Jun 212020
 


Lewis Wickes Hine 12-year-old newsie, Hyman Alpert, been selling 3 years, New Haven CT 1909

 

Trump Makes Triumphant Return To Campaign Rallies (JTN)
Trump’s Tulsa Rally Was Just Another Sad Farce (G.)
Over A Third Of Americans Think Civil War Is Likely (ZH)
Judge Says Bolton ‘Gambling With National Security’ But Won’t Block Book (JTN)
Lawyer Says Bolton ‘Utterly Powerless’ To Stop Book’s Circulation (JTN)
Manhattan Prosecutor Steps Down, Ending Stand-Off With AG Barr (R.)
US Travel Industry Revenues To Plummet By Half a Trillion In 2020 (F.)
Nearly Half Of Americans Consider Selling Home As COVID Crushes Finances (ZH)
Greece Urges UK To Return Parthenon Marbles (G.)

 

 

I’m a bit later than usual today, I couldn’t resist taking a walk in the almost deserted city of Athina. It’s terrible for a lot of people I know who work in hospitality, but the quiet is appealing at the same time. Here’s a photo I took just around the corner:

 

 

I brought up a possible civil war in the US yesterday, and just about everything I read appears to rhyme with that idea. Trump held his first meeting last night in Tulsa, and all too predictably the MSM says it was awful and nobody showed up, while the right wing press calls it a “triumphant return”. Nobody cares about news anymore, everything has turned into opinion.

It’s been well over 4 years since I started noticing -and writing about- that the NYT, WaPo et al began to publish 10+ anti-Trump stories every single day, and that got me labeled as a Trump supporter. No use saying that I’m not, and never have been, even Nicole, bless her heart, said: yes you are!

Like I am too stupid to know what I support, or maybe I’m a closet Trumpian. It’s that whole idea of if you don’t comply with the narrative and parrot CNN etc., you must be against them. And it’s true that I dislike CNN very much, for adopting a 24/7 anti-Trump business model, but that is not the same as supporting Trump. A news channel should provide us with news, not a political opinion.

I would almost hope Joe Biden wins (not going to happen) because that would mean the end of CNN. I often think Trump and Jerry Zucker have a secret deal that requires Trump to say 100 crazy things per day and CNN to “report” on all of them and invent 100 more as they go along.

But, you know, only half the country now reads the NYT and WaPo, the so-called liberal half. There once was a time when both halves did, but that is no longer an option. There is more money in one-sided and overblown opinion. The country’s best newspapers have sold their souls to Dr. Faust.

The headlines at Britain’s Guardian this morning pretty much sum up the entire story:

• Donald Trump: President sows division and promises ‘greatness’ at Tulsa rally flop

• US president’s much hyped return turned to humiliation when he failed to fill arena in Republican stronghold of Oklahoma

• Don’t call it a comeback: rally was just another sad farce

• ‘Kung flu’ President uses racist term to describe Covid-19

• ‘Saving our country’: An event for Trump’s true believers

And people who read things like the Guardian, NYT, WaPo, keep on eating it up. They buy these papers, they take out subscriptions, just to get their daily fill of anti-Trump “news”. I personally think that is extremely sad, and dangerous to boot. But if and when I say that, I will be labeled a Trump supporter again.

Because that is the easy way out for the Orange Man Bad crowd. Just as it will be, mind you, for all those out there who are going to take a bite out of Joe Biden’s dementia. We should all be able to do better. We should all be able to see that this is not about two old white guys, and that they have much more in common with each other than they have with you or me.

But in the present environment, try saying you’re not partisan and you’ll be labeled “partisan” for saying it. That’s why I brought up the civil war thing yesterday. The liberal press absolutely loves the fact that some grandma on TikTok made kids in Korea order 1000s of tickets for Tulsa and then not show up. The same press that wouldn’t know TikTok from a hole in the ground.

Meanwhile, has anyone at all pondered what the outcome will be for a Joe Biden rally? Oh my Lord, the excitement! Be still my heart. Bring an extra set of underwear.

If the TikTok fake tickets thing happened to a Joe Biden “event”, you know who would be blamed? Russia.

 

 

Worldometer reports new cases for June 20 (midnight to midnight GMT+0) at + 181,005 .

My count 6AM EDT to 6AM EDT (a bit more today) based on Worldometer numbers is 159,182.

