Sep 282020
 


Dorothea Lange Abandoned cafe in Carey, Texas “Carey is fast becoming a ghost town of the Texas plains.” 1937

 

New York Times Mysteriously Obtains Trump Financial Records (RS)
New York Times Fails at Outlining President Trump’s Taxes Again (CT)
Project Veritas Uncovers ‘Ballot Harvesting Fraud’ In Minnesota (NYP)
Appellate Court Halts Wisconsin Ballot-Counting Extension (AP)
As Mueller Probe Fizzles, Anti-Trump Cabal Hatches New Collusion Tale (Smith)
COVID-19 Patients Who Get Enough Vitamin D Are 52% Less Likely To Die (DM)
New Covid Fines Of Up To £10,000 Come Into Force In England (G.)
Amy Coney Barrett: A New Feminist Icon (Pol.)
Federal Judge Gives Temporary Reprieve To TikTok (NBC)
Azerbaijan & Armenia Carry On Fighting Over Contested Nagorno-Karabakh (RT)

 

 

Will we ever find out who leaked Trump’s tax returns from Cyrus Vance’s offices? And does anyone still care that this is highly illegal?

 

 

 

 

 

 

ZeroHedge Nothing Illegal

Balding tax returns

 

 

The New York Times once upon a time had intelligent journalists with a lot of integrity working -hard- for it. Now they go an yet another fishing trip looking to catch something illegal, but they fail, and still try to dress it all up as something terrible. No pride, no integrity.

New York Times Mysteriously Obtains Trump Financial Records (RS)

The New York Times reports that it has obtained President Trump’s ‘tax information” going back “over two decades.” The leak is from New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., or one of his underlings. We know Vance has obtained all of the financial records Trump had on file with Deutsche Bank, his primary lender. We know Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena. And, via the New York Times, we know that these records go back into the 1990s or, in the parlance of the day, “over two decades.” If the New York Times is correct, Trump’s finances being something of a hot mess is not a shocker. Trump has been on the edge of bankruptcy before and has employed mighty financial kung fu to stay solvent.

[..] From the tenor of the article, they think the revelation that Trump was getting a $72.9 million tax refund and only paying $750 in federal income taxes will be damaging. I really doubt that will be the case. There are things in this story that lead me to believe that either the people writing it are stupid or they think you are stupid. For instance: “In fact, those public filings offer a distorted picture of his financial state, since they simply report revenue, not profit. In 2018, for example, Mr. Trump announced in his disclosure that he had made at least $434.9 million. The tax records deliver a very different portrait of his bottom line: $47.4 million in losses.” These two things are not incompatible, and the fact that you declare earnings on a report that asks for earnings and not profit is not deceptive. The technical term is “compliance.”

By far, the most notable thing about this story is the willingness of the New York Times to engage in election interference by timing their release within 60 days of the election (that’s the standard, right? 60 days?). That and the role that seems to have been played by the Manhattan DA’s office in leaking records ostensibly demanded from Deutsche Bank as part of a criminal investigation to facilitate a political hit. The fact that a district attorney’s office is using such records as part of a political attack on the President within 60 days of an election is unprecedented (that’s the word, right? unprecedented?). The actions by Vance or his office virtually guarantee that any tax returns released to that office will find similar use as political ammunition.

There is a good chance that this story was intended to launch much closer to the election had the scope and extent of Hunter Biden’s financial shenanigans and the degree to which the ChiComs have their tentacles sunk into Sundown Joe not come to light…and will get even more light, I suspect, on Tuesday night. When the dust settles on this, I think the story is going to be “very rich guy with a fascination for high-risk business ventures pays lots of brilliant tax lawyers and accountants a crap-load of money to minimize and avoid (but not evade) income taxes and says he makes more money than he really does to golf partners.”

Read more …

Excellent question from sundance: “Now let’s figure out how DC politicians making $200k/yr are able to become multi-millionaires while holding office..”

New York Times Fails at Outlining President Trump’s Taxes Again (CT)

Once again the New York Times attempts to make an issue out of President Trump’s real estate holdings working as a tax shelter and reducing income taxes. In the article the Times completely obfuscates the way income taxes are strategically offset by depreciation, mortgage interest and the entire reason why real estate ownership is viewed as a business. John Carney writing for Breitbart gets it: […] So imagine our guy took out an $8 million mortgage at five percent, paying $2 million cash. Now he’s got to pay $400,000 in mortgage payments. He wants to make at least that much so he charges tenants an aggregate of $425,000, which after upkeep comes out to $410,000 of net income. (Remember, if the bank didn’t think he could make more in rent than the mortgage payment, it probably wouldn’t have lent him the money.)

“The interest payment on the loan–let’s call it $390,000–is deductible from his income, leaving him with $20,000 in net income. He gets to keep that and pay no taxes on it, however, because he still gets to apply the $370,000 depreciation charge. He tells the IRS he lost $350,000. Under our tax code, ordinary business expenses can be deducted in the year they are incurred. But when a business pays for a long-lasting item expected to produce income–like machinery, vehicles, or an apartment building–it is considered a capital investment. Instead of getting to write-off the cost all at once, the business is required to write it off over the course of decades. After the 1986 tax code, this was set at 27.5 years for residential real estate.” d

Anyone who has ever operated a business knows that offsetting income is one of the primary reasons to be self-employed. Additionally, the Times completely skips over the tens-of-millions in payroll taxes paid by the Trump organization and tens-of-millions in property and sales taxes paid by all of the various Trump properties. In the commercial real estate market it is common sense to offset income tax liabilities with a host of valid annual expenses, long-term capital depreciation and mortgage interest payments. With over 500 individual business entities within the Trump organization the ability to offset income in one asset with expenses in another is simply good accounting.

