Dec 052020
 


Paul Cézanne Young Italian Woman at a Table c1900

 

Jerusalem Hospital Orders 1.5 Million Doses of Russian COVID Vaccine (Haaretz)
Moderna Says Its Vaccine Provides COVID19 Immunity For At Least 3 Months (NYP)
Intent to Get a COVID19 Vaccine Rises to 60% (Pew)
Nursing Homes Create ‘Perfect Storm’ For COVID Outbreaks (CNBC)
The Jobs Report is a Mess, December Will Be Messier (WS)
The Beltway Left Is Normalizing Corruption And Corporatism (DP)
Joe Biden’s Cabinet Is a Lost Cause for the Left (TNR)
Barr’s Appointment Of Special Counsel Leaves Biden, Dems In A Muddle (Turley)
A Hall of Smoke and Mirrors (Kunstler)
Sidney Powell: Plenty of Time for Trump to Overturn Election Results (NM)
Judge Emmet Sullivan Still Refusing To Dismiss Michael Flynn Case (JTN)
AZ Senate, House Call For Audit Of Dominion Machines In Maricopa County (JTN)
Dutch Taxi Company Is Taking Tesla To Court Over “Defective” Cars (Sifted)
Oliver Stone, America Firster (AC)

 

 

 

 

“There’s a good probability that the vaccine is safe. And there’s a reasonable probability … that it’s also effective.”

Jerusalem Hospital Orders 1.5 Million Doses of Russian COVID Vaccine (Haaretz)

Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center has ordered 1.5 million doses of a Russian vaccine against the coronavirus, hospital director Zeev Rotstein said Tuesday. First reported on Army Radio, Rotstein added that the hospital will give the Health Ministry all necessary data about the vaccine this week, with the goal of obtaining a permit to administer it to Israelis. Rotstein, who has clashed repeatedly with the ministry in recent months, is convinced that the fears voiced in the media about the vaccine aren’t well-founded, and that they have more to do with the global struggle between Russia and the United States than with the scientific data. But even if the ministry refuses to approve the vaccine, he said in an interview with Haaretz, “We’ll have something do with it,” because Hadassah also operates overseas.

The Russian vaccine has been in phase three clinical trials since August and has already been given to tens of thousands of people. Hadassah’s branch in Moscow has both given the vaccine to people and monitored them afterward, “and the results and safety we’ve seen have been very good,” Rotstein said. Hadassah’s activities in Moscow are what led the Russian authorities to propose that the hospital seek Israeli approval for the vaccine, he added. If the phase three trials show that the vaccine is both safe and effective, and if the Health Ministry approves its use, the vaccine could be available in Israel in two to three months.

Rotstein stressed that until the phase three trial ends and the data has been analyzed, it’s impossible to know if the vaccine will be effective in preventing the virus. But based on the data so far, he said, “There’s a good probability that the vaccine is safe. And there’s a reasonable probability … that it’s also effective.” Both the development of the Russian vaccine and Russia’s unusual decision to administer it to its own citizens, even before the phase three trials ended, have been widely criticized worldwide. But Rotstein insisted that much of this criticism stems from the American-Russian battle over who will develop a vaccine first.

Read more …

Yeah, very convincing.

Moderna Says Its Vaccine Provides COVID19 Immunity For At Least 3 Months (NYP)

Moderna’s vaccine against COVID-19 has been shown to create immunity against the bug for at least three months, the biotech company said. Thirty-four healthy adults who received two doses of Moderna’s vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273, were shown to have antibodies for 90 days, according to new findings published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The first dose “produced high levels of binding and neutralizing antibodies that declined slightly over time, as expected, but they remained elevated in all participants 3 months after the booster vaccination,” the study said. The two doses were administered 28 days apart.


The report did not make clear what level of risk people would have after 90 days and whether another shot would be needed. Earlier this week, Moderna asked the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization, saying data shows its vaccine is more than 94 percent effective against coronavirus. On Friday, the Massachusetts-based company said it would be able to produce 500 million doses of the vaccine in 2021. “For 500 million, I am very comfortable we are gonna get there,” chief executive officer Stéphane Bancel said at the Nasdaq Investor Conference.

Read more …

More confidence? Based on what? Just news stories?

Intent to Get a COVID19 Vaccine Rises to 60% (Pew)

As vaccines for the coronavirus enter review for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the share of Americans who say they plan to get vaccinated has increased as the public has grown more confident that the development process will deliver a safe and effective vaccine. Still, the U.S. public is far from uniform in views about a vaccine. A majority says they would be uncomfortable being among the first to take it, and a sizable minority appear certain to pass on getting vaccinated. Overall, 60% of Americans say they would definitely or probably get a vaccine for the coronavirus, if one were available today, up from 51% who said this in September.