 

 

 

 

New cases past 24 hours in:

• US + 33,388
• Brazil + 31,571
• Russia + 7,889
• India + 15,545

 

 

Cases 8,945,774 (+ 159,182 from yesterday’s 8,786,592)

Deaths 467,306 (+ 4,150 from yesterday’s 463,156)

 

 

 

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-:

 

 

From Worldometer:

 

 

From COVID19Info.live:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just the News is John Solomon’s new outlet.

Trump Makes Triumphant Return To Campaign Rallies (JTN)

After months of coronavirus, racial strife and economic calamity, President Trump returned Saturday night to the campaign trail with a extravagant stadium event in Tulsa, Okla., vowing to win re-election on behalf of a “silent majority” of Americans drowned out by polls, media pundits and protesters. n”You are warriors,” a smiling Trump declared as he waved and gave fist pumps to an audience of thousands who braved fears about contagion, a lawsuit that failed to stop the events and protests outside the arena.


“I stand before you today to declare the silent majority is stronger than ever before,” Trump said to cheers. “Five months from now we’re going to defeat sleepy Joe Biden. … We are going to stop the radical left, and we’re going to build a future of safety and opportunity for Americans of every race color, religion and creed.” Seeking to address the recent rioting and protests caused by police killings, Trump portrayed himself and the GOP as best suited to bring racial healing and quell the violence. “Republicans are the party of liberty, equality and justice for all. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, and we are the party of law and order,” he told the crowd.

Read more …

“You got punked by several hundred thousand TikTok users, organized by a grandmother in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Mary Jo Laupp was apparently so upset by the original date and place of Trump’s rally – the city where one of America’s worst racist massacres took place, in 1921 – that she asked people to sign up for the rally and not show up. Laupp only joined TikTok earlier this year, but her call connected with thousands of K-Pop fans who are what Trump might call a silent majority.”

Trump’s Tulsa Rally Was Just Another Sad Farce (G.)

There have been so many reasons to feel embarrassed about Donald Trump. There was the time he paid off a porn star. There was the time he lied about the size of his inauguration crowd. The time he talked about the big water around Puerto Rico. The time he thought you could kill the coronavirus by injecting yourself with bleach. But nothing truly comes close to the embarrassment of his so-called comeback rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday. It was so toe-curlingly cringeworthy, such a crushing humiliation. There are 80s pop bands who have enjoyed greater comebacks than Donald Trump. To understand how much of his insides will always melt at the thought of that Tulsa rally, it’s worth quoting Trump’s fine words just before he boarded Marine One at the White House.


“The event in Oklahoma is unbelievable,” he boasted. “The crowds are unbelievable. They haven’t seen anything like it. And we will go there now. We’ll give a, hopefully, good speech. We’re going to see a lot of great people, a lot of great friends. And pretty much, that’s it. OK?” We really haven’t seen anything like that. For a man who loves peddling superlatives, this was the worst measure of his oh-so-sad popularity. The lowest point in electoral incompetence. The saddest campaign fiasco. The event in Oklahoma was literally unbelievable if you believe that the Trump campaign is competent, and that Trump himself is actually popular. That’s the weird thing about our populist president: his approval ratings have never cracked 50% and are now stuck firmly in the low 40s. Perhaps that’s why he’s trailing Joe Biden by double-digits in recent polls.

Read more …

Think perhaps I shouldn’t have raised the spectre of civil war yesterday?

Over A Third Of Americans Think Civil War Is Likely (ZH)

No one would have ever fathomed, that America – the greatest country in the world – with “the greatest economy ever” – could even be on the cusp of a civil war. Except for Peter Turchin, who predicted a decade ago in the scholarly journal Nature that America would “suffer a period of major social upheaval” starting around the year 2020. As race-driven/anti-police protests flourish nationwide – one-in-three Americans are warming up to the idea the country is on the brink of another civil war, according to Rasmussen Reports. The latest findings found 34% of respondents said the country would experience a second civil war within five years, and that includes 9% of those who said it’s very likely. Rasmussen noted, “This compares to 31 percent and 11 percent respectively two years ago.”

When examining between party lines, 40% of Republicans said civil war was “on the horizon,” while 28% of Democrats concurred. Around 38% of Independent voters said a civil war is possible in the next five years. The survey of 1,000 likely U.S. voters was conducted on June 11 and 14 by Rasmussen Reports, also asked respondents about local governments and protesters removing Confederate monuments. Rasmussen said: “39 percent) of all voters believe the removal of Confederate symbols, names, and monuments throughout the country honoring those who fought in the first civil war will help race relations. Twenty-seven percent (27 percent) disagree and think it will hurt race relations instead.”

