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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Adnan Al-Zurfi withdraws his candidacy
Today's Headlines
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Page 6: Politix
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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Urban Outbreak 2019 Pandemic Response: Select Research & Game Findings
[USN Basketball College] This document is a summary of 16 key research and game findings focused specifically on the characteristics of civil-military response to a pandemic scenario. The numbered bullets below correspond to more detailed explanations of findings presented later in the document. While these findings are in no way definitive or complete, they are a sampling of relevant guidance based on research, gaming and expert opinion. It is our hope that these 16 findings will contribute to improving civilian and military effectiveness in humanitarian assistance and disaster response operations

Quick link found here.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 11:26 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


WHO Director General attacks Trump, tells him to stop politicizing coronavirus unless he wants more body bags…
[Right Scoop] The Director General for the World Health Organization attacked Trump today, telling him to stop politicizing the coronavirus unless he wants more body bags:

In short, Ghebreyesuson tells Trump that it’s a waste of time to point fingers, that we all need to have solidarity or something.

Or as Nate Madden wrote, "Shorter this: "PEOPLE WILL DIE if you dare point out that we ran interference for the Chinese Communist Party’s lies when people started dying""

Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 07:43 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  OrangeMan's greatest talent: chooosing the right enemies, thereby suckering the Dems into defending the indefensible.

Watch for Biden ef al. to come to the defense of the WHOres in 5, 4, 3, ....
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 7:51 Comments || Top||

#2  Someone is preparing to become $400m per year worth of extreme butt hurt. Rather threatening I'd say.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 7:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Tebros or whatever does show great solidarity. With the CCP.
I wonder what his official salary is...just wondering.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 7:55 Comments || Top||

#4  No worries, Bill and Melinda will make up any WHO funding shortfall, you'll see.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 8:21 Comments || Top||

#5  They are welcome to it, Besoeker. The taxpayer needs to stop funding these paid Chinese propaganda stooges.
Posted by: DarthVader || 04/09/2020 8:56 Comments || Top||

#6  COVID-19 is being politicized. However, it is being done by the Deepstate Dems, WHO and the MSM.
Posted by: JohnQC || 04/09/2020 9:08 Comments || Top||

#7  The funding cuts are a done deal. And, Trump used to hearing worse from congress critters of color every day.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 9:12 Comments || Top||

#8  Sure hope it's a done deal. And while they are at it, why not cut some more fat from our UN contributions?
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 9:14 Comments || Top||

#9  Ref #6: COVID-19 is being politicized. However, it is being done by the Deepstate Dems, WHO and the MSM.

Forget the Globalist Consortium at your own peril.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 9:15 Comments || Top||

#10  If I remember correct, CHO was so far behind the curve even nominal friends were asking WTF?
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/09/2020 10:18 Comments || Top||

#11  WHO must of gotten some budget advise from Palestine.
Posted by: bbrewer126 || 04/09/2020 14:56 Comments || Top||


Coronavirus: The porous borders where the virus cannot be controlled
[BBC] As nations shut borders, a surge of people pouring unmonitored over international boundaries in a volatile and vulnerable part of the world has sparked warnings about the unchecked spread of the virus there.

In March, more than 150,000 Afghans spontaneously returned from Iran, one of the countries worst hit by the coronavirus - thousands more arrive daily.

Tens of thousands have also recently returned from Pakistan - among the worst affected countries in South Asia.

Officials are struggling to control this unprecedented movement across what have always been porous and often lawless borders.

So far, Afghanistan is not among countries severely hit by the virus, reporting 423 cases and 14 deaths, but this influx has raised fears of much higher transmission rates.

"With the numbers of likely infected people who have crossed the border, I expect the numbers of cases and deaths [in Afghanistan] to go up significantly," says Natasha Howard, associate professor of global health and conflict at the National University of Singapore.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 05:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


San Diego Officials Urge People to Avoid 'Experimental' Coronavirus Treatment
Not to be confused by the facts, the answer is in the clouds.
[RedState] During their daily coronavirus press conference Tuesday, San Diego County officials announced that there were 50 new cases and 12 deaths in the prior 24 hours, "the largest single day jump in fatalities to date."

Despite this, Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county public health officer, said they are not recommending the use of hydroxychloroquine, a white man's medication President Trump has mentioned numerous times during White House briefings and which a Democrat state representative from Michigan credits with saving her life.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 02:25 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Anybody listens to her, IMO, is evolution in action (like Iranians kissing holy cloth)
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 3:49 Comments || Top||

#2  The party of Science™
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 10:25 Comments || Top||

#3  Why make a public announcement instead of sending the info to doctors and hospitals, you know the folks actually making such decisions. Why urge instead of demanding? This only makes sense as an exercise in virtue signalling.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 04/09/2020 10:27 Comments || Top||

#4  Since the China virus disease is new every treatment and medication (including inaction) is experimental by definition.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 || 04/09/2020 14:25 Comments || Top||

#5  Better to try the experimental process of the afterlife, I guess.
Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 04/09/2020 20:40 Comments || Top||

#6  ...what Dr. Wilma Wooten sez does not matter as the CDC is leaving THAT decision up to the Doctor and the patient..
and, just in case I have already crossed that bridge with my wife's DR. just in case because of her existing condition ..(compromised immune system, etc) Vasculitus,COPD, AFIB,..my wife is a tough gal and I will avocate for her..
Posted by: crazyhorse || 04/09/2020 21:16 Comments || Top||

#7  and I will avocate for her..

Bless you for being wonderful, crazyhorse.
Posted by: trailing wife || 04/09/2020 22:21 Comments || Top||

#8  TW..thanks...we have been married 53 years..
Posted by: crazyhorse || 04/09/2020 22:34 Comments || Top||

#9  TW..thanks...we have been married 53 years..
Posted by: crazyhorse || 04/09/2020 22:35 Comments || Top||

#10  00PS...double post.
Posted by: crazyhorse || 04/09/2020 22:36 Comments || Top||

#11  She lent me one virtue, and I live thereby...
-T. Roethke

Bless you and your wife, crazyhorse
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 22:59 Comments || Top||


Pentagon Denies ABC News Report Military Intelligence Knew About Coronavirus in November
ABC News story found at this link.

[Breitbart] The Pentagon late on Wednesday said an ABC News report that said a military intelligence unit wrote a report on the coronavirus in November is not accurate.

Col (Dr.) R. Shane Day, the director of the National Center for Medical Intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in a statement that as a matter of practice, the NCMI does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters. He said"
However, in the interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists.

A defense official added on background that the NCMI and the DIA spent considerable time over the last 24 hours examining every possible product that could have been identified as related to this topic and have found no such product.
All are now burn bagged and non-existent.
The exclusive ABC News report, published Wednesday morning, said the NCMI warned the military and the White House about the spread of the virus in China as far back as late November:
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 01:30 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Sunday that he couldn’t recall if the Pentagon received an intelligence assessment on the novel coronavirus......