39% say they definitely or probably would not get a coronavirus vaccine, though about half of this group – or 18% of U.S. adults – says it’s possible they would decide to get vaccinated once people start getting a vaccine and more information becomes available. Yet, 21% of U.S. adults do not intend to get vaccinated and are “pretty certain” more information will not change their mind. Public confidence has grown that the research and development process will yield a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19: 75% have at least a fair amount of confidence in the development process today, compared with 65% who said this in September.

These findings come on the heels of preliminary analysis from two separate clinical trials that have produced vaccines that are over 90% effective; the FDA is expected to issue decisions about the emergency authorization of these vaccines in the coming weeks. While public intent to get a vaccine and confidence in the vaccine development process are up, there’s considerable wariness about being among the first to get a vaccine: 62% of the public says they would be uncomfortable doing this. Just 37% would be comfortable.


The toll of the pandemic is starkly illustrated by the 54% of Americans who say they know someone personally who has been hospitalized or died due to the coronavirus. Among Black Americans, 71% know someone who has been hospitalized or died because of COVID-19.

Read more …

What is being done about this? Why do we never read about that?

Nursing Homes Create ‘Perfect Storm’ For COVID Outbreaks (CNBC)

The coronavirus death toll at U.S. nursing homes at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic was brutal and unrelenting. The Life Care Center nursing home outside Seattle made international headlines in March after the coronavirus infected residents and staff, resulting in at least 123 cases and dozens of deaths. In New Jersey, public officials discovered 17 bodies piled into a makeshift morgue in a nursing home in April when Covid-19 fatalities overwhelmed the facility. Nursing homes, which house the most vulnerable of society, quickly became ground zero for countless coronavirus outbreaks across the U.S. in the early months of the pandemic. While the outbreak subsided somewhat this fall, long-term care facilities are now seeing their most intense surge in Covid cases since at least the summer.

As new cases break record after record most days, infections at long-term care facilities reached a new weekly high in late November, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project, an organization launched by The Atlantic magazine. More than 46,000 infections at those facilities were recorded in what was the worst week in six months; reliable data only goes back that far. Despite making up just 5.7% of all U.S. Covid cases, nursing home and assisted living facilities residents and staff accounted for 39.3% of the deaths, according to tracking project data. That number is generally considered low since many nursing home deaths tend to get reported without an underlying cause, physicians have said.

Deaths at U.S. nursing homes for the week ended last Thursday topped 3,000 — the highest weekly death toll since June, pushing cumulative fatalities over 100,000, according to the tracking project. “I’ve likened nursing homes to being like a tinderbox. It takes one person, one person, to unknowingly bring the virus into a facility and it could kill several people, make a lot of people sick,” said Dr. Joseph Ouslander, a geriatrician at Florida Atlantic University who works as a clinician in nursing homes. No matter what precautions staff take, it’s going to be difficult to prevent outbreaks in nursing homes, said Ouslander, who is also a professor of integrated medical science. “All those elements of the perfect storm are in place.”

Read more …

The Households Survey showed an actual decline of 74,000 working people. 100s of 1000s no longer count as in the labor force.

The Jobs Report is a Mess, December Will Be Messier (WS)

Everyone seems to be baking the highly anticipated potential future vaccines into the economic cake, but what has been happening for weeks is a spike in Covid cases across the US that has already triggered economic restrictions, including various versions of stay-at-home orders in Los Angeles County, San Francisco, and some other Bay Area counties, with restaurants closed for outdoor dining, strict capacity restrictions in retail stores, and many other restrictions. These moves are ahead of the State of California’s new framework for dealing with the spiking infections. Other states and cities have similar programs, either on the front burner or on the back burner. The Covid spike has already crimped economic activity and jobs over the past few weeks and is going to do more severely going forward.

But the jobs report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was based on surveys of “establishments” for the pay period through November 12; and on surveys of households for the week through November 14. So the data we got today largely missed the labor market consequences of the spike in Covid cases. Those consequence are coming in the next employment reports, starting with the report for December. Despite the cut-off dates having kept much of the Covid-impacted jobs data out of the results, the data have actually deteriorated in several aspects, including the number of people with jobs as reported by households, the employment-population rate, and the labor force.

The headline number of 245,000 jobs created came from surveys of establishments (companies, governments, nonprofits, educational institutions, etc.). That survey doesn’t track gig workers. It depicted a lousy recovery. But lousy as it was, it was the more benign part. The survey of households, on the other hand, tracks people who are working full or part time, including gig workers. And households reported that the number of people with jobs ticked down to 149.7 million. This wasn’t a slowdown in growth, but an actual decline of 74,000 working people – the first month-to-month decline since April.

The chart shows both results, from establishments (green) and from households (red) – the biggest part of the difference being gig workers. It’s obvious that even by November 12, before the real impact of the Covid surge, this was no good, in terms of catching up with population growth, or in terms of anything else:

The employment-population ratio, which tracks the number of employed workers against the working-age population (16 years or older) also dipped in November, to 57.3%, a level first seen since in 1972:

Read more …

From Bernie campaigner Sirota. He’ll never be left near a Dem campaign again.