“These numbers are reversed from August 2017 when 28% said the removal of the symbols would help race relations, while 39% thought it would hurt instead. Little changed is the 28% who think the removal of public traces of the Confederacy will have no impact,” it noted. Rasmussen continued, “Women and those under 40 are more supportive of the current anti-police protests and the anti-Confederacy drive than men and older voters.” “Younger voters worry most about another civil war… Just 29 percent of blacks believe the current protests will lead to long-term, meaningful racial change in America, compared to 35 percent of whites and 48 percent of other minority voters,” it said.

Chaos in America’s inner cities have been brewing for some time – and was due to erupt, according to Turchin. He looked at “declining wages, wealth inequality and exploding national debt” as social pressures that affected national stability. His model showed that the U.S. would reach a “boiling point” in 2020 — none of this should come as a surprise to Zero Hedge readers. So does civil war become a self-fulfilling prophecy with a third of Americans believing severe domestic turmoil is ahead?

Read more …

How about a $1 billion fine for Simon and Schuster? For sending out 10,000 copies while the case was pending?

Judge Says Bolton ‘Gambling With National Security’ But Won’t Block Book (JTN)

A federal judge on Saturday declined to block the publication of former national security adviser John Bolton’s tell-all book about the Trump White House, dealing a blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to halt what they claimed was a book full of classified information. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in a decision issued Saturday declared that the government “failed to establish that an injunction will prevent irreparable harm,” noting that the book was already in widespread circulation even prior to formal publication. But Lamberth also slammed Bolton for “gambl[ing] with the national security of the United States” and “expos[ing] his country to harm” by ordering the publication of the book “without written authorization and without notice to the government.”


Bolton’s lawyers had argued yesterday that their client was “powerless” to stop the book’s dissemination throughout media and society. Copies of the manuscript have already been delivered to journalists, book reviewers and other media outlets around the country. Lamberth in his ruling agreed, writing that “by the looks of it, the horse is not just out of the barn—it is out of the country.”

Read more …

He couldn’t even stop himself from writing, it, I tells ya. It was divine intervention.

Lawyer Says Bolton ‘Utterly Powerless’ To Stop Book’s Circulation (JTN)

A lawyer for former national security adviser John Bolton on Friday argued before a district judge that his client is “utterly powerless” to stop the widespread circulation of his tell-all book, urging the court to dismiss the Trump administration’s attempt to halt publication of the book. The administration has sued to block the release of the book, arguing it contains classified information that necessitates the use of prior restraint, a high bar for governments to clear under First Amendment jurisprudence. In addition to arguing that the book’s material is suitable for publication, attorney Charles Cooper told Judge Royce Lamberth of the D.C. District Court that “the horse is out of the barn” on the matter of the book’s becoming part of the public record. Numerous journalists and media outlets around the country have already received advance copies of the account.


“This isn’t really a judicial proceeding,” Cooper told Lamberth. “It doesn’t actually have as its purpose convincing you to order John Bolton to do something that he is utterly powerless to do, and that you are utterly powerless to force him to do,” namely pull the book from general circulation. Justice Department lawyer David Morrell urged Lamberth to direct Bolton to halt publication “and further dissemination” of the book prior to further review. Morrell said Bolton committed a “flagrant breach” of proper protocol in seeking to publish the alleged classified material. Bolton’s attorneys in an earlier filing had urged Lamberth to toss the suit, claiming that the memoir – which reveals alleged incidents witnessed by Bolton during his tenure at the White House from April 2018 to September 2019 – is protected speech under the First Amendment.

Read more …

Again: the left’s new hero is a Trump campaign contributor.

Manhattan Prosecutor Steps Down, Ending Stand-Off With AG Barr (R.)

A stand-off over the independence of one of the country’s most important prosecutor’s offices ended on Saturday when Geoffrey Berman agreed to step down as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the office that had been investigating President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani. Berman’s confirmation of his departure came after Attorney General William Barr told him he had been fired by Trump at Barr’s request, and that Berman’s hand-picked No. 2, Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, would become Acting U.S. Attorney until a permanent replacement is installed. Under Strauss’ leadership, Berman said the office could continue its “tradition of integrity and independence.”


