[FOX] Hunter Biden requested in 2017 that keys be made for his new "office mates," listing his father, President-elect Joe Biden, Jill Biden and his uncle, Jim Biden, for space he planned to share with an "emissary" for a chairman of a Chinese energy company, according to an email obtained by Fox News.
The Sept. 20, 2017 email, obtained by Fox News, shows Hunter requesting keys for Joe and Jill Biden, along with his uncle, Jim Biden, to the general manager, Cecilia Browning, at the House of Sweden -- a building in Washington, D.C., which contains multiple office suites, as well as a number of embassies.
"[P]lease have keys made available for new office mates: Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Jim Biden," said the email, with the subject "507."
[Electroverse] A ’white Christmas’ is an absurd prospect in New Zealand, but Southlanders could be forgiven for placing a bet or two this year after rare summer snow blanketed regions below 200m (650ft) Friday, December 11.
As originally reported by stuff.co.nz, temperatures plummeted overnight and snow, quite substantial in some parts, was falling in Northern Southland Friday morning—on State Highway 6 between Lumsden and Kingston, on Gorge Hill between Te Anau and Mossburn, and in hill country in the province.
There was also snow on the Remarkables mountain range in Queenstown, and flakes had settled in Arrowtown and in Garston. Photos of the snowfall were posted on the South Proud NZ Facebook Page with the caption: "Garston having a bit of a snow day today! So much for Summer huh?"The country’s official weather agency -the Metservice- had predicted snow would fall to 700m (3,000ft), but in reality it settled to levels as low 200m (650ft), where it is still coming down, seriously impacting travel.
The Metservice has since gone to on to call the conditions "unseasonable", but gave no comment re their blunder.
The flakes are forecast to continue through Friday afternoon and into Saturday—a climatic event consistent with a Grand Solar Minimum and not Anthropogeneic Global Warming (for more on that, click the link below):
https://electroverse.net/agw-cant-explain-australias-extreme-temperature-contrasts/GLOBAL COOLING
The Arctic warms during times of otherwise "global" cooling. This phenomenon has long been accepted by NASA, among others (click here for more). But "warm" to the Arctic is still well-below freezing, there is no significant loss of sea ice, and as temperatures in the far-northern latitudes do climb its polar cold is displaced south where it freezes the lower-latitudes.
This is how ice ages begin.
Looking ahead, this weekend will be further evidence of this (shown below).
And while the MSM waves a warming Arctic in front of the world’s face, what they are failing to divulge, and as touched on above, is that all that polar cold isn’t simply up-and-vanishing, nor is it being sucked into space, or heated by the magical CO2-effect — no, instead the Arctic’s cold is simply being diverted south on the back of a low solar activity-induced meridional jet stream flow:
Furthermore, this weekend’s cold is forecast to only intensify over the coming weeks, particularly across east Asia where temperature departures some 20C below the winter norm will engulf a staggeringly-large portion of the continent:
These predicted temperatures are the definition of extreme, and will undoubtedly prove record-breaking, disruptive, and even deadly.
December’s average low-temperature in Yakutsk, Russia, for example, is -40.4C (-40.7F), dipping 20C below this will rank as one of the coldest readings ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere (with the coldest-ever being the -69.6C (-93.3F) in Dec.,1991 set at The Klinck station, Greenland—during the height of the global warming scare no less).
The COLD TIMES are returning, the mid-latitudes are REFREEZING in line with historically low solar activity, cloud-nucleating Cosmic Rays, and a meridional jet stream flow.
Both NOAA and NASA appear to agree, if you read between the lines, with NOAA saying we’re entering a ’full-blown’ Grand Solar Minimum in the late-2020s, and NASA seeing this upcoming solar cycle (25) as "the weakest of the past 200 years", with the agency correlating previous solar shutdowns to prolonged periods of global cooling here.
Furthermore, we can’t ignore the slew of new scientific papers stating the immense impact The Beaufort Gyre could have on the Gulf Stream, and therefore the climate overall.Social Media channels are restricting Electroverse’s reach: Twitter are purging followers while Facebook are labeling posts as "false" and have slapped-on crippling page restrictions.