The Beltway Left Is Normalizing Corruption And Corporatism (DP)

Last night, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Joe Biden and Kamala Harris a straightforward question: “Who would you point to now as a leading progressive voice in the cabinet?” Harris had no answer, saying only that “we’re not even halfway there” on nominations. Biden touted only his Homeland Security nominee, who previously helped run Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The spectacle was revelatory and honest: A month after the election, Biden’s nominations make clear that the president-elect is most focused on trying to fulfill his promise to donors that nothing fundamentally changes. And yet, that tacit admission may have stunned those who keep hearing from liberal and progressive groups in Washington that, in fact, the left has been notching monumental victories in Biden’s cabinet appointments.

This disconnect between Biden nominating business-friendly corporatists and Beltway liberals effusively celebrating those nominees spotlights the latter groups’ decision to genuflect for access and influence — rather than being brutally honest about the situation. That strategy of appeasement has almost never worked in an America where change has typically come only through opposition, struggle and sacrifice. And yet somehow, prostration remains the dominant strategy among the professional left. Why? In some cases, liberal groups are naively trying to curry favor with an incoming Democratic administration. Others are probably just trying to demonstrate to their supporters and future donors they won’t be completely irrelevant in Biden’s Washington.

Some are just too chickenshit to ever stand up and have any real fight with Democrats — and still others are just auctioning off their principles because the establishment counterrevolution offers better, stable career prospects. The result, though, is the same: What little organized left political infrastructure exists in Washington is largely valorizing or publicly defending swamp creatures who at minimum deserve a loyal opposition. The good work being done by a small handful of under-resourced groups to mount a real opposition is getting trampled by a culture of obsequiousness. This culture of acquiescence gives swamp creatures a free pass — and it may not just deliver an incrementalist Biden administration that takes progressives for granted and consequently fails to address national emergencies. It could also help permanently change what is even considered politically possible in the future.

Read more …

Seems the left has little to no spine.

Joe Biden’s Cabinet Is a Lost Cause for the Left (TNR)

Few portions of political discourse are as predictably shallow as presidential Cabinet discourse. Who should run the Department of Transportation? An affable also-ran in the Democratic primary who once said something about trains? A moderate politician or a businessman who might bring the country together from their perch at the agency that handles civil aviation and our highways? “No,” a sage voice somewhere in Washington, or Delaware, says. “It should be Rahm Emanuel.” As Chicagoans know, Emanuel’s most ambitious step into transportation policy as mayor was his endorsement of a high-speed tunnel project from Elon Musk that has yet to materialize. Chicagoans also know that Emanuel’s efforts to cover up video of a black teen’s murder by a Chicago policeman probably better qualify him for a post at the CIA.

That agency, we’ve been told this week, might finally be headed by a Black man; we also know a woman has been chosen to run the Department of Defense. Overall, Democratic policy professionals of all identities and stripes have been given plenty of reasons to rejoice at Biden’s choices so far. Civilians in Yemen have not. It’s been noted elsewhere that the left has responded much more quickly and aggressively to Biden’s selections than it did to Obama’s as he put together his first presidential Cabinet. If so, it doesn’t seem like the flurries of statements, social media posts, and articles that have been written to counter every stray rumor and announcement have mattered very much at all—the process is chugging along, and Biden’s nominees are just a couple of notches left of the Obama team; activists might take a small victory in torpedoing an Emanuel nomination.

There was never good reason to expect more. This is partially because a Republican Senate, should Democrats lose in Georgia’s runoff elections next month, will be an obstacle to the confirmation of even moderate nominees. But it’s more substantially because the moderates in the Democratic Party don’t share the left’s policy goals and would oppose giving them a meaningful presence in the Biden administration even if they could. The conventional wisdom about the left’s relationship with the Democratic Party has fully reversed itself in the space of six to eight months. As the Democratic primary ended, it was often argued that Sanders and the left lost because they had marginalized themselves—anti-establishment rhetoric, refusals to accept compromise, and the toxicity of prominent voices had alienated not only most of the Democratic electorate but also Democratic elites who might have otherwise been won over.

“Twitter isn’t real life,” it was said. But naturally, after Election Day, Democratic underperformance down-ballot from Biden was blamed mostly on the left’s influence. Democratic elites, it’s said now, were persuaded by the left to take on or accept unpopular messaging about socialism and policing—thanks in part, evidently, to the awesome and terrible power of tweets from left activists, writers, and podcasters.

Read more …

Turley points out that the timing indicates Durham now focuses on members of the perspective Biden administration.

“From a political perspective, the move is so elegantly lethal that it would make Machiavelli green with envy.”