Berman’s office, which is known for prosecuting the most high profile terrorism cases, Wall Street financial crimes and government corruption, has not shied from taking on figures in Trump’s orbit. It oversaw the prosecution of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, indicted two Giuliani associates and launched a probe into Giuliani in connection with his efforts to dig up dirt on Trump’s political adversaries in Ukraine. Giuliani has not formally been accused of any wrongdoing. The standoff with Berman follows the latest in a series of moves by Barr that critics say are meant to benefit Trump politically and undermine the independence of the Justice Department. It also comes as Trump has sought to purge officials perceived as not fully supporting him. In recent weeks he has fired a series of agency watchdogs, including one who played a key role in Trump’s impeachment earlier this year.

Read more …

Stay at Herm.

US Travel Industry Revenues To Plummet By Half a Trillion In 2020 (F.)

Travel spending in the United States will fall by more than a half-trillion dollars this year and likely won’t recover to 2019 levels until 2024. That’s according to a new economic analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and government steps to constrict personal and business interactions in an effort to fight the disease’s spread. The dire forecast was prepared for the U.S. Travel Association, a Washington lobby group, by Tourism Economics. Both the USTA and the Air Line Pilots Association on Thursday went public with new requests for federal assistance. The analysis projects that companies providing travel related services – airlines, hotels, restaurants, attractions and more – will take in $505 billion less in revenue by the end of this year than they did in 2019.


Last year U.S. travel spending topped $1.1 trillion, an all-time high. This year the same group is forecast to take in 45 percent less revenue, or around $622 billion. Furthermore, the forecast for 2020 shows that while travel spending in the U.S. on travel in 2021 should rise 37.5 percent over this year’s total spending to around $855 billion, that still would leave the U.S. travel industry 24 percent smaller in terms of revenues in 2021 than it was in 2019. The recovery in travel spending is then forecast to continue in 2022 and 2023, but at a slower pace. The forecast 14.2 percent growth in travel spending in 2022 would take total spending to just shy of a trillion dollars: 976 billion.

Read more …

Would it be really stupid if I ask who’s going to buy them?

Nearly Half Of Americans Consider Selling Home As COVID Crushes Finances (ZH)

As the virus pandemic has metastasized into an economic downturn, tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs and are struggling to service mortgage payments. New research offers a glimpse into struggling households, discovers out of the 2,000 American homeowners polled, over half (52%) of respondents say they’re routinely worried about making future mortgage payments and nearly half (47%) considered selling their home because of the inability to service mortgage payments. The study, conducted by OnePoll and the National Association of Realtors, determined 81% of respondents had experienced unexpected financial stress due to the virus-induced recession. Over half (56%) reduced spending so they could service mortgage payments.

Since mid-March, or about the time when the lockdowns began, nearly half (47%) of homeowners have explored alternative ways of making money. About two-thirds of respondents (64%) started side projects, while 53% sold valuables to supplement income. “The swift and unprecedented impact of COVID-19 left many people in a financial emergency, and we want to make sure struggling homeowners know they have relief options, especially during Homeownership Month,” said the National Association of Realtors President Vince Malta. “Realtors and lenders can identify programs and aid designed to help meet loan obligations. Acting quickly may help homeowners stay in their homes and keep the money they have already invested into it,” Malta said.

From clothing (71%) and take-out (66%) to streaming TV services (46%) and groceries (45%), respondents said their spending habits had been significantly reduced so they could service mortgage payments. In a separate report, more than 4 million homeowners are in mortgage forbearance plan – representing 7.54% of all mortgages, delinquencies are set to surpass the great recession, which peaked at 10%.

Read more …

Broken record. Give them back, you twits.

Greece Urges UK To Return Parthenon Marbles (G.)

The New Acropolis Museum was purpose-built to host the one thing every Greek government will always agree on: the Parthenon marbles being returned from London. On Saturday, as the four-storey edifice marked its 11th anniversary, Athens reinvigorated the cultural row calling the British Museum’s retention of the antiquities illegal and “contrary to any moral principle”. “Since September 2003 when construction work for the Acropolis Museum began, Greece has systematically demanded the return of the sculptures on display in the British Museum because they are the product of theft,” the country’s culture minister Lina Mendoni told the Greek newspaper Ta Nea.

