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2020-12-20 i
VACCINE NEWS II

Yes, Bill Gates Said That. Here’s the Proof.

Gates and his minions insist the billionaire never said we’d need digital vaccine passports. But in a June 2020 TED Talk, Gates said exactly that. Someone edited out the statement, but CHD tracked down the original.

Some chiseler altered Bill Gates’ June 2020 TED Talk to edit out his revealing prediction that we will all soon need digital vaccine passports (slide 1). But after considerable effort, we tracked down the original video (slide 2).

Gates’ minions on cable and network news, his public broadcasting, social media and fact-checker toadies all now insist that Gates never said such things. They say he never intended to track and trace us with subdermal chips or injected tattoos.

They dismiss such talk as “conspiracy theories.”

Well, here it is from the horse’s mouth.

In 2019, according to a not-yet-purged Scientific American article, Gates commissioned the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build an injectable quantum dot dye system to tattoo stored medical info beneath children’s skin. The tattoo was designed to be readable by an iPhone app.

Gates’ company, Microsoft, has patented a sinister technology that uses implanted chips with sensors that will monitor body and brain activity. It promises to reward compliant humans with crypto currency payments when they perform assigned activities.

... Please make your own copy of these clips — as Gates’ power to disappear inconvenient facts is expanding every digital day. (read more)

2020
-12-20 h
TRUMP SAYS, NYET


The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality.
I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia,
Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens because
Lamestream is, for mostly financial reasons, petrified of....


— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2020


*

....discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!). There could
also have been a hit on our ridiculous voting machines during the election,
which is now obvious that I won big, making it an even more corrupted
embarrassment for the USA. @DNI_Ratcliffe @SecPompeo


— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2020



2020-12-20 g
VACCINE NEWS I

Thousands Negatively Affected After Getting COVID-19 Vaccine

Thousands of people have been unable to work or perform daily activities, or required care from a healthcare professional, after getting the new COVID-19 vaccine, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As of Dec. 18, 3,150 people reported what the agency terms “Health Impact Events” after getting vaccinated.

The definition of the term is: “unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work, required care from doctor or health care professional.”

The people reporting the negative effects reported them through V-safe, a smartphone application. The tool uses text messages and web surveys to provide personalized health check-ins and allows users to quickly tell the CDC if they are experiencing side effects.

The CDC and Pfizer, which produces the vaccine with BioNTech, didn’t respond to request for comments.

The information was presented by Dr. Thomas Clark, a CDC epidemiologist, to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an independent panel that provides recommendations to the agency, on Saturday.

... At least five healthcare workers in Alaska experienced adverse reactions after getting the Pfizer vaccine, the Anchorage Daily News reported. One of two experiencing adverse reactions at the Bartlett Regional Hospital required treatment at the hospital for at least two nights.

An Illinois hospital halted vaccinations after four workers suffered adverse reactions. (read more)


2020-12-20 f
THE COVID-CON V

WHO (finally) admits PCR tests create false positives

Warnings concerning high CT value of tests are months too late…so why are they appearing now? The potential explanation is shockingly cynical

he World Health Organization released a guidance memo on December 14th, warning that high cycle thresholds on PCR tests will result in false positives.

While this information is accurate, it has also been available for months, so we must ask: why are they reporting it now? Is it to make it appear the vaccine works?

The “gold standard” Sars-Cov-2 tests are based on polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR works by taking nucleotides – tiny fragments of DNA or RNA – and replicating them until they become something large enough to identify. The replication is done in cycles, with each cycle doubling the amount of genetic material. The number of cycles it takes to produce something identifiable is known as the “cycle threshold” or “CT value”. The higher the CT value, the less likely you are to be detecting anything significant.

This new WHO memo states that using a high CT value to test for the presence of Sars-Cov-2 will result in false-positive results.

... Of course, none of this is news to anyone who has been paying attention. That PCR tests were easily manipulated and potentially highly inaccurate has been one of the oft-repeated battle cries of those of us opposing the “pandemic” narrative, and the policies it’s being used to sell.

Many articles have been written about it, by many experts in the field, medical journalists and other researchers. It’s been commonly available knowledge, for months now, that any test using a CT value over 35 is potentially meaningless.

Dr Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize for inventing the PCR process, was clear that it wasn’t meant as a diagnostic tool, saying:

“with PCR, if you do it well, you can find almost anything in anybody.”

And, commenting on cycle thresholds, once said:

“If you have to go more than 40 cycles to amplify a single-copy gene,
there is something seriously wrong with your PCR.”


... Even Dr Anthony Fauci has publicly admitted that a cycle threshold over 35 is going to be detecting “dead nucleotides”, not a living virus.

Despite all this, it is known that many labs around the world have been using PCR tests with CT values over 35, even into the low 40s.

So why has the WHO finally decided to say this is wrong? What reason could they have for finally choosing to recognise this simple reality?

The answer to that is potentially shockingly cynical: We have a vaccine now. We don’t need false positives anymore.

Notionally, the system has produced its miracle cure. So, after everyone has been vaccinated, all the PCR tests being done will be done “under the new WHO guidelines”, and running only 25-30 cycles instead of 35+.

Lo and behold, the number of “positive cases” will plummet, and we’ll have confirmation that our miracle vaccine works.

After months of flooding the data pool with false positives, miscounting deaths “by accident”, adding “Covid19 related death” to every other death certificate…they can stop. The create-a-pandemic machine can be turned down to zero again.  (read more)


2020-12-20 e
THE COVID-CON IV
"Overall, the Belarussian approach has been the least authoritarian in Europe. Belarussian football went ahead as normal and fans were allowed to continue attending games. Theatres, cafes and other social events continued and there was no shutdown of the economy. "
+
"A comparison with another country that did pursue lockdowns gives further evidence that the scaremongering predictions regarding the consequences of not locking down are unfounded."
+
"There is no evidence of people with a positive test but no symptoms being infectious."

How Belarus Exposes the Lockdown Lie

Most European governments instituted the shutdown of economies, restrictions on freedom of movement and other policies known as lockdown. This was allegedly in response to the spread of Sars-Cov-2, a dangerous respiratory virus that originated in Wuhan, China.

Few countries rejected this approach; Sweden is the most well known of these. However, a more interesting case of dissent from the official narrative is Belarus and its leader Aleksandr Lukashenka.

This article will outline Lukashenka’s approach to the alleged pandemic, followed by an analysis of death figures and how the Belarussian case exposes the lies of lockdown advocates.

The Belarussian Approach to Covid 19

The alleged pandemic broke out in Europe in March 2020, and most European governments followed the severe strategy of imposing lockdowns. Lukashenka’s response was much more limited. A Belarussian press release from the 25th March talks about the quarantines set up for people who enter Belarus:

Quarantine stations were set up at all the points of entry. Screening measures include temperature checks. This system of control really works, [healthcare minister] Vladimir Karanik noted. This helped identify symptoms of a viral infection in more than 250 people, however the absolute majority of them had influenza, parainfluenza, and adenovirus. If a person tests positive for coronavirus, healthcare workers put their contacts under medical observation. “Such a targeted approach helps curb the spread of the virus,” the minister said.”

Lukashenka also advocated staying at home if one has symptoms of the virus.

... Western media treated Lukashenka’s approach as a laughable curiosity (in cases where they did not ignore it entirely). They mocked Lukashenka’s comments about vodka and saunas, using this was a way to avoid asking any deeper questions.

According to the official narrative, Belarus should have been a zone of death, destruction and disaster. Neil Ferguson’s modelling – one of the key pieces of propaganda used to put Britain in lockdown – predicted that left unchecked Covid 19 would kill between 54,090 and 71,616 Belarussians.

So what are the facts? (read more)

2020
-12-20 d
WITH EYES WIDE SHUT
"The true goal, rather unfortunately, is to instead insulate our failing elite in a hermetically sealed bubble, where only those who hold unthreatening, regime-affirming ideas are ever allowed to set foot."
+
"Western elites, however, are mostly concerned with preventing any sort of ”wrongthink” from having any space in the public square. In the West, the point of “censorship” revolves around insulating the elites from the opinions and complaints of the growing mass of plebs, rendering them “untouchable” by such vulgar, heterodox deplorables. This is, in fact, an extraordinarily dangerous development."

Our Coddled Elites and All the Pain They Can’t Feel

Censorship of speech on social media masks the pain signals that many elites could rely on to understand the social conditions of the “Other America” they no longer wish to see.

Few developments in recent memory have had more of an impact on the conservative faith in the virtues of the market than the outsized role social media companies have come to play in our lives. At one point long ago, in a very different America, social media was a “problem” insofar as it was clearly seen as a sort of dopamine rat maze marketed to impressionable children and feckless young adults.

Academics like Jonathan Haidt talked about the negative effects, such as a rapid spike in suicide attempts among girls that seems to have coincided with the public launch of Facebook. Meanwhile, the hegemonic libertarian orthodoxy of the Right offered a shrug in response: “Hey, it’s a free market, so if you don’t like it, log off and don’t use it!”

But those were the good old days of the 2000s and early 2010s, the heyday of a Bush and Obama-led neoliberal consensus. Back then, radical identitarian ideology, at least in the imaginations of many on the Right, was seen as a passing fad, a phase for “extremely online kids” and “liberal arts majors” who certainly would all grow out of it once they got “a real job.”

But as it happened, the companies and the workplaces bent to the whims of these extremely online liberal arts majors, while the ideologies of the Left held firm. And thus the role of social media companies went from merely exhausting the dopamine receptors and spiking anxieties among young folks to becoming fully-fledged political actors in their own right, using their power and their platforms in order to ”guide” political discussion.

It’s Not Just the Censorship

According to many Americans—the aforementioned “kids” prominently among them and leading the charge—it’s well and good that companies like Facebook and Twitter take steps to curb the spread of “misinformation” among the American populace. Without such steps, the alternative surely would be ever-increasing chaos, racism, and the oh-so-vaguely defined “fascism.” As a result of these speech restrictions imposed on private platforms, other Americans now perceive social media companies and the mainstream media, which is heavily dependent on social media for clicks, to be working in concert to stifle conservative points of view.

At first blush, this second view, that what we see in America and the West today constitutes a form of censorship of conservative viewpoints, as undertaken and financed by an ascendant liberal elite, has a lot to recommend it. How else, one wonders, might we explain the blatant double standards and conspicuous thumbs being placed on various political scales during the run-up to the 2020 “dump Trump” election?

Recently, YouTube announced that because the so-called safe harbor date had been passed with the state certification of the 2020 presidential election, the company would start deleting videos claiming the election was stolen. No such similar rule ever cropped up in 2016; indeed, one can still find videos on the platform today claiming that the Russians stole or bought the election for Donald Trump. And that is, of course, just one example among dozens or hundreds. Where were the ”independent fact checkers” during Russiagate, save when they were being castigated on social media as “contrarians”?

Even so, it is important for conservatives today to realize one basic truth. Convincing as this story may be, what we see in the West today is not a project aimed at censoring conservative ideas. To say that is not to deny that censorship goes on—in fact, it goes on every day, and it is getting worse with each successful intra-workplace crusade to bar ostensibly offensive thoughts from public view—but to underline that the problem is actually much worse than censorship.

Conservatives who remain too focused on the algorithms suppressing their own news articles or adding warning labels to their tweets risk missing a far more destructive process playing out before their eyes, with much more dire implications for the future of the American Republic.

... Our Suicidal Betters

And it is this that finally brings into sharper relief the true shape of Western media censorship, and its truly bleak implications for the future of America. If the goal was merely to prevent conservatives from spreading the idea that the election was stolen, then our current censorship regime has failed spectacularly. But that is not the goal, and the censors have not failed.

The true goal, rather unfortunately, is to instead insulate our failing elite in a hermetically sealed bubble, where only those who hold unthreatening, regime-affirming ideas are ever allowed to set foot. Unlike Metternich, whose spies opened people’s mail and then forwarded the most salient complaints to the relevant ministries, our elites do not care about what is written by “the deplorables,” as long as nobody in power actually has to listen to them! If “do not threaten the stability of our (somewhat) functional society” is the motto of totalitarianism, then “shut up and just go away” functions as the motto of our new Western elite.

This is a perilous climax we Westerners are careening towards. To repeat, totally censoring the spread of ideas among ”the deplorables” is probably impossible, but totally censoring the ideas that come into the hallowed circles of our elites is an increasingly achievable goal. One only has to look around at our media landscape to see how successful our elites have already become at this game.

An elite class insulated from the signals coming from the rest of the society is as dangerous as an athlete who can no longer feel pain: because pain signals are the body’s way of telling us that we should stop doing something before we hurt or kill ourselves. Athletes who cannot feel pain usually cannot prevent rapidly hurting or killing themselves, often in fairly gruesome ways. Elites who have stopped listening to the pain signals from the body politic not only risk hurting or killing themselves in similarly gruesome ways, but they also threaten the very societies they supposedly rule over, and the countless lives of the human subjects they are committed to neglecting.

... Let us end this on a final, sad example of the success of this decidedly non-totalitarian censorship. The COVID-19 crisis and the haphazard, random, and arbitrary lockdown policies are currently devastating America, with economic and social fallout playing to the tune of another Great Depression. But unlike that older crisis, today’s pain is not evenly shared: the plebs running the small businesses or waiting the tables are utterly devastated, while the professional classes sit smugly behind their screens, ordering food via apps staffed by precarious contractors and shopping via Amazon, where contingent workers pack and ship their glittering prizes. And yet, one could be forgiven for thinking we basically do not have an economic crisis at all, so complete is the silence coming from our chattering classes regarding the fate of middle America.