Barr’s Appointment Of Special Counsel Leaves Biden, Dems In A Muddle (Turley)

Attorney General Bill Barr made two important evidentiary decisions yesterday that delivered body blows to both President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden. First, Barr declared that the Justice Department has not found evidence of systemic fraud in the election. Second, he declared that there was sufficient evidence to appoint United States Attorney John Durham as a Special Counsel on the origins of the Russia probe. The move confirmed that, in a chaotic and spinning political galaxy, Bill Barr remains the one fixed and immovable object. By appointing Durham as a Special Counsel, Barr contradicted news reports before the election that Durham was frustrated and found nothing of significance despite Barr’s pressure.

Some of us expressed doubts over those reports since Durham asked for this investigation to be upgraded to a criminal matter, secured the criminal plea of former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, and asked recently for over a thousand pages of classified intelligence material. Under the Justice Department regulations, Barr had to find (and Durham apparently agreed) that there is need for additional criminal investigation and “[t]hat investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney’s Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances.” He must also find the appointment in the public interest. Notably, the investigation of Clinesmith is effectively completed. So, what is the criminal investigation and what is the conflict?

Presumably, the conflict is not in the current administration since it would have required an earlier appointment. The conflict would seem to be found in the upcoming Biden administration. Some conflicts developing seem obvious as Biden turns to a host of former Obama officials for positions, including the possible selection of Sally Yates as Attorney General. Yates was directly involved in the Russian investigation and signed off on the controversial surveillance of Trump associate Carter Page. She now says that she would never have signed the application if she knew what she knows today.

Durham is now authorized to investigate anyone who may have “violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence, or law-enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns, individuals associated with those campaigns, and individuals associated with the administration of President Donald J. Trump, including but not limited to Crossfire Hurricane and the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III.” The list of the names of people falling within that mandate is a who’s who of Washington from Hillary Clinton to James Comey to . . . yes . . . Joe Biden. Bizarrely, reports have claimed that Trump was irate at the move as a “smokescreen” to delay the release of the report. That ignores not just the legal but political significance of the action. From a political perspective, the move is so elegantly lethal that it would make Machiavelli green with envy.

Read more …

“Is it outlandish to wonder if Joe Biden is a national security risk?”

A Hall of Smoke and Mirrors (Kunstler)

Is it outlandish to wonder if Joe Biden is a national security risk? Is it, at least, worth looking into, considering the evidence trail? Many people on the Left, who read and view only the captive Left news media, may know nothing about Hunter B’s laptop and the tales it told because social media blacked out all the news about it and the mainstream media went along with the blackout. Meanwhile, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave $350-million to a “safe elections” project run by the non-profit Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), that was chiefly active in setting up Democratic vote-harvesting operations. Could he be liable for prosecution in enabling ballot fraud? Has the FBI asked him any questions?

Another story ‘out there’ says that behind the election hijinks a war is underway between the DOD and the CIA. On Wednesday, acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller announced that all special operations run by the CIA would henceforward report to the SecDef. In effect, the President has ordered the dismantling of the CIA’s troublemaking capabilities, reducing the agency to the task of intel analysis. This means, for instance, ending the CIA’s ability to foment “color revolutions” (coups d’état) in foreign lands — with the implication that irregularities around the Dominion System may have amounted to an attempted color revolution in the USA. Is it worth wondering whether former CIA Director John Brennan, a leftist activist and probably an architect of RussiaGate, was involved in any of the election ops? If the FBI won’t question him about it, who will? (Answer: The Department of Defense.) Ditto Gina Haspel, current CIA Director. After all, what were the Dominion servers doing at the CIA’s server farm in Germany?

Events are moving quickly under the plodding surface of the ongoing swing state hearings, which are largely concerned with on-site mail-in ballot fraud shenanigans. Will the Supreme Court take a case in the few days left before the state vote certification deadline next Tuesday? Will Mr. Trump intervene with some extraordinary measure — martial law, the Insurrection Act? — to actually abort the election and bring about some kind of do-over? Will the country survive its own feckless inability to hold a credible vote? Stand by with me on all that.

Read more …

Let the dice roll where they may. Still, Dec 14 doesn’t sound like “plenty of time”.

Sidney Powell: Plenty of Time for Trump to Overturn Election Results (NM)

Attorney Sidney Powell says there’s plenty of time for President Donald Trump’s legal team to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. ‘With the fraud case, the Dec. 8 deadline doesn’t apply,” Powell said Friday during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s ”Stinchfield” in reference to the ”safe harbor” deadline that frees a state from further challenge if it resolves all disputes and certifies its voting results. ”We have at least until Dec. 14,” she said. ”We might file more suits. The court in Michigan or Wisconsin today just gave us a great order recognizing that. These are not pure election contests we are filing. These are massive fraud suits that can set aside the results of the election due to this fraud at any time. The states should not be certifying election results in the face of it.”