“The current Greek government – like any Greek government – is not going to stop claiming the stolen sculptures which the British Museum, contrary to any moral principle, continues to hold illegally.” For years, she said, the museum had argued that Athens had nowhere decent enough to display Phidias’ masterpieces, insisting that its stance was “in stark contrast” to the view of the UK public. In repeated polls, Britons have voiced support for the repatriation of the carvings, controversially removed from the Parthenon in 1802 at the behest of Lord Elgin, London’s ambassador to the Sublime Porte. “It is sad that one of the world’s largest and most important museums is still governed by outdated, colonialist views.” Greece’s centre-right administration has vowed to step up the campaign to win back artworks that adorned the frieze of the Periclean showpiece ahead of the country’s bicentennial independence celebrations next year.

Within weeks of his election, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s prime minister, told the Observer Athens was prepared to allow treasures that had never travelled abroad to be exhibited in London in exchange for the marbles being reunited with “a monument of global cultural heritage”. Well-placed government officials have not excluded the EU pressing for the return of the antiquities as part of an overarching Brexit deal. The row was injected with renewed rancour when the British Museum’s director, Hartwig Fischer, described their removal from Greece as “a creative act”. Half of the 160-metre frieze is in London, with 50 metres in Athens and other pieces displayed in a total of eight other museums across Europe.

Read more …

 

 

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My man. My Main man.

Robert Allen Zimmerman is 79 years old.

But his brain has just been born.

 

Three miles north of purgatory –
one step from the great beyond
I prayed to the cross, and I kissed the girls,
and I crossed the Rubicon.

Bob Dylan

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle June 21 2020

Viewing 13 posts - 41 through 53 (of 53 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #60295
    zerosum
    Participant

    ” … something must change”

    The trend is changing …. the countries without a good health system will rise to the top with the USA death numbers.

    #60296
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    For a change, some mainstream media coverage of the Assange case, without the usual smears and distortions.

    The Australian version of the CBS News program ’60 Minutes’ presented a segment on Julian Assange Sunday night that was missing the usual mainstream media smears and distortions about his case… the 24-minute spot ditched the usual smears against the imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher and instead humanized him to a large national audience.

    The segment made clear Assange was never charged with rape in Sweden, was only wanted for questioning, and that that inquiry has been closed. It reports that the CIA surveilled Assange 24/7 in the embassy, including on privileged conversations with his lawyers; that the CIA plotted to kidnap Assange, poison him and steal one of his boy’s diapers for DNA to prove it was his child. The interview with Australian MP Andrew Wilkie makes clear why the U.S. espionage charges against Assange are really an assault on journalism.

    The program ends with an appeal from [Stella] Morris to Australian prime minister Scott Morrison to apply pressure on the British government to release Assange from high-security Belmarsh prison where he is isolated 23-hours a day on remand waiting a decision on a U.S. extradition request.

    https://consortiumnews.com/2020/06/22/assange-extradition-60-minutes-gives-assange-fair-shake/

    #60297
    John Day
    Participant

    I’m always playing catch-up these days. You may know the feeling. My inbox and the links and emails from internet friends are a firehose of communication, and I can’t keep my drinking up, because the faster I go, the behinder I get.
    Thanks for coming back, Boscohorowitz. Thanks for telling Canadian stories, Wes.
    Guys (and you too, Nicole/Stoneleigh, if you’re monitoring) this is the time to be doing more about investing in future food and water security, in a place where people might have a chance of sustaining something like community and society this decade, this next few decades, maybe.
    The more you grow vegetables, the more you might realize how completely you depend on the macro-economy for the entirety of your life support. That’s not what you would expect, going into it. You might have packets of seed in your bug-out-bag, but not the years of supported existence to develop a gardening system that works.
    Here is “Worse Than I Think” from 2017. Get a piece of paper and line it up to 2020 on that “Limits To Growth” “Standard Run” chart. Does it feel to you like global economy is over those edges of stuff-per-person like the graph shows?It does to me.
    http://www.johndayblog.com/2017/09/worse-than-i-think.html
    Grow vegetables with or without a mask, and figure out where you’ll get fuel, water and food when supply systems break down, because that’s certainly coming. We don’t know how and when. Imagine the internet doesn’t work this weekend. What then? Just do something practical and be guided to another practical step.
    The early heat is hard on my Austin kitchen-garden this year, and the Yoakum garden is still a work in progress, but looking good. It would not do well if the water shut down. The gardens would not produce food without city water.
    Back to the blog, to rapidly rising coronavirus cases in Texas, at my clinic. I’ll be working more, doing extra COVID clinics this week, and more again next week, as decided last night and today. Is that “better” or “worse”? What scale am I using?

