Aug 222024
 


Salvador Dali Landscape with butterflies 1956

 

Trump Defeats Harris By Landslide In Musk’s Poll On X (RT)
Polling Showing Harris In Lead Flagged By Industry Experts (JTN)
RFK Jr To Endorse Trump On Friday Morning (ZH)
Two Minutes of Hate: Unhinged Attack Montage On Loop At The DNC (DB)
Biden, Harris Have No Strategy for Ukraine, Trump Does – Congressman (Sp.)
No, Biden and Harris’ Border Crisis Is Not Over (ZH)
Biden’s Aides ‘Hid His Decline’ – WaPo (RT)
Justice Department Steps In for Trump in George Floyd Protests Case (ET)
West Risking WWIII – Salvini (RT)
US Could Charge, Search More Americans Tied To Russian State News (Sp.)
Germans Lying About Nord Stream Exchange – Moscow (RT)
Biden’s Desperation for ‘Foreign Policy Win’ (Sp.)
Biden Approved New Nuclear Strategy Refocusing on ‘Chinese Threat’ (Sp.)
Beijing Has ‘No Intention’ Of Nuclear Arms Race With US – FM (RT)
X’s New Gun Emoji Fights ‘Woke Mind Virus’ – Musk (RT)

 

 

 

 

Flynn

 

 

Trump bullet
https://twitter.com/i/status/1825911229035978756

 

 

Transfer

 

 

Sachs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1826137316135461335

 

 

Joan Rivers

 

 

Beck

 

 


Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, July 31, 2024 © Getty Images / Stephanie Keith

 

 

 

 

“Since a lot of people have asked, here goes a super unscientific poll..”

Trump Defeats Harris By Landslide In Musk’s Poll On X (RT)

Former US President and Republican nominee Donald Trump has resoundingly trounced his Democrat competitor for the November election, Kamala Harris, in a poll which billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk ran on X (formerly Twitter). Vice President Harris accepted her party’s official nomination earlier in August after President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the race; she later tapped Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate. On Tuesday, Elon Musk ran his own, smaller election on X. “Since a lot of people have asked, here goes a super unscientific poll,” the billionaire posted on his account. According to the results as of Wednesday, out of the 5.8 million votes, almost three quarters would vote for Trump in November, while more than a quarter would see Harris elected.

Earlier this month, the Republican nominee told Reuters that he would consider the billionaire and tech entrepreneur for a role in his administration, when asked whether he would take Musk for an advisory or cabinet job. “If he would do it, I certainly would. He’s a brilliant guy,” he said. Musk, replying later on X, wrote that he is “willing to serve.” Last week Elon Musk interviewed former US President Donald Trump on Spaces. They engaged in what Musk said was an “unscripted” dialogue with “no limits”; the interview has garnered more than 275 million views to date.

Trump called Harris “third rate,” “incompetent” and a “left lunatic” during the talk. The Harris campaign issued a fiery response to Trump’s two-hour Musk interview denouncing the Republican candidate’s “extremism and dangerous agenda.” She also slammed “self-obsessed rich guys who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024” as the talk was marred by technical issues. According to Musk, the stream was attacked by a large-scale DDoS (dedicated denial of service) attack, leading to technical problems. According to set of polling averages posted by The New York Times, as of Wednesday, Harris leads Trump by two percent in two swing states: Wisconsin and Michigan. Meanwhile, Trump leads by four percent in Georgia, with both candidates are about even in Arizona and Pennsylvania, according to the newspaper’s poll collation data.

Read more …

But is Musk’s poll really that more unscientific than, say, the NYT’s?

“So what they’re doing is they’re polling fewer Republicans. They’re polling a disproportionate number of Biden 2020 voters in these states that were dead even..”

“..most voters strongly oppose the idea of letting biological males compete in women’s sports..” [..] hardly anybody knows that Vice President Harris is a strong advocate of letting those biological males compete in women’s sports.”

“RealClearPolitics currently projects Trump to win 287 electoral votes to Harris’s 251 based on its state-by-state averages..”

Polling Showing Harris In Lead Flagged By Industry Experts (JTN)

Vice President Kamala Harris has enjoyed a noticeable surge in the polls – particularly national polls – since becoming the Democratic standard bearer, but the rapid shift in her position has left some industry analysts questioning the apparent boost in the formerly quite unpopular vice president’s standing. In her 2020 run, she struggled to break 3% before dropping out, according to The Hill. Prior to becoming the Democratic nominee, Harris suffered from decidedly poor approval ratings and Trump initially held the lead over her in a head-to-head matchup. The average quickly flipped, however, in the wake of several surveys showing Harris ahead. Those surveys, however, have attracted scrutiny from an array of pollsters either due to their lack of transparency about the sampling methodology or from oversampling Democrats. “So what they’re doing is they’re polling fewer Republicans. They’re polling a disproportionate number of Biden 2020 voters in these states that were dead even,” pollster John McLaughlin said this week [..]

“They’re saying the Biden 2020 voters should be four or five points higher. It’s ridiculous. So what they’re doing is they’re trying to pump Harris up. They’re trying to suppress our vote. And this is, you know, there’s smart people doing this, so I think it’s intentional.” Harris currently leads Trump by 1.5% in the RealClearPolitics polling average, with 48.2% support to his 46.7%. She leads by the same margin in a five-way race including the Green Party’s Jill Stein and independents Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and [..] Cornel West. At present, the only polls showing Trump ahead in the two-way race average come from Fox News, Rasmussen Reports, and CNBC. All others show Harris with a one-to-four-point lead. Trump led Harris in the RCP average until Aug. 5 and has not reclaimed the lead since. Neither RCP average includes survey data from McLaughlin & Associates.

After Harris became the de facto Democratic nominee, Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio distributed a memo forecasting a so-called “Harris Honeymoon” in which the vice president would see a surge in the polls due to an uptick in favorable coverage. “The coverage will be largely positive and will certainly energize Democrats and some other parts of their coalition at least in the short term. That means we will start to see public polling – particularly national public polls – where Harris is gaining on or even leading President Trump,” Fabrizio wrote in late July. Fabrizio also asserted that the electorate’s positions on critical issues such as inflation, crime, and inflation, were unlikely to change with the Democratic ticket, saying “the fundamentals of the race stay the same.” [..] pollster Scott Rasmussen called the polling boost a “sugar high” and concurred with Fabrizio based on his own data that voter opinions on issues appeared split from their opinion of the topline candidates.

He further insisted that voters remained largely ignorant of Harris’s actual positions and that increased awareness of her stances on key issues could sway the electorate. Even famed Democratic pollster and campaign veteran James Carville warned Democrats about their “giddy elation” over Vice President Harris’s presidential campaign. “It’s very much a sugar high… Right now, when we look at all the issues and we ask what voters know about Vice President Harris? Well, they know that she’s very pro-choice on abortion. They don’t really know anything else about her,” Rasmussen said. “One of the issues we’ve highlighted because of the events of last week in the Olympics is that most voters strongly oppose the idea of letting biological males compete in women’s sports,” he went on. “In fact, only 21% of Harris’s voters – her own supporters think that should be allowed, and yet hardly anybody knows that Vice President Harris is a strong advocate of letting those biological males compete in women’s sports.”

[..] A critical factor in determining a poll’s final results are the characteristics of the survey group and how closely they align with the broader population. The Washington Post released a survey last week in conjunction with ABC News and Ipsos. The topline figure showed Harris with a four-point lead over Trump, 49% to 45%, representing one of the largest Harris leads of recent surveys. In the five-way race, Harris led by three points. The survey questioned 2,336 U.S. adults, including 1,975 registered voters, from Aug. 9-13. The registered voter sample featured a +/- 2% margin of error. Notably, the survey did not release the demographic questions about the sample. The sample came from the KnowledgePanel, which the poll says matched “U.S. population benchmarks” for myriad demographic characteristics based on the March 2023 population survey from the Census Bureau.

“When you saw the Washington Post Ipsos poll, there’s no transparency,” McLaughlin said. “They say it’s weighted according to the census. It’s picked from their in-house panel, and it’s all done online, and there’s an obvious bias.” The survey did not disclose a breakdown of respondents by party affiliation. Statewide polling, moreover, has also been difficult for Trump, albeit to a lesser extent. Exit polls from the 2020 election may provide a benchmark for estimating the partisan affiliations of voters. But at least some surveys have deviated significantly from that breakdown and crafted survey groups that overrepresent Democrats or under-represent Republicans. “And you’re seeing polls like, for example, like the New York Times… their Siena polls over the weekend, where in Georgia… CNN exit polls in 2020 had 38% Republicans, this [is] 5% fewer Republicans… in the New York Times/Siena poll,” McLaughlin said.

Thirty-three percent of respondents in the NYT/Siena College poll’s Georgia survey self-identified as Republicans. Trump led Harris 50% to 46% in the Peach State’s polling results. “[S]ame thing in North Carolina, 5% fewer Republicans,” he went on. That iteration of the NYT/Siena survey showed Harris leading Trump in the Old North State 49% to 47% and was an outlier among North Carolina surveys in the RealClearPolitics polling average. “Michigan… They [were] 38% in the 2020 exit polls, Republicans, their poll it’s 29. Now nine fewer,” he added. The latest NYT/Siena survey in Michigan shows Harris with a four-point lead of 50% to 46% in the Wolverine State. That survey also saw only 27% of registered voters self-identify as Republicans in Michigan. In Wisconsin, the 2020 exit polls had 37% Republicans. In the recent New York Times poll, Siena had 27% Republican. Ten points fewer,” he also said. Harris led Trump with 50% to 46% in the state.

[..] RealClearPolitics currently projects Trump to win 287 electoral votes to Harris’s 251 based on its state-by-state averages, several of which show only single-digit margins for either candidate. That no-toss-ups projection currently shows Trump winning Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona. Harris currently leads in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Virginia. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President.

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“..with some speculating that RFK would make a great head of Trump’s CIA..”

RFK Jr To Endorse Trump On Friday Morning (ZH)

As we speculated earlier, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. indeed plans to end his independent presidential campaign and endorse former President Donald Trump, NBC news reported citing two sources familiar with the plans. The sources cautioned that talks are ongoing, but there will be clarity by the end of the week. One of the sources said the campaigns are working toward a joint appearance. The decision to drop out will end the most prominent third-party candidacy in the 2024 race. Kennedy announced Wednesday that he will give a campaign speech addressing “his path forward,” days after his running mate said the campaign faced a choice about staying in the 2024 election or dropping out to back Donald Trump. Kennedy’s campaign announced he will hold the event in Phoenix on Friday. Trump, meanwhile, is also set to host an event on Friday night, in Glendale, a Phoenix suburb.

Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy’s running mate, said Tuesday that the ticket was weighing two options. One was to stay in the race and “risk” a Harris-Walz presidency, as she put it in a podcast interview, while the other option was to drop out of the race and “join forces” with Trump. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, told NBC News in an interview Wednesday that “there’s been a lot of communication back and forth” between Kennedy and his campaign. “I haven’t spoken to RFK personally, but I know there’s been a lot of communication back and forth between RFK, between the campaign, between this campaign,” Vance said. “Look, our argument to RFK, and I’ll make it right now, because, of course, he hasn’t dropped out yet, is, look: If you want a Democratic Party that protected American workers and stood for strong borders, maybe disagreed with Republicans on things like tax policy, that party doesn’t exist anymore.”

* * *
Amid a flurry of speculation that he will endorse Donald Trump (following news reports – which he since denied – that he failed to clinch a cabinet job with Kamala Harris in exchange for his endorsement there), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said he will make a speech in Phoenix on Friday, his campaign announced, as the independent presidential candidate considers whether to drop out of the race and endorse former President Donald Trump. The campaign said Kennedy will “address the nation” Friday morning, without sharing details of what he will be speaking about. Kennedy’s speech will come days after his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, said in a podcast interview on Tuesday that the campaign is considering whether to “join forces” with Trump to prevent the “risk” of Vice President Kamala Harris winning the election.

Overnight, in an interview Trump said that he would certainly consider a cabinet position for RFK Jr in exchange for an endorsement. “I would love that endorsement because I’ve always liked him” Trump said. Then when asked if he would also consider adding him to the administration, Trump responded that “I like him a lot I respect him a lot uh I probably would if something like that would happen… He’s very different kind of a guy, very smart guy, and yeah I would be honored by that endorsement certainly.” “He’s a brilliant guy he’s a very smart guy I’ve known him for a long time I didn’t know he was thinking about getting out but if he is thinking about getting out certainly I’d be open to it” On Friday we will learn if RFK Jr is also open to it, with some speculating that RFK would make a great head of Trump’s CIA, which would be ironic considering what the CIA did to JFK…

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“The profanity laden video depicts political opponents as cockroaches (could you imagine the reaction if a conservative made that comparison?), and sprinkles in sexualized images, including Elon Musk deep throating a phallic object labeled “MAGAsickle”.”

Two Minutes of Hate: Unhinged Attack Montage On Loop At The DNC (DB)

In George Orwell’s prophetic and seminal work, 1984, the Two Minutes of Hate was a daily ritual of operant conditioning, in which a video reel depicting enemies of the state was broadcast throughout society with the express aim of whipping the masses into a frenetic state of loathing towards anyone who opposed Big Brother. Since the appearance of the “Dark Brandon” entity, the non-brainwashed have been wary of the nasty turn politics has taken in the United States, and elsewhere. If four years of unhinged Trump Derangement Syndrome from the MSM wasn’t enough, now the President and incumbent party was channeling unrestrained animus at roughly half the U.S. population. While constantly professing to be the party for “preserving democracy” and “inclusivity”, the US Democratic Party is channeling ominous and blatant overtones of repression, dare I say, even hatred toward their fellow citizens who may not be so like-minded. So far the Democratic National Convention has been a dumpster fire of cringe, disrespect and hypocrisy but one takeaway, posted on twitter takes the cake:

The profanity laden video depicts political opponents as cockroaches (could you imagine the reaction if a conservative made that comparison?), and sprinkles in sexualized images, including Elon Musk deep throating a phallic object labeled “MAGAsickle”. If there was any doubt that the Democratic Party has been captured by far-left lunatics, the big takeaways were:

• America is evil (MAGA literally stands for restoring the country to its former grandeur)
• Wealth is evil (“F*CK BILLIONAIRES”), and
• Literal communism (“REDISTRIBUTE THAT SHIT”)

(Hypothetically speaking, should the Dems win in November, how soon would you think that “B” gets swapped out for an “M”?) In case you were wondering what you’re really voting for if you tick the box for the Dems this November – it’s looks like some kind of deranged mutation of Orwell’s 1984 and Ayn Rand’s “We The Living”, replete with wealth redistribution and re-education camps. Remember – it’s always relatively easy to vote your way into communism – but you have to fight your way out.

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“It is rare for a Republican congressman to attend the Democratic National Convention. On his Instagram* page, Waltz joked that “Green Berets go behind enemy lines.”

Biden, Harris Have No Strategy for Ukraine, Trump Does – Congressman (Sp.)

The administration of US President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has suffered a failure due to the absence of a strategy for the Ukrainian conflict, member of the US House Committee on Armed Services Michael Waltz (R-FL) told RIA Novosti on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. “We have yet, and I have asked publicly, privately and even in classified settings to really get a strategy out of this administration. And I think it’s been a real shortcoming,” Waltz said, speaking about the current administration’s lack of a strategy for Ukraine. In contrast, US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump does have a strategy to urge Russia and Ukraine to sit down to the negotiating table to end the Ukrainian conflict.

“He’s made it clear that he will tell the Ukrainian government they need to come to the table or that’s it. So I think he has an overall strategy in mind to get both sides to the table in a reasonable way to diplomatic talks to bring this to a resolution,” Waltz said when asked about Trump’s ability to help end the conflict in Ukraine. It is rare for a Republican congressman to attend the Democratic National Convention. On his Instagram* page, Waltz joked that “Green Berets go behind enemy lines.” Waltz is a Retired colonel in the US National Guard and served in combat as a member of the US Army Special Forces, colloquially known as the “Green Berets.”

The Kyiv Independent, citing a source close to Volodymyr Zelensky, reported Wednesday that the Ukrainian authorities want to prepare the ground this fall for potential peace talks with Russia. Russia has been conducting a special military operation in Ukraine since February 24, 2022. President Vladimir Putin has said the operation aims to “protect people subjected to genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.” According to the president, the ultimate goal of the operation is to liberate Donbas and create conditions that guarantee Russia’s security.

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“.. the millions they have already allowed into our country have done damage that will take decades to remedy.”

No, Biden and Harris’ Border Crisis Is Not Over (ZH)

Ever since early 2021, Americans have watched as illegal aliens have flooded across the Southwest border unimpeded. They have read with horror the accounts of innocent Americans victimized by those here unlawfully. They have seen family and friends die after being poisoned by fentanyl coming across the border. And the Biden-Harris administration has largely done nothing. Yet now, following a few months of somewhat-reduced numbers of apprehensions between ports of entry along the Southwest border, the Biden-Harris administration is taking a victory lap. Such premature celebration, however, ignores the reality of the continuing nature of this crisis. Before explaining why, Americans must understand that even if not one more inadmissible alien crossed our borders for the remainder of Biden and Harris’ term, the millions they have already allowed into our country have done damage that will take decades to remedy.

For many families, like those of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and Jocelyn Nungaray, the damage can never be undone. But if Biden and Harris want to talk about numbers, the president and his “border czar” will find no exoneration. On their watch, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has recorded more than 10 million encounters nationwide, plus another two million known “gotaways” who have crossed our borders uncaught. Many on the left like to appeal to the history of Ellis Island as an excuse for mass immigration – despite the fact that these individuals arrived in accordance with then-existing law. However, the number of people who came through Ellis Island was also roughly 12 million – in the 62 years between 1892 and 1954. The number of inadmissible aliens who have been encountered at our borders or crossed uncaught since the start of Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 is unprecedented.

Claiming victory now due to temporarily reduced border crossings displays a willful ignorance of the nature of this ongoing crisis, because these numbers alone do not tell the full story of what Americans are experiencing. First, there are the continuing financial impacts. As of mid-June 2024, more than 205,000 illegal aliens had arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022. Mayor Eric Adams has declared that these arrivals and the resultant costs “will destroy New York City.” Small towns will also be struggling for years with the consequences of unchecked crossings. Springfield, Ohio, home to 60,000 people, has seen roughly 20,000 Haitians arrive since the crisis began, putting major strain on housing and other services.

Whitewater, Wisconsin, a town of just 15,000 people, has been overwhelmed by the arrival of 1,000 illegal aliens “often lacking basic English skills.” According to one official in Sanford, Maine last year, “We’re tapped. … We’ve been overrun,” after costs to care for illegal aliens tripled. DHS has reported that more than 80% of illegal aliens who are “neither expelled or repatriated directly by CBP nor continuously detained by ICE” remain in the United States years later. These communities, and thousands more like them, are going to be dealing with these costs for years. Second, consider the ongoing public safety implications of what’s happening at the Southwest border. Border Patrol arrests of illegal aliens with criminal histories since FY2021 have more than doubled from FY2017-2020.

Worse, criminals and individuals with possible ties to terrorism have been, and continue to be, released into the interior. In fact, news recently broke that the Biden-Harris administration actually released into the interior 99 individuals whom they knew were on the terrorist watchlist. According to one DHS source, ICE officials have been “discouraged from deporting even illegal immigrants who had final deportation orders and were linked to gangs.” Former ICE Field Director John Fabbricatore has said, “I was being forced to release people that should not have been allowed on the street.” How many other threats to our safety and security have likewise been unwittingly released or entered as gotaways? How many more, who either did not commit crimes in their home country or were never caught, will do so for the first time against American victims?

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“..the Democrats’ platform still promises “a second Biden term,” mentioning him 287 times over its 92 pages, while Harris is brought up only 32 times..”

Biden’s Aides ‘Hid His Decline’ – WaPo (RT)

US President Joe Biden should not have sought reelection to begin with, but his staff concealed his infirmity until they could no longer do so, the Washington Post editorial board has said. The Post made the admission in an editorial on Tuesday, which praised Biden’s “profoundly selfless decision” to drop out of the race and let the Democrats replace him with Kamala Harris. “In retrospect, Mr Biden should not have sought reelection. The June 27 debate was worse than just a bad night, as the president maintained afterward. The 81-year-old had shown signs of slipping for a long time, but his inner circle worked to conceal his decline,” the Post editors wrote. The US would have been better off, they argued, had he bowed out after the “surprisingly good showing” of the Democrats in the 2022 midterms. Had he stayed in the race, they continued, “a diminished Mr Biden, at the head of a dispirited party, would likely have lost in November.”

According to the Post, Biden “deserves recognition” for surrendering power and giving a chance to a new generation of leaders, “albeit via internal party machinations rather than the ballot box.” Biden may have exited the race but he remains president through January, the outlet noted, and the Democrats’ platform still promises “a second Biden term,” mentioning him 287 times over its 92 pages, while Harris is brought up only 32 times. The oldest-ever US president at inauguration, Biden was already dogged by claims of senility and dementia during the 2020 campaign. His physical and cognitive decline has only grown while in office, only to be dismissed by White House staff – and most of the legacy media – as the remnants of a childhood stutter. The president was “sharp as a tack,” his supporters continued to argue even after the June 27 debate. Biden vowed that only God could make him quit.

