Jan 112021
 


René Magritte Youth 1924

 

A Fond Farewell To Donald Trump’s Twitter Feed (Stone)
A Masterclass In Media Control For Dictators Around The World (Dockery)
The “Crisis” is Corporate Liberal Authoritarianism (Tracey)
PGA Strips Major Golf Championship From Donald Trump’s Bedminster Course (G.)
Payment Processor Stripe Cuts Ties With Trump Campaign (Hill)
Whispers In The Wind (Robinson)
Trump Said ‘Cheer On Congress… Peacefully’ At Morning White House Rally (NP)
House Democrat’s Resolution To Expel Republicans Who Challenged Election (JTN)
War Of The -Financial- Worlds (Nomi Prins)
25 Organizations Say Victoria Nuland Should Be Rejected (CN)
Britain Set To Outlaw Chinese Imports With Links To Human Rights Abuse (Sun)
Vietnam And China Buy Indian Rice For First Time In Decades (ZH)
Does Vitamin D Combat Covid? (G.)

 

 

We’ll have to live through the mudslinging for a while longer. Will it stop on the 20th? Not very likely. The crowds smell blood.

 

 

Arnold

 

 

Hotep

 

 

“..his first ever tweet on May 4, 2009 was “Be sure to tune in and watch Donald Trump on Late Night with David Letterman as he presents the Top Ten List tonight!”

A Fond Farewell To Donald Trump’s Twitter Feed (Stone)

The president has lost both the Oval Office and his beloved Twitter account. His posts were hilarious, mad, and occasionally dangerous – but, God, it’s been a helluva ride. @realDonaldTrump, we’ll miss you. Donald Trump governed by social media. Tweeting from bed in his teddy bear pyjamas or on his sofa in front of a huge TV screen, sometimes from a buggy on his golf course. It was never gonna end well, and now it’s all over. Twitter permanently suspended his account yesterday, and he has been indefinitely hoofed off Facebook and Instagram. There are only so many teenage temper tantrums you can have until an adult takes away your smartphone.

Plenty of people say the dumbest things on social media, but they’re not usually the 74-year-old president of the most powerful country in the world, with more than 6,000 nuclear warheads and 1.3 million active duty troops ready to go. Their words don’t rock stock markets. Trump’s Twitter journey all started in pretty limp fashion; his first ever tweet on May 4, 2009 was “Be sure to tune in and watch Donald Trump on Late Night with David Letterman as he presents the Top Ten List tonight!” Just some bland, promotional pap selling the Trump brand. Seven years later, and he was about to be elected president – who’d have thought? That chubby orange-faced dude off ‘The Apprentice’, that serial bankrupt who erected gaudy apartment blocks and casinos and had a steady stream of pneumatic looking wives?

Nah. Don’t be ridiculous. That’s never gonna happen. His first tweet as president was: “I am honered to serve you, the great American people, as your 45th President of the United States!” The typo proved it was really him, and not some public relations drone. He later explained: “My use of social media is not Presidential – it’s MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL.” Righto. He has sent thousands of tweets – and retweets such as “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?” Which, uncharacteristically, he deleted. In early June 2020, during the police brutality protests, he sent exactly 200 tweets and retweets in a single day. This being Donald Trump, he didn’t get the irony that this tweet storm came shortly after he’d signed an executive order to regulate the platform after it fact checked one of his tweets. His previous record had been 142, during his impeachment trial in January 2020.

Read more …

The risks of censorship.

A Masterclass In Media Control For Dictators Around The World (Dockery)

Cutting off an opponent’s access to the media is step one in the regime change playbook, and the US government would know, having written several of them. When US-sponsored protesters deposed Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, the first building they seized after parliament was a TV station. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan avoided a communications blackout by using FaceTime to address the public during an attempted coup against him in 2016. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak cut off internet access as protesters organized against him in 2011. Every coup or counter-coup hinges on media control, and the only difference between the deplatforming of Trump and the examples above are that for the first time, foreign regime-change strategies are being openly deployed by Americans, against Americans, in America.

As the country’s most despicable journalists and pundits cheer for the unaccountable tech tyrants, budding dictators abroad are surely taking notes. Building relationships with the tech titans is the modern equivalent of seizing a television studio, and popular movements can be easily suppressed with their cooperation. If the world’s loudest and proudest democracy is doing it, why can’t they? And who’s to say Silicon Valley’s giants themselves would stop at the US border? What is to stop them taking a dislike to some politician overseas and snuffing them out like Donald Trump? After all if the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth can be deleted, what chance do the rest of them have?

Back in the US, Trump has far more supporters than the mob who broke into the Capitol on Wednesday. He has 75 million of them, more than the population of the UK. Denied the opportunity to speak freely online and with their views branded as “extremist,” would anyone be surprised if they decided to take more drastic action? After all, the regime change manual closes with a warning: an attempted coup only ever addresses “immediate issues and short-term, rather than longer-term, interests.” For the US, these long-term consequences could have the political class pining for a return to Wednesday’s hooliganism.

Read more …

I’m not in favor of big words like that.

The “Crisis” is Corporate Liberal Authoritarianism (Tracey)

The mob that barged into the Capitol Building on Wednesday accomplished a few things. First, it cemented the electoral demise of Donald Trump, whose termination from the presidency was merely delayed for a few hours by the chaos. Second, it put forward a public perception of Trump’s most ardent supporters as a collection of conspiracy-addled violent loons. Third, it humiliated and discredited Trump, who meekly conceded defeat the following day. There was no real “coup attempt,” despite incessant politician and media histrionics to that effect. Just a pitiful outburst that was quickly dispersed. It was clear within about ten minutes of the intrusion that the most severe consequences would stem not from the incident itself, but the deliberately-stoked over-reaction.

The bipartisan political and media class, whether cynically or sincerely, is broadcasting their steadfast conviction that this was something like a “MAGA Terrorist Insurrection” — which is literally how it’s being described on CNN. Under such allegedly extreme circumstances, of course extreme remedial action is going to be demanded. Few entities capitulate to upswells of political hysteria more reliably than the tech companies. Knowing that there will soon be a Democratic presidential administration and Congress to appease, they launched this week what is the most drastic corporate censorship offensive in modern history. Not only was Trump banished from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter — the latter being his primary communications platform (for better or worse) — multiple high-profile Trump allies were likewise purged.

Steve Bannon was nuked from YouTube. Trump and his supporters are being neutralized online not because he currently poses any kind of bonafide “threat” to the Republic, but because his enemies are desperate for revenge. And they have been gifted with a perfect “crisis” that will justify their getting it. The expulsion of Trump from Twitter was celebrated rapturously by journalists whose conception of the job has markedly shifted away from anything to do with the preservation of protected speech. Instead, they are far more interested in asserting their political and cultural dominance, punishing those perceived to be undesirables, and functioning almost like a collective Human Resources social pressure department. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Twitter — collectively more powerful than most nation states — have become willing partners in this endeavor.

