Top Elections Lawyer: Vote-By-Mail Is "The Most Massive Fraud Scheme In American History"
A few years ago, when I still frequented my local Starbucks, around election time, I could get the moms of college students to admit that they were commonly voting their children's ballots for them. This required they sign the names of their children, and mail the ballot back to the county elections board. All of Oregon is mail only balloting. This is a crime, but it did not stop these mothers from acting. Worse yet, many years ago, my mother went down to my great aunt's retirement home to help her vote her ballot, my aunt told her she had not filled out the ballot. The people at the retirement home said they had helped her vote her ballot. We never did figure out whether the ballots were appropriately marked or whether they were fraudulently voted. These are but two of the problems. The other obvious problem is that ballots can be harvested and voted for money much more easily using vote by mail since the money changes, and the unmarked ballot change hands directly. Oregon's politicians crow about our system, but it is corrupt to the core. The reason the politicians' crow is the corruption accrues to their interest.
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Stocks Dump, Gilead Crashes After FT Reports Gilead's Remdesivir "Flops" In First Clinical Trial
We need more and better research on what works against Chi-Comm 19, and we need less political blather on these therapies. Iran's Ayatollahs Will Struggle To Survive The Oil Slump I suggest that the pandemic will likely trigger a revolution in Iran. The world economy is heading for a catastrophic bottoming regardless of whether the US can pull out of the tailspin or not. Part of the problem for oil will be that China is suffering from a total collapse in manufacturing. Western nations have decided to pull manufacturing out of China and provide funding for companies that do so. This will create a permanent depression/decline in China from which it will never recover. Russia is facing a fate similar to Iran since its entire economy is energy and there is little value in energy now. A Global Backlash Is Coming... In Mostly Good Ways
Jeff goes ten for ten in this piece it is well worth your time. I agree that there will be a backlash on each and every one of these points. As I've said for many years, the progressive movement died by 1972, we've been trying to reanimate its corpse ever since. The progressive movement is the most socialist Americans are likely to ever become. We are too independent, too liberty minded, and we desire personal responsibility too much to continue down the progressive/socialism-lite path. While I do not think we are ready to return to pure classical liberalism, we are ready to move firmly in that direction. And, so, we will. "Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research Two months ago, it had been mandatory in my local grocery to use only shopping bags brought from home. Plastic bags were illegal by local ordinance. Then the virus hit. Suddenly the opposite was true. It was illegal to bring bags from home because they could spread disease. Plastic bags were mandatory. As a huge fan of plastic bags, I experienced profound Schadenfreude. It’s amazing how the prospect of death clarifies priorities. Before the virus, we indulged in all sorts of luxuries such as dabbling in dirtiness and imagining a world purified by bucolic naturalness. But when the virus hit, we suddenly realized that a healthy life really matters and that natural things can be very wicked. And then when government put everyone under house arrest and criminalized freedom itself, we realized many other things too. And we did it fast. Lots of people are predicting how life will fundamentally change in light of our collective experience this last month. I agree but I don’t think it will turn out quite as people think. This whole period has been an unconscionable trauma for billions of people, wrecking lives far beyond what even the worst virus could achieve. I’m detecting enormous, unfathomable levels of public fury barely beneath the surface. It won’t stay beneath the surface for long. Our lives in the coming years will be defined by forms of backlash in the wake of both the disease and the egregious policy response, as a much needed corrective. The thing is that you can’t take away everyone’s rights, put a whole people under house arrest, and abolish the rule of law without generating a response to that in the future. 1. Backlash Against Media I’m a long-time fan of the New York Times. Jeer if you want but I’ve long admired their reporting, their professionalism, their steady hand, their first draft of history, even if I don’t share the paper’s center-left political bent. Something about this virus caused the paper to go completely off the rails. In early March, they began to report on it as if it were the Black Death, suggesting not just closing schools and businesses but actually calling for a complete totalitarian policy. It was shocking and utterly preposterous. The guy who wrote that article has a degree in rhetoric from Berkeley and yet he was calling the shots on the paper’s entire response to disease on a national level. They’ve gone so far as to falsify dates in their reporting in order to manipulate the timeline (I called them out on a case in point; the paper made the change but never admitted the error.) I’m sure that in the coming days and weeks, the paper will dial back all this blather just as they did their certainty that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election. In fact, they have already started with an admission that the virus was already widespread in the months before the lockdown (which suggests that most