Does anyone think this is somehow a coincidence? A flaw in the system? An unfortunate oversight, soon to be corrected? No. Here, too, the censorship does the job it was always designed to do.

Conservatives today think they are right to be worried about censorship. And they are very right to be worried. But they are not worried enough about these increasing pain signals failing to register, and what that systemic failure augurs for the future. On the campaign trail in 1992, Bill Clinton famously reassured a heckler that he could “feel his pain.” But 1992 was several lifetimes ago, and heckling should now be the least of the concerns facing a socially distanced elite that no longer wants to feel anyone’s pain, indeed no longer desires to feel anything uncomfortable at all. Today one hardly needs to be a Julio-Claudian to fiddle while America slowly burns. (read more)

2020-12-20 c
THE COVID-CON III
"Second and more importantly, the total population of Americans ages 25-44 is 87.58 million. Thus, the 4,560 young adults who the authors identify as having been killed by Covid is a mere 0.0052 percent of this number. Even if we annualize these Covid deaths, the resulting figure of 10,944 is only 0.0125 percent of the total number of Americans ages 25-44. None of this is reported in the op-ed. "

Is Covid a High Risk to Younger Adults?

Jeremy Samuel Faust, Harlan Krumholz, and Rochelle Walensky’s New York Times op-ed “People Thought Covid-19 Was Relatively Harmless for Younger Adults. They Were Wrong.” (Dec. 16) is a prime example of how to convey a false impression by painting an incomplete picture.

Here’s the authors’ core claim: “Young adults are dying at historic rates. In research published on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, we found that among U.S. adults ages 25 to 44, from March through the end of July, there were almost 12,000 more deaths than were expected based on historical norms” – a fact that, the authors imply, is sufficient to reject the belief that Covid poses no great risk to young adults. But closer examination advises against any such rejection.

First, in their op-ed the authors neglect a key fact revealed in their academic paper – namely (and quoting from that paper) “Only 38% of all-cause excess deaths in adults aged 25 to 44 years recorded during the pandemic were attributed directly to COVID-19.”

This fact means that of the 12,000 excess deaths mentioned in the op-ed, only 4,560 can be said to have been caused by Covid. And so of all the young adults who, statistically, were otherwise expected to die from March through July (64,167), the number killed by Covid was only 7.1 percent.

Second and more importantly, the total population of Americans ages 25-44 is 87.58 million. Thus, the 4,560 young adults who the authors identify as having been killed by Covid is a mere 0.0052 percent of this number. Even if we annualize these Covid deaths, the resulting figure of 10,944 is only 0.0125 percent of the total number of Americans ages 25-44. None of this is reported in the op-ed.

Bottom line: Covid-19 is indeed relatively harmless for younger adults.

A correspondent writes that I “totally miss the point of the New York Times article which DOES show positive correlation between Covid and excess death of people between 25 and 44. These are real.” He says to conclude that I “callously discount them.”

Of course these deaths are real. But this reality doesn’t prove the op-ed authors’ contention that Covid poses serious risks to persons in that age group. And my pointing out this fact doesn’t mean that I’m callous.

Overlooking here the op-ed authors’ failure to note in the NYT that only 38 percent of excess deaths in this age group are attributed to Covid and – to make your and the authors’ case as strong as possible – assume that all excess deaths are caused by Covid rather than some being caused, for example, by the lockdowns themselves or by whatever causes ordinary year-to-year random variation in deaths. That results in 12,000 Covid-caused excess deaths of Americans ages 25-44 from March through July (the period of the authors’ study). Now 12,000 is 0.014 percent of Americans in that age cohort. This percentage tells me that young adults, while not at zero risk from Covid (Who ever said that?!), are at only very low risk. (read more)

2020-12-20 b
THE COVID-CON II
"As for the shibollethic “asymptomatic spread” new JAMA meta-analysis of 54 studies with 77,000+ participants find that household “secondary attack rate” (chance an infected person will infect one or more people) is 18% if the person is symptomatic and about 0.7% if asymptomatic. This, remember, is one of the main justifications for incessant mass testing and certainly for the fetishistic absurdity of mask wearing."
+
"So, this is it. The masks didn’t protect. So might as well take them off. Lockdowns didn’t help mortality results, so might as well call them off. We are right now in the midst of demonstrating that truism re insanity, “Doing the same things, especially if they don’t work, over and over, hoping for different results.”"

COVID: We Persist in Having the Wrong Debate!

Let’s start simply. All COVID-19 debunking seems to start with the premise that it is an established fact that there is a world affronting pathogen, and we have to “debate” that claim away, and then take umbrage with strategies to cope with it, highlight competing values and interests.

Yes, we have to do this, but only because, tyrannically, and literally so, governments have treated themselves to asserting, without public debate or the challenging of their alleged “evidence” (which globally renowned epidemiologists and virologists are ready to do), a state of perpetual emergency, which can be re-instituted at any time, triggered by mass testing of the healthy (an absurdity without medical precedent) via a flawed testing regime (demonstrated to be so, and never intended when created to be used for diagnosis, as per the warnings provided with each kit!).

Since we are so detached from “science,” which is based on objective, independent, repeatable, verifiable results, anything can be asserted, ordered, and without legislation, the “executive” becomes judge and jury.

It is a gross violation of the entire democratic enterprise, and we have passively sat there, putting “nappies” on our faces that cannot protect (scientifically as opposed to symbolically) against viral aerosols and droplets, awaiting “permission” to see family and loved ones (which we’ve always had before we gave it away), and live any semblance of a life.

Democratic norms relating to civil liberties are flouted right in front of us, and we just drool our acquiescence, it seems, no matter how outrageous. What follows is just a smattering of absurdities that should already be stimulating outrage.

Madcap Everyday Silliness

Governor Cuomo has announced the end of “indoor dining” in NYC once more, with no federal support that is essentially a death knell to countless bars and restaurants. The data is damning the other way. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, as per statewide contact tracing data:

74% of new COVID-19 cases between September and November came from household and social gatherings!

Nearly 8% from health care delivery.

Bars and restaurants accounted for a mere 1.4% of cases!

With that known and published, how can you possibly announce this draconian death sentence for this industry in the run-up to Christmas and the midst of winter? No explanation, no rationalization, just bald, mindless assertion. And all the media flunkeys and enablers simply click their heels and report it as if it is not shrieking of irrationality.

Vaccines that never went through animal testing, where “efficacy reports” are really PR statements from the pharmaceutical companies themselves without scientific peer review and validation, are somehow, suddenly fine, though

these companies have been legally indemnified for
anything that might happen.


And these are to be showered upon a pining populace like manna from heaven. But, wait for it, there are exclusions galore, how long the benefits last is unknown, if they stop transmissibility is unknown. In fact, truth be told, for an illness that 99% recover from unaided, virtually everything is unknown!

But billions can be earned, as they have been through dispensing face nappies and flawed PCR tests set at manifestly too high amplification settings, so why hesitate? Oh, but you may still have to wear masks post vaccine, and as per Emperor Gates, groundlessly exclaiming how the world is to be, bars and restaurants may need to be shut for four to six months! Why?

So with no part of the world with a serious much less unprecedented surge of excess mortality, whether “masked” or not, locked down or not, we just make this declaration? Saying

“killed 1.5 million people”

is silly as many things kill that many and more (TB to car accidents), and study after study has shown lockdowns made no difference to outcomes. We also know many more people have been infected than we know, WHO agrees, and so fatality and lethality plummet further.

And when Europe “liberalized,” and opened back up a tad, but then also started manic mass testing, “positive tests” posing as “cases” multiplied, but deaths while moving up modestly, have essentially stayed on par with annual expectations. A pseudo-epidemic is defined scientifically as a disconnect between “cases,” so called, and “deaths.” We have a perfect version here.

The Cuckolding

With an earlier, eerily “prescient” Gates Foundation/World Economic Forum pre-game simulation on October 18th, 2019, already in hand, January 10th 2020 dawned, a day that will live in the annals of credulity. WHO “reported” an outbreak in China caused by a “novel” coronavirus. Already, by January 17th, WHO was recommending the Corman-Drosten PCR test as the “gold standard” for detecting C-19, before the paper making the case for it was even published!

Drosten’s own academic bona fides have since been questioned, and that is now being litigated. Certainly, little enough scrutiny was proffered on that front.

By the 21st of January, the paper was submitted to the currently besieged (for their lack of rigor, candor and demonstrated lack of transparency) journal, Eurosurveillance. It was allegedly “peer reviewed” in two days, something specialists say would take at least three months. One of the many “intrigues” surrounding the test, is that when it was being worked on,

the genetic material of the virus still had to be sequenced.

Ergo, without virus material available, the PCR test was designed using the genomic sequence of the 2003 SARS-CoV, alleging “close genetic relatedness” (though in impact on humans, very different viruses). And yet the test seemed to have been worked on since November! Why? And no one has investigated, therefore, how they got such a precise tip-off?

There was also blatant conflict of interest, with probity touting Germany taking noxious ethical short-cuts. Drosten and his co-author Dr. Reusken, are both on the editorial board of afore-said magazine, Eurosurveillance. And to top off the corrosive brew,

the company that developed the test was already
distributing them to the supply chain before the
pandemic was announced!


Into “lockdown” we went, with “positive tests” being conflated with cases. We were being told there was a Molotov cocktail of rising cases, mysterious “asymptomatic” transmission, lack of pre-existing immunity and widespread susceptibility. Except for the first initially, the second is more than doubtful on facts, and the next two are blatantly false. That over 80% of those contracting this virus had no symptoms or mild symptoms was clearly evident but became more a statistical footnote.

Then, it emerged fairly swiftly that mortality followed an age gradient, this was remarked upon by various researchers, eminent ones from Yale and Stanford among them. Our accumulated scientific and public health knowledge (which never included masks or lockdowns) was swatted away, and disinformation and confusion were rampant and magnified through media enablers. And this pandemic follows the course of ‘natural mortality’ rather than afflicting the young as its predecessors did.

Though data, including a perfect “case study” of the Diamond Princess Cruise ship (analyzed impeccably and the findings continue to “hold water” today), contradicted the panic porn, and refuted a “one size fits all approach,” catastrophically governments went for an “umbrella approach,” even when the age profile of above 65 with pre-existing conditions was quite incontestable by then. And the “curve flattening” which justified temporary incursions into liberties, morphed into “eradication” and “permanent war” on a middling pathogen, tarted up through extravagant modeling to seem seminal.

When the projections failed, and when venues that never shut down, were not overwhelmed, particularly Sweden and Japan as instances, they were either scorned or ignored. Sweden’s two year mortality rate in 2019–2020 is one of the lowest in the last 10 years in fact!

Then came June, as everything seemed to be heading towards a manageable norm, the “asymptomatic transmission” mantra was trotted out, “cases” rather than mortality became the new bugaboo. The ludicrous WHO/Corman-Drosten protocol recommended a cycle amplification, Ct setting of 45 (which at that level has also produced positive tests for goats and pawpaw fruit), therefore, allowing the test to “detect” viral debris or “strands” which could not testify to contagiousness or illness at all.

There was also the issue of lab contamination, inherent “false positives” in tests, which all get magnified by mathematical distortion when prevalence in a population goes down, as it has virtually everywhere, amplifying the impact of “every” false positive.

Finally, finally, in the month of November, there was more concerted focus on rapid Antigen tests that actually focus on contagiousness, though these are still being unfairly sidelined of course, as they are cheap, replicable, and accurate — reducing the economic plunder as well as the terror regime, so little to recommend them; despite being championed in the UK, and at Harvard through highly distinguished medical champions.

Numerous scientists have mounted a challenge to the PCR mafia norms, and we await the outcome of their challenge. The grounds for the challenge by 20 plus eminent scientists should be “headline news” everywhere and is not even mentioned in mainstream media.

The quite crippling “10 errors” in the PCR test they
identify are scientifically and medically damning and
any proper peer review would have picked them up
at the outset.


Many of the errors are already catalogued (amplification, false positives, lab contamination, lack of a clear protocol, and more), but a review of the full landscape of concerns is well worth your attention (Corman-Drosten Review Report).

It’s Not the Pathogen!

It has become a quaint affectation to say, “COVID has caused…” and then we have a litany of bankruptcies, medical knock-on effects, mental distress and more.

This is absurd. It has caused nothing, it just “is.”
What has “caused” anything has been our political
and personal response to it.


... Remember, 99.95% recovery rate if you’re under 70. So that this dominates our discourse, our lives, our decision making, our economics, our holidays, our celebrations, our rights, is beyond belief, and our sniveling acquiescence awaiting “deliverance” from “authority” is a chilling demonstration of how readily “free” people can surrender to being dominated — anything other than having to think. Ergo, we harken back to Eric Fromm’s monumental discussion of how the most advanced and developed nation in Europe succumbed to the frothing extremities of Hitler’s National Socialism. And it was entitled, Escape from Freedom.

And if the question were to be put, does mass incarceration of citizens, strangling your economy, and blowing up educational opportunity, “save” lives? Very few would automatically say “yes!” Study after study shows “lockdown” has produced no benefit.