Read more …

The rats and the ship.

PGA Strips Major Golf Championship From Donald Trump’s Bedminster Course (G.)

The PGA of America has announced that it has moved the 2022 PGA Championship from Donald Trump’s Bedminster course in the wake of the invasion of the US Capitol. “The PGA of America Board of Directors voted tonight to exercise the right to terminate the agreement to play the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster,’’ said Jim Richerson, president of the PGA of America. Bedminster, located in New Jersey, had been awarded the tournament in 2012, before Trump’s run for the presidency. It was the first time one of his courses had been chosen to host a men’s major although Bedminster hosted the women’s PGA in 2017. The tournament is due to be played in May 2022, and alternative venues include Bethpage Black, Southern Hills and Valhalla.


“We find ourselves in a political situation note of our making,’’ said Seth Waugh, the CEO of the PGA of America, in an interview with the Associated Press. “We’re fiduciaries for our members, for the game, for our mission and for our brand. And how do we best protect that? Our feeling was given the tragic events of Wednesday that we could no longer hold it at Bedminster. The damage could have been irreparable. The only real course of action was to leave.” The Trump Organization said they were disappointed with the decision. “This is a breach of a binding contract and they have no right to terminate the agreement,” a spokesperson told ABC on Sunday. “As an organization we have invested many, many millions of dollars in the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster. We will continue to promote the game of golf on every level and remain focused on operating the finest golf courses anywhere in the world.”

Read more …

Can’t catch a break.

Payment Processor Stripe Cuts Ties With Trump Campaign (Hill)

Payment processing company Stripe cut ties with President Trump’s campaign after his supporters rioted at the Capitol last week, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to The Hill on Sunday. Stripe, a San Francisco-based company that manages online card payments for several businesses, will stop processing payments to the campaign, saying the campaign violated its policies against encouraging violence after a pro-Trump mob stormed and vandalized the Capitol. The company requests that users not collect payments for “high risk” activities, including for any business or organization that “engages in, encourages, promotes or celebrates unlawful violence or physical harm to persons or property,” according to its website.

Read more …

“Neither Trump of Biden would save that baby and the many others like it. The Saudi kingdom, is a profitable friend.”

Whispers In The Wind (Robinson)

Millions of humans lead their lives despite the petty and often pathetic self importance of US partisan politics and yet somehow, the American empire finds them. Whether it is a drone hovering high above, visiting with random murder or a blockade of warships enforcing an almost ancient embargo, it is the American prevalence in all of our lives that seems to be destroying not only the US itself, but the wider world. And when a victor emerges, the world still gets war. Mostly American wars. These are not civil riots protests that waved a fist against state led bigotry, nor are they anti conscription riots over government forcing individuals to fight overseas in another war. Such past riots, have had limited impact in quelling the growth of government or in tempering its destructive might.

Journalist Julian Assange is held captive in legal purgatory, punished for revealing the crimes of war mongers and lifting the up the skirt of many governments. Ross Ulbricht a prisoner because he created a website, the details of his conviction would make for an unbelievable fiction and yet it was all too real. Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning are pariah patriots, believers in the religious texts that most Americans claim to uphold and yet most of the voting public and voted for rulers disregard the details of such a constitution and Bill of Rights. And millions of poor and desperate foreigners live and die in the frontiers of foreign policy, their homes and day to day ruined so that macho sounding politicians can profit by propping up tyrannies of maniacal madness. Inside the prisons of the US itself are thousands of convicts punished for victimless crimes, the prohibitions and regulations of a cancerous government that claims to be for freedom, when in fact it dissolves it at every chance. The protests are not for any of them.

A small child, perhaps now dead, coiled in infant agony, starved as its innocent eyes bulged in anguish fronted recent articles covering the desperate situation in Yemen. A situation that would be impossible if not for the aid and assistance of the US and it’s imperial allies. Neither Trump of Biden would save that baby and the many others like it. The Saudi kingdom, is a profitable friend. The protesters that support the two coins of US partisan politics do not care about the children of Yemen either. One needs not look too far to find the victims of foreign policy, recent and distant to see the true outcome of such actions, but it seems few actually care to. And should they be presented with such facts and terrible images, a religious fog washes across their eyes, allowing them to either dismiss or contextualize the murder and suffering. But a slob tweeting from the toilet or a hair sniffing buffoon are both credible enough to lead, and be despised because they are not the other.

Read more …

Not a popular POV these days.

Trump Said ‘Cheer On Congress… Peacefully’ At Morning White House Rally (NP)

Despite insistence from the mainstream media, Democratic Party, and establishment Republicans that President Trump incited violence at the U.S. Capitol, his morning speech at the White House did precisely the opposite.
As the final speaker of the Save America March in Washington, D.C., President Trump insisted his supporters would “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard” at the Capitol following his speech. “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave Senators and Congressmen and women,” he outlined – never calling for protestors to breach the building or use physical force. In full his remarks read:

“And after this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down. We’re going to walk down anyone you want, but I think right here. We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave Senators and Congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity.”

Read more …

Even if it’s true that the challenges contributed to the riots, don’t they have the right to challenge?

House Democrat’s Resolution To Expel Republicans Who Challenged Election (JTN)

A freshman House Democrat is preparing a resolution to introduce Monday to expel Republican lawmakers who supported challenges to the 2020 election results. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), said Sunday in a tweet she believes the election challenges contributed to the deadly riot inside the Capitol on Wednesday. “Tomorrow, I’m introducing my resolution to expel the members of Congress who tried to overturn the election and incited a white supremacist coup attempt that has left people dead,” Bush tweeted. “They have violated the 14th Amendment. We can’t have unity without accountability,” she wrote.

Read more …

Robber barons.

War Of The -Financial- Worlds (Nomi Prins)

In The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells evokes a species — humanity — rendered helpless in the face of a force greater than itself and beyond its control. His depiction of the grim relationship between the Martians and the humans they were suppressing (meant to remind readers of the relationship between British imperialists and those they suppressed in distant lands) cast an eerie light on the power and wealth gap in Great Britain and around the world at the turn of the twentieth century. The book was written in the Gilded Age, when rapid economic growth, particularly in the United States, bred a new class of “robber barons.” Like the twenty-first-century version of such beings, they, too, made money from their money, while the economic status of workers slipped ever lower.

It was an early version of a zero-sum game in which the spoils of the system were increasingly beyond the reach of so many. Those at the top ferociously accumulated wealth, while the majority of the rest of the population barely got by or drowned. A crisis of inequality had been sparked by the Industrial Revolution itself, which started in England and then crossed the Atlantic. By the late nineteenth century, America’s “robber barons” were insanely wealthy. As economist Thomas Piketty wrote, there was a steeper increase in wealth inequality during the Gilded Age than ever before in American history. In 1810, the top 1% of Americans held 25% of the country’s total wealth; between 1870 and 1910 that share leapt to 45%. Today, the top 1% of Americans possess more wealth than the whole of the middle class, a phenomenon first true in 2010 and still the reality of our moment.

