Jan 222021
 
 January 22, 2021  Posted by at 10:18 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Vincent van Gogh Laboureur dans un champ 1889

 

1000s Of Guardsmen Forced To Vacate Capitol, Sleep In Parking Garage (Pol.)
Words of Division (MacDonald)
Trump as Othello in a Corporate Theater (Ford)
Round Up the Usual Suspects; Don’t Forget Putin (Ray McGovern)
The Capturing of the Capitol (Tracey)
State Legislatures Make “Unprecedented” Push On Anti-Protest Bills (IC)
12,000 Israelis Test Positive For Covid19 Despite Receiving Pfizer Jab (RT)
Merkel To Close German Borders Unless EU Agrees On Covid-19 Fight (RT)
Fauci : Covid Vaccines Less Effective Against Some New Strains (CNBC)
Time to Worry About Stock Market Leverage Again (WS)
Large US Military Convoy Enters Northeast Syria (AMN)
Google, Facebook Give Australian Local Government PR Website ‘News’ Status (R.)

 

 


The 21st second of the 21st minute of the 21st hour of the 21st day of the 21st year of the 21st century.

 

 

All good now, but what a blunder.

1000s Of Guardsmen Forced To Vacate Capitol, Sleep In Parking Garage (Pol.)

Thousands of National Guardsmen were allowed back into the Capitol Thursday night, hours after U.S. Capitol Police officials ordered them to vacate the facilities, sending them outdoors or to nearby parking garages after two weeks pulling security duty after the deadly riot on Jan. 6. One unit, which had been resting in the Dirksen Senate Office building, was abruptly told to vacate the facility on Thursday, according to one Guardsman. The group was forced to rest in a nearby parking garage without internet reception, with just one electrical outlet, and one bathroom with two stalls for 5,000 troops, the person said. Temperatures in Washington were in the low 40s by nightfall. “Yesterday dozens of senators and congressmen walked down our lines taking photos, shaking our hands and thanking us for our service.

Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed,” the Guardsman said. All National Guard troops were told to vacate the Capitol and nearby congressional buildings on Thursday, and to set up mobile command centers outside or in nearby hotels, another Guardsman confirmed. They were told to take their rest breaks during their 12-hour shifts outside and in parking garages, the person said. Top lawmakers from both parties took to Twitter to decry the decision and call for answers after POLITICO first reported the news Thursday night, with some even offering their offices to be used as rest areas. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted: “If this is true, it’s outrageous. I will get to the bottom of this.”

And Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) noted that the Capitol complex remains closed to members of the public, “so there’s plenty of room for troops to take a break in them.” By 10 p.m., Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said the situation was “being resolved” and that the Guardsmen would be able to return indoors later in the night. “Just made a number of calls and have been informed Capitol Police have apologized to the Guardsmen and they will be allowed back into the complex tonight,” added Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who lost both of her legs in combat. “I’ll keep checking to make sure they are.”

Read more …

“This characterization of America’s worsening racism is not just factually ungrounded, it is also a tasteless rhetorical move in an inaugural address. Reflexive invocations of “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” have become the Tourette’s Syndrome of left-wing professors and activists.”

Words of Division (MacDonald)

It’s an odd way to seek national unity: call a significant portion of the American public white supremacists, racists, and nativists. Welcome to the Biden presidency. Joe Biden’s inaugural speech as 46th president is predictably being hailed for its “unifying” message. And just as predictably, his invocations of the divisive bromides of the identitarian Left are being swept under the rug. According to Biden, we are a “great nation” and a “good people.” But we also oppress minorities with an ever-rising fervor. “Growing inequity” is among the greatest challenges facing the country, according to Biden, along with the “sting of systemic racism” and encroaching “white supremacy.” Only now are we confronting “a cry for racial justice, some four hundred years in the making.”

One might have thought that more than 50 years of civil rights legislation; the banishing of Jim Crow segregation; the ubiquity of racial preferences throughout corporate America, higher education, and government; trillions of dollars of tax dollars attempting to close the academic achievement gap; and the election of black politicians by white voting districts would have reduced inequity, not increased it. But to Biden’s speechwriters, steeped in academic victimology, racial inequity is always with us, requiring constant remediation from government. Biden rattled off a litany of white America’s sins: the “harsh, ugly reality” of “racism, nativism, fear, [and] demonization”; “anger, resentment, hatred, [and] extremism.” He did not name white Americans as such, but he did not need to. That qualifier is inherent in the language he chose to adopt.

This characterization of America’s worsening racism is not just factually ungrounded, it is also a tasteless rhetorical move in an inaugural address. Reflexive invocations of “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” have become the Tourette’s Syndrome of left-wing professors and activists. They are au courant, shallow terms of the moment, lacking depth or weight. In fact, such terms are so overused today that it is easy to tune them out. But that would be a mistake. The “systemic racism” conceit means that every American institution is illegitimate and needs to be reconstructed. Biden’s cabinet nominees, whether in health, finance, environmental policy, or education, have declared that eradicating systemic racism is their top priority. How this agenda will play out has already been adumbrated in the CDC’s initial priority list for Covid vaccinations: hold off on vaccinating the elderly, despite their higher risk levels, because the elderly are disproportionately white. Racial quotas will become even more the order of the day than now.

Read more …

“The Democratic Party remained a safe vehicle for corporate agendas for the next 20 years – until an Orange Demon was conjured to scare the Democratic base back into the party’s corporate bosom, in 2016.”

Trump as Othello in a Corporate Theater (Ford)

Donald Trump has slunk off the national stage for the time being, but we must remember who made him a contender for president in the first place: the Democrats and their corporate media. As Wikileaks revealed , the Clinton campaign encouraged friendly media to boost Trump’s Republican primary prospects, hoping to set up a straw man that could easily be knocked down in November, 2016. By Election Day, the corporate press had lavished $5 billion in free media on Trump – more than Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and all of Trump’s Republican presidential competitors, combined. If you are desperate to flush the stink of four years of Trump out of your brain, remember who put it there, through constant, daily repetition.

How long will the Orange Menace stay gone? Not long; soon either Trump will make a comeback or the corporate media will inflate another racist straw man to run against. The only way the corporate Democrats can mobilize their base to eek out slim national victories while keeping Joe Biden’s promise to the rich that “nothing would fundamentally change ,” is to position themselves as the sole defense against the racist hordes. That’s how Bill Clinton succeeded in completing Ronald Reagan’s quest to “end welfare as we know it,” while vastly expanding the structures of mass Black incarceration (Sen. Joe Biden proudly “wrote the bill”), gutting safeguards against bankers blowing up the economy, and facilitating the exodus of good jobs to sweatshops overseas. Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America confederacy stampeded Blacks and “progressives” into the corporate Democratic corral, where they were politically neutered.