    #60298
    jlpicard2
    Participant

    Sounds like you need a break Raúl. As you well know, this is a very long marathon. Since TAE started, who thought the center would hold for so long. Take whatever breaks you need.

    #60299
    John Day
    Participant

    Abstractions are completely different from living experiences.
    I’m sorry to print something so mundane and obvious as that, but “we” collectively are not making physical investments in our own futures for a world with rapidly declining oil and other forms of energy. This energy decline is already evident as less of everything we assume our environment will supply.
    Less order, less transportation of ourselves and things we need, less medical back-up, less income, less electricity, less reliable communication and news, more desperation, more sudden changes.
    Current politics in America are identitarian, and there are sharp divides over wearing masks, or being forced to wear masks, but that is more symbolic, and it does not provide a basis for feeding ourselves in the future, or keeping the desperation levels low enough for people to rationally cooperate to meet common needs.
    Where did the rational cooperation go, which brought our species to this point? I’ll put forward that it works against the power of our elite owners for us to rationally cooperate with each other. They need us to pay tribute, follow their orders and hate each other, though mostly passively.
    That sweet spot for our owners, which we see around us, cannot last very long, but how can we cooperate?
    I propose just working together to grow food. That’s why I’m growing 3 gardens, canning some food, cooking fresh food, and giving it away, or encouraging coworkers to harvest things, explaining what they are. At least some more interest has developed as everybody who works at the North Clinic has to enter through the vegetable garden in the break area, now. Human flows have been rerouted for social distancing, but it has conversely increased vegetable-proximity.
    I’ve included a photograph in the clinic garen from last October, a long time ago, a different moment in history.
    It’s a good time to make the same point that I learned in early 1974, about stuff running out after we learn to live off it.

    I last posted this annotated graph from The Limits To Growth, 1972, in September 2017. Put a straight edge on 2020, and see if you feel like we went over the cliff of human material wealth per capita a few years ago, or at least that we are in some kind of rapid decline already.
    I sure do.
    Please allow me to direct your consciousness back to MIT 1972, where the third iteration of the most advanced systems-analysis computer model, World-3, produced the projected graphs below, of what our species would achieve on our planet, if we kept doing things about the same, without a concerted and global redirection of our efforts, “Business as Usual”. Notice the red line on this graph, marking peak industrial output and food per person. It looks like it falls right about 2014 or 2015. This was not a “prediction”, as the authors stated many times, but a forward projection of historical trends, with the interactions of the trends correlated into each other, rather than being projected in isolation, as if everything else would remain the same. World-1 and World-2 programs had been tested and retested, then further refined to develop World-3. Running the data with a start date of 1900 predicted the 20th century pretty well, including the part that had not yet happened. Limits to growth was a hot topic in 1971, the year that US oil production peaked, just as M. King Hubbert had predicted in the 1950s. We were feeling a lot of change then. I remember. We were surprised, and didn’t want to be surprised again. Remember?
    Move your gaze about halfway between that red line and the marker for 2020, down on the x-axis.
    That’s where Wile-E-Coyote looked down. Do you think it was 2016 or 2017?
    http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/06/nobodys-in-charge.html

    #60300
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    A sample headline from today, 22 June:
    “It’s the end of road for hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19 as Novartis, NIH and WHO pull out of trials”

    A more substantial article from today, quoted below:
    “NIH and Novartis halt hydroxychloroquine trials in COVID-19”

    The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Swiss pharma giant Novartis (NOVN: VX) have both stopped trials of hydroxychloroquine in COVID-19.

    Hydroxychloroquine was found to be very unlikely to be beneficial among patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in the NIH’s ORCHID study… Novartis also decided to discontinue its trial of the drug, which is usually used to treat malaria, among SARS-CoV-2-infected patients. The company blamed enrolment challenges that made study completion infeasible.

    The World Health Organization and Oxford University have also stopped COVID-19 testing of hydroxychloroquine in recent weeks, while its emergency use authorization has been revoked by the US Food and Drug Administration.

    These new developments are a further embarrassment for US President Donald Trump, who said in May that he was taking the drug as a precaution against the virus.

    https://www.thepharmaletter.com/article/nih-and-novartis-halt-hydroxychloroquine-trials-in-covid-19

    Meanwhile, some recent news that’s mostly ignored, about a couple studies showing good results with HCQ being used earlier (unlike some other trials that didn’t give HCQ until the infection was bad enough to require hospitalization):

    “Pre exposure Hydroxychloroquine use is associated with reduced COVID19 risk in healthcare workers”

    Conclusions: This study demonstrated that voluntary HCQ consumption as pre-exposure prophylaxis by HCWs is associated with a statistically significant reduction in risk of SARS-CoV-2.

