Lab-Made Mosquitoes Released in Miami

Story at-a-glance

• In January 2018, lab-bred Aedes aegypti mosquitoes carrying wolbachia bacteria were released in South Miami, Florida


• It was the first phase of the Miami-Dade County Mosquito Reduction Test Program, which will release more wolbachia mosquitoes each week for several months — 666 million in all


• If preventing Zika was their aim, government officials missed the boat on this one; although Miami-Dade County was previously designated as a Zika cautionary area, that designation was removed June 2, 2017


• No Zika virus disease cases have been reported with illness onset in 2018 in the U.S., while in 2017 there were only four cases of Zika virus reported that were presumably acquired via local mosquitoes (two in Florida and two in Texas)


• There is a major push to combat mosquito-borne diseases in the continental U.S. with the use of lab-made and GE mosquitoes, even though in the U.S. mosquito-borne illnesses are not a grave threat, especially compared to other major public health crises like the opioid epidemic

In January 2018, lab-bred Aedes aegypti mosquitoes carrying wolbachia bacteria were released in South Miami, Florida. It was the first phase of the Miami-Dade County Mosquito Reduction Test Program, which targeted a one-half square-mile treatment area that received the altered mosquitoes and a corresponding control area within the city.

After initial monitoring, more wolbachia mosquitoes will be released into South Miami each week for several months¹ — 666 million in all² — with the ultimate goal of reducing mosquito populations and their potential for disease transmission.

The project is being conducted by the Miami-Dade County Mosquito Control & Habitat Management Division in collaboration with MosquitoMate, Inc., which created the technology. They’ve already been tested in Key West, Florida, (although due to Hurricane Irma, results of the tests are still pending),³ Kentucky, California and New York. Interest in releasing lab-made mosquitoes has peaked in recent years in response to the Zika virus scare, which has since petered out in the U.S.

If preventing Zika was their aim, government officials missed the boat on this one. Although Miami-Dade County was previously designated as a Zika cautionary area, that designation was removed June 2, 2017.⁴ No Zika virus disease cases have been reported with illness onset in 2018 in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while in 2017 there were only four cases of Zika virus reported that were presumably acquired via local mosquitoes (two in Florida and two in Texas).⁵

If Zika virus isn’t even circulating in the area, it’s unclear how the government plans to measure the “success” of their mosquito release in order to definitively say whether or not it’s helping anything. It’s curious timing, to say the least, unless there are some unknown beneficiaries behind the scenes.

Interestingly, the Daily Mail reported, “MosquitoMate also collaborated with Verily Life Sciences, an offshoot of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., and Fresno County’s Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District, this past summer to release the bacteria-infected mosquitoes in Fresno, California.”⁶

What Are Lab-Made Wolbachia Mosquitoes?

MosquitoMate’s lab-bred male mosquitoes are infected with wolbachia bacteria, which is naturally occurring in up to 60 percent of insect species, but not in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. When the male wolbachia mosquitoes mate with female mosquitoes in the wild (which do not carry the bacteria), the resulting eggs do not hatch, which means the number of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the area should ultimately decrease.⁷

Male mosquitoes don’t bite humans, but rather feed off flower nectar. Female mosquitoes are the ones that require meals of blood in order to develop and lay eggs. Their bites are at best an itchy nuisance and, at worst, can transmit serious diseases like malaria, yellow fever, dengue, encephalitis, chikungunya and West Nile virus. This is why MosquitoMate only releases male mosquitoes.

That said, in the case of the wolbachia mosquitoes, once they’re released (and they already have been), there’s no stopping them from mingling with wild mosquitoes. While this may help to reduce the spread of certain viruses (although this remains to be seen), it may also have other unintended, as yet unknown consequences.

Mosquitoes infected with wolbachia were also released in Brazil and Colombia in 2017 as part of The Eliminate Dengue research program, an $18 million project funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The altered mosquitoes were tested in open trials in dengue-affected communities since 2011, but not to the level as the 2017 tests, which released the insects in large, heavily populated urban areas. It took decades for researchers just to figure out how to introduce wolbachia into Aedes mosquito eggs, but once they did they started experimenting with releasing them into the wild.

Field tests suggest the bacteria spread to the vast majority of local mosquitoes, and as Eliminate Dengue said, is a “self-sustaining” system⁸ — which is both the point and the problem.

There’s No Failsafe With Wolbachia Bugs

In some cases, experimental GE mosquitoes have been genetically engineered to die in the absence of the antibiotic tetracycline (which is introduced in the lab in order to keep them alive long enough to breed). They were designed this way assuming they would not have access to that drug in the wild, a failsafe (though not a perfect one, especially since antibiotics are now showing up in waterways) to ensure that the GE insects could theoretically be removed from the environment if necessary.

This isn’t the case with wolbachia mosquitoes; now that they’re released, there’s no going back. While MosquitoMate’s wolbachia mosquito program involves only male insects, other programs exist that are releasing both females and males with the bacteria.