The Democratic Party remained a safe vehicle for corporate agendas for the next 20 years – until an Orange Demon was conjured to scare the Democratic base back into the party’s corporate bosom, in 2016. [..] When Blacks and progressives rallied behind Bill Clinton to defeat Gingrich, the corporate rulers were enabled to plunge the society into a great leap backward that wiped out the last vestiges of the New Deal, condemned another generation of Black youth to the Gulag, and set the stage for two economic catastrophes that rivaled the Great Depression, while the U.S. military vastly intensified its rampages around the world, the national security state penetrated every digital device on the planet, and huge corporations perfected the tools of public self-surveillance.

Read more …

MICIMATT

Round Up the Usual Suspects; Don’t Forget Putin (Ray McGovern)

But, don’t go away, Russia, not just yet. The MICIMATT still finds you convenient as the kind of “threat” it can cite to justify spending untold billions of dollars on defense, enriching the already rich. The way the U.S. system is structured, it matters little in the grand scheme of things on where the money is spent – whether a Republican or Democrat sits in the Oval Office. In short, the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-MEDIA-Academia-Think-Tank complex rules the roost (MEDIA in all caps, as the linchpin). Clinton wonders aloud who Trump “is beholden to”. Well, speaking of beholden, Joe Biden enters office with zero vaccination against being beholden – to the MICIMATT. It is fair to say that, without that the MICIMATT’s blessing, candidates end up like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard.

There are just enough straws in the wind to make the MICIMATT and its clients and supporters nervous. What would happen, should Putin and Russia become less demonized? Could there be a thaw in the unnecessarily chilly relations with Moscow? What could that mean for bloated defense spending – particularly at a time when those funds are so desperately and demonstrably needed at home? It appears likely that strategic arms negotiations with Russia will be high on President Joe Biden’s agenda, as will cooperation with Russia and the other parties to the Iran nuclear deal from which Trump withdrew. Assuming William Burns, former ambassador to Russia, is confirmed as CIA director, Biden will have at his beck and call a straight-speaking, highly experienced expert who has dealt with President Putin. Burns was also one of the chief US negotiators of the Iran nuclear deal.

In my view, it is also significant that President-elect Biden has held back from explicit condemnation of Russia by name amid the recent flurry of accusations of Russian hacking of several US institutions over the past several months. Yes, he has referred to what Secretary of State Pompeo and Attorney General Barr have said blaming Russia, and it can be argued that he has indirectly implicated Russia in the context of his sparse statements on this issue. In my experience, though, the Kremlin is likely to have taken note of the caution that Biden has exercised on this neuralgic issue. Nor has this likely escaped the attention of the MICIMATT and induced some worry about the long-term viability of the portrayal of Putin as villain.

Oliver Stone told me recently that, in one of his conversations in Russia, Mr. Putin, somewhat exasperated, said something along the lines of, “Now Russians are thought of like Jews before World War II”. Think about that. Amid the Russia Russia Russia over the past four-plus years, Putin has kept his voice down – and his powder dry – while staying open to negotiations to reduce arms competition, cyber warfare, and other facets of bilateral tension. If past is precedent, he is likely to see opportunities to take a fresh look at US intentions under President Biden – especially during the traditional “honeymoon” period normally accorded a new president. But clearly, Putin is also aware of the parallels between the demonization of him and Russia and how Jews were blamed for just about everything during the Thirties. Evidence-free accusations by the likes of Pelosi and Clinton will make the task of restoring a modicum of trust an uphill battle.

Read more …

“It was the refusal of American media to question the necessity of these extraordinary measures that will be one of the longest-lasting consequences of the entire bizarre affair.”

The Capturing of the Capitol (Tracey)

The US military is routinely shown to be one of the most trusted institutions in American life — so it wasn’t as though their mere presence on the streets of Washington automatically provoked universal horror. After the massive nationwide riots last summer, virtually everyone I spoke to expressed satisfaction with the National Guard’s handling of the chaos. Similarly, the vast number of soldiers deployed to DC this week to ward off a potential “insurrection” were greeted with plentiful selfies and free cheeseburger deliveries. But this operation, which reportedly consisted of 25,000 military personnel — not including the innumerable federal, state, and local law enforcement officials on the ground — was another thing altogether. Downtown DC had been transformed into a brazenly fortified, militarised zone unlike anything in living memory.

Roads were blocked off by oversized armoured vehicles which had been stationed for maximum visibility. The boarding-up of endless storefronts — a result of both the Covid-related economic downturn and prolonged riot-induced anxiety — added to the sense of dystopia. Soldiers patrolled with large rifles slung around their shoulders, directing traffic and checking the “papers” of motorists. One Guardsman from Pennsylvania told me that “legitimate business” was the standard by which they were to adjudicate whether cars would be allowed to pass through. The rifles brandished by many of the troops were conspicuously without a magazine loaded. This is not uncommon for a peacetime mission. The aim was evidently not to subdue any kind of imminent, actionable threat that would require live ammunition, as many politicians and journalists had frantically warned was the case, but to simply act as a gigantic deterrent.

That objective was apparently accomplished. I did not see a single protester anywhere in the city on Inauguration Day, much less any “insurrectionists” or “armed rebels” trawling around, as had been so gravely forecast. The FBI (then still technically under the jurisdiction of Donald Trump) had warned that all 50 state Capitols were at severe risk, and therefore also needed to fortify their defences with military deployments and obtrusive fencing and barriers. Then the day came and went, and… nothing. In both Albany, NY, and Sacramento, CA a total of one Trump hat-wearing man showed up at each.

And so Joe Biden was sworn in without incident, appealing for “unity”, while the city surrounding him was essentially under full-scale military occupation. The night before, I saw multiple platoons marching the streets in two-by-two formation — en route to who knows where. The general public couldn’t get anywhere close to the Inauguration site, the interior of which had been cordoned off with barbed wire. The few stragglers who hopelessly tried to enter the outskirts of the National Mall — mostly foreign media desperate for a story — were fooled by the Secret Service into standing in a line-to-nowhere that never moved.

It was the refusal of American media to question the necessity of these extraordinary measures that will be one of the longest-lasting consequences of the entire bizarre affair. It confirmed that journalists will uncritically accept extravagant shows of intrusive state force, so long as the political incentives are correctly aligned. During the riots in the summer, the US media generally reacted with horror to the prospect of the American military being deployed to allay “civil unrest,” with many claiming that it would be tantamount to white supremacy for soldiers to deter arson attacks against small minority-owned businesses and private residences. But place DC under complete military occupation as a final rebuke to Trump and his shameful supporters, and the show of state force is to be celebrated rather than adversarially probed. Particularly with Democrats now controlling the House, Senate, and Presidency, the wisdom of this occupation is probably never going to be examined in any meaningful way. Will we ever learn how much it cost taxpayers? Doubtful.

Read more …

Fear rules fear.