Powell, a former member of Trump’s legal team, has been a part of multiple lawsuits in a crusade to overturn results from the 2020 election. Several states have certified Joe Biden as the winner of the election. Newsmax has yet to project a winner as Trump continues to contest the results in court. The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday said it wouldn’t accept a lawsuit by Trump’s legal team, sidestepping a decision on the merits of the claims and instead ruling that the case must first wind its way through the lower courts. The president asked the court to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots in the state’s two biggest Democrat counties, alleging irregularities in the way absentee ballots were administered.

Read more …

It doesn’t shut up Flynn anymore.

Judge Emmet Sullivan Still Refusing To Dismiss Michael Flynn Case (JTN)

In a Freedom of Information case related to former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, District Judge Reggie Walton said on Friday that Judge Emmet Sullivan doesn’t have a lot of options in dealing with the fact that President Trump granted Flynn a full pardon, “unless he takes the position that the wording of the pardon is too broad, in that it provides protections beyond the date of the pardon.” “I don’t know what impact that would have, what decision he would make, if he makes that determination that the pardon of Mr. Flynn is for a period that the law does not permit,” said Walton, according to the National Law Journal. “I don’t know if that’s correct or not,” the judge continued. “Theoretically, the decision could be reached because the wording in the pardon seems to be very, very broad. It could be construed, I think, as extending protections against criminal prosecutions after the date the pardon was issued. I don’t know if Judge Sullivan will make that determination or not,” Walton added.


[..] Emmet Sullivan, who was presiding over the case, refused to dismiss the charges even though there was no one attempting to prosecute the case. The legal process has dragged on through the appeals process, and finally President Trump issued a full pardon on November 25. On November 30, the DOJ notified Sullivan of the pardon, but he has still refused to drop the case. Judge Walton appears to have hinted at what Sullivan is thinking as he refuses to dismiss the case. Solomon Wisenberg, former deputy independent counsel, told Just the News that “It is disappointing but not surprising that Sullivan has yet to dismiss the case.”

Read more …

Shouldn’t all these machines be audited? And then be retired?

AZ Senate, House Call For Audit Of Dominion Machines In Maricopa County (JTN)

Leaders in the Arizona state legislature on Friday called for an audit of Dominion Voting Systems software and equipment in Maricopa County, a request of which county leaders appear “supportive.” The Arizona Senate Republican Caucus announced it intent to seek such an audit via Twitter on Friday afternoon. “As a longtime advocate for improving and modernizing our election system,” incoming Senate Government Chairperson Michelle Ugenti-Rita said in the news release, “I am pleased to learn that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is supportive of conducting an independent audit of their voting software and equipment.” House Majority Leader Warren Petersen said: “A significant number of voters believe that fraud occurred. And with the number of irregularities it is easy to see why.” Petersen also called it “imperative” that officials conduct a forensic audit on Dominion’s setup in the county. Democrat Joe Biden currently has a lead of about 0.3% in Arizona in the Nov. 3 presidential balloting.

Read more …

“Tesla owners reported 250 problems per 100 vehicles..”

Dutch Taxi Company Is Taking Tesla To Court Over “Defective” Cars (Sifted)

The Netherlands was one of Europe’s most prolific buyers of Teslas but now the Dutch honeymoon seems to be over, with Tesla facing a lawsuit from a large taxi company, and a group of disgruntled car owners considering a class action suit. Bios Group, a taxi firm that operates a fleet of more than 70 Teslas out of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport is taking Elon Musk’s company to court over €1.3m in damages, citing a high number of defects in the vehicles and difficulties in getting them repaired. There are defects with some 20 of the 70 taxis, ranging from broken power steering to broken drive shafts and broken power steering, according to the Hella Hueck’s story in Dutch financial newspaper Financieele Dagblad.

Bios had to have 75 defects repaired in 2018 and another 60 in 2019. Even more problematically Bios says there have been problems with odometer readings in the cars being inaccurate, registering journeys from the wrong location or for the wrong distance, something which could land the taxi company in legal difficulties. Though the European car industry may feel like it has been outcompeted by Tesla in electric vehicles — Tesla has a bigger share of the electric vehicle market than all the European carmakers combined — these types of service quality problems may yet give the incumbent automakers an opportunity to win back customers. Bios says it has recently bought 5 Audi E-trons, in part because it expects better after-sales service from Audi.

There have been many recent reports about problems with Tesla vehicles. In June, JD Power, a consumer intelligence company whose car reliability report is considered the industry standard found that Tesla owners reported more problems in their first 90 days of ownership than the other 31 US auto brands included in the study. Tesla owners reported 250 problems per 100 vehicles, compared with an industry average of 166 problems per 100 vehicles. Bios bought the fleet of 72 Model S Teslas in 2014 for €5.7m, one of Europe’s biggest fleets at the time, creating a splash of publicity for the young car company as the fleet paraded around the streets surrounding Schiphol, proclaiming the airport’s commitment to going 100% electric.