There was The Lancet in July, a weekly peer reviewed medical journal founded in 1823. Fifty countries were studied, and overwhelmingly found no correlation between “lockdown” intensity or timing or perseverance and mortality reductions. In fact, the summary is fairly damning:

“…government actions such as border closures, full
lockdowns, and a high degree of COVID-19 testing
were not associated with statistically significant
reductions in number of critical cases or overall mortality.”


There was also Frontiers in Public Health, in November. Researchers crunched data from 160 countries in the first eight months of the pandemic to determine how various factors (public health, demographics, government policy, economy, environment) correlated to C-19 mortality. Their conclusion again is fairly definitive:

“Stringency of measures settled to find pandemia,
including lockdown, did not appear to be linked to
death rate.”


Less analytical, but with similar findings was the Tel Aviv University study in October (published then) on the website medRxiv in which researchers analyzed mobility data from iPhones and found no statistical link between lockdown severity and C-19 fatalities.

“We would have expected to see fewer C-19 fatalities
in countries with tighter lockdown, but the data reveals
this is not the case.”


All of these were anticipated by an analysis reported in Bloomberg in May from the University of Oxford’s Bavatnik School of Government, which tracked “first wave” stringency measures across Europe (actually if the virus was already wafting around end of 2019, what we are calling “first wave” was most likely “third wave” and only notable for the exacerbation of grief through our misguided policies). Yet again, COVID mortality did not appear to be associated with “lockdown” stringency.

And since most of the “spread” happens in tight, indoor environments, not in germicidal sunshine and air, why “locking” people in was ever considered a bright idea is confounding. And since virtually everyone recovers, and despair and gloom manifestly and measurably inhibit our immune system, why being engaged (and still prudent) and living life would not have been the better bet, or indeed the only sane initial bet before foreclosing the survival of our way of life and the literal economic survival of millions, beggars sanity.

... The vagaries of the vaccines, which can address the very vulnerable at best, and which seem to be stockpiling symptoms and side-effects and have set a hellish precedent for bypassing animal trials and not assessing long term impact, can have a palliative benefit, for some a medical benefit, but it will make no difference overall. One mutation and we’re back in the dock. But then it’s self-constructed, and we really do have the keys. (read more)

2020-12-20 a
THE COVID-CON I -
"Anyone who has watched cable news or opened a newspaper since March is aware that the corporate media has waged an aggressive campaign against hydroxychloroquine, aided by scientific journal editors and public health officials on both sides of the Atlantic."

The U.S. Media Are Suppressing the Truth about Hydroxychloroquine

Developments overseas have been totally ignored by the American press. And yet, since Election Day, the media have hewed to the “HCQ Bad” narrative.

ince most Americans who want to be vaccinated against COVID-19 will have to wait until spring—and cases are climbing—it is imperative that we focus on therapies to keep people out of the hospital and that we revisit the media-engineered saga of hydroxychloroquine.

Italy’s Council of State last week took a step in the right direction when it reversed the country’s July 22 ban on the off-label use of hydroxychloroquine. They issued this reversal following an appeal from a group of doctors seeking to use the anti-malarial drug for early outpatient treatment of COVID-19.

As cited in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Order 7097/2020 holds that the continuing “uncertainty” over the drug’s efficacy demands that they permit the individual doctor and patient to make their own informed decisions about using it.

So far, this development has been totally ignored by the American press. It does not fit the accepted narrative. (As a point of comparison, when a European Union agency recently published a memo linking hydroxychloroquine to “psychiatric disorders and suicidal behavior,” based on data from six patients in Spain, the news merited same-day coverage in Newsweek.)

The current accepted press narrative on hydroxychloroquine is that no evidence exists showing it is effective for treating COVID-19, and that it can, in fact, be harmful. Any person who suggests otherwise is accused of being “anti-science” and a promoter of “conspiracy theories” and “disinformation.”

But the narrative is false. First, there is strong evidence that hydroxychloroquine is helpful in treating COVID-19 when administered early in the disease—notably, from studies by the Mount Sinai Health System in New York and the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, which both showed that the drug cut the mortality rate for COVID-19 patients nearly in half. Large multi-hospital collaborations in Belgium and the Netherlands and numerous smaller studies have also demonstrated benefits.

Secondly, more than 2 billion people worldwide have taken hydroxychloroquine in its 70-year history, and it is known to be so safe that it can be taken by “pregnant women and nursing mothers,” according to the CDC. By contrast, the largest and most lauded study this year that claiming hydroxychloroquine may cause harm to COVID-19 patients was the scandalous, retracted Lancet paper, which that journal’s own editor called a “monumental fraud.” (read more)

2020
-12-19 g
CANCELING REASON III
"In recent years everything from microwaveable rice to white people sporting cornrows has sparked days of absurd discussion. It’s like someone, somewhere, is just picking topics out of a hat."

Gardening, sewing and the politicisation of absolutely everything

The creep of the culture war into all areas of life is – to borrow a favourite woke phrase – exhausting.

Is gardening racist? That’s the question British culture war Twitter was pondering at the weekend, after BBC Countryfile presenter and ethnobotanist James Wong said that ‘UK gardening culture has racism baked into its DNA’.

Citing his own experiences in horticulture, Wong said requests for ‘wildflowers’ that are ‘more in keeping’ with a given area are ‘predicated on often unconscious ideas of what and who does and does not “belong” in the UK’.

‘This is the kind of exhausting shit you have to go through everyday if you work in UK horticulture’, he went on. ‘Unless of course you internalise these unquestioned (often unconscious) ideas that are predicated in large part on a bedrock of xenophobia and racism.’

That word, ‘exhausting’, comes up a lot in woke discourse. But it’s also a good description of how the vast majority of us feel when debates like this spiral out of nowhere every couple of days.

Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Countryfile has been dragged into the culture war. Back in June, a Countryfile segment explored whether the British countryside was a ‘white environment’, to much bemusement.

At this point, it seems no area of life is safe from our incessant ‘is BLANK racist?’ discourse.

... This politicisation of absolutely everything is bad for politics and for culture.

So much of what passes for anti-racist politics these days is just inane arguments over language, cultural interpretation and offence. The idea that ‘decolonising’ horticulture will materially improve the lives of ethnic-minority people is, to put it politely, barmy – but that is apparently what many influential people believe these days.

Meanwhile, as these rows afflict more and more areas of cultural, non-political life, the public is denied any reprieve from the kind of identitarian hectoring that has long played an outsized role in our politics. (read more)

2020-12-19 f
CANCELING REASON II
"In other words, we support academic freedom and freedom of expression, but—well, not really."

What’s Up, Doc?

Cancel culture targets Joseph Epstein.

You’re nobody nowadays until you’ve been canceled. It’s the new new thing. To be stripped in one fell swoop of every degree, title, honor, award, or citation you’ve ever earned, in retaliation for having written or said something that, only a few years ago, would have been regarded as innocuous or self-evident or, at most, provocative, is where it’s at in 2020.

The other day it was Joseph Epstein’s turn. The Chicago-born Epstein, 84, is a former editor of the American Scholar (where, let me acknowledge, he frequently published my own work a million years ago) and a writer of countless essays on diverse topics that make you laugh while also making you think.

On December 11, the Wall Street Journal ran one of those essays, headlined “Is There a Doctor in the White House?” Addressing Jill Biden, the soon-to-be First Lady, Epstein suggested that perhaps she should lay off calling herself “Doctor Jill Biden,” given that she is not an M.D. but rather earned a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware.

Epstein’s piece triggered the now-usual chorus of outrage. It was widely decried as sexist, which is ridiculous: Jill Biden’s sex has nothing to do with Epstein’s argument. One sharp observer noticed that the Washington Post, which in 2017 mocked Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka, a Ph.D., for using the honorific “Dr.,” was now sneering at Epstein for criticizing Jill Biden’s use of it.

A sometime teacher at Northwestern, Epstein held the title of emeritus lecturer there. His name and title have now vanished from the website of the university, which issued this statement: “While we firmly support academic freedom and freedom of expression, we do not agree with Mr. Epstein’s opinion and believe the designation of doctor is well deserved by anyone who has earned a Ph.D., an Ed.D. or an M.D. Northwestern is firmly committed to equity, diversity and inclusion, and strongly disagrees with Mr. Epstein’s misogynistic views.”

In other words, we support academic freedom and freedom of expression, but—well, not really.

The English department at Northwestern also posted a statement: “The Department is aware that a former adjunct lecturer who has not taught here in nearly 20 years has published an opinion piece that casts unmerited aspersion on Dr. Jill Biden’s rightful public claiming of her doctoral credentials and expertise. The Department rejects this opinion as well as the diminishment of anyone’s duly-earned degrees in any field, from any university.”

If he hasn’t taught there “in nearly 20 years,” then why make a big deal out it? And note how the department’s statement doesn’t even include Epstein’s name. Is he such a non-person now that even mentioning his name would be offensive?

By contrast, an honest commentator at Hot Air made what seemed like an important admission: Jill Biden’s habit of calling herself a doctor had caused real confusion. Last March, Whoopi Goldberg suggested on The View that, in the case of a Biden victory at the polls, Jill should be named Surgeon General because she’s an “amazing doctor.”

As it happens, I have a Ph.D. in English. I’ve never used “Dr.,” except on a few occasions when I was ordering airline tickets online and noticed that I could click on “Dr.” when filling out my name. I figured maybe there was a slightly better chance of getting bumped to first class if I went with “Dr.” (It didn’t work.)

But generally speaking, the idea of calling myself “Dr.” embarrasses me. It feels like subterfuge.

... Which brings us, as it happens, to the real thrust of Epstein’s essay. At bottom, it wasn’t a dig at Jill Biden. No, that was just Epstein’s way of introducing his actual, and serious, subject. And that subject was the increasing meaninglessness of advanced degrees in the humanities and social sciences.

“The Ph.D.,” Epstein lamented, “may once have held prestige, but that has been diminished by the erosion of seriousness and the relaxation of standards in university education generally, at any rate outside the sciences.” As the author of a 2012 book entitled The Victims’ Revolution, about the rise of such ridiculous academic “disciplines” as (yes) gender studies, I heartily agree. Epstein pointed out that Ph.D.s once had to jump through some major hoops, becoming genuine experts in their subjects, to earn their titles; now, in all too many departments at all too many universities, the doctorates are handed out like free-drink tickets outside of strip clubs. (read more)

2020-12-19 e
CANCELING REASON I
"We do not accept that males, regardless of how they identify, should have access to female toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards or refuges. This is not a conservative viewpoint. This is the fundamental basis on which we order society."

Why does Amnesty want to silence women like me?

Trans ideology has become the new theocracy, and TERFs the new heretics.

You know you are in the Upside Down when a famous human-rights organisation petitions your government to disenfranchise you and members of your group, to stop you from engaging in peaceful actions and voicing your concerns and opinions.

This is what Amnesty did in Ireland, when it joined our power-drunk trans lobby, along with 26 other publicly funded NGOs, to make this extraordinary demand in an open letter: ‘We call on media, and politicians to no longer provide legitimate representation for those that share bigoted beliefs.’

What is our sin? The letter is directed at those of us who are organising and calling out the harmful impact of trans ideology and activism on women and children. If any man can fill out a form, as is the case in Ireland, and legally become a woman ‘for all purposes’, that is not a legal fiction. That is an access-all-areas pass for predators. This is not to say that trans-identified people are predators. But it is to say, if predators went through the seminary to gain access to victims, are we to believe they would not fill out an A4 form?

Two such sexual predators have been locked in with women in Limerick prison since the self-ID law came in. One was convicted on 10 charges of sexual assault, and one charge of cruelty against a child. The other was a highly disturbed young person who attacked a social worker, ripping off her eyelid.

These are both fully intact males, and they were each granted gender-recognition certificates according to reports. Clearly, there is no medical gatekeeping or safeguarding built into this system, or criminal and homicidal males would not acquire certificates.

In addition, there is no requirement to have had surgery or have taken hormones. Anyone can apply and no one has ever been turned down. That is the essence of self-ID: it affirms the wishes of the trans-identified person. Even if they are a rapist. Or a male who wants to murder and rape women. Or a man who wants access to female-only spaces for the buzz of the transgression. This system is harmful to all of society – including genuine transsexuals.

... Sex-based rights are predicated on consent. When a woman uses a communal changing room at her local swimming pool, she is consenting to sharing that space with other women – not with men who identify as women. Likewise, a woman may consent to an invasive examination by her male doctor. But if she instead requests a female doctor, she is not consenting to a male doctor who identifies as a female. If trans-identified males are included in female sports, girls and women will get injured, possibly killed, and soon female sport will cease to exist. Tweaking testosterone levels does not ameliorate the advantages in mass, power, strength and speed bestowed by male puberty.

‘Trans rights’ do not exist in a vacuum. They exist in direct conflict with women’s rights. We are calling for a grown-up conversation in our country regarding this clash of rights. (read more)

2020-12-19 d
BLACK AND WHITE - II
"
Racism today is a non-falsifiable proposition governed by the principle: heads I win, tails you lose."
+
"Narcissism is the operative trait of today’s victims, who think that everything is about them. It is not. Identity politics projects its obsessions onto an aesthetic realm that in many cases is alien to our worldview."

Beside the Pointe

Diversity and bias obsessions come for Swan Lake.

The New York Times has published the latest installment in its running tally of alleged racism in the high arts: the Staatsballett Berlin (Berlin State Ballet) treated a black ballerina differently because of the color of her skin. Oh, wait! That was yesterday’s template. Today’s is that a black ballerina was treated the same as white ballerinas. The search for racism requires just such rhetorical nimbleness.