The World Mosquito Program is among them, which notes a potential problem with the male-only route: “This technique requires the release of a large number of male mosquitoes to reduce the overall mosquito population. As with insecticides, this technique would need to be reapplied over time as the population of mosquitoes gradually returns.”⁹

There’s also the potential ramifications to the ecosystem, which can occur whenever any species is removed or drastically reduced. While mosquitoes are primarily viewed as a nuisance and vector for deadly diseases like malaria, there may be “undesirable side effects” of eradicating them entirely, according to Florida University entomologist Phil Lounibos, Ph.D. BBC News reported:

“ … [Lounibos] says mosquitoes, which mostly feed on plant nectar, are important pollinators. They are also a food source for birds and bats while their young — as larvae — are consumed by fish and frogs. This could have an effect further up and down the food chain … He warns that mosquitoes could be replaced by an insect ‘equally, or more, undesirable from a public health viewpoint.’ Its replacement could even conceivably spread diseases further and faster than mosquitoes today.”

The World Mosquito Program operates under the premise that mosquitoes with wolbachiaare less able to transmit diseases to people. By releasing both male and female mosquitoes with wolbachia, the idea is to establish the bacteria in the entire mosquito population, which they say can occur over a small number of generations.

While male mosquitoes with wolbachia and female mosquitoes without it cannot successfully reproduce, male wolbachia mosquitoes that mate with female wolbachia mosquitoes produce offspring that also contain the bacteria. In addition, when female wolbachia mosquitoes mate with males without it, the offspring will still have wolbachia. According to the program:¹⁰

“[T]he World Mosquito Program’s Wolbachia method is unique because it is self-sustaining and does not need to be continually reapplied, making it an affordable, self-sustaining, long-term solution.

Our method reduces the ability of mosquitoes to transmit dengue, Zika and chikungunya on to people, without suppressing mosquito populations and potentially affecting ecosystems. We are currently adapting our approach for use in large, urban environments and targeting a cost of US$1 per person.”

GE Mosquitoes Also on the Horizon

Biotech company Oxitec has also created and is seeking to release genetically engineered (GE) mosquitoes in the U.S. to fight Zika. The mosquitoes have been genetically engineered to carry a “genetic kill switch,” such that when they mate with wild female mosquitoes, their offspring inherit the lethal gene and cannot survive. To achieve this feat, Oxitec has inserted protein fragments from the herpes virus, E. coli bacteria, coral and cabbage looper moth into the insects.

The GE mosquitoes have proven lethal to native mosquito populations in tests in the Cayman Islands and Brazil, but as pointed out by Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston to USA Today, the GE mosquitoes have not been shown to reduce rates of diseases such as Zika (nor, as mentioned, is Zika virus widespread in the U.S.).¹¹The GE mosquitoes may also prove to be too expensive for areas that are plagued with mosquito-borne diseases.

In addition, the potential exists for these foreign genes, which hop from one place to another, to infect human blood by finding entry through skin lesions or inhaled dust. Such transmission could potentially alter the human genome by creating “insertion mutations” and other unpredictable types of DNA damage.¹²

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which was previously reviewing the GE mosquitoes, initially stated that GE mosquitoes will not have a significant impact on the environment, but was reportedly interested in how the “genetic kill switch” would behave in the wild and whether it could humans or other animals.¹³

In October 2017, the FDA then transferred the power for regulatory approval over to the EPA, after apparently categorizing the GE mosquitoes as pesticides rather than drugs to prevent disease.¹⁴ The GE mosquitoes haven’t been released in the U.S. — yet. Although the FDA had approved their release in the Florida Keys as part of a 22-month trial, this is currently on hold, pending notice from the EPA. The switch could pave the way for their eventual release, however. Wired reported:¹⁵

“The switch from FDA to EPA oversight means an end to Oxitec’s endless waiting. That’s because the EPA is required by federal law to review new pesticides ‘as expeditiously as possible,’ which the statute defines as within 12 months after the submission of an application … [Derric Nimmo, an Oxitec scientist who leads the company’s work in the US] hopes to get permission to go ahead with releases in the next six months, just in time for … [the 2018] mosquito season.”

How Big of a Problem Are Mosquito-Borne Diseases in the US?

There is a major push to combat mosquito-borne diseases in the continental U.S. with the use of lab-made and GE mosquitoes. While it’s clear that some areas worldwide are in the midst of epidemic levels of mosquito-borne disease, such as malaria, with 91 countries experiencing ongoing transmission,¹⁶ is this the case in the U.S.? Quite the contrary. According to the CDC:

• Dengue: “Dengue rarely occurs in the continental United States.”¹⁷


• Chikungunya: In 2016 and 2017, “No locally-transmitted cases have been reported from U.S. states.”¹⁸


• Eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV): EEEV “is a rare illness in humans, and only a few cases are reported in the United States each year.”¹⁹


• Zika virus: Only four cases of (presumably) locally acquired cases were reported in 2017.²⁰

This isn’t to say that health threats from mosquitoes shouldn’t be taken seriously; they’re often described as the “world’s deadliest animal” for a reason. However, in the U.S. mosquito-borne illnesses are not a grave threat, especially compared to other major public health crises like the opioid epidemic. Further, even if they were, there may be better methods to combat them than releasing questionable lab-made or GE mosquitoes.

It’s important to remember that malaria once occurred in the U.S. but was eliminated without the use of mosquito “pesticides.” How? Karl Tupper of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America said in a press release:²¹

“It was improved sanitation, environmental management and access to health care that beat malaria in the U.S. … Rising standards of living were also key — bringing things like screened windows to rural areas in the southern states of the U.S. where the malaria problem was the worst.”

For now, it makes sense to avoid the past panic over mosquitoes, as was seen with the Zika fraud and, instead of releasing altered mosquitoes into the environment — with largely unknown consequences — take sensible measures to avoid getting bitten. Wear long sleeves and pants if you know you’ll be outdoors in a mosquito-prone area and use natural insect repellants (not synthetic chemical versions), like cinnamon leaf oil, citronella essential oil or catnip oil, if necessary.