But in the last few years, Bios says, it has grown steadily more difficult to get the faulty cars repaired, finally leaving them with no option but to launch a court case to get a resolution. In October, meanwhile, a group of disgruntled Dutch Tesla owners have started the Tesla Claims Foundation, bringing together owners who want Tesla to do more to repair faults in their cars. Some 200 people have so far joined the foundation, with complaints ranging from relatively simple things like rattling noises and poorly working windscreen wipers to broken computers and charging problems.

Read more …

Stoen in the conservative press.

Oliver Stone, America Firster (AC)

Ah, a left-wing America Firster! Not quite, as his subsequent work and his entertaining new memoir, Chasing the Light, illumine, but Oliver Stone, our most political major filmmaker, evinces a rowdily heterodox vision shaped by the unusual quartet of Jim Morrison, Sam Peckinpah, Frank Capra, and Jean-Luc Godard. What do you call a man who joins the Merchant Marine on a whim, runs up big pro football gambling debts, and takes the Old Right view of FDR’s foreknowledge of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor? I’d call him an American. Stone was a rich kid, the son of an FDR-hating Jewish Republican who had served on Eisenhower’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force staff and a French Catholic party girl. He attended the Hill School, played on the tennis team, was devastated by his parents’ divorce, and then went seriously off script.


Avid for experiences, Stone dropped out of Yale, taught in a Catholic school in Taiwan, and volunteered to fight in Vietnam. He came home with a Bronze Star, shrapnel in his ass, and a taste for “powerful Vietnamese weed.” Stone’s politics hadn’t changed all that much, though. He had supported Barry Goldwater in 1964 and would vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980. In later years he became more explicitly libertarian, expressing support for Ron Paul and making a film about Edward Snowden. At root, Oliver Stone is a patriot who despises the American Empire for corrupting his country. JFK, his fantasia on the Deep State, echoes Dwight Eisenhower’s warning that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence” by “the military-industrial complex.” Platoon and Salvador bespeak an old-fangled American anti-interventionism in an age when that tendency, once the default position of ordinary Americans, is a virtual thoughtcrime.

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle December 5 2020

Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #66438

    Paul Cézanne Young Italian Woman at a Table c1900   • Jerusalem Hospital Orders 1.5 Million Doses of Russian COVID Vaccine (Haaretz) • Moderna Sa
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle December 5 2020]

    #66440
    The Black
    Participant

    If there is just one simple takeaway from last month’s election, it is that polling is mostly used for molding and shaping rather than for gauging. And yet here’s a poll about the vaccine.

    #66441
    Noirette
    Participant

    We are now seeing, with COV-19, a frontal, in your face, assault on old structures, first of all on National Gvmts, their institutions. Stealth ‘privatization’ and ‘take-over’ of large parts of what used to be Gvmt-controlled or Gvmt-functions are now a done deal.

    Not an ex. of ‘lobbying’ (ex. a Pol, a Senator, pushed or bribed to vote for a budget that aguments x, y, or z; allocating more Gvmt. largesse (laws, rules), to a, b, or c.) Nor the ‘privatization’ of some periperal profit-making thingie, like spinning off a railway line to a friend…

    It is take-over.

    In the domain of Health / Illness and the fight against it (heh I meant illness), the Corps have won.

    The Private sector – for profit-corps, NGOs that are the soft propaganda arm (they are cheap to buy / set up, easy to disband), and the buy-out of Gvmts is almost complete. Ex. Gates Global Fund owns and directs more in that field than X Gvmts together. Laboratories that do research are owned and controlled by Corps.

    Ex. the Wuhan Level-4 lab was set up in conjunction with France – See pic, the bi-lingual text and the Chinese and F ppl cheering:

    http://en.hubei.gov.cn/news/newslist/201502/W020150202754259135135.jpg

    It is funded partially by the US:

    “Mike Pompeo has already been on record confirming and defending this funding, saying it was “to protect American people from labs that aren’t up to standard.” ..” (ha ha)

    https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/why-would-the-us-have-funded-the-controversial-wuhan-lab/

    The Wuhan lab has close ties to the Galveston Bio lab:

    https://www.galvnews.com/news/free/article_daafd290-4015-5e83-aeb2-c038036da0d9.html

    Fauci backed contoversial Wuhan Lab for coronavirus research (committing 3.7 million to it, for research, including gain of function):

    
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/75449844.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

    And so on, links are merely top of the iceberg. This is a world-wide circuit that has no National ties or oversight, a collection of ppl who are fighting for power, control, and huge profits, with many others behind the scenes investing gigantic sums, counting on mega-profits.