Additionally, President Trump donates his $400,000 government salary back to the U.S. government. So to accuse President Trump of only paying $750 in income taxes totally ignores all of the other donations and tax payments he makes. In practical terms no President before Trump has ever had his actual business portfolio so deeply connected to the success of the American economy. It doesn’t cost the American taxpayer a dime to have President Trump in office…. Now let’s figure out how DC politicians making $200k/yr are able to become multi-millionaires while holding office. Anyone?

Read more …

It’s getting serious. O’Keefe says they have been filming this for months.

Project Veritas Uncovers ‘Ballot Harvesting Fraud’ In Minnesota (NYP)

A ballot-harvesting racket in Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Minneapolis district — where paid workers illegally gather absentee ballots from elderly Somali immigrants — appears to have been busted by undercover news organization Project Veritas. One alleged ballot harvester, Liban Mohamed, the brother of Minneapolis city council member Jamal Osman, is shown in a bombshell Snapchat video rifling through piles of ballots strewn across his dashboard. “Just today we got 300 for Jamal Osman,” says Mohamed, aka KingLiban1, in the video. “I have 300 ballots in my car right now . . . “Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentee ballots. . . . Look, all these are for Jamal Osman,” he says, displaying the white envelopes.

“Money is the king in this world . . . and a campaign is driven by money.” The video, posted on July 1, was obtained by Project Veritas and included in a 17-minute video expose released Sunday night. Under Minnesota law no individual can be the “designated agent” for more than three absentee voters. The allegations come just five weeks before a presidential election plagued with predictions of voter fraud. Both President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr have warned that the increased use of mail-in ballots, due to COVID-19 concerns about in-person voting, are vulnerable to fraud, especially when unsolicited ballots are mailed to all voters in certain states.

Project Veritas’ investigation in Minneapolis will pour gasoline on the fire, only 48 hours before Trump debates Joe Biden in the first presidential debate Tuesday, addressing topics including election security. “Our investigation into this ballot harvesting ring demonstrates clearly how these unscrupulous operators exploit the elderly and immigrant communities” said James O’Keefe, founder and CEO of Project Veritas. The alleged involvement of Ilhan Omar, a controversial member of the Squad, and frequent Trump target, is claimed on camera by two people in Veritas’ investigation, including whistleblower Omar Jamal, a Minneapolis community leader and chair of the city’s Somali Watchdog Group.

Read more …

First of how many?

Appellate Court Halts Wisconsin Ballot-Counting Extension (AP)

A federal appeals court on Sunday temporarily halted a six-day extension for counting absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s presidential election, a momentary victory for Republicans and President Donald Trump in the key presidential battleground state. As it stands, ballots will now be due by 8 p.m. on Election Day. A lower court judge had sided with Democrats and their allies to extend the deadline until Nov. 9. Democrats sought more time as a way to help deal with an expected historic high number of absentee ballots. The Democratic National Committee, the state Democratic Party and allied groups including the League of Women Voters sued to extend the deadline for counting absentee ballots after the April presidential primary saw long lines, fewer polling places, a shortage of workers and thousands of ballots mailed days after the election.


U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled Sept. 21 that ballots that arrive up to six days after Election Day will count as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. Sunday’s action puts Conley’s order on hold until the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals or U.S. Supreme Court issues any further action. [..] State election officials anticipate as many as 2 million people will cast absentee ballots to avoid catching the coronavirus at the polls. That would be three times more absentee ballots than any other previous election and could overwhelm both election officials and the postal service, Conley wrote. If the decision had stood it could have delayed knowing the winner of Wisconsin for days. The Republican National Committee, the state GOP and Wisconsin’s Republican legislators argued that current absentee voting rules be left in place, saying people have plenty of time to obtain and return their ballots.

Read more …

Second installment of a two-part excerpt from Lee Smith’s book “The Permanent Coup: How Enemies Foreign and Domestic Targeted the American President”.

“According to the story the CIA officer and his colleagues would tell, Trump was again in league with a foreign power to defeat a rival candidate. They rotated Ukraine in for Russia and Biden for Clinton.”

As Mueller Probe Fizzles, Anti-Trump Cabal Hatches New Collusion Tale (Smith)

Just two days after the curtain dropped on the Mueller investigation, Ciaramella was rebooting the collusion narrative. According to the story the CIA officer and his colleagues would tell, Trump was again in league with a foreign power to defeat a rival candidate. They rotated Ukraine in for Russia and Biden for Clinton. The operation’s personnel drew from the same sources as the Russia collusion operation — serving officials from powerful government bureaucracies, the CIA, Pentagon, and State Department, as well as elected officials, political operatives, and the press. Therefore, the process was also the same: The actors would work the operation through the intelligence bureaucracy and the media to start an official proceeding, in this case an impeachment process. The play was set to begin.

Ciaramella first expressed his concern to a CIA lawyer. Frustrated that his action wasn’t moving quickly enough, he turned to the intelligence community inspector general responsible for oversight of all 17 of the nation’s agencies. On August 12, he filed a whistleblower’s report with ICIG Michael Atkinson. It was a version of the dossier, allegations based on second- and thirdhand sources. Steele said that his information came from anonymous Russians; Ciaramella claimed his came from unnamed Americans. “In the course of my official duties,” wrote Ciaramella, “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. elections.”