If mosquitoes are bothering you in your backyard, a house fan can keep them away while you’re outdoors, as can the strategic planting of marigolds, which mosquitoes tend to stay away from.

Draining standing water, including pet bowls, gutters, garbage and recycling bins, spare tires, bird baths, children’s toys and anything else where even small amounts of water can pool, is also important to encourage mosquitoes to live elsewhere. This is where mosquitoes breed, so if you eliminate standing water you’ll eliminate many mosquitoes. Finally, try installing a bat house, as mosquitoes are one of their favorite meals.

– Sources and References 

• ^1, 7 Miami-Dade County, Wolbachia Mosquito Release


• ² Efficient Gov February 5, 2018


• ³ Fox News January 30, 2018


• ⁴ U.S. CDC, Advice for people living in or traveling to South Florida


• ^5, 20 U.S. CDC, Zika virus, 2017 case counts in the U.S.


• ⁶ Daily Mail January 30, 2018


• ^8, 9, 10 EliminateDengue.com, Wolbachia


• ¹¹ USA Today May 25, 2016


• ¹² Institute of Science in Society August 12, 2010


• ^13, 14, 15 Wired October 17, 2017


• ¹⁶ World Health Organization, Malaria Fact Sheet


• ¹⁷ CDC, Dengue


• ¹⁸ CDC, Chikungunya virus in the United States


• ¹⁹ CDC, Eastern Equine Encephalitis


• ²¹ PAN International April 18, 2011

The post Lab-Made Mosquitoes Released in Miami appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

In A Stateless World, Can You Grow Veggies In Your Front Yard?

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

The Miami Herald reports that a local couple is going all the way to the state supreme court to fight a local ordinance banning front-yard vegetable gardens: 

Hermine Ricketts and her husband Tom Carroll may grow fruit trees and flowers in the front yard of their Miami Shores house...

 

Vegetables, however, are not allowed.

 

Ricketts and Carroll thought they were gardeners when they grew tomatoes, beets, scallions, spinach, kale and multiple varieties of Asian cabbage. But according to a village ordinance that restricts edible plants to backyards only, they were actually criminals.

 

“That’s what government does – interferes in people’s lives,” Ricketts said. “We had that garden for 17 years. We ate fresh meals every day from that garden. Since the village stepped its big foot in it, they have ruined our garden and my health.”

These sorts of stories pop up several times a year. They are often discussed at free-market oriented and libertarian sites to illustrate just the myriad of ways that the state interferes in our daily lives. Many times, they intervene to prohibit totally innocuous activities like growing a front-yard garden. 

What articles like these often fail to point out of course, is that these laws didn"t appear out of nowhere. They are often passed because some voters demanded the city council or the county commission pass laws prohibiting front-yard gardens, or backyard chicken coops, or other non-violent activities deemed by some to be a nuisance to the neighborhood. These laws then persist over time because the majority of voters either agree with the laws, or don"t feel strongly enough about the matter to demand a change. 

In Miami Shores, the law against front-yard gardens was likely passed because at least a few people felt that front yard gardens were not so innocuous after all. 

This situation illustrates, yet again, a problem with majoritarian government. If a majority of the citizens of Miami Shores — or whatever jurisdiction — hate front-yard gardens, then they likely to vote for candidates who will vote to ban them. The minority, of course, is simply out of luck.

The implied solution in many of these free-market publications is that government should just get out of the business of regulating front yards. OK. But then people will begin to ask the inevitable questions: 

• Should people be able to just dump garbage in their front yards then?


• Can they park a food truck there 24-hours a day and sell hamburgers out of them? 


• Can they put in their front yards a 20-foot sculpture of a jackalope? 

If the response is "of course not" then the next question is "why not?" or "so what is prohibited in front yards?" If a pile of old appliances is not acceptable in the front yard, why is a vegetable garden acceptable? What if many people think gardens are nearly as unsightly as an old car on blocks? 

You can probably figure out where this leads. We"re right back at regulating what people can do in their front yards. 

Indeed, when Ricketts laments that "government interferes in people"s lives" in response to the ban on her garden, one wonders if she"d be equally libertarian if her neighbors had piles of junk cars in their front yards. 

So, is there no solution here? Must we choose between bans on gardens on the one side, and piles of garbage on the other? 

The solution, of course, lies in decentralization and privatization. 

The Role of the Homeowners Association

Were local governments to totally abandon all regulations on neighborhood aesthetics, it"s easy to imagine what would happen next.1 Assuming, of course, that they were unable to convince local governments to ban allegedly "unsightly" features like front-yard gardens, those who hate the veggie gardens would then seek a solution in private homeowners associations.2

Those who want to be surrounded by neighbors who only plant nicely manicured lawns can have it — provided they find others willing to enter into a private agreement banning front-yard gardens. 

And this is exactly what many people do when they choose to move to covenant-controlled communities where they believe their "property values" will be protected by private agreements banning unsightly features to front yards or houses. 

People like to complain about their homeowners associations, of course, but there"s a reason they aren"t going away. The homeowner agreements don"t actually deter a large number of people from purchasing homes in those communities. Thus, the developers who sell houses there have little reason to believe consumers want a more laissez-faire neighborhood. Many residents actually like knowing that the local association won"t tolerate a weed-filled front yard or an old car up on blocks in the driveway. 