Pandemic intelligence assessment memory lapses, why do they hate us? How about Fred or Sally, could they remember? Bueller? Anyone ?

Can I safely assume we've heard nothing from the Klingon's on the Shahid Mahillati Uranium Metals Workshop... or the COVID-19 virus ?

Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 1:43 Comments || Top||

#2  If we did, they did.
Posted by: Woodrow || 04/09/2020 3:04 Comments || Top||

#3  National Center for Medical Intelligence at the Defense Intelligence Agency,
Sounds like their remit was military bioweapons and military bioweapons only... Civilian epidemics was somebody else's problem™.
Posted by: magpie || 04/09/2020 13:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Paper or plastic?
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 13:28 Comments || Top||

#5  My dilemma is that I don't trust either ABC or the Klingons.
Posted by: charger || 04/09/2020 14:52 Comments || Top||


3 Disinfectants You Can Use If You Can't Find Clorox Wipes
[Apartment Therapy] Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you toss your shoes in a pile near the door, or wipe crumbs from the coffee table twice a day or twice a week. As long as you can find your sneakers and don’t get ants‐you’re doing great. But when your cleaning goals go from "I want a tidy home" to "I need to protect myself from illness," things change.

When there’s a viral infection on the rise, like right now with the coronavirus, many people shift their priorities‐and their behavior. On its list of everyday preventive actions, the Center for Disease Control recommends washing your hands often (and with intention), avoiding touching your face, and disinfecting frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe. It’s because of that last tip that you may find that disinfecting wipes and sprays are out of stock in local department and grocery stores, and even out of stock from giant online warehouses.

If you can’t get your hands on disinfecting wipes or sprays, here are some alternative disinfectants and sanitizers you can use to kill germs on your household surfaces.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What about holy relics made from cloth?
Posted by: gorb || 04/09/2020 8:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Depending on the religion you might use those to wipe specific, rectal, areas of your body.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 04/09/2020 9:11 Comments || Top||

#3  "I want a tidy home" to "I need to protect myself from illness,"

Ummmmmm.

I mean, its a well meaning article, but I bet a lot of people are past the Brand Loyalty stage by now.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/09/2020 10:52 Comments || Top||

#4  A 1986 Philly rap concert poster is a disinfectant? Who knew!

Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 04/09/2020 21:22 Comments || Top||


The Coronavirus Encounters of an Average American Nobody
[The Burning Platform] Last week, I read an online article in my local paper telling of a 68-year-old gentleman who died from COVID-19. In the article, it described how the man had retired in the last year because of cancer. Then, two days later, my wife asked me if I had read the article. When I said that I had, she responded: "Scary, huh? He was healthy."

I replied: "What do you mean? He had underlying issues".

And when we logged-on to read the article again, it was tagged as "updated 7 hours ago" and many of the words I’d read two nights before were.... gone. In the paragraph where it said he retired, it mentioned nothing of his cancer and instead described how the man was "active and enjoyed riding his bike".

Of course, even a tin-foil-hat-wearing blogger like me would have a hard time believing that any conspiratorial pressure could be applied to my local paper. Perhaps the family requested the change or the original article was in error. It’s hard to say.


But I do know what I read. And, the internet archive "Way Back Machine" showed the URL as being updated on March 31, 2020 and again on April 2, 2020, but the initial article was not archived. Now I wish I’d have taken a screenshot of, or printed, the original post.

Why?
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The press is lying. They are doing everything they can to reinforce panic and fear, in order to hurt "Orange Man Bad". including smearing a possible treatment that could reduce it to nothing more than a few days with the flu, hydroquinolone.
Posted by: Marilyn Tojo7566 || 04/09/2020 0:16 Comments || Top||

#2  Hydroxychloroquine
Posted by: KBK || 04/09/2020 0:19 Comments || Top||

#3  Just not the press, it's the bureaucracy at work.

How Honest is the COVID Fatality Count?

Dr. Scott Jensen is both a physician and a Minnesota state senator. Yesterday he was interviewed by a local television station and dropped a bombshell: he, and presumably all other Minnesota doctors, got a seven-page letter from the Minnesota Department of Health that gave guidance on how to classify COVID-19 deaths. The letter said that if a patient died of, e.g., pneumonia, and was believed to have been exposed to COVID-19, the death certificate should say that COVID-19 was the cause of death even though the patient was never tested, or never tested positive, for that disease.


It's all GIGO.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 04/09/2020 7:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Anything short of 2.2 million deaths will make Trump look good. Trump is also the best suited president to get the economy up and running again.

Many lefties know this which is why some are claiming we need 18 month lock down.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 04/09/2020 10:25 Comments || Top||

#5  Biden has been nominated because they know Trump will be re elected. They don't want loser tarnish on any of the others they will run again later.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 11:02 Comments || Top||

#6  /\ Yes, harmless placeholder.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 11:04 Comments || Top||

#7  I've wondered that, too, that the Dems are just going through the motions conceding defeat (which, I think, the GOP had done up against Obama). What others have wondered is what will come AFTER Pres. Trump.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 11:05 Comments || Top||

#8  After Trump, historically speaking, we switch parties and the Dems take over again. Of course Reagan was so awesome the GOP got three terms and despite the virus Trump is along the same trajectory.

The smarter folks in their party know this and are willing to give Trump powers they want, knowing he wouldn't use such powers, such as trying to make voting a Federal controlled thing..
Posted by: rjschwarz || 04/09/2020 12:13 Comments || Top||

#9  Mondale-Ferraro redux.

Economy will start to rebound before end of Q2, markets even sooner, and OrangeMan will be re-elected with a healthy margin of victory. Smarter Dems see this.
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 12:39 Comments || Top||

#10  Agree Lex....sooner the better...
Posted by: crazyhorse || 04/09/2020 17:35 Comments || Top||


-Land of the Free
Gates & Fauci Conspiracy
[from Martin Armstrong at armstrongeconomics.com]

The conspiracy between Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci is in the open. We now have Fauci saying the same thing as Gates – the country will NEVER return to normal until everyone is vaccinated against this pretend virus. Fauci has suggested that until a vaccine is developed, we will NEVER be allowed to do anything in public.

This is the overthrow of the United States. It is a conspiracy blended with the Climate Change agenda from day one.

President Trump must appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate all the connections. I have DIRECT knowledge of calls made to elite people who were told to sell everything because of this "virus" and Bill Gates resigned from the boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hatheway just before Warren Buffet lost up to $80 billion on March 23rd.

This is a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY and everyone should be writing to the White House now! They have weakened the US economy and thrown the world into a serious state where war now becomes the traditional response. I have always stated, my research has shown that war NEVER takes place when everyone is fat & happy. Turn the economy down, and war becomes inevitable.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 09:08 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The party of Science™
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 10:36 Comments || Top||

#2  The German landkreis (county) of Heinsberg (pop. 100,000) had the earliest uncontrolled breakout of the virus in February.