He even replicated a key feature from Steele’s memos that helped the FBI obtain the FISA warrant. The dossier alleged that the Trump campaign had agreed to two Ukraine-related quid pro quos. One, in exchange for the hack and release of DNC emails, the Trump team would sideline Ukraine as campaign issue. Two, in exchange for dropping Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia, a Putin ally promised Trump advisers energy deals. Ciaramella also alleged a Ukraine-related quid pro quo. His August 12 report added a detail missing from the July 26 memo. He claimed in his document he’d learned earlier in July that Trump had “issued instructions to suspend all security assistance to Ukraine.” With this, the CIA official had planted the seed that would grow into the basis of the impeachment charges brought against Trump:

The president had withheld foreign aid in exchange for something that would benefit him personally — an investigation of his political rival. Ciaramella and his confederates had simply taken the boastful blunder Biden made in front of the Manhattan audience and hung it on Trump. Now he was the one using U.S. aid to secure a favor from a Ukrainian president. It was an audacious move, but the Ciaramella dossier was also a defensive maneuver. “It was born out of desperation,” says one of his former colleagues. “He wasn’t just trying to protect Biden,” says the source, a former senior Obama administration intelligence official. [..] When he finds out Trump may get the Burisma investigation restarted, he’s worried for himself, too.”

Read more …

And 54 percent less likely to catch coronavirus in the first place. And if you do anyway, zinc hinders virus (RNA) replication in your cells. Two simple and cheap ways to protect yourselves and your loved ones.

COVID-19 Patients Who Get Enough Vitamin D Are 52% Less Likely To Die (DM)

People who get enough vitamin D are at a 52 percent lower risk of dying of COVID-19 than people who are deficient for the ‘sunshine vitamin,’ new research reveals. Vitamin D plays a crucial role in the immune system and may combat inflammation. These features may make it a key player in the body’s fight against coronavirus. Rates of vitamin D deficiency are also higher in some of the same groups who have been hardest hit by coronavirus: people of color and elderly people. It’s by no means a causal link, but suggests that vitamin D could play a role in who gets COVI-19, who gets sickest from it, and who is spared altogether.

Boston University’s Dr Michael Holick found in his previous research that people who have enough vitamin D are 54 percent less likely to catch coronavirus in the first place. Following on that work, he and his team have found that people who don’t get enough of the vitamin are far more likely to become severely ill, develop sepsis or even die after contracting coronavirus. Because vitamin D deficiency is common in people with other disease that raise coronavirus risks, it’s impossible to say exactly how many lives would be spared if we all got our daily dose of the sunshine vitamin. But we know that about 42 percent of the US population is vitamin D deficient. If that rate held true for the more 203,000 Americans who died of coronavirus, perhaps some 85,000 would have fared better with improved vitamin D levels.

In Britain 20 per cent of the population suffer from the deficiency, according to the British Nutrition Foundation. When the rate is applied to the UK’s 41,936 deaths from coronavirus, it suggests 8,387 of them could have been helped with improved levels of Vitamin D. ‘This study provides direct evidence that vitamin D sufficiency can reduce the complications, including the cytokine storm (release of too many proteins into the blood too quickly) and ultimately death from COVID-19,’ Dr Holick said. Dr Holick and his colleagues took blood samples from 235 patients admitted to hospitals in Tehran for COVID-19. Overall, 67 percent of the patients had vitamin D levels below 30 ng/mL.

There isn’t a clear marker for the ideal level of vitamin D, but 30 ng/mL is considered a sufficient. Anything below that is ‘insufficient,’ but won’t necessarily have broad-ranging health consequences, while levels below 20 ng/mL are considered ‘deficient.’ About 60 percent of elderly people living in nursing homes, for example, are thought to be vitamin D deficient. The most likely explanation is that they simply spend too much time indoors. Sunlight is our primary source of vitamin D. When we are exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation in rays of sunshine, it reacts with cholesterol in our skin, triggering the production of vitamin D. In an increasingly indoor world, rates of vitamin D deficiency have climbed.

Read more …

Behind a paywall, the Times reports pub curfew does not apply to bars in Parliament. Way to go.

New Covid Fines Of Up To £10,000 Come Into Force In England (G.)

A new, more robust chapter in English coronavirus regulations begins on Monday, with fines of up to £10,000 for people who refuse to self-isolate when asked, and enforcement including tip-offs from people who believe that others are breaching the rules. The changes come with the duty to self-isolate moving into law. It becomes a legal obligation if someone is told to do so by test-and-trace staff, but not for those simply using the Covid-19 phone app, which is anonymous. At the same time, the government is introducing a new system of payments of £500 for people on lower incomes who are unable to work because of the mandatory 14-day self-isolation, a system being implemented by councils.

The two-pronged approach, intended to create better compliance with self-isolation rules, was described by the health secretary, Matt Hancock, as “imperative” in helping keep down coronavirus infection rates. According to a health department statement setting out the new system, local authorities are expected to have their test-and-trace support schemes up and running within two weeks, with those self-isolating before then given backdated payments as needed. However, the Local Government Association, which represents councils, has warned it will be “challenging” for these to be set up at speed, adding that “urgent clarity is needed about how councils will be reimbursed for costs of setting up these schemes and the payments themselves”.

To be eligible for the payment, people must have been told to self-isolate by test and trace – having tested positive for coronavirus or being in close contact with someone who has – as well as having lost income as a result, and be recipients of one or more of a series of benefits, including universal credit, income support and housing benefit. Those who do not self-isolate when told to could face fines, which start at £1,000 and rise to £10,000 for repeat offences, or those who instigate breaches of the law, such as an employer who orders or permits people to come to work when they should not. Test-and-trace call handlers will check on those told to self-isolate, with police taking a role in areas or groups seen as high risk, as well as acting on tip-offs from neighbours or others who spot suspected breaches, the government announcement said.