#3
C'mon, you guys! Didn't you get the memo? We don't call it global warming anymore. It's climate change. Try to keep up. Unusual climatic events like this are happening because you drive your car and heat your home, because you are an American and a white man, you pigs. /sarc
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/12/2020 11:58 Comments ||
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#4
Thanks for that sanity check, AU. I think I will turn up the heat in the house and go let the car idle for about 20 minutes, just 'cuz! /sarc
[AP] The gun debate in America will soon enter a new chapter with a Democrat in the White House after four years under President Donald Trump in which gun control advocates developed a long wish list for reform amid a spate of large-scale mass killings in places like Las Vegas, El Paso and Parkland, Florida.
But any hope that Joe Biden will usher in a new era of restrictions on firearms is highly unlikely because of the same polarization in Washington that has tripped up similar efforts under past administrations.
The items on the agenda — largely relegated to the political shelf in recent years — include renewing a ban on AR-style rifles, universal background checks, restrictions on high-capacity magazines and a federal red flag law designed to prevent people at risk of harming themselves or others from purchasing a firearm.
But virtually all of those will require Congress to act. And regardless the outcome in two Senate races in Georgia that will determine which party holds the majority in that chamber, it will be a tall order to get a majority of lawmakers on board.
One key reason is because the issues have become so polarized. Years ago, gun politics crossed party lines, and it was easier for Republicans and Democrats to find common ground.
"It used to be a cross-cutting issue, there used to be Democrats that were very pro-gun and Democratic legislators who won districts in part on their pro-gun views," said Matt Grossmann, an associate professor at Michigan State University and director of its Institute for Public Policy and Social Research who follows gun politics. "And you just don’t have that anymore."
The number of firearms in circulation has mushroomed in the past 12 years, starting in President Barack Obama’s administration when gun owners feared he would push through significant restrictions.
It continued unabated during Trump’s lone term. In the first years of his tenure, Americans amassed firearms amid fears about new gun measures following mass killings. The gun buying picked up even more steam in the past year as civil unrest, economic turmoil and the pandemic propelled unparalleled buying sprees.
And with the pandemic dominating the conversation, guns took a back seat in the 2020 election.
Gun control groups still want to be heard, however. For one, they want universal background checks that would require the review for virtually every sale of a firearm, and a ban on online sales of firearms, ammunition and parts.
#1
I would like the focus on keeping the rights and firearms we have now. The kewel kids whining for silencers and binary triggers just suck the air out of the room. That opinion has gotten me plenty of hate on some gun forums, but I'm sticking with it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/12/2020 8:11 Comments ||
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#2
/\ You really want to see the oxygen escape, visit a local gun show. Most have become a real Pinewood Studios event.
#3
I support my local gun shows, but they are weak tea compared to say 10 years ago...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/12/2020 8:25 Comments ||
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#4
I hear so many people slobbering about "pistol caliber carbines." Please. Pistol caliber rounds are for pistols, and no, that 7 pound AR thingee you got there ain't a pistol, son...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/12/2020 8:28 Comments ||
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#5
The items on the agenda — largely relegated to the political shelf in recent years — include renewing a ban on AR-style rifles, universal background checks, restrictions on high-capacity magazines and a federal red flag law designed to prevent people at risk of harming themselves or others from purchasing a firearm.
They can take these regulations and shove them where the light don't shine.
Fortunately, there are millions of new gun owners in the US who might take issue that their expensive, brand-new property might be confiscated as soon as they bought it.
[American Thinker] When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, I knew that the nation had made a big mistake, but I was confident that we could survive it. Now I have no such confidence. Biden and Harris have done all they can to steal an election. They are corrupt politicians and also unprincipled accomplices of radical leftist ideologues. They are wholly owned by the dark state, and its corporate minions, which in turn is deeply intertwined with Communist China.
Our rights are in serious jeopardy, beginning with the First Amendment. With few exceptions, there is no longer a free press, but only a propaganda industry that will censor any information adverse to the left and attack conservatives with false allegations.
The incoming usurping administration, should it take office, will move immediately to consolidate its authority and permanently ensconce itself in every position that matters to it. It will hunt down everyone whom it perceives to be a threat to its supremacy and neutralize him, either by physical force or economic deprivation.
Honest elections are now a thing of the past. Dissent will not be tolerated. Courts will not matter. Schoolchildren will be indoctrinated rather than educated. Once the left seizes power, it never relinquishes it without bloodshed.