    #66442
    Noirette
    Participant
    #66443
    Bill7
    Participant

    ‘Together But Falling Apart’, by Alex Bartlett:

    “..No matter how absurd the response becomes to what an honest virologist would call an inconsequential virus, most citizens are demanding a greater response. More unscrutinised spending, more closures, more doses of vaccines to be made available as soon as possible, and more public shaming (and worse) for those who do not comply with the ‘new normal’.

    In the end, pharmaceutical giants will be the big winners, earning untold billions for their rushed vaccine, and will be spared any liability for all adverse consequences. Small businesses and personal autonomy will have disappeared and we will all be that much easier to track, control, monitor, punish and isolate.

    Does it have to be this way? Last week I went to a local protest in Toronto. It felt really good to finally step forward and add my voice and my presence amongst those willing to call bullshit on this assault on science, reason and the fabric of our local and national communities. The protest itself was calm and measured but you could easily sense the frustration and fear of those in attendance..”

    Together But Falling Apart

    The man is asking the right questions, IMO.

    #66444
    Bill7
    Participant
    #66445
    Bill7
    Participant

    Good call on Da Covid at Off-G:

    Tomoola Sitchin
    Dec 5, 2020 7:48 PM

    The “it’s probably a cash grab” idea came and went in a week or two probably some time last April and I then went back to the “it’s about control and depopulation”, where I’ve been ever since.

    The Rockefellers were looking for depopulating agents decades ago and by now they probably have a warehouse full. Bill Gates was always a Rockefeller favourite and he now carries the globalist depopulation by vaccine banner.

    The Mike Whitney article is a great round up of the Covid fiasco, though for me things are likely much worse than even his rather dour article. I don’t believe for one moment that the globalists would be content with a vaccine that just causes infertility in women, just too slow. These people are now very impatient for dramatic change and so while the first issues of the various vaccines may be somewhat benign, the booster doses will likely start off a great cull of the masses.

    Those running things for the globalists know that they can’t allow large numbers of vaccine refusers, as this would quickly expose their real nature. Accordingly, mandated vaccination and compulsion in all but name, are now very much on the cards.

    #66446
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Vaccine/antibody ID?

    “As a persuasion expert, I keep being asked how to get people to take the COVID vaccine. It’s simple. However, it’s not persuasion, its incentives. Your vaccine/antibody ID lets you go to restaurants, schools, bars, church, fly, or take public transportation, etc.”

    The persuasion that needs to happen is lobbying policy makers and getting public support for COVID ID and incentive policies. You don’t need to persuade everyone, only enough people.

    https://twitter.com/zoebchance/status/1333797416944865281

    #66447
    Tree Frog
    Participant

    To say “former CIA Director John Brennan” is “a leftist activist” reflects a very odd sense of “left”.

    #66448
    WES
    Participant

    Shaka5000:

    You said exactly what I was going to say about polls! Polls are used to shape public opinions. Just another form of proganda!

    Special Prosecutor:

    I think Turley’s article on Barr appointing Graham special prosecutor is totally misleading. It says this is a good thing.

    So how is appointing Graham such a good thing? Let us count the ways!

    First, it make Graham a direct servant of congress’ politicians! He must report he everything he finds directly to congress. Clearly this is a very good thing!

    Second, it prevents President Trump from declassified any documents. Clearly this is a very good thing!

    Don’t you feel so much better knowing all of these very good things!

    #66449
    John Day
    Participant

    @WES
    Barr appointing Graham Special Prosecutor is very good for BARR.
    It solves his current and some potential problems, gets him off the hook and out of gunsights, with an option to go on the offensive.
    That being said, watch uim to see which way the wind is blowing. He has not picked a direction yet.
    He’s Bush-CIA deep state, Imperialist American, not populist nationalist, nor globalist.
    I think the American balance of power was changed when GHW Bush died.
    It’s undefined, Schrodinger’s Deep State.

    #66450
    John Day
    Participant

    Oops, “Durham”

    #66451
    WES
    Participant

    So Slow Joe Biden hasn’t been slow about appointing his paid up friends into positions of power so they can loot the American taxpayer!

    What could be more American than this!

    As for the leftists, they deserve their fate for willingly helping Joe!

    #66452
    WES
    Participant

    John Day:

    Yes, as you point out, for Barr it is a very good thing that Durham (not Graham – my boo-boo!) being special prosecutor!

    Yes, Barr = Brutus!

    Brutus was never concerned about what was best for the Roman people when he knifed Ceasar in the back! Only his best interests!

    Barr has already knifed President Trump in the back, so his intentions are very clear!

    #66453

    Here I go again- inspiration hits. Haven’t read the comments yet. (But I will- I find you all so …comforting..

    This isn’t your standard vaccine.
    They say it will do you no harm.
    Just drop ’em, bend over, and don’t make a scene:
    A moon shot does not mean the arm.