Since the nineteenth century, dancers in a corps de ballet often applied white body paint in works, such as Giselle or Les Sylphides, that feature a supernatural element. The intent was to create an impression of ghostly creatures from beyond the grave who might doom any red-blooded prince who crosses them. The use of white makeup was not a statement about white supremacy: there were virtually no black dancers in Russian or Parisian ballet troupes at the time against which a statement about skin color might be made. If one is looking for slurs, the body paint could be seen as anti-white, in its association of whiteness with death.

In 2018, the Staatsballett Berlin mounted Swan Lake, another ballet where white body paint has traditionally been used, in this case to increase the illusion that the dancers were swans. One of the company’s ballet mistresses told the company’s one black dancer, Chloé Lopes Gomes, to use the paint as well. Gomes says she told the ballet mistress, “I’ll never look white,” to which the mistress responded: “well, you will have to put on more than the other girls.”

This incident dominated the front page of the Times arts section and was flagged on the front page of the paper itself—it was that important. The Staatsballett Berlin issued a groveling apology, taking responsibility for society’s “structural racism.” The company has promised to hire the usual phalanx of diversity trainers to provide mandatory antiracism workshops. The organization will also examine its repertory for “outdated and discriminatory ways of performing” and will “re-evaluate” its “longstanding traditions,” it says.

The accusations and the self-prostration would have been the same had the scenario been flipped. If the ballet mistress had told Lopes Gomes: “Don’t bother with the body paint. You’re too black. It will never work,” this, too, would have been characterized as discrimination. Racism today is a non-falsifiable proposition governed by the principle: heads I win, tails you lose.

... Naturally, Lopes Gomes alleges another instance of bias: her contract was not renewed for the coming season. Never mind that 11 of her fellow dancers—all white—were also let go. If a white person is dismissed, not hired, or not promoted, it is assumed to be for cause. If a black person suffers a negative employment outcome, the only reason must be racism. Lopes Gomes offers no explanation for how her case differs from those of her 11 colleagues. (read more)

2020-12-19 c
BLACK AND WHITE - I
"Unfortunately, this indoctrination is not an aberration—it reflects deep ideological currents within Seattle Public Schools."

Teaching Hate

The Seattle school district claims that the U.S. education system is guilty of “spirit murder” against black children.

Seattle Public Schools recently held a training session for teachers in which American schools were deemed guilty of “spirit murder” against black students. The United States is a “race-based white-supremist society,” the training instructed, and white teachers must “bankrupt [their] privilege in acknowledgement of [their] thieved inheritance.”

According to whistleblower documents I’ve obtained from the session, the trainers begin by claiming that the teachers are colonizers of “the ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish People.” Then, next to an image of the Black Power fist, they claim that “the United States was built off the stolen labor of kidnapped and enslaved Black people’s work, which created the profits that created our nation.”

In the presentation materials, the organizers of the session identify themselves by both gender pronouns and race labels. For example, one speaker is identified as “He/Him, White,” while another is identified as “She/her pronouns, Black (half Black and half White).” It has become commonplace in academia to use gender-pronoun identifiers, but the expectation for explicit race-labeling in the workplace appears to be novel.

The central message is that white teachers must recognize that they “are assigned considerable power and privilege in our society” because of their “possession of white skin.” Consequently, to atone for their collective guilt, white teachers must be willing to reject their “whiteness” and become dedicated “anti-racist educator[s].”

The trainers acknowledge that this language might meet resistance from white teachers. They explain that any negative emotional reaction to being denounced for “whiteness” is an automatic response from the white teachers’ “lizard-brain,” which makes them “afraid that [they] will have to talk about sensitive issues such as race, racism, classism, sexism, or any kind of ‘ism.’” The trainers insist that the teachers “must commit to the journey,” regardless of their emotional or intellectual hesitations.

In the most disturbing portion of the session, the teachers discussed “spirit murder,” which, according to Bettina Love, is the concept that American schools “murder the souls of Black children every day through systemic, institutionalized, anti-Black, state-sanctioned violence.” Love, who originated the concept, declares that the education system is “invested in murdering the souls of Black children,” even in the most ostensibly progressive institutions.

The goal of these inflammatory “racial equity” programs is to transform Seattle schools into activist organizations. At the conclusion of the training, teachers must explain how they will practice “anti-racist pedagogy,” address the “current social justice movements taking place,” and become “anti-racist outside the classroom.” They are told to divide the world into “enemies, allies, and accomplices,” and work toward the “abolition” of whiteness. They must, in other words, abandon the illusion of neutral teaching standards and get in the trenches of race-based activism.

... Unless we see a change of course, this new orthodoxy—gradually replacing academics with activism—will cause educational disaster. School districts will subordinate traditional learning to the latest academic fads. When those inevitably fail, desperate teachers and administrators will be increasingly tempted to drop the old “three R’s” in favor of the new “three R’s”: racism, racism, and racism.

As Seattle’s public school administrators consume themselves with racial ideology, students will pay the price. Teachers can “bankrupt their privilege” in front of their colleagues, but their exhibitionism will do nothing for third-graders struggling to read or high school seniors preparing to graduate. (read more)

2020
-12-19 b
THE COVID-CON II - THE PHANTOM MENACE
"Without this step having been performed (followed by controlled experiments), there is no way to claim scientifically that the alleged “novel coronavirus” (blamed for widespread death/disease/lockdown measures) actually exists. "

Freedom of Information reveals Public Health Agency of Canada has no record of “SARS-COV-2” isolation performed by anyone, anywhere, ever

The Senior Leadership at the Public Health Agency of Canada is comprised of:
Patty Hajdu – Minister of Health
Dr. Theresa Tam – Chief Public Health Officer
Iain Stewart – President (“from 2016 to 2020, he was President of the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada” – which also has no records of SARS-COV-2 isolation)

Further down this page you will see a screenshot of a Freedom of Information request that I submitted to the Public Health Agency of Canada almost 6 months ago, requesting evidence that is absolutely essential (but not on its own sufficient) for establishing the existence of the alleged “COVID-19 virus” aka “SARS-COV-2”.

Without this step having been performed (followed by controlled experiments), there is no way to claim scientifically that the alleged “novel coronavirus” (blamed for widespread death/disease/lockdown measures) actually exists.

Without this step having been performed and followed by the necessary controlled experiments, all claims of this alleged virus are nothing but wild, unscientific, fraud-based speculation backed only by fraudulent science, fraudulent tests and fraudulent diagnoses.

And naturally this entire procedure must have been performed not just once, but replicated.

A colleague in New Zealand (Michael S.) and I have been collecting Freedom of Information responses from around the world (with assistance from a number of other request-submitters), and making them publicly available as evidence of the “COVID-19” fraud, conspiracy and terrorism that has been destroying lives and the economy world-wide this year, and used to usher in a vile globalist agenda that has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting or promoting public health.

Our wish is that all individuals responsible/complicit in this crime against humanity will be held accountable to the fullest extent lawfully possible.

Thus far, we have responses from roughly 40 institutions and offices around the world, yielding in total zero records describing the essential step of isolation aka purification.

All of these responses are publicly available here.
(read more)

2020-12-19 a
THE COVID-CON I - WHY GET TESTED IF YOU AREN'T SICK?
"The test spits out false positives like a fire hose, creating the impression of escalating COVID case numbers, which are used as the rationale for the lockdowns and the economic devastation. Without those fake numbers, the authorities have NOTHING."

The real pandemic is an outbreak of PCR testing
 
And you can do something about this

I keep hammering on the test because it is the main piece of public fakery that holds this whole pandemic illusion in place.

If it falls, the illusion disappears.

In numerous past articles, I’ve shown the PCR test is useless and deceptive, from several angles.

Recently, I wrote about a Florida directive, issued by the governor and his department of public health: it forces labs to reveal the number of cycles at which each PCR test is run. [1]

A cycle is a quantum leap in amplification of the original sample taken from the patient.

Anthony Fauci himself has asserted that 35 cycles or higher makes the test result useless. Yet the FDA and the CDC recommend running the test at up to 40 cycles. This has opened the door to millions of false positives. [2] [3]

The cherry on the cake? Test labs never tell doctors or their patients how many cycles are deployed in the test. [4]

My first point today is this: if other states wake up and follow Florida’s lead, the whole false edifice of the test would collapse.

My second point: at labs all over the country (and the world), thousands and thousands of PCR tech employees understand the con, the hustle, and the crime—because they are participating in it EVERY DAY.

They are all silent.

If 20 of them stepped forward and told the truth, we would see the PCR test wobble and the fakery called “case numbers” and “pandemic” and “lockdowns” start to crumble.

These PCR techs would confess that they’re running the test at 40 cycles and therefore the results are MEANINGLESS.

So we need pressure on these PCR techs. Lots and lots of pressure. From us. From court cases. From every source we can muster.

The PCR techs are good Germans. They’re complicit and silent. THIS HAS TO END. (read more)

2020
-12-18 k
"Attorney Lin Wood wrote on Twitter this week that Roberts and Justice Stephen Breyer in August discussed how to make sure that Trump “would never be reelected” over the phone."

Supreme Court Responds to Claim That John Roberts Shouted at Other Justices Over Texas Lawsuit

A spokesperson for the U.S. Supreme Court disputed a report that claimed Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts shouted at the eight other justices in a room in the high court, urging them not to take up the Texas election lawsuit against four other key states.

As guidance, the court “has been conducting its conferences remotely by phone since March when the building closed due to the pandemic,” a Supreme Court spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email on Friday in response to a question about the claim.

The statement contradicts what a GOP Texas elector, Matt Patrick, said earlier this week, claiming that an anonymous person said that “the Justices went into a closed room” to determine whether to take the Texas lawsuit that was eventually dismissed. Then, according to the elector, “When the Texas case was brought up he said he heard screaming through the walls as Justice Roberts and the other liberal Justices were insisting … afraid of what would happen if they did the right thing.”

The claim also appeared on Hal Turner’s website, sourcing an alleged “clerk for one of the [Supreme Court] justices.” It is unclear where Patrick obtained his information.

“The Justices met in a closed and sealed room, as is standard,” Turner’s website said, citing the alleged Supreme Court whistleblower. “Usually it is very calm, however today we could hear screaming all the way down the hall. They met in person, because they didn’t trust telephonic meeting as secure. Chief Justice Roberts was screaming, ‘Are you going to be responsible for the rioting if we hear this case?'”

Attorney Lin Wood wrote on Twitter this week that Roberts and Justice Stephen Breyer in August discussed how to make sure that Trump “would never be reelected” over the phone.

Wood, asked to share the information he has, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement: “At this time, I cannot. People are worried about their safety.” (read more)

2020
-12-18 j
"It’s long past time for President Trump to send in the military to seize the machines. "

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Refuses to Comply With Subpoenas to Turn Over Dominion Voting Machines for Audit (VIDEO)

The Maricopa Board of Supervisors has voted 4-1 to refuse to comply with legislative subpoenas to turn over Dominion voting machines for a forensic audit.

Instead of supporting transparency and making sure there was a free and fair election, they will be filing a complaint in Superior Court.

Subpoenas were issued for the machines by the Arizona Senate Judiciary earlier this week. (read more)

2020-12-18 i
"Obama administration intelligence officials John Brennan and James Clapper must answer to the allegations that they blackmailed Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to get his vote for Obamacare in 2012."

John Roberts Accused on Tape of Getting HACKED By Brennan and Clapper. Adoption Scandal?

Is Roberts Compromised? [LISTEN TO THE TAPE HERE (18:00 Minute Mark)]

With Vice President Mike Pence calling Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts a “disappointment” for conservatives, Roberts faces widespread scrutiny over the possibility that he is compromised. I reported in 2018:
I reported in 2018

Obama administration intelligence officials John Brennan and James Clapper must answer to the allegations that they blackmailed Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to get his vote for Obamacare in 2012.

Roberts, who reportedly was investigated at one time for illegally adopting his children, betrayed the Republican base when he confirmed the supposed constitutionality of Obamacare during Obama’s re-election campaign.

Evidence shows that John Roberts, chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, was “hacked” by a Deep State surveillance operation overseen by Obama administration CIA director John Brennan and Obama director of national intelligence James Clapper.

Roberts, the Bush appointee, was allegedly the victim of the same Deep State surveillance program that spied on President Donald Trump. (read more)

SEE ALSO:
Chief Justice Roberts Accused of Being Hacked by CIA, Rumors Swirl About Alleged Meltdown Over Texas’ SCOTUS Lawsuit

2020
-12-18 h
CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

President Trump’s Executive Order On Foreign Interference in Elections Comes Due Today – Things Are Going to Get Real

At the same time as this news is breaking, the President’s Executive Order on foreign interference in US elections comes due.  The Director of National Intelligence (DNI John Ratcliffe) is required to provide a report which is to cover an inventory of all known acts of foreign intervention into the 2020 election.  Based on what we know to date, this report should have a litany of observations and evidence.

The DNI’s report is due within 45 days from the election.  This means that it is due to the President by today, December 18 (45 days from the 2020 election).  Due to the Bidens’ activities with foreign nations, including China, it is very possible that the report will mention the Biden family.


Scoop: Pentagon halts Biden transition briefings

Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios.