This nation was founded by men who pledged their lives and their fortunes to it, and more than that, invested their sacred honor in the struggle for freedom. Sadly, it seems that among today's leaders, scant few would sign the Declaration of Independence. They whine that they are powerless instead of taking the only decisive actions that would have successfully reversed the greatest fraud in our history. Many more of them are counting their pieces of silver.
I fully expect that Joe Biden will soon be found, by his enablers, to have served his purpose. Jill Biden fancies herself to be the Dowager Empress, but Kamala Harris will soon slap her aside and then declare, "I sit a queen, and shall know no sorrow." (Look it up.)
But the beast has a ravenous appetite and will swallow her also.
Whoever is installed as the figurehead, the real heads of dominion will be invisible and, therefore, all the more powerful.
The final backstop to the illegal dictatorship will be we, the people. How much do we value our freedom? How much do we love our children? How afraid are we to seize back what is rightfully ours, given to us by God?
#1
You will always bee free to say what you think. The consequences for doing that are what is changing.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/12/2020 8:48 Comments ||
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#2
The final backstop to the illegal dictatorship will be we, the people. How much do we value our freedom?
Not more than our and our families' physical safety. Though this will vary depending on how much is left in the family's bank accounts.
How much do we love our children?
But they know this, and will exploit it for their ends. They will demand obedience from our kids -- they already do -- and will harass and doxx and cancel and even physically assault our children for our and their thoughtcrime. See Nick Sandmann and thousands of school and college kids across the nation.
How afraid are we to seize back what is rightfully ours, given to us by God?
The proper question is actually, HOW MUCH DO WE HAVE LEFT TO LOSE?
#3
When water circles the drain, the last few drops move the quickest...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/12/2020 9:51 Comments ||
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#4
I believe:
* The Dems will not have the numbers in Congress to pack the court. There are just enough sane ones that will reject this move as short sided.
* Biden will have to fight to get all but the most middle of the road road folks as judges and other positions.
* A lot of weak Republicans will be primaried in 2022.
* The Dems will be crushed in 2022 election and 2024 elections.
51% believe the election was stolen, the people are pissed.
#5
The communists won the education system and the entertainment industry and the media decades ago, and without significant opposition. Now they have won the social media/internet communication and much of the Wall Street executives. It's all downhill until we hit bottom - and who knows how far away that is.
#6
They are already talking about outlawing any form or Voter ID, Massive Unsolicited Mail in voting, with no signature verification, will become the standard - because as FaceBook says, "Mail in voting has a long history of accuracy".
The stolen election might piss a lot of people off but the media has 2 years to convince people Congresscritters had nothing to do with it (as well as steal the 22 election) and 4 years to convince people that its for the best because it ushered in the Holy Harris or Pelosi or whoever...
[Breitbart] Conservative talk radio host Mark Levin said on Thursday that Breitbart News Senior Contributor Peter Schweizer, author of Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite, should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for reporting on corruption and abuse of power among American politicians.
Levin made his remarks during his eponymous radio show. He identified broad censorship and suppression of information across the news media and Big Tech in the context of reporting on relationships between Hunter Biden and foreign states and interests.
Levin stated:
The only entities, the only people that would report on this — and Peter Schweizer, who deserves a Medal of Freedom, in my view — is Peter, conservative talk radio. Fox picked it up, not the news side, the opinion side. Of course, the New York Post and others, but not many others.
It was blocked by Big Tech. It was censored by Big Media and the propaganda was burped up by the Biden campaign through both Big Tech and Big Media. We have a huge problem in this country, autocracy and fascism, in the media, in Big Tech, in Washington, D.C.
Levin described former Vice President Joe Biden as a "Manchurian candidate" while referencing the former vice president’s family’s financial ties to China:
The so-called president-elect is actually a Manchurian candidate. That’s right, you heard it here first. China’s Manchurian candidate communist. China’s man in Washington. And we knew it. We knew about him, his brother. We know about his son.
I talked the other day about the individuals that [Biden] would bring into the administration and their ties to China and how they wish to appease China. I’ve talked about a two-front war that we’re facing — the fifth column within the United States and China — and that this is the worst possible administration, should it come to pass — God forbid — at the worst possible time, because China is on the ascendancy and Joe Biden will drag us down into the descendancy.