This is why the homeowners association became widespread in the first place: 

These developments were often more self-contained than the large-scale communities in that they maintained stricter standards regarding the appearance of the homes (both the structures and the landscaping). The general idea was that people who were looking for certain amenities (whether restrictions on pets or rules governing hedge planting) would be drawn to these communities; those who sought other amenities would look at other developments. 

Some homeowners association are more strict than others, but most are far more strict than the local municipal governments. Indeed, those who want front-yard gardens will probably find it easier to find a municipal government that tolerates them, than a private homeowners association. Finding a homeowners association that allows chicken coops is probably even harder. Many municipal governments, on the other hand, allow them. 

Decentralization Is the Key

A second option — decentralization — can achieve a similar result. 

Imagine, for instance, that Ricketts convinced a group of people on her side of town to form a secessionist neighborhood that was able to separate from the city of Miami Shores. It became West Miami Shores. 

The Ricketts and their neighbors would then get to have their front-yard gardens. This would also be good for the residents in Old Miami Shores. When potential new residents come looking around to buy a house in Old Miami Shores, the anti-garden people can simply say "you want a front-yard garden? Don"t move here, move over there."

Problem solved. 

Yes, it"s true that some residents in both areas will then have to move if they want to live in a neighborhood that favors their particular views on front-yard gardens. But at least now both groups have the option of getting what they want. 

In the absence of either of these options, we"re only left with a situation in which the majority can run untrammeled over a minority, and the minority has no escape.

JFK Files: The CIA Planned To Murder American Citizens In Miami And Blame It On Cuba During Operation Mongoose

As reporters have began to sift through the thousands of newly revealed government documents relating to the assassination of President Kennedy and subsequent investigation, we are starting to see some stunning revelations concerning not only JFK but the overall mindset of the CIA at the time in their all out war against Communism.

One of the more scary revelations to come out so far details a copy of a paper on “Pretexts” for war with Cuba that described a plan, under Operation Mongoose, to conduct false flag terror attacks in Miami, to be blamed on Cuba but actually carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency.

“Operation Mongoose” was the operational name for the CIA’s plan to topple the Castro government which we now know included purposefully killing our own citizens.

The time was 1962, the same year that brought us the now infamous Operation Northwoods, which was also a plan to kill American citizens as a pretext for war with Communist Cuba.

“On April 12th, 1962, General Lansdale forwarded to Maxwell Taylor an “advance copy” of the Joint Chiefs paper on “Pretexts” stating, I am informed that the Chiefs approve of this,” reads the document.

Keep in mind that this is an admission that the Pentagon at the time was fully on board with killing Americans if it allowed them to wage war against Cuba.

“We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated),” the false flag plan reads.

“We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of a Cuban agent and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.”

While it has been long known that Operation Mongoose was a false flag pretext operation to go to war with Cuba, the fact that the CIA was going to murder Americans hasn’t been released although it has been hinted.

As James Bamford reported in his book, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency From the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New Century, “The U.S. Department of Defense report even suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States: “The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro’s subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on [the U.S. Navy base at] Guantanamo.”

This is yet more evidence that the United States government can and does carry out false flag operations, with 9/11 being the most major example of our time.

Moving even more into the present, if the government was willing to do this is Miami, why is it so hard to believe they would do the same thing in Las Vegas in 2017?

Downtown Miami Flooded With Ocean Water; Crane Collapses

The National Weather Service reported that a crane has collapsed in Miami as strong wind from Hurricane Irma blows in. The weather service’s Miami office said in a Tweet that one of its employees witnessed the crane boom and counterweight collapse in downtown Miami. The employee captured video of the collapse.

The crane fell onto a high-rise building that"s under construction. It"s in a bayfront area filled with hotels and high-rise condo and office buildings, near AmericanAirlines Arena. According to AP, Miami-Dade County Director of Communications Mike Hernandez said emergency personnel couldn"t immediately respond to the scene because of high winds. Authorities urged people to avoid the area after the Sunday morning collapse. It wasn"t clear if there were any injuries. Miami City Manager Daniel Alfonso said the approximately two-dozen other cranes in the city are still upright and built to withstand significant wind gusts.

The cranes were thought to be able to withstand the direct hit of a Category 4 hurricane, however, Irma"s winds in Miami are just at the Category 1 level. About 25 cranes remained up before the storm approached South Florida.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the collapse caused damage or injuries.

The boom of the crane snapped off and is currently still connected to the tower, but is hanging off the side of the building. "All we care about is the safety of everyone right now," the building"s developer, PMG, said in a statement. "We will have a crew over to secure the crane as soon as the weather permits."

As reported previously, the cranes have been a concern even though construction sites across Irma’s potential path in Florida were locked down to remove or secure building materials, tools and debris that could be flung by Irma’s winds.

But the horizontal arms of the tall tower cranes remained loose despite the potential danger of collapse. According to city officials, it would have taken about two weeks to move the cranes and there wasn’t enough time.

Breaking: at least one crane has come down in Downtown Miami. This is next to the Federal prison front of courthouse. @wsvn #HurrcaneIrma pic.twitter.com/sC96QKqM0w

— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) September 10, 2017

Meanwhile, as of noon ET, Miami’s financial center appears to now be flooding as ocean water enters city streets as part of the storm’s surge.