By 2018, about 75% of the $113 trillion in aggregate U.S. household assets were financial ones; that is, tied up in stocks, ETF’s, 401Ks, IRAs, mutual funds, and similar investments. The majority of nonfinancial assets in that mix was in real estate. Even before the pandemic, only the richest 20% of American households had recovered fully (or, in the case of the truly wealthy, more than fully) from the financial crisis. That’s mostly because since that crisis, fewer households had participated in the stock market or owned real estate and so had no chance to capitalize on increases in the values of either. Much of the appreciation in stock market and real-estate values has been directly or indirectly related to the Fed’s actions. By the end of December 2020, its balance sheet had increased by $3.164 trillion, reaching a total of $7.35 trillion, 63% more than its book at the height of the decade following the 2008 disaster.

Read more …

Shill.

25 Organizations Say Victoria Nuland Should Be Rejected (CN)

Victoria Nuland, former foreign policy adviser to vice president Dick Cheney, should not be nominated for undersecretary of state [for political affairs], and if nominated should be rejected by the Senate. Nuland played a key role in facilitating a coup in Ukraine that created a civil war costing 10,000 lives and displacing over a million people. She played a key role in arming Ukraine as well. She advocates radically increased military spending, NATO expansion, hostility toward Russia, and efforts to overthrow the Russian government. The United States invested $5 billion in shaping Ukrainian politics, including overthrowing a democratically elected president who had refused to join NATO. Then-Assistant Secretary of State Nuland is on video talking about the U.S. investment and on audiotape planning to install Ukraine’s next leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was subsequently installed.

The Maidan protests, at which Nuland handed out cookies to protesters, were violently escalated by neo-Nazis and by snipers who opened fire on police. When Poland, Germany, and France negotiated a deal for the Maidan demands and an early election, neo-Nazis instead attacked the government and took over. The U.S. State Department immediately recognized the coup government, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk was installed as Prime Minister. Nuland has worked with the openly pro-Nazi Svoboda Party in Ukraine. She was long a leading proponent of arming Ukraine. She was also an advocate for removing from office the prosecutor general of Ukraine, whom then-Vice President Joe Biden pushed the president to remove.

Nuland wrote this past year that “The challenge for the United States in 2021 will be to lead the democracies of the world in crafting a more effective approach to Russia—one that builds on their strengths and puts stress on Putin where he is vulnerable, including among his own citizens.” She added: “…Moscow should also see that Washington and its allies are taking concrete steps to shore up their security and raise the cost of Russian confrontation and militarization. That includes maintaining robust defense budgets, continuing to modernize U.S. and allied nuclear weapons systems, and deploying new conventional missiles and missile defenses, . . . establish permanent bases along NATO’s eastern border, and increase the pace and visibility of joint training exercises.”

Read more …

Oh, yes, our moral standards.

Britain Set To Outlaw Chinese Imports With Links To Human Rights Abuse (Sun)

Britain is to square up to China — by outlawing imports with any links to human rights abuse. Dominic Raab will use the Modern Slavery Act to make firms root out items which are made using forced labour. The Foreign Secretary will also toughen up laws around exporting British goods or technology to China that could be used for repression. The plans will be outlined to MPs tomorrow. Britain’s diplomatic ties with Beijing have been strained since claims China tried to cover up the Covid outbreak and following attacks on democracy campaigners in Hong Kong. The Foreign Office has spoken of “deeply troubling” evidence of Uyghur Muslims forced to produce cotton.


There are fears the textile industry is doing too little due diligence on goods from Xinjiang Province where the Uyghurs are forced to live in “re-education camps”. But to the dismay of some MPs and campaigners, it is understood Britain will not sanction Communist officials linked to camps and forced sterilization programmes. Officials from Russia, Saudi Arabia and North Korea have been banned from entering Britain or using UK banks. But Whitehall insiders said the so-called Magnitsky powers are not expected to be deployed in China — although it is believed ministers have them in their sights.

Read more …

What comes after central banks go nuts.

Vietnam And China Buy Indian Rice For First Time In Decades (ZH)

One month ago, we reported that SocGen’s bearish analyst Albert Edwards, who is traditionally well ahead of the curve, looked at charts of soaring food prices and was starting to “panic.” Edwards’ research report concluded by urging his readers to “keep a very close eye as to whether we see a repeat of the 2010/11 surge in food prices” because “on the 10th anniversary of the start of the Arab Spring, and with poverty having already been made much worse by the pandemic, another food price bubble could well be the straw to break the very angry camel’s back.” And while it’s not quite the spring of 2011 just yet (give it a few months) it’s getting dangerously close.

As Rithesh Jain from the World out of Whack blog writes, citing an article in the Reuters, “Vietnam, the world’s third biggest exporter of rice, has started buying the grain from rival India for the first time in decades after local prices jumped to their highest in nine years amid limited domestic supplies.” “For the first time we are exporting to Vietnam,” B.V. Krishna Rao, president of the Rice Exporters Association, told Reuters on Monday. “Indian prices are very attractive. The huge price difference is making exports possible.” Dwindling supplies and continued Philippine buying have lifted Vietnamese rice export prices to a fresh nine-year high.


Vietnam’s 5% broken rice is offered around $500-$505 per tonne, significantly higher compared to Indian prices of $381-$387. This means that, as we have been warning for the past few months, food inflation is indeed back with a vengeance: The purchases underscore tightening supplies in Asia, which could lift rice prices in 2021 and even force traditional buyers of rice from Thailand and Vietnam to switch to India – the world’s biggest exporter of the grain.

Read more …

Study after study being required. But not for the vaccines.

Does Vitamin D Combat Covid? (G.)

In March, the government’s scientific advisers examined existing evidence and decided there wasn’t enough to act upon. But in April, dozens of doctors wrote to the British Medical Journal describing the correction of vitamin D deficiencies as “a safe, simple step” that “convincingly holds out a potential, significant, feasible Covid-19 mitigation remedy”. In the Newcastle hospitals, patients found to be vitamin D-deficient were given extremely high oral doses of the nutrient, often up to 750 times the daily measure recommended by Public Health England. In July, clinicians wrote to the journal Clinical Endocrinology to share their initial outcomes. Of the first 134 coronavirus patients given vitamin D, 94 had been discharged, 24 were still receiving inpatient care, and 16 had died. The clinicians hadn’t clearly associated vitamin D levels with overall death rates, but only three patients with high levels of the nutrient died, and all of them were frail and in their 90s.