The latest: Biden transition director Yohannes Abraham contradicted the Pentagon's official response to this story on Friday afternoon, telling reporters, "Let me be clear: there was no mutually agreed upon holiday break."


DEVELOPING: Trump to Meet with Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller in the Oval Office at 3:30 PM

The Pentagon discontinued briefings with the Biden Transition Team on Friday morning.
A top Biden official was unaware of the directive.

Of course, this sudden announcement shocked the Deep State apparatus.

And now this — Acting Director of Defense Miller is meeting with President Trump at 3:30 PM in the Oval Office.


2020
-12-18 g
THE RIGHT TO OFFEND
“free speech encompasses the right to offend, and indeed to abuse another”
+
“Women fighting for their rights against an aggressive LGBT lobby have been silenced for the past three years. I hope this judgment gives them hope.”

Exclusive: People must have the 'right to offend' without facing a police investigation

The judgment could have far-reaching implications for officers seeking to bring charges over people’s opinions

Two judges have struck a blow to enemies of free speech after ruling people should have the right to offend and even abuse each other without facing a police investigation.

Presiding over a Court of Appeal case concerning the misgendering of a trans woman on Twitter, Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Warby ruled that “free speech encompasses the right to offend, and indeed to abuse another”, adding: “Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having”. 

They said it would be a “serious interference” with the right of free speech if “those wishing to express their own views could be silenced by, or threatened with, proceedings for harassment based on subjective claims by individuals that felt offended or insulted”.

The judgment could have far-reaching implications for officers seeking to bring charges over people’s opinions - a move that has seen them branded the “thought police” by campaigners for free speech.

It comes after a Freedom of Information request by The Telegraph in February found police in England and Wales had recorded 120,000non-crime hate incidents” in the past five years, an average of 66 a day.

The figures emerged after the High Court ruled a police probe into “transphobic” tweets was unlawful after former policeman Harry Miller was contacted by an officer from Humberside Police to “check his thinking”.

In October, police closed an investigation into an interview with David Starkey in which the historian told podcaster Darren Grimes “slavery was not genocide” because “so many damn blacks" survived. Both were questioned by police but the  probe was reviewed by a senior Metropolitan Police officer and the case was dropped after further legal advice from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
 
Thought police cases

Although the latest judgment does not change the law, such an unequivocal ruling from two senior and highly respected members of the judiciary is likely to influence wayward judges in lower courts that freedom of expression must be protected.

It will also limit the vexatious use of legislation to inhibit freedom of speech in a bid to “police” Twitter spats.

Lord Justice Bean is no stranger to controversial and high profile cases having presided over the trial of James Bulger killer Jon Venables in 2010, while leading media judge Mr Justice Warby is presiding over the Duchess of Sussex’s privacy case against the Mail on Sunday, which has been adjourned until next year.

It came after mother of two Kate Scottow, 40, from Hitchin in Herts, was found guilty in February under an obscure part of the Communications Act 2003 following Twitter exchanges with a trans woman who reported her to police when Mrs Scottow called her a “racist”, a “pig in a wig” and referred to her as a man.

Stephanie Hayden, 47, a lawyer from Wembley, London, obtained a gender recognition certificate in 2017 that recognises her as a woman in law. 

Ms Hayden reported Mrs Scottow to police in December 2018, with Mrs Scottow consequently being arrested and kept in police custody for 11 hours, away from her then 20-month-old son who was still being breastfed. She also has a daughter who is on the autism spectrum and was aged 10 at the time of her mother’s arrest.

The case attracted worldwide attention, including from Boris Johnson, who said of the case in February 2019: “You can’t police properly if officers are endlessly filling custody suites with mums whose crime is to have caused needless offence on Twitter. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this internet feud, we are wasting too much time and resource on cases like this.”

... "Twitter spats are just not the kind of conduct regulated by the provision the prosecution tried to rely on – that section is directed against heavy-breathers and persistent hoax callers and the like.

"Those who, for whatever reason, are uncomfortable with free speech will still have other legal provisions to resort to. But this judgment removed one particular weapon from their armoury. This is progress, and further good news in light of the Harry Miller judgment."

The Police Federation's Simon Kempton said of investigating Twitter spats: “It’s an area where we would like to avoid having any involvement but there are always cases where individuals cross the line and cause some significant harm to others.” (read more)

2020-12-18 f
VACCINE NEWS I
“Who wants to be a guinea pig?”

Fears Prompt Some Medical Workers to Balk at Getting the Vaccine

Concerns about side effects, speed of approval dissuade them

In one Chicago hospital, 40% of staff say they won’t take it
 
Some nurses and emergency-response workers have expressed reluctance to take the new coronavirus vaccine, a reflection of unease that U.S. officials hope to overcome as they ramp up the nationwide immunization effort.

For months, surveys showed widespread skepticism about the vaccine after the Trump administration’s push to get it out before the November election. Public-health authorities say people’s concerns have eased since then, but this week’s launch of vaccinations made it clear that some health-care workers and first responders remain unwilling to get the shot.

While there are always vaccine detractors, hesitance among members of the medical community could deter the general public from getting it despite the safety record and more than 90% efficacy rate of the initial vaccines. Of the more than 20,000 trial participants who received Pfizer Inc.’s, serious side effects were rare.

... Still, some younger medical workers are reluctant because of widespread but unfounded rumors about possible side effects such as infertility.

... Others are skittish about the historic speed of the vaccine’s arrival. Pfizer’s vaccine -- and one made by Moderna Inc. that is expected to win U.S. authorization as soon as Friday -- were developed in a matter of months following the start of the pandemic early this year. The government’s Operation Warp Speed program helped speed up delivery of vaccines and treatments for Covid-19

Vaccine development typically takes much more time -- licensing can often take 10 years or longer, according to the CDC.

... Concerns were fueled this week by reports that two people in Alaska who received the vaccine suffered rare allergic reactions, which have also been seen in recipients in the U.K.

... But work remains to be done. At Loretto Hospital in Chicago, where the city’s first Covid-19 vaccine was administered on Tuesday, 40% of the staff do not plan to get it, according to a survey this month.

Sherrie Burch, 56, a ward clerk at Loretto, is baffled by how quickly the Covid-19 vaccine was developed, given how long medical developments typically take. And that makes her nervous. “It just happened too fast for me,” Burch said, adding that her children, grandchildren and 76-year-old mother aren’t planning to get it either. “It’s the fear of the unknown.”

... Workers in other parts of the country are also concerned.

In Maine, about 40% of staff and 30% of residents at the state’s larger nursing homes appear unwilling to get the vaccine, the Maine Health Care Association found after an “informal discussion” with the operators.

... A significant number of New York firefighters are also reluctant. Anthony Almojera, a lieutenant paramedic who’s vice president of FDNY’s EMS Officers Union Local 3621 said about 30% of his members resist getting the vaccine, judging from group chats and social-media monitoring. (read more)

2020-12-18 e
THE COVID-CON IV
"We have now had nearly nine months of being treated like utter imbeciles. A once great country with a once free people has been reduced to the level of being governed by pathetic, childish slogans. And for some reason we have allowed ourselves to be infantilised."

2020: The Year we Let Ourselves be Infantilised and Dehumanised

I recently wrote a satirical speech by our Prime Minister, in which I imagined him coming up with all sorts of absurd rules for the Christmas season. It was really hard. Not because I was unable to come up with hundreds of such rules, were I minded to do so, but because the whole point of satire is to raise the absurdities up a step or two, in order to highlight the ridiculousness of what is happening. But how do you do this when the real-life absurdities have already been turned up to 11 on the amplifier? I kid you not when I tell you that my original list included a rule against playing certain board games over Christmas — which I rejected — only to see a few days later SAGE coming out and advising against the playing of board games.

We have now had nearly nine months of being treated like utter imbeciles. A once great country with a once free people has been reduced to the level of being governed by pathetic, childish slogans. And for some reason we have allowed ourselves to be infantilised.

I am utterly baffled as to how people can have sat through some of these slogans being introduced without responding with howls of laughter.

“Stay Alert. Control the Virus. Save Lives.”

What on earth is this actually supposed to mean? Stay Alert? For what? Are we supposed to be on our guard for a virus that is approximately 120 nanometres, or around 1,000th the width of a human hair? Are we to carry an electron microscope around with us wherever we go, just in case? One of my favourite signs is an electronic one I sometimes see on my occasional drives into the office. On one day, it says, “Stay Alert. Control the Virus.” On another, it says, “Stay Alert. Watch out for Cyclists.” It should be noted that cyclists are considerably bigger than 120nm and even often wearing the kind of hi-vis jackets that coronaviruses refuse to wear.

Control the Virus? Say what? You mean they actually think we’re stupid enough to think they’re clever enough to devise schemes that can actually control those little invisible 120 nm virus particles that are in the air and on surfaces. Apparently so.

Save Lives? I am yet to hear a convincing argument as to how I and my family, not having any symptoms and thus not being infected by the virus, can possibly stop the spread of said virus that we don’t have by staying at home or wearing a piece of cloth over or respiratory passages, such that we save lives.

More recently, it has been decided that the slogans were maybe a bit too high-brow and needed to be simplified further, this time into monosyllables: “Hands. Face. Space.” Although I tend to avoid watching Comrade Johnson and Co as they spout this nonsense at their regular stand-ups, on the occasions when I have had that misfortune, it has felt eerily like suddenly being thrust into the world’s largest Kindergarten with teacher talking down to his little charges as if they were really, really stupid.

I won’t sport with your intelligence by mentioning all the other mind-numbing slogans we’ve been fed this year, suffice it to say that phrases such as “social bubble” and “Covid-secure” would be deeply funny were it not for the seriousness of the situation into which those coming up with such tripe have placed us (as an aside, are such buildings for which it is claimed that they are “Covid-secure” also “Flu-Secure” and “Cold-Secure”?)

But the infantilising of an entire population is by no means the worst thing they have done to us. Worse by far has been the dehumanising of millions of people, which has been done via a number of enormously destructive methods.

Chief of them is the idea that we must all avoid each other. I cannot even begin to think how destructive this has become. In a normal society, if you or I have symptoms of a particularly nasty seasonal respiratory illness, which is what Covid-19 is, we would avoid one another. Obviously. But the idea of perfectly healthy people avoiding other perfectly healthy people must qualify as one of the most absurd concepts ever dreamt up. Not only is it self-evidently unnecessary, it is bound to have long-terms consequences for the way we view one another, the way we relate to one another, the way we behave around one another. It turns us from seeing one another as humans, made in the Image of God, to walking virus carriers and a potential risk. Some people now literally behave as if they are navigating their way through a crowd of potential terrorists, rather than simply walking through a group of fellow humans.

People avoidance is not just deeply destructive from a psychological and social perspective, it is also deeply cruel. The idea that a grandparent cannot have contact with their children or grandchildren is just obscene. And the very thought of the elderly being left to fester away in care homes, rather than being allowed contact with their families is sick. Yet that’s what we’ve done, or allowed to be done.

And of course, I cannot leave off talking about dehumanisation without mentioning masks. These wretched things were introduced in the Summer, long after the epidemic had waned, at a time when they could not possibly have done any good, even if they had been capable of doing any good. Why were they introduced? Partly to keep the fear-narrative going, even though there was extraordinarily little risk of dying of a seasonal respiratory virus at that time of the year. But even more important, they are a sign of submission. They are a, “we can do with you what we like moment.” They are nothing to do with health. They are a psychological mask, and even more than the social distancing, they have served to alter the way we see one another and are seen by others.

Millions of people humiliated by the Marketing Team of Covid-19 and their infantile slogans. Millions of people dehumanised by having their faces, their smiles, their laughter, their thoughtfulness etc covered to make them into expressionless drones. That was the year we just lived through. Will 2021 be the year a critical mass try to escape the Kindergarten and return to being human? (read more)

2020-12-18 d
THE COVID-CON III
"This inflated death toll has then been, and continues to be, used by fascist-style bureaucracies, in conjunction with scientific priesthoods, to terrify the general public into obedience."
+
"it is acceptable to “report COVID–19 on a death certificate without” the need for the patient to test positive for Covid-19"
+
"the way many countries have and continue to categorize Covid-19 deaths produces an inflated death count, giving a distorted impression of the scale of Covid-19"

The Covid-19 Data are a ‘Travesty’

How the UK and US Covid Death Data are Inflated

Although people have tragically died from Covid-19, the way the Covid-19 death data is recorded in many countries around the world has produced, and continues to produce, an inflated death toll. This inflated death toll has then been, and continues to be, used by fascist-style bureaucracies, in conjunction with scientific priesthoods, to terrify the general public into obedience.

Correlation Does Not Equal Causation

One of the most basic laws of statistics is that correlation does not equal causation. Although this may sound complicated, it’s not. It simply means that just because there is a correlation between two variables, or to put this another way, a close relationship between two things in the world, this does not mean that one thing is causing the other thing to happen.

A third factor may be causing the correlation that is observed for instance. As an example, there is usually a correlation in many countries between cold weather and people buying more goods in shops, or online, but this increase in buying is not caused by cold weather. Instead, it is caused by the Christmas period, when people spend more money, and it just happens to be the case that the weather is usually cold in December in many parts of the world that celebrate Christmas. So, even though there is a correlation between cold weather and increased buying patterns, cold weather does not cause increased buying patterns, but the Christmas period causes people to buy more goods.