State Legislatures Make “Unprecedented” Push On Anti-Protest Bills (IC)

Elly Page had never seen anything like what’s happened in recent days. A senior legal adviser at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, Page has been tracking the proliferation of anti-protest bills across the U.S. since Donald Trump became president in 2017. “The number of bills we have seen in the past three weeks is unprecedented,” she said. Since the day of the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, at least nine states have introduced 14 anti-protest bills. The bills, which vary state by state, contain a dizzying array of provisions that serve to criminalize participation in disruptive protests. The measures range from barring demonstrators from public benefits or government jobs to offering legal protections to those who shoot or run over protesters. Some of the proposals would allow protesters to be held without bail and criminalize camping. A few bills seek to prevent local governments from defunding police.

The pushes by close to a fifth of state legislatures are part of a pattern that began to pick up speed after the summer’s uprisings in response to the police killing of George Floyd, which in many communities included significant property damage. In a handful of states, lawmakers did what they often do: introduced new legislation — however unnecessary — to show that they were responding to their constituents’ concerns. The rate of new bills being offered sped up dramatically this month as lawmakers kicked off their legislative sessions at the very moment that Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Bills quickly arose in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island.

“There has generally been an uptick at the beginning of odd-numbered years, when most states begin their biennial legislative sessions. But this year beats prior recent years,” Page said in an email. Since January 1, she noted that 11 state legislatures have introduced 17 bills, including those filed before the Capitol insurrection. “Compare that to 0 during the same period in 2020, 9 in 2019, 5 in 2018, and 13 in 2017,” she said, adding that the 2017 spike was mostly due to North Dakota responding to that winter’s Standing Rock protests.

Read more …

That’s a lot, no matter how you see it.

12,000 Israelis Test Positive For Covid19 Despite Receiving Pfizer Jab (RT)

More than 12,400 people in Israel have tested positive for coronavirus after being vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech jab, including 69 who had received their second dose, the country’s Health Ministry said. Some 189,000 people were tested for Covid-19 after being vaccinated, with 6.6 percent getting a positive result, according to ministry data reported by Israeli outlets. The majority were apparently infected shortly after receiving the first jab of the two-part vaccine – a period when the inoculation isn’t expected to have kicked in yet. However, 1,410 people tested positive two weeks after their first injection, by which time partial immunity should have already taken effect.

Moreover, 69 patients became infected with the novel coronavirus despite already having been administered both shots of the vaccine, the ministry said. Israel began administering the second doses almost two weeks ago, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being the first to complete the course. Pfizer has said that a spike in immunity occurs between Day 15 and Day 21 after the first jab, when the effectiveness of its vaccine increases from 52 to 89 percent. According to earlier trials, the protection offered by the vaccine reaches the 95 percent level a week after the second dose is administered, the pharma giant said. When it comes to vaccines, the results of clinical trials may differ from how the immunization performs in the field, where it’s administered to a much greater number of people.

On Tuesday, Israel’s coronavirus tsar, Nachman Ash, reportedly complained to Israeli ministers about the insufficient protection provided by the first shot of the American vaccine. It turned out to be “less effective than we had thought” and “lower than Pfizer presented,” Ash said, as cited by Army Radio. However, the head of the infection unit at Sheba Medical Center – where Netanyahu got his jabs – told Israeli media that the Pfizer vaccine “works wonderfully” after two shots. According to Professor Gili Regev-Yohai, 102 of the medics at the center were tested a week after completing the vaccination course, and all but two of them showed antibody levels between six to 20 times higher than seven days earlier.

[..] Despite already vaccinating more than 20 percent of its own population, Israel doesn’t seem as eager to share immunization with Palestinians in the occupied territories. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization expressed its “concerns” over unequal access to vaccines between Israelis and Palestinian. A WHO representative for Palestine said that the UN body has been in discussions with Israeli authorities on the possibility of allocating vaccines to the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Israeli Health Minister, Yuli Edelstein, has said her department may offer the Palestinian Authoritiy surplus doses after Israelis have received their jabs.

Read more …

Scientist Angela’s not liking what she sees..

Merkel To Close German Borders Unless EU Agrees On Covid-19 Fight (RT)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the European Union must find common ground in fighting coronavirus and stopping the spread of new strains that have already swept through the UK and Ireland recently. On Tuesday, Merkel warned that Germany could close its borders unless neighboring states acted together. “We need to make sure that everyone around us is doing the same. Otherwise we have to look at measures such as entry restrictions.” “The EU is one area,” Merkel said in Berlin on Thursday morning, hours before she was scheduled to join a video summit of EU leaders focused on Covid-19. The chancellor warned about the dangers from the spread of the new mutant virus and that they need to be “taken very seriously.”


“We act out of precaution for our country,” Merkel said, adding that everything is now about getting the getting the pandemic under control. EU leaders are to consider whether to approve vaccine passports, which would allow for inoculated people to travel more freely, and whether to apply travel restrictions. Merkel said Germany is at a difficult stage of the pandemic. “On the one hand, the number of daily infections is gradually going down,” she told a press conference. “But the virus is still very dangerous. We have a shockingly high death count, more than 1,000 people today.” On Wednesday, Germany extended its national lockdown until February 14 and brought in new rules making it mandatory to wear medical-grade masks in shops and on public transport. So far, Germany has recorded 50,010 deaths and 2.1 million cases of coronavirus.

Read more …

Has anyone seen any reported evidence of vaccine efficacy?

Fauci : Covid Vaccines Less Effective Against Some New Strains (CNBC)

New data shows that the Covid-19 vaccines currently on the market may not be as effective in guarding against new, more contagious strains of the coronavirus, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Thursday. A handful of new strains of the coronavirus have emerged overseas that have given scientists some cause for concern. Some variants that have been identified in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil appear to be more transmissible than previous strains but not necessarily more deadly. While it’s no surprise the virus is mutating, researchers are quickly trying to determine what the changes might mean for recently developed lifesaving vaccines and therapeutics against the disease.

Some early findings that were published in the preprint server bioRxiv, which have yet to be peer reviewed, indicate that the variant identified in South Africa, known as 501Y.V2, can evade the antibodies provided by some coronavirus treatments and may reduce the efficacy of the current line of available vaccines. “Furthermore, 501Y.V2 shows substantial or complete escape from neutralising antibodies in COVID-19 convalescent plasma,” researchers with South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases wrote. Their conclusions, they said, “highlight the prospect of reinfection … and may foreshadow reduced efficacy of current spike-based vaccines.”

Even if the drugs are less effective, they will still likely provide enough protection to make the vaccines worth getting, Fauci said during a White House press briefing. Both vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna have proven to be highly effective, creating a “cushion effect” that would allow for some dip in their effectiveness. “We’re following very carefully the one in South Africa, which is a little bit more concerning, but nonetheless not something that we don’t think we can handle,” Fauci said.

Read more …

Stimulus arriving in the wrong places.