In mid-July, however, he was flown out of Las Vegas to his Delaware home, reportedly with Covid-19. At the end of that week, a letter posted on his personal X (formerly Twitter) account announced his exit from the presidential race. In a follow-up post, the same account endorsed Harris as Biden’s replacement. Insider sources credited former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, for this turn of events. “They staged a coup against the president of the United States,” former president and current Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, told Fox News in early August. “It’s like you’re in a fight with somebody, and you’re really winning, and they take him out and they put somebody else in,” he continued. “Nobody ever heard of this before. This is a coup.”

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“..the United States shall be substituted as the defendant with respect to those claims.”

Justice Department Steps In for Trump in George Floyd Protests Case (ET)

The Justice Department has intervened for former President Donald Trump, asking a federal court in Washington to dismiss a civil complaint brought over a clash between protestors and police that took place in the city following George Floyd’s death. Black Lives Matter D.C. and others brought the original lawsuit in June 2020, just days after police used crowd control tactics in Lafayette Square before Trump was set to appear at a nearby church. The case has seen court filings for years, with a group of plaintiffs filing an amended complaint in April this year. On Aug. 19, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a notice that it was substituting itself for Trump because he was acting within the scope of his office that day. Its decision was based on the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA).

In its notice, the DOJ said the law “provides that upon certification by the attorney general that a federal employee was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the plaintiff’s claim arose, any civil action or proceeding commenced upon such a claim and arising under state law shall be deemed an action against the United States, and the United States shall be substituted as the defendant with respect to those claims.” James G. Touhey, who leads the torts branch of DOJ’s civil division, certified that Trump “was an employee of the government acting in the scope of office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the plaintiffs’ claims arose.” The amended complaint had named Trump in his individual capacity and requested damages.

It alleged Trump was liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault, battery, and negligence in purported violation of a district law surrounding free speech. A separate motion to dismiss, also filed on Aug. 19, argued that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ claims because they failed to exhaust administrative remedies. It added that the plaintiffs had failed to show that their claims fell within the limited waiver of sovereign immunity offered by the FTCA. The complaint alleged that the agencies involved with the suit had failed to respond within a six-month timeframe specified under the FTCA. “Plaintiffs have therefore exhausted their administrative remedies under the FTCA,” the complaint read.

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“I strongly ask for a vote against the war, to isolate dangerous bombers like Macron..”

West Risking WWIII – Salvini (RT)

Ukraine’s Western backers could trigger World War III by providing Kiev with weapons that can be used to strike targets on Russian soil, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has said. Russian officials have claimed that the Ukrainian military has been using Western-supplied weapons in their incursion in Kursk Region. Several Western media outlets have published articles with similar claims of late. A number of Kiev’s backers have also publicly given the green light to use the weapons they have provided on Russian soil. Speaking to Il Sussidiario media outlet on Wednesday, Salvini, who is also the minister of infrastructure and transport and leads the Lega Nord (Northern League) party, said the “sending of weapons to strike and kill also on Russian territory would be a disaster, the antechamber of a dramatic world conflict.”

The deputy prime minister added that his right-wing party has nothing against providing “humanitarian and military aid to give Ukraine the possibility to defend itself.” Ahead of the European Parliament elections in June, Salvini urged Italians to not let left-wing parties win, as they, together with French President Emmanuel Macron, would make the prospect of a third world war dangerously real. “I strongly ask for a vote against the war, to isolate dangerous bombers like Macron,” he said at the time. Salvini also praised the Italian government for its firm position against those in Europe who speak about potentially deploying Western troops to Ukraine, having previously criticized the French president for refusing to rule this out. The deputy prime minister also stated in June that “we will no longer approve sending any type of weapon unless we have the certainty that those weapons will not be used to attack and kill inside Russia.”

“It would be the incident that takes us straight towards the Third World War,” he said at the time. In late May, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto cited the Italian constitution, stressing that the weapons Italy supplies to Ukraine can only be used within the territory of the country. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani echoed this, telling reporters: “we are not fighting against Russia. We are defending Ukraine, [it] is not the same.” Around the same time, Salvini described NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg as a “dangerous gentleman” after he proposed allowing Kiev to strike targets deep inside Russia with Western weapons. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, too, expressed incredulity as to “why Stoltenberg said such a thing.”

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Ritter.

US Could Charge, Search More Americans Tied To Russian State News (Sp.)

The US Justice Department could conduct further searches and bring criminal charges against Americans who have worked with Russian state television networks, The New York Times reported, citing US officials briefed on the matter. Earlier this month, FBI agents conducted searches at the homes of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and journalist Dimitri Simes. However, prosecutors have not revealed any criminal charges against the two men. Investigators are expected to conduct more searches soon and prosecutors could also bring criminal charges, the report said. The Biden administration has alleged that Russian state news organizations are working with the country’s intelligence agencies to influence elections worldwide. The investigations have focused on possible violations of the sanctions regime imposed on Russia and a law mandating the disclosure of foreign government lobbying efforts, the report said.

Ritter said that he believes the search of his home was an “act of intimidation” triggered by his cooperation with Russian news organizations like Sputnik and RT. Ritter said that he has not committed any crimes and denied accusations that he is acting as a foreign agent. Ritter told Sputnik that his passport was likely confiscated by authorities in connection with the FBI investigation. Simes told Sputnik that he was not notified in advance of the search of his property and that he has not been in the United States since October 2022. Consequently, there is nothing at the property related to his current life and activities, he said. Simes also said that the US government is possibly attempting to dissuade him from coming back to the United States and block any attempt to have a Russian-American dialogue.

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“..Germany is also persecuting media outlets that are actually trying to discover what happened..”

Germans Lying About Nord Stream Exchange – Moscow (RT)

Berlin has not provided Moscow with any actual information about the attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said The pipelines which ran under the Baltic Sea were used to transport Russian natural gas to Germany and other parts of Western Europe. They were damaged in September 2022 by a series of explosions near the Danish island of Bornholm. Russia has accused the US of orchestrating the attack, while some media in the West have blamed a “pro-Ukrainian group.” Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Germany of refusing to officially share information about the investigation, suggesting that leaking it to the media instead raises “suspicions that all of this is staged” to deflect blame from the actual culprits.

German Foreign Ministry spokesman Sebastian Fischer responded on Monday that Berlin has engaged “in information exchange” with Moscow. Speaking on Wednesday, Zakharova accused him of lying. “What Mr. Fischer said does not correspond to reality at all,” Zakharova told reporters. “Simply put, it is a lie. For almost two years, the German side has responded to all inquiries from Russian authorities regarding the destruction of the Nord Streams with only empty formalities that contained no factual information.” Fischer’s statement “only strengthens our suspicions of Berlin’s intention to ‘blow up’ the investigation, which is being conducted in total secrecy, by not allowing it to identify the true instigators of the attack on the largest trans-European energy infrastructure facility,” Zakharova added. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Germany is also persecuting media outlets that are actually trying to discover what happened, which “shows that Berlin has something to hide and is extremely uninterested in conducting a real investigation and having the truth made public.”

The original Nord Stream was built after the 2009 gas transit dispute between Kiev and Moscow, enabling Gazprom to supply Western Europe without depending on Ukraine and Poland. The second pipeline was finished in late 2021, despite delays due to US sanctions. Western media narratives about “Ukrainian saboteurs” being behind the blast, whether acting on orders from Kiev or alone, began appearing only after US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh blamed Washington. Citing sources within the intelligence community, Hersh argued that CIA divers working with the Norwegian Navy planted remotely-triggered bombs on both pipelines, using a NATO exercise in the region as cover. Meanwhile, Ukraine has maintained that Russia blew up its own pipelines, which Moscow has dismissed as ridiculous.

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“These remaining months before the elections are accompanied by total confusion, and this, naturally, is reflected in US officials’ statements.”

Biden’s Desperation for ‘Foreign Policy Win’ (Sp.)

“The US administration is particularly eager to announce an agreement, driven by both diplomatic and domestic pressures,” Dr. Imad Salamey, an assistant professor of political science at Lebanese American University, told Sputnik, commenting on why Israeli officials haven’t confirmed Tel Aviv’s readiness to accept the “bridging proposal” announced by Secretary Blinken on Monday. “The Biden administration views the success of such an agreement as a potential foreign policy win, which could bolster its position ahead of upcoming elections,” Salamey explained. By contrast, “the Israeli government may face significant internal challenges regarding the deal,” the observer said. “Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government is deeply divided, and any official confirmation could exacerbate these divisions, potentially leading to resignations or even the collapse of the coalition.

Thus, while the US is keen to publicize progress, Israel might be more cautious, weighing the domestic repercussions of any public acknowledgement of the agreement.” Blinken’s public announcement “could [also] be interpreted as a strategic move to exert public pressure on Israel,” according to the scholar. “The pressure serves multiple purposes: it advances US diplomatic interests in the region, reinforces the image of the US as a global leader, and garners domestic support by showcasing the administration’s proactive role,” Salamey said. But Israeli media reports indicate that the government has no intention of agreeing to the agreement announced by the US and “at least in Israel, it’s clear to everyone that there will be no deal,” Tel Aviv-based international affairs observer Dr. Simon Tsipis told Sputnik.

“Netanyahu has started to refer to the fact that the point of the agreement that does not suit him is the Hamas demand that Israel withdraw its troops from the Philadelphi Corridor border” between Gaza and Egypt Tsipis said, referring to Tel Aviv’s unwillingness to let go of the border area to prevent the resumption of arms smuggling. “But in my view this is just an excuse for the fact that Netanyahu is not interested in making any deal with Hamas, no matter its contents,” the observer noted. Tsipis recalled that for Netanyahu, the conflict in Gaza has become not just a matter of his government’s political survival, but his personal freedom, given the multiple Israeli criminal investigations hanging over his head, which would inevitably resume if the conflict were brought to a peaceful conclusion. “Plus, it’s becoming increasingly clear to people whose relatives and friends are being held hostage by Hamas with each passing day that there are practically no more of them left alive.

Yesterday, six bodies of hostages were pulled out of one of the tunnels. If earlier, several months ago, it was assumed that there were more than 220 of them being held there, now it’s assumed that there are no more than 100 still alive. The rest are dead, and the pressure inside Netanyahu is growing. By showing society that there are no more living hostages, he’s trying to let off the political pressure building up within Israeli society,” Tsipis said. As far as the US and Blinken’s hasty announcement of an agreement, Tsipis believes it’s tied to the fact that the Biden administration is effectively running on autopilot at this point after the president announced that he would not be seeking another term, and the Democrats began preparing Vice President Harris to take the reins. “These remaining months before the elections are accompanied by total confusion, and this, naturally, is reflected in US officials’ statements. The American side is now completely inactive and has virtually no influence, and this is felt in Israel too,” Tsipis said.

“There is no pressure from the US because there is no one to apply this pressure, because even if the US is not yet in a state of anarchy, it is in a transitional period and has a kind of temporary government.” “Netanyahu’s government and he personally have been left to float freely. They do not depend on anyone and there’s no pressure on them from anyone. This is a dangerous situation, because returning to the above, Netanyahu’s main goal is his survival – political survival and simply remaining a free man. That could lead to a military escalation, and in fact, we are already on the threshold of an escalation and war with Lebanon,” Tsipis warned, pointing to the intense back-and-forth shelling across the Israel-Lebanon border in recent days.

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“..strategy adjustment was revised with the desire to “simultaneously” deter Russia, China and North Korea in mind.”

Biden Approved New Nuclear Strategy Refocusing on ‘Chinese Threat’ (Sp.)

President Joe Biden approved a classified nuclear strategy earlier this year that directed US forces to refocus on potential threats from China, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing US officials. The report detailed that Biden had approved the new strategy in March, and that it refocuses on China’s growing nuclear arsenal. However, it also addresses concerns of potential coordinated nuclear challenges by China, Russia, and North Korea against the United States. An unclassified report is expected to be given to Congress before Biden leaves office. Driving the development is the US’ fear regarding China’s nuclear stockpile, more specifically how it’ll match up “in size and diversity” against Washington’s own arms over the next 10 years. Citing June remarks from Pranay Vaddi, who serves as the senior director for arms control and non-proliferation on the National Security Council, the outlet noted the strategy adjustment was revised with the desire to “simultaneously” deter Russia, China and North Korea in mind.

The Tuesday report comes days after China implemented export controls on antimony metals, which just so happen to have multiple applications within the US military, including in components for nuclear weapons. The new restrictions, in line with similar controls on other rare-earth metals, are due to take effect on September 15. Alongside with Tajikistan and Russia, China controls upwards of 90% of the global antimony reserves. A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank details the US’ “stockpiles limited antimony of just 1,100 tons compared to the 23,000 tons consumed in 2023,” adding that 63% of its stocks came from China alone. China previously underscored that its new directive was intended to ensure China’s national security and to fulfill the country’s non-proliferation obligations, and that its measures were not set to strike at any one country.

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“..Beijing “follows a policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and always keeps its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security.”

Beijing Has ‘No Intention’ Of Nuclear Arms Race With US – FM (RT)

Washington’s fear-mongering over Beijing’s nuclear arsenal is completely unfounded, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning has said. Her comment came after the New York Times reported on Tuesday that US President Joe Biden had quietly updated the Nuclear Employment Guidance, refocusing it on China. Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Mao said that Beijing was “gravely concerned” with the report. “The US has called China a ‘nuclear threat’ and used it as a convenient pretext for the US to shirk its obligation of nuclear disarmament,” she said. Mao added that the size of China’s nuclear arsenal was “by no means on the same level with the US,” stressing that Beijing “follows a policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and always keeps its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security.” China has “no intention to engage in any form of arms race” with other states, she stated.

“It is the US who is the primary source of nuclear threats and strategic risks in the world,” the spokeswoman argued. In 2023, the Pentagon estimated that China will double its stockpile of operational nuclear warheads to over 1,000 by 2030. The US currently has 5,550 warheads, while Russia has 6,255, according to estimates published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The White House has downplayed China’s concerns, with spokesman Sean Savett describing the change in nuclear strategy as a routine update that was “not a response to any single entity, country, nor threat.” US officials, however, have repeatedly described China as “a challenge” to world peace and accused it of economic and military coercion in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing, in turn, has blamed the US for the ongoing tensions, urging Washington to abandon its “Cold-War mentality.”

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”Nerfing of the gun emoji matches rise of the woke mind virus,,”

X’s New Gun Emoji Fights ‘Woke Mind Virus’ – Musk (RT)

Elon Musk has explained the decision to bring back the gun emoji to X (formerly Twitter), saying the choice to depict a realistic firearm rather than a toy pistol is part of the fight against the “woke mind virus.” In a post on his social media network on Tuesday, the US billionaire shared a chart showing how the emoji has looked on various platforms over the past decade. Included on the list alongside X were images used in the products of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta’s Facebook. The apparent trend has been to move away from real guns to toy guns, while Musk’s platform has done the opposite since he bought it in 2022. ”Nerfing of the gun emoji matches rise of the woke mind virus, as a core tenet is equating fake harm with real harm,” he said, commenting on the chart.

X transition from the previous toy gun to one that resembles a modern semi-automatic pistol happened last month – at least for its web interface. The older version was introduced by previous management in 2018. The US stands out among developed nations due to its gun culture and levels of gun violence. Some people want the display of realistic guns in various media reduced because they believe it glorifies them and fuels their use. The Unicode Consortium, the organization that decides on what should be turned into an emoji, currently calls the one with a gun a “water pistol.”

Musk is a vocal supporter of some conservative political causes. He has said he believes “that the right to bear arms is an important safeguard against potential tyranny of government,” but supported some gun control measures, such as background checks for people who want to own deadlier firearms. Earlier, Musk posted a row of gun emojis at around the same time that US President Joe Biden was giving a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday. Among other things, Biden touted his administration’s record of passing gun control legislation and urged further restrictions. The ‘woke mind virus’ that Musk was referring to is a pejorative conservative term for the advocacy of radical policies, such as the right of minors to gender transition at schools without the consent or knowledge of their parents.

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Waterfall

 

 

Baby hippo
https://twitter.com/i/status/1825875430542581794

 

 

Frens
https://twitter.com/i/status/1826490109077635095

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in wartime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Nov 112020
 


Hokusai VIews of Mount Fuji: Ejiri in Suruga Province 1831

 

Does Lockdown Prevent COVID Deaths? (Rushworth MD)
Brennan et al Spooked Over Suggestion Trump May ‘Declassify Everything’ (RT)
Why Is The Supreme Court Involved In Pennsylvania? (Reeves)
49% In New Poll Say Biden Is Legitimate Winner Of Election; 34% SayTrump (JTN)
Mathematical Evidence The Election Was Stolen (Lt. Col. James Zumwalt)
Biden Camp is Already Working With Foreign Leaders, Like Flynn Did (Greenwald)
Biden Team Considers Legal Action To Force Formal Transition Of Power (NYP)
AI Software Verified Mail-In Ballots in Key Swing States (Whitney Webb)
Fox Joins MSM, Forcing Millions Of Americans To The Media Fringes (Bridge)
Biden Aide Signals Push For Greater Censorship On The Internet (Turley)
EU Seizes on Vienna Attack to Enact Long-Desired Ban on Encryption (MPN)
Zoom Lied To Users About End-to-End Encryption For Years – FTC (ArsT)
EU Goes After Amazon For Breaching European Antitrust Rules (RT)
Why Do Some People Get Hay Fever And What Can They Do About It? (SMH)

 

 

 

 

Headline:

Trump’s voter fraud lawsuits are not about contradicting the will of all the people — just the Black ones
Donald Trump is blaming his loss on Black workers—the same people who risked their very lives to count votes in the middle of a pandemic.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

 

 

 

 

Very large study, interpreted.: .. no correlation whatsoever between severity of lockdown and number of covid deaths. [..] there was no correlation between mass testing and covid deaths either, for that matter. Basically, nothing that various world governments have done to combat covid seems to have had any effect whatsoever on the number of deaths.

Does Lockdown Prevent COVID Deaths? (Rushworth MD)

The study chose to limit itself to looking at the 50 countries with the most recorded cases of covid-19 as of the 1st of April 2020. My interpretation is that they chose the top 50 most affected countries, rather than looking at all 195 countries, due to resource constraints. Data was gathered up to the 1st of May 2020. All information gathered was in the form of publicly available facts and figures. Data gathered included information about covid, income level, gross domestic product, income disparity, longevity, BMI (Body Mass Index), smoking, population density, and a bunch of other things that the researchers thought might be interesting to look at. The authors received no outside funding and reported no conflicts of interest.

There are a few problems here that become apparent straight away. First of all, as mentioned, all the data in this study is observational, so no conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect. Second, May was relatively early in the pandemic, and it’s now November, so we’re missing about half a year’s worth of covid data. On the other hand, the pandemic had already peaked in much of the world by May 1st, and lockdown measures had at that point been in place for months in most countries, so it should be possible to get a pretty good idea about what effect lockdown has in terms of decreasing covid deaths, even using only the data available up to May 1st.

Third, the analysis builds on publicly available data, often provided by different governments themselves, with widely varying levels of trustworthiness, and with different ways of classifying things. As an example, data from Sweden is infinitely more reliable than data from China. And while certain countries have used quite inclusive criteria when deciding whether someone has died of covid or not, other countries have been much more strict. The countries with stricter definitions will tend to have lower covid death rates than the countries with more generous definitions. This lack of homogeneity in how things are defined can make it harder to see real patterns.

Fourth, the reseachers who put this study together gathered an enormous amount of data, pretty much everything they could think of under the sun that might in some way correlate with covid statistics. That means that this study amounts to “data trawling”, in other words, going through every relationship imaginable without any a priori hypothesis in order to see which relationships end up being statistically significant. When you do this, you’re supposed to set stricter limits than you normally would for what you consider to be statistically significant results. They didn’t do this.

[..] The factors that most strongly predicted the number of people who died of covid in a country were rate of obesity, average age, and level of income disparity. Each percentage point increase in the rate of obesity resulted in a 12% increase in covid deaths. Each additional average year of age in the population increased covid deaths by 10% . On the opposite end of the spectrum, each point in the direction of greater equality on the gini-coefficient (a scale used to determine how evenly resources are distributed across a population) resulted in a 12% decrease in covid deaths. All these results were statistically significant.

Another factor that had an effect that was significant, but more weakly so, was smoking. Each percentage point increase in the number of smokers in a population was correlated with a 3% decrease in covid deaths. Ok, let’s get to the most important thing, which the authors seem to have tried to hide, because they make so little mention of it. Lockdown and covid deaths. The authors found no correlation whatsoever between severity of lockdown and number of covid deaths. And they didn’t find any correlation between border closures and covid deaths either. And there was no correlation between mass testing and covid deaths either, for that matter. Basically, nothing that various world governments have done to combat covid seems to have had any effect whatsoever on the number of deaths.

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Well, yeah, that could expose him.