Increasingly, others followed the lead of the Newcastle doctors and began taking the vitamin themselves. During the first months of the pandemic, up to 1,000 NHS staff received free wellness packs – including vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc – from a voluntary initiative called the Frontline Immune Support Team, after informal demand from clinicians. And as sales of vitamin D supplements significantly increased, some doctors informally recommended it to patients. In a letter, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin advised its members to take the nutrient, though it was not made official policy. “We believe that vitamin D3 deficiency is a major risk factor for severe coronavirus infection, for which there is accumulating evidence,” the letter said.

[..] In 1940, when Churchill’s government feared people were particularly at risk of the musculoskeletal condition rickets, margarine companies were ordered to fortify their products with vitamin D “to safeguard the nutritional status of the nation”. (Back then, the nutrient was universally thought only to impact bone and muscle health, rather than having any effect on immune or metabolic health.) Margarine was fortified with vitamin D until 2013, when the government decided that fortification was unnecessary “gold-plating”. It became industry standard to include the nutrient within other fat spreads, but for six years there has been no legal obligation to do so.

To the former Brexit secretary David Davis, the failure to fortify a wider group of foods seems unacceptable. Like clinicians at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, he couldn’t understand why vitamin D wasn’t being pursued as a viable coronavirus treatment. Davis is a Conservative MP with a molecular science degree. In May, he urged the health secretary, Matt Hancock, to review the evidence and consider a free supplement scheme to reverse vitamin D deficiencies, citing the letter sent to the BMJ. Up to 40% of the population is estimated to be vitamin D-deficient this winter.

[..] it is only a Spanish study, conducted in early September, that came close to incontrovertibly proving low vitamin D levels have a pivotal role in causing increased death rates. There, 50 patients with Covid-19 were given a high dose of vitamin D, while another 26 patients did not receive the nutrient. Half of patients who weren’t given vitamin D had to be placed in intensive care, and two later died. Only one patient who received vitamin D required ICU admission, and they were later released with no further complications.

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle January 11 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 50 total)
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  • #68124

    René Magritte Youth 1924   • A Fond Farewell To Donald Trump’s Twitter Feed (Stone) • A Masterclass In Media Control For Dictators Around The Wor
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle January 11 2021]

    #68125
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    UK Authorities shut down Vitamin D recommendation for covid https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/01/09/uk-vitamin-d-and-coronavirus.aspx

    As much as I’m sure there are numerous real conspiracies related to all realms including health, my front row seat to institutional health care and large government programs provided dozens of examples of straight up incompetence which resulted in harm no less significant than that created intentionally. Here’s one example: in Ottawa, for many years our major (all public) hospitals all used different electronic patient records software. As the various hospitals provide unique care, transfers between hospitals happen frequently. Can you see the gap? Patient X moves to a new hospital and his electronic record is inaccessible to the new institution. To this day, faxes are still used for a portion of this type of communication. A few years back, a single electronic patient record system (horrible, not user friendly) was finally adopted. Initially, the idea was that only doctors would have access. However, when they saw how much “fun” it was, they decided that everyone should have access…

    #68126
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    @Boogaloo

    In reply to yesterday’s “but the US oligarchs will do all they can to prevent anyone from leaving”:

    Yes, the future is not “Red Dawn”. Working Americans in a coronavirus infected nation are not going anywhere. But Harvard Boys will continue making even more money from privatization and asset stripping. They can’t help themselves. Donald J Trump documents the psychopathy of the ultra-rich. The current US government has fallen but hopefully the nation will make it through to Inauguration.

    The Biden/Harris Administration in order to save the USA must make the government functional again, rebuild the public health contact tracing system, and provide free healthcare and isolation centers for all to control the pandemic if the Warp Speed Vaccine Program fails. Wall Street’s control of Washington DC and their predation of Americans and the environment must end. The gig economy, exploitation, no healthcare, homelessness and the endless wars all assures continued unrest on top of community destroying wildfires and hurricanes due to climate change

    A continued uncontrolled coronavirus pandemic makes New York City unlivable for Jet Setters. Global Masters of the Universe can live in mansions anywhere with high walls, electricity and guarded by mercenaries. They’ll depart the sinking ship and will move to where it is safe. The richest wants to live on Mars.

    There is nothing to stop the USA from becoming the latest Yugoslavia except its citizens rising above identity politics and preventing it.

    #68127
    sumac.carol
    Participant

    On incompetence I would add that the same incompetence found itself at the helm when covid struck. Sort of like a macabre musical chairs. A Canada example: we did not maintain our inventory of masks, and let them expire. And on and on…
    But yet so many examples of good, caring people, either helping others directly (Spanish hospital workers walking 20 km to work because driving is impossible due to a freak snow storm) or taking thepersonal risk of standing up, however imperfectly, to protest tyranny and fraud.

    #68128
    zerosum
    Participant

    Yep! I already told ya!

    • A Masterclass In Media Control For Dictators Around The World (Dockery)

    • The “Crisis” is Corporate Liberal Authoritarianism (Tracey)
    ———–
    Where is lalaland?
    From now on, a commoner will no longer be able to be president of the USA

    • Whispers In The Wind (Robinson)
    • House Democrat’s Resolution To Expel Republicans Who Challenged Election (JTN)
    ———
    The world enablers must be laughing at the USA for the Democrats to keep saying that the Trump supporters are
    “MAGA Terrorist Insurrection”
    All the mainstream “news media” keep repeating that message and showing the Republicans acting up in the Capitol.
    I repeat ….
    The haters of Trump are over doing their outrage of Trump and the Republicans
    My only recollection of such vile hatred was from the soldiers and prisoners of WWII.
    I guess the haters/enablers cannot realize/think of the consequences of the monster that they are creating.
    Nancy is obstructing the “peaceful transfer” of power.
    The Biden and “old boy” transfer of power will never be like before.

    #68129
    Topcat
    Participant

    The Corona Simulation Machine: Why the Inventor of The “Corona Test” Would Have Warned Us Not To Use It To Detect A Virus

    Was the COVID-19 Test Meant to Detect a Virus?

    Kary Mullis

    This is the guy who invented the PCR test technique, Kary B. Mullis

    He won a Nobel Prize for his efforts.

    The PCR test has been distorted and weaponized by TPTB

    “…Dr. Kary Mullis wrote [about PCR], on May 7, 2013:

    “PCR detects a very small segment of the nucleic acid which is part of a virus itself. The specific fragment detected is determined by the somewhat arbitrary choice of DNA primers used which become the ends of the amplified fragment. “

    If things were done right, “infection” would be a far cry from a positive PCR test.

    “You have to have a whopping amount of any organism to cause symptoms. Huge amounts of it,” Dr. David Rasnick, bio-chemist, protease developer, and former founder of an EM lab called Viral Forensics told me.

    “You don’t start with testing; you start with listening to the lungs.

    I’m skeptical that a PRC test is ever true.

    It’s a great scientific research tool.

    It’s a horrible tool for clinical medicine.

    30% of your infected cells have been killed before you show symptoms. By the time you show symptoms…the dead cells are generating the symptoms.”