The renowned German virologist Hendrik Streeck conducted a very thorough research in the most hit community of Gangelt where the outbreak started during a carnival session. For the first time a representative sample of people were tested including those without any symptoms.

A conservative estimate says that 15% of the population (other calculation methods say 20%) contracted the virus, most without any symptoms.

This would bring the death rate (Germany currently 1.8%) down to 0.37%. An the overwhelming majority of deaths are old people with preconditions (obesity, diabetes, heart and lung problems, smokers).

It's therefore quite possible that Spain, Italy, France and Germany (and most likely the U.S.) have millions of infected already, and most people either feel nothing or just think they have a common cold.

Poor hospital situations may be to blame for the "high death rates" in Italy, Spain and France. But if millions are already infected, they aren't that high.

This may just turn out to be like a season with a severe flu wave. Covid-19 is not the flu, but most people will be affected like they'd be in a flu wave.

If that's true, most measures taken in order to "flatten the curve" are extremely exaggerated. Numbers skyrocketed, because everyone started testing like crazy. For the same reason the curve is flattening now.

We probably don't need a shut down. All we need is:

1) 2 m (6ft) distance, period.
2) Thorough and frequent hand hygiene
3) Extensive testing
4) Protecting the elderly

We don't need to shut down the economy and lose trillions. We need social distancing until a vaccine is developed. This can be done without ruining the economy.
Posted by: European Conservative || 04/09/2020 15:00 Comments || Top||

#3  I recently saw a ZDF video with Dr. Streeck, and I believe he even debunked the idea that things like a Türklinke (door "knob") carry the virus and can infect people.

Interesting how many of the videos I've seen from the non-hysteria point of view have been mostly from Germany with maybe France pitching in. We could use more of them!
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 15:06 Comments || Top||

#4  Yes it seems the socalled "smear infection" is overrated.
To contract a living virus, an infected person would need to cough directly at the door knob, another person has to touch it within minutes and the touch his nose or mouth with the same hand soon.

The most common way to get the virus is standing close to an infected coughing person or shaking the hand of an infected person who coughed in his hand.

This can be avoided quite easily.
Posted by: European Conservative || 04/09/2020 15:16 Comments || Top||

#5  The virus can - under lab condition - survive a while on door knobs but it's ar more likely that you touch a dead virus and/or simply not enough of the buggers.
Posted by: European Conservative || 04/09/2020 15:18 Comments || Top||

#6  I've had a nasty cold, then the flu, then pneumonia (only one lung), then another nasty cold for months. Started in early November. I hurt all over for months. I seem, and feel, fine now. Only the good die young. My VA doctor says I am too cussed to die. Yet. Hope so.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 04/09/2020 21:40 Comments || Top||

#7  ^ too young to die / too old to rock 'n' roll

Me too
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 21:53 Comments || Top||


Economy
Bankrupting America
[Townhall] Two weeks ago, President Donald Trump signed the largest stimulus bill in U.S. history: more than $2 trillion.

For once, both Republicans and Democrats agreed. The Senate voted 96-0. The House didn't even bother with a formal vote.

At the White House, a reporter asked the president, pointing out that the bill includes $25 million for the Kennedy Center, "Shouldn't that money be going to masks?"

"The Kennedy Center has suffered greatly because nobody can go there," Trump responded. "They do need some funding. And look -- that was a Democrat request. That was not my request. But you got to give them something."

"Something" they got. The bill includes $25 million for Congressional salaries, $50 million for an Institute of Museum and Library Services and lots of other wasteful things.

Only a few politicians were wary. Rep. Thomas Massie complained that he wasn't even allowed to speak against the bill.

Rep. Alex Mooney asked: "How do you pay for it? Borrow it from China, borrow it from Russia? Are we going to print the money?"

Those are good questions.

Our national debt is already $24 trillion. Now it will jump, percentage-wise, to where Greece's debt was shortly before unemployment there hit 27%.

Greece was bailed out by the European Union. But the United States can't be bailed out by others.
CARTOONS | Mike Lester
View Cartoon

How will we pay off our debt? That's the topic of my new video.

There are really three options:

1. Raise taxes.

2. Print money.

3. Default.

Let's consider each:

1. Raising taxes on rich people is popular. Even Michael Bloomberg wants "higher taxes on billionaires" like him.

But raising taxes on the rich often kills the wealth and jobs some rich people create. And it won't solve our debt problem. Even if we took all the billionaires' wealth -- reducing their net worth to zero -- it would cover only an eighth of our debt.

2. Some on the left now say, "Don't worry about debt, just print money!"

This belief, called Modern Monetary Theory, destroys lives.

Zimbabwe's dictator tried it. Eager to spend more money on wars, higher salaries for government officials and luxury for himself, he had his government print more money. But that meant more money pursued the same goods. That caused explosive inflation. Soon, a $2 bag of onions cost $30 million Zimbabwean dollars.

The more money the government printed, the more inflation there was. They eventually even issued 100 trillion dollar bills. Today those 100 trillion bills are worth about 40 cents.

Inflation wrecked lives in 1920s Germany, Argentina and Russia, and in modern-day Venezuela, too.

3. America could simply refuse to pay our debt. But that would betray everyone who invested in America, and bankrupt Americans who bought Treasury Bonds.

Defaulting on your debt wrecks economies, too. When Argentina defaulted, unemployment rose to 21%.

Once you're deep in debt, no option is good.

How did we get to this point?

Presidents have talked about the dangers of debt for decades. But they didn't deal with it; they just talked about it.

"We have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future," warned Ronald Reagan. "We must act today to preserve tomorrow."

Bill Clinton said, "We've got to deal with this big long term debt problem."

Barack Obama called driving up the national debt "irresponsible" and then proceeded to do exactly that.

Donald Trump complained that Obama "doubled" the nation's debt. But now, under Trump's presidency and the new CARES Act, our debt will grow even faster.

This will not end well.

So far, the deficit spending hasn't done enormous harm. But it will. You can stretch a rubber band only so far, until it breaks.

Our debt will wreck our children's lives.

Yet, today politicians mostly talk about spending more.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  US eperienced inflation too. Anyone that lived thru the late 1970's knows Jimmy Carter's "stagflation" with high taxes, high inflation, double digit interest rates, and double digit unemployment. It took Ronald Reagan to fix that, and it was not painless. Thats why when trump is re-elected, he needs to address the debt by demanding a painful balanced budget, and stick to it. If he starts in early 2021, the pain will be over by mid 2022, and we'll see a Reagan like boom in late 2022, that will roar all the way to President Haley's (or fill in the name of any prominent GOP from outside DC) inauguration.
Posted by: Marilyn Tojo7566 || 04/09/2020 0:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Can I recommend "For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs" by Robert A. Heinlein?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 4:02 Comments || Top||

#3  #1 remember the Misery Index?
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 8:06 Comments || Top||

#4  Best way to get the budget under control is to quarantine congress for a couple decades.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 9:06 Comments || Top||

#5  Now the Fed is going to pump over $2 trillion more into the economy. Geeeesh.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 9:12 Comments || Top||

#6  Everyone has been at that night time party where Billy Joe decides what the bonfire needs is a couple more gallons of gasoline.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 9:18 Comments || Top||

#7  4. Grow our way out. That's what was done with pretty much all gov debt. Grow the economy over a few decades so the debt is a small portion of GDP. Problem is that also has to coupled with spending discipline. Not something the USA has seen in 60 years.
Posted by: Cholutch Shereper2174 || 04/09/2020 10:49 Comments || Top||

#8  /\ A rigorous dumping of foreign aid programs may also provide a boost.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 10:51 Comments || Top||

#9  Infrastructure improvements + bringing manufacturing & manufacturing jobs back to this country will provide an enormous boost.