Brickell flooded with ocean water #Irma @nbc6 @CNN @WPLGLocal10 @wsvn pic.twitter.com/wRzGApcJGs

— SV (@SamVSoares) September 10, 2017

Water ponding in #brickell #irma #miami pic.twitter.com/gMDFgekXSj

— Rosa Flores (@RosaFlores) September 10, 2017

Curious minds in #brickell defying instruction from first responders #irma #miami pic.twitter.com/ruaqmA3kww

— Rosa Flores (@RosaFlores) September 10, 2017

"Greatest Evacuation In History" - 650,000 Ordered To Leave Florida

In what spokesman Michael Hernandez describes as "the biggest evacuation in history," Miami-Dade has expanded its mandatory evacuations orders to Zone C, forcing over 650,000 to leave Florida in a "traffic nightmare" as Cat-5 Hurricane Irma bears down.

An earlier order included just Miami Beach, other low-lying and barrier island areas and all mobile-home residents, but as the storm grew in intensity and the cone of uncertainty narrowed, County Mayor Carlos Gimenez issued the order this afternoon expanded to Zone C.

The expansion now covers Zone B, which encompasses Brickell, Miami’s downtown area and South-Dade, including parts of Cutler Bay, Florida City and Homestead. Evacuation orders also touch Zone C, which includes parts of Coral Gables, South Miami, Miami Shores and North Miami Beach.

More than 650,000 residents are reportedly subject to the mandatory evacuation order – that’s up from the 200,000 who were asked to leave to areas outside of evacuation Zones A and B, Wednesday.

Downtown Miami is described as "a ghost town"...

Miami looks like a Ghost Town due to Evacuation in anticipation of Hurricane Irma #HurricaneIrma #Evacuation #Miami pic.twitter.com/YFFxz8WY0l

— Victoire Cogevina (@vhcogevina) September 7, 2017

As the mass exodus begins...

Lines at gas stations were evident everywhere...

Lines for gas in Miami #HurricaineIrma @David_Culver @News4Today pic.twitter.com/A3ZRRDiRer

— Brittany Roembach (@Broembach) September 7, 2017

As AP reports on resident exclaiming:

"There was no gas and it"s gridlock. People are stranded on the sides of the highway," she said.

"It"s 92 degrees out and little kids are out on the grass on the side of the road. No one can help them."

Irma"s eventual path and Florida"s fate depends on when and how sharp the powerful hurricane takes a right turn, National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini said.

"It has become more likely that Irma will make landfall in southern Florida as a dangerous major hurricane," the Hurricane Center said in a forecast discussion Thursday afternoon.

The last Category 5 storm to hit Florida was Andrew in 1992. Its winds topped 165 mph (265 kph), killing 65 people and inflicting $26 billion in damage. It was at the time the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.

U.S. Air Force Reserve weather officer Maj. Jeremy DeHart flew through the eye of Irma at 10,000 feet Wednesday and through Hurricane Harvey just before it hit Texas last month.

He said Irma"s intensity set it apart from other storms.

"Spectacular is the word that keeps coming to mind. Pictures don"t do it justice. Satellite images can"t do it justice," DeHart said.

Still unsure...Miami-Dade made it simple...

What color are you in on this map?
BE SAFE. pic.twitter.com/6eOCaZK8t0

— Miami Dade County (@miamidadeccc) September 7, 2017

WATCH: Mom Charged with 4 Misdemeanors, Felony for Telling a Cop He Did a Bad Job

Miami, FL — Kristy Hernandez, like any good parent, only wanted to take her son to school in a timely manner, but an average trip to Ben Sheppard Elementary School quickly turned into a nightmare — thanks to, of all people, a hero cop.

Hernandez’ son, Brandon, has autism — his myriad struggles with the developmental disorder forced the young mother to leave her job as a nurse in order to care for him — and after dropping her other son at school, she would ordinarily do just that.

Officer Ismael Castilla, however, didn’t have any parents’ everyday lives in mind when he pulled over a parent outside the school — blocking the exit and preventing anyone from leaving for over 20 minutes — no matter what obligations would have been waiting for them.

Hernandez told 7News Miami the officer was “Blocking the exit, not allowing anyone to get out.”

Irate at the delay preventing her from attending to Brandon, Hernandez pulled out her cell phone to record the cop when parents were finally able to begin exiting again — and she had no intention of holding back her anger when driving by.

That brief interaction, born of justifiable frustration toward the inconsiderate ticketing of another parent (considering the officer could have performed the stop and ticketed the driver on the road outside, preventing the ensuing traffic tangle) was captured by a small dash cam mounted in her vehicle:

“The students are late to school because of you,” Hernandez hollered out her window. “I’m going to be sending this to your supervisor, by the way, sir.”

Apparently, that his problematic vehicle stop could soon also be a disciplinary problem at his job, was more than Castilla could handle. Hernandez shortly heard police sirens and saw the authoritarian officer flip on his lights — she was being stopped in the same school driveway.

But she had no idea the extent of Castilla’s vengeful and unnecessary wrath.

Hernandez tells the Free Thought Project via Facebook that “this cop everyday blocks school traffic to give tickets. So I, along with other parents, decided to record it. He noticed me recording and as soon as I turned the corner he turned with his lights still on, so at first I didn’t know he was stopping me.”

READ MORE:  Report: Hundreds of Women & Children Forced into Sex by United Nations "Peacekeepers"

But that is exactly what happened.

“What are you stopping me for? You’re blocking traffic,” Hernandez implored.