Levin noted political coordination between news media, the Democrat Party, and Big Tech.
"You saw here a real iron triangle," Levin stated, "An iron triangle of the corrupt media, the corrupt Democrat Party, and the corrupt Biden family, and when I say media I include Big Tech."
Schweizer will join Levin on this Sunday’s edition of Life, Liberty, and Levin on Fox News Channel.
#1
China is in serious trouble, food, dollars, and covid. Troubles with all neighbors as well. Yes, even Russia. When their money stops their power stops. Politicians will always have their hands out. Who will be their next suitor.
[MichaelYonOnline] Black Lives Matter has defaced the road with gang markings in front of the White House. I am right here right now but about 50 meters away from that top photo.
Buildings around Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Portland, and many other cities are pasted with “BLACK LIVES MATTER.” Businesses are boarded up to ward off the Flat Screen Rioters (FSRs) encouraged by team-Biden.
Some readers will say, “But Michael! You’re getting political!” Reality check: Osama bin Laden made the attacks on America for religiopolitical reasons. Historical fact. Politics to war.
It is also historical fact that I stood at 0430 this morning in front of the White House on “Black Lives Matter Plaza,” so-named this year, officially. And scrawled the graffiti of racial superiority and violence down the road.
They have murdered people and caused billions of dollars in losses due to theft, arson, and loss of business. Just here last week numerous people were stabbed and beaten. Right here. In front of the White House.
Offensive Terrorists trading in racism and fantasy – Dangerous for society:
Ku Klux Klan (White BLM)
Black Lives Matter (Black KKK)
ANTIFA (psychos)
Boogaloo Boys (radical somethings who seem to hate everything)
Defensive militias who want to be left alone – I do not consider a threat to me or to you:
Proud Boys (Normal people who drink a lot of beer)
Three Percenters (Normal people who drink less beer)
Patriot Prayer (Christians who should not be drinking beer but some probably do)
The Democrats may think they control BLM and ANTIFA. This is a mirage. They supported something that now has a life of its own, and this thing they fed is now bigger and hates Democrats, on whole.
[PJ] Time magazine has named Joe Biden and Kamala Harris "Person of the Year," in a tacit acknowledgment that they are, for all their individual differences, essentially a single cog in the socialist internationalist machine that is poised to roll all over us. And there is no doubt that driving the American republic to the point of near-death with election chicanery on a breathtaking scale is indeed a significant achievement, but amid all the excitement, it was barely noticed that President Trump had delivered yet another rebuke to the massively failed foreign policy establishment that is poised to get back in the saddle and start failing some more, by engineering peace between Israel and another Arab state, Morocco.
Trump tweeted Thursday: "Another HISTORIC breakthrough today! Our two GREAT friends Israel and the Kingdom of Morocco have agreed to full diplomatic relations — a massive breakthrough for peace in the Middle East!" The Morocco deal, like the previous one between Israel and Sudan, seems to be a straightforward bargain. Trump also tweeted Friday: "Today, I signed a proclamation recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara. Morocco’s serious, credible, and realistic autonomy proposal is the ONLY basis for a just and lasting solution for enduring peace and prosperity!" So Morocco gets recognition of its sovereignty over the Western Sahara, and the world gets another step toward peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
That makes four agreements between Israel and Arab nations, something John Kerry confidently stated was not even remotely possible. Isn’t it great that Kerry is about to go back to work for the Person of the Year (what pronouns does that beast with two backs use?) and start showing us how it’s done again?
#3
Person of the Year? Another phony prize like the Nobel Peace Prize OBummer got. Means nothing. Stupid games, stupid prizes. Alice in Wonderland Through the Looking Glass scenario where everything is reversed or upside down.
[American Thinker] Today, Donald Trump is the most dangerous man on the planet. At this moment, America needs him more than he needs America. Trump could shoot the biggest middle finger ever to the entire nation, retire to a private island, or his penthouse, or his Florida compound, overcook his prime steaks and douse them with ketchup, and really — who could blame him? It's not as if he'll outlive his money. He doesn't need us. He doesn't need anyone. He has "F-U" money, and unlike others with big money — such as Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein and everyone ever named Kennedy — he doesn't have this sick psychotic need to rule over others for 60 years of government life. Trump is the freest man on the planet tonight. He needs nothing.