Inflationary perhaps but a bit of inflation now is OK. we need wage growth and it devalues the debt to our advantage - and to the ChiCom creditors' disadvantage.
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 10:56 Comments || Top||

#10  Something old, something new ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 11:01 Comments || Top||

#11  Imagine a Norman Rockwell in this day and age. They would have driven him to the local insane asylum.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 11:02 Comments || Top||

#12  A simple 12 month bond that would pay 2.5 taxfree percent? They couldn't print the damn things fast enough.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 11:08 Comments || Top||

#13  Funny that the Fed funds rate is essentially ZERO. How are those credit card APR's? Probably closer to 20% than zero. Pathetic.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 11:09 Comments || Top||

#14  ^ Ding, ding DING! We have a winner...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 12:26 Comments || Top||

#15  Cut government to 1/4 the current size so that we'll have money the next time an emergency comes up.

Also IRS audit for every congressperson and make the results public so we can see where they get the money and how they hide it.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 04/09/2020 15:55 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Anthony Fauci sets stage for mandatory -- lucrative! -- vaccine
Great news for big pharma....gee, who da thunk it?
[WashingtonTimes] Anthony Fauci, America’s most-listened-to medical professional on the coronavirus, and apparently on all the political, economic, cultural and social precautions every man, woman and child in the nation should take on the coronavirus, has just warned what cooler-head coronavirus watchers have suspected all along: that this country may never, no never, go back to normal.

Never, that is, Fauci suggested, until a vaccine is developed. And by logical extension, that’s to say ‐ never, until a vaccine is developed that must then be included on the required list of shots for all children to attend school.

What great news for Big Pharma.

What great news for Bill Gates who just announced his foundation is going to spend billions of dollars to help build factories for seven possible coronavirus vaccine makers. "Spend" is probably the wrong word here. Invest is more like it.

After all, Gates, first and foremost, is a businessman. A billionaire businessman who made his billions in Microsoft and who just left his billion-dollar Microsoft enterprise to pursue other matters ‐ specifically, to "serve humanity," is how the Economic Times put it, in a March headline.

For a taste of how he’s already served humanity, one need only look to the disastrous Common Core one-size-fits-all, top-down education plan that his foundation bankrolled.

From education to vaccinations ‐ the service to humanity never ends.

But this is what Fauci just warned, at a White House briefing with reporters: "When we get back to normal, we will go back to the point where we can function as a society. But ... [i]f you want to get back to pre-coronavirus, that might not ever happen in the sense that the threat is there. But I believe that with the therapies that will be coming online, and the fact that I feel confident that over a period of time we will get a good vaccine, that we will never have to get back to where we are right now."

He also said this: "If back to normal means acting like there never was a coronavirus problem, I don’t think that’s going to happen until we do have a situation where you can completely protect the population."

This ‐ as the dire, dark, deathly numbers that sent America into coronavirus panic in the first place were just revised downward.

"America’s most influential coronavirus model just revised its estimates downward," The Washington Post reported.

This ‐ as Gates, the guy who has been the face of warning about the "nightmare scenario" of the coronavirus outbreak, just said the predicted death toll may not be as high as, well, predicted. Yes, viruses are, after all, seasonal.

This ‐ as deaths due to the coronavirus are wildly open to interpretation, wildly speculative, wildly unscientific.

"The lack of widespread, systematic testing in most countries is the main source of discrepancies in death rates internationally," BBC reported.

What do doctors consider a coronavirus death?

In the United Kingdom, health officials give daily counts of deaths of those who tested positive for the coronavirus, but who might have actually died from other medical conditions. In the United States, doctor discretion reigns.

"In the US," BBC reported, "doctors ... are asked to record whether the patient dies ’as a result of this illness’ when reporting Covid-19 deaths to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

So some patients may have underlying conditions that lead to death; others may not. Some hospitals may have policies that mandate the U.K. model ‐ to chalk up any patient who died with the coronavirus to be reported to the CDC as a coronavirus fatality; other hospitals may let the doctor determine. It’s a toss-up, hardly fact-based.

And for all this, America may never see a return to pre-coronavirus normalcy?

We’re focused on fear.

We should be focused on this: the money trail.

The money and power trail.

The Global Vaccine Action Plan, for instance.

"The World Health Organization, UNICEF, the National institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have announced a collaboration to increase coordination across the international vaccine community and create a Global Vaccine Action Plan," the Gates Foundation reported in a press release. "The collaboration follows the January 2010 call by Bill ad Melinda Gates for the next ten years to be the Decade of Vaccines."

The "Decade of Vaccines?"

It’s a structured campaign. It includes a Leadership Council, a Steering Committee, an International Advisory Committee ‐ and other bureaucratic so forths and so ons. But here’s an interesting link.

The Leadership Council "is comprised of ... Dr. Anthony S. Fauci," the Gates Foundation reported.

Fauci, the same guy who just set the stage for the dire need for a protective coronavirus vaccine, has a vested interest in seeing this vaccine come to fruition ‐ come to widely administered fruition.

"Vaccines are miracles," said Pedro Alonso, the director for the Institute for Global Health of Barcelona, and another stakeholder in the "Decade of Vaccines" program.

Yes.