“I’m pulling you over because you have an obstruction of your license plate,” the officer replied.

With her car at the mechanic’s shop, Hernandez had driven her father’s car to drop Brandon off at school — but the officer claimed he would be citing her because the “MyFlorida.com” portion at the top of the tag wasn’t visible.

Aware of the cop’s unveiled hostility, Hernandez focused the small dashboard-mounted camera on her interaction with Castilla; and what happened next to the mother who had never had troubles with the law would make any reasonable person’s blood boil.

“I’ve never been on the wrong side of the law,” the mother explained, “so it’s scary for me.”

Castilla brought the full weight of nit-picky, superfluous law against the already upset mother — issuing an inordinate number of citations for the brief traffic stop — itself birthed of the arrogant cop’s refusal to take responsibility for actions he could have performed differently.

“And so he had those five citations to give me,” she told 7News.

“Five?” reporter Patrick Fraser repeated incredulously.

“Five citations.”

In addition to not displaying her state’s website plug on her father’s vehicle’s license plates, Hernandez received tickets for failing to show Castilla registration and proof of insurance — both of which she says were in the car — as well as for the dash cam.

“It’s a small dash-cam,” Hernandez lamented. “He said it was obstructing my view.”

Far worse than a pile of minor, if costly, citations, Castilla’s last order of business with mother — who only wanted to drop off her kid at school and go home — could make Hernandez a felon.

READ MORE:  Cop Handcuffed 12-yo Boy to Basketball Goal, Beat & Tased Him in Front of Horrified Neighbors

“He said I fled and eluded the police officer.”

As 7News explains, “When Kristy pulled over on school property, the officer’s car was left in the road, so she pulled up a few feet to give him space to park, and that’s what got her charged with a felony for fleeing and eluding.

“By then, Brandon was crying, Kristy was hysterical, and another school police officer showed up.”

Through tears, Hernandez attempted to negotiate with the second officer on the scene — to no avail.

She now has four tickets and — defying common decency, reason, and rationale — has been charged with a felony.

Legal expert Howard Finkelstein told 7News Castilla’s gratuitous stop constitutes an extreme departure from the ethical — and isn’t even legal. Not holding back, the expert asserted,

“This is an abuse of power. Legally, Kristy can say she does not like the way the officer is doing his job, but he cannot retaliate and charge her with a felony. And by the way, he wrote the felony charge incorrectly, and it’s not valid at all. As for the other four citations, a judge will see what happened here and throw them all out.”

Finkelstein isn’t the only one calling Castilla out for ruthless and vindictive abuse of power.

Award-winning North Miami Beach Officer Ericson Harrell — who made headlines after refusing to remove an Anonymous’ Guy Fawkes mask during a protest several years ago — was appalled at Castilla’s infractions, and after viewing the news report, took to social media to express those grievances.

On Facebook, Harrell wrote,

“I just watched a news report of a ‘hero’ School Board cop stopped a lady because she yelled at him because the COP was creating a traffic jam. He then pulled her over because he couldn’t see the ‘Florida’ label at the top of her tag. He then proceeded to write the hard working mom 4 tickets to include one for ‘Fleeing and Eluding’ (felony)!!! People don’t hate cops or think ACAB for no reason. It’s actions of this officer which turns someone from a bootlicker to a cop hater over night.

“‘Whenever a discretionary power is lodged in any set of man / woman over the property (Rights) of their neighbors, they will abuse it.’”

With tensions between law enforcement and civilians at an arguably all-time high, Harrell’s explanation indeed explains common sentiment — law-abiding individuals who would frequently rush to side with the Boys In Blue will change their tune the moment a feckless cop uses his gun and badge as personal weapons.

Castilla, as many commenters to Harrell’s post pointed out, indisputably knew his malicious and retaliatory actions would not hold up in court, but he issued the citations and attempted to create a felon out of Hernandez just to be cruel — if not to warn her against their having future interactions.

If he’ll go off the rails toward her once, any additional encounters between Hernandez and the vengeful Castilla could only be worse.

READ MORE:  St. Louis Metropolitan Police Caught on Cam Illegally Detaining Man - Then Lying About It

“I felt violated. I felt victimized,” Hernandez told 7News. “It’s clear to see that he did it in retaliation.”

Worse, she told the station the school’s principal chillingly informed her he wasn’t pleased she spoke to 7News about the school cop’s role in the incident — so she now fears retaliation from two fronts.

In the end, the young mother who had done nothing violent, dangerous, or infringing to another person’s rights — and had never had legal issues — has come to the same conclusion countless otherwise innocent targets of police figured out following similar or worse interactions with law enforcement.

Police like Castilla aren’t doing their jobs, as Hernandez notes, instead,

“What you’re doing is really not protecting and serving. You are just protecting and serving yourself because someone caught you doing something wrong.”

The Miami Condo Implosion Is Much Worse Than Aggregate Industry Numbers Reveal

Authored by Wolf Richter via Wolf Street,

Condo sales in Miami-Dade County have plunged. Condos on the market have surged. Supply has hit 14 months. Developers are sitting on completed units they can’t sell, and months’ supply in their projects has reached several years.