Time to Worry About Stock Market Leverage Again (WS)

Margin debt – the amount of money that individuals and institutions borrow against their stock holdings – spiked by 56 billion in December, after having already spiked by 63 billion in November, by far the two largest month-to-month increases on record, to $778 billion, according to FINRA which regulates brokers and exchanges. Since March, this measure of margin debt surged by nearly $300 billion, or by 62%. Margin debt as tracked by FINRA at its member firms isn’t the only form of stock market leverage, but it’s the only form that is disclosed monthly. There are many other forms of stock market leverage by institutions and individuals that are not disclosed, or are only disclosed voluntarily in SEC filings by the brokers and banks that lend to their clients against their portfolios, such as “securities-based loans” (SBLs). We don’t know how much total stock market leverage there is, but margin loans indicate the trends, and we had another WTF moment:

High margin balances tend to precede epic stock market sell-offs, as annotated in the chart above. With these two-decade charts, the long-term changes in the dollar amounts are less relevant since the purchasing power of the dollar has dropped over the period. But on a short-term basis, the movements are very indicative about rising or falling leverage in the stock market. On a year-over-year basis, margin debt surged by nearly $200 billion in December, by far the most ever. Stock market leverage is an accelerator. When stocks already rise, and investors feel confident, they borrow money to buy more stocks, and they can borrow more against their stocks because their value has risen. And this additional borrowed money is then chasing after stocks and thereby creating more buying pressure, and prices surge further.

Read more …

Aaannd …we’re baaack!

Large US Military Convoy Enters Northeast Syria (AMN)

A large U.S. military convoy was seen entering northeastern Syria on Thursday, marking the first time since Damascus issued its letter to the United Nations Security Council demanding the immediate withdrawal of American forces from the Arab Republic. According to a field report from northeastern Syria on Thursday, the U.S. military convoy entered the Al-Hasakah Governorate from neighboring Iraq, as they were observed entering the Arab Republic via the Al-Waleed Crossing. The report said the U.S. military convoy consisted of a large amount of weapons and logistical equipment, which were transferred to their bases inside the Al-Hasakah and Deir Ezzor Governorates east of the Euphrates River.


They would add that the U.S. military convoy consisted of over 40 trucks and armored vehicles that were escorted by helicopters until they reached their destinations. These movements by the U.S. military have become routine, with the latter often moving troops and equipment back and forth from neighboring Iraq.

Read more …

Oz threatens to make them pay for news, they threaten to limit/cut their “services”, and then decide themselves what constitutes news. Major legal battle.

Google, Facebook Give Australian Local Government PR Website ‘News’ Status (R.)

Google and Facebook Inc have granted an Australian local government news provider status, drawing questions about the internet giants’ efforts to curate news media. Bundaberg Council, a regional government, told Reuters a website it runs received classification as a Google “news source”, making it the country’s first local government with that accreditation. That means a council-funded website containing only public relations content gets priority in Google News searches about the agriculture hub of 100,000 people, accompanied by a “news source” tag. Bundaberg also has the country’s only confirmed council-run Facebook page tagged as a “News & Media Website”. The designation shows the gaps left in the country’s traditional news market as smaller publications wither and disappear.


Bundaberg Council’s news website says it does not publish court and crime reports, politics, “investigative journalism” or “negative stories”. “It’s just another example of the way these tech giants are allowed to operate outside any accountability framework at all,” said Denis Muller, an Honorary Fellow at University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism. “If they want to classify a council PR website as a news website, well, they can, and there’s nothing stopping them.” Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook are fighting an Australian federal government plan to make them pay media outlets for original content that appears on their platforms, telling a Senate inquiry that the new rules may lead them to cancel some core services in the country.

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle January 22 2021

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 44 total)
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  • #68697

    Vincent van Gogh Laboureur dans un champ 1889   • 1000s Of Guardsmen Forced To Vacate Capitol, Sleep In Parking Garage (Pol.) • Words of Division
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle January 22 2021]

    #68698
    Basseterre Kitona
    Participant

    Merkel To Close German Borders Unless EU Agrees On Covid-19 Fight (RT)

    What’s the point of all of these travel restrictions when the virus is everywhere already? Most people aren’t really looking to travel right now anyways.

    Someday, in the not too distant future, we will look back at all the efforts to “control” the spread of the virus and realize that it was all a totally unscientific shot in the dark and a total waste of time and effort. As long as there are still humans, then a virus outbreak like this is going to spread until it inevitably burns itself out.

    Lockdowns are worse than useless. Masks are nearly useless. Vaccinations are beginning to look half-useless too. They only thing to be done is treat the sick as best we can and let the rest of go about our lives as best we can too.

    I can’t wait until the current crop of politicians (Merkel, Macron, Biden, etc.) are flushed out of office.

    #68699
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Just like I said. Just like they knew. …So just maybe it was NEVER about a disease that 99.997% people just walk away from? It was always about something else. You’ve been raped. You have no human rights. You are under forever martial law. Your children are being tortured. By you. What does it take?

    @Day, yes, those things in the Club of Rome are true. But correlation is not causality. This is the same as Malthusian theory: dead wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong. Forever and ever wrong. When do they give up and throw it in? Just like AGW: Never. Lifetimes of Scientists is not enough to give up on the theory of wrong predictions.

    Okay, not just throwing fire. We know there are about 100,000 things they COULD do and DON’T do. They could have NOT paved all of China and every rice patty. They COULD have not paved The Garden State from end to end. They could have not leveled the Amazon to grow palm oil. They could have grown a thing in Africa. All these things are PAID not to do. By top down tax law, building codes, if not soldiers as the IMF and Perkins wrote. If anyone does them, they are mercilessly attacked, overthrown, whole generations are not enough blood and treasure to throw at NOT having food, NOT finding resources. …Yet you say we don’t have the resources we’ve been busy stopping ourselves from getting? By outlawing drilling off three coasts, for instance?

    How about this: The Club of Rome was set up or picked up by people who WANT this to happen and be true. NeoFeudalists who want the world to be a quiet, unresisting Swiss manor house with state-sized palatial hunting grounds where every daughter is available for private flights. A scientist appears, they say C’est ca, and back that guy and his friends with billions, get his book in print for 100 years. Fire every professor on the Chicago Dept of Economics and install their own. In short, they MAKE it true. It wasn’t true then, it isn’t true now, they MADE it happen.

    Right now America STILL has so much unused land we could feed Belgium with the shoulders of our highways. Texas alone could hold the population of the earth. We have no silver mines, rare earth mines, no railways, no silos, and 3 million? 30 million? unoccupied houses. We have material sciences breaking ground for everything, the life of a man takes 1/10th the energy it once did. But we ran out of resources? No, we have 100 billionaires making trouble, flying worldwide CAUSING the shortages. Iran alone could be opened and flood the world with $10 oil for another 100 years. They don’t WANT that. As the man said, “Competition is a sin.” The only crime is low prices.