Brennan et al Spooked Over Suggestion Trump May ‘Declassify Everything’ (RT)

Former CIA director John Brennan took to CNN to speculate wildly on how Trump would dump the US’ most precious military secrets out of spite. Mainstream outlets and social media alike piled on the declassification rumors. Brennan took to CNN’s airwaves on Monday to denounce Trump for firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper, claiming the axe came down over Esper’s “rebuff[ing] Trump’s efforts to politicize the US military.” But the mind-reading went on considerably further as Brennan, aided and abetted by host Chris Cuomo, wondered aloud “who knows what else he has refused to do” – like expose the nation’s deepest, darkest secrets.

If Esper had “been pushed aside because he was not listening to Donald Trump, who knows what his successor is going to do if Donald Trump does give some type of order that really is counter to what I think our national security interests need to be?” Brennan wondered aloud. He cited no proof of his initial statement about the reason for Esper’s firing, or any evidence to back up Trump’s supposed inclination toward spilling all of the national security beans pre-Inauguration Day, but Cuomo didn’t seem to care. Brennan was concerned even as the pundit reminded him that Trump only had 70 days to leave the White House without leaving a smoking crater in his wake. “You can do a lot of damage in 70 days,” he hinted darkly, questioning whether the president was “going to carry out these vendettas against these other individuals.”

“It’s clear Donald Trump Is trying to exercise the power because he can, and he’s going to settle scores, but i’m very concerned about what he might do…” the spook-turned-Resistance stalwart mused, veering into projection territory with a suggestion that the president was “just very unpredictable. Right now he’s like a cornered cat” or “tiger” and was going to “lash out.”

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Because a court decided to (among other things) extend the time ballots could come in. And only the legilsature has that power.

Why Is The Supreme Court Involved In Pennsylvania? (Reeves)

Last Friday evening, in the midst of the media frenzy over the Presidential election, Justice Alito issued a short, page-and-a-half order to all Pennsylvania county boards of election. The order directs the county boards, in counting ballots, to separate any and all ballots received by mail after November 3 at 8:00 pm from those received before that time. Most legal commentators minimized the significance of Alito’s order, declaring it to be no big deal. In fact, though, the order is part of a major lawsuit currently pending before the Supreme Court, the outcome of which could have serious consequences for election law across the country regardless of whether it practically impacts the results of the Presidential election.

[..] The lawsuit, Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Kathy Boockvar, et al., presents the question of whether, under the United States Constitution and federal law, state courts can overturn the express enactments of state legislatures regarding the time, place, and manner of holding Presidential elections. The Constitution vests the state legislatures with the authority to do this and mentions nothing about state courts. The federal Congress, in turn, is vested with the authority to pass a law mandating that all states hold the voting for President on the same day throughout the country. For a major part of our country’s history, Congress declined to exercise this power. As difficult as it is to believe in this day and age, there was a time when different states held their elections for President on different days. But Congress eventually streamlined the election process by passing legislation mandating that the Presidential election be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November.

But while Congress, pursuant to its Constitutional authority, has mandated the date on which the Presidential election must take place, the individual state legislatures are still vested with a large amount of discretion to decide the place and manner of the elections. For example, while Congress has set the date on which the election is to take place, it has said nothing about the closing time by which all votes must be cast on that date. Should the polls close at 5:00 pm? 8:00 pm? This is a prudential matter left to the resolution of the individual state legislatures. Even more critically—should mail-in voting be allowed? If it is, how should it be done? Do mail-in ballots need to be received by election day itself, or is it sufficient for them to arrive later, so long as they are post-marked the day of the election? Again, this is a matter of prudential judgment left to each state legislature. But in any event, the Constitution vests resolution of these matters with the state legislatures—not with the judiciary.

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But we have other polls that show you completely different results. One from Reuters put Trump at just 3%. And yet another poll says 70% of Americans think election was not “free and fair”.

49% In New Poll Say Biden Is Legitimate Winner Of Election; 34% SayTrump (JTN)

More than a third of registered voters believe Donald Trump legitimately won the presidential election, according to a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen. Less than half of all respondents — 49% — believe Joe Biden legitimately won the race, while 34% said they believe Trump won the election, and 16% said they are not sure who really won. Of Republican respondents, 77% said they think Trump is the legitimate winner, while just 12% of Republicans believe Biden is the legitimate winner. About a quarter of independent voters also said they believe Trump won. Among Democrats, 87% think that Biden is the winner. Rasmussen noted that the survey was conducted from Thursday night until Saturday early afternoon. “During the time of this survey, no television network or other news source had formally called the race for Biden,” he said. The survey was comprised of 1,200 registered voters and conducted by Scott Rasmussen from Nov. 5-7, 2020.

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I don’t find this terribly strong.

Mathematical Evidence The Election Was Stolen (Lt. Col. James Zumwalt)

In Wisconsin, late into the night of Nov. 3/early morning hours of Nov. 4, President Donald Trump enjoyed a comfortable lead. Milwaukee was to report in with results by 1 a.m. on the 4th; 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. passed without the results. Finally, at 3:30 a.m., the vote tally arrived. All incoming votes went to Democrat Joe Biden; none to Trump. In 1995, not even Saddam proved that brazen. Something highly unusual happened that morning at several voting centers, not only in Wisconsin, but in Michigan and Pennsylvania as well. In Wisconsin, 140,000 mail-in ballots were found ; in Michigan another 200,000; and in Pennsylvania, 1,000,000 – all for Biden.

Supposedly the party of science, Democrats have lambasted Republicans for failing to heed it. Perhaps, then, the science of math provides the best explanation to understand what happened in these three states. A statistical analysis, laying out the chances of such one-sided Biden ballot dumps occurring, leads to but one conclusion: undeniable mathematical evidence the election was stolen. Analysts say statistically it is impossible for those states to have flipped to Biden the way they did. It is a virtual statistical impossibility – the odds being 0.00000189% or 1 in almost 53 million. In a national election demonstrating a close split in popular vote between two presidential candidates, how could so many last minute pro-Biden votes materialize wiping out Trump’s lead?

[..] Any hope of Trump retaining the Oval Office rests on irrefutable proof of voting fraud. Keeping in mind we live in an era where first impression news stories have proven inaccurate, some Trump confidants are saying evidence of massive voter fraud is being assembled, arrests of several players in the voting scam will follow and the proof will be damning. Allegedly, this evidence involves fraudulent use of ballots identified as part of a sting operation. The Trump administration supposedly had all legal ballots secretly imprinted with invisible watermarks in unbreakable code. A scan so far of 14 million ballots in five states reflect an 80% failure rate – all Biden votes.

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Did he talk to the Russian ambassador?

Biden Camp is Already Working With Foreign Leaders, Like Flynn Did (Greenwald)

Two weeks after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, the President-elect named Gen. Michael Flynn to be his National Security Advisor in both the transition and the new administration. Flynn, who had previously served as President Obama’s Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and then campaigned for Trump, quickly got to work in his new position by reaching out to his counterparts in foreign governments, as is customary for national security transition team officials. One of the calls Flynn made, in late December, was to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, after the Obama administration has imposed a series of sanctions on Moscow in response to pressure to punish the Russians for interference in the 2016 election, including the expulsion of diplomats.

Gen. Flynn — fearful of an excessively retaliatory response from Moscow that could provoke what he saw as unnecessary confrontation, particularly given the growing anti-Russian sentiment in the U.S. — sought to persuade the Russians that there was no need for them to retaliate because the new administration, which was only three weeks away from taking over, would reset its relations with Moscow and try to forge a more constructive engagement.

[..] It is customary for post-election transition officials to work with their counterparts in foreign governments to lay the groundwork for relations with the new administration. As The Washington Post said about Flynn’s call: “it would not be uncommon for incoming administrations to interface with foreign governments with whom they will soon have to work.” Despite its normalcy, Flynn’s call, which was recorded by the National Security Agency that had been targeting Russian officials, prompted the FBI — under the leadership of then-Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — to decide to criminally investigate Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak.

[..] Any doubts about how customary it is for such calls to be made by transition officials were unintentionally obliterated on Monday night by former Obama national security official Ben Rhodes, who is almost certain to occupy a high-level national security position in a Biden administration. Speaking on MSNBC — of course — Rhodes, while amicably chatting with former Bush/Cheney Communications Director turned-beloved-liberal-MSNBC-host Nicolle Wallace, admitted in passing that “foreign leaders are already having phone calls with Joe Biden talking about the agenda they’re going to pursue January 20,” all to ensure “as seamless transition as possible,” adding: “the center of political gravity in this country and the world is shifting to Joe Biden.”

Cruz McCabe Logan Act

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Trying to make it a fait accompli, so the backlash will be huge if courts start throwing out ballots.

Biden Team Considers Legal Action To Force Formal Transition Of Power (NYP)

Joe Biden’s team is considering legal action over the ongoing refusal to grant the president-elect a formal transition into the White House, according to reports. Amid President Trump’s declining to concede the election, the federal agency needed to green-light his transition has also held back from declaring him the victor — a move usually made within 24 hours. The delay by the General Services Administration (GSA) freezes the Biden team out of access to $6.3 million in federal funding, classified information and security clearances or background checks for potential cabinet nominees, Axios noted. It also prevents access to the State Department, which facilitates calls between foreign leaders, Fox News said.

“There’s a number of levers on the table and all options are certainly available,” a Biden transition official told reporters. Legal action is “certainly a possibility,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, according to the Associated Press. “It’s a changing situation and certainly rather fluid,” added the official, according to Axios. Trump is not expected to formally concede but is likely to vacate the White House at the end of his term, several people around him told the AP. A GSA spokesperson told the wire service late Monday that an “ascertainment” on the winner of the election had not yet been made.

The formal presidential transition doesn’t begin until the administrator of the federal General Services Administration ascertains the “apparent successful candidate” in the general election. Neither the Presidential Transition Act nor federal regulations specify how that determination should be made. That decision green lights the entire federal government’s moves toward preparing for a handover of power. In 2000, the GSA determination was delayed until after the Florida recount fight was settled on Dec. 13. At the time, the administrator relied on an assessment from one of the drafters of the 1963 Presidential Transition Act that “in a close contest, the Administrator simply would not make the decision.”

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This is even crazier that letting software systems count votes.

AI Software Verified Mail-In Ballots in Key Swing States (Whitney Webb)

Though accusations of election fraud in the 2020 US presidential election have been swirling across social media and some news outlets for much of the past week, few have examined the role of a little known Silicon Valley company whose artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm was used to accept or reject ballots in highly contested states such as Nevada. That company, Parascript, has long-standing cozy ties to defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and tech giants including Microsoft, in addition to being a contractor to the US Postal Service. In addition, its founder, Stepan Pachikov, better known for cofounding the app Evernote in 2007, is a long-standing and 2020 donor to Democratic presidential candidates.

Parascript’s AI software was used during this election in at least eight states for matching signatures on ballot envelopes with those in government databases in order to “ease the workload of staff enforcing voter signature rules” resulting from the influx of mail-in ballots. Reuters, which reported on the use of the technology, asked the company to provide a list of counties and states using its software for the 2020 election. Parascript, however, declined to supply the list, replying, instead, that their clients “included 20 of the top 100 counties by registered voters.”

Despite not receiving the official list from Parascript, Reuters was able to compile its own partial list, which revealed that several counties in Florida, Colorado, Washington, and Utah, among others, utilized the AI software to determine the validity of ballots. Reuters also reported that Clark County, Nevada, which is one of the hotspots of litigation between the Trump and Biden campaigns and fraud allegations, was one that used the software. Reuters was able to determine how the software was used in some counties, with many counties allowing the software to approve anywhere from 20 to 75 percent of mail-in ballots as acceptable. For several counties included in the Reuters list,staff reviewed 1 percent or less of the AI software’s acceptances. Figures were not available for Clark County, Nevada.

Prior to the election, concerns were raised regarding the efficacy of AI signature-verification software for use on mail-in ballots. For instance, Kyle Wiggers, a journalist who covers AI for Venture Beat, noted that the accuracy of such systems is believed to vary between 74 and 96 percent. However, he also stated that “we don’t have benchmarks from the systems that are in use to verify signatures on these mail-in ballots. We basically have to go by what the manufacturers of the systems are telling us, which is that the systems are accurate.”

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“It signals a massive migration away from the so-called ‘legacy media’ that was complicit in dragging Trump through the mud for four years over the fake news of Russiagate and impeachment.”

Fox Joins MSM, Forcing Millions Of Americans To The Media Fringes (Bridge)

Once upon a time, Fox provided the Republican Party solitary shelter from a storm of media attacks, which ramped up considerably with the election of Donald Trump, a Washington outsider loathed by the establishment. Eventually, however, for reasons known only to Rupert Murdoch, the channel began to abandon its core audience. Last year, for example, Fox viewers got their first whiff of change when the 89-year-old media mogul brought on board none other than Donna Brazile, a former CNN commentator as well as a former Democratic National Committee chair. Then there’s Chris Wallace, the Fox News anchor who served as moderator during the first debate between Trump and Biden. Critics say Wallace was so harsh with the US president that it appeared as though Trump was debating against two people instead of one.

It wasn’t until Election Day, however, when many Fox viewers got blindsided by the painful realization that the channel they had followed for years had finally betrayed them – and at the worst possible time. That much became apparent when Fox, even before ‘fake news’ CNN, jumped the gun and called the swing state of Arizona for Biden with just 73 percent of the state’s votes having been tallied. The Trump administration seemed justified in calling that move “voter suppression” – a rusty knife in the back. Many Republicans probably turned the car around when they heard that dubious news. The straw that broke the Fox back, however, came on Thursday, when anchor Bret Baier told viewers, “We have not seen the hard evidence,” after Trump remarked during a White House press conference that the election process had been rampant with “fraud and corruption.”

Baier could have at least acknowledged that some of the more questionable incidents – such as Republican ballot observers being turned away as the votes were being counted, and the names of the dearly departed appearing on the ballots – deserved some scrutiny. Now Fox will have to suffer with the ramification of its political volte-face, which, judging by the comments on Twitter, has thousands of erstwhile viewers running for the fire exits. But is there a safe alternative media universe to escape to? It should disturb many people, not least in the world of media, that Trump got 71 million votes in the 2020 showdown against his rival. That number represents not only millions of jaded American voters, exasperated by the apparent botching of the most consequential US election in modern times. It signals a massive migration away from the so-called ‘legacy media’ that was complicit in dragging Trump through the mud for four years over the fake news of Russiagate and impeachment.

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Twitter silencing news stories is not enough.

Biden Aide Signals Push For Greater Censorship On The Internet (Turley)

We have been discussing the calls from top Democrats for increased private censorship on social media and the Internet. President-elect Joe Biden has himself called for such censorship, including blocking President Donald Trump’s criticism of mail-in voting. Now, shortly after the election, one of Biden’s top aides is ramping up calls for a crackdown on Facebook for allowing Facebook users to read views that he considers misleading — users who signed up to hear from these individuals. Bill Russo, a deputy communications director on Biden’s campaign press team, tweeted late Monday that Facebook “is shredding the fabric of our democracy” by allowing such views to be shared freely.

Russo tweeted that “If you thought disinformation on Facebook was a problem during our election, just wait until you see how it is shredding the fabric of our democracy in the days after.” Russo objected to the fact that, unlike Twitter, Facebook did not move against statements that he and the campaign viewed as “misleading.” He concluded. “We pleaded with Facebook for over a year to be serious about these problems. They have not. Our democracy is on the line. We need answers.” For those of us in the free speech community, these threats are chilling. We saw incredible abuses before the election in Twitter barring access to a true story in the New York Post about Hunter Biden and his alleged global influence peddling scheme. Notably, no one in the Biden camp (including Biden himself) thought that it was a threat to our democracy to have Twitter block the story (while later admitting that it was a mistake).

I have previously objected to such regulation of speech. What is most disturbing is how liberals have embraced censorship and even declared that “China was right” on Internet controls. Many Democrats have fallen back on the false narrative that the First Amendment does not regulate private companies so this is not an attack on free speech. Free speech is a human right that is not solely based or exclusively defined by the First Amendment. Censorship by Internet companies is a “Little Brother” threat long discussed by free speech advocates. Some may willingly embrace corporate speech controls but it is still a denial of free speech.

Read more …

Dangerous. Trying to use pedophilea to clamp down on an entire society. Do these people not understand this, or is something else going on?

EU Seizes on Vienna Attack to Enact Long-Desired Ban on Encryption (MPN)

The European Union is rushing through new legislation to get rid of end to end digital encryption. This would mean the end of privacy for users of popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal. A European Council draft resolution on encryption quietly published on Friday afternoon lays out the EU’s Orwellian position in detail. “The European Union fully supports the development, implementation and use of strong encryption,” it states, “Encryption is a necessary means of protecting fundamental rights and the digital security of governments, industry and society.” Yet in the very next sentence it insists that “At the same time, the European Union needs to ensure the ability of competent authorities” to “exercise their lawful powers, both online and offline.”

These “competent authorities” (a phrase occurring throughout the document) refer to law enforcement agencies and judicial authorities. “Protecting the privacy and security of communications through encryption and at the same time upholding the possibility for competent authorities in the area of security and criminal justice to lawfully access relevant data for legitimate, clearly defined purposes infighting serious and/or organized crimes and terrorism, including in the digital world, are extremely important,” it concludes. Thus, the EU’s position is that its citizens should be able to hide their data from criminals, but not from the government or its various spying agencies.

The official justification for these new laws, Austrian public service broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk reports, is the Vienna terrorist attack of November 2, which left five people dead and 23 injured. However, it notes, the EU has long dreamed of pushing through legislation which lets it surveil its population. In June, for instance, European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johannson gave a speech outlining what must be done to win the fight against child trafficking and abuse. “We must also deal with encryption. Military grade encryption that’s easy to use but impossible to break makes paedophiles invisible and hides evidence of their crimes from police,” she insisted. “It’s our obligation to protect children. We must do what is necessary,” she added.

Civil rights group the Electronic Freedom Foundation is not impressed by the various arguments put forward by the EU in order to justify the end of end to end encryption, calling it a “drastically invasive step.” “We are in the first stages of a long anti-encryption march by the upper echelons of the EU, headed directly toward Europeans’ digital front-doors. It’s the same direction as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States have been moving for some time. If Europe wants to keep its status as a jurisdiction that treasures privacy, it will need to fight for it,” they wrote last month.

Read more …

The EU needn’t worry.

Zoom Lied To Users About End-to-End Encryption For Years – FTC (ArsT)

Zoom has agreed to upgrade its security practices in a tentative settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which alleges that Zoom lied to users for years by claiming it offered end-to-end encryption. “[S]ince at least 2016, Zoom misled users by touting that it offered ‘end-to-end, 256-bit encryption’ to secure users’ communications, when in fact it provided a lower level of security,” the FTC said today in the announcement of its complaint against Zoom and the tentative settlement. Despite promising end-to-end encryption, the FTC said that “Zoom maintained the cryptographic keys that could allow Zoom to access the content of its customers’ meetings, and secured its Zoom Meetings, in part, with a lower level of encryption than promised.”

The FTC complaint says that Zoom claimed it offers end-to-end encryption in its June 2016 and July 2017 HIPAA compliance guides, which were intended for health-care industry users of the video conferencing service. Zoom also claimed it offered end-to-end encryption in a January 2019 white paper, in an April 2017 blog post, and in direct responses to inquiries from customers and potential customers, the complaint said. “In fact, Zoom did not provide end-to-end encryption for any Zoom Meeting that was conducted outside of Zoom’s ‘Connecter’ product (which are hosted on a customer’s own servers), because Zoom’s servers—including some located in China—maintain the cryptographic keys that would allow Zoom to access the content of its customers’ Zoom Meetings,” the FTC complaint said.

The FTC announcement said that Zoom also “misled some users who wanted to store recorded meetings on the company’s cloud storage by falsely claiming that those meetings were encrypted immediately after the meeting ended. Instead, some recordings allegedly were stored unencrypted for up to 60 days on Zoom’s servers before being transferred to its secure cloud storage.”

Read more …

Second try.

EU Goes After Amazon For Breaching European Antitrust Rules (RT)

The European Commission (EC) announced a second formal investigation into online retailer Amazon on Tuesday, accusing the firm of breaching European antitrust rules by using independent sellers’ data for its own benefit. The EC said that Amazon was using the data of third-party sellers, such as order numbers, revenues and numbers of visitors, to inform its strategic business decisions, like reducing the price of products. The e-commerce giant plays a dual role – both selling products itself, and acting as a platform for independent (and sometimes rival) sellers. “Data on the activity of third-party sellers should not be used to the benefit of Amazon when it acts as a competitor to these sellers,” said EU’s competition chief Margrethe Vestager.


Amazon disagreed with the Commission’s assertions, saying it “will continue to make every effort to ensure it has an accurate understanding of the facts.” It also said that represents less than one percent of the global retail market. “No company cares more about small businesses or has done more to support them over the past two decades than Amazon,” it said. In July 2019, the EC, the executive arm of the European Union, launched a probe into Amazon due to concerns over anti-competitive behavior. This time, the antitrust investigation will look at how the company chooses which sellers offer products via Amazon Prime, its paid-for premium service. It will investigate the possible preferential treatment of Amazon’s own retail business and those that use its logistics and delivery services (known as “fulfilment by Amazon” sellers) over other sellers.