With this kind of supply-and-demand imbalance – sales down 25% from February 2014, inventory up 90% since early 2013 – you’d expect prices to head south. But the median price of condos in February, according to the Miami Association of Realtors, increased 6.3% year-over-year. This is the mystery we’ll shed some light on (chart by StatFunding):

StatFunding conducted an analysis of sales price per square foot in four condo projects with 2,634 units in Brickell, an area of Miami that is part of the “condo corridor.” These projects – 1050 & 1060 Brickell, Axis Brickell, Plaza Brickell, and Jade Brickell – are representative of the overall condo market. Turns out, per-square-foot prices in those four projects peaked in 2014 and 2015 and have since dropped between 10% and 16%.

So what"s going on?

One of the projects was completed in 2004, the other three in 2008. Hence there is a sales history. They’re “newer” and well-maintained projects in the aspiring-luxury and luxury categories of the market. Each project was built by a different developer (pricing data as of March 2017, based on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and the Miami-Dade Recorder).

The three projects completed in 2008 got caught up in the foreclosure crisis when these units were liquidated at prices as low as $200 a square foot. Whoever bought them at this price more than doubled their money by 2014! But that party has now ended.

1050 & 1060 Brickell (2008), “aspiring-luxury” category; two towers, none on the waterfront; 576 units, with studio, 1-bedroom, 2-story 1-bedroom loft, 2-bedroom, and 3-bedroom penthouse units; 55 units (9% of total) for sale on the MLS, or 26 months’ supply (25 units sold in 12 months). Average price per square foot (blue line) has dropped 16% since the peak in 2014.

In this particular project, studios, lofts, and units below the 14th floor were excluded. Here’s why:

The layout of the building is peculiar: The parking pedestal is shared by both towers, and the amenities and the pool deck are on the 12th floor. The units below the 12th floor are squeezed in leftover spaces of the project, and are almost all 1-bedroom 2-story lofts. Given their proximity to parking, they have a street-level feel, and according to Andrew Stearns, CEO of StatFunding, “the pricing on the units is all over the place and not representative of the project as a whole.”

Studios were excluded because the 1050/1060 is the only project of the four with studios, and there is no comparable data from the other projects.

Penthouses were excluded for all four projects since are all unique and sales don’t occur with enough frequency.

Axis Brickell (2008), aspiring-luxury category, two towers, neither on the waterfront; 718 units, with 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom, 3-bedroom, and penthouse units; 89 units (12% of total) listed for sale on the MLS, or 45 months’ supply (24 units sold in 12 months). The average price per square foot (excl. below 10th floor and penthouse units) has dropped 11% since the peak in 2014.

Plaza Brickell (2008), two towers, neither on the waterfront, aspiring-luxury category; 1,000 units, with 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom, 3-bedroom, and penthouse units. 84 units (8% of total) listed for sale, or 26 months’ supply (36 units sold in 12 months). Average price per square foot (excl. below 11th floor and penthouse units) has dropped 10% since the peak in 2014.

Jade Brickell (2004), waterfront luxury category; 340 units, with 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom, 3-bedroom, 4+ bedroom, “townhouse,” and penthouse units. Completed in the middle of the prior condo bubble, the project “became a hotbed of mortgage fraud and subsequent foreclosure activity.”

Currently 37 units (11% of total) are listed for sale, or 22 months’ supply (20 units sold in 12 months). The average price per square foot (excl. below 8th floor and penthouse units) has dropped 16% since the peak in 2015.

This chart shows the average sales price per square foot for all four projects’ averages combined:

Among the reasons prices have declined:

• The strengthening dollar makes real estate more expensive for foreign purchasers, a big force in Miami.


• Foreign purchasers could also be chased off by the efforts of the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to target hotspots of money laundering in real estate, and cash sales in February plunged 18% year-over-year… How Much Money Laundering is Going On in the Housing Market? A Lot


• The change in pricing momentum could be making prospective purchasers skittish.


• New supply from the pre-construction condo boom that now too is running into trouble competes with existing condos.


• The surge in resale inventory.

Why do the numbers not add up? But they do add up

Why do these price declines not show up in the median prices published by the Miami Association of Realtors? Stearns explained:

The realtor’s aggregate data is flawed because from 2009-2016 the data was full of sub $150k sales of bombed-out foreclosure borderline worthless properties – and those properties have worked their way through the system and are the weak comps that make the reported year-over-year average or median gains “true” but entirely meaningless.

So the median price is up 6.3% year-over-year, but it’s meaningless because the prior-year data was pushed down by nearly worthless foreclosed old condos working their way through the process. These units are still not totally gone (Miami Realtors Association lists them as under $50,000 on page 8 of its report).

The consequences when Realtor-published data shows median prices are rising though in reality prices of good condos are declining? Stearns:

What is driving real estate agents crazy is that the local and national real estate associations keep on putting rosy reports out there saying “prices up 7% this month, etc.” but then the agent has to explain to their client that the pricing in their condo building is actually down 20% over the last 18 months with a 5-year supply of units listed for sale.

Most people who make the decision to sell cannot wait five years to find a buyer, which means they have to price the unit at the low end of the market to get their unit sold, which explains a lot about why prices are falling in this market with surging inventory.

The rosy reports might be true in the aggregate, but they mask the distress in certain segments of the market, which makes for painful conversations between real estate agents and their clients.

Miami-Dade’s spectacular condo flipping mania is once again in turmoil. Read… Condo Flippers in Miami-Dade Left Twisting in the Wind

Cops Boil Schizophrenic Man to Death in Hot Shower, Burning Off His Skin — NO CHARGES

Dade County, FL — “Please take me out! I can’t take it anymore!” screamed Darren Rainey, a schizophrenic man serving time in prison for cocaine possession — as he kicked the door of the scalding hot shower repeatedly — while four guards stood just outside for fully two hours, laughing sadistically at his agonizing pain.