Read more …

We need tolerance of people who do not think exactly like we do.

Amy Coney Barrett: A New Feminist Icon (Pol.)

Amy Coney Barrett has been praised for her topflight legal mind, even by those who disagree with her. At 48 years old, she is poised to help shape the court for a generation or more. But that’s not all her elevation to the high court has the potential to accomplish. Barrett’s expected confirmation should serve as a catalyst for rethinking the most powerful social movement in the last half century: feminism. Over the last week, as Justice Ginsburg’s body laid in repose outside the Supreme Court, the nation has rightly celebrated Ginsburg’s trailblazing 1970s legal advocacy, one which pushed both law and culture to reexamine the ways in which women had been pigeonholed as caregivers and men as providers. The late justice’s antidiscrimination wins opened up a new era in which both men and women could respectably and responsibly engage in both avenues of fulfillment, according to their personal talents and circumstances.

But Ginsburg also viewed abortion rights as central to sexual equality, and her leadership helped give rise to a movement that remains laser focused on abortion to this day. Yet rather than make women more equal to men, constitutionalizing the right to abortion as the court did in Roe has relieved men of the mutual responsibilities that accompany sex, and so has upended the duties of care for dependent children that fathers ought equally to share. Barrett embodies a new kind of feminism, a feminism that builds upon the praiseworthy antidiscrimination work of Ginsburg but then goes further. It insists not just on the equal rights of men and women, but also on their common responsibilities, particularly in the realm of family life. In this new feminism, sexual equality is found not in imitating men’s capacity to walk away from an unexpected pregnancy through abortion, but rather in asking men to meet women at a high standard of mutual responsibility, reciprocity and care.

At Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearing in 2017, Sen. Dianne Feinstein tellingly remarked, “You are controversial because many of us that have lived lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems, and Roe entered into that, obviously.” Barrett’s life story puzzles older feminists like Feinstein because bearing and raising a bevy of children has long implied retaining a traditional life script — like staying home with the children — that Barrett has obviously not heeded. To be sure, few mothers of seven could become federal judges, never mind Supreme Court justices. Barrett – “generationally brilliant,” according to her Notre Dame colleague, O. Carter Snead — is likely alone in this set.

It all seems so unlikely: She has risen to the pinnacle of her profession while at once being “radically hospitable” to children, as Snead has described her. An enigma to many, she doesn’t easily fit into any ideological box. If we’re really intent as a country on seeing women flourish in their professions and serve in greater numbers of leadership positions too, it would be worthwhile to interrupt the abortion rights sloganeering for a beat and ask just how this mother of many has achieved so much.

Read more …

Much ado about an app. China’s worried about the source code.

Federal Judge Gives Temporary Reprieve To TikTok (NBC)

A federal judge granted a temporary reprieve Sunday to TikTok, the short-form video app that was facing a Trump administration-imposed midnight deadline that would have prevented users from downloading it. The order from U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols of Washington, D.C., allows U.S. app stores to continue offering downloads. Nichols did not rule on a second, more comprehensive ban that would halt U.S. companies from working with TikTok. In a statement, TikTok said that it was pleased with the ruling and that it “will continue defending our rights for the benefit of our community and employees.”


“At the same time, we will also maintain our ongoing dialogue with the government to turn our proposal, which the president gave his preliminary approval to last weekend, into an agreement,” it said. TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, struck a deal with Oracle this month to move the company’s headquarters to the United States. The software giant would oversee its operations. Walmart is also involved in the deal. TikTok has been under scrutiny from the Trump administration for nearly a year over concerns that the Chinese government could gain access to American users’ data. President Donald Trump said in July that he would ban the app. Trump said this month that he had given his “blessing” to the deal and that he had approved it in concept.

Read more …

This is real war. Stop it.

Azerbaijan & Armenia Carry On Fighting Over Contested Nagorno-Karabakh (RT)

Intense hostilities between Armenian and Azeri forces continued overnight along the border of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Both sides claimed local victories and reported inflicting heavy casualties on one another. Azerbaijan and Armenia, two historical rivals, kept on fighting throughout Sunday night and Monday morning despite mounting calls from international leaders to hold fire and disengage troops. There have been skirmishes “of different intensity” overnight on the Nagorno-Karabakh border, a spokesperson for the Armenian Defense Ministry reported earlier on Monday. “The adversary resumed offensive using artillery and armor, including the heavy flamethrower system TOS,” the official revealed.

The Armenian military are deterring the attack, “inflicting significant losses on the enemy in manpower and equipment.” Baku, meanwhile, blamed its arch-nemesis for targeting civilian-populated areas. On Monday morning, Armenian forces have been shelling Terter, a border town of roughly 19,000 people, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry told the media. “Proper measures” will be taken if the bombardment doesn’t stop, the ministry warned. Previously, Baku suggested at least 550 Armenian soldiers were killed or injured in the Azeri “counteroffensive,” along with dozens of tanks, howitzers, and air defense systems lost in action. Yerevan promptly rebuked the claim as “unfounded.” Nagorno-Karabakh itself reported a loss of 31 Armenian soldiers in the fighting.

The lingering hostilities broke out previously on Sunday morning. Yerevan accused Baku of using combat aircraft and heavy artillery to bomb targets within Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region administered and populated by ethnic Armenians but claimed by Azerbaijan as part of its territory. Baku, in turn, said it had counter-attacked in response to Armenian “provocations.” Both sides – which have fought on numerous occasions since the Soviet Union’s demise – sent reinforcements to the frontline and blamed one another for targeting civilians.