We, however, are no longer the freest people on the planet. We need some help.
Our feckless Supreme Court has chosen guaranteed cocktail party invitations with the beautiful people in the swamp over the Constitutional Republic — and favored phony pieces of mailed ballots and theoretical Dominion algorithms over flesh-and-blood voters.
As it stands, President Donald Trump faces what may be the most distasteful test of patriotism any president has ever faced. And it may be among the most important ever as well. To be fair, this is not the horrible choice of instantly killing hundreds of thousands of non-combatant citizens — including kids — the kind of decisions surrounding the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki in World War 2. Clearly not. But on a personal gut level, it must be an even more bitter choice. And again, in this, we need him more than he needs us — or anyone, or anything.
We will find out whether or not Trump can maintain his love of country and commitment to duty, just hours and days after that country's core institutions have proven to be incredibly corrupt and immovably stacked against him and his voters. Can he muster enough love of America to overcome what must be a well earned deep well of hate and resentment toward this nations' highest court, its entire media complex, the entertainment industry, and the entire educational establishment? After four years of unprecedented and unimaginable hate and lies from all quarters, can he possibly still give a damn?
I'm not sure I could. And I don't have F-U money to fall back on.
The question now is, will he muster the energy to do the right thing? The right thing is to somehow swallow this absurd and evil election result and soldier on to Georgia once again to try to salvage the Republic by supporting two Republican senators hardly worthy of mention. Donald Trump deserves better. We all deserve better. And it is the fact that we all deserve better, and the fact that Trump seems to care about such things, that gives me hope.
#6
Yeah, well, Trump Tower on the beach in Tel Aviv might be pretty nice.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/12/2020 13:20 Comments ||
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#7
Sadly, I don't think even if he leaves they will leave him alone. He upset their booty cart and probably set their plans back at least a decade. they are already talking about prosecution him. And with the courts the way they are now they wouldn't even have to have any admissible evidence. Just an alledged, 'anonoymous whistleblower' nobody would ever see or know the identity of.
Remember - they left always seems to accuse their opponents of what they are fully planning to do first. What have they been accusing him of over the last 3 years?
They *have* to make an example of him. Make it so that anyone who even considers thinking about opposing them will think thrice about it.
#13
Can he muster enough love of America to overcome what must be a well earned deep well of hate and resentment toward this nations' highest court, its entire media complex, the entertainment industry, and the entire educational establishment? After four years of unprecedented and unimaginable hate and lies from all quarters, can he possibly still give a damn?
I can't. And don't.
Normal people of good will and good sense can't and won't.
The degree of lying, of flaming assholery, hypocrisy, of bullshit on stilts that we have seen these last four years is unforgivable.
Anyone who loves this country has to admit that as many as half of her citizens are fools, loons or poltroons.
We are better off without them. A smaller, weaker America ruled by law and revering our Constitution and our heritage is better than this bloated kakocracy.
Separate. Let the kakocrats have their Woke shitholes, they're "autonomous zones," their defunded police, their oligarchs and Chinese masters. Give us back our country -- smaller but true, proud, pure.
[BI] The Republican Party of Texas decried the US Supreme Court decision to reject a bid by some states to overturn the results of the presidential election.
The case, which was brought by Texas and joined by other Republican-led states, sought to overturn the results in four states won by President-elect Joe Biden. The court denied the lawsuit due to a lack of standing.
In a statement released Friday, Allen West, the Texas GOP chairman, said in tossing the lawsuit, the court "has decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law."
He also said the "guilty state" has "damaging effects on other states that abide by the law," and hinted that some states should consider seceding.
"Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution," West said.
The legal challenge was the latest attempt by allies of President Donald Trump to subvert the election, and was denounced by many as a legally dubious attempt to have judges interfere in the democratic process. "subvert the election". Business Insider is a Democrat whore platform
The Texas attorney general, who brought the lawsuit, was joined by 16 other Republican attorneys general and supported by most Republican members in the House of Representatives.
The president also hyped the case, celebrating the states that joined Texas and calling it "the big one."
The loss adds to a string of defeats by the Trump campaign and other Republican officials, who have not won any of their lawsuits brought since Election Day.