Read more …

Article in Sydney Morning Herald, September 25 2019 about hay fever says: “This article was originally published in 2018 and has since been updated.”

How is it possible it’s talking about COVID19 in Sep 2019 at the latest? Didn’t we not know about it till December? What did I miss?

Why Do Some People Get Hay Fever And What Can They Do About It? (SMH)

In any other year, an errant sniff or explosive sneeze might be met with an offer of a tissue or a polite “bless you” – but the deadly COVID-19 pandemic has made us extremely cautious, for good reason. Thankfully, Melburnians dreading a tough hay fever season behind masks can breathe a (stifled) sigh of relief. Good late summer and autumn rains were followed by a dry winter, leaving the soils of western Victoria’s grazing lands more parched than last year. This is likely to keep pollen-producing grasses to a minimum – and itchy, running noses to just a drip.

[..] … and does it relate to COVID-19? While there are some similar symptoms: a cough, runny nose, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing (the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention released a Venn diagram that neatly illustrates the symptoms of both), there is no evidence of a link between the two. But Professor Katelaris says there is plenty of evidence to show that when the nasal lining is inflamed, it is easier to catch any virus. So those suffering from allergies should try to keep symptoms in check: seek medical advice on treatments, avoid touching your eyes and nose at all times and head straight for the nearest COVID-19 testing station if you experience allergic symptoms for the first time.

Professor Douglass says if it’s just hay fever, it’s highly unlikely you’ll experience the fevers, sore throats and general aches and pains associated with COVID-19. “[They] are more typical of a respiratory infection than hay fever … sneezing, an itchy throat and eyes are more typical of allergic symptoms,” she says.

Read more …

 

 

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Veritas Hopkins

 

 

 

 

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Nov 022020
 


Paul Klee Limits of Reason (Grenzen des Verstandes ) 1927

 

A Contagion Of Hatred And Hysteria (Sunetra Gupta)
Trump COVID Adviser Atlas Forced To Apologize For RT Interview (RT)
‘Bleak Midwinter’ In Europe As 250 Million Face Lockdown (NZH)
Bias In Journalism Has Become A Disease (Curtis)
MI Nov 1, 2020 Presidential Poll (Trafalgar)
The Complete Election Cheat Sheet: What Happens On And After November 3 (ZH)
In Defense Of The Electoral College (AT)
Trump Failed To Fight And Expose The Establishment’s COVID Narrative (Marsden)
Democrats Are Masking Biden’s Frailty (NYPost)
Add Vitamin D To Bread And Milk To Help Fight Covid, Urge Scientists (G.)
Non-Scalable Fence Being Built to Protect Trump During Election Day Unrest (GP)

 

 

The first lockdowns made sense, though too long; they were a response to a totally new virus. But policies should have been developed to make sure there would not be a second lockdown.

Such policies were not developed. Therefore, the second lockdowns merely disguise policy failures.

Days are getting shorter, nights are getting colder, and we’re locking down entire populations. The damage will be immense.

 

 

This looks funny at first. But at the end is no longer is. Biden copies Hillary word for word.

Tiptoe thru the tulips

Tucker Trunalimunumaprzure
https://twitter.com/i/status/1323167019806695425

 

 

Sunetra Gupta is a professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford. She has to run to the Daily Mail to be heard. Like Glenn Greenwald has to go on Tucker Carlson, and Scott Atlas talks to RT.

We must not discuss either Hunter Biden or lockdowns.

A Contagion Of Hatred And Hysteria (Sunetra Gupta)

Lockdown is a blunt, indiscriminate policy that forces the poorest and most vulnerable people to bear the brunt of the fight against coronavirus. As an infectious diseases epidemiologist, I believe there has to be a better way. That is why, earlier this month, with two other international scientists, I co-authored a proposal for an alternative approach — one that shields those most at risk while enabling the rest of the population to resume their ordinary lives to some extent. I expected debate and disagreement about our ideas, published as the Great Barrington Declaration. As a scientist, I would welcome that. After all, science progresses through its ideas and counter-ideas. But I was utterly unprepared for the onslaught of insults, personal criticism, intimidation and threats that met our proposal.

The level of vitriol and hostility, not just from members of the public online but from journalists and academics, has horrified me. I am not a politician. The hurly-burly of political life and being in the eye of the media do not appeal to me at all. I am first and foremost a scientist; one who is far more comfortable sitting in my office or laboratory than in front of a television camera. Of course, I do have deeply held political ideals — ones that I would describe as inherently Left-wing. I would not, it is fair to say, normally align myself with the Daily Mail. I have strong views about the distribution of wealth, about the importance of the Welfare State, about the need for publicly owned utilities and government investment in nationalised industries.

But Covid-19 is not a political phenomenon. It is a public health issue — indeed, it is one so serious that the response to it has already led to a humanitarian crisis. So I have been aghast to see a political rift open up, with outright abuse meted out to those who, like me, question the orthodoxy. At the heart of our proposal is the recognition that mass lockdowns cause enormous damage. We are already seeing how current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results — to name just a few — include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health.

Such pitfalls of national lockdowns must not be ignored, especially when it is the working class and younger members of society who carry the heaviest burden. I was also deeply concerned that lockdowns only delay the inevitable spread of the virus. Indeed, we believe that a better way forward would be to target protective measures at specific vulnerable groups, such as the elderly in care homes. Of course, there will be challenges, such as where people are being cared for in their own multi-generational family homes. I am certainly not pretending I have all the answers, but these issues need to be discussed and thrashed out thoroughly.

That is why I have found it so frustrating how, in recent weeks, proponents of lockdown policies have seemed intent on shutting down debate rather than promoting reasoned discussion. It is perplexing to me that so many refuse even to consider the potential benefits of allowing non-vulnerable citizens, such as the young, to go about their lives and risk infection, when in doing so they would build up herd immunity and thereby protect the lives of vulnerable citizens. Yet rather than engage in serious, rational discussion with us, our critics have dismissed our ideas as ‘pixie dust’ and ‘wishful thinking’.

Read more …

Scott Atlas can’t talk about lockdowns either other than on RT, “one of the Kremlin’s main propaganda platforms..” It’s safe to say that WaPo and CNN are propaganda platforms; RT, not so much.

Trump COVID Adviser Atlas Forced To Apologize For RT Interview (RT)

Trump administration Covid-19 adviser Scott Atlas ripped public-health officials for “egregious” policy failures – only to be forced to apologize after mainstream media deflected his points by attacking him for appearing on RT. On Saturday, the Stanford University doctor, who has emerged as President Donald Trump’s top adviser on responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, called the lockdown policies an “epic failure” and argued they are “killing people,” while speaking with Afshin Rattansi on RT’s Going Underground show. “The public-health leadership have failed egregiously, and they’re killing people with their fear-inducing shutdown policies,” Atlas told RT.

“The lockdowns will go down as an epic failure of public policy by people who refuse to accept they were wrong – were wrong, refused to accept they were wrong, didn’t know the data, didn’t care. And it became a frenzy of stopping Covid-19 cases at all costs, and those costs are massive,” he said. “The argument is undeniable: The lockdowns are killing people.” Atlas then pointed to job losses, rising suicides, rising drug abuse and the harm being done to young people, tying the issues to the Covid-19 restrictions put in place. One study showed that 25 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 thought about killing themselves in June “due to the lockdown”, he said.


“We’re creating a generation of neurotic children, forcing them to wear masks and be six feet apart from their friends, or not even have school in person.” While Atlas’ counter-narrative comments might have been fodder for a serious discussion of public-health policy, mainstream media outlets instead spun the interview into a controversy over a Trump administration official granting an interview to a Russian state-owned outlet. Reporters such as CNN’s Jim Acosta, Politico’s Ryan Lizza and NBC’s David Gura immediately pounced, ignoring the substance of his comments and breathlessly telling their followers that he spoke to an alleged Kremlin mouthpiece. “White House Covid adviser appears on outlet that is described by US intel as one of the Kremlin’s main propaganda platforms,” Washington Post national-security correspondent Greg Miller said.

ScottAtlas apology

Read more …

Days are gettig shorter, nights are getting colder, and we’re locking down entire populations. The damage will be immense.

‘Bleak Midwinter’ In Europe As 250 Million Face Lockdown (NZH)

More than a quarter of a billion Europeans are now in, or facing, fresh lockdowns after a second wave of Covid-19 deluged the continent. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson grudgingly announced on the weekend that the 55 million residents of England would head into a four-week lockdown – even as some Brits headed off to Spain for autumn holidays. The UK nations of Wales and Northern Island are already in lockdown and Scotland has warned it may be forced to ramp up restrictions following the move in England. Britain joins a host of other nations, including France, Germany, Greece, Belgium, Ireland, Austria and the Czech Republic, in imposing new lockdowns.

It’s been dubbed the “bleak midwinter” as more than 250 million Europeans are now being told to stay at home for all of November. Other countries, such as Italy, Portugal and Spain, have imposed restrictions at a regional level and have warned they also may go into full lockdown mode. On Saturday, the UK PM said a four-week lockdown from November 5 was vital to avert a “medical and moral disaster” for the country’s health service, the NHS. He said deaths could reach “several thousand a day” and could peak above that of April’s lockdown. Johnson had previously vowed not to put England into a second lockdown, relying on regional restrictions to fight outbreaks. However, rising numbers – 22,000 new cases on Saturday alone – have pushed the UK into the one million coronavirus infections club.

[..] Statistically speaking, Belgium has been the European nation hardest hit by Covid-19 with more than 100 deaths per 100,000 population.From Monday, a strict lockdown will be accompanied by a curfew for up to six weeks. Belgium has been challenged by its small geographic size but highly devolved regional governments which has meant virus restrictions have varied, in some cases, from one town to another. Meanwhile in France, a cumulative 700km traffic jam choked the streets of the greater Paris region as residents streamed out of the city to spend a second lockdown in the country where many have second homes. Anyone leaving their home will have to fill out an “attestation” form declaring their reason for doing so.

[..] Despite the increasing number of lockdowns, a number of countries with lower infection rates are holding out against major restrictions. The Nordic nations of Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland are largely lockdown-free. Sweden, which has relied on voluntary guidance rather than legal enforcement, is seeing an increase in cases. But deaths remain low. The Government has asked residents of Stockholm and Gothenburg to avoid heading indoors to gyms and shops in an attempt to reduce infections.

Read more …

“..we have gone beyond partisanship and into tribalism..”

Bias In Journalism Has Become A Disease (Curtis)

Glenn Greenwald is the latest big-name journalist to quit a title, leaving the Intercept in a censorship row. This trend is indicative of a media landscape that reflects a polarized society which discourages freedom of thought. Imagine having to resign from something that you co-founded. It can’t be a good feeling. You spend all of your time trying to build it up into something tenable, only for things to fall apart. That’s the position Glenn Greenwald has found himself in at news website, the Intercept. But even more galling for Greenwald is why things turned ugly. As his resignation letter stated, “The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New-York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression. The censored article, based on recently revealed emails and witness testimony, raised critical questions about Biden’s conduct.”

Working on the assumption that what Greenwald said is true, this is a distressing occurrence that’s becoming all too familiar. It’s reminiscent of Bari Weiss and her issues at the New York Times, Ariana Pekary leaving MSNBC, and Andrew Sullivan quitting the New Yorker. Over and over again, we’re seeing journalists who don’t want to adhere to certain partisan views being forced into a situation where they have to leave their publication because they won’t play the cheerleader. This is a worrying trend. Sure, partisanship has been part of journalism as long as it has existed. People will inevitably have biases towards certain belief systems that they adopt. With that said, there is another inevitability, given how flawed humanity is. And this is that flawed humans aren’t going to be able uphold the standards that people with those beliefs expect them to. In short, no one is perfect, and everyone is open to criticism.


However, what we are seeing from certain partisan forces is a desire for any and all criticism from journalists to simply be swept under the carpet. At that point, can it really be classed as journalism? Readers expect journalists to ask questions. Some of those questions are going to be tough; some may even constitute criticism. But those questions and criticisms can open the way to improvement. There’s nothing wrong with being a conservative and being critical of other conservatives, or being a liberal and being critical of other liberals. But when that criticism has to be silenced or is met with outright hostility, we have gone beyond partisanship and into tribalism. And that is not a positive development.

Read more …

“This pollster is cool, the guy who got 2016 right, says “we take into account the fact that ppl may have one set of ideas n feelings in their local election and a complete different set of ideas n wishes in a national election.” He gets scale.”

MI Nov 1, 2020 Presidential Poll (Trafalgar)

 

 

Cahaly

Read more …

All the way to December 8?!

The Complete Election Cheat Sheet: What Happens On And After November 3 (ZH)

It’s after midnight on Nov 3, the US population has voted, and the election results are popping up across the media landscape. When will we know who is the next president? Well, due to the special circumstances surrounding this election including a record number of mail in ballots and countless court challenges involving the voting process, we may have to wait…. a while. Below we lay out a timeline of key events and catalysts that everyone should be aware of. After Election Day on November 3, the results of the election need to generally be finalized by December 8, which is known as the Safe Harbor Day, as this is when states select their EC Voters.

How to follow the news on Election Day. Here are a few tips from Bank of America: Here are a few tips:

• Be wary of exit polls: The track record of exit polls is tenuous at best. In 2004, exit polls showed John Kerry winning the popular vote by 51% to 48% only to ultimately lose by the same margin. Similarly, there were major flaws in the 2016 exit polls which substantially underestimated the number of white working-class voters while overestimating the number of college-educated white voters, leading to bias results favoring Hilary Clinton. Pollsters claim they have fixed the issues ailing Election Day polls but the better mouse trap is yet unproven. Moreover, there has been unprecedented surge in early voting (both in person and mail-in) with over 70mn votes cast nationwide to-date and there is a major skew in voter day preference by party. Admittedly, pollster are aware of this issue and will enhance their methodology by polling at large and early voting centers but nevertheless this creates greater uncertainty in their estimates.

• Brace for head fakes: Results from battleground states should begin to trickle in just after polls close within each state (Table 3). First battleground states to report will be Florida, Georgia and New Hampshire where polls close at 7pm EDT (polls in Florida’s panhandle will close at 8 pm), followed by North Carolina, Ohio and Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Type of ballots reported first will vary across states. For example, according to reporting done by the Upshot blog of the New York Times, battleground states such as Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, and Iowa will report early in-person and processed mail-in votes first. Meanwhile, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nevada will not follow any specific order. Getting a clear sense of who is winning will be difficult given the large number of early voting by mail and absentee ballots and different rules around processing ballots, which we discuss below.

• Key demographics: In 2016, President Trump was able to tip the election by winning the older and suburban vote. A post-mortem of the 2016 election by the Pew research center showed that Trump won the age groups 50-64 and 65+ by a margin of 6 and 9 points, respectively and edged out the suburban vote by 2 points. During the 2020 election cycle, polls have shown President Trump consistently running below his 2016 election numbers in these key demographic groups. In this context, keep an eye on results coming out of suburban areas such as Maricopa County in Arizona and Peach County in Georgia and older leaning regions such as Sumter County and Pinellas County in Florida. Results in these regions could prove to be a canary in the coalmine.

@TimMurtaugh

Read more …

The purpose of the Electoral Collage seems obvious. “..the Electoral College erects a constitutional check-and-balance to prevent corrupt urban politicians and voters from wielding disproportionate power..

In Defense Of The Electoral College (AT)

In the last twenty years, Democrats have twice lost presidential elections when the Electoral College has “trumped” the popular vote, leading to Republican victories. First came George W. Bush’s presidential victory over Al Gore in 2000, then Trump’s shocker over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Thus, radical Democrats demand the abolition of the Electoral College. “It’s undemocratic,” they say. “The will of the people should rule,” they cry. Yes, it’s undemocratic, which, believe it or not, is an exceptionally good thing. That’s because the United States is not, and never has been a “democracy.” The word “democracy” is not in the Constitution. In fact, the founders hated pure, unrestrained democracies.


Instead, Article 4, Section 4, states that the Constitution provides a “Republican” form of government. Not a democracy. There’s a difference. “Democracy” equals mob rule, where angry, fist-shakers “vote” for or demand whatever they want. Imagine that, against the rights and interests of others. Think of the mobs burning Portland and Seattle. “Republic” equals freedom and the rule of law, featuring internal checks-and-balances against overconcentration of power. Remember that phrase, checks-and-balances. It’s key to understanding the Electoral College. That’s because the Electoral College erects a constitutional check-and-balance to prevent corrupt urban politicians and voters from wielding disproportionate power over the less powerful. In this case, that means rural and small-town America. Though the Constitution contains 7 Articles and 27 Amendments, two powerful concepts emerge as keys to understanding the Constitution.

1. To Protect Freedom. First, the Constitution establishes government’s primary role, which is to protect individual freedom. The broadest freedoms designated for governmental protection are found at the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, guaranteeing Americans the right to life, liberty and property. Jefferson expresses a similar concept in the Declaration of Independence, discussing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So, protecting freedom is the government’s principal role, not to become a giant lollypop factory dispensing free goodies as the Democrats advocate.


2. A Restraining Device Against Overconcentration of Power. Here’s the second concept: The Constitution is also a restraining device against over-concentrated governmental power. When lecturing on the Constitution, to illustrate a point, I often show a photograph of a drunk driver, just after being arrested by police officers, with handcuffs clamping his hands behind his back. Likewise, the Constitution handcuffs government on multiple levels, restraining excessive governmental power to protect citizens.

Tom Fitton

Read more …

He listened to the scientists.

Trump Failed To Fight And Expose The Establishment’s COVID Narrative (Marsden)

The best thing about the Trump presidency is arguably that every morning, no matter how bad a day you’re having, you can be assured that when you open your Twitter feed alongside your morning coffee, Trump will have said something that will make you shoot your Nescafe out your nose. (That is, if partisan hysteria hasn’t caused you to completely lose your sense of humor.) Modern-day US presidents haven’t exactly been the epitome of statesmanship, but unlike them, at least Trump gives you a chuckle. The problem with his approach is that while Trump is focused on wisecracks – however entertaining they can be – the Covid counter-narrative led by the usual suspects in the Washington establishment and their unelected (but often equally political) specialists and advisors, is one of doom and gloom.

They bombard the public with cherry-picked figures – like the transition to a preference for advancing numbers of ‘cases’ over deaths – and capitalize on Trump’s more fatalistic approach to portray him as incompetent at best and a willfully negligent maniac at worst. Governments around the world have been hard-pressed to prove that they’re doing something – anything – to control the Covid situation. Even if the effectiveness of government actions are still difficult to reliably assess or to separate from pre-existing endemic social and cultural factors that could account for variation in outcomes across or within nations. Yet the establishment is arrogantly and absolutely certain that they have all the answers vis-à-vis a phenomenon that is, by definition, so new that it’s called the ‘novel coronavirus’.


They vilify anyone who deviates from their views. We’ve seen this kind of establishment groupthink before. One example being the issue formerly known as “global warming” (now known as ‘climate change’, or, more recently, ‘climate deregulation’, because the issue was rebranded when it became difficult to explain how supposed ‘warming’ was causing colder weather). Any deviation from conventional establishment wisdom on this results in a pile-on and cancellation – just ask Mike Shellenberger. The same establishment hacks also persist with the simplistic narrative of good guys (America and its allies) versus bad guys (Russia and China, and their allies). This worldview is peddled every time they attempt to ramp up support for a natural resource grab or geopolitical power-play in some part of the world. Why should anyone trust their narrative when it comes to Covid? They’ve proven repeatedly that they’re anything but trustworthy and transparent.

Read more …

“..he was treating the man who would be president like an invalid. ”

Democrats Are Masking Biden’s Frailty (NYPost)

Has there been a worse candidate in history than Joe Biden? When this election is over, the books revealing what went on backstage will be illuminating. But the truth is there for anyone with eyes to see. Take Biden’s car rally in Flint, Mich., Saturday, with a star-power assist from Barack Obama. Awkward barely covers it. Obama, effortlessly cool, gave a warmup speech to the assembled cars before ramping up to a dramatic introduction: “My friend, the next president of the United States of America: Joe Biden!” Moments ticked by, but there was no sign of the candidate. “Joe Biden!” Obama repeated, a little less confidently. But still no show. Obama tried a third time: “Joe Biden!” Biden at last emerged from a nearby building and did a pantomime slow jog to the stage.

The worst part came later. After Biden had shouted his way through a short teleprompter speech, Obama came back onstage, perhaps to escort him off, because Biden did not seem to know where he was. Obama mimed an elbow pump with his former VP to signal they should leave the stage and then quietly whispered to him, after which it dawned on Biden he’d forgotten his mask, not for the first time. When your entire campaign is about mask-shaming Trump supporters, it’s not a forgivable lapse. Poor Biden looked like a chastened schoolboy as he fumbled through his folder and all his pockets looking for that pesky piece of cloth.

He walked back to the lectern and searched, to no avail, before fumbling through his pockets again. Finally, he found the mask in his left trouser pocket, held it aloft sheepishly at Obama, and placed it on his face. But then he paused and looked in seeming confusion at the microphone lying on the lectern where he’d left it. He picked it up and held it briefly to his masked face before laying it down again and rejoining Obama. Whatever emotions were going through Obama’s mind at that point he kept under wraps, but he did slow down and look back solicitously as he shepherded Biden down the stairs and away from prying eyes. In other words, he was treating the man who would be president like an invalid.