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle September 28 2020

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 63 total)
  • Author
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  • #63803

    Dorothea Lange Abandoned cafe in Carey, Texas “Carey is fast becoming a ghost town of the Texas plains.” 1937   • New York Times Mysteriously Obt
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle September 28 2020]

    #63804
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Dorothea Lange Abandoned cafe in Carey, Texas “Carey is fast becoming a ghost town of the Texas plains.” 1937

    Great picture, interesting composition…

    I took your advice and got a room…
    …but you never showed up…

    😉

    #63805
    Dimitri
    Participant

    33 members of NGOs have been arrested in Lesvos. They are accused (among others) for espionage and human trafficking

    https://www.kathimerini.gr/society/561095335/varies-katigories-se-varos-33-melon-mko-ereyna-el-as-kai-eyp/

    #63806

    Did not read that, but I did see they’re taking 700 refugees to the mainland today, and 2500(?!) more the coming week. I have no overview of NGO on Lesbos, but remember at some point in 2015 there were 51 separate NGO’s operating on the island. Unpaid volunteers and well paid managers appears to be a common structure.

    #63807
    Dimitri
    Participant

    This is in English …

    https://www.ekathimerini.com/257462/article/ekathimerini/news/thirty-three-ngo-members-charged-with-illegally-smuggling-migrants-into-greece

    The situation with the NGOs in Lesvos is beyond insanity. They are operating as if they own the island.

    #63808
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    On the Amy Coney article, I think far too much emphasis is placed on the socioeconomic impact of access to abortion. For sure it plays an important role, but we live in a brutalizing neoliberal economic system and merely ensuring access to abortion does not change this, with all the human suffering and degradation it brings with it.
    Amy is quoted as saying the greatest thing anyone can do is look after children. Of course, all good. Is it not also a great thing to do to devote ones life to engaging environmentally to preserve other life forms? Or engaging politically against oppressive governments? Here’s the thing: doing these latter two things gives you almost no public accolades – people just think you are a misfit and your efforts make them uncomfortable because of the cognitive dissonance your efforts bring about in them. Ask Assange, Glen Greenwald and others like them.

    #63809

    I just read that, Dimitri. One problem I could see is that with such large numbers of NGOs, it would be easy to hide a profit-seeking operation somewhere in that “structure”. Most individuals working at NGOs are well-meaning of course, though. But after 5+ years, people get to feel like they own or belong.

    #63811
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Just a thought

    Remember in the last crisis how 0% interest rates for only supposed to be temporary? But now they seem like they will be with us forever? I wonder if the same will happen for the “cures” to COVID?

    #63812
    Mr. House
    Participant

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/new-cdc-estimates-fatality-rate-covid-19-drops-again-and-may-surprise-you

    Ok, so when does the four year investigation into COVID hysteria begin? It won’t begin if Biden wins.

    #63813
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    Amy Coney Barrett a feminist icon? Some folks on the Internet have nicknamed her “Aunt Lydia”.

    Another note on whether or not Covid is the disaster it was originally forecast to be: It doesn’t appear to be now, but we’re still in the first wave. The Spanish Flu appeared to be the same way in its first wave, but its second wave revealed it to be a substantial pandemic. We have yet to see what Covid serves up for its second wave. The time to keep an eye on it will be between Christmas and Saint Patrick’s Day, IMHO.

    #63814
    Mr. House
    Participant

    maybe, just maybe, the trail of crumbs would lead to the same people that are guilty with regards to russiagate. I mean if they were willing to make up something like that, where does the madness end?

    #63815
    Mr. House
    Participant
    #63816
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Dear Mr. Roboto

    Please stop saying things that basically mean “just wait a few more months” that has a been a defense for COVID since March and i’m tired of it. Ooops we made a small boo boo is not a valid retort. People need to be held accountable for the damage they’ve caused. Along with Gov that sent infected people into nursing homes. Wonder why they did that?

    #63817
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Pretty amazing: “Avoiding Taxes” just means he didn’t overpay voluntarily. He didn’t write the donation check they badger Buffet and Bezos about sometimes. And they’re just admitting this. Okay: you win. I agree. He didn’t pay taxes he wasn’t required to.

    “The New York Times once upon a time had intelligent journalists with a lot of integrity working -hard- for it.”

    That was long ago indeed. After being savaged by the “Village Voice” for every year of the Nicaraguan revolution, then later supporting “WMD and ties to Al-Qaeda” “yellowcake” with a man who a) was in no possible or incidental way related to the Saudi hijackers or their training, and b) the arch-enemy of all Wahhabists, even the Sunni wing that drives them, being Baathist and from a 2/3ds Shia country. NYT saw nothing, questioned nothing, reported nothing, did nothing but promote the most ridiculous, hysterical, implausible, non-reporting that made the coal-boiler on “Remember the Maine!” look like a practical joke with a pop-gun. They then promoted St. Meuller and co as evidence, completely forgetting his existing record til then, just as they forgot his additional record of lying every minute his vocal cords move two years ago.

    And that was 20 years ago. So when were they ever not lying? Before 1985? I don’t have inside tracks that far back. They’re garbage. So is CNN and The Guardian. Always have been since Mr. Pulitzer said “Give me the photos and I’ll give you the war” and did. We still own Puerto Rico. He’s lionized as a reporting and publishing gold-standard, so his war for his lying, corrupt, and worthless reputation worked a treat as well.

    Takeaway: If an adult American said it, it’s probably a lie. If the American Media said it, it’s DEFINITELY a lie.