Furthermore, the correlation that is observed between two things in the world may just be a product of random chance. This has led people to point to some funny correlations, such as the fact that there was a correlation between margarine consumption and divorce rates in the Maine between 2000 and 2009. There was also a correlation between per capita cheese consumption and the number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bedsheets, or the number of people who drowned by falling into a pool and films Nicholas Cage appeared in.

Once again, correlation does not equal causation.

Inflated Death Data

If we turn our attention back to the Covid death data, just because someone has tested positive for Covid-19 and died sometime after (even if we put aside for a second that some tests are known to give false positives), that does not mean that Covid-19 caused that person to die. Yet, the main figure certain countries around the world are using to express Covid-19 deaths is simply recorded, or coded, as essentially any death involving a positive Covid-19 test within 28 days of death.

Because correlation does not equal causation, simply recording Covid-19 deaths as any deaths involving a positive Covid-19 test within a given period of time is an extremely poor way to measure how many people have died.

... From my perspective, the main figure countries should use to categorize Covid-19 deaths has to include (1) the need for the patient to test positive for Covid; and (2) the need for a medical professional to examine the patient and conclude that Covid-19 was the primary, or underlying, cause of death. This should be the main figure that officials and the media then quote, because the average person who hears what the latest death count is on a 2-minute news segment presumes that this figure actually expresses how many people have died of Covid-19 – not with Covid-19, not with suspected Covid-19, but actually of Covid-19.

,,, Imprecise Tests

Today, history looks to be repeating itself once again. Governments around the world are selectively using statistics in a way that inflates the scale of the Covid pandemic. For instance, over the past month or two, there has been a clear shift in the emphasis that the government and the media are placing on the number of positive Covid-19 cases. Yet with this shift in emphasise, both parties have largely failed to contextualise why this was always going to be the case once mass testing began.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that even if the Covid-19 tests being used are 100% accurate, the more tests you conduct, the more positive cases you are going to find. If we take the UK for example, the number of virus tests being conducted has been
increasing month-by-month since May of this year.

... Furthermore, what percentage of tests are producing false positives? How sensitive are these tests? What is the margin of error in these cases, as some tests are reportedly picking up fragments of dead viruses from infections months ago that are no longer a potential issue? There are questions over the validity of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test for instance, a popular test used.

Kary Mullis, the inventor of the PCR test has said that “quantitative, PCR is an oxymoron.” As John Lauritsen, who quoted Mullis in a 1996 article on the use of PCR tests for HIV patients, wrote:

“PCR is intended to identify substances qualitatively, but by its very nature is unsuited for estimating numbers. Although there is a common misimpression that the viral load tests actually count the number of viruses in the blood, these tests cannot detect free, infectious viruses at all; they can only detect proteins that are believed, in some cases wrongly, to be unique to HIV. The tests can detect genetic sequences of viruses, but not viruses themselves."
 (read more)

2020-12-18 c
THE COVID-CON II

Grand County Coroner Raises Concern On Deaths Among COVID Cases

The Grand County coroner is calling attention to the way the state health department is classifying some deaths. The coroner, Brenda Bock, says two of their five deaths related to COVID-19 were people who died of gunshot wounds.


Bock says because they tested positive for COVID-19 within the past 30 days, they were classified as “deaths among cases.”

“It’s absurd that they would even put that on there,” she said. “Would you want to go to a county that has really high death numbers? Would you want to go visit that county because they are contagious. You know I might get it, and I could die if all of a sudden one county has a high death count. We don’t have it, and we don’t need those numbers inflated.”

The state health department says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requires them to report people who’ve died with COVID-19 in their systems because it’s crucial for public health surveillance.

Colorado provides death data related to COVID-19 in two ways:
•Deaths due to COVID-19:
•This is based on CDC coding of death certificates where COVID-19 is listed as the cause of death or a significant condition contributing to death.

•Deaths among COVID-19 cases: •This reflects people who died with COVID-19, but COVID-19 may not have been the cause of death listed on the death certificate.

CDPHE explains that they are required to report deaths among COVID-19 cases to the CDC. (read more)

2020-12-18 b
THE COVID-CON I
"Results of this critical appraisal reveal information bias and selection bias in coronavirus mortality overestimation, most likely caused by misclassifying an influenza infection fatality rate as a case fatality rate."
+
"Unfortunately, even experts can make simple miscalculations that can lead to catastrophic results."
+
"The ethics of implementing fear-based public health campaigns needs to be reevaluated for the potential harm these strategies can cause."

Public Health Lessons Learned From Biases in Coronavirus Mortality Overestimation

Abstract

In testimony before US Congress on March 11, 2020, members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee were informed that estimated mortality for the novel coronavirus was 10-times higher than for seasonal influenza. Additional evidence, however, suggests the validity of this estimation could benefit from vetting for biases and miscalculations. The main objective of this article is to critically appraise the coronavirus mortality estimation presented to Congress. Informational texts from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are compared with coronavirus mortality calculations in Congressional testimony. Results of this critical appraisal reveal information bias and selection bias in coronavirus mortality overestimation, most likely caused by misclassifying an influenza infection fatality rate as a case fatality rate. Public health lessons learned for future infectious disease pandemics include: safeguarding against research biases that may underestimate or overestimate an associated risk of disease and mortality; reassessing the ethics of fear-based public health campaigns; and providing full public disclosure of adverse effects from severe mitigation measures to contain viral transmission.

[Introduction]
On September 23, 1998, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) permanently lost contact with the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter. A simple miscalculation, failure to convert English measurements to metric measurements, doomed the Mars space mission. A later investigation found that backup quality assurance procedures were not in place at NASA to catch and correct this simple miscalculation. Fast forward 22 years to another crisis involving a US government agency: On March 11, 2020, the US Congress House Oversight and Reform Committee received information from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) concerning the novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and coronavirus-disease 2019 (COVID-19). Based on the data available at the time, Congress was informed that the estimated mortality rate for the coronavirus was 10-times higher than for seasonal influenza, which helped launch a campaign of social distancing, organizational and business lockdowns, and shelter-in-place orders.

Previous to the Congressional hearing, a less severe estimation of coronavirus mortality appeared in a February 28, 2020 editorial released by NIAID and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Published online in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM.org), the editorial stated:

“…the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%).”

Almost as a parenthetical afterthought, the NEJM editorial inaccurately stated that 0.1% is the approximate case fatality rate of seasonal influenza. By contrast, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 0.1% or lower is the approximate influenza infection fatality rate,5 not the case fatality rate. To fully appreciate the significance of discrepancies in fatality rate usage by NIAID, the CDC, and the WHO, brief definitions of relevant epidemiological terms follow.

Case fatality rates (CFRs), infection fatality rates (IFRs), and mortality rates are used by epidemiologists to describe deaths during and after an infectious disease outbreak. The CDC defined a mortality rate as the frequency of deaths within a time period relative to the size of a well-defined population. Patients may be classified as having an influenza-like illness (ILI) such as COVID-19 according to standard criteria in a case definition. A CFR is defined as the proportion of deaths among confirmed cases of the disease. CFRs indicate the disease severity, while an IFR is defined as the proportion of deaths relative to the prevalence of infections within a population. IFRs are estimated following an outbreak, often based on representative samples of blood tests of the immune system in individuals exposed to a virus. Estimation of the IFR in COVID-19 is urgently needed to assess the scale of the coronavirus pandemic.

Because different types of fatality rates can vary widely, it is imperative to not confuse fatality rates with one another; else misleading calculations with significant consequences could result.

DISCUSSION

Confusion between CFRs and IFRs may seem trivial, and it is easy to overlook at first, but this confusion may have ultimately led to an unintentional miscalculation in coronavirus mortality estimation. IFRs from samples across the population include undiagnosed, asymptomatic, and mild infections, and are often lower compared with CFRs, which are based exclusively on relatively smaller groups of moderately to severely ill diagnosed cases at the beginning of an outbreak. Due to host defense mechanisms and autoimmunity provided by innate and adaptive immune responses, asymptomatic infections are often prevalent in influenza. With many asymptomatic infections already identified in COVID-19, it appears unlikely that the IFR in an ILI like COVID-19 would approximate the disease’s CFR. Presymptomatic infections can also lower the proportion of asymptomatic infections. For example, a CDC report found that asymptomatic individuals identified through reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing developed symptoms a week later, and those individuals were re-classified as having been presymptomatic at the time of testing.

... A comparison of coronavirus and seasonal influenza CFRs may have been intended during Congressional testimony, but due to misclassifying an IFR as a CFR, the comparison turned out to be between an adjusted coronavirus CFR of 1% and an influenza IFR of 0.1%. Had the adjusted coronavirus mortality rate not been lowered from 3% to 1%, fatality comparisons of the coronavirus to the IFR of seasonal influenza would have increased from 10-times higher to 20- to 30-times higher. By then, epidemiologists might have been alerted to the possibility of a miscalculation in such an alarming estimation.

Quality Assurance

Most people rely on trusted public health experts from organizations like the CDC to disseminate vital information on infectious diseases.26 Unfortunately, even experts can make simple miscalculations that can lead to catastrophic results.

... Mitigation Measures

... Scientists also warned of public health decisions made without reliable data of infection prevalence within the population.45,48 Lacking valid input data due to insufficient testing for disease prevalence, statistical modeling methods often relied on speculative assumptions, producing fearful predictions of increased mortality, which have often proved unreliable. A systematic review found that most diagnostic and predictive models for COVID-19 lack rigor, have a high risk of selection bias, and are likely to have lower predictive performance in actual practice compared with optimistic reports published in the research literature.

... Fear and Collateral Damage

Psychological adverse effects, such as anxiety, anger, and posttraumatic stress, have been linked to restrictive public health mitigation measures due to isolation, frustration, financial loss, and fear of infection.

... Fear, in contrast to moral civic duty and political orientation, was shown to be a more powerful predictor of compliance with mitigating behavior in response to a viral pandemic, but with decreasing well-being and poorer decision-making. Studies have shown that fear impairs performance of cognitive tasks through debilitating anxiety and worry. Even if a threat ceases to exist, prolonged fearful avoidance of threats is maladaptive and restricts a return to normal social interaction and productivity.

... Exaggerated levels of fear were driven by sensationalist media coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic.And yet, while the public was ordered to lockdown, overall costs and benefits to society from severe mitigation measures had not been assessed. Fear of infection also prevented people from seeking needed health-care services in hospitals during the pandemic.The ethics of implementing fear-based public health campaigns needs to be reevaluated for the potential harm these strategies can cause.

... In addition, legal and ethical violations associated with mitigation of pandemic diseases were previously investigated by the Institute of Medicine in 2007. People should have the right to full disclosure of all information pertinent to adverse impacts of mitigation measures during a pandemic, including information on legal and constitutional human rights issues, and the public should be guaranteed a voice in a transparent process as authorities establish public health policy.

Last, severe mitigating measures during the COVID-19 pandemic caused considerable global social and economic disruption.71 Enforced lockdowns increased domestic violence, closed businesses and schools, laid off workers, restricted travel, affected capital markets, threatened the security of low-income families, and saddled governments with massive debt. Between February and April 2020, US unemployment rose from 3.5%, the lowest in 50 years, to 14.7%. A recession in the United States was also officially declared in June 2020 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, ending 128 months of historic economic expansion. Of relevance, economic downturns are associated with higher suicide rates compared with times of prosperity, and increased suicide risk may be associated with economic stress as a consequence of severe mitigation measures during a pandemic.Relapses and newly diagnosed cases of alcohol use disorder were also predicted to increase due to social isolation, and harmful drinking in China increased 2-fold following the COVID-19 outbreak.As a global natural experiment, psychological outcomes from restrictive interventions in the COVID-19 pandemic require further investigations.

... CONCLUSIONS

Sampling bias in coronavirus mortality calculations led to a 10-fold increased mortality overestimation in March 11, 2020, US Congressional testimony. This bias most likely followed from information bias due to misclassifying a seasonal influenza IFR as a CFR, evident in a NEJM.org editorial. Evidence from the WHO confirmed that the approximate CFR of the coronavirus is generally no higher than that of seasonal influenza. By early May 2020, mortality levels from COVID-19 were considerably below predicted overestimations, a result that the public attributed to successful mitigating measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

This article presented important public health lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Reliable safeguards are needed in epidemiological research to prevent seemingly minor miscalculations from developing into disasters. (read more)

2020-12-18 a
GRETCHEN THE GRINCH

How The Gretch Stole Christmas
 
Because the only way to be on the 'Nice' list this Christmas is to mask up and avoid your loved ones at all costs.

Everyone in Michigan likes Christmas a lot…
But the Gretch, who lives just south of the U.P., does NOT!
The Gretch hates Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
No need to ask why. We all know the reason.
Her head clearly isn’t screwed on just right.
For she claims the Wuhan virus will kill all in sight.
As part of her plan to ramp up social pressure
She’s indoctrinating the kids, just for good measure.

“Thank you for joining us!” she told kids on a Zoom call.
“I’m really excited to be here with all!”
She brought a special guest — oh, who could it be?
None other than Santa, concerned for safety.
He’s been “following the rules,” the Gretch said with a smirk,
And social distancing from elves when they all go to work.
“Hello, boys and girls! How are you?” Santa asked,
Making sure to stress he prefers to be masked.

Rather than sit on the lap of Saint Nick,
Kids asked health questions virtually to avoid getting sick.
No “What would you like for Christmas this year?”
Just political posturing and stoking of fear.
Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like COVID precautions.
Happy holidays — Now go to the sink and get washing!
The kids each took turns, asking Santa their questions,
While the true meaning of Christmas got not even a mention.