Really, it was sad.

Read more …

Let’s do a 10-year study first.

Add Vitamin D To Bread And Milk To Help Fight Covid, Urge Scientists (G.)

Scientists are calling for ministers to add vitamin D to common foods such as bread and milk to help the fight against Covid-19. Up to half the UK population has a vitamin D deficiency, and government guidance that people should take supplements is not working, according to a group convened by Dr Gareth Davies, a medical physics researcher. Low levels of vitamin D, which our bodies produce in response to strong sunlight, may lead to a greater risk of catching the coronavirus or suffering more severe effects of infection, according to some studies. Last week, researchers in Spain found that 82% of coronavirus patients out of 216 admitted to hospital had low vitamin D levels. The picture is mixed, however – some research shows that vitamin D levels have little or no effect on Covid-19, flu and other respiratory diseases.


Vitamin D deficiency can cause rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults – soft bones that lead to deformities – and children with severe vitamin D deficiency are prone to hypocalcaemia – low levels of calcium in the blood – which leads to seizures and heart failure. However, Public Health England (PHE) and the Department of Health and Social Care have rejected calls over the past 10 years to fortify foods such as milk, bread and orange juice, which is the practice in Finland, Sweden, Australia, the US and Canada. “In my opinion, it is clear that vitamin D could not only protect against disease severity but could also protect against infection,” Davies said. “Food fortification would need careful planning to be rolled out effectively, particularly as people are now taking supplements. Picking the right foods to fortify would need to be done carefully. “But it’s clear that the current policy is not working – at least half the population have a vitamin D deficiency.”

Read more …

The White House on lockdown. And it’s not for COVID.

Non-Scalable Fence Being Built to Protect Trump During Election Day Unrest (GP)

Federal agents are set to begin building a non-scalable fence around the White House, Ellipse and Lafayette Square and 250 National Guardsman have been placed on standby to protect President Donald Trump during any election day unrest. Major riots and destruction have been promised by leftist extremists should President Trump win reelection. “The White House on lockdown: A federal law enforcement source tells NBC that beginning tomorrow, crews will build a ‘non-scalable’ fence to secure the WH complex, Ellipse and Lafayette Square,” Geoff Bennett from NBC News tweeted. “250 National Guardsmen have been put on standby, reporting to Metro Police officials.”

Read more …

 

 

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Scary dog
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Oct 222020
 


Banksy Show me the Monet 2005 (sold yesterday for $8 million)

 

Laptop Connected To Hunter Biden Linked To FBI Money Laundering Probe (Fox)
Giuliani Responds To Borat Photo (ZH)
Glenn Greenwald Calls Out Hypocrites Covering For Biden On Hunter Stories (NYP)
Time To Mute The President (Turley)
Biden’s Lead Down to Three (Rasmussen)
Poll Shows Trump Support At New High In Tight Race (IBD)
Will Adam Schiff Now Be Banned From Twitter? (Turley)
Republicans To Push Ahead With Supreme Court Pick Despite Dems’ Boycott (R.)
OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma To Plead To 3 Criminal Charges (AP)
Guardian’s Silence Let UK Trample On Assange’s Rights In Darkness (Cook)
Donald Trump Paid Nearly $200,000 In Taxes To China, Report Claims (G.)
Over Half Europe’s Small Firms Fear For Survival (R.)
Million New Yorkers Can’t Afford Food As Hunger Crisis Worsens (ZH)
Experts Recommend Maximizing Social Distance By Attending A Biden Rally (BBee)

 

 

 

 

We don’t know if it’s Hunter doing the laundering, and the FBI won’t tell.

Laptop Connected To Hunter Biden Linked To FBI Money Laundering Probe (Fox)

The FBI’s subpoena of a laptop and hard drive purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden came in connection with a money laundering investigation in late 2019, according to documents obtained by Fox News and verified by multiple federal law enforcement officials who reviewed them. It is unclear, at this point, whether the investigation is ongoing or if it was directly related to Hunter Biden. Multiple federal law enforcement officials, as well as two separate government officials, confirmed the authenticity of these documents, which were signed by FBI Special Agent Joshua Wilson. Wilson did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

One of the documents, obtained by Fox News, was designated as an FBI “Receipt for Property” form, which details the bureau’s interactions with John Paul Mac Isaac, the owner of “The Mac Shop” who reported the laptop’s contents to authorities. The document has a “Case ID” section, which is filled in with a hand-written number: 272D-BA-3065729. According to multiple officials, and the FBI’s website, “272” is the bureau’s classification for money laundering, while “272D” refers to “Money Laundering, Unknown SUA [Specified Unlawful Activity]—White Collar Crime Program,” according to FBI documents. One government official described “272D” as “transnational or blanket.” “BA” indicates the case was opened in the FBI’s Baltimore field office, sources said.

The documents state that the subpoena was carried out in Wilmington, Del., which falls under the jurisdiction of the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office. “The FBI cannot open a case without predication, so they believed there was predication for criminal activity,” a government official told Fox News. “This means there was sufficient evidence to believe that there was criminal conduct.” Another document, obtained by Fox News, was a subpoena sent to Isaac to testify before U.S. District Court in Delaware on Dec. 9, 2019. One page of the subpoena shows what appears to be serial numbers for a laptop and hard drive taken into possession. Based on the date of the subpoena, an official told Fox News that the case would have been opened prior to Isaac’s subpoena.

“If a criminal case was opened and subpoenas were issued, that means there is a high likelihood that both the laptop and hard drive contain fruits of criminal activity,” the official said. Fox News first reported on Tuesday evening that the FBI is in possession of the laptop in question. The FBI has declined to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation into the laptop or the emails, as is standard practice.

Read more …

Giuliani called New York City police to report the incident on July 7. It was no big story then, but it is now.

Giuliani Responds To Borat Photo (ZH)

Following The Guardian’s full-court-press effort to distract from the disturbing details being exposed about Hunter Biden (and his father), the rest of the activist media jumped on the Giuliani-hand-down-his-pants/Borat story. As the embarrassing story took on a mind of its own among social media and mainstream media types, the former New York Mayor has taken to Twitter to respond and clarify what exactly happened…


“The Borat video is a complete fabrication. I was tucking in my shirt after taking off the recording equipment. At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate. If Sacha Baron Cohen implies otherwise he is a stone-cold liar. In fact, the NY Post today reports “it looks to me like an exaggeration through editing.” As soon as I realized it was a set up I called the police, which has been noted in THR article on July 8th. This is an effort to blunt my relentless exposure of the criminality and depravity of Joe Biden and his entire family. Deadline Hollywood reports CAA had a distribution screening in September where there was no mention of the scene holding any importance. We are preparing much bigger dumps off of the hard drive from hell, of which Joe Biden will be unable to defend or hide from. I have the receipts.

If this is all the Deep State has to try and distract from HunterGate, they have a problem (and so far have not denied any of the details that have been exposed). And on the bright side, no Russians were blamed and at least he wasn’t masturbating on a work Zoom call. As TheMindUnleashed’s John Vibes detailed earlier, Rudy Giuliani is among the high profile figures who were pranked for Sasha Baron Cohen’s new Borat sequel, and so far his encounter is the most embarrassing. Cohen and Maria Bakalova, the actress who portrays Borat’s daughter in the film, brought Giuliani into their prank by posing as conservative TV journalists. They conducted an interview with Giuliani where they were extremely agreeable and after the interview, Bakalova went back to a nearby hotel room with him for a drink.


The room was rigged with hidden cameras, which recorded Giuliani apparently untucking his shirt and reaching into his pants. Once he began to reach into his pants, Borat runs into the room and shouts, “She’s 15. She’s too old for you.” Just after the incident, Giuliani called New York City police to report the incident, claiming that he was the victim of a scam or a set up. Giuliani described the encounter to the New York Post, saying that: “This guy comes running in, wearing a crazy, what I would say was a pink transgender outfit. It was a pink bikini, with lace, underneath a translucent mesh top, it looked absurd. He had the beard, bare legs, and wasn’t what I would call distractingly attractive. This person comes in yelling and screaming, and I thought this must be a scam or a shakedown, so I reported it to the police. He then ran away.”

Cernovich

Read more …

“The huge scandal to me is the blatant rank-closing and cone of silence — a prohibition — erected *by journalists* around this story to defend Biden.”

Glenn Greenwald Calls Out Hypocrites Covering For Biden On Hunter Stories (NYP)

Glenn Greenwald is an independent-minded man of the left — a Pulitzer-winning journalist who was the main conduit for Edward Snowden’s leaks of US government secrets. He’s faced down government harassment in Brazil, where he now lives and reports. So his thoughts on The Post’s Hunter Biden scoops, and the reaction by other media outlets, are well worth considering. And they’re damning. Tuesday evening, he made these points on Twitter: “Is there a single journalist willing to say with a straight face they believe the emails relating to the Bidens are either fabricated or otherwise fraudulently altered, but the Bidens just aren’t saying so? There has to be some limits to your willingness to go to bat for them.”

“When you report a huge archive, there’s no way to prove the negative that none of it is altered. You investigate & confirm as much as you can, then use your journalistic judgment. The only way you get confirmation is when the subjects of the reporting don’t deny the authenticity.” “When we reported the Snowden archive, we knew it was genuine, but breathed a huge sigh of relief when NSA didn’t claim the docs were fake. The same was true with our Brazil reporting over the last year: publishing private messages from corrupt Bolsonaro officials & prosecutors.” “As a journalist publishing private communications & docs that are incriminating, you know the subjects of the reporting will immediately claim they’re fake *if the[y] are*. Of course they will: that would kill the reporting! There’s a reason the Bidens aren’t claiming they’re fake.”

“I don’t think that the emails — so far — reveal a huge scandal. They so far just establish standard sleaze and DC corruption. The huge scandal to me is the blatant rank-closing and cone of silence — a prohibition — erected *by journalists* around this story to defend Biden.” On Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show that night, he elaborated: “What makes it so much worse is that the reason the Bidens aren’t answering basic questions about this story — basic questions like: Did Hunter Biden drop that laptop off at that repair shop? Are the emails authentic? Do you deny that they are? Do you claim any have been altered or any of them fabricated? Did you in fact meet with Burisma executives as these emails suggest? . . . The reason that they don’t answer any questions is because the media has signaled that they don’t have to. That journalists will be attacked and vilified simply for asking.”

Read more …

Hard to believe this guy is serious. What a bizarre new normal we have reached.

Time To Mute The President (Turley)

Peter Greenberger, a former Twitter and Google executive, is calling for the social media accounts of President Donald Trump to be shutdown for the remainder of the election. For those of us who have criticized calls for censorship from Democratic leaders for years, the demand is yet another example of the slippery slope of censorship that awaits this country with increasing regulation of speech on social media. Congressional leaders like House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff have called for labeling and removal of material with some members directly threatening a legislative crackdown. Speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for resisting speech monitoring and censorship as a matter of free speech.

Pelosi lashed out that those who want to preserve a free speech zone are “all about making money,” ignoring free speech advocates who have no financial interest in these companies. Joe Biden has demanded that prior Trump criticism of mail-in voting be stripped from the Internet and social media. This is an effort to enlist companies like Twitter and Facebook to regulate political speech. And it is increasing succeeding. The recent move against the Hunter Biden story is an example of how these companies have been used to inhibit access to stories that are harmful to Joe Biden or beneficial to Donald Trump. Yesterday, the FBI reportedly confirmed that it has the Biden laptop and that it does not believe that the material on the laptop is Russian disinformation.

Previously, the Director of National Intelligence criticized Schiff for declaring that the laptop was clearly Russian disinformation and said that Congress has received no such intelligence. Despite the recent abusive act by Twitter, Greenberger is demanding that these companies go even further to ban all access of Trump to social media. Presumably, Greenberger would eventually ban surrogates who convey Trump’s views or comments.CNN considered Greenberger’s proposal credible enough to give him an entire segment with Jake Tapper who observed that the suggestion is pretty “extreme.”

Read more …

Deja Vu?

Biden’s Lead Down to Three (Rasmussen)

With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, it’s a three-point race. Democrat Joe Biden now leads President Trump 49% to 46% among Likely U.S. Voters, according to Rasmussen Reports’ weekly White House Watch survey. The latest national telephone and online survey finds that two percent (2%) still prefer some other candidate, while another two percent (2%) remain undecided. Two weeks ago, Biden had a 12-point lead. A week ago, he was ahead by eight. This is the first time in a month that Biden’s support has fallen below 50%.


Trump earns 82% support among Republicans. Biden has 79% of the Democrat vote and leads by seven among voters not affiliated with either major party. The Democrat had a double-digit lead among unaffiliateds for the two weeks prior to this. The survey of 2,500 Likely Voters was conducted October 14-15 and 18-20, 2020 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Read more …

This show ain’t done.

Poll Shows Trump Support At New High In Tight Race (IBD)

Today’s Biden vs. Trump poll finds support for President Donald Trump hitting a new high, just a hair below his 2016 vote share. The race against former Vice President Joe Biden appears to have gotten much tighter since the Oct. 12 launch of IBD/TIPP’s daily presidential poll. Republican voters have come home, while Democrats have strayed, but Biden retains an edge among independent voters, IBD/TIPP shows. The latest Biden vs. Trump poll update shows the Democratic challenger leading the Republican incumbent by 2.5 points, 48.5%-46%, in a four-way presidential poll of likely voters. Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen has the support of 2.6%, and Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins 0.7%.

Since the IBD/TIPP 2020 Presidential Election Tracking Poll launched Oct. 12, Biden’s support has slipped 3.4 points, from 51.9%. Trump poll numbers have gone the other way, rising 2.6 points to his new high-water mark of 46%. That’s just one-tenth of a point below his 46.1% 2016 vote share. Trump won the 2016 presidential election, despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 2.1 points. Biden’s lead peaked at 8.6 points in IBD/TIPP’s Oct. 13 presidential poll. The race’s tightest point came on Tuesday, Oct. 20, when Biden led by 2.3 points. Biden’s narrower support reflects Trump’s gain, along with more voters who are undecided or decline to say whom they support.

In a head-to-head Biden vs. Trump poll, the Democratic nominee leads by 1.8 points, 48.7%-46.9%, his smallest lead to date. Biden’s support has slipped 4 points since Oct. 12 in the one-on-one matchup, while Trump’s support is up 4.6 points. Biden’s head-to-head lead is slightly narrower because Trump sheds a bit more support to the Libertarian candidate in a four-way race.

Read more …

The New York Post Twitter account is still locked, one week after the publication on Hunter’s laptop. The New York Times account is not.

Will Adam Schiff Now Be Banned From Twitter? (Turley)

Just a day after more than 50 former senior intelligence officials signed on to a letter declaring that the recent disclosure of emails from the Hunter Biden laptop is likely Russian disinformation, the FBI reportedly confirmed that the material does not appear to be Russian disinformation. While former officials like John Brennan insisted that the story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” the FBI appears to have found no such evidence thus far. This followed a similar conclusion from the Director of National Intelligence in response to House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff saying that the story was pure Russian disinformation. The question is whether Twitter and Facebook will now bar access to Schiff’s statements pending further review since the actual intelligence agencies are suggesting that this could be democratic disinformation.

After all, a former Twitter executive is calling for President Trump to be barred from all social media until after the election to prevent “misinformation.” The burden of being a free speech advocate is the the answer is clearly no. Those, like Schiff, who have called for censoring material on the Internet still should benefit from the protections of free speech. From a free speech perspective, it does not matter if the Schiff statement and the letter have “all the classic earmarks of a [Democratic] information operation,” we all benefit from a free and robust discussion of such issues. We do not need these companies to censor or inhibit stories to protect us from misinformation. The letter itself is striking not only in its sweeping conclusion (without actually reviewing the laptop or the emails), but its signatories.

This includes some of those who have been associated with the Russian investigation of the Trump campaign, which was based in part on the Steele dossier. That dossier, funded by the Clinton campaign, was recently found to have been based on information supplied by a known Russian agent. Throughout the campaign, and for many weeks after, the Clinton campaign denied any involvement in the creation of the dossier that was later used to secure a secret surveillance warrant against Trump associates during the Obama administration. Journalists later discovered that the Clinton campaign hid the payments to Fusion as a “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to the law firm.

New York Times reporter Ken Vogel at the time said that Clinton lawyer Marc Elias had “vigorously” denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier. When Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman likewise wrote: “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.” Even when Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was questioned by Congress on the matter, he denied any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who helped devise contract.

Read more …

Still trying to make this news?!

Republicans To Push Ahead With Supreme Court Pick Despite Dems’ Boycott (R.)

U.S. Senate Republicans pledged to go ahead with a vote on Thursday on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, despite Judiciary Committee Democrats pledging to boycott a proceeding that they called “a sham.” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said in a statement on Wednesday that “Judge Barrett deserves a vote and she will receive a vote.” Just hours earlier, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Judiciary Committee Democrats said they would not show up for the vote. They have been urging Republicans to await the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election before advancing a nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the September death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.


“Amidst a global pandemic and ongoing election, Republicans are rushing to confirm a Supreme Court Justice to take away health care from millions and execute the extreme and deeply unpopular agenda that they’ve been unable to get through Congress,” the Democrats said. “This has been a sham process from the beginning,” they said, noting that U.S. elections were only 12 days away and that early ballots already were being cast. Graham, who is in a tough re-election campaign in South Carolina, countered, saying in his statement that Barrett “has a judicial disposition that should be the gold standard for all future nominees” to the high court.

Read more …

Take all their wealth, and throw them in the slammer.

OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma To Plead To 3 Criminal Charges (AP)

Drugmaker Purdue Pharma, the company behind the powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin that experts say helped touch off an opioid epidemic, will plead guilty to federal criminal charges as part of a settlement of more than $8 billion, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. The deal does not release any of the company’s executives or owners — members of the wealthy Sackler family — from criminal liability, and a criminal investigation is ongoing. Family members said they acted “ethically and lawfully,” but some state attorneys general said the agreement fails to hold the Sacklers accountable. The company will plead guilty to three counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and violating federal anti-kickback laws, the officials said, and the agreement will be detailed in a bankruptcy court filing in federal court.


The Sacklers will lose all control over their company, a move already in the works, and Purdue will become a public benefit company, meaning it will be governed by a trust that has to balance the trust’s interests against those of the American public and public health, officials said. The settlement is the highest-profile display yet of the federal government seeking to hold a major drugmaker responsible for an opioid addiction and overdose crisis linked to more than 470,000 deaths in the country since 2000.

Read more …

Today is the tenth anniversary of the Guardian’s publication of the Iraq war logs, leaked by Manning to Assange.

Guardian’s Silence Let UK Trample On Assange’s Rights In Darkness (Cook)

Julian Assange has been hounded out of public life and public view by the UK and US governments for the best part of a decade. Now he languishes in a small, airless cell in Belmarsh high-security prison in London – a victim of arbitrary detention, according to a UN working group, and a victim of psychological torture, according to Nils Melzer, the UN’s expert on torture. If Judge Vanessa Baraitser, presiding in the Central Criminal Court in London, agrees, as she gives every appearance of preparing to do, Assange will be the first journalist to face a terrifying new ordeal – a form of extraordinary rendition to the United States for “espionage” – for having the courage to publish documents that exposed US war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Guardian worked with Assange and Wikileaks on vitally important documents – now at the heart of the US case against Assange – known as the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs. The latter were published exactly a decade ago today. They were a journalistic coup of global significance, and the paper ought to be profoundly proud of its role in bringing them to public attention. During Assange’s extradition hearing, however, the Guardian treated the logs and its past association with Assange and Wikileaks more like a dirty secret it hoped to keep out of sight. Those scoops furnished by Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning enriched the paper financially, and bolstered its standing internationally. They also helped to pave its path into the lucrative US market.


Unlike Assange and Manning, the Guardian has suffered no consequences for publishing the logs. Unlike Assange and Manning, the paper has faced no retribution. While it profited, Assange continues to be made an example of – to deter other journalists from contemplating following in his footsteps.

Read more …

More bullshit from the Guardian. More on this later.

This is a bank account from Trump International Hotels Management, not Trump himself. Moreover, this played in 2013-15. Hasn’t been used since 2015, when the project it was opened for failed.

And Trump did pay a lot more taxes than $750, just not “regular” income tax.

Donald Trump Paid Nearly $200,000 In Taxes To China, Report Claims (G.)

Donald Trump maintains a bank account in China where he pursued licensing deals for years, according to a report that could undermine the president’s election campaign claim that he is tough on Beijing. Tax records reviewed by the New York Times showed a previously unreported bank account in China controlled by Trump International Hotels Management. The account paid $188,561 in taxes in China between 2013 and 2015 in connection to potential licensing deals, according the newspaper. Earlier reporting by the Times showed he paid just $750 in US taxes in 2016 and 2017. The recent tax records also showed Trump invested at least $192,000 in five companies charged with pursuing business deals in China. Those companies claimed $97,400 in business expenses, including payments as recently as 2018, the Times reported.