    Project Veritas Uncovers ‘Ballot Harvesting Fraud’ In Minnesota (NYP)”

    If an election falls in the forest but no one will report it, did they win? You’ll find out in only a month, since that’s what will happen right now. FB & co: “Writing that Trump won the election is a bannable offense, even if you said it on another platform.” Opinions are Treason. Of course you can write Biden won ahead of time all you want. You have the freedom to do exactly what I want and nothing else. Meh. So predictable: go ahead if you want, but like censoring and banning Joe Rogan, the most popular podcast on the planet, it’s just going to make you look like an idiot, piss people off, and wake them up. So I’m for it: please, go ahead. The faster you ban people, the faster they leave and the faster you lose power and influence.

    Cons only work when you have the “con”, the trust, that you can sell out and betray. I don’t know what takes people so long, but once they’ve been betrayed and trust is broken…

    “And 54 percent less likely to catch coronavirus in the first place. And if you do anyway, zinc hinders virus (RNA) replication in your cells. Two simple and cheap ways to protect yourselves and your loved ones.”

    They are still refusing to promote this, and still locking down the planet, with maskless police arrested un-masked citizens in Aus and UK (and here sometimes). They are using the same data we have. And you wonder why I say they are actively, intentionally, joyfully, mass-murdering people for economic and political gain. How much clearer does it have to be? I feel if you read their internal letters on national T.V. with a brass band and had CDC officials shoot a few in the head for effect, it still wouldn’t make any impact.

    pub curfew does not apply to bars in Parliament.”

    Nor the Gym ban for U.S. Government gyms. The ‘Rona is so smart, you see. The ‘Rona knows. Carry a love-brick and it can tell. It knows a dirty Hasid vs a Sainty SCJ funeral and doesn’t visit the 3,000 people in resting in State. That’s just Science.

    We need tolerance of people who do not think exactly like we do.”

    Where did we come to that a sentence like that needs to be written?

    We are victims of the post-Enlightenment view that the world functions like a sophisticated machine, to be understood like a textbook engineering problem and run by wonks. In other words, like a home appliance, not like the human body.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb

    If this is true, maybe we need to return to the “Enlightenment” instead of “Post-Enlightenment”. If the lights were on, and now we’re past that time, that is what you call “Darkness.” As has been very easy to tell.

    “33 members of NGOs have been arrested in Lesvos.” “They are operating as if they own the island.”

    Of course: they’re NGOs, approved by the U.N. That’s what they do, that’s why they exist. Bonus round: NGOs are the functional arms and armies of unaccountable Billionaires. Billionaires stink, but when they pay a solicitor to fabricate a name, they are suddenly generous and benign? Beam me up, Scotty.

    #63818
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Lets do a simple thought experiment

    CIA doesn’t attack Clinton
    CIA doesn’t attack Bush 2
    CIA doesn’t attack Obama
    CIA does attack Trump…

    Things that make ya go Hmmmmm

    #63819
    Mr. House
    Participant

    And if you think that the hammer will fall between christmas and march, why did we lock down during the months when most people would be getting vitamin D from the sun?

    #63820
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    @Mr. House: My final evaluation of the pandemic will have to wait for until it has to wait, regardless of what anybody on any message-section on the Internet wants to or doesn’t want to hear. Roughly a year from the initial outbreak is not an unreasonable time to wait until making such an evaluation.

    The lockdown was a misguided response, so don’t ask me to make heads or tails of it. 🙂

    #63821
    zerosum
    Participant

    Conversation Priorities
    1. Trump
    2. Opinions
    3. C19
    4. Amy Coney Barrett
    5. Weather
    6. Elections
    7. Education
    8. Money

    Truth
    ——–
    Late night comedy – Biden missing – whoppers, bloopers
    I feel is empathetic embarrassment
    elder abuse
    from funny to mean,.
    “mean” = “funny”,
    “Control the Narrative.” Control YOU. With lies. Because the truth doesn’t have a “narrative”, a “spin.”

    ——–
    ECHO
    Abandoned cafe in Carey, Texas

    Trump income tax
    New York Times to engage in election interference
    No Russian link
    Now let’s figure out how DC politicians making $200k/yr are able to become multi-millionaires while holding office.
    ballot harvesting ring
    absentee ballots
    Things that make ya go Hmmmmm
    ——–
    Rates of vitamin D deficiency are also higher in some of the same groups who have been hardest hit by coronavirus: people of color and elderly people. It’s by no means a causal link, but suggests that vitamin D could play a role in who gets COVI-19, who gets sickest from it, and who is spared altogether.

    Hmmmmm
    Why are there so few C19 deaths in Africa and other 3rd world countries?
    Hmmmmm

    #63822
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Keep moving the goal posts

    #63823
    irwin
    Participant

    This is another amateur theater production from Project Veritas that they try to pass off as news. Never trust a group with Veritas in its name.

    #63824

    On the one hand I have Boston study that says vit D cuts you corona risks by more than half, and on the other I have countries in Europe closing down again all sorts of stuff, but not telling people to take vit D.

    #63825
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Just watched an ad on youtube of Biden begging people to vote from home.

    #63826
    Mr. House
    Participant

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/boston-university-prof-denounces-barrett-white-colonizer-adopting-two-haitian-children

    Wonder what this Prof thinks of the Clintons and their dealings in Haiti………………

    #63827
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    I really do want to be wrong about the possibility of Covid-19 being another Spanish Flu, and I will be happy to discuss how it panned out over a green beer on Saint Patty’s Day. 🙂 [If we could post GIFs, here is where I would put one of Chief O’Hara from the old “Batman” show exclaiming, “Glory be and begorrah!”]

    #63828
    Mr. House
    Participant

    won’t be any bars left by st pattys day.