And for certain folk, certain insider folk, vaccines are also great economic and political investments. Especially when they come as saving grace solutions to wildly spread fears ‐ especially when they come as required, mandated protections for global populations.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 11:10 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not good.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 04/09/2020 11:23 Comments || Top||

#2  A perminent vaccine, of course, or one that only lasts eight months?
Posted by: gorb || 04/09/2020 11:28 Comments || Top||

#3  "they" offer annual flu shots. Now what?
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 11:30 Comments || Top||

#4  WHO can just hold it up until it's free for all. That'll be a laugh riot.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 11:57 Comments || Top||

#5  #3 Not the same: flu viruses have - what amounts to sexual recombination - producing lots of new variants - coronaviruses don't.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 12:12 Comments || Top||

#6  (a) He advises, he doesn't decide.
(b) A bureaucrat will always give the most cautious estimate.
(c) If HCQ works as advertised, who's going to pay any attention to him?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 12:14 Comments || Top||

#7  If the conspiracy mongers are right that you will need a vaccination chit, who cares if it's a bureaucrat or a politician deciding?
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 12:23 Comments || Top||

#8  If the conspiracy mongers are right

We'll all die, so it doesn't matter.

p.s. The assumption that vaccine will be expensive is based on?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 12:26 Comments || Top||

#9  Maybe the vaccine will be cheap. The piece of paper won't be. And wait til the anti-vaxxers file lawsuits.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 12:40 Comments || Top||

#10  How many democrats do you think will support "hold harmless" legislation for the vaccine manufacturers? Anyone? Bueller?
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 12:44 Comments || Top||

#11  Get vaccinated > wait 6-12 weeks > get antibody test (maybe repeat first three steps) > apply to DHS for chit, send in check or money order, may take 180 days or more to process...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 12:47 Comments || Top||

#12  MM, ever considered that, with Trump in cat-bird seat, the paper will be antibody test results not proof of vaccination?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 12:48 Comments || Top||

#13  Entirely possible.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 12:49 Comments || Top||

#14  I rest my case.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 12:49 Comments || Top||

#15  But we have regular drivers licenses and CDLs. Who thinks DHS will settle for one chit?
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 12:53 Comments || Top||

#16  You didn't watch many episodes of Perry Mason, G.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 12:54 Comments || Top||

#17  I didn't watch any. But I did read the books a few decades ago. Your point?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 13:10 Comments || Top||

#18  Don't rest your case prematurely.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 15:07 Comments || Top||

#19  The point, MM, if the criterion is immune memory (antibody counts), then you cannot specify a particular vaccine. And there are going to be dozens - at least one from each industrialized country.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 15:11 Comments || Top||

#20  By the time a vaccine is ready we'll all have had the disease.
Posted by: Iblis || 04/09/2020 15:22 Comments || Top||

#21  I definitely didn't get that from the comments above but I do agree.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 15:23 Comments || Top||

#22  Whatever it looks like you will be able to buy quality forgeries in downtown LA a couple of days ays later. And for a few dollars more,the actual records of it by local government there will reflect it matches with your other phony ID.
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 04/09/2020 15:28 Comments || Top||

#23  ^ absolutely true
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 15:37 Comments || Top||

#24  Maybe someone will decide to run Fauci to ground and let the air out of him. Gates too.
Posted by: Phineter Turkeyneck6202 || 04/09/2020 15:55 Comments || Top||

#25  In the race to get a vaccine in the US, FDA approval is the high hurdle.

Any bets on who has the inside track?
Posted by: Bobby || 04/09/2020 15:59 Comments || Top||

#26  ^The current FDA head is Trump Appointment.
And, if he doesn't play ball.
The FDA is led by the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate
Trump will fire his ass.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 16:41 Comments || Top||

#27  We call them Amerikaner...
And you say ze Gerrmans have no humor?
Posted by: European Conservative || 04/09/2020 17:35 Comments || Top||

#28  Too funny, European Conservative.
Posted by: trailing wife || 04/09/2020 19:35 Comments || Top||

#29  I've heard Americanski Touriste before. This is new. :)
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 04/09/2020 21:43 Comments || Top||


Bill Gates Crosses the Digital Rubicon, Says ‘Mass Gatherings' May Not Return Without Global Vaccine
"Alice, Alice, who the f**k is Alice?
[Strategic-Cultire.org] A recurring theme among conspiracy theorists is that the elite are just waiting for the right moment to roll out their ‘mark of the beast' technology to remotely identify and control every single human being on the planet, thus sealing their plans for a one world government. And with many people willing to do just about anything to get back to some sense of normalcy, those fears appear more justified with each passing day.

In the Book of Revelation [13:16-17], there is a passage that has attracted the imagination of believers and disbelievers throughout the ages, and perhaps never more so than right now: "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark…"

Was John of Patmos history's first conspiracy theorist, or are we merely indulging ourselves today with a case of self-fulfilling prophecy? Whatever the case may be, many people would probably have serious reservations about being branded with an ID code even if it had never been mentioned in Holy Scripture. But that certainly has not stopped Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has been warning about a global pandemic for years, from pushing such controversial technologies on all of us.

In September 2019, just three months before the coronavirus first appeared in China, ID2020, a San Francisco-based biometric company that counts Microsoft as one of its founding members, quietly announced it was undertaking a new project that involves the "exploration of multiple biometric identification technologies for infants" that is based on "infant immunization" and only uses the "most successful approaches".

In a new interview, Bill Gates authoritatively states that mass public gatherings will not come back "at all" until we have mass vaccination. Who made him king of the world? https://t.co/siW7bZ9yGc … pic.twitter.com/ivaCI8eAEl

‐ Alternative News (@NewsAlternative) April 4, 2020

For anyone who may be wondering what one of those "most successful approaches" might look like, consider the following top contender for the contract. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed what is essentially a hi-tech ‘tattoo' that stores data in invisible dye under the skin. The ‘mark' would be delivered together with a vaccine, most likely administered by Gavi, the global vaccine agency that also falls under the umbrella of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"The researchers showed that their new dye, which consists of nanocrystals called quantum dots… emits near-infrared light that can be detected by a specially equipped smartphone," MIT News reported.

And if the reader scrolls to the very bottom of the article, he will find that this study was funded first and foremost by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Today, with the global service economy shut down to prevent large groups of infectious humans from assembling, it is easier to imagine a day when people are required to have their infrared ID ‘tattoo' scanned in order to be granted access to any number of public venues. And from there, it requires little stretch of the imagination to see this same tracking nanotechnology being applied broadly across the global economy, where it could be used to eliminate the use of dirty money. After all, if reusable bags are being outlawed over the coronavirus panic-demic, why should reusable cash get special treatment?

Writing earlier this month in these pages, geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar provided a compelling argument that the coronavirus, which is driving the world towards a New Great Depression, is "being used as cover for the advent of a new, digital financial system, complete with a forced vaccine cum nanochip creating a full, individual, digital identity.

As one possible future scenario, Escobar imagined "clusters of smart cities linked by AI, with people monitored full time and duly micro-chipped doing what they need with a unified digital currency…"

Those fears took on greater significance when Bill Gates sat down over the weekend for a breathtaking interview with CBS This Morning. Gates told host Anthony Mason that mass gatherings might have to be prohibited in the age of coronavirus unless and until a wide scale vaccination program is enacted.

"What does ‘opening up' look like," Gates asked rhetorically before essentially changing the entire social and cultural makeup of the United States in one fell swoop. "Which activities, like schools, have such benefit and can be done in a way that the risk of transmission is very low, and which activities, like mass gatherings, maybe, in a certain sense more optional. And so until you're widely vaccinated those [activities] may not come back at all" [The interview can be watched in its entirety here].