    [Dr. David Rasnick]……

    “The PCR test for Corona is as good as…”

    “It’s as good as that Scientology test that detects your personality and then tells you need to give all your money to Scientology. “

    #68130
    Topcat
    Participant

    PCR tests can be done by ‘sensitivity’ using ‘cycle threshold (ct)’

    From The Trouble With PCR Tests

    “….A PCR test is amplifying samples through repetitive cycles. The lower the virus concentration in the sample, the more cycles are needed to achieve a positive result. Many US labs work with 35 to 45 cycles, while many European labs work with 30 to 40 cycles.

    The research group of French professor Didier Raoult has recently shown that at a cycle threshold (ct) of 25, about 70% of samples remained positive in cell culture (i.e. were infectious); at a ct of 30, 20% of samples remained positive; at a ct of 35, 3% of samples remained positive; and at a ct above 35, no sample remained positive (infectious) in cell culture (see diagram).

    This means that if a person gets a “positive” PCR test result at a cycle threshold of 35 or higher (as applied in most US labs and many European labs), the chance that the person is infectious is less than 3%. The chance that the person received a “false positive” result is 97% or higher.

    (Note that the exact figures depend on the test and lab in question, and that if a sample was already positive at a lower cycle threshold (e.g. 20), chances of infectiousness are much higher.)

    Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside, explained to the New York Times: “Any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive. I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive. A more reasonable cutoff would be 30 to 35.” According to the New York Times, up to 90% of positive tests at a cycle threshold of 40 would be negative at a ct of 30…..”

    So some US states are using a cycle threshold (ct) of 45

    Let’s repeat:

    …up to 90% of positive tests at a cycle threshold of 40 would be negative at a ct of 30..

    #68131
    Topcat
    Participant

    So the Manchurian Candidate, Old White Joe, is going to lower the cycle threshold (ct) of the PCR tests gradually over time and the number of ‘positives’ will drop like magic, PROVING that the vaccine rollout is a fabulous success.

    #68132

    I see you have some catching up to do, Topcat

    #68133
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Hollywood production of “his v-r-l-d view and how things v-r-k in democracy”. Dose of anti-Semitism reminder, as regular practice in just about any TV show, movie or book written lately, but not the reminder of lost jobs, hope and the meaning in life. When feeling down go and see “my/our” movie – you’ll feel better instantly.

    I am always puzzled how Magritte (and Hopper too) paints human flesh in soft-cover book illustration manner but still looks great.

    #68134

    This is a good and informative, more recent, piece on PCR testing as well.

    #68135
    Topcat
    Participant

    Thanks Raul

    I’m fascinated by weaponizing medicine for political gain.

    Not that it hasn’t always been like that, but it seems we’re shift gears into new territory.

    At least I know the PCR test is as good as the Scientology one!

    #68137
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Persuasion campaigns directed at those who decided they don’t want to be injected with the mRNA.
    “Because it’s not just their personal decision.”


    The rates of refusal – up to 40% of frontline workers in Los Angeles county, 60% of care home workers in Ohio – have prompted concern and in some cases, shaming….

    “We can’t just write off somebody’s decisions and say, well that’s their personal decision,” Robinson said. “Because it’s not just their personal decision, it’s an infectious disease.”

    ‘I’m not an anti-vaxxer, but…’ US health workers’ vaccine hesitancy raises alarm
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/10/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy-us-health-workers

    #68138
    John Day
    Participant

    Arnold: “Black is White; White is Black”

    sigh…

    #68139
    generic
    Participant

    Liberal authoritarianism. Authoritarian liberalism. Happy sadness. Joyful despair. Profligate austerity. The examples are endless.

    I can imagine George Carlin doing a long routine on the re-definers of words.

    #68140
    Noirette
    Participant

    Role of the MSM – USA.

    As mentioned by posters, the entire MSM is in the hands of a few oligarchs / powerful Corps. The Fringes are allowed only a marginal and temporary existence, increasingly now, e.g. (2021) where we see so-called ‘conservative’ sites, news, internet chats, etc. taken down, banned, etc.

    Twitter plus others banning Trump is an event that could only happen in a country on the verge of, or in the midst of, a color revolution.

    Yes, the MSM are super powerful, for ex. for the last 4 years they have spewed forth RussiaGate, making Trump out to be a stooge or a foreign agent for Russia. However, the MSM didn’t make it up, the narrative came from the DNC, Obama (sub rosa), the CIA, Experts of various tripes (sic, meant types..) some actors in the PTB, etc. Idk the details natch. Yet, many ppl did not believe …

    The MSM – imho specially in the US via TV – can hugely influence perception, understanding and knowledge of much. Particularly the perception of persons, such as Trump as a misogynist, racist, etc. Or, BLM protests as super exciting peaceful legitimate demos, vs. some protestors storming into the Capitol as insurrectionist, violent domestic terrorists revolt. Or, some Doc. being a wonderful super-star, another to be thrown in the ditch.

    The MSM is, will always be, a middle-man. Controlling tribal adherence and opinion on socio-cultural matters, plus what is going on in foreign lands (audience knows nothing, so anything goes) works. As middle-men, theyare obliged to join, adhere to, what they perceive to be ‘winners’ so as to protect their role (existence, jobs, etc.)

    They have no influence on top level decisions, which country is to be invaded, what world domination in what form, which people at home are to be imprisoned or killed, what policies are to be implemented re. military funding, climate issues, energy circuits, agricultural subsidies, food distribution, transport, education — Finance and banking !! —- etc. All the stuff that matters.