    #63830
    Arttua
    Participant

    Trump inherited $450 million.  So at the age of 21 adjust for inflation in 2020, he would be worth $3.7 billion. Forbes reports that he’s worth $2.5 billion, so he’s basically been losing his entire life, so that explains his low tax returns.

    #63831
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    Because anti-Trump rioters will burn them all down in November when he gets re-elected, right? 😀

    #63833
    phoenixvoice
    Participant

    As a woman who was raised in a religious, politically conservative family, who left that religion and has migrated to the left, the Politico bit about Amy Barrett resonates. I, too, retain the belief from my youth that raising children is very important work. I have three. But my life has been very different. My ex was verbally and emotionally abusive and the marriage erupted in flames when the oldest kids were about 8 years due to my ex’s alcoholism, etc. For a very long time now, I have put my kids first and earning an income second. My kids know that they are loved…and the income I raise them on is well below the Federal Poverty Limit. I am resourceful and run my own business, which allows me to set my own hours and make a higher dollar per hour return on my time than I would working for someone else. The child support I receive is minimal (~$40/month) because my ex lies to everyone about his income (including the IRS) and the Commissioner was too lazy to look at the documentation of my ex’s income that I provided, too lazy to notice the many times my ex perjured himself in child support hearings.

    I am curious how Judge Barrett would see women like me — sharing her values about family and children, but not as lucky in finding a partner that also embraced those values. (My ex turned out to be a fraud in that area — professing those values, but not putting them into practice.) Because it’s nice to say, sure, the ideal is an equal partnership to parent children, but how does a society in a strict constructionist view of the Constitution support parents of any gender who find themselves raising children alone or in an unequal partnership? Currently, such parents are given a bitter pill to swallow — skimp on parenting, skimp on money-earning, and/or submit to an abusive partnership. (There may be other variations of this as well, but these are the ones that most come to mind for me.)

    #63834
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Who knows, they do seem to be the main culprits when it comes to rioting. Glad they waited until this year to finally share with us all their political beliefs. Glad they want to destroy the nuclear family, but don’t have any problems with giant corporations. Most will have gone under when the lockdowns you say were misguided will be reengaged around that time.

    #63835
    Mr. House
    Participant
    #63836
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Going around with a N95 mask that has not been fitted and tested in the manner I described is like playing Russian Roulette with a revolver that you think has no ammunition in the chambers. You are not safe even if you think you are. Keep pulling that trigger until your head explodes or better yet get a N95 mask properly fitted and tested and know that you are truly safe or just live your life and take the consequences. My recommendation is don’t live a lie.

    #63837
    Bill7
    Participant

    Paul Craig Roberts- The Covid Deception:

    “..A third reason for the intentional misrepresentation of the Covid threat is to build the growing police state on more intrusions into private life. The public health threat is used to mandate unconstitutional intrusions that close private businesses or force them to operate at 50 percent capacity, thus driving them into bankruptcy and destroying the lifework of people in the name of public health. The threat is also used to accustom the public to obey mandates to wear masks that provide zero protection. Although opposition to this harmful policy is rising in the US and is strong in Germany and the UK, the fear of Covid that has been indoctrinated has caused most populations to behave as lemmings. People are being trained to obey edicts that harm them..”

    The Covid Deception

    #63838

    Two ditties for your enjoyment (or to ignore. 🙂

    Any old illness will do-
    The Virus, a cold, or the flu-
    We’re just where they want us.
    Their tactics will daunt us:
    And then they’ll create something new.

    When you’re on the losing side just double down
    When there’s nowhere else to hide just double down
    When you storyline is weak
    Find another lie to leak.
    Never waver, don’t be meek- just double down.

    #63839
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Guess where for another weekend, 10, 20 years running, people don’t matter:

    “Another Horrific Chicago Weekend: 5-Year Old Girl Stabbed, 49 People Shot”

    And guess where guns are illegal and no one can defend themselves?

    #63840
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ Mr House

    Mr Roboto didn’t just say “just wait”: he gave a specific reason based on the pandemic foundationally relevant to our situation: the Spanish Flu epidemic. The S. Flu even followed a similar time frame. It became an acknowledged phenomenon in late spring/early winter. It calmed down, then got much worse with winter

    I shared this the other day. Here again:

    “First wave of early 1918
    “The pandemic is conventionally marked as having begun on 4 March 1918, with the recording of the case of Albert Gitchell, an army cook at Camp Funston in Kansas, United States, despite there likely having been cases before him.[24] The disease had been observed in Haskell County in January 1918, prompting local doctor Loring Miner to warn the US Public Health Service’s academic journal.[25] Within days, 522 men at the camp had reported sick.[26] By 11 March 1918, the virus had reached Queens, New York.[citation needed] Failure to take preventive measures in March/April was later criticised.[27]

    “As the US had entered World War I, the disease quickly spread from Camp Funston, a major training ground for troops of the American Expeditionary Forces, to other US Army camps and Europe, becoming an epidemic in the Midwest, East Coast, and French ports by April 1918, and reaching the Western Front by the middle of the month.[24] It then quickly spread to the rest of France, Great Britain, Italy, and Spain, and in May reached Wrocław and Odessa.[24] After the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Germany started releasing Russian prisoners of war who then brought the disease to their country.[28] It reached North Africa, India, and Japan in May, and soon after had likely gone around the world as there had been recorded cases in Southeast Asia in April.[29] In June an outbreak was reported in China.[30] After reaching Australia in July, the wave started to recede.[29]