A spokesperson for Biden welcomed the decision, saying the Supreme Court "rejected the latest of Donald Trump and his allies' attacks on the democratic process.
#8
"Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution," West said.
Doesn't mean secession - if states can sign an unconstitutional compact doing an end run around the Electoral College, then states can sign a compact committing themselves to a strict interpretation of the Constitution. They can give one another preferential treatment and they can together resist the dumb sh!t that's going to come out of Washington in the next few years. Those things together would do far more damage to Washington than secession.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/12/2020 4:42 Comments ||
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#9
More likely secession of rural or red counties from deep blue madhouse states. Far north California joining Nevada, or eastern Oregon joining Idaho, etc
1. SCOTUS refuses to hear Trump and 17 states request to overturn Biden victory.
2. Biden is certified in remaining states.
3. Texas secession referendum and move to confederate passes state legislature handily and is signed by the governor.
4. Dozens of other states petition Texas legislature for membership into the confederation.
5. Confederation drafts recommendation that Donald J. Trump serve as President of the Confederation of Texas pending formal election.
7. Texas Governor Greg Abbott indicates his willingness to serve as interim Confederation Vice President.
6. Thomas McInerney rumored to be considered as Secretary of Defense. Elon Musk indicates his willingness to serve as Secretary of Labor.
7. Embassy of Israel indicates it is moving from Washington D.C. to Austin, TX.
8. Confederation legislature recognizes nation of Taiwan. Former Chinese consulate in Houston becomes new Taiwan Embassy in the Confederation.
9. Confederation legislature signs 5 year contract with USAA to oversee Confederation elections. Paper ballots and 3 day voting window are now mandetory.
10. Amazon ends it's bid for corporate HQ move to Crystal City, VA selects Plano, Texas as future home. COSCO and Walmart mull corporate headquarters move to Plano as well.
11. Rudy's BBQ leases fleet of Amazon vans, outfits them as food trucks to feed homeless.
12. Confederation crime rate plummets as legislature's newly drafted 'Must Carry' law gains universal acceptance.
#17
@ #11 - Been hearing rumblings out of the western provinces of Canada for quite a while now, especially Alberta. But I wouldn't recommend Alberta become a US state, either (for their own good).
I suppose Texas didn't have any issues with LBJ rigging elections back in the day.
We are watching the break-up of the United States before our very eyes. Whether this break-up will be peaceful or not remains to be seen.
#18
States legislators could submit their own slate of electors in the battleground states as the Constitution prescribes. This would reject the phony Dem electors in the battleground states that have come from a rigged, stolen election with its newly-coined rules for counting.
h/t Hot Air
[The Atlantic] - The United States has been overwhelmed by vectors of misinformation throughout the pandemic. But it’s not just Donald Trump, many Republican state leaders, and several thousand COVID-19 deniers who have waged a war against scientific comprehension. America’s virus illiteracy spans the partisan divide.
In Florida, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis chirped about his state's superior performance and mocked COVID-19 worriers—only for Florida to become the site of one of America’s worst outbreaks several weeks later. Deep-red North Dakota similarly resisted commonsense measures such as mask mandates before it suffered an even worse outbreak.
Even if we narrow our focus to blue territories, however, nonsense abounds—nonsense, granted, that is more likely to result in mass confusion and annoyance than mass infection. In Los Angeles, a new order prohibits two friends from going on a socially distanced walk at the beach. At one point in early December, the city’s playgrounds were closed while its malls were open. In Philadelphia, an ordinance makes it illegal for neighbors to sip beer outside, yet indoor drinking and dining at bars and restaurants is permitted by state law. In New York, bars, restaurants, and gyms have been ordered to close, but not until 10 p.m.—as if the virus keeps to a hard vampiric sleeping schedule. In the ninth month of the coronavirus pandemic, America’s public-health response makes as little sense as ever.
These public orders don’t seem to be operating off of a clear-eyed understanding of what this disease actually is. So let’s review: The SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads most efficiently among unmasked adult speakers who spend time together in close, unventilated indoor spaces. The virus can also spread through nonverbal activities. Sneezing and coughing obviously produce virus-encased globs of spit, and even heavy breathing—especially during a run or a set of pull-ups—can spray aerosolized droplets that can linger in the air before slipping inside a person’s nose or mouth. The virus does not seem to spread reliably via surfaces. Put simply, COVID-19 is mostly a talking disease—one that could be brought to heel with universal mask wearing, a national campaign that emphasizes quiet in public spaces, and harsh laws about indoor gatherings.