We’ll “set out hand sanitizer” for your cookies and milk,
One boy said, to the pleasure of Gretch and her ilk.
She replied with a smile, “That was a good suggestion.”
Then it was on to the next cringey, scripted question.
“How can we keep people safe?” came the query.
Just obey the Gretch, and there’s no need to worry.
Stay away from all of your loved ones and friends,
That’s the only way the pandemic will end.
“Stay home,” said the Gretch. You’d better comply.
Don’t you dare gather, or grandma will die.

“Social distance,” Santa warned, and “wash your hands.”
To be on the “Nice” list, follow all Gretch’s plans.
You must “wear your mask when you’re outside your home.”
To hell with the science. Spend Christmas alone.
This year must be “different,” they heard the Gretch say.
But it’s all for your safety, making tyranny OK.

Corona itself can’t kill the Christmas spirit.
But to keep her control, the Gretch needs us to fear it.
For next week, she knows, all the Michigan kin
Will wake bright and early and welcome friends in.
Constituents, young and old, will sit down to a feast.
And they’ll feast! And they’ll feast!
And they’ll FEAST! 
FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!

They’ll gather with loved ones, the lockdown will cease
Which is something the Gretch cannot stand in the least!
And then they’ll do something she likes least of all!
Every Christian in Michigan, the tall and the small,
Will stand close together, with Christmas bells ringing.
They’ll stand hand-in-hand, and they all will start singing!
They’ll sing! And they’ll sing! And they’ll SING!
 SING! SING! SING!
And the more the Gretch thinks of this whole Christmas Sing,
The more the Gretch thinks, I must stop this whole thing!
(read more)

2020
-12-17 k
WHO OWNS JOHN ROBERTS?


This may be most important tweet of my life.

Chief Justice John Roberts is corrupt & should resign immediately.
Justice Stephen Breyer should also resign immediately.


They are “anti-Trumpers” dedicated to preventing public from
knowing TRUTH of @realDonaldTrump re-election.


— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) December 17, 2020


*


I have long had questions about “the John Roberts” on Jeffrey Epstein
private jet flight logs. I suspected it was our Chief Justice. MSM has
shown no interest in investigating issue to find TRUTH.


America is now entitled to know the answer.

Every lie will be revealed.

Pray.

— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) December 17, 2020


*

Corruption & deceit have reached most powerful office in our country
– the Chief Justice of U.S. Supreme Court.


This is a sad day for our country but a day on which we must wake up & face the truth.

Roberts is reason that SCOTUS has not acted on election cases. Others involved.

— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) December 17, 2020


2020-12-17 j
THE COVID-CON VIII
"But if even a third of the rest of the people in my area or yours refuse to wear the Holy Vestment of the Sickness Cult then it would not appear normal."

Stopping the Spread

How do we cure Sickness Psychosis?

We don’t. But each of us can act individually- and that becomes a compounding and cumulative thing of eventually great power, in the manner of rain drops becoming rivulets becoming creeks and streams, then mighty torrents.

As an individual, I refuse to play Sickness Kabuki. I have never once worn a Face Diaper and have ignored all the “lockdown” decrees issued by the Gesundheitsführer of my state.

This is all I can do.

By myself, it’s not much. One person out of a supermarket-full of the Faceless presents the spectacle of a curious heretic to the Faithful, who remain secure in their Faith – in the manner of everyone at a Hare Krishna gathering wearing the same saffron robes. The robe-wearers appear to be the “normal” ones, as far as they can see.

But if even a third of the rest of the people in my area or yours refuse to wear the Holy Vestment of the Sickness Cult then it would not appear normal. Those wearing the Holy Vestment would look like the small group of Krishnas you used to see at airports – i.e., obvious weirdos to be avoided.

Which would discourage people from joining up.   

The “lockdowns” and Sickness Kabuki – including the locking up of elderly people – would end within a week.

If even a third – perhaps it would only take a fourth – of small businesses had defied the Gesundheitsführer orders that they shutter their businesses the only businesses that would now be out of business would be those that freely chose to close their doors – and that would be on them, economic suicide being as much their right as personal hari-kari.

But they would not have enabled the economic murder of the businesses that wanted to live.

Conformity is the killer. It is the thing which tyranny requires before it becomes inescapable.

... It would be impossible to compel a third of the population to wear the Holy Rag – especially if a third of all businesses refuse to enforce the wearing of it. (read more)

2020
-12-17 i
THE COVID-CON VII
"It was your quacking that emboldened tyrants like Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Angela Merkel (who also just canceled Christmas), and all the other progressive Governors and rulers."

Cuomo, Whitmer, Newsom Are Worse Than Wrong: Coronavirus Update XLIV

OPEN TYRANNY

The Godmother closed restaurants again. Not because of any new evidence. Not because of any evidence at all. Because he could. Because there’s nothing you can, or will, do about it. Obey.

One reporter on the story, bless him, said “The state’s own data at Friday’s press conference revealed that indoor dining accounted for a scant 1.4?percent of infection spread– which might be less risky than crossing the street.”

Evidence from Day One was that lockdowns killed, lockdowns destroyed. We’ll below that our annual voluntary lockdowns account for the winter peak in deaths. Evidence never mattered to Cuomo, or to the other tyrants. Evidence can never matter when confronting The Science.

... You are still allowed by law to seethe. Enjoy that while you can. Tyrants hate disagreement above all things. When they are fully in charge, they will remove the seething loophole.

It was your fear, your panic that caused this.

It was your quacking that emboldened tyrants like Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Angela Merkel (who also just canceled Christmas), and all the other progressive Governors and rulers.

Who (besides regular readers, who follow these matters) guessed tyranny would be so easy? All governments had to say was “Stay inside, close your business”, and there was no recourse, no way to disobey.

Your fear taught them a valuable lesson. They will not forget it.

... ... We seem to have settled on a level about 2 million tests a day. We’ve in the middle of Panic 2.0, which is causing more tests but also frightening people away from hospitals. Balance achieved!

Each positive test in the media is counted as a new “case”. These are almost all not cases, but merely positive tests, which indicate past infections, current by mild infections, asymptomatic infections, and even no infections at all. False positives.

... IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND DEATHS ALWAYS INCREASE RIGHT AT THIS TIME OF YEAR, PEAKING IN JANUARY. DO NOT BE ALARMED. PLEASE PASS THIS INFORMATION ON!


Do you see the January peak every year? It is caused when we enter our voluntary lockdowns in winter, spreading bugs. This is also the “solution” governments hit upon to stop the spread of bugs. Lockdowns kill.

The CDC (important!) stopped reporting separate flu and pneumonia deaths midway through 2020, but I estimate them after by subtracting deaths “involving” COVID from those “involving” (their word) pneumonia or flu or COVID.  (read more)

Also by the same author:

Take Your Masks Off: That’s What THE Science Says

If you’re a surgeon and risk getting blood shot up your nose, or snot shot down into the open body, wear a mask. If you’re a painter, working with insulation and the like, wear a mask.

Wear a mask if you have an active illness you suspect might be coronadoom. That’s polite. Wear a mask if you are fat, old, diabetic, sick, or are otherwise susceptible, and are venturing to an area which might contain people who are actively sick with the doom.

Of course, if they’re going to arrest or fine you, wear a mask when you’re sure you can’t get away without it, or can’t afford the fine or jail time.

The rest of you don’t have to wear masks. Not now.

What follows is a list of links and papers on the evidence of the efficacy of masks. Which is low to nonexistent. Not that this evidence matters to most, especially those who cherish their fear. But I present it anyway, because I can’t help myself. If you see any I’ve not yet discovered, please put them in the comments.

Show this article to anybody who says, unironically, “The science”.(read more)

2020-12-17 h
THE COVID-CON VI

After Weeks Of Holier Than Thou Howling, The ‘Thanksgiving Surge’ Is A No Show

After weeks of warnings, the ‘Thanksgiving Surge’ predicted by health experts who warned against traveling for the holiday is a no show.

A flight map of the Tuesday before Thanksgiving showed a staggering amount of Americans were traveling for the holiday – something experts and politicians warned against.

The skies above North America at Noon ET on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

Active flights
2018: 6,815
2019: 7,630
2020: 6,972

... Data from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) days prior to the holiday showed more than three million people traveled through airports despite guidance suggesting otherwise.

However, nearly three weeks later, there so far appears to be no post-holiday surge in numerous cities and states.

“We haven’t seen something significant to talk about now,” Illinois Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said, according to the Chicago Tribune. “We’ll see for sure in this coming week … We’ll keep our fingers crossed that maybe we’re not going to see a big bump.”

Ezike was one of many public health officials who cautioned Americans to skip out on family gatherings, noting that the celebrations could actually be super spreader events, according to the report. The average new detected infections was declining prior to Thanksgiving but rose a bit afterwards. However, it has since been on the decline, according to the Chicago Tribune.

... “We are cautiously optimistic that there was not a post-Thanksgiving surge in cases,” Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, the state’s chief medical executive said, according to the AP. “That means many Michiganders did their part in keeping the spread of the virus down over the Thanksgiving holiday.”

Like Illinois, the state also prohibited indoor dining and shut down some businesses on Nov. 18 to slow the spread, according to the report.

Minnesota has also not seen a Thanksgiving related coronavirus case surge. Data reporter David Montgomery with MPR News said he feels confident that Thanksgiving didn’t seem to contribute to any new cases, according to KARE 11.

“There’s absolutely no sign of a direct trend-changing impact from Thanksgiving gatherings here in Minnesota,” Montgomery said, according to the report. (read more)

2020
-12-17 g
THE COVID-CON V
"I hope he thought he was enforcing an idiotic rule and had no choice. Then there is hope for him and for America. Otherwise, he’s an irrational automaton, among the scariest people in any society."

When 2-Year-Olds Are Thrown Off Airplanes, You Know America Has Changed

You may have seen the video of the family thrown off a United Airlines airplane because the 2-year-old daughter would not wear a mask. Though the family wore masks and the father promised to cover his daughter’s face with a mask that he placed on her face, it made no difference. Though the child was completely asymptomatic, and though it is exceedingly rare for a child to transmit COVID-19 to an adult — that is why Sweden kept its schools open all spring and summer, with its students not wearing masks — the airline had its orders, and the flight attendant duly obeyed them.

As I watched the video, I wondered what the flight attendant thought. For example, did he think this was absurd, not to mention cruel? Did he know that 2-year-olds present virtually no health risk? Did he wonder why adults can sit without masks inches from other passengers while eating but a 2-year-old seated only next to family needed a mask?

Or did he think he was performing a noble service in kicking a family off an airplane because their 2-year-old wouldn’t wear a mask?

I hope he thought he was enforcing an idiotic rule and had no choice. Then there is hope for him and for America. Otherwise, he’s an irrational automaton, among the scariest people in any society.

Does United Airlines think it’s enforcing a rational and humane policy, regarding 2-year-olds as dangerous disease spreaders?

Here is what we can assume:

United Airlines has made the calculation that if it doesn’t enforce every directive from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, two bad things will result: 1) People will be too scared to fly United; 2) If anyone gets COVID-19 after a United flight on which a 2-year-old was allowed to fly without a mask, the airline will be sued.

Regarding children and mask-wearing, the CDC website states, “Masks should NOT be worn by children under the age of 2.” The CDC capitalizes “NOT.”

... Welcome to America 2020.

It is not overstated to declare the year 2020 the year it became legitimate to question whether America could still declare itself either “the Land of the Free” or “the Home of the Brave.” Maybe it really is time to replace the national anthem with some other song that doesn’t have us singing what so many of us no longer believe in. When half of America sings those words, they are no longer referring to themselves or what they want America to be. About half of us — more or less, the half that voted Donald Trump for president — still believes that America should be the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. But half of us, including the entire elite — the major media; the entire educational system from elementary school through graduate school; national, most state and all major city bureaucracies; and the Democratic Party — neither value freedom nor seek to be brave.

When I see Americans walking outdoors with masks on, my first reaction is to mourn the death of reason and my second is to wonder what college they attended. Because one of the many other awful things colleges do to most of their students is make them afraid: afraid not only of dying if they pass another human being while walking their dog but also of dying from global warming, and afraid of any ideas not inculcated into them by their school. That’s why they and most of their professors object to conservatives speaking at their school. To the brainwashed, different ideas are frightening and make them feel “unsafe” (hence, “safe spaces” at so many colleges).

When viruses killed the equivalent of about 165,000 Americans in 1968 and about 225,000 in 1957 (numbers adjusted based on the current U.S. population), healthy Americans did not quarantine; no one hid behind masks; no school closed; no store or restaurant went out of business. Why? Because people understood that viruses and death are tragic parts of life, and it never occurred to them to deprive children of their studies, their friends and their childhood. It didn’t occur to Americans that because some people contracted a virus and died, 99% of the population should stop living and earning livelihoods. In that America, the news media were not singularly dedicated to frightening Americans. And most important, the left had not yet succeeded in ruining the country; after all, far fewer Americans went to college at that time, and high school and elementary school teachers still viewed their vocation as a call to teach, not indoctrinate.