    Similarly, perhaps under some interpretations the Bible was already fulfilled in Revelations under Nero and the attack on Palestine in 70AD. Newsflash: NO ONE CARES. They – complete atheists and worse, like those who set up Israel — simply hijack the Bible to push forward todays’ agendas. Nobody cares if that’s TRUE. Nobody cares if that’s going to happen. They just PAY Iran to promote the Imam. They just PAY the Christians in America to promote the final battles, “God’s land”, Israel, and incidentally the Rapture. The story don’t mean nothing. They hijacked and paid big money so YOU, your neighbors would believe such codswollop and act the way they want you to. To direct your human energy to their ends.

    I mean, if Epstein got on a podium and just SAID what they wanted you wouldn’t cooperate, would you? They answer is easy: they LIE. They tell you a story. A con. A lie.

    So with the Club of Rome. Or AGW, as is stupidly apparent now. Covid, GND, Reset, AGW, many more, ALL these ends, and a new one this year all coincidentally have the same solution: NeoFeudalism, a “Great Reset” a BTU currency run by the same people with an authoritarian digital-tracking state founded and run on murder and depopulation. …Of their enemies.

    Come on. Think positive a second. Are there solutions? I can increase the food output 10-fold simply by moving the unemployed who need jobs, back to the land to hand-work the fields. That’s the world’s simplest win and they blow millions in tax incentives to insure it — solutions — don’t happen. Trust me, I’m not the only one who’s ever thought of this. Doing so, they won’t be 24/7/365 consumers. They’ll be 40h, 60h PRODUCERS. Shock: more will be produced, less will be consumed. What we have goes further, in time and space.

    It’s a scam. Club of Rome may mean well, but it’s garbage in, garbage out. Their premises are dead wrong so their conclusions are dead wrong. It’s just because they hadn’t invented the new and better lies of made-up computer models yet. You know, ones that no matter what data you put in, the conclusion is “temperatures rise.” The deserts, the whole silk road, is greening. Did they add THAT to their model?

    #68700

    “my parents said know” asked that I post this here.

    The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Lockdown Fraud

    We are writing this letter to request that a federal investigation be commenced and/or expedited regarding the scientific debate on major policy decisions during the COVID-19 crisis. In the course of our work, we have identified issues of a potentially criminal nature and believe this investigation necessary to ensure the interests of the public have been properly represented by those promoting certain pandemic policies.

    #68701
    Dr. D
    Participant

    From yesterday, let’s go the other way:

    What if the military is NOT interested in whether the President and civilian government are installed by foreign powers? That’s perfectly possible and acceptable conclusion. Why not? What if the Globalists in the Pentagon have prevailed and the Nationalists retreat to internecine, interdepartmental holdout? Merely a dwindling influence? They popped up just to get some ammunition from sharing the bribery and blackmail info on their adversaries, but could not prevail? I see no reason this shouldn’t be equally likely.

    Well, if the Military is generally against the people or at the least, only completely self-interested in their own departments and budgets, I need not tell you how grave our situation would be. That would leave we the people with no allies and no power centers whatsoever. Worse, if global from top to bottom, they will promptly finish attacking, murdering, and taking over the rest of the world as the expense of you the world’s peoples, a couple millions, so this isn’t just Americans at risk here.

    Likewise, the recent foray has exposed and self-selected the people with AI scanning for certain extermination. Of far more than Bill Ayers’ 30 million, and worse, they will be capable of doing it because the military will be tasked with the deed. Of killing their own states, regions, and families: predominantly red.

    Just saying, don’t see why that isn’t an equal conclusion here. You have to respond to what you believe is happening with your own life.

    Suppose the military DID intervene. Suckfest. No good at all. Even perfectly, like Rome, the people would just eat nachos on the couch and go “Hey man, why work? Why fix? Why repent? The military’s got this, just like last time?” That solution is no solution at all. And that’s ASIDE from the “coup” problem, losing the Republic when Julius fell problem, and the “military now influences, runs, and smashes things” problem.

    Suppose our savior is God-emperor Trump, like Julius? So we put our trust in the law of men now? Not in Liberty? Not in hard work and self-action? Not in Law, rules? How will half the country like that solution? Aren’t we better off without that “fix”? The only solution, as by Abundance to decadence, decadence to bondage, bondage to faith…is Faith. We are a nation under GOD, under LAW, which is equivalent. Under rules and process and order. Until they break their daddy complex of government-is-our-god, Left AND Right, we’re going nowhere. We lose. And it’s the Right that needs to learn that but good.

    Me? For some reason I just don’t see it. That’s more or less completely illogical, which may or may not be unusual for me. The nation is acting the same, as is the market.

    But let’s pretend things are just as they seem and there may or may not be two parallel governments right now, or that Mr. T has the same number of people obeying his orders that he had even when his requests were given more broadly. You know: a coterie while 98% of self-interested, self-serving government ignores him.

    What’s the first thing we see? Well, first thing they did was screw all the Progressives, right hard. The whole cabinet is made of Cheney-Rumsfeld clones. Second, they attacked all women. You are no longer safe anywhere you go. The unique, carved out spaces that protected you from men, all gone. Wiped out black and brown Americas. 11 million workers now competing for your low-wage jobs and a million more on the way. That’s just the first 10 hours. Now they’re going to totally destroy the poor. With what? Doubling down on inflation, printing $2T, increasing minimum wages to $15, wiping out a million more jobs. And that’s because inflation is a transfer of the nation’s wealth to the RICH. Like Argentina. Two-tier society, spiraling, moon-shot income disparity.

    Beyond the total lack of unity, mouthing it – which is noted and appreciated – but focusing on non-specific universal “racism”, i.e. an attack on every red person coast to coast as Nazis to be purged, as expected and said by shameless pundits 24/7, calling for their open murder, fully, joyfully supported on organized by Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Okay, nevermind that. Nevermind the censorship:

    THOSE PEOPLE ARE THE ECONOMY OF THE UNITED STATES.

    Small business, largely, but “business”, outside of government-created monopolies, are overwhelmingly red. And I know that is the plan, “burn it to the ground” “by any means necessary”, but if the whole economy stops participating, stops working, stops producing, and hides their money rather than be targets and slaves to the free s—t army, then yes, as by design, the real economy stops. As expected, predicted, planned, there are no goods. Stores are empty. People starve. That’s not red people, that’s blue people. By design. Cities, not the country. By design. The coasts burn, the inner cities, not Nebraska. Nebraska’s gonna eat. Nebraska doesn’t have high expectations of new iPhones and $10 lattes. Red people will have their money buried in pots of gold coins somehow, just as the English did when Rome fell, never you fear. So they will pull in their horns and stop, go get a coin when they need one meal. Build no apartments, fix no roofs, drive no trucks. Not as a strike, perhaps, but as “You pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”

    Sounds like a recipe for joy and abundance, racial harmony and stable governments to me. Ask Argentina how it’s going. Ask Russia, since that’s the overthrow plan they’re following right now.

    BEFORE JOE EVEN GOT IN, riots in NYC, home of Progressivism, injuring 11. Portland already marching Joe is not their President, ALL governments, all laws are illegitimate, and they intend to keep uprising, revolting without pause. Joe throws a party instead, and 6,000 people die of Covid.