According to Gates, anything that could be defined as a "mass gathering" – from spectators packed into a stadium for a sporting event, to protesters out on the street in demonstration – would be considered an act of civil disobedience without a vaccine. Little surprise that Gates chose the concept of "mass gathering" to snag all of us, for what is modern democratic society if not one big mass event after another? Indeed, since nobody will want to miss the next big happening, like the Super Bowl, or Comic-Con, or, heaven forbid, Eurovision, millions of people would predictably line up for miles to get their Microsoft-supported inoculation, even if it contains tracking technologies.

MIT is working on a "quantum tattoo" that will mark you with an invisible identifier while also delivering a vaccine. Can you guess who is the premiere donor of the project? https://t.co/ZEWqCUVGwI pic.twitter.com/jFVip4DaqZ

‐ Roosh (@rooshv) April 4, 2020

All of this seems like sheer madness when it is remembered that there are other options for defeating the coronavirus than a mandatory global vaccine regime.

Just last month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director, told a Senate Subcommittee that over 80 percent of the people who get infected by the coronavirus "spontaneously recover" without any medical intervention. This makes one wonder why the global lockdown was designed for everyone instead of just the sick and elderly. Meanwhile, the drug hydroxychloroquine, which has been downplayed in the media despite being named as the most effective coronavirus treatment among physicians in a major survey, is starting to get a fresh look.

Just this week, following Nevada's lead, Michigan just reversed course and is now the second democratic state to request the anti-malarial drug from the Trump administration.

Michigan reverses course, requests anti-malarial drugs from feds to treat coronavirus. Second Democratic governor to change mind this week, following Nevada. https://t.co/TkZyXEqs9l

‐ John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) April 3, 2020

So now it looks as though we are off to the races to see what will become the approved method of fighting the global pandemic – a hastily developed vaccine that may actually worsen the effects of the disease in those who contract it, or the already proven inexpensive drug hydroxychloroquine.

If the winner turns out to be a global vaccine, possibly one that carries ID nanotechnology, don't expect the wealthy to be lining up with their kids to be the first to get it. In 2015, The American Journal of Public Heath surveyed some 6,200 schools in California – the epicenter of biometric ID research – and found vaccine exemptions were twice as common among kindergartners enrolled in private institutions.

It seems that the elite are betting heavily on the development of an ID-tracking vaccine that would bring all races and institutions together under one big happy roof, but clearly they will continue living in their own fenced-off neighborhood in this one world government. Whether or not they will get a ‘special pass' from receiving the new-age mark is another question.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 08:49 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  First Fauci, then that Emmanuel fuckwad, and now one of the guys I've looked up to for thirty years, saying absolute garbage codswallop, doing little but instilling fear and panic in people. As Rush pointed out earlier this week, is there a vaccine for AIDS or the current flu virus? Why is this one different, besides being the new kid on the block? Whether Gates is doing this accidentially or on purpose is irrelevant. That admiration is now officially gone; maybe it's been building up during this whole Chink Virus thing, but now it's done with.
Posted by: Raj || 04/09/2020 10:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Gerbilism is done. The Truest Believers will be the last to find out.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 10:15 Comments || Top||

#3  I can still call it the Chink Virus for the duration, right? I want to be sensitive to other people's feelings & all that bullshit.
Posted by: Raj || 04/09/2020 10:25 Comments || Top||

#4  So the solution is to depopulate the major cities because major cities are mass gatherings?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 04/09/2020 10:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Raj, I've wondered/said the same thing. MERS, Ebola, Zika, the first SARS...all pretty bad, but are there vaccines? And, of course, why no similar response like the one we are experiencing now? It is f'in disgusting how this all went down...and how it continues to go down.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 10:55 Comments || Top||

#6  Urbanism is a failed model. The effort the elites put into broadcasting that it's "the future" says it all.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 10:55 Comments || Top||

#7  Bubble people starting to really piss me off.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/09/2020 11:11 Comments || Top||

#8  #6 Urbanism is a failed model. The effort the elites put into broadcasting that it's "the future" says it all.--M. Murcek
Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill , great book. Throughout history cities have had a negative growth rate where peasants come in from (healthy) countryside to (diseased) urban centers. Only advance in medicine and, more importantly, sanitary engineering have had an effect in the last century or so. The Hubris of the Globalists that they have fundamentally changed this reality is obvious...
Posted by: magpie || 04/09/2020 11:34 Comments || Top||

#9  /\ There is also the fact that there is a Rule of Thumb that you need people to cluster with more than 40,000 to provide a disease to become endemic. Below that threshold it "burns through" once and there are not enough new victims to keep the cycle spinning around. Globalism and fast, convenient mass transit has made everybody a neighbor ... ain't it grand?
Posted by: magpie || 04/09/2020 11:38 Comments || Top||

#10  Throughout history cities have had a negative growth rate where peasants come in from (healthy) countryside to (diseased) urban centers.

Ask yourself why peasants kept coming?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 12:17 Comments || Top||

#11  And that's just it magpie; something really bothering me are the catchprases 'New Normal' and 'Unprecedented Times'.

Urban areas being disease ridden hell holes which occasionally burn to the ground was, until the last 150 years or so, normal.

This is the old normal. Disease ridden quarantined urban centers are well documented.

The only thing unprecedented is the number of people with a media platform who are complete twats of history.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 04/09/2020 12:22 Comments || Top||

#12  Who the f--- elected this shithead to anything?

His grand achievement was to get the better of IBM in the days when no one appreciated the value of an OS. Why does that entitle him to be viewed as a sage on anything?

He's done more than any individual to f--- up American primary and secondary education. He's done nothing whatsoever positive for any other major US institution. Why are we listening to him?
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 12:28 Comments || Top||

#13  ^Because he has a lot of money?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 12:31 Comments || Top||

#14  The common trait among our faux-wise oligarchs has always been their contempt for historical knowledge - cf Henry Ford's ridiculous claim that "History is bunk." So said the notorious anti-Semite and Hitler apologist.

Gates is part of a long tradition of ignorant American gazillionaires who believe they're Adam newly-sprung, here to herald the new order that Changes Everything.
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 13:01 Comments || Top||

#15  "New Normal' and 'Unprecedented Times'.


Exactly. Right before the dot come bust the word was" profits are unnecessary." They are still peddling that but not so successfully now.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 13:05 Comments || Top||

#16  I survived the Hong Kong flu and I was so sick I thought I would die...in bed for 7 days..
Never heard one word re vacine,...nothing..now, at 77 my wife and I this year got the Super flu shot..(Double dose)....lol.
Posted by: crazyhorse || 04/09/2020 13:08 Comments || Top||

#17  Double Dose
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 15:11 Comments || Top||

#18  ^Because he has a lot of money?

So does Bloomberg. Enough to buy him a podium. Didn't work out for him recently.

Ask yourself why peasants kept coming?

Well, here since the Great Society, it has been free stuff, free stuff, free stuff to match stuffing the ballot box.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 04/09/2020 15:47 Comments || Top||

#19  I was talking Europe middle ages.