Trump has waged his re-election campaign on his ability to stand up to China on issues from trade to human rights abuses in Xinjiang and political repression in Hong Kong as well as accountability for the spread of Covid-19. Under Trump, ties between China and the US have reached their lowest point in decades. The disclosures also come after Trump accused his opponent, Joe Biden, of being “weak on China” and described the Biden family as “selling out our country” to China. The Trump campaign has run attack ads against Biden’s son for having “inked a billion-dollar deal” with the government-owned Bank of China, allegations that have been not been substantiated.

[..] Trump has previously pursued an office tower project in Guangzhou in southern China that did not come to fruition. AFP reported in 2016 that the Trump Hotel Collection negotiated with the government owned electricity company, State Grid Corporation of China, to brand and manage a major development in Beijing, resulting in a deal worth up to $150 million over 15 years. Negotiations were put on hold after the state-owned enterprise became the focus of a corruption probe. A lawyer for the Trump Organization, Alan Garten told the Times that the company had “opened an account with a Chinese bank having offices in the United States in order to pay the local taxes”. “No deals, transactions or other business activities ever materialized and, since 2015, the office has remained inactive,” he said.

Read more …

“In Spain, for example, 83% of the 85,000 businesses that have collapsed since February employ fewer than five workers.”

Over Half Europe’s Small Firms Fear For Survival (R.)

Over half the small and medium-sized companies which together provide jobs for two-thirds of European workers fear for their survival in the coming 12 months, according to a survey released by management consultancy McKinsey on Thursday. The survey was conducted in August, before the current acceleration in new coronavirus cases across Europe that is forcing governments to impose new restrictions on activity and prompting speculation of fresh national lockdowns. The finding comes as warnings multiply of an impending wave of business insolvencies and as the IMF and others urge the region’s governments to double down on state support to help companies weather the coronavirus pandemic.


The McKinsey survey of more than 2,200 companies in five countries – France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain – found that 55% expected to shut down by September next year if their revenues remained at current levels. At the current trajectory, one in 10 small and medium-sized companies were expected to file bankruptcy within six months. “This is a substantial burden on the financial sector,” report co-author Zdravko Mladenov said of just one of the knock-on impacts of such a development, which would also send jobless totals surging and stymie wider investment in the economy. [..] Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are defined as those with 250 or fewer employees. In Europe, they employ over 90 million people but their small size makes them vulnerable to cash flow crises. In Spain, for example, 83% of the 85,000 businesses that have collapsed since February employ fewer than five workers.

Read more …

It won’t just be New York. I’m talking in Athens about how to prepare.

Million New Yorkers Can’t Afford Food As Hunger Crisis Worsens (ZH)

In the seventh month of the virus pandemic, New York City is still in shambles, with more than half a million residents unemployed as the small business collapse continues. Broadway is closed, Manhattan offices are empty as remote work dominates, violent crime is surging, and an exodus of people from the city has created a perfect storm of economic chaos that will hunt many New Yorkers for years. A byproduct of the virus-induced economic downturn is food and housing insecurity for millions of people in the Tri-state area. Deep economic scarring produced by permanent job loss has left many people in a bind; some working-poor may never recover while others could take years.

Food and housing insecurity will be, or should be, a hot subject as millions in the Tri-state area are suffering ahead of the holidays. Readers may recall in early October, the Community FoodBank of New Jersey warned that more than one million New Jerseyans were expected to suffer food insecurity by the end of the year. Now the problem is becoming more widespread. At least one million New Yorkers are expected, or will soon, experience food insecurity, according to FOX 5 NY. Alexander Rapaport, the executive director of Masbia soup kitchen network, said, “We have done disasters before, but nothing is even close to what we are doing now,” referring to the long lines at food banks across the city is all too common.

Masbia is a nonprofit soup kitchen network and food pantry, with Borough Park and Flatbush locations in Brooklyn and Forest Hills in Queens. Rapaport said there had been a 500% increase in demand. In a separate report, NYT estimates the number of New Yorkers who are going hungry could be upwards of 1.5 million. Denise Allen, a mother who visits one of Masbia’s food banks, said: “I’m on a limited income. I visit every two to three weeks,” said Allen. Rapaport said, “there is so much need. So much so that for the last three days, Rapaport, his staff, and volunteers have been operating around the clock. All three locations are now open 24/7, feeding 1,500 families a day, but it is still not enough.” With demand high for food banks in the city, he said long lines have developed, which forced him to create an entirely new system in what he calls digital food bank lines. “You now have to make an appointment to pick up your box of food,” Rapaport said.

Read more …

“We’ve found that Trump rallies are super-spreader events since there’s a ton of people. Biden rallies are great for stopping the virus.”

Experts Recommend Maximizing Social Distance By Attending A Biden Rally (BBee)

Health experts across the globe are recommending a new strategy for maximizing your social distance: attending a Joe Biden rally. Officials say there’s no better place to be miles away from most other humans. “When you attend a Joe Biden rally, you’re very unlikely to get infected, since, you know, there’s no one else there,” said one CDC official. “We’ve found that Trump rallies are super-spreader events since there’s a ton of people. Biden rallies are great for stopping the virus. You just stand in the middle of a field while an old guy shouts from a podium hundreds of feet far away from you.”

“Plus, you can rest and relax. Get away from the busyness of modern life: attend a Biden rally. BIDEN-HARRIS 2020!” The health experts named several alternatives that are also acceptable for maximal social distancing, including attending a Biden boat parade, a Biden car parade, and a Nickelback concert.

Read more …

 

 

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Veritas Google

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime, election time, all the time. Click at the top of the sidebars to donate with Paypal and Patreon.

 

Sep 182020
 
 September 18, 2020  Posted by at 9:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  30 Responses »


Fred Stein Paris evening 1934

 

COVID – Why Terminology Really, Really Matters (Kendrick)
Biden Nearly 5 Times More Likely than Trump to Win Election (NW)
Where Is Biden’s Ground Game? (TMI)
In 2016 Call Joe Biden Risked National Security To Sabotage Trump (Fed.)
Lindsey Graham: Comey To Testify Before Senate, Mueller ‘Declined’ (Fox)
Investigation Into Princeton After President Says Racism ‘Embedded’ (WE)
Wray: Russia Actively Interfering In 2020 Election To ‘Denigrate’ Biden (CNN)
China Only G20 Country With Positive Economic Output This Year – OECD (SCMP)
China ‘Acknowledges Scale Of Xinjiang Camps’ As US Applies Pressure (SCMP)
World Bank Warns Recovery Could Take “Five Years” (ZH)
Assange Hearing Day 11 (Craig Murray)
Assange Court Hears About History Of Prosecutions Under Espionage Act (Gosztola)
I Found Assange Paranoid, Crazy–Then His Methods Became Standard Practice (TH)
Noam Chomsky: World Is At The Most Dangerous Moment In Human History (NSM)

 

 

Global new daily cases continue to rise. The US has less than have as many new daily cases as India does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And they say Trump’s a liar….

Biden: All the people would still be alive. Look at the data!

 

 

Carson on Biden 1987

 

 

Excellent. Must read, all of it. Not that I agree there should never have been a lockdown, but it always should have been short. And now we know much more than 6-7 months ago, lockdowns are less appropriate.

But instead now what we see is not a single politician has any idea what to do anymore, so there’ll be more lockdowns, the only thing they know. And that leads to reaction.

COVID – Why Terminology Really, Really Matters (Kendrick)

Whilst everyone is panicking about the ever-increasing number of cases, we should be celebrating them. They are demonstrating, very clearly, that COVID is far, far, less deadly then was feared. The Infection Fatality Rate is most likely going to end up around 0.1%, not 1%. So yes, it does seem that ‘the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza.’ Wise words, wise words indeed. Words that were written by one Anthony S Fauci on the 28th of February 2020. If you haven’t heard of him, look him up. Critically though, eleven days after this, he rather blotted his copybook, because he went on to say this “The flu has a mortality rate of 0.1 percent. This (COVID) has a mortality rate of 10 times that. That’s the reason I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.”

The mortality rate Dr Fauci? Could it possibly be that he failed to understand that there is no such thing as a mortality rate? Did he mean the case fatality rate, or the infection fatality rate? If he meant the Infection mortality rate of influenza, he was pretty much bang on. If he meant the case fatality rate, he was wrong by a factor of ten. The reality is that, no matter what Fauci went on to say, severe influenza has a case fatality rate of 1%, and so does COVID. They also have approximately the same infection fatality fate of 0.1%. It seems that Dr Fauci just got mixed up with the terminology. Because in his Journal article eleven days earlier, he did state… ‘This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza… [and here is the kicker at the end] (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%).’

You see, he did say the case fatality rate of influenza was approximately 0.1%. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong… wrong. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. With influenza, Dr Fauci, the CDC, his co-authors, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institutes of Health and the New England Journal of Medicine got case fatality rate and infection fatality rate mixed up with influenza. Easy mistake to make. Could have done it myself. But didn’t. You want to know where Imperial College London really got their 1% infection fatality rate figure from? It seems clear that they got it from Anthony S Fauci and the New England Journal of Medicine. The highest impact journal in the world – which should have the highest impact proof-readers in the world. But clearly does not.

Imperial College then used this wrong NEJM influenza case fatality rate 0.1%. It seems that they then compared this 0.1% figure to the reported COVID case fatality rate, estimated to be 1% and multiplied the impact of COVID by ten – as you would. As you probably should. So, we got Lockdown. The US used the Fauci figure and got locked down. The world used that figure and got locked down. That figure just happens to be ten times too high.

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Forever amazing that the polling industry got just about everything wrong in 2016, and hasn’t lost a beat. They might as well get things wrong on purpose now, what’s the difference?

Biden Nearly 5 Times More Likely than Trump to Win Election (NW)

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is the odds-on favorite to win the U.S. election against President Donald Trump, according to an average of 7 different forecast models released on Thursday. Presidential elections in the U.S. are not decided by who gets the most votes. In order to actually win the contest, a candidate must receive a majority of votes in the Electoral College. There are a total of 538 individuals from each state who decide which candidate becomes president. Candidates need at least 270 Electoral College votes to clinch the presidency. While those electors often follow the popular vote, that has not always been the case. In the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote against Trump, gaining 48.2 percent of the vote to Trump’s 46.1 percent.


However, Trump picked up 306 Electoral College votes to Clinton’s 232 votes, making Trump the president. In each of Thursday’s seven election forecast models, Biden was projected to win both the popular vote and the Electoral College. As averaged together by the website Election Dice, those models predicted that Trump has a 17.9 percent chance of winning while Biden has an 81.8 percent chance of winning. Biden’s odds of victory are projected to be nearly five times greater than that of President Trump’s. Data from The Economist showed Biden holding an 8-point lead over Trump, 54 percent to 46 percent respectively. Biden was projected to get 335 votes in the Electoral College, more than the 270 votes needed to become president. Trump was projected to receive 203 electoral votes.

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This has puzzled me for a while, the story keeps on popping up. No ground game.

Where Is Biden’s Ground Game? (TMI)

As Joe Biden’s campaign faces questions about its lackadaisical outreach strategy, the former vice president’s campaign manager boasted on Tuesday about the campaign’s growing volunteer program. But Biden’s volunteer operation is still smaller than the one built during the primary by Bernie Sanders, with just seven weeks to go until the general election. Democrats in swing states have started voicing concerns that the Biden campaign has not opened any standalone offices in battleground states and — unlike down-ballot Democrats — isn’t knocking doors. Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon defended their outreach program on Tuesday in a live interview with Politico.

“We spend so much time talking about tactics, but, fundamentally, knocking on a door and not reaching anyone doesn’t get you much except leaving a piece of lit behind,” O’Malley Dillon said. “You might as well send a piece of mail.” She added: “We have 2,500 new volunteers that join the campaign every day.” Like the Sanders campaign, the Biden campaign organizes its volunteer network over Slack in several channels, including one for general intake, one for texters, and another for phone bankers. Screenshots obtained by TMI show the campaign’s volunteer Slack was still lagging behind the Sanders program as of Tuesday. The Biden volunteer slack had roughly 62,000 in the general intake channel, 16,000 in the text channel, and 23,000 in the call channel on Tuesday.

The numbers represent a substantial increase from early this month, when there were 37,000 volunteers in the Biden general intake channel — but still well short of the Sanders slack, which still had about 71,000 volunteers, even though the progressive senator officially dropped out of the presidential race in April. The Biden campaign has not exactly made volunteering easy. Last Wednesday, actress and activist Susan Sarandon pointed out that the volunteer section on the campaign’s website was badly outdated. As Sarandon noted, the “organizing tool kit” had been rolled over from the primaries and was not updated for the general. The campaign updated the site to fix the issue last Thursday.

Polls have consistently shown Biden ahead of President Donald Trump both nationally and at the state level as well as in terms of favorability. But below the surface, the numbers are less secure — the races in most key swing states are still close. Throughout his campaign Biden has struggled to generate voter enthusiasm — a metric which proved vital in 2016. Leading into the conventions, Biden trailed Trump by 30 points in terms of enthusiasm, although the gap had been steadily narrowing. Following the conventions, the difference shrunk to 9 points, though Biden did not get a post-convention polling bounce. Biden’s support among Latino voters is lower than Clinton’s was and young voters remain largely unenthusiastic about their choices in November. The youth vote was critical to former President Barack Obama’s winning coalition and youth participation in politics has been trending upwards.

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Biden and Ukraine. Someone should ask the Ukrainians what happened.

In 2016 Call Joe Biden Risked National Security To Sabotage Trump (Fed.)

A recently leaked phone call between then-Vice President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko directly after the 2016 presidential election shows that Biden sought to sabotage the incoming Trump administration before Donald Trump even took office, and much worse. During the course of the call, Biden badmouthed the incoming administration, saying, “The truth of the matter is that the incoming administration doesn’t know a great deal about [Ukraine]” and that they were unprepared for the transition. This in itself is inappropriate, but it was meant to set the stage for Biden’s next statement and future plans. Biden then told Poroshenko, “I don’t plan on going away. As a private citizen, I plan on staying deeply engaged in the endeavor that you have begun and we have begun.”

In a matter of moments, Biden undermined the incoming administration, branded them as not knowing anything about Ukraine, and attempted to set up a foreign policy backchannel for himself after he left office as a private citizen, which could violate the Logan Act. The Logan Act bars private citizens from engaging in U.S. foreign policy, although its constitutionality remains questionable and no person has ever been convicted of violating it since it was signed into law in 1799. Ironically, this is the same act that, at Joe Biden’s suggestion, the FBI accused National Security Advisor Michael Flynn of violating as a result of a discussion Flynn had with the Russian ambassador to the United States around nearly the same time as Biden’s call with Poroshenko.

To fortify his position and to make Poroshenko more confident that he should continue to deal with Biden once he left office, in the call Biden also intimated that there is a problem with the incoming administration: “The reason I bother to tell you that is I have been somewhat limited on what I am able to tell their team about Ukraine.” While Biden blamed this on a late start to the transition process, we now know he said this at the same time the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies were conducting a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, known as “Crossfire Hurricane,” of which Ukraine was a part.

Since it was leaked by a Ukrainian member of Parliament, the phone call was obviously recorded by the Ukrainians, and almost certainly by Russian intelligence services. Biden would have been aware of this from his time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as vice president.

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Not sure that Graham is the one you want to do the investigation, but let’s see.

Lindsey Graham: Comey To Testify Before Senate, Mueller ‘Declined’ (Fox)

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., announced Wednesday that former FBI Director James Comey has agreed to testify on his own volition before the panel in regard to “Crossfire Hurricane” — the counterintelligence investigation into whether President Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election. Graham told “Hannity” that Comey will appear September 30th without necessitating a subpoena: “The day of reckoning is upon us when it comes to Crossfire Hurricane,” he said. “I appreciate Mr. Comey coming before the committee and he will be respectfully treated but asked hard questions. We are negotiating with [former Deputy FBI Director Andrew] McCabe; we are hoping to get him without a subpoena — time will tell.”

Graham however expressed dismay that the former special counsel behind the Russia investigation’s published report, ex-FBI chief, Robert Mueller, refused to appear on his own accord. “Mueller has declined the invitation to the committee to appear to explain his report,” Graham said. “[Mueller] says he doesn’t have enough time.” Host Sean Hannity asked whether Graham will accept that Mueller declined his invitation, noting recent reporting that Justice Department records showed the special counsel’s team’s cell phones were “wiped” during the Trump probe. The records show at least several dozen phones were wiped of information because of forgotten passcodes, irreparable screen damage, loss of the device, intentional deletion or other reasons — before the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) could review the devices.

Graham called that development “fishy as hell” and added he will call on the DOJ and its inspector general to look into the incidents. “We’ve invited [Peter] Strzok to come — he’s selling a book,” he added of the September 30 hearing. “[W]e will see if he will come without a subpoena. But I look forward to this hearing and I think it will be important to the American people.”

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Oh, really? Let’s see some examples. And then link those to things you’ve said in the past.

Investigation Into Princeton After President Says Racism ‘Embedded’ (WE)

The Department of Education has informed Princeton University that it is under investigation following the school president’s declaration that racism was “embedded” in the institution. President Christopher Eisgruber published an open letter earlier this month claiming that “racism and the damage it does to people of color persist at Princeton” and that “racist assumptions” are “embedded in structures of the University itself.” According to a letter the Department of Education sent to Princeton that was obtained by the Washington Examiner, such an admission from Eisgruber raises concerns that Princeton has been receiving tens of millions of dollars of federal funds in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which declares that “no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Eisgruber’s letter branding the 274-year-old university racist came after a summer of unrest rife with race riots and an open letter from hundreds of Princeton faculty members who wrote, “Anti-Black racism has a visible bearing upon Princeton’s campus makeup.” The admission was followed by dozens of “anti-racist” policy change demands. Among them were calls for select faculty race quotas and to “reconsider” the use of standardized testing for admissions. Now, the Education Department has sent a formal records request as it pursues its investigation. Its main point of contention is whether Princeton has lied to the public with its marketing and to the department in its promise not to uphold racist standards, in accordance with receiving federal funds.

“Based on its admitted racism, the U.S. Department of Education (“Department”) is concerned Princeton’s nondiscrimination and equal opportunity assurances in its Program Participation Agreements from at least 2013 to the present may have been false,” the letter reads. “The Department is further concerned Princeton perhaps knew, or should have known, these assurances were false at the time they were made. [..] What the department seeks to obtain from its investigation is what evidence Princeton used in its determination that the university is racist, including all records regarding Eisgruber’s letter and a “spreadsheet identifying each person who has, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, been excluded from participation in, been denied the benefits of, or been subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance as a result of the Princeton racism or ‘damage’ referenced in the President’s Letter.”

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While Iran and China do the same with Trump. No American voter is safe. Or something in that vein. Evidence? Sorry, that’s classified.

Wray: Russia Actively Interfering In 2020 Election To ‘Denigrate’ Biden (CNN)

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday that Russia has been “very active” in its efforts to influence US elections, with the primary goal being to “denigrate” Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee, Wray told lawmakers that Russia is primarily interfering through “malign foreign influence in an effort to hurt Biden’s campaign” — echoing the intelligence community’s public assessment on Moscow’s meddling efforts issued last month. Wray’s comments come as President Donald Trump and several other top administration officials have recently attempted to play up the theory that China is meddling to get Biden elected, while downplaying well-founded reports that Russia is trying to help Trump win again, like it did in 2016.

Foreign election interference efforts differ from what was observed in 2016, when there was also an effort to target election infrastructure, Wray said. “We have not seen that second part yet this year or this cycle, but we certainly have seen very active, very active efforts by the Russians to influence our election in 2020,” he added. According to Wray, Russia is using social media, proxies, state media and online journals to sow “divisiveness and discord” and “primarily to denigrate Vice President Biden and what the Russians see as kind of an anti-Russian establishment.” Intelligence officials have said they have uncovered evidence that Russia is currently interfering in the election to hurt Biden’s campaign.

Separately, some evidence has already emerged about Moscow’s efforts, including Facebook’s announcement earlier this month that a troll group that was part of Russia’s attempt to interfere in the 2016 election is trying to target Americans again. But while the intelligence community has assessed that China and Iran prefer Trump to lose in November, officials have offered no indication, to date, that either country is acting on that preference in the same way as Russia, according to public statements issued by the intelligence community and sources familiar with the underlying evidence.

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Michael Pettis:: “There is a very important point buried in this article. In June the OECD (like many others) calculated that China’s GDP would shrink sharply in 2020 – by 3.7% in their case. They are now projecting that it will grow by 1.7%.”

My question: how much of this is due to overproduction, the Silk and Road to nowhere?

China Only G20 Country With Positive Economic Output This Year – OECD (SCMP)

The rapid speed with which China tackled the coronavirus outbreak domestically allowed for the timely easing of strict confinement measures and the reopening of businesses, helping the Chinese economy rebound more quickly than originally expected, according to the latest forecast by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). While a gradual recovery of the global economy is projected to continue for the next 18 months, the pace will vary from nation to nation, with a significant upwards revision to the growth outlook for China. The intergovernmental economic organisation predicted that China’s economy will expand by 1.8 per cent in 2020, and 8 per cent in 2021.