    #68141
    John Day
    Participant

    https://www.johndayblog.com/2021/01/subject-to-predation.html

    Michael Hudson interview and transcript. Thanks Charles!​
    ​ ​The financial sector essentially is of the 1% or the 10% that holds the rest of the economy in debt. The financial sector makes its money by getting the rest of the economy indebted to itself and making money off asset price gains. In the past, the financial sector made its money by getting interest. But now, with almost zero interest what it’s after is capital gains because capital gains basically are either untaxed or taxed at very, very low rates.
    ​ ​So, the financial sector essentially makes its money not by being part of the production and consumption economy but by siphoning off as much money from the production and consumption economy as it can for real estate, for insurance and for debt service and banking services. The insurance, of course, would include the health insurance.
    ​ ​The result is that Americans have to spend so much of their money now on housing. Up to 40% to 43% of their income goes for housing as opposed to 25% back in the 1940s,’50s and ‘60s . They have to pay huge amounts for medical insurance.
    ​ ​And the taxes have been shifted off real estate, off of finance onto labor and industry. So you have America really being unable to revive its industry today. Because how can you create an export industry or even compete with foreigners when you have to pay such high housing costs, such high medical insurance and healthcare costs instead of the government taking over, such high debt service. If you got all of your clothing and food and basic needs for nothing you still couldn’t compete with foreigners because of all of these FIRE sector – finance, insurance and real estate – costs.
    ​ ​Now the job of the government under industrial capitalism was all spelled out in the late 19th century in the United States. For instance, by Simon Patten, who was the first Professor of Economics at the first business school, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. And Patten said that public infrastructure was a fourth factor of production. And the role of the government was to provide basic needs like healthcare, education, transportation and other basic services at very low price so that you lower the cost of doing business. You lower the cost of living so that the private sector will be able to compete with foreign countries.
    ​ ​Now, most countries now provide free healthcare. Because if they didn’t, then the employers and the laborers would have to pay healthcare. Their cost of production would be much higher. And America has not done that. America has the highest cost of production in the world. Not because it’s technologically inefficient. The technology is all available and there.
    ​ ​The reason is all of these extra costs that are paid by labor and by employers that are borne by governments in other countries. So as long as essentially America’s dismantling the government, what you’re dismantling is the basic means of subsidizing industrial production and manufacturing. And that’s what’s left America in a high cost position and driven American industry abroad without any idea of how to create a national economy that makes it profitable to invest in industry here.
    ​ ​So most of the American cost structure has nothing to do with the cost of production and therefore nothing to do with industry or industrial capitalism. It’s a fall back into a kind of post-medieval rentier economy.​..
    ​When you have a trust, a monopoly, you can get monopoly rent over and above the normal rate of profit. Banks said: well, look, we can work with companies to let a few companies like, Carnegie takeover the steel industry. You had agriculture, agribusiness in this country, really turned into a trust with two firms sort of monopolizing all of the distribution of agricultural products. It goes all the way up. You’ve had essentially, Amazon becoming a monopoly. You have the information technology sector turning into a monopoly.
    ​ ​And the function of these monopolies… the reason their stock prices are going up so much is because they’re setting the price without any anti-monopoly legislation such as you had under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and then Teddy Roosevelt as a trust Buster. Essentially, since the 1980s you have not had any anti-monopoly prosecutions at all.​..
    ​ So it’s like a financial death star has hit America. And the death star isn’t COVID itself. COVID is all over the world. Other countries have been able to cope. It’s the financial death star that’s really killing people in the United States.

    The Tyranny Nobody Talks Abou​t​, Charles Hugh Smith
    ​ ​All the tricks to hide our unaffordable cost structure have reached marginal returns. Reality is about to intrude.
    ​ ​There is much talk of tyranny in the political realm, but little is said about the tyrannies in the economic realm, a primary one being the tyranny of high costs: high costs crush the economy from within and enslave those attempting to start enterprises or keep their businesses afloat.
    ​ ​Traditionally, costs are broken down into fixed costs such as rent and fees which don’t change regardless of whether business is good or bad, and operating costs such as payrolls, fuel, etc. which rise and fall with revenues.
    ​ ​To some degree, this division no longer matters, because the entire cost structure of our economy is tyrannically high: if rent, insurance, taxes and general overhead don’t eat you alive, then labor overhead (healthcare insurance, etc.) and other operating costs will.​..​
    ​ ​So why don’t we look at the sources of the high costs that are eroding the economy? Because every high-cost structure is someone’s gravy train: some politically sacrosanct and untouchable special interest or class of insiders depends on ever-higher costs to fund their ever-higher wages, benefits, profits, etc., and they will not be denied their gravy train.
    ​ ​Since healthcare, higher education, local government, etc. is unaffordable, let’s print money and give it away as the “solution” to unaffordability. This faux “solution” merely transfers the rising risk of collapse to the entire economy.
    https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjan21/tyranny-of-cost1-21.html

    #68142
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Just a pitiful outburst that was quickly dispersed.”

    Rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric. It wasn’t MEANT to be a coup. As the reporter themself says. So if it’s NOT a coup, and the capitol police opened the gates and waved them inside as we see on tape, how is politely touring the Capitol between the velvet ropes a “Pitful outburst”? Glad they’re not the tourism board for D.C.!

    “See the Washington Monument? You’re pathetic!” “You didn’t ‘go home’ after your vacation, you loser: you dispersed! Guess we showed you!” et cetera, ad nauseum.

    Framing, rhetoric. Or more accurately: bare-faced lies. Total lack of reason and logic, since as I said, the reporter themselves ADMITS this interpretation makes no sense. …They just attribute the illogical-ness to the supporters, not to their own ego and mind. There are two parts to a mirror. Stop. Breathe. Look.

    “Steve Bannon was nuked from YouTube.”

    Rhetoric. Who benefits from that? Are you, reporter, incapable of seeing the result? The very next move? Ooooooh, I can’t text on ONE WHOLE PLATFORM. My life is over. I guess I stop existing now.

    …Oh by the way, you just proved that the collection of conspiracy-addled violent loons were totally correct. To the 5 million urban, gay, trans, progressive, democrats you just erased over at Facebook Walk Away. So…those boys are now headed Left? Or Right?

    I’m sorry, WHO did you just nuke? Because it looks self-inflicted.

    Twitter, the avowed winner here, has lost millions of customers overnight. Their stock is collapsing. Dorsey sure showed them, boy howdy! It’ll only be a matter of time that their influence/propaganda is controlling…no one at all. Because no one is there anymore.

    …Aaaand so on through every sentence making less coherence, mental integration, than the last. You know what we call that? Integrity. It’s related to Principle. If you are without “Integration” you lack “Principles”, morality. Logic. Logos.

    But I’m having the greatest time watchin’! Oh noes! Don’t do that, Bri’er Bear! Oh no, not the proof that you are unprincipled, anti-free-speech scoundrels only out for yourselves and will happily erase half the nation.

    https://preview.redd.it/as313a431ps51.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=0abd1d9b41a1b7af1f578fa6324ee6ba10e924e7DontStop
    Don’t. Stop.

    Pense
    https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ea/7e/3a/ea7e3ae5686302178648cc5c4b91f021–willy-wonka-quotes-explore-quotes.jpg

    TheCapn

    Man, I love winning.