And before that?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 15:50 Comments || Top||

#20  #2 Ask yourself why peasants kept coming?

Because Farmin' B Hard.

BTW, where is he these days?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 04/09/2020 16:21 Comments || Top||

#21  Whoops! I was referring to #10 comment. Tahwee....
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 04/09/2020 16:22 Comments || Top||

#22  Ref #10: Throughout history cities have had a negative growth rate where peasants come in from (healthy) countryside to (diseased) urban centers.

Ask yourself why peasants kept coming?


That is where the factories were located.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 17:21 Comments || Top||

#23  /\#10...Ask yourself why peasants kept coming? --g(r)omgoru
Because the acreage of agricultural land was constant and the number of adult males could become "surplus" in good periods with no famines, plagues, wars, and did I bring up famines? Unless some new agricultural technology (example deep furrow plows) was developed then there were few jobs for "Second Sons": the First Son inherits, the local lord has few followers, the military (hopefully!) isn't hiring, and so it is off to the cities to look for food / employment. They could also become bandits, I suppose.

I recommend Life In A Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies, particularly it's 'Chapter 6:Marriage And The Family'.
Posted by: magpie || 04/09/2020 17:42 Comments || Top||

#24  Nothing to do with Stadtluft macht frei?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 17:46 Comments || Top||

#25  G - I rolled at least one of your posts over tomorrow due to late posting
Posted by: Frank G || 04/09/2020 19:04 Comments || Top||

#26  However, g(r)om in those days they were tied to the land to raise and harvest food, then seeking freedom in cities. Today, they're bonded to the city (welfare) so their votes can be harvested by a different set of overlords.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 04/09/2020 20:02 Comments || Top||

#27  Stadt luft? Make fries with that
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 20:49 Comments || Top||

#28  #17..Re Double Dose..cool that.

Btw, The Hong Kong flu (also known as 1968 flu pandemic) was a category 2 flu pandemic whose outbreak in 1968 and 1969 killed an estimated one million people all over the world.
Posted by: crazyhorse || 04/09/2020 22:44 Comments || Top||


The IG Who Never Inspected Anything
[AmericanGreatness] Michael Atkinson used his post to protect himself and his allies while denying the American public a true watchdog over the intelligence community.

Here's a simple question to ask anyone outraged over the recent firing of Michael Atkinson, the former inspector general for the intelligence community: Can you identify a single instance of a report or letter in which Atkinson exposed intelligence community misconduct to the public? After searching the inspector general's website, I was unable to do so.

Atkinson was an inspector general in name only. After two years, there's no evidence that he lifted a finger to root out misconduct within the U.S. intelligence community. He's the inspector who never inspected anything.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He was a guard dog for the Deep State and its Praetorian Guard, like Brennan, Comey, Loretta Lynch and Holder before her, Lerner of the IRS, and many others, not to mention Soro's implants like Valerie Jarret.
Posted by: Marilyn Tojo7566 || 04/09/2020 0:21 Comments || Top||

#2  I simply do not understand. It's always worked in the past.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 2:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Inspector Clouseau
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 7:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Funny you say that, Lex. I wanted to put a photo of Clouseau in the post but the best I could find was the Keystone Cops.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 8:01 Comments || Top||

#5  I have become convinced that the vermin infesting the government are no longer classifiable.

The words most people use are humorous or mild.
These are not LOL incidents, they are not incompetence in the usual sense they are actions made with evil intent and we need to label them as such.
Posted by: AlanC || 04/09/2020 8:48 Comments || Top||

#6  "But you see, Cato - Ah suspect EVERYONE! Ah suspect NO ONE!"
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 13:05 Comments || Top||

#7  It's treason and the Constitution has a clear remedy.
Posted by: Woodrow || 04/09/2020 17:03 Comments || Top||


Government
I spent decades as a covert Klingon operative – this is my new mission
[American Mil News] As someone who spent a career in the shadowy world of intelligence, I have a deep understanding and respect for the value and importance to our national security of espionage and the intelligence community.

After retiring, I now have a new mission and I want to explain why.

Over the previous decades, I have observed the Intelligence Community turn away from its core responsibilities for the safety and security of all Americans to a far more political agenda. The intelligence community’s (IC) quadrennial report about global trends published in 2017 is a poster child example of what is wrong with intelligence today. It overwhelmingly focuses on things like global government integration to face future issues. It argues the positives of what is known today as the globalist movement, a hardcore leftist philosophy that is deeply political. Perhaps even more revealing, the document spends more time and focus on global warming than it does on terrorism. Even if you believe in the concepts of globalization and global warming these are political issues, not intelligence issues. The IC is here to obtain important information about what other countries and hostile groups are doing and should not have an opinion on or any involvement with the formation of policies. They must remain neutral and report the facts as they come, that is their one and only job. The fact that the IC not only takes political positions but promotes certain policies, shows stunning incompetence but even worse a complete lack of understanding of why we even have an IC.

A key indicator of concerns centers around the CIA’s so-called "modernization" plan that was implemented under the previous administration by former CIA director John Brennan. Brennan has spent much of his time since leaving the CIA doing television and radio programs and has revealed himself to be a bitter partisan and critic of President Trump.

This damaging modernization never received the attention it should have from the agency’s congressional overseers and the public. The modernization plan systematically dismantled and destroyed the CIA’s operations division ‐ the heart of the agency’s central mission of using people to steal vital secrets around the world. Historically, the operations division was staffed by an elite cadre of highly trained specialists schooled in the dark arts of espionage and capable of operating around the world under any conditions. Many of us who devoted our lives to the clandestine service as CIA operations officers were stunned to hear Mr. Brennan announce that based on his modernization plan, he no longer regards the CIA as being in the espionage business. "We don’t steal secrets," Mr. Brennan astonishingly stated in an interview with NPR.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 04:45 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The IC is here to obtain important information about what other countries and hostile groups are doing and should not have an opinion on or any involvement with the formation of policies.

Information such as the proliferation of Pandemic Pathogens ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 5:09 Comments || Top||

#2  "I'm an elite intelligence operative."

"Oh. Ok, what do you wish to know ?"

"That's OK. I'll find out on my own."

"But... I could give you a tour...here's a complete..."

"You're raining on my parade, I told you, I'm elite. I'll steal it when I want to."
Posted by: Dron66046 || 04/09/2020 5:43 Comments || Top||

#3  I wouldn't attribute to incompetence what should rightfully be attributed to sedition and treason.
Posted by: JohnQC || 04/09/2020 9:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Time to do some housecleaning & downsizing - would moving HQ to my favorite American shithole Gary, IN do it enough to force a bunch of them to quit? Seems to work with the BLM's recent 'restructuring'. Or is it the few hundred assholes at the top that's the problem?