    Hey, that’s how the rules work now, right? This is Joe’s America.

    My point is, he can either round up and arrest all AntiFa, proving he’s a fascist in the night of the long knives, losing his far-Left brownshirts and their campaign of terror against the right, (or rather, people considered “normal” just a year ago) OR he can let them keep going and discredit him and tear the party apart.

    In the meantime, we have Jimmy Dore exposing the NeoLibs and the Squad as ruthless self-interested sellouts. He will also split the party, and Joe can also lose his base or punish Dore and expose himself as a corporate fascist pitted against the people.

    AND he has the red army who hasn’t yet developed a response but if pressed will stop producing, go local, and resist all cultural or governmental move and laws as illegitimate. Nor will they have any choice. They are slated for complete extermination, they couldn’t stay uninvolved even if they wanted to. And they always wanted to. Their sole demand is to be left alone, and that is clearly impossible.

    Have we seen the word “Pyrrhic” yet? The castle ring-fence of 25,000 troops with 500 men inside now seems the perfect symbol of where we are now. Joe’s inauguration was ratio’d on YouTube, with overwhelming downvotes. They removed/covered the counter on the White House site. The comments have to be erased. And this is on Google. THEIR sandbox, their stronghold. THEIR completely empty, unattended inauguration. They can’t even appear legit in their own room.

    In only 48 hours. What do you think the year brings? Crackdown, no crackdown. Left-facing, Right-facing. Economy, no economy. Stimulus, no stimulus. Cooperation, no cooperation?

    Good luck. You’ll need it. Sic Semper Tyrannus. This is your supper. I don’t need to do a thing.

    All I have to do is not lose.

    #68702
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “Four people charged in Portland after demonstrators vandalized federal ICE building, Democratic Party state headquarters: –CNN

    What? These are peaceful protestors, exercising their first amendment rights, and Biden’s gestapo is attacking them! It’s the end of Democracy. Fight da power! Down with the man!

    Okay, over/under on Biden attacking all Antifa? About 6 hours. “And thank you for your support.”

    VengeNerds
    https://kunstler.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Antifa.jpg

    #68703
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Dr D

    Look at that sign. Normal people don’t march around with a sign like that. Perhaps, just perhaps, they’ve received their marching orders to create a ruckus and get patriot act 2.0 rubber stamped.

    #68704
    Mr. House
    Participant

    the right hasn’t taken the bait. Did you watch that video i posted yesterday of the gentleman at the state capital eloquently stating his case? When have you heard something like that from Antifa? One side spews hate and then accuses the other of being hate filled bigots

    #68706
    Mr. House
    Participant

    They aren’t smart either. How does revenge correct everything they have on that stupid sign? They aren’t even smart enough to understand that the very act of revenge makes them as abhorrent as those they criticize

    #68707
    Dr D Rich
    Participant

    Then what Dr. D means is the inter-penetration of business with government is now complete with the corporate control/penetration of the US military. However. Smedley Butler addressed that issue long ago while the process has been proceeding, as processes are wont to do, with the expansion for example, of coveted SECDEF-Corporate Fellowships for the chosen, ambitious or elite officers, notwithstanding the revolving door for flag officers. Concomitantly, where the typical congressman doesn’t openly sneer contemptuously at the typical deplorable filling the deplorable National Guard ranks, the rest of Congress pays limp lip service to, well, the average active duty soldier’s service. “Thank you for your service.”
    Like I said, the military failed its Commander in Chief, abandoned its post, and failed its oath under the Constitution Title X US Code. What’s left is everyone fighting for a few scraps from the table of our betters.
    As so often accompanies such displays, fealty and fecklessness stride the commons hand in hand.

    #68708
    zerosum
    Participant

    HIGHLIGHTS – MEMORABLE WORDS

    Capitol insurrection: (FALSE FLAG)

    national unity: (MY WAY)

    remember who put him there, (through constant, daily repetition): (MY DREAM)

    banished us to the corner of a parking garage: (VETERAN STREET PEOPLE)

    Evidence-free accusations Pelosi and Clinton etc: ( HUNTER _ FABRICATION)

    The rifles brandished by many of the troops were conspicuously without a magazine loaded: (PAPER TIGER)

    VACCINE, FACE MASKS, DISTANCE: (NEW NORMAL)

    VIRTUAL: (PRINTING, ASSETS, BORROWING, SECURED)

    Doubling down on inflation: ( printing ANOTHER $2T)

    #68709
    kultsommer
    Participant

    The way how soldiers are treated shows a true face of $1T war machine.

    Race issue in the US. Once when I was in NY I actually realized how people in LA basin are self-segregated for the good part and like it that way. Mostly car transportation helps further in that direction.

    12,000 Covid infections is a good thing – hopefully it will question the purpose then stop vaccination craze.

    Sunflowers, “starry night” and all “wavy” paintings like this are so “chocolate box” commercialized that I rather prefer his other work.

    #68710
    zerosum
    Participant

    INAUGURATION – Bernie Sanders
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/what-bernie-sanders-has-said-about-becoming-the-biggest-meme-of-2021/ar-BB1d09v3
    What Bernie Sanders Has Said about Becoming the Biggest Meme of 2021

    #68711
    Dr. D
    Participant

    They have so soundly and certainly won that YouTube still feels the need to keep telling me who the President is on every video.

    Guys? If you have to say there is no bank run, there’s a bank run. Doin’ great! Never better!

    #68712
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “They have so soundly and certainly won that YouTube still feels the need to keep telling me who the President is on every video.

    Guys? If you have to say there is no bank run, there’s a bank run. Doin’ great! Never better!”

    I concur. I posted this at MOA yesterday. “When you need to have more troops at your inauguration then we had in the green zone in iraq, what does that say about your confidence in yourself and how much the people love you?”

    and got this as a response:

    “When you need to have more troops at your inauguration then we had in the green zone in iraq, what does that say about your confidence in yourself and how much the people love you?

    wow, it’s as if the events of January 6th never happened.

    you fascist f*cks are wasting no time piling on the new Prez.

    I am out of here. for good

    Have fun turning this site into a swamp of Putinversteher and Trump die-hards.”

    to which i responded:

    You are unhealthy, i suggest you seek help. Never voted for trump, he’s a WWE conman. One of us is able to be objective, one of us is not.

    #68713
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Has anyone seen any reported evidence of vaccine efficacy?

    In an article published today by the journal Nature, preliminary studies in Israel are showing only 33% efficacy, instead of the 52% claimed by Pfizer, after the first dose.


    Are COVID vaccination programmes working? Scientists seek first clues

    In a preliminary analysis of 200,000 people older than 60 who received the vaccine, compared with a matched group of 200,000 who did not, researchers found that the chances of testing positive for the virus were 33% lower two weeks after the first injection… Another analysis, by Maccabi Healthcare Services, found a similar trend, although neither study has been peer-reviewed.