    #68143
    John Day
    Participant

    https://www.johndayblog.com/2021/01/subject-to-predation.html

    Friend and correspondent, Cat McGuire writes about her experience last Wednesday in Washington:
    Contrary to Big Media’s Big Fat Lies, the Save America rally on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, was in my opinion an exhilarating, momentous, peaceful protest.
    Spoiler alert: I did not make it inside the Capitol, but I was in the first 25% wave of people that arrived, and like 99.9% of those around me, I jubilantly participated in a peaceful “storming” of the Capitol…
    On arrival to the Ellipse where Trump would speak, I can say based on many Washington marches under my belt that the Save America rally’s turn-out was spectacular. I heard reports of a million plus present. We will likely never get an official crowd estimate from the National Park Service.
    I’ve been to marches large and small, but I don’t recall encountering such a polite, well-mannered crowd. Bill had been to a prior Trump rally and Jim had been to three (Johnstown, Trump’s hospital vigil, November 3).
    They said every rally is the same: uncommonly good, nice people. I figured their love of Trump colored their characterization of the President’s base. But I discovered at the rally that it’s an actual thing: Trump supporters are by and large decent, down-to-earth, genuine people…
    ​ ​I have to say I was truly surprised how incredibly informed almost everyone I met was. The conversations I had revealed big-picture thinkers as well as familiarity with granular details. Those I spoke with certainly defied the stereotypical depictions of dumb deplorables.
    ​ ​As expected, there were a lot of Christians in the crowd, some of whom I had great talks with. I’m not a Christian, but I respected their deep faith and the fact that Christians I’ve been meeting of late (not Zionist Christians) are intensely engaged with the pressing political issues of our age.​..
    ​ ​As we were walking down Constitution Avenue, it dawned on me that there were virtually no police anywhere. They were surely around, but on the thirty-minute walk to the Capitol, we didn’t see a single police officer. I did spy an undercover man with an ear wire and then a few police cars diagonally parked at intersections, but that’s it.
    ​ ​I was really taken aback by the conspicuous absence of a police presence. Every major march I’ve been to, the streets are fully lined with police, sometimes on horses. I remember being terrified once at a New York City protest when a cop on an enormous steed charged into us demonstrators.​
    Bill, Jim, and I got to the Capitol about 1:30pm before much of the crowd had arrived and saw protesters running up the steps. We were surprised to see so many going up the steps because we assumed there was a police barrier.
    ​ ​We smelled tear gas and heard flash-bang grenades going off in the distance, but very soon the disturbance fizzled and the unruffled crowd paid no more attention to the possibility of violence—especially since no reinforcements came at all until we left the event at 4:00pm. It was at that time—finally—that police cars began converging on the site as we were walking away.
    ​ ​For some, entering the Capitol was very easy. I talked to a young Asian man who couldn’t believe how easy it was to enter the building.​..
    ​ There was a tremendous sense of excitement. Dozens of people, even hundreds, could have easily “stormed” the Capitol, but chose not to. In fact, a relatively extremely small number entered the building. In my opinion, most did not go in because there was so much camaraderie and patriotic zeal taking place outside. Crowds were singing the Star Spangled Banner, and of course chanting “USA! USA!” The energy was electric, 100% positive, and we were determined to make sure our presence was known to the lawmakers inside who we assumed were deliberating on the certification.
    ​ ​For a crowd this size and in light of the crimes that had been done against our country, the heightened energy flowing amongst us could have been combustible. But we protesters had about as much malevolence as an energized Superbowl crowd.
    ​ ​Because the vast majority of the crowd was not engaging in violence, I suggest that there was a Charlottesville-type situation in which Antifa types violently breached the Capitol despite filmed instances of Trump supporters trying to stop them.
    ​ ​Later when I was able to read the media’s reporting, I was dumbfounded to see something I had experienced as so peaceful, positive, and inspiring be described as violent, negative, and destructive. Black is white. War is peace. The stolen narrative of the Save America rally is my personal 1984 moment.​..
    ​ ​I spoke with so many people at the January 6th Washington D.C. rally and learned that these folks incontrovertibly understand what Deep State Establishment Power is about. They know there is overwhelming evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.
    https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2021/01/08/i-was-at-the-washington-d-c-save-america-rally/

    ​January 6, What Really Happened in DC? Thanks Phil!
    This has actual video from inside the march, and is about the same as Cat describes, but also the action at entrances. It’s short, 05:31.
    The comments are similar to hers. “Some kind of false flag operation”. “Small number of provocateurs.” “Grungy men, people we didn’t see anywhere else at the rally.” “Who benefits?” Star Spangled Banner cloud rendition sounds nice.
    https://larouchepac.com/20210108/january-6-what-really-happened-dc

    The Boot is Coming Down Hard and Fast, Caitlin Johnstone
    “Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them,” Wall Street Journal reports.
    Did you know that Biden has often boasted about being the original author of the US Patriot Act?
    The first draft of the civil rights-eroding USA PATRIOT Act was magically introduced one week after the 9/11 attacks. Legislators later admitted that they hadn’t even had time to read through the hundreds of pages of the history-shaping bill before passing it the next month, yet somehow its authors were able to gather all the necessary information and write the whole entire thing in a week.
    This was because most of the work had already been done. CNET reported the following back in 2008:
    “Months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, [then-Senator Joe] Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of ‘terrorism’ that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review.

    The Boot Is Coming Down Hard And Fast

    House Democrats introduce Articles of Impeachment against President Trump (

    #68144
    John Day
    Participant

    https://www.johndayblog.com/2021/01/subject-to-predation.html

    Trump should pardon Assange, before they impeach him.

    ​ ​Despite the globe’s attention focused on the Capitol protest chaos and Democrats readying a charge to impeach under Pelosi, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday announced this absolute bombshell, namely that he’s now lifting “self-imposed restrictions” on the relationship between the United States and Taiwan. He announced in an official statement:
    ​ ​Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions. Executive branch agencies should consider all “contact guidelines” regarding relations with Taiwan previously issued by the Department of State under authorities delegated to the Secretary of State to be null and void.
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/washington-one-china-policy-dead-pompeo-lifts-restrictions-us-taiwan-relations

    A South African Doctor gives a 42 minute talk, explaining the molecular biology of ivermectin treatment of COVID, including zinc, doxycycline and vitamin-D as compliments, as being used in India, to such good effect (but now illegal in South Africa. I hope he’s ok).​ Thanks Jeremy.

    #68145
    Topcat
    Participant

    I had a German friend years ago, born in the late 40’s in a small town near the Black forest,
    who I asked once about whether he knew what his father had done during WWII.

    He said when he was a little kid of 4 or 5, before he went to grade school, he remembered asking his father if he was a soldier during the war.

    His father said yes, but he was just a cook on the eastern front.

    My friend took that on face value, he loved his father and assumed he told the truth.

    A couple years later when he got into grammar school, he and other boys were talking about what their fathers had done during WWII.

    Oddly enough he said, almost every boy in his class said his father was a cook on the eastern front. Hmmm…

    Isn’t that special he thought, and in such a small town!

    Later on in school, one of the other boys said he had overheard his father and his friends talking and they said my friend’s father was in a notorious SS Division, not Waffen SS, but the real deal SS.

    He said he was always to afraid to ever ask his father directly after hearing that.

    Over the years however, it became evident to him, that his father’s bitterness toward the war was because Germany had lost, not because of what they had done.

    Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Kristallnacht analogy is not only overbaked hyperbole but from my German friend’s experience, the average WWII German soldier regrets losing, not their behavior during it.

    During the real Kristallnacht, estimates were about 7500 shops were destroyed, approx 90 murdered and 260+ synagogues burned to the ground.

    Am I missing some stats from the Capitol Hill Event?

    Is Arnold shilling for the Deep State? The Terminator shilling?