Neither John Fan Fan, Cornelius Thompson, Ronald Clarke, nor Edwina Williams — guards at Florida’s Dade Correctional Institution, who forced the man into the 180-degree shower as a demented punishment — answered the frantic pleas.

“Is it hot enough?” inmates say one of the four cruelly quipped.

Rainey died.

“He was found crumpled on the floor. When his body was pulled out, nurses said there were burns on 90 percent of his body,” the Miami New Times reports. “A nurse said his body temperature was too high to register with a thermometer. And his skin fell off at the touch.”

This would, for all intents and purposes, appear to be an open-and-shut case of homicide — or perhaps manslaughter or negligent homicide — since the aforementioned are the facts of the case. For charges to be brought against the vindictive killers would be the natural course of events.

But, in an iniquitous move befitting the deplorable dearth in value the system deems the lives of those in State cages, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s office announced Friday none of the four who took it upon themselves to boil Rainey alive — and laugh about it — will face charges.

“The shower was itself neither dangerous nor unsafe,” the report states. “The evidence does not show that Rainey’s well-being was grossly disregarded by the correctional staff.”

News of this abomination of justice came intentionally just before the weekend — the end of the work week being typical timing for announcements making naked the State’s unseemly and unconscionable decisions. Given Rundle’s background,  sneaking the ludicrous lack of charges against corrections officers into Friday’s news dump is likely a familiar pattern. New Times explains,

“Rundle took over as Miami-Dade’s top prosecutor in the 1990s, after then-State Attorney Janet Reno left to join the Bill Clinton administration. She has remained the state attorney every since. In that time, she has never charged a Miami police officer for an on-duty shooting.

READ MORE:  Police Shoot and Kill Unarmed 20-Year-Old Debate Team Student in Need of Medical Attention

“It’s important to note that all Rundle had to do to show that she cared was to charge the prison guards with a crime. It is up to a jury to assess guilt. Despite the fact that a man died in a shower, and that multiple witnesses said they saw burns on his body and heard screaming, Rundle didn’t think there was enough evidence to bring criminal charges.”

Where the state attorney failed to equate searing a man’s flesh with scorching water to the point skin slipped off upon contact has investigative reporters and whistleblowers baffled.

“They’re gonna cover this up,” a nurse told Harriet Krzykowski, a psychiatric technician, on the nature of Rainey’s death the morning after the fatal shower.

Krzykowski, the New Yorker reported, ultimately blew the whistle about what had happened — and faced bullying, harassment, and had to seek therapy over abuses suffered by embittered prison staff.

Having smeared excrement all over his body and cell on June 23, 2012, Rainey — who had a history of this behavior — was escorted by guards and told to clean up. According to testimony quoted in the state attorney’s memorandum, guards checked several times and found Rainey backed into a corner, away from the water — not bathing.

That specific shower abutted a janitor’s closet, whose sink connected to a hose inserted through the wall to provide water — controls in the stall weren’t operational so guards could ensure those who refused to bathe themselves would not shut off the tap. With tiled walls and floor, a steel door with a window, a lip at the edge to prevent water running into the hall, and a single drain, the institutional shower lacked sufficient ventilation to siphon off excess steam.

In January 2013, Krzykowski gained a new patient — convicted burglar, Harold Hempstead — and appalling new details about the excruciating death of Darren Rainey.

Hempstead’s cell, being located directly beneath the aforementioned shower, made him captive spectator to the torture occurring above — incidentally, Rainey wasn’t the first victim of this shower torment, and Hempstead kept a diary of the names. Throughout the ordeal, Hempstead could hear Rainey shrieking to be freed.

Then, he heard the man beg for forgiveness.

“I can’t take it no more. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again,” Rainey cried, as Hempstead recounted in his diary.

“Eventually, there was a heavy thud, followed by the voices of guards calling for medical help. A short while later, Hempstead watched as a gurney with Rainey’s naked body on it was wheeled past his cell,” the New Yorker noted.

Rainey had collapsed from two hours in the squelching steam of the confined space — but he landed on top of the room’s only drain, causing water hot enough to cook ramen noodles to flood the space sufficiently to cook most of his body — boiling the man like one would a lobster until there was no struggle left.

Rundle did not find this sufficient grounds to press charges — in part because she turned mostly to a fraught autopsy report “that has been roundly criticized by civil-rights advocates. The report claims Rainey was not found with burns when he died.  Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida American Civil Liberties Association, has said in the past that the autopsy, which was leaked to the press during the investigation, showed that a federal investigation was needed,” the New Times notes.

Additionally, Rundle’s office loudly discredited Hempstead’s diary of names as ‘inaccurate and unreliable,’ and dismissed witness accounts from other inmates as “inconsistent,” and therefore moot.

“Accordingly and in conclusion,” Rundle stated in the disgraceful memo, “the facts and evidence in this case do not meet the required elements for the filing of any criminal charge.”

This is the treatment given most often to the mentally ill and nonviolent drug offenders. This is the State laying bare the complete lack of worth it places on those unfortunate enough to be caged in its horrendously inadequate and inhumane facilities. This is the State gifting Get Out of Jail Free cards to torturers — yet another case where a badge grants impunity of steel — even when a murder is in question.

This is the Injustice System of Police State, U.S.A. — and it’s literal Hell for people like Darren Rainey.