    Posted June 22, 2020.
    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.09.20116806v2

    “Healthcare workers & SARS-CoV-2 infection in India: A case-control investigation in the time of COVID-19”

    “Consumption of four or more maintenance doses of HCQ was associated with a significant decline in the odds of getting infected

    http://www.ijmr.org.in/article.asp?issn=0971-5916;year=2020;volume=151;issue=5;spage=459;epage=467;aulast=Chatterjee

    #60301
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    “Where did the rational cooperation go, which brought our species to this point? I’ll put forward that it works against the power of our elite owners for us to rationally cooperate with each other. They need us to pay tribute, follow their orders and hate each other, though mostly passively.”

    Many people believe that government control, especially ‘deep’ or ‘shadow’ government control, require sophisticated concepts and advanced technology.

    Only the latter is true, imo, and that advanced technology needn’t be ‘ahead of the curve’. It needn’t be mysterious ET/Tesla theremin music secret technology.

    There’s little need for MKUltra CIA-mind control zombie agents. Mysteriously controlling the weather with giant antennae and aluminoid chemtrails is what Dr. Evil mad scientists do, not what bankster-funded military-industrial-corporate complex gangsters do.

    They use simple means: divide&conquer. Control of money system. Control of existing media. (Notice how much they’ve sucked at using the internet. They’re NOT innovators.) Covert assassination. False flag catastrophes (which are ridiculously easy to do). Thoroughly corrupted police departments (which practically corrupt themselves, anyway; as all insufficiently monitored power centers do).

    Oh, in many or maybe most cases, they use better versions of existing technology. Their surveillance bugs are probably better than Radio Shack… but probably not by much, cuz that’s actually super-simple stuff these days.

    Most of all, they exploit an ancient technology: human nature. They watch everyday people, studying them with cold, clear lynx eyes of simple logic unfettered by a need to see themselves or the world as good. Superior psychopaths understand key aspects of human nature much better than the humans they manipulate.

    They see most of all how we love to split up into camps of kindredness. Racism, ethnicism, nationalism, denominationalism, conservatism, socialism… many thousands of subshades in a vast spectrum… who all act the same: when challenged, or when feeling superior, one group will gather and hoot insulting or threatening noises at another group, which almost immediately responds in kind.

    They see us for the primates we are precisely because they lack what we call “a heart”, that set of emotions that urges us to be more compassionate and loving but also urges us to savagely attack anyone who in anyway threatens that for which we love and feel compassion.

    They manipulate that primitive primal behavior program as easy as throwing a big rock in a pond to scatter the fish.

    That’s all. The rest is just nuance. We have met the enemy, and it *still* is us just as much as it is those who gladly do evil upon us.

    #60304
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    (accept my edit, robot! allah wills it!)

    “That’s where Wile-E-Coyote looked down. Do you think it was 2016 or 2017?”

    Adding the concept of inertia to the graph John Day mentions…

    graff

    … I’ll say that the food riots in Egypt in 2005, re-“colorized” as Arab Spring democracy envy, mark when the slowdown in acceleration of food supply first made itself significantly known. The flattening of the rising supply curve first made itself known here. Before then, all we complained about was pollution and the McDondsification of global culture. Food shortages still happened, but were perceived as being caused primarily by political factors.

    my parents said know made a very useful venture: that enough increased homelessness will mar our voting process so much it will not be trusted by anyone… and bingo, de facto civil conflict. I’d say that the national WIley Coyote will look down then and realize that his Tesla Air Shoes aren’t holding him up, that the once refreshing wind is really increasing air passage as one descends at the terminal velocity rate of socioeconomic gravity (someone here has en economics equation that will fit the bill), and the once charming view of distant third world nations that were once groovy tourist spots where USA greenbacks held enormous purchase clout, is becoming the rapidly magnifying view of the 4th world — Euromerica in full collapse — approaching as one falls with a concrete parachute.

    #60305
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    Of Two Minds

    “The last shred of power the elites hold is the belief of the masses that the elites are still in control. I understand the natural desire to believe somebody’s in charge: whether it’s the Deep State, the Chinese Communist Party, the Kremlin or Agenda 21 globalists, we’re primed to believe somebody somewhere is controlling events or pursuing agendas that drive global responses to events.”