    “The first wave of the flu lasted from the first quarter of 1918 and was relatively mild.[31] Mortality rates were not appreciably above normal;[32] in the United States ~75,000 flu-related deaths were reported in the first six months of 1918, compared to ~63,000 deaths during the same time period in 1915.[33] In Madrid, Spain, fewer than 1,000 people died from influenza between May and June 1918.[34] There were no reported quarantines during the first quarter of 1918. However, the first wave caused a significant disruption in the military operations of World War I, with three-quarters of French troops, half the British forces, and over 900,000 German soldiers sick.[35]
    “Deadly second wave of late 1918
    “The second wave began in the second half of August, probably spreading to Boston and Freetown, Sierra Leone by ships from Brest, where it had likely arrived with American troops or French recruits for naval training.[35] From the Boston Navy Yard and Camp Devens (later renamed Fort Devens), about 30 miles west of Boston, other U.S. military sites were soon afflicted, as were troops being transported to Europe.[36] Helped by troop movements, it spread over the next two months to all of North America, and then to Central and South America, also reaching Brazil and the Caribbean on ships.[37] From Freetown, the pandemic continued to spread through West Africa along the coast, rivers, and the colonial railways, and from railheads to more remote communities, while South Africa received it in September on ships bringing back members of the South African Native Labour Corps returning from France.[37] From there it spread around Southern Africa and beyond the Zambezi, reaching Ethiopia in November.[38] The Philadelphia Liberty Loans Parade, held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 28 September 1918 to promote government bonds for World War I, resulted in 12,000 deaths after a major outbreak of the illness spread among people who had attended the parade.[39]

    “From Europe, the second wave swept through Russia in a southwest-northeast diagonal front, as well as being brought to Arkhangelsk by the North Russia intervention, and then spread throughout Asia following the Russian Civil War and the Trans-Siberian railway, reaching Iran (where it spread through the holy city of Mashhad), and then later India in September, as well as China and Japan in October.[40] The celebrations of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 also caused outbreaks in Lima and Nairobi, but by December the wave was mostly over.[41]
    “The second wave of the 1918 pandemic was much more deadly than the first. The first wave had resembled typical flu epidemics; those most at risk were the sick and elderly, while younger, healthier people recovered easily. October 1918 was the month with the highest fatality rate of the whole pandemic.[42] In the United States, ~292,000 deaths were reported between September–December 1918, compared to ~26,000 during the same time period in 1915.[33] Copenhagen reported over 60,000 deaths, Holland reported 40,000+ deaths from influenza and acute respiratory disease, Bombay reported ~15,000 deaths in a population of 1.1 million.[43] The 1918 flu pandemic in India was especially deadly, with an estimated 12.5–20 million deaths in the fall months of 1918 alone.[31]”

    #63841
    Mister Roboto
    Participant

    Well, I’m sure the atheist-skeptics will just love one of my reasons for the SPD target-date. In the middle of December, the Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto Conjunction in Capricorn will be pretty much over, and I’m wondering if maybe this conjunction is “building up a charge” that will be released at the end of it. I chose three months after mid-December because that is a quarter-turn of the wheel of the year, and it mostly covers the winter, when respiratory diseases are more of a problem.

    #63842
    zerosum
    Participant

    Trump didn’t pay income tax for 10 of 15 years before 2016 election: NYT

    I hope that all TAE readers are smart enough to see the lies.
    The accountants and the lawyers made the tax laws for the rich capitalists to avoid paying taxes
    The politicians ordered that those laws be done the way that they are done.
    Don’t blame Trump.
    He pays people to do his paperwork.

    #63843
    Mr. House
    Participant

    I’ve got no problems with astrology, seems more real in my opinion then what i was told about C-19

    #63844
    Mr. House
    Participant

    keep your fingers crossed madamski. I find it funny and strange that people are almost hoping something like that happens.

    #63846
    Dr. D
    Participant

    CDC own numbers. Again. And Again. And Again. The guys who already told you “over 1% and lockdowns don’t work and will only destroy the worldwide economy” “don’t wear masks, they don’t work on viruses” with 5 studies over 100 years and two new studies in May and June:
    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html
    0-19 years: 99.997%
    20-49 years: 99.98%
    50-69 years: 99.5%
    70+ years: 94.6%

    Putting those number to work, average age of death: 80yo Since almost the entire population is below 80, that demonstrates how astonishingly few people below 80 have died:
    Numba
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#/media/File:US_population_pyramid_(2018).jpg

    That is, so close to nobody that the average age isn’t 78, the U.S. average mortality, it’s 80, two years ABOVE the U.S. average. How many people must be 90 or 100 to pull the number from 30, the data center-of-mass, up to 80?

    As you notice from other CDC links, the all-cause-of-death is now dropping BELOW average. Some 2nd wave! And that’s because it pulled these 80-100 year-old deaths forward by 6 months. Or so I propose.

    So wear any kind of mask you like. If you’re over 70, that (say not a 6oz cotton mesh but N95) might even have an impact. All data says it doesn’t, but it might. If you are also isolated, also swap masks and gloves, and also take C, D, and Zn. That’s even your human right. I won’t even stop you because we disagree! Imagine the possibilities of leaving people alone all day! How much each of us would get done if we stop telling everybody each other’s business and minded our own! But don’t ask me to. Don’t NOT pass any laws and pretend. Don’t NOT adjudicate anything, even a mock-trial in a kangaroo court, even one with with fake jurisdiction and remove all human rights. Don’t ignore 7 running official studies. If I own my body and want to live dangerously, for the love of God and all things holy, let me. Or things will get dangerous with the body politic and the hoi polloi indeed as you already see in Germany and England. For the love of Jesus, stop poking the bear. Will these people not be done helping until all bars are closed and they illustrate for you why God invented lightposts? Stop.

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