    It’s a metaphor

    #66454
    Huskynut
    Participant

    @ My Parents..
    That is a jewel. Made me lol.

    I’ve just been repopulating a few books on my shelf which I’ve reread and loved but which have been loaned out never to return. One was “The Golden Gate” by Vikram Seth. A well-observed novel, but written entirely in verse. Reading it is hypnotic.. like a well-composed photograph with a foreground, middle ground and background story. There’s the narrative arc of the story in the background, and the repetitive rhythm of the verse in the foreground. And in between, a few “perfect verses”, which you can read over and over and marvel at their standalone perfection.

    @ Doc R – Thanks for your post a couple of days previous deconstructing and contextualising the vaccine success rate stats. I found it very helpful.

    #66462
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Remember: the government who decided the vaccine is safe is the government who overwhelmingly approved the 737Max and looked into Bernie Madoff for 7 years Markopolis was badgering them.

    We have heard there is at least one more way to halt matters, and one that suits an endless, pointless, spineless standoff, with the attempt to run out the clock and call on the Pentagon to remove…or rather install President Pelosi, as she has demanded. That is, if Congress takes roll call of the Electors, alphabetically, by state, then just stops… That is, a state refuses to speak… It’s yet another way beyond legislatures, Electors, Contingents. And why? Because it’s politics so there are no rules. The rule is power, what you can get away with.

    You’d be crazy to think they haven’t thought of this though. And the details of the Contingent don’t depend at all on the confirmation. Hawaii has already shown you can confirm results and reverse yourself. (1960?) But the cases are nuts, as BEFORE the judges, said, “Well, Election’s next month, nothing’s happened, where’s the wrong?” And after, they said, “Well, it’s too late, you can’t sue now.” Really? There’s no legal moment for suing elections? So what we discover is that there is no “There” there no harm not just ’til they’re cast, but confirmed? But then it’s too late? Perhaps. But they can confirm it, send the electors, and the States/Congress can say, “Look there are objections that have NOT been addressed.”(Sec 3? There’s a lot of info right now) The confirmation only holds IF the objections were ALREADY addressed and settled. The slowness of pushing it, of revealing it, seems to have been timed to insure they would not be able to address, hide, pretend, back at the state/Governor level and therefore prevent the official Congressional objection. Both the video reveal in Georgia and the date of the response from Alito in Pennsylvania seem to show this.

    And they didn’t think of it? Alito chose that exact day, just randomly, back before the election when he also didn’t rule on it but put a stop for the post-dated envelopes? I suppose just like in the age of call phones, there were no informers anywhere in the counting rooms, nobody monitoring web traffic, no well-placed cameras?

    Uh-huh. Well we just found out about the cameras. You think Noooooooooooooobody knew, nobody looked at that film until yesterday? They didn’t just keep it on tap, wait for the GA GOP to reveal the back-stabbing establishment weasels they are, and then bring it out? Because Trump and his whole posse are all idiots who sit around, eat Big Macs and watch SpongeBob on TV. Okey-dokey. Just a lucky fool, bumping into things, 1,400 days in a row.

    Like I said, there is so much info, the problem is merely to stall to process some of it. That means he can drop any info, any size, any time, on any body, any target, any reason, from any direction he wishes. And his ammunition is now unlimited.

    To prevent the long-staged Civil War he also must constantly keep the opposition thinking they’re winning, just about to win, in the right, as the line slowly creeps along back into law and order. Into revealing, maybe high-level pedophilia and human trafficking in Miami and the Caymans. Maybe massive insider payoffs in military or State Dept kickbacks through your family or charity. Saudi wars “‘Cause the money’s good.” Maybe showing what happens when the courts arrest and convict someone’s enemies, but not their friends every day. So they can go out, have dinners, go the the gym, cut their hair, launch their boat, and eat $1,000 ice cream while you’re trapped in an 800ft apartment, your kids are breaking down from the U.N. recognized torture, solitary abuse and will be fined 6 months pay if you leave. $7k fine that is 5 minute’s pay for Bezos, able to pay all day, although ironically, he would also never be charged. That’s the kind of thing you can get done while they’re “Winning” month after month.

    “Judge Emmet Sullivan Still Refusing To Dismiss Michael Flynn Case (JTN)”

    Like that even after your case is dropped. Even after extraordinary revelations of misconduct, even after you’re been pardoned, they STILL won’t drop your case. Reminds you of Powells’ book, “License to Lie” with just a few of hundreds, thousands, maybe ten thousands, of cases prosecuted on anyone, at any time, for any reason, with no evidence, just for extortion, blackmail, revenge, amusement. Against Millionaires, Congressmen, doesn’t matter: you’re not in the Club. …And she does NOT cover the thousands of criminals they also should have prosecuted but let go like Whitey Bulgar for the same reasons: payback, cash, jobs men, favors, muscle, status.

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