    …more than 75% of older people in Israel have been vaccinated

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00140-w

    #68714
    maryballon
    Participant

    This is a careful visual showing the “science” behind the lockdowns and the CCP.

    #68715
    zerosum
    Participant

    THE BATTLE FOR YOUR $
    WHO IS AGAINST YOU.

    https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/miracle-drug-ivermectin-unproven-against-covid-scientists-warn-1.5268249
    Julie Charpentrat
    Published Friday, January 15, 2021
    Can you find all the 1/2 truths, lies, and omissions?

    ‘Miracle’ drug ivermectin unproven against COVID, scientists warn
    Ivermectin is one of a string of medications tested as a potential COVID-19 treatment since the pandemic began.
    Ivermectin has long been used to treat parasites such as head lice and has been widely distributed in sub-Saharan Africa since the 1990s to treat river blindness.
    Like anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine — so far unproven by clinical trials — ivermectin is widely available and relatively cheap.

    #68716
    Noirette
    Participant

    This characterization of America’s worsening racism is not just factually ungrounded, it is also a tasteless rhetorical move in an inaugural address. Reflexive invocations of “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” have become the Tourette’s Syndrome of left-wing professors and activists.

    – from article in top post

    This is merely the well-know tactic of reducing class differences to ‘racism’, as now, the Dems and the oligarchs behind them, touting junk readings. The message is, if you are black-minority-trans-whatever and poor, struggling or desperate, it is because of your *identity* – race, sexual orientation, weight, etc. – and not because the system is rigged against you and will continue to be so!

    The message is: Don’t dare question the pay you get (..or no income at all and your children starving) or the conditions you work in or your lack of med care. Concentrate on the understanding that you are: choose, category 1,2,3,4,… and claim your rights! Over others, such as, white men who are bosses, white women who are bitches, hetero-sex ppl, etc. etc. ad nauseam.

    Classical script. What happens is that some ‘minority figures’ are co-opted to ‘rise’ and ‘have influence’ (appear in front of the cams) – they are often stooges and bow down to their ‘betters’ and simply tag along and re-inforce whatever is demanded, which is why they were hoisted in the first place, or possibly once there with subsequent dashed hopes, had no choice except to obey.

    I’m exagerating somewhat, sigh, why ppl fall for this trick over and over again gets my goat.

    More alarming is this part (same article):

    How this agenda will play out has already been adumbrated in the CDC’s initial priority list for Covid vaccinations: hold off on vaccinating the elderly, despite their higher risk levels, because the elderly are disproportionately white. Racial quotas will become even more the order of the day than now. The diversity obsessives in the federal science bureaucracies waited out Donald Trump’s presidency. They will now redouble their efforts to treat a researcher’s race and sex as scientific qualifications in the awarding of federal research grants. (…)

    Racial quotas? Anti-racism orgs. are supposed to be against that I thought? If the Pfizer vaccine is a scam or possibly ‘dangerous’ (other topic) why are useless eaters (elderly) and disadvantaged groups the first in line?

    #68717

    OK Doc Robinson, that’s at least something.

    But still…

    • Where did the preliminary analysis that indicates a 33% lower virus rate, take place, and who did it?

    • Why does the article at the same time say that “Clinical trials of the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine show it to be around 90% effective”? Those trials are Pfizer’s own, right?

    • And this is just weak: “If vaccines are effective at preventing infections, then their indirect benefit — protecting unvaccinated people — will be visible only once enough people have been immunized..”

    • AKA we have no idea. We follow the results the vaccine makers provide us with as we’re all giving them billions of dollars a day. While we could have also bought vit. D, ivermectin, HCQ with that money, and saved a bundle.

    #68718
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Professor Ran Balicer is a physician, epidemiologist and chief innovation officer for Clalit, the largest health care provider in Israel. He is also an adviser to the World Health Organisation.

    “We compared 200,000 people above the age of 60 that were vaccinated. We took a comparison group of 200,000 people, same age, not vaccinated, that were matched to this group on various variables…” Prof Balicer said.

    “Then we looked to see what is the daily positivity rate… And we saw that there was no difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated until day 14 post-vaccination.

    “But on day 14 post-vaccination, a drop of 33% in positivity was witnessed in the vaccinated group and not in the unvaccinated… this is really good news.”

    However, UK scientists said in December that trial data had suggested it would be 89% effective after one dose.

    A document issued by the UK government’s vaccine advisers, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, to justify delaying the second dose for up to 12 weeks said: “Using data for those cases observed between day 15 and 21, efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 was estimated at 89%, suggesting that short term protection from dose 1 is very high from day 14 after vaccination.”

    https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-real-world-analysis-of-vaccine-in-israel-raises-questions-about-uk-strategy-12192751

    #68719

    Okay Doc, we’re getting somewhere. Not exactly sure where that is, but it’s not nowhere.

    #68720
    kultsommer
    Participant

    @ Mr. House
    Have we ever stopped and ponder the thought that in democracy one should actually embrace those comments that you’ve listed and “fight to death” so they can be expressed? Why eye roll and dismay?
    What are the wars of “protecting our democracy” or “bringing (even false) democracy to others”?
    I am not trying to be smart ass but as someone grappling with the entire concept myself.
    What is the solution? Some ruler, “Good King” in Jungian sense, with white knights of justice? Hardly human concept.

    #68721
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Kultsommer

    What are you getting at? Treat others the way you want to be treated? Don’t throw rocks if you live in a glass house?

    #68722
    Mr. House
    Participant

    great principles to live by

    #68723
    Mr. House
    Participant

    #68724
    Doc Robinson
    Participant

    Summary of the articles I posted above:

    Trial data had suggested the vaccine would be 89% effective after one dose, and this 89% number was used to justify the delaying of the second dose up to 12 weeks in the UK. However, real-world data from Israel shows only 33% efficacy after the first dose, instead of 89%.

    Now the BMJ has an article about it:

    Concerns have been raised over how much protection a single dose of the Pfizer BioNTech covid-19 vaccine provides, following reports from Israel that it is much lower than expected.

    https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n217

    #68725

    Maryballon’s video is the visual of the link Ilargi so kindly provided for me. The written version has all the references, for those that would like to see them, and has more detail.
    Thanks Ilarge. Thanks, maryballon.

    #68726

    Sorry, Ilargi.

    #68727
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Mr. House
    Getting nowhere, as I’d said “I, myself is grappling with the concept.”
    Would not have made my post addressed to you, if I have not sensed almost salivating gusto the way you made list of “stupid comments”. Also noticed (see, again!) irritating tone in your reply. Aren’t my “opinion” equal to yours? Embrace it, dude!
    Now, add me to your list.