    #68146
    zerosum
    Participant

    Civilians will be a minority
    Demonstration of military strength at the inauguration of 20 Jan 2021
    In China – no
    In N.korea – no
    In Iran – no
    In Russia – no
    By a dictator – no
    By the leaders of the domestic terrorists revolt – Yes – Biden and “the old boys club”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/washington-monument-closed-thru-jan-24-due-credible-threats-disrupt-biden-inauguration
    Gen. Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said the US Department of Defense had approved a plan to increase Guard troops in the Washington Metropolitan Area by 9,000, for a total of 15,000 to support the inauguration.

    #68147
    Veracious Poet
    Participant

    Reading gives us someplace to go, when we have to stay where we are.

    One can only hope the psychopaths are confined soon…

    Pense

    #68148
    WES
    Participant

    First, you learn how to use your power openly against one group of people, as another group of people publically cheer you on.

    Second, you learn to use your power against another group of people, in silence.

    Third, you have successfully placed fear in all groups of people.

    #68149
    WES
    Participant

    Zerosum:

    It would be fitting if Joe’s inauguration is to be by invitation only.

    #68150
    WES
    Participant

    I am now wondering how long it will take before the liberal progressives become disillusioned by uncle joe.

    Having now silenced conservative voices, how long will it be before complaining progressive liberals are then silenced in the same manner?

    #68151
    WES
    Participant

    So far the death of the flu in 2020/21 hasn’t gained any traction.

    I still think this is an important piece of the story.

    The PCR test is part of this story too.

    Total death counts is part of this story too.

    Money and power are the evil roots of this story.

    I think uncle joe will provide answers shortly when the virus starts disappearing.

    #68152
    zerosum
    Participant

    Don’t talk about Hunter
    Talk about impeachment
    Then Hunter can be invited to attend the inauguration.
    —–
    Apparently, Biden’s covid team has hit a road block and cannot speed thing up.

    #68153
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    I’m sure someone’s posted this here in the last year, but I do like throwing red meat to hungry dogs (and spot-aged crazy bitches like moi), so I’ll just leave this here.

    Germs!

    Even I might consider doing George Carlin. That is one sexy brain. And a mug like a retired elf drinking his retirement away at the bar. You know why old women like drunks: they’re so hung over…

    #68154
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ WES

    “Having now silenced conservative voices, how long will it be before complaining progressive liberals are then silenced in the same manner?”

    About the time they’re no longer able to maintain the values charade, whose deception they protest about, can no longer be maintained, providing the necessary good cop/bad cop false dichotomy. But I suspect they won’t be silencing much. This is not a 20th century ideologically driven revolution. This is a huge vessel sinking s-o-o slowly but now gaining downward momentum ever rapidly at an algorithmic rate going exponential.

    They will be scuttling into liofeboats leaving us to sink or swim. So, as an old libertarian icon liked to have his alter ego, Lazarus Long, either the Phallic Symbol or Dick Joke of Heinlein, say: fish or cut bait.

    Look instead for major Balkanizing violence and try not to get press-ganged into working the coal mines. And god forbid not the thorium mines:

    Flash!

    #68155
    John Day
    Participant

    Tessa Fights Robots feels what I’m feeling, I think. https://tessa.substack.com/p/coup-in-the-head
    Now, the important battle. Currently we are facing a true existential danger coming from Big Tech, Big Biotech, their partners in the military, and their servants in the government, regardless of their political affiliation. Alas, I cannot name a president or a popular presidential candidate who hasn’t been collaborating with very wealthy people who are, in turn, hellbent on turning all of us into serfs. Obama was in bed with Google. Trump went “Operation Warp Speed,” packed with the military crooks. Yang wants a vac…n passport. Biden is all, #BuildBackBetter. Like, seriously, WTF, all of them. So it’s just us. We are on our own, and we only have our hearts to lead us. Perhaps, it’s always been this way, and now it’s just more visible. Perhaps, it’s an opportunity to finally find our hearts because it is the only source of light in the midst of darkness.

    #68156
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ TopCat

    “Is Arnold shilling for the Deep State? The Terminator shilling?”

    No more than before, and he always was a bit of a maverick (I know: that word. Hmm. Sarah Palin was hot. If you like sex with thorazine girls.) I think it’s more a senile ego trip. Arnold sure looks like a very high-functioning narcissist. He wants to be admired, loves being admired, and is really good at getting people to admire him.

    ‘Ho-nee, aye tink ah’m gonna make ah stettmint. Speek to deh peephole! Like Rooosifilt’s Firesign Speeches?”

    The kinder gentler wiser avuncular Terminator.

    OK, so it’s TEOTWAWKI. Still, this recipe writes itself like a funny cake.

    Ah, Arnold, we hardly knew ye. You were always wrapping yourself up in CGI:

    Free money with your drink!

    #68157
    WES
    Participant

    Madamski:

    As for being gang-pressed into working in coal mines … it is too late!

    I have worked in so many coal mines, in so many countries, I can’t remember them all!

    Of course my claim to fame is working in a Siberian coal mine in 1983!

    #68158
    WES
    Participant

    Madamski:

    “Thorazine Girls” – to be honest, I had never heard of such types of girls!

    I had to look them up. You learn something new every day!

    I would say over half of the women I have met are moody! Come to think of it, I can’t remember any that weren’t!

    Isn’t that what makes women, women?

    #68159
    WES
    Participant

    John Day:

    You know sometimes I am sorry that I know what I know.

    Sometimes not knowing is better, especially as one can rarely do anything about what you do know.

    However, it seems I have always wanted to know how things really work! I can’t seem to help myself! It is a genetic defect!

    Ah yes, happy hour! Time to take my vitamin Ds!

    #68160
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ WES

    You have seen some serious shit, then, sir. A unique culture, coal-mining.

    #68161
    WES
    Participant

    madamski:

    Your note about all being on a sinking vessel is very true!

    The ocean our vessel is sinking in, is debt!

    #68162
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    2 wes

    ‘Isn’t that what makes women, women?”

    It’s certainly a major distinguisher. Hormone cycles are amng the things that truly test women’s souls. Along with men. Oh, they try! Oh, can they be trying! 😉

    #68163
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    Things women can do that men can’t:

    Higher Voices, Prettier Clothes, that je ne sais quoi

    Vive le similaire!

    Also: seriously tight vocal harmony. Close jazz intervals. Crosby Stills and Nash are jealous. But ladies’ voices are in that sweet spot. Lucky us!

    #68164
    WES
    Participant

    Madamski:

    Yes, being a coal miner isn’t the life for everyone. It is a hard life.

    For me it meant 100% travel for 8 years straight. But that is how I got to see, work, and live, in over 20 countries plus over 40 US states. I paid a heavy price too not marrying a thorazine girl until I was 40!

    However, in every other way, these were good decent people struggling to survive.

    The hillbillies of Kentucky, West Virginia, and Alabama were just like their counterparts in South Africa, Australia, Canada, and Russia.

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