    #60306
    boscohorowitz
    Participant

    I wrote the following in spring/summer 2016:

    http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/William_Strauss_and_Neil_Howe

    Here is America’s history of that 80 year cycle:

    I do know for certain that Hillary does not have it in the bag. Innarestin’ observation about an 80-year cycle in American history:

    Revolutionary War: economic predation by British government, economic collapse, civil unrest, a war, a president not elected (Ben Franklin’s little remembered shadow presidency while the colonies were getting their post-revolutionary act together), major major reform legislation passed afterward (starting with the Constitution and the D of I). 1773-74<> 1781-83, followed by period of prosperity and Era of Good Feelings

    Civil War: economic collapse, Lincoln nominated by contested convention in a very young party, revolutionary politics (secession), a very big war, major major reform legislation passed afterward (13th Amendment), then boom after economic boom (and many busts) and the joy of finally being in accord with our Declaration of Independence and national ethos.1855-1865

    WWII: economic collapse, FDR nominated by contested convention, revolutionary politics (New Deal), very, very, very big war, followed by an incredible economic boom like never seen before in history, and matching explosion of freedom, opportunity, pleasure, enlightenment… utopia was in our sights in those decades 1932-1944

    Depression of 2008 (shrunk and held off for a few years by endless money printing made possible by petrodollar USA dollar strength), Bernie heading to a contested convention, revolutionary politics, endless war 2008-2016

    Let’s hope that 2016 is the genuine end of American warfare abroad; because if Empire USA doesn’t back off, it will not only collapse but will get taken down by the rest of the world who think maybe it’s time we felt what it’s like to have bombs rain down on OUR cities.

    Cycle rational: after 80 years, no one is alive who remembers what happened 80 years before. In between each cycle — 40 years each side — those who lived through it are getting old and their ungrateful sissy kids are taking over. (Yea, Boomers! Say it proud!) They do good for a bit. But they discard the advice of their increasingly old, ‘out of touch’ parents and grandparents, and soon it’s Reagan and Bush and Clinton and Bush and Obama and here we are, top dead center of the cycle again, about to elect a revolutionary president, about to start our own warring just in time to join WWIII: the Big One, for reals.

    We want a wise human being at the helm when that happens.

    There. My inner oracle has left the building.
    <end>

    A wise human being unavailable in an electorally winnable fashion, we got the next best thing: a loose cannon with an uncannily strong instinct for survival. We appear to be bypassing the contested convention pattern and aimed instead at a contested election, one that can’t be papered over this time by the Supreme Court.

    P.S. Quote of the Day: “Please allow me to direct your consciousness back to MIT 1972…”

    Quit bogarting and pass the joint, John. 😉

    #60307
    zerosum
    Participant

    boscohorowitz

    Is it possible to find out who “THEY” are?
    Are they so hidden behind the enablers that it is impossible for us, (rifraf), to know?
    I’m reminded of “quest for the holy grail”
    ———-
    Oppps
    Google just gave me something that I’ll keep for leisure reading.

    https://www.yorku.ca/inpar/quest_comfort.pdf
    The Quest of the Holy Grail
    translated by W. W. Comfort
    ———–
    Did you notice that the Beijing link is in english to communicate their point of view.
    Does the USA write in Mandarin?

    https://www.beijingnews.net/
    Trump administration slaps more restrictions on Chinese media outlets

    The move comes just days after the Trump administration took control of the entire US-run state media networks including Voice of America. The newly-installed head of The U.S. Agency for Global Media, in his first week on the job fired the heads of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Marti servicing Cuba, and the Open Technology Fund. Simultaneously the top two officials at Voice of America stepped down.

    The State Department’s designation on Monday targeted the China Central Television, China News Service, the country’s largest newspaper People’s Daily, and the Global Times as foreign missions. This follows the February 18 designation of Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, China Daily Distribution Corporation, and Hai Tian Development USA.

    #60308
    zerosum
    Participant

    those who lived through it are getting old and their ungrateful sissy kids are taking over. (Yea, Boomers! Say it proud!)

    hahahahahha

    Will those sissy kids make life miserable for “THEY”

    #60321
    John Day
    Participant

    @Boscohorowitz,
    Good output, Bro’ Thanks for picking up the baton/”joint”.
    🙂

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