    #68728
    Mr. House
    Participant

    a list? I’m confused. Those comments were not made to show someone as stupid or not stupid. Those comments were made to show how unhinged as a society we are becoming. People making baseless accusations against people they don’t know. Gotta love the internet! I am here to call the hypocrisy i see on both sides, because until people understand that we’ll go nowhere in the current allowed narrative, well we’ll just continue to go nowhere. If i was irritated its because i’m not sure what you mean? If you want to call me a nazi, well them fighting words dude. Thats not saying, well sir i respectfully disagree with your viewpoint and here is why! What list am i adding you to again? I’ve got a list of movies i enjoy, bands i like, books i love, but i ain’t no steve buscmi in happy gilmore.

    #68729
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Sorry it was billy madison

    #68730
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Also i don’t believe in censorship, if kultsommer was implying that. Now with regards to calling out hypocrisy, one side of the uniparty as WES calls them is calling for censorship. Not me! Don’t worry folks, i’ll never get anywhere near the levers of power 😉

    #68731
    zerosum
    Participant

    Biden, (all gov.), are going to use the “printing press” to pay for everything. … Better food stamps, better welfare, etc.
    Opppps I forgot …. pay for all the loans, pay for all the bonds, pay for all the expenses, and pay for all the purchases, pay for all bankrupt companies.
    There will not be a need to raise taxes.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/janet-yellen-talking-out-both-sides-her-mouth

    The truth is, Yellen doesn’t care about the debt, and she, nor the newly installed Biden administration, will ever do anything to address it. The strategy is to spend, spend, spend, and continue to kick the debt-can down the road. In fact, this has been the strategy of both Republicans and Democrats for decades.

    Pretty much everybody pays lip-service to the national debt, just as Yellen did. But while politicians of every stripe have jawboned about the need for fiscal responsibility and talked vaguely about “dealing with our rising debt” – someday – the national debt now approaches $28 trillion. This has to make one wonder, at exactly what number does legitimate concern kick in? $30 trillion? $40 trillion?

    I’ll give you a hint: there is no number.

    #68732
    kultsommer
    Participant

    You did not have a “list”. Fair enough.
    Let me conclude: For the most part of my life I took democratic idea of having a right to one’s opinion and obligation to “defend it at any cost” with “of course, what else” attitude, Watching the nation divided and different groups “expressing” themselves in various ways SUDDENLY it dawned to me how that notion is full of crap and most hypocritical ever uttered by men. Hawing hit that cognitive dissonance wall, I was hoping for some clarification of what is that I am missing.
    That’s all. No more questions from me, I promise.

    #68733
    WES
    Participant

    When it comes to studying the effectiveness of vaccines, Israel is an interesting test lab, having vaccinated over 20% of it’s population. Way more than anyone else!

    As with any lab test, you have your theory and then you have your lab test results or reality.

    So after testing 200,000 vacinnated people verses 200,000 unvacinated people, the vaccinnated group showed a 33% reduction in positive results verses the unvacinnated group.

    Objectively, I would say the real world results were a resounding failure! You only reduced the infection rate by 1/3! Your vaccine failed to protect 2/3rds of the vacinnated people!

    However the timing of this test maybe somewhat suspect. To test for this maybe you need to do a second test a few weeks later to see if increased time alters the real world results.

    Hopefully you will also have noticed the irony of Pfizer not carrying out any of these expensive tests. Running tests would hurt their huge profit margins.

    #68734
    WES
    Participant

    I have to reflect upon the increasing volume of weasel words coming out of both the CDC and the WH concerning the vaccine.

    They are now saying everyone must continue masking, social distancing, and staying locked down.

    Clearly they don’t want to suddenly lose their new found powers over us.

    It also indirectly reveals the truth about the new vaccines.

    #68735
    Mr. House
    Participant

    So don’t defend your opinions because its hypocritical? I’m still not sure what you’re getting at, please explain because you are engaging me and i’d love to understand what you’re talking about.

    #68736
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    @ WES

    “Clearly they don’t want to suddenly lose their new found powers over us.”

    Forgive my devilish advocacy as I observe that they generally want whatever power is available so long as they don’t have to take much genuine responsibility. Just the dressing-like-mommy&daddy kind. It’s a constant in any such equation, oui?

    “They are now saying everyone must continue masking, social distancing, and staying locked down.”

    This too, I must, I do, I feel compelled *to respond to (the voices they won’t let me stop!). Monkey see-monkey do, CYA, whistle past the graveyard, follow the guy in front of you and trust the leader knows where the cherry pitfalls and molasses swamps are, is historically as good an explanation of this uncanny coordination of evil-by-chaos, as Everything Is Going According to Their Master Plan is.
    *no particular reason; I just get compulsive sometimes. 😉

    Certain elite types are very good at scamming the people. Elon Musk is a stellar example all around. He could get Kanye booed off a stage in 3 minutes of a debate or charm contest. But for the most part, an overwhelmingly major most part, the elites and their rhemorae are just frizzy, fussy, sissy knaves like you and I doing what they’re told to some degree or another.

    Globalization naturally dumbs even the top tier down. When everyone knows everyone’s business, nobody knows anything. We are headed to that state of affairs, very close to it, in fact “Approaching asymptotic orbit, Captain.”

    The sudden briskness of the wind that will strip away the emperor’s Officially Not Nekkid Suit will take our breath away, some temporarily, some for the duration. Sort of a domino effect.

    No, I don’t know why I feel compelled to make the too-dumb-to-know-better argument, but it seems like such an under-appreciated aspect of human affairs large and small, group and singular.

    Let me illustrate:

    A

    B

    #68737
    WES
    Participant

    Madamski:

    I have to admire your ability to write using the flowerly words of the English language like Shakespeare did!

    SadlyI have never mastered the art of writing very well. English was my very worst subject in grade school. Being hard of hearing probably did’t help much either. I nearly failed a few grades on account of my writing except my Father (phd eng) twisted each teacher’s thumbs down, up!

    My Father’s words of encouragement were always this: “You will make a good engineer”! (Father-mining, Brother-mechanical, me-electrical)

    Naturally I always did poorly (bombed!) when asked to write about vague intangible things like the meanings of Hamlet. It was pure uncentured torture for me! Likely, you enjoyed and excelled at this kind of writing!

    One of my traits, is that I can’t understand complicated things, until I disassemble it, piece by piece, into it’s
    smallest bit, so I can begin to understand how every little piece works, before reassembling it back into its complicated whole. Like computers are just a bunch of zeros and ones.

    I used this trait to write technical machinery and robot manuals in my second career. I noticed those who could write well ,also didn’t wanted to write manuals! Since these manuals then had to be translated into many foreign languages, I learned to be short and to the point and use drawings/photos (worth a 1,000 words someone told me) to keep translation costs down. (The opposite of Shakespeare!)

    About all I have really mastered about writing, is over coming my early fears about writing at all. (Just like I over came my fear of heights in my first career building large mining equipment!)

    I think God is still punishing me for not being able to write well by making me keep writing until I master the art of writing or die trying! I am betting mercifully, death will come first!

    Now one of my biggest problems writing is my rapidly declining eye sight.

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