None of this is breaking news. We’ve known most of it for a while. In the spring, a raft of CDC studies—from a Chinese restaurant, a Korean call center, and an American choir practice—made it clear that talking, laughing, and singing in close quarters for many hours is the perfect storm for a super-spreader event.
The epidemiological evidence was never that complicated, and neither was devising a sensible national strategy to get us through the winter.
- If viral aerosols from talking are the most common vector of COVID-19 transmission ... we should encourage universal mask wearing, social distancing among people from different households, and quiet in public spaces.
- If these aerosolized particles spread easily in unventilated indoor spaces ... we should shut down and bail out indoor businesses that naturally invite crowding and talking, such as bars.
- If symptomatic individuals don’t just talk but also often cough and sneeze ... we should create a national quarantine system to separate them from their families and a contact-tracing system to identify potentially infected individuals and ask them to isolate.
- If a large number of infected people will be asymptomatic ... we should invest early in a mass-testing apparatus to quickly identify silent carriers.
- If, no matter how well we respond, this pandemic is going to last for a while ... we should encourage people to reclaim normalcy by spending as much time outside as possible, while still stressing the importance of mask usage and social distancing when gathering with those outside of one’s household.
...Federal health guidance has oscillated between being a vacuum and being an epistemic horror show. In the absence of federal leadership, many major cities are restricting outdoor gatherings, despite their low risk of transmission among young children and ambulating adults, even as they permit indoor activities with a much higher risk. Imagine if the U.S. announced a new war against automobile casualties, and we watched California ban all transmission technology, leading to millions of confused and angry homebound residents, while North Dakota took out all its traffic lights, leading to a redoubled epidemic of car deaths. That’s essentially what we have today—a clueless seesaw between overly restrictive and overly accommodating policies. The laboratories of democracy have become specialists in reactive ad-hocracy, as hospitalizations spike to an all-time high.
To be fair to American leaders, or at least inclusive of non-American incompetence, it’s not just the U.S. where elites have made a mockery of their authority. The World Health Organization took months to declare that the coronavirus was airborne in the first place. Czechs held a "farewell party" for COVID-19 one month before their nation became home to one of the world’s worst outbreaks. The city of Madrid anticipated Los Angeles’s silliness by closing parks while permitting indoor dining. Most bizarrely, perhaps, South Africa banned the sale of open-toed shoes and many short-sleeved shirts.
But incompetence somewhere is not a justification for incompetence everywhere. In the medieval ages, people had no idea how most diseases worked, so they resorted to bloodletting leeches, skin-eating maggots, and an assortment of magical charms to combat illness. They had an excuse. But after 500 years, a couple of scientific revolutions, scores of medical discoveries, and dozens of vaccines—not to mention nine months of 21st-century plague—too many American leaders are still practicing the equivalent of legislative bloodletting, as they oversee scientifically unsound and poorly explained laws that are immiserating the populations they’ve sworn to protect.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[AP] The gun debate in America will soon enter a new chapter with a Democrat in the White House after four years under President Donald Trump in which gun control advocates developed a long wish list for reform amid a spate of large-scale mass killings in places like Las Vegas, El Paso and Parkland, Florida.
[American Thinker] When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, I knew that the nation had made a big mistake, but I was confident that we could survive it. Now I have no such confidence. Biden and Harris have done all they can to steal an election. They are corrupt politicians and also unprincipled accomplices of radical leftist ideologues. They are wholly owned by the dark state, and its corporate minions, which in turn is deeply intertwined with Communist China. 
[PJ] Time magazine has named Joe Biden and Kamala Harris "Person of the Year," in a tacit acknowledgment that they are, for all their individual differences, essentially a single cog in the socialist internationalist machine that is poised to roll all over us. And there is no doubt that driving the American republic to the point of near-death with election chicanery on a breathtaking scale is indeed a significant achievement, but amid all the excitement, it was barely noticed that President Trump had delivered yet another rebuke to the massively failed foreign policy establishment that is poised to get back in the saddle and start failing some more, by engineering peace between Israel and another Arab state, Morocco.