The group attributed this to a better-than-expected recovery, with activity returning quickly to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the second quarter, fuelled by strong infrastructure investment. That is a significant upwards revision from its June’s projection that the Chinese economy would contract by 3.7 per cent this year and grow by 4.5 per cent in 2021. “China is the only G20 country in which output is projected to rise in 2020,” OECD chief economist Laurence Boone said, referring to the organisation of finance ministers and central bank governors from 19 individual countries and the European Union. He pointed to China’s “rapid control of the virus and the policy support provided to enable a quick rebound in activity”.

[..] Boone cautioned that China’s recovery will be less of a driver for global growth than in the 2008 financial crisis, “because China is now much less export-driven and is importing much less capital. It is resting much more on consumption as a driving force. So, this means that the countries that used to export to China would do less in this recovery”. Nevertheless, the Paris-based policy forum said a gradual global recovery was under way after the unprecedented shock. For example, household spending on many consumer durables, including cars, has bounced back relatively quickly, as pent-up demand accumulated while strict confinement measures were in force. China’s pickup in demand has helped strengthen commodity prices while improving risk appetite in financial markets, OECD said. But uncertainty remains high, and consumer confidence is still weak.

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“..provided “vocational training” to nearly 1.3 million workers..”

China ‘Acknowledges Scale Of Xinjiang Camps’ As US Applies Pressure (SCMP)

China released a white paper on Thursday claiming that its far western Xinjiang region has provided “vocational training” to nearly 1.3 million workers every year on average from 2014 to 2019. It comes as Beijing is facing mounting criticism from Western countries and human rights groups over its policies in the region, where it is believed to have detained at least 1 million Uygurs and other ethnic Muslim minorities in internment camps. China has been accused of subjecting detainees to political indoctrination and forced labour in the camps, but it has denied the allegations and insisted they are “vocational training centres” where people learn language and job skills. Observers said the white paper from the State Council, China’s cabinet, could be the first time the authorities had “indirectly” confirmed the scale of the camps.


Titled “Employment and Labour Rights in Xinjiang”, the white paper said the regional government had organised “employment-oriented training on standard spoken and written Chinese, legal knowledge, general know-how for urban life and labour skills” to improve the structure of the workforce and combat poverty. It had provided vocational training to an average of 1.29 million urban and rural workers every year from 2014 to 2019, the white paper said, apparently not using the Chinese government’s five-year planning period as the reporting time frame. Of those workers, about 451,400 were from southern Xinjiang – an area it said struggled with extreme poverty, poor access to education and a lack of job skills because residents were influenced by “extremist thoughts”.

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It could also be 2, or 20. It’s just that we have so many high-paid economists on our payroll, we need to come out with something from time to time, or people might start thinking we’re completely irrelevant.

World Bank Warns Recovery Could Take “Five Years” (ZH)

Global economic activity around the world has stabilized in mid-September, though far below pre-COVID-19 levels as recoveries risk reversing if monetary and fiscal stimulus is not continued at rates seen in the first half of 2020. We noted Wednesday, a new OECD report offered some hope the global downturn is not as severe as previously thought but is still viewed as an “unprecedented” decline. We also noted the OECD report is problematic for policy-makers who have unleashed easy-money policies during the pandemic to artificially inflate economies and boost risk assets, as policy support in the second half of the year might not be as great as what was seen earlier in the year (as is currently playing out in Washington with the prospect of a slimmed-down stimulus bill getting slimmer).

So with waning support from central banks and fiscal stimulus from governments, the quick rebound seen in the global economy has likely stalled, and the shape of the recovery will no longer resemble a “V” but more of a “W” or “U” or “L.” For more color on the shape of the global recovery, or rather perhaps how long the recovery will last, chief economist of the World Bank, Carmen Reinhart, warned Thursday, a full recovery could take upwards of five years, reported El País. “There will probably be a quick rebound as all the restriction measures linked to lockdowns are lifted, but a full recovery will take as much as five years,” Reinhart said, while speaking at a conference in Madrid, Spain. Reinhart said (as quoted by Reuters), “the pandemic-caused recession will last longer in some countries than in others and will increase inequalities as the poorest will be harder hit by the crisis in rich countries and the poorest countries will be harder hit than richer countries.”


“Central banks have tried to provide liquidity to avoid affecting more households. But as much as central banks give support, there are businesses that will not return, there are closed restaurants or stores that will not reopen, there are homes that will take a long time to find employment, there are airlines or hotels that will not survive a long period without normal mobility. There are going to be a lot of bankruptcies: if you look at the credit rating agencies, S&P, Moody’s, Fitch, the amount of reduction in credit quality that has been seen since the beginning of the year, both at the corporate and sovereign levels, has been a record. And central banks are not all-powerful either: no matter how much credit support is given, at some point you have to face the deterioration in the financial system, and that is not a criticism: it is inevitable because of the deep drop in the economy. Under these conditions, we have to think about cuts that allow new credits for recovery,” she said.

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“Whatever the rules of evidence may say, Baraitser and Lewis have here contrived between them a blatant abuse of process. It is a further example of the egregious injustices of this process.”

Assange Hearing Day 11 (Craig Murray)

Yet another shocking example of abuse of court procedure unfolded on Wednesday. James Lewis QC for the prosecution had been permitted gratuitously to read to two previous witnesses with zero connection to this claim, an extract from a book by Luke Harding and David Leigh in which Harding claims that at a dinner at El Moro Restaurant Julian Assange had stated he did not care if US informants were killed, because they were traitors who deserved what was coming to them. This morning giving evidence was John Goetz, now Chief Investigations Editor of NDR (German public TV), then of Der Spiegel. Goetz was one of the four people at that dinner. He was ready and willing to testify that Julian said no such thing and Luke Harding is (not unusually) lying. Goetz was not permitted by Judge Baraitser to testify on this point, even though two witnesses who were not present had previously been asked to testify on it.

Baraitser’s legal rationale was this. It was not in his written evidence statement (submitted before Lewis had raised the question with other witnesses) so Goetz was only permitted to contradict Lewis’s deliberate introduction of a lie if Lewis asked him. Lewis refused to ask the one witness who was actually present what had happened, because Lewis knew the lie he is propagating would be exposed. This is my report of Lewis putting the alleged conversation to Clive Stafford Smith, who knew nothing about it:

“Lewis then took Stafford Smith to a passage in the book “Wikileaks; Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy”, in which Luke Harding stated that he and David Leigh were most concerned to protect the names of informants, but Julian Assange had stated that Afghan informants were traitors who merited retribution. “They were informants, so if they got killed they had it coming.” Lewis tried several times to draw Stafford Smith into this, but Stafford Smith repeatedly said he understood these alleged facts were under dispute and he had no personal knowledge. This is my report of James Lewis putting the same quote to Prof Mark Feldstein, who had absolutely no connection to the event:

Lewis then read out again the same quote from the Leigh/Harding book he had put to Stafford Smith, stating that Julian Assange had said the Afghan informants would deserve their fate. James Lewis QC knew that these witnesses had absolutely no connection to this conversation, and he put it to them purely to get the lie into the court record and into public discourse. James Lewis QC also knows that Goetz was present on the occasion described. The Harding book specifies the exact date and location of the dinner and that it included two German journalists, and Goetz was one of them. It is plainly contrary to natural justice that a participant in an event introduced into the proceedings should not be allowed to tell the truth about it when those with no connection are, tendentiously, invited to.

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“Shenkman did not hesitate to tell her she was wasting his time and the magistrate court’s time.”

Assange Court Hears About History Of Prosecutions Under Espionage Act (Gosztola)

“There has never, in the century-long history of the Espionage Act, been an indictment of a U.S. publisher under the law for the publication of secrets,” declared Carey Shenkman, an attorney who has co-authored a first-of-its-kind peer-reviewed book on the Espionage Act. Shenkman testified during WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition trial and added, “There has never been an extraterritorial indictment of a non-[United States] publisher under the Act.” “During World War I, federal prosecutors considered the mere circulation of anti-war materials a violation of the law. Nearly 2,500 individuals were prosecuted under the Act on account of their dissenting views and opposition to U.S. entry in the war,” Shenkman added.

Assange is accused of 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act and one count of conspiracy to commit a computer crime that, as alleged in the indictment, is written like an Espionage Act offense. The charges criminalize the act of merely receiving classified information, as well as the publication of state secrets from the United States government. It targets common practices in newsgathering, which is why the case is widely opposed by press freedom organizations throughout the world. Shenkman previously was an associate for Michael Ratner, an esteemed human rights attorney who was the president emeritus for the Center for Constitutional Rights. Ratner was part of the WikiLeaks legal team until he tragically died from cancer in 2016.

Prosecutor Clair Dobbin attempted to disqualify Shenkman because he worked for Ratner when he represented Assange. She also frittered away the time that she had to cross-examine by insisting Shenkman provide hypothetical opinions on statements in past cases with outcomes favorable to the prosecution. Few of the prosecution’s questions had anything to do with his testimony for the court on the Espionage Act, as it is being applied to Assange, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which Assange is also accused of violating. Shenkman did not hesitate to tell her she was wasting his time and the magistrate court’s time.

Ellsberg

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“Goetz said he had managed to find the 13 CIA agents who kidnapped, beat and sodomised El Masri – using flight logs and hotel records to track the men to North Carolina – and the investigation became the cover story for Der Spiegel. ”

I Found Assange Paranoid, Crazy–Then His Methods Became Standard Practice (TH)

A renowned investigative journalist has spoke of how he found Julian Assange “paranoid and crazy” when they first met – only for his methods to become standard journalistic practice a number of years later. John Goetz, an investigations editor with the German public broadcaster NDR, was among a handful of prominent journalists to be invited to the Guardian’s offices in London in the summer of 2010 – WikiLeaks had just received upwards of 100,000 sensitive documents that were leaked from the U.S. military. The classified cache of documents later came to be known as the Afghan War Logs – revealing torture, assassinations and CIA kidnappings. Goetz rubbished the American government’s assertion that Assange “recklessly endangered lives” at the second week of the WikiLeaks publisher’s U.S. extradition proceedings on Wednesday (September 17).

The Berlin-based reporter, who had then been a senior investigative journalist for Der Spiegel, spoke of those seminal 2010 meetings and how even veteran journalists from the New York Times, the Guardian and his publication found Assange to be ultra-obsessed with security. “I remember being frustrated by the constant emails and reminders that we needed to be secure and that we needed to use encryption on everything,” Goetz said. “It was the first time I had touched a crypto-phone. The amount of precautions were enormous. “I thought it was all paranoid and crazy, but it became standard journalistic practice.” Goetz, who had had a background on reporting on Afghanistan and the U.S. military, gave an inside look of how WikiLeaks transformed investigative journalism.

He detailed how the technology Assange and his whistle-blower organisation had built helped him substantiate allegations of serious wrongdoing that was previously considered unfathomable – namely in the case of Khaled el-Masri. El-Masri, a dual German-Lebanese citizen, had approached Goetz with his story five years before Goetz had ever come into contact with WikiLeaks. Goetz said: “It was interesting because at that point in time, very few people believed what he was alleging. He said he had been kidnapped, drugged, dumped in Afghanistan and ended up in some forest in Albania. “He said it was Americans and that he was taken to an American military base after we was kidnapped in Macedonia. All the allegations have since been proven in the European High Court.” Goetz said he had managed to find the 13 CIA agents who kidnapped, beat and sodomised El Masri – using flight logs and hotel records to track the men to North Carolina – and the investigation became the cover story for Der Spiegel.

You want to oppose Trump?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1306748514324668416

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Chomsky as a partisan shill is not a pretty sight.

Noam Chomsky: World Is At The Most Dangerous Moment In Human History (NSM)

Noam Chomsky has warned that the world is at the most dangerous moment in human history owing to the climate crisis, the threat of nuclear war and rising authoritarianism. In an exclusive interview with the New Statesman, the 91-year-old US linguist and activist said that the current perils exceed those of the 1930s. “There’s been nothing like it in human history,” Chomsky said. “I’m old enough to remember, very vividly, the threat that Nazism could take over much of Eurasia, that was not an idle concern. US military planners did anticipate that the war would end with a US-dominated region and a German-dominated region… But even that, horrible enough, was not like the end of organised human life on Earth, which is what we’re facing.”

Chomsky was interviewed in advance of the first summit of the Progressive International (18-20 September), a new organisation founded by Bernie Sanders, the former US presidential candidate, and Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, to counter right-wing authoritarianism. In an echo of the movement’s slogan “internationalism or extinction”, Chomsky warned: “We’re at an astonishing confluence of very severe crises. The extent of them was illustrated by the last setting of the famous Doomsday Clock. It’s been set every year since the atom bombing, the minute hand has moved forward and back. But last January, they abandoned minutes and moved to seconds to midnight, which means termination. And that was before the scale of the pandemic.”

This shift, Chomsky said, reflected “the growing threat of nuclear war, which is probably more severe than it was during the Cold War. The growing threat of environmental catastrophe, and the third thing that they’ve been picking up for the last few years is the sharp deterioration of democracy, which sounds at first as if it doesn’t belong but it actually does, because the only hope for dealing with the two existential crises, which do threaten extinction, is to deal with them through a vibrant democracy with engaged, informed citizens who are participating in developing programmes to deal with these crises.”

Chomsky added that “[Donald] Trump has accomplished something quite impressive: he’s succeeded in increasing the threat of each of the three dangers. On nuclear weapons, he’s moved to continue, and essentially bring to an end, the dismantling of the arms control regime, which has offered some protection against terminal disaster. He’s greatly increased the development of new, dangerous, more threatening weapons, which means others do so too, which is increasing the threat to all of us.

Having lived through 22 US presidential elections, Chomsky warned that Trump’s threat to refuse to leave office if defeated by Democratic candidate Joe Biden was unprecedented. “He’s already announced repeatedly that if he doesn’t like the outcome of the election he won’t leave. And this is taken very seriously by two high-level military officers, ex-military leaders, who’ve just sent a letter to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, reviewing for him his constitutional duties if the president refuses to leave office and gathers around him the paramilitary forces that he’s been using to terrorise people in Portland. “The military has a duty in that case, the 82nd Airborne Division, to remove him by force. There’s a transition integrity project, high-level people from the Republicans and the Democrats; they’ve been running war games asking what would happen if Trump refuses to leave office – every one of them leads to civil war, every scenario that they can think of except a Trump victory leads to civil war. This is not a joke – nothing like this has happened in the history of parliamentary democracy.”

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Accordion Trump
https://twitter.com/i/status/1306438597550243841

Tucker color revolution
https://twitter.com/i/status/1306048563210670080

 

 

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Aug 272020
 
 August 27, 2020  Posted by at 1:16 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  9 Responses »


Leon Levinstein Head of Man with Hat and Cigar c1960

 

 

A Pew Research Center poll that’s already a month old (and a lot happened since) concluded that violent crime is a major issue according to 59% of voters (almost as much as coronavirus): 74% of Republicans and 46% of Democrats. But during the DNC, held after the poll was already out, the issue wasn’t addressed at all. Democrats talked about police violence, but not riot violence.

At this week’s RNC, this situation is -of course- very different. The DNC pushes the GOP into the role of the party of law and order, and they’re all too willing to take up that role. But I was wondering about something else, or “bigger”, this morning. That is, Joe Biden et al are very light on policies, because in their view their most important issue is to get people to vote *against* Donald Trump, rather than *for* Biden.

And I’m thinking maybe that’s starting to boomerang, to blow up in their faces, whether perhaps people are beginning to lean towards NOT voting for Joe Biden, instead of NOT voting for Donald Trump, “at any cost”. In that context, it appears telling that according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, Biden saw no “convention poll bounce” in his numbers after the DNC, while ironically, Trump did.

Whereas according to a Zogby Analytics poll, Trump’s job approval numbers are now at record high levels. And I know polls -and pollsters- can be biased, and so can the press quoting them, but to see three in a row, Reuters/Ipsos, Rasmussen, Zogby, all reporting similar movement, may still be significant.

Trump Job Approval Rating Hits Record At 52%

Buoyed by blacks and independent voters, as well as urban dwellers shocked by the Black Lives Matter protest violence raging in some cities, President Trump’s approval rating has hit a new high, according to a survey heavy with minority voters. The latest Zogby Analytics poll just shared with Secrets had Trump’s approval at 52%. “The president has recorded his best job approval rating on record,” said pollster Jonathan Zogby.


What’s more, his approval rating among minorities was solid and, in the case of African Americans, shockingly high. Zogby said 36% of blacks approve of the president, as do 37% of Hispanics and 35% of Asians. Approval among independent voters is also up, to 44%. And “intriguingly,” said Zogby, 23% of Democrats approve of Trump.

It was the latest to show that Trump’s approval went up during the Democratic National Convention. Rasmussen Reports had it at 51% at the end of the convention. In a shock from past election years, Joe Biden got no convention poll bounce, according to a newly released Reuters/Ipsos poll. [..] Zogby, in his analysis, took a stab at the reasoning. First, he said, his and other polls are confirming that the nation is nearly evenly divided politically and that despite some showing a big Biden lead, the race is extremely close.


He suggested that the battle is for the “10%-20%” who haven’t made their minds up on whom to vote for and who likely won’t make up their minds until Election Day, just like in 2016. “We are as polarized a nation, on a level not seen since the Civil War,” said Zogby. He also said that the violence playing out in cities such as Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon, are pushing urban voters to Trump.

A fresh Rasmussen poll about Biden’s lead in the polls (which reached double digits not long ago), indicates that there’s not much left of that lead. That, but the way, is similar to a CNN poll a number of weeks ago. Significantly, Rasmussen suggests that: Even if Biden’s now-slim lead in the polls were to remain frozen as of today, Trump would still have a clear path to an electoral college victory.

Biden’s Polling Lead Has Collapsed

Just a month and a half ago, Rasmussen Reports had Joe Biden 10-points ahead of President Donald Trump in the polls. Now he’s only ahead by one point, within the margin of error. Even if Biden’s now-slim lead in the polls were to remain frozen as of today, Trump would still have a clear path to an electoral college victory, as Hillary Clinton lead Trump in the popular vote by just over two points in the 2016 election. While it is impossible to know the exact reason (or reasons) for Biden’s polling collapse, it comes as the economy continues to rebound from the coronavirus, riots continue to ravage liberal run cities longer than anyone expected (to no condemnation from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris)..


[..] Rasmussen was among the closest mainstream pollster in approximating the popular vote in the 2016 election. Rasmussen had Hillary Clinton up 1.7 points over Trump on election day 2016, while she ended up winning the popular vote by 2.1 points above him (48.2% vs. 46.1%). The Real Clear Politics average of polls had Hillary up for six points. Unlike the other polls, Rasmussen correctly saw Trump had a path to victory in the electoral college.

Rasmussen

 

And of course Don Lemon warned yesterday on CNN that Biden has to start addressing the riots, because by remaining silent he’s letting Trump run away with the issue. But it’s not entirely clear how Biden would do that: the Democrats have supported BLM and protesters -as well as rioters- in general for most of the year, and now they would have to turn against them?

The sports boycotts that yesterday came seemingly out of nowhere all at the same time, look like they’re well intentioned but too late. There is too much news, and there are too many videos, out there to keep portraying what’s happening in the streets of Kenosha and Minneapolis and many other cities, as a one-sided problem. There is violence on both, or even many, sides.

Tonight, Thursday August 27, it’s Donald Trump’s turn to address the RNC, and the entire press, the entire nation, will pay attention. Nobody feels they can afford not to. Almost half the country will already have their minds made up about what a terrible person he is, while the other almost half will think he’s doing great. It’s the “10%-20%” who haven’t made their minds up that he must reach, and given how the country feels about violence in the streets, he may well succeed in reaching quite a few.

For which he can thank the DNC. “Orange Man Bad” may have once looked to be a winning strategy, but by now it feels mostly a limiting one.

 

 

 

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Nov 282019
 
 November 28, 2019  Posted by at 9:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  13 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Brooding woman 1891

 

Is Censure The Democrat Escape Clause? (Noble)
Tulsi Gabbard Slams Democrats for Calling Trump Supporters ‘Deplorables’ (GP)
China Threatens Retaliation After Trump Signs Hong Kong Democracy Bill (ZH)
Obama Holdover Investigated for ‘Illegally Leaked’ Classified Document (ET)
The Real Barack Obama Has Finally Revealed Himself (Jacobin)
Reuters Gamed A Poll To Show Rising Support For Trump Impeachment (ZH)
Fewer Than 120,000 Tactical Votes Could Block Boris Johnson Premiership (Ind.)
US Wants NHS On Table For Post-Brexit Trade Deal – Labour Dossier (Ind.)
Christopher Steele Distributed Other Dossier Reports (Solomon)
“Russian Trolls” Did Not “Sow Discord” – They Influenced No One (MoA)
Brick & Mortar Rent Meltdown, Manhattan Style (WS)
Merkel Says NATO Is ‘More Important’ Now Than During Cold War (RT)

 

 

Well, censure appears to be the word of the day.