Besoeker - you opinions are more then spot on in this area. What say you?
Posted by: Raj || 04/09/2020 10:14 Comments || Top||

#5  Well Raj, most of these people didn't just recently discover they were working for a corrupt, elitist Deep State bureaucracy, with a secret, unlimited budget, ie, decades long occupants of a beltway whorehouse.

There could be other motivations, but my hunch is some of these fellows were unable to make a post retirement comeback as a civilian annuitant. Hence the late found disdain for their former employer.

Watching former colleagues maintain their clearances and double-dip as 1099's can work on a man's mind. Well, I hate to use the tired arsed term 'follow the money' but...
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/09/2020 10:45 Comments || Top||

#6  They'll never move HQ, I take it?

During the Clinton Admin, Holman Jenkins wrote a column responding to their 'Reinventing Government' sloganeering (which was chair shuffling at best, bullshit at worst). It was titled 'Don't Reinvent Government - just get rid of some of it'. That rarely happens unless you do something like move BLM's HQ to western Colorado. Ima guessing that's not going to work with every hack Federal agency.
Posted by: Raj || 04/09/2020 11:40 Comments || Top||

#7  IIRC, per the census, here are the wealthiest counties in the US as of 2018:
Median Household Income
1. Loudon (VA) - $139,915
2. Fairfax (VA) - $122,227
3. Howard (MD) - $116,984
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 12:16 Comments || Top||

#8  Wouldn't want to be in Howard (MD) county (299 cases) right now, being sandwiched between counties with massive numbers of infected people:
https://coronavirus.maryland.gov/
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 12:20 Comments || Top||

#9  Most of my family is buried in Howard County, going back pre Civil War. The gentrification of inner DC has caused the reverse doughnut effect of the 50’s with the urban undesirables now in Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties. When I was a kid visiting family graveyard out in Howard County my dad described it as where elephants went to die. Now the cemetery is surrounded by tacky brick apartments and a gas station.
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 04/09/2020 15:39 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
The Left's Ugly Reaction to Hydroxychloroquine
National Review via Instapundit
A widely shared, four-person-bylined, "wow"-provoking New York Times story today informs us that Donald Trump is personally benefiting from his "aggressive advocacy" of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine because he owns stock in one of the companies that manufacture the drug.

...In any event, the crack team at the New York Times thinks it’s unfurled the mystery. "As of last year," reports the paper, "Mr. Trump reported that his three family trusts each had investments in a Dodge & Cox mutual fund, whose largest holding was in Sanofi."

As far as we know, Trump probably owns less than $100 of Sanofi stock in one of his mutual funds. If things go well, say he triples his position, Trump will be taking in upwards of $300. Art of the Deal, indeed.
Even if, as I think, this is a typo and he owns $100K, the logic still applies. Trump gives away $400K POTUS salary every year.
Though it’s unlikely. Sanofi is a French drugmaker that produces the hydroxychloroquine-label Plaquenil. The drug, however, isn’t patented, it isn’t particularly difficult to manufacture, and there are a bunch of giant pharma companies around the world already ramping up production of generic versions. Sanofi is less likely to benefit than Novartis or Bayer (check everyone’s mutual funds, pronto!).

... Media keeps asserting that Trump is "ignoring the experts." Well, the president didn’t induce South Korean doctors to use hydroxychloroquine. He didn’t induce Indian doctors to use it. I assume American doctors who are now "off-labeling" the drug to patients have some medical reasons behind their thinking.
Comment at Instapundit: Nor should it escape your attention that the New York Times will assign four reporters to write an amateurish hit job, but not a single one to mention serious rape allegations against the leading Democratic Party presidential candidate by a former staffer.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 04:10 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  IMO, their approach is all wrong. Just publish a UN study that HCQ damages the eggs of Crested Ibis.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/09/2020 4:47 Comments || Top||

#2  LOL, indeed!
No comment on the NYT. I can't think of any words for those lice.
Posted by: Clem || 04/09/2020 7:41 Comments || Top||

#3  ^ Shitshow?
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 7:53 Comments || Top||

#4  somehow I knew that was coming lex. Have you lost count yet?
Posted by: Chris || 04/09/2020 9:15 Comments || Top||

#5  The party of Science™
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 10:22 Comments || Top||

#6  Ugly reaction by ugly people - don't need Sara Hoyt's fuckin' stupid, annoying, trite and waaayyyy overused catchphrase 'this is my shocked face' to describe these people, which is as polite as I'll be here.

For Christ's sakes, she's used that phrase about as many times as my local classic rock station plays Led Zeppelin in a week, and they play them every stinkin' hour. God damn, what a twat.
Posted by: Raj || 04/09/2020 10:23 Comments || Top||

#7  At some point the left should embrace the side of an issue that would save American lives or help America in same way. You know, to keep everyone off balance.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 04/09/2020 10:28 Comments || Top||

#8  To the left, people are icky. In the old days they just shot them by the millions. Now, guns are icky too, so starvation, fentanyl and disease are their go-tos.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 04/09/2020 12:29 Comments || Top||

#9  somehow I knew that was coming lex. Have you lost count yet?

Been hoarding. Anticipating a deluge as the election approaches.
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 12:35 Comments || Top||

#10  #6 LOL! 🤣 Glad to see I’m not the only person tired of Hoyt.
Posted by: Phineter Turkeyneck6202 || 04/09/2020 20:05 Comments || Top||

#11  The question is, will all these assholes be held to account for this smearing once it is proven that hydroxyquinoline DOES work and is vital in the treatment of this virus?
Posted by: Marilyn Tojo7566 || 04/09/2020 22:54 Comments || Top||

#12  Yes.

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I shall repay.
Posted by: Lex || 04/09/2020 23:01 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2020-04-09
  Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Adnan Al-Zurfi withdraws his candidacy
Wed 2020-04-08
  Pakistan Scrambles to Quarantine 100,000 Who Attended Tablighi Jamaat Event
Tue 2020-04-07
  Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun calls on international donors to provide financial assistance to the crisis-hit country
Mon 2020-04-06
  Iranian regime has blamed the US, Israel, and Jews for the outbreak of coronavirus in Iran,
Sun 2020-04-05
  Hezbollah commander assassinated in southern Lebanon
Sat 2020-04-04
  China orders 200,000 body bags from Taiwan!
Fri 2020-04-03
  Iran’s Speaker Reportedly Diagnosed with Coronavirus
Thu 2020-04-02
  Pakistan court overturns conviction in death of Daniel Pearl
Wed 2020-04-01
  Trump says Iran planning 'sneak attack' on US troops in Iraq
Tue 2020-03-31
  Iran gas pipeline to Iraq blows up
Mon 2020-03-30
  Turkish military attacks Syrian Army, YPG
in northern Aleppo
Sun 2020-03-29
  Khamenei family fears he might have Coronavirus
Sat 2020-03-28
  LNA scores big advance around Tripoli
Turkish-backed forces suffer tremendous losses
Fri 2020-03-27
  Riots in China
Thu 2020-03-26
  Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi confirms Saudi coalition ceasefire

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