out. Worse, some are turning to veterinary supply sources for the livestock version — which is not merely ineffective against the coronavirus but dangerous. Ivermectin-related calls to poison control centers have risen fivefold in recent months.

It’s reminiscent of the controversy over hydroxychloroquine, a malaria medication that, like ivermectin, has shown scant actual evidence of effectiveness against the coronavirus and has potentially dangerous side effects. But with backing and misinformation from right-wing media and some Republican politicians (including, in the case of hydroxychloroquine, former President Donald Trump), too many Americans are viewing these unproven, unlikely remedies as silver bullets, while continuing to reject vaccines that have been proven for months to be both highly effective and safe.

A vial of Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine. - TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/TNS

It’s not putting it too strongly to suggest that this is madness. What social, political or psychological factors would cause large numbers of otherwise rational Americans to reject vaccines that have earned provisional and now formal approval by the Food and Drug Administration, while embracing drugs that the FDA and other experts warn are ineffective and dangerous? It’s almost as if, having staked out the bizarre position that vaccine acceptance is a violation of conservatism, those adherents are suddenly recognizing that the crisis is real and lunging for whatever vaccine alternative they can find.

Declaring an entire segment of society to be so outside the pale that their voices should be deliberately ignored isn’t something that should be done lightly — but on the issue of these snake-oil alternatives, the time has come. Vaccine mandates, vaccine passports and other proposed policies are centered on the simple scientific fact that vaccines work. Like all public policies, these ideas must be open to debate. But there should be no seat at that table for those who pass up medically approved vaccines in favor of a horse dewormer.

Doctors warn horse-dewormer can be lethal, so why are people taking it for COVID-19?

Allison R. Donahue, Michigan Advance
September 02, 2021

Young man deworming a bay horse with a dewormer paste. 

(Shutterstock.com)

Medication that is usually used to treat parasites has become the latest COVID-19 conspiracy treatment, but doctors are trying to fight misinformation, stressing it isn't proven to help treat the virus. In fact, physicians warn the drug can have detrimental side effects in humans if taken incorrectly.

Medical professionals have studied whether or not ivermectin, which is usually used to treat head lice or parasitic worms in humans, horses and other livestock, could treat or prevent COVID-19, but current research isn't showing that it works.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has pleaded that people do not take ivermectin for COVID-19 purposes.

“Using any treatment for COVID-19 that's not approved or authorized by the FDA, unless part of a clinical trial, can cause serious harm," the FDA said in March. “The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses."

But as Michigan experiences another surge of COVID-19 cases, there has been an uptick in poison control calls regarding ivermectin and patients looking to be prescribed the drug. As of Wednesday, Michigan has reported a total of 951,192 COVID-19 cases and 20,347 deaths.

Dr. Rob Davidson, a West Michigan emergency room physician and Committee to Protect Health Care executive director, said on MSNBC Wednesday that he had a patient who refused the COVID vaccine, but asked for ivermectin instead.

“These are the kinds of lines that the former president [Donald Trump] threw out there and people latched onto it and just haven't let go," Davidson said.

However, in Ohio, a judge last week ordered the West Chester Hospital, near Cincinnati, to provide a man with 30 mg of ivermectin daily for three weeks after his wife filed a lawsuit against the hospital.

People who haven't been able to find a doctor who will prescribe them ivermectin for COVID-19 have been buying the anti-parasitic medication intended for horses from farm supply stores.

The FDA strongly urges against this, noting “ivermectin preparations for animals are very different from those approved for humans."

These stores are trying to curb customers from buying ivermectin to self medicate by posting warnings that the drug is not safe for human use.

Potential side effects

Taking ivermectin for any reason other than its FDA-approved intended uses can cause mild to severe side effects, especially for those who are taking ivermectin intended for animals.

Dr. Farhan Bhatti, a family physician in Lansing and Michigan state lead for the Committee to Protect Health Care, said mild side effects include headache, dizziness, vomiting and fatigue. More severe side effects include liver disease, blurred vision, changes in heart rate, swelling or low blood pressure.

Matthew Sims, director of infectious disease research at Beaumont Health in Royal Oak, said the side effects from ivermectin could actually worsen COVID-19 symptoms, especially the long lasting COVID-19 symptoms, like heart damage.

“People can die from taking ivermectin if they overdose on it," Bhatti said.

Overdosing is more common for people who are taking ivermectin intended for livestock because the formulations, additives and the dose are likely not the same as what is prescribed to humans, said Sims.

Uptick in ivermectin-related poison control calls

According to Varun Vohra, director of the Michigan Poison and Drug Information Center, there has been a small increase in ivermectin-related calls to the poison control hotline, though it's significantly less than other states.

States with higher volumes of ivermectin-related poison control calls are Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.

In 2021, poison control centers across the U.S. received three times the amount of calls for human exposures to ivermectin in January compared to the pre-pandemic baseline, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

That number spiked again in July when ivermectin calls increased to five times the amount compared to the baseline.

Vohra said in May Michigan saw a spike of about 10 calls, compared to about three calls a month prior to the pandemic.

“It's waned since then, but we're going to continue to monitor because this is hitting the news cycle pretty hard, so that could stimulate an increase in use among people who start hearing about it," Vohra said.

Sims said he has seen an increase of patients who have asked to be prescribed ivermectin, but he is following FDA and CDC guidance.

“I've heard people shouting we're trying to keep it away … because it's an old drug and relatively cheap," Sims said. “If it can be proven to work, we'll use it, but I'm not going to assume it's going to work."

Doctors who are recommending unproven treatments to patients could be at risk of losing their license for “unprofessional conduct."

“If physicians are recommending harmful treatments to people, that's a violation of their Hippocratic Oath. And if patients are directly being harmed by something that doctors are telling them to do, then doctors could have their license threatened in court," Bhatti said.

Most doctors are sticking to what's been scientifically proven to work: vaccinations, masking and social distancing, Sims said.

Where did the ivermectin rumor begin?

A myriad of coronavirus-related conspiracy theories have made their way around the internet, many of which have been disproven by physicians, and are often hard to track where they originated.

While ivermectin has been a hot topic in the news recently, it has actually been floated as a COVID-19 treatment since the early days of the pandemic in the U.S.

In April 2020, shortly after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Michigan's first COVID-19 case in early March, the state put out a press release warning people not to take ivermectin for COVID-19. The release pointed to a pre-publication paper for the journal Antiviral Research as the source of the attention for this drug.

However, that study was only done in a petri dish and was not tested on animals or humans.

Despite that, many right-wing media figures, such as Joe Rogan, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, promoted the drug without any scientific backing, reaching a large audience of people who are anti-mask and anti-vaccine. There also are a number of Facebook groups pushing ivermectin, as well as many posts in other social media.

Ivermectin is not the first “miracle drug" that has made headlines during the pandemic. Hydroxychloroquine, convalescent plasma and antiviral drugs lopinavir-ritonavir were also pushed to help treat COVID-19, but studies showed they were ineffective.

“Nobody has a problem with repurposing a drug to use to treat COVID," Sims said. “There's so many different products that have been tried that way, but most of them have not helped."


Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and Twitter.