Is Censure The Democrat Escape Clause? (Noble)

Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) is not one of those who represent a 2016 Trump-voting district. In fact, her safe Democrat district encompasses part of eastern Detroit. Even so, Lawrence has seen the writing on the wall: Among independent voters, enthusiasm for impeachment is waning, and Lawrence – who previously supported the idea – is perhaps now thinking beyond her own chances of re-election. “I will tell you, sitting here knowing how divided this country is,” Lawrence explained Nov. 24 during a radio interview, “I don’t see the value of taking [Trump] out of office, but I do see the value of putting down a marker saying his behavior is not acceptable.”

An editorial, published Nov. 23 by The Detroit News, suggests censure of the president rather than impeachment, and The Chicago Tribune followed suit on Nov. 25. It is neither unfair nor inaccurate to point out that the left-wing media rarely take up a political narrative not preapproved by someone within the Democratic Party. So the sudden appearance of editorials arguing for censure strongly suggests that Democrat strategists are leaning in that direction or at least testing the waters. Unlike impeachment, censure is not a constitutional measure. That is not to say that censure is unconstitutional, but that it is simply a course of action devised by Congress and not described in the nation’s founding document. There is no mandatory consequence to censure, and nobody would suggest that censure could lead to removal from the office of president.

It has been used most often to rebuke or reprimand members of Congress, though Trump, were he censured, would not be the first commander in chief to have faced it. In effect, censure is an act of disapproval. For a member of Congress, it may entail such undesirable consequences as loss of committee memberships or even suspension; it comes with no penalties when used against executive branch officials. And that is how it should be, or the concepts of separation of powers and co-equal branches of government would likely be swept away in an avalanche of partisan censure votes. Both the Senate and the House have the power to censure or reprimand, and each chamber may do it without the approval or involvement of the other. Censure requires only a simple majority. At least some Democrats, surely, are considering how much easier than impeachment censure will be. They also may be considering how a censure resolution will provide the opportunity to pontificate at length – on live TV – about Trump’s moral turpitude and failings, both as a human being and as a president.

Read more …

A lone voice in the wilderness: “..you can’t win support from people that you treat “like garbage.”

Tulsi Gabbard Slams Democrats for Calling Trump Supporters ‘Deplorables’ (GP)

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard once again defended supporters of President Donald Trump, as well as her appearances on Fox News, during an interview with Joe Rogan on Tuesday night. The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said that you can’t lead Americans as president if you’re going to throw “half of them away.” “It’s one thing to say you’re gonna go on Fox News and tussle with Sean Hannity about things you disagree on, but what they see as more dangerous is finding areas where you actually do agree,” Gabbard proclaimed.

“I have a platform to be able to speak to millions of people across the country about the kind of leadership I bring in the area of foreign policy. What I would do here in this country, what I would do there in that country if I were president today. And I have the opportunity to deliver that message directly to people’s living rooms or offices or wherever they are.” Rep. Gabbard was attacked by Sen. Kamala Harris during the November Democratic Primary debate for her willingness to appear on Fox News.

“I think in some of these areas, Tucker and I will disagree on a whole host of things, but on some of these issues of foreign policy he’ll say, ‘Yeah, I agree with you,’” she continued. “And I think when you look at this cancel culture — I was attacked on the debate stage for going on Fox News — how do you think you’re gonna lead this country, all Americans, if you’re completely not only shutting out and not willing to do talk to half the country that watches Fox News, but you’re in fact disrespecting and dismissing them just because they may disagree with you, or they watch a different news channel than you do. I think that’s the bigger issue here, is you know, yeah, there’s a political consequence.” She noted that you can’t win support from people that you treat “like garbage.”

Read more …

Trump had no choice, he was outnumbered. China also has no choice, it must respond, but Xi knows what situation Trump is in.

China Threatens Retaliation After Trump Signs Hong Kong Democracy Bill (ZH)

[..] on day 510 of the trade war, it appears the president was confident enough that a collapse in trade talks won’t drag stocks too far lower, and moments after futures reopened at 6pm, the White House said that Trump had signed the Hong Kong bill backing pro-democracy protesters, defying China and making sure that every trader’s Thanksgiving holiday was just ruined.Needless to say, no differences will be “settled amicably” and now China will have no choice but to retaliate, aggressively straining relations with the US, and further complicating Trump’s effort to wind down his nearly two-year old trade war with Beijing.

Trump’s signing of the bill comes during a period of unprecedented unrest in Hong Kong, where anti-government protests sparked by a now-shelved extradition bill proposal have ballooned into broader calls for democratic reform and police accountability. “The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act reaffirms and amends the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, specifies United States policy towards Hong Kong and directs assessment of the political developments in Hong Kong,” the White House said in a statement. “Certain provisions of the act would interfere with the exercise of the president’s constitutional authority to state the foreign policy of the United States.”

The legislation, S. 1838, which was passed virtually unanimously in both chambers, requires annual reviews of Hong Kong’s special trade status under American law and will allow Washington to suspend said status in case the city does not retain a sufficient degree of autonomy under the “one country, two systems” framework. The bill also sanctions any officials deemed responsible for human rights abuses or undermining the city’s autonomy. The House cleared the bill 417-1 on Nov. 20 after the Senate passed it without opposition, veto-proof majorities that left Trump with little choice but to acquiesce, or else suffer bruising fallout from his own party. the GOP.

Trump also signed into law the PROTECT Hong Kong act, which will prohibit the sale of US-made munitions such as tear gas and rubber bullets to the city’s authorities. While many members of Congress in both parties have voiced strong support for protesters demanding more autonomy for the city, Trump had stayed largely silent, even as the demonstrations have been met by rising police violence. Until now.

Read more …

A tangled web.

Obama Holdover Investigated for ‘Illegally Leaked’ Classified Document (ET)

The Obama holdover heading the Pentagon office reportedly under investigation by the U.S. attorney who is conducting the criminal probe of the Trump–Russia investigation was accused of leaking a classified document, in a recent court filing for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. The connection hasn’t been previously reported. According to a Nov. 21 report by independent journalist Sara Carter, U.S. Attorney John Durham is questioning personnel in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA). ONA awarded about $1 million in contracts to FBI informant Stefan Halper, who appears to have played a key role in alleged U.S. intelligence agency spying on 2016 Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

In addition, however, a court filing indicates that ONA’s director, James H. Baker, “is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn’s calls” to The Washington Post. Specifically, the filing states, “ONA Director Baker regularly lunched with Washington Post Reporter David Ignatius.” The filing adds that Baker “was Halper’s ‘handler’” at ONA. Moreover, according to the court filing, the tasks assigned to “known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI” Halper “seem to have included slandering Mr. Flynn with accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian descent).” The filing notes that Flynn’s defense team has requested phone records for then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, likewise in order to confirm contacts with Ignatius.

The filing singles out records for Jan. 10, 2017, when, according to the filing, “Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of ‘take the kill shot on Flynn.’” The Pentagon’s current inspector general has already found that Baker’s office “did not maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA personnel had with Professor Halper.” As a result, according to the inspector general, ONA staff “could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.”

Read more …

Quite the attack.

The Real Barack Obama Has Finally Revealed Himself (Jacobin)

What does Barack Obama want? To ask the question is both to wonder how one of the world’s most influential people chooses to dedicate his time and to consider to what ends he thinks it is best put to use. As Nathan Robinson and I argued a little more than two years ago, a post-presidency offers us the ideal heuristic for doing exactly that. In office, or so it has often been suggested, Obama’s fiery progressive spirit was endlessly stifled by a combination of events, GOP obstruction, and the inherent conservatism of the American legislative process. Having left such constraints behind, many believed, post-2016 Obama would now be free to do just about anything he wanted — meaning that the former president’s real self could finally surface from beneath the depths of institutional necessity under which it had hitherto been submerged.

This prediction turned out to be true enough, just not in the way many Obama partisans assumed. Equipped with fame, wealth, and a vast reservoir of residual goodwill Obama now has more power to do good in an hour than most of us do in a lifetime. The demands of etiquette and propriety notwithstanding, he no longer has intransigent Blue Dog senators to appease, donors to placate, or personal electoral considerations to keep him up at night. When he speaks or acts, we can be reasonably certain he does so out of sincere choice and that the substance of his words and actions reflect the real Barack Obama and how he honestly sees the world.

It therefore tells us a great deal that, given the latitude, resources, and moral authority with which to influence events, Obama has spent his post-presidency cozying up to the global elite and delivering vapid speeches to corporate interests in exchange for unthinkable sums of money. Though often remaining out of the spotlight, he has periodically appeared next to various CEOs at events whose descriptions might be read as cutting satire targeting the hollowness of business culture if they weren’t all-too real. As the world teeters on the brink of ecological disaster, he recently cited an increase in America’s output of oil under his administration as a laudable achievement.

When Obama has spoken about or intervened in politics, it’s most often been to bolster the neoliberal center-right or attack and undermine the Left. Having emerged from seclusion to endorse the likes of Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau, Obama also rang up Britain’s austerity-loving Conservative prime minister Theresa May on election night in 2017 to offer reassurance and trash the Labour Party’s electoral prospects. Only last week, while denouncing the Democratic Party’s “activist wing,” the former president who had once introduced himself to the nation as a progressive, community-minded outsider inveighed against those pushing for a more ambitious direction — contemptuously instructing a group of wealthy donors not to concern themselves too-much with the irrational zealotry of “certain left-leaning Twitter feeds.”

Read more …

Why do we still have polls left? What purpose do they serve other than entertainment?

Reuters Gamed A Poll To Show Rising Support For Trump Impeachment (ZH)

After several major polls revealed a sharp decline in support for impeaching President Trump in the wake of unconvincing public testimony by aggrieved bureaucrats (and at least one House Democrat publicly opposing the move), Reuters/Ipsos now claims support for impeachment has increased. “The latest poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, found that 47% of adults in the United States felt Trump “should be impeached,” while 40% said he should not. The result, combined with Reuters/Ipsos polling over the past several weeks, showed that the number of Americans who want to impeach the president increasingly outnumbers those who do not.” -Reuters The problem? Reuters sampled a disproportionate number of Democrats. Buried at the bottom of their report, they disclose:

“The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,118 adults, including 528 Democrats, 394 Republicans and 111 independents. It has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 3 percentage points.” In other words, Reuters sampled more Democrats than Republicans and independents combined to arrive at their conclusion. They also reveal that ” about eight in 10 Democrats [were] supportive of impeaching Trump, and eight in 10 Republicans opposed,” and that seven in 10 Republicans felt the House impeachment inquiry had not been conducted fairly. As we noted during the 2016 US election, Reuters/Ipsos wasoversampling Democrats when they found that Hillary Clinton had a giant lead over Donald Trump – using a poll that sampled 44% Democrats and 33% Republicans.

But hey, Adam Schiff needs something to back his claim that support for impeachment has grown “dramatically” over the past two months.

Read more …

And here’s another poll. Does anyone fully understand this system?

Fewer Than 120,000 Tactical Votes Could Block Boris Johnson Premiership (Ind.)

Fewer than 120,000 anti-Brexit tactical votes in the right seats could deny Boris Johnson an overall majority in the House of Commons, new polling suggests. A large-scale survey of almost 40,000 voters found that Conservatives are heading for 366 seats in the House of Commons, giving Mr Johnson a comfortable majority of 82. But analysis for the Best for Britain campaign for a second EU referendum found that in 57 seats, the Tory candidate could be defeated by 4,000 or fewer anti-Brexit voters voting tactically. And the campaign said that as few as 117,314 pro-EU tactical votes in the right seats could produce a hung parliament which could deliver a Final Say referendum.

Read more …

Scary enough fpr you?

US Wants NHS On Table For Post-Brexit Trade Deal – Labour Dossier (Ind.)

US negotiators pushed for “full market access” to services including the NHS in talks on a post-Brexit free trade deal with the UK, a cache of leaked documents has revealed. The papers were dramatically unveiled by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who said they left “in tatters” the prime minister’s denial that the NHS will be on the table in trade talks. The 451-page dossier of official files showed the US had “pushed hard” to extend patents on drugs developed by American corporations in a way which would raise prices to NHS patients. A UK negotiator said such a move could put Britain “in difficult territory”.

And the dossier made clear that the US has been “emphatic” in its insistence that climate change should not even be mentioned in the deal, which Boris Johnson wants to strike as soon as possible after the UK leaves the European Union. But furious Conservatives accused Mr Corbyn of “out-and-out lying” and suggested he was peddling conspiracy theories in a bid to distract attention away from his difficulties over antisemitism allegations and Labour’s plans for Brexit and taxation. Mr Johnson dismissed the Labour leader’s claims as “total nonsense”, and said: “I can give you an absolute cast-iron guarantee that this is a complete diversion. That the NHS under no circumstances would be on the table for negotiation, for sale.”

[..] After a slew of bad headlines about his refusal to apologise for his handling of antisemitism during a TV interview on Tuesday, Mr Corbyn came back fighting with the claim that Mr Johnson’s government was “preparing to sell our NHS”. He pointed to details in the dossier which showed that the US was pushing for a deal in which all services would be opened up to American companies unless they were specifically exempted. “Total market access” should be the “baseline assumption of the trade negotiations” because it “incentivises freer trade”, the dossier said. UK officials assured their US counterparts that Britain would be “a liberalising influence” and that together they could “fly the good flag for services liberalisation”.

“That’s a green light for breaking open Britain’s public services so corporations can profit from them,” said Mr Corbyn. And he warned: “The US is demanding that our NHS is on the table in negotiations for a toxic deal – it’s already being talked about in secret. That could lead to runaway privatisation of our health service. “Mega-corporations see Johnson’s alliance with Trump as a chance to make billions from the illness and sickness of people in this country. “And if the Conservatives have their way and this deal goes forward, the changes I’ve revealed will be almost irreversible.”

Read more …

A foreigner paid for dirt on a political opponent. What do we call that?

Christopher Steele Distributed Other Dossier Reports (Solomon)

Just before Christmas 2015, the British intelligence operative Christopher Steele emailed a report to private clients that included an American lawyer for a Ukrainian oligarch. The title of the dossier was “FIRTASH Abortive Return to Ukraine,” and it purported to provide intelligence on why the energy oligarch Dmitri Firtash tried, but failed, to return to his home country of Ukraine. “FIRTASH’s talk of returning to Ukraine a genuine ambition rather than merely a ruse to reveal Ukrainian government’s hand. However the oligarch developed cold feet upon the news of a negative reception at Boryspil airport,” Steele reported on Dec. 23, 2015.

Perhaps most important to the recipients, the former MI6 agent’s report purported to share the latest thinking of Russian and U.S. officials on Firtash, who at the time faced U.S. criminal charges and was awaiting extradition from Austria. Those charges and extradition remain unresolved four years later. Firtash insists on his innocence, while the U.S. government stands by it case despite recent criticism from Austrian and Spanish authorities. “The prevarication over his return has lost FIRTASH credibility with the Russians, but his precarious position in Austria leaves him little choice but to acquiesce with Moscow’s demands,” the Steele report claimed. “Separate American sources confirm that US Government regards FIRTASH as a conduit for Russian influence and he remains a pariah to the Americans.”

The anecdote of the Firtash report underscores that challenges the FBI faced when it used Steele in 2016 as a human source in the Russia collusion probe. He not only opposed Trump and was paid by Hillary Clinton’s opposition research firm to dig up dirt on the then-GOP nominee, he also was in the business of selling intelligence to private clients – all perfectly legal — while informing for the FBI.

Read more …

Robert Mueller gave it away.

“Russian Trolls” Did Not “Sow Discord” – They Influenced No One (MoA)

The U.S. has claimed that the Russia government tried to influence the 2016 election through Facebook and Twitter. Russia supposedly did this through people who worked the Internet Research Agency (IRA) in St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Russia. The IRA people ran virtual persona on U.S. social networks which pretended to have certain political opinions. It also spent on advertising supposedly to influence the election. U.S. intelligence claimed that the purpose of the alleged Russian influence campaign was to “sow discord” within the United States. But the IRA had nothing to do with the Russian government. It had no interests in politics. And a new study confirms that the idea that it was “sowing discord” is blatant nonsense.


IRA influencer

The Mueller investigation indicted 13 Russian persons and three Russian legal entities over the alleged influence campaign. But, as we wrote at that time, there was more to it than the media reported: “The published indictment gives support to our long held believe that there was no “Russian influence” campaign during the U.S. election. What is described and denounced as such was instead a commercial marketing scheme which ran click-bait websites to generate advertisement revenue and created online crowds around virtual persona to promote whatever its commercial customers wanted to promote. The size of the operation was tiny when compared to the hundreds of millions in campaign expenditures. It had no influence on the election outcome.”

The IRA hired people in Leningrad for little money and asked them to open accounts on U.S. social media. The virtual persona they created and ran were to attract as many persons to those accounts as possible. They did that by posting funny dog pictures or by taking strong political positions. They were ‘influencers’ who sold their customers’ products to the people they attracted. The sole purpose was the same as in any commercial media. Create content to attract ‘eyeballs’, then sell those eyeballs to advertisers.

The IRA also bought advertisement to attract more people to its accounts. But the amount it spent was tiny. The final price tag for the 2016 election was $6.5 billion for the presidential and congressional elections combined. The IRA spend a total of $100,000 to promote its own accounts. But only some $45,000 of that was spend before the election. It was 0.000007 cent for every election dollar that was spend during that time. It is statistically impossible that the mostly apolitical IRA spending had any effect on the election.

Read more …

Not the same all over Manhattan, but the trend is there.

Brick & Mortar Rent Meltdown, Manhattan Style (WS)

These are major shopping corridors in Manhattan, and in nearly all of them, asking rents for ground-floor retail space have been dropping for years – and in some of them by half. For example, the average asking rent on Madison Avenue between 57th Street and 72nd Street, plunged 22% in the second half of 2019, compared to the same period last year, to $906 per square foot per year, and is down 47% from the first half in 2015, according to the bi-annual Manhattan Retail Report released today by the Real Estate Board of New York. The REBNY report points out, “An increased amount of leases expiring has contributed to the high availability rates [meaning, vacancies] that has led owners to lower asking rents and offer more short-term lease agreements.”

Falling asking rents and better terms in the Madison Avenue corridor – better deals for prospective tenants – help bring out prospective tenants, according to the report: “Softening rents has led to increased absorption as recent leases consist of retailers relocating to smaller-sized storefronts with better co-tenancy. Notables tenants such as Akris, Mont Blanc, and Morgane Le Fay indicate that apparel tenants still dominate this corridor.” The report is entirely focused on ground-floor retail spaces. Of the 17 shopping corridors in Manhattan tracked by the REBNY, average asking rents fell in 11 of them. But since 2015, asking rents in all but three of them have dropped sharply.

Read more …

The true colors of Mutti.

Merkel Says NATO Is ‘More Important’ Now Than During Cold War (RT)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said NATO is now equally or more important than it was during the Cold War, a praise being sang to a military bloc long without its arch-rival and with a history of interventions.
East Germany native Angela Merkel provided her very complimentary take as NATO braces to mark their 70th anniversary at a special summit in London. Keeping the military bloc in place today “is even more in our very own interests as it was in the Cold War – or at least as important as it was in the Cold War,” the Chancellor told German MPs. “Because, and the Foreign Minister [Heiko Maas] said yesterday, Europe currently cannot defend itself on its own,” she reiterated.

Slightly contradicting her own words, the chancellor admitted that the US “no longer automatically takes up responsibility when it’s burning around us.” As the formal etiquette prescribes, Merkel called NATO a “bulwark for peace and freedom” over the past 70 years, without highlighting the bloc’s war on former Yugoslavia and the 2011 bombardments of Libya. The German leader has recently locked horns with France’s Emmanuel Macron over his famous “NATO’s brain death” remark that sent shockwaves through European elite circles. Macron’s “drastic words” were “unnecessary, even if we do have problems and must get it together,” Merkel complained at the time.

Rebuking Macron was also NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who said last week that “European unity cannot replace Transatlantic unity as we need both … especially after Brexit.” But bringing the 70-year-old alliance together is increasingly becoming a challenge for its members. On the latest occasion, Turkey – a country that has one of NATO’s largest standing armies – refused to sign a new defense plan for the eastern European countries, according to Reuters.

Read more …

 

Clive James died yesterday.

 

 

 

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Aug 062016
 
 August 6, 2016  Posted by at 11:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , ,  19 Responses »


Fred Stein Streetcorner, Paris 1930s

The media choir worked so hard all week to talk down Donald Trump. A collection of headlines in the past 24 hours has the BBC going as far as: “Trump Campaign Teeters On The Brink”. Business Insider ran with: “Hillary Clinton Looks Like She’s About To Crush Donald Trump”. Bloomberg gets in on the action: “Trump Is Cratering’: New Polls Signal Deep Trouble for Republican Nominee”. WaPo does one ‘better’: ”A New Poll Has Trump In Fourth — Behind Gary Johnson AND Jill Stein”.

But then at the end of the feeding frenzy Reuters comes with: “Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s lead over Republican rival Donald Trump narrowed to less than 3 percentage points, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Friday, down from nearly 8 points on Monday.” And mind you, this is after Reuters/Ipsos changed their polling methods when they figured out that no longer offering ‘Neither’ as an option would favor Clinton.

Really, don’t believe a word they say, the goal-seeking is only going to get much worse, and don’t believe a single poll either.