All of this explains how we got to the place where United Airlines could throw a 2-year-old girl off an airplane while presumably half the passengers supported her eviction and the other half was cowed into silence. (read more)

2020-12-17 f
THE COVID-CON IV
"A judge just ruled that he could not find a connection between restaurant services and the spread of COVID. "

San Diego judge rules in favor of strip clubs remaining open, County will stop enforcing restaurant closures for now

A judge had previously granted a similar temporary restraining order for Cheetahs Gentlemen's Club and Pacers Showgirls International.

A San Diego Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that the state and county are prohibited from enforcing California's regional stay- at-home order against two San Diego strip clubs.

Judge Joel R. Wohlfeil, who previously granted a similar temporary restraining order for Cheetahs Gentlemen's Club and Pacers Showgirls International, wrote in his nine-page ruling that the state of California and San Diego County have not provided evidence tying the spread of COVID-19 or lack of intensive care unit bed capacity to live adult entertainment or businesses with restaurant service.

Wohlfeil's ruling also applied to "San Diego County businesses with restaurant service," though it was unclear exactly what businesses that portion of the ruling would apply to.

... Officials with the state and county did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding the ruling. However, San Diego County did say it would pause on enforcing restaurant enclosures until further notice:

... The ruling comes after the clubs recently received cease-and-desist letters from the California Attorney General's Office, which stated Cheetahs and Pacers were operating in violation of the Dec. 3 stay-at-home policy barring outdoor and indoor dining, as well as large gatherings.

Attorney Jason Sacuzzo, who represents Pacers, argued there hasn't been a single case of COVID-19 transmission traced to either club since Wohlfeil issued the temporary restraining order in early November, a claim the judge referenced in his ruling. (read more)

2020-12-17 e
THE COVID-CON III

Mexico’s President Slams Lockdowns as a Form of “Dictatorship”

Says stay-at-home orders betray “authoritarian instincts” of governments.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador slammed lockdowns as a form of “dictatorship” during a press conference, telling reporters that such measures betray “authoritarian instincts.”

The populist leftist leader, known as AMLO by his supporters, said that COVID-19 lockdowns were “fashionable among authorities…who want to show they are heavy handed, dictatorship.”

“A lot of them are letting their authoritarian instincts show,” he added, noting that, “The fundamental thing is to guarantee liberty.”

López Obrador also insisted that mask-wearing should be voluntary and not mandated by the state. (read more)

2020-12-17 d
THE COVID-CON II
"In other words, they’re mad as hell, and they’re not gonna take this anymore."

Californians Are Fed Up With Newsom’s Draconian Shutdowns

Golden Staters lose patience with the governor’s tin-pot tyranny. 

Welcome to California, where our dictator has movie star hair, a dayglo smile, and an impeccably progressive resume.

What he likely doesn’t have any longer is the support of a majority of his constituents.

Californians don’t like to break the law, except when it comes to speeding. Maybe the nice weather discourages civil disobedience. But after Gavin Newsom’s latest diktat on December 3 — his most onerous closure and stay-at-home order since March — millions of citizens in the Golden State have reached their breaking points. With the tremendous economic, mental, and physical costs they’ve borne because of school closures and economic shutdowns, many of them are beginning to suspect that their sacrifice hasn’t been worth it. They’re even starting to wonder if Newsom’s irresponsible orders are making matters worse for their families, their state, and their country.

In other words, they’re mad as hell, and they’re not gonna take this anymore.

When COVID hit the state back in March, Gov. Newsom — aka Prince Gavin, Governor Hairdo, Gruesome Newsom — began issuing the first of his executive orders without the input of the state legislature. As Generalissimo, Newsom relishes giving lengthy press conferences in which he delivers long-winded, self-aggrandizing speeches filled with an endless torrent of clichés and corporate buzzwords. He “leans into problems,” “believes in science,” and stays “proactive.” He “unpacks issues,” “moves the needle,” and “looks under the hood.” He’s a “game changer” who “hits the ground running.”

Yet behind his glib patois and his lip service to “localism” and “community choice,” Newsom is operating a command-and-control autocracy in California. Since March, he’s signed more than 58 executive orders relating to COVID and other issues. Even after several judicial decisions condemned his unilateral actions, he’s shown no interest in letting counties (or the state legislature, for that matter) devise their own solutions to local problems.

His latest order prohibits in-person, indoor Christmas services or any in-person Christmas gatherings for people from more than one household. It restricts movement outside the house (including travel) to “essential services.” Hotels must close their doors to out-of-town guests. Retail stores are limited to 20 percent capacity. All outdoor dining is prohibited (indoor dining has been banned since July), and bars, wineries, nail care, personal services, barbershops, and salons must close their doors until at least December 28. Newsom’s heavy-handed restrictions on religious services also remain in place, despite two recent Supreme Court decisions striking down similar unconstitutional limits on the right to worship.

(Not surprisingly, northern California has so far avoided the stricter protocols, which means you can still get a glass of overpriced, over-oaked Chardonnay at Newsom’s PlumpJack Winery in Oakville.)

Californians’ anger at the San Francisco Sun King over his shutdown orders — and his own failure to follow them — has been bipartisan.

... Even Los Angeles, which has seen the brunt of COVID cases, is showing signs of rebellion. On December 5, Angela Marsden, a local bar owner in Los Angeles, tearfully explained in a viral YouTube video how Newsom forced her to close her outdoor eating area, even though an identical area next to it was allowed to operate under a loophole exempting movie production companies. Actor Michael Rappaport has a similar video in which he loudly (and profanely) tells Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti exactly what he thinks of the shutdowns. (read more)

2020-12-17 c
THE COVID-CON I
"And we know that the shutdowns and mask mandates don’t work. We’re endured the stupidity of the ruling class’s response to the Chinese virus for almost 10 months now, and the evidence is in. "

Liars, Loons, Morons, Cowards, Hypocrites, and Ruin

America’s political class on both sides of the aisle has turned septic.

Last month, just a few days before announcing at a press conference airing statewide that Thanksgiving celebrations involving participants from multiple households would contribute to a deadly spread of COVID-19, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards was photographed cavorting, sans mask and without [anti-]socially distancing, at the exclusive Baton Rouge Country Club.

The photo initially surfaced on Twitter last week and became something of a sensation around the state. Edwards didn’t help his cause when, asked about the photo in a rare example of actual journalism among Louisiana’s legacy media, he denied anything he’d done violated the letter or the spirit of his mask mandates.

Edwards’ moment of hypocrisy wasn’t quite the breathtaking offense that California Gov. Gavin Newsom perpetrated when he was photographed at Napa Valley’s exclusive French Laundry restaurant with a table full of health-care policy bigwigs after shutting that state down. Or when Chicago’s atrocious mayor Lori Lightfoot was caught on camera without a mask at a Joe Biden rally in violation of her own edicts. But it was competitive with Austin Mayor Steve Adler, who demanded his city’s residents stay home while he himself vacationed in Cabo San Lucas. Examples along those lines have popped up like mushrooms across the country.

The rank hypocrisy of America’s ruling class ought to be enough to send the American people into a full revolt against the COVID-19 restrictions being imposed on the country. Those shutdowns, after all, are completely destroying small business in America. Main Street will never recover, at least not in its current form. The wanton destruction and utter cruelty of it was perfectly illustrated in a viral video made by a panicked restaurant owner in Los Angeles showing her ruined business side-by-side with a movie studio’s virtually identical, and open-for-business, catering lot.

And we know that the shutdowns and mask mandates don’t work. We’re endured the stupidity of the ruling class’s response to the Chinese virus for almost 10 months now, and the evidence is in. Of course, you have to look for it, because too many of the supposed leaders in charge of cities and states in this country certainly won’t acknowledge the wealth of statistical evidence showing that locking down our people does nothing to keep them safe.

There was the Danish study about mask-wearing, which showed nominal results, at best, in preventing COVID spread. Subjects who wore masks everywhere they went contracted COVID-19 at a 1.8 percent rate during the study; those without masks contracted the virus at 2.1 percent. That’s essentially statistical noise, and it should have been recognized as proof the masks are a waste of public-policy effort.

“Our study gives an indication of how much you gain from wearing a mask,” said Dr. Henning Bundgaard of the University of Copenhagen, the lead author of the study, said. “Not a lot.”

Instead, the public health bureaucrats who control our political class disregarded the study, even saying it proved everyone should be wearing a mask.

Then there’s the significant evidence showing that lockdowns are worse than useless in preventing the virus from spreading. After all, California has been under a crushing lockdown since the beginning of the pandemic; where are the positive results? And why, after all this time of imposing those lockdowns, is there yet another wave of COVID cases?

After all, the people imposing these lockdowns routinely attack churches while keeping liquor stores open. Such idiocy earned New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo a sharp rebuke from the United States Supreme Court, after all.

... It isn’t just COVID that has exposed the American ruling class for the toxic swamp that it is. We’ve just had an election that was, put most generously, a failure and more honestly may better be described as stolen given the manifest and troubling irregularities showing up in Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The courts have been inundated with lawsuits brimming with sworn affidavits of malfeasance, lawbreaking, statistical analysis, and other evidence that the official vote counts in those states are filled with fraud.

And yet it’s the political class’s mantra, offered almost in the spirit of Kevin Bacon’s “All is well!” assurance in the final scene of Animal House, that there is “no evidence” of fraud or a stolen election.

Worst in this tawdry spectacle is the behavior of Republican officeholders, particularly Georgia’s ridiculous Gov. Brian Kemp and suspiciously awful Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who maintain nothing was untoward in an election likely outright ruined by fraud and chicanery right under their noses. But Kemp and Raffensperger aren’t the only ones.

... Our political class has been descending into toxicity for a long time, with Democrats embracing hard-core socialism and Republican elected officials continually refusing to fight for their constituents. It’s why the Trump phenomenon came about in the first place, and it’s why Trump attracted so many diehard supporters despite breaking almost every rule of practical politics for the last five years.

Now that the conventional wisdom has it that decrepit liar Joe Biden will be inaugurated in January despite, or rather because of, the failed 2020 election, the lunacy and hypocrisy of the ruling class is certainly about to get worse.

And who will fight for the American people? The feckless GOP pols who have stood around and let 2020 happen? (read more)

2020-12-17 b
"This explains why the liberal mob, spearheaded by the Hollywoke castrati, is hellbent on erasing “toxic masculinity” in the arts. To this end, they have transgendered some of the greatest pop culture creations of all time, replacing or supplementing their beloved male heroes with ridiculous female variations"

Real Men Voted for Trump

And they’re not taken in by the lies of weak Democrats or Hollywood.

As we face at least two years of the hierarchal social justice that invariably comes with Democratic rule, one force can help occlude the decline — manhood. For four years, alpha male Donald Trump almost single-handedly kept a horde of Swamp creatures from slithering back into the corridors of power. They could only shriek and wail on large and small screens while he worked to better the country. Then the pandemic struck, allowing them to cow a meek populace into unprecedented submission. They forbade people every normal activity and intimidated them into abnormal ones, such as wearing a mask even when walking alone. Thus enabled, they infiltrated the electoral system, elevating a decaying, clueless figurehead to the highest office in the land. But one fact still sticks in their craw, for they know it could ultimately be their undoing. Real men voted for Trump.

A new poll from the Survey Center on American Life found that self-reported “masculine men” overwhelmingly supported President Trump in the last election, 55 percent to 35 percent (“less masculine” men went for Biden 58 percent to 40 percent). Yet even without the alpha dog in the White House, these masculine men will battle the Swamp. That’s because tough guys will do what they always do: usurp tyranny and unreality, beginning with the liberal dream of a Rainbow Coalition. The greatest obstacle to a permanent majority of minorities is male bonding, which partly explains the record high non-white turnout for Trump. In the same poll, 71 percent of black men and 70 percent of Hispanic men (a group that includes me) identify as “completely masculine.” Pitiably, only 54 percent of white men do — too many having buckled under their racial and gender shaming by liberals.

Still, these numbers strike fear into the heart of the Left, especially among academes who understand anacyclosis, an Ancient Greek term describing the historic cycle of regimes. Scholar Spencer Klavan summarized the concept in his highly instructive “Young Heretics” podcast with a quote from novelist G. Michael Hopf: “Weak men make bad times. Bad times make strong men. Strong men make good times. Good times make weak men.” America today is somewhere between the first and second cycle. Weak men such as Joe Biden and his controllers will cause serious damage, but not so much that strong men won’t be able to undo it. And their number should increase with a little help from the culture — or, as is now the case, the counterculture. (read more)

2020-12-17 a
"Some people might object to the inclusion of Gates in the list of 2020’s idiots because he is stupid year after year, persistently stupid, steadfast in his stupidity. I accept the objection."

The 2020 Idiot of the Year Award

The competition is tough. Who wins? You decide

Being the renowned dummy-ologist I am, it’s an honor to be presenting the first Idiot of the Year Awards. The year 2020 has brought with it an extraordinary harvest of fools. This year they came in all colors, countries, flavors, and sizes. All of this year’s finalists have been seriously and actively stupid, making picking a winner very hard indeed. What follows is my short list, in no specific order, of nominees for the 2020 Idiot of the Year Award.

In the comments section you can vote for your favorite idiot or even propose new ones. It is invariably a source of great pleasure to discover that, impossible as it may seem, there is always room for one more idiot. (read more and vote)

______________________

Permission is hereby granted to any and all to copy and paste any entry on this page and convey it electronically along with its URL, http://www.usaapay.com/comm.html

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Close the windows so you don't hear the mockingbird outside, grab a beer, and see what the hell is going on as we witness the controlled demolition of our society.


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