everything else the paper has written since March has been wrong). But it will be too late. They bear some moral culpability for what has happened to our country. Anyway, I don’t want to pick on the Times alone; the media has been nearly in lockstep on the need for lockdown forever and on the claim that this virus is universally lethal for everyone. You can read in various spots alternative opinions from experts (here here here here here here here plus a thousand others plus videos with serious voices). But notice that all these links point to sites that do not enjoy viral traffic. AIER has been a leading voice, obviously. Once you get up to speed on the real story here, with authoritative voices, you turn on Fox, CNN, NYT, CNBC, and all of the rest (the WSJ has been slightly better), and you hear nothing about any of this. They merely spin tales. People glued to the tube have almost no clue about any basics, such as how long the virus has been here, how gigantic is the denominator that makes up the fatality ratio, how many people have zero symptoms so that it’s not even an annoyance, the true demographic makeup of the victim population, and the unlikelihood that many of these deaths would have been preventable through any policy. Watching this disgusting parade of media-driven ignorance, genuine experts or even people passingly curious about data, have become demoralized. Surely many people have already stopped listening to the news completely because it is nothing but a distraction from the reality on the ground. Why and how did this happen? An obvious answer seems almost too simple: the media wants people at home staring at the television. Maybe that’s the whole thing. But it almost seems too cynical to be the full explanation. In any case, I’m not the only one noticing this. I seriously doubt that the credibility of the mainstream media will survive this. There will be backlash. Much needed! 2. Backlash Against Politicians You do recall, don’t you, that the governors and mayors who imposed the lockdowns never asked their citizens about their views about instantly getting rid of all rights and freedoms. They didn’t consult legislatures. They didn’t consult a range of expert opinion or pay attention to any serious demographic data that showed how utterly preposterous it was to force non-vulnerable populations into house arrest while trapping vulnerable populations in nursing homes that became Covid-soaked killing fields. They thought nothing of shattering business confidence, violating contractual rights, wrecking tens of millions of lives, prohibiting freedom in association, tanking the stock market, blowing all budgets, shutting down international travel, and even closing the churches. Amazing. Every government executive except a few became a tin-pot dictator. The first hint of the possible backlash came from Henry Kissinger who warned in the Wall Street Journal on April 8: “Nations cohere and flourish on the belief that their institutions can foresee calamity, arrest its impact and restore stability. When the Covid-19 pandemic is over, many countries’ institutions will be perceived as having failed.” Yes, that’s quite an understatement. From testing failures to policy failures to profligate fiscal and monetary policies to straight up brutalism in its shutdown antics, the reputation of government in general will not fare well. When the dust settles on this, a whole generation of leaders could be wiped out, provided we return to democratic forms of government, which surely we will. Left or right, Republican or Democrat, there will be a serious price to pay. Politicians acted rashly for fear of their political futures. They will find that they made the wrong choice. 3. Backlash Against Environmentalism Wash your hands, they kept telling us. But we turn on the faucet and hardly anything comes out. They ruined them some years ago with flow stoppers. The water isn’t hot because the hot-water heaters don’t work as well due to regulations. Keep your clothing and dishes clean but our washing machines and dishwashers hardly work. And let us not forget that our toilets are also non-functional. Government has wrecked sanitation by ruining our appliances in the name of conservation. And now we suddenly discover that we care about cleanliness and getting rid of germs: nice discovery! Implementing this is going to require that we upend the restrictions, pull out the flow stoppers, permission new and functioning toilets, turn up our water heaters, fix the detergents and so on. We played fast and loose with germs and now we regret it. So yes, plastic bags are back, and the disease-carrying reusables are gone, but that’s just the beginning. Recycling mandates will go away. Hand dryers in bathrooms will be rethought. Bring back single-use items and universalize them! We will care again about the quality of life as a first priority. As for nature and nature’s germs, be gone! 4. Backlash Against Social Distance Staying away from direct contact with sick people is a good idea; we’ve known since the ancient world. Vulnerable populations need to be especially careful, such as elderly people have always known. But government took this sensible idea and went crazy with it, separating everyone from everyone else, all in the name of “flattening the curve” to preserve hospital capacity. But then this principle became a general one, to the point that people were encouraged to believe silly things like that standing too close to anyone will magically cause COVID-19 to appear. Going to the grocery today, it’s pretty clear that people think you can get it by talking or looking at people. Several friends have pointed out to me that they already detect a backlash against all this. And why? There is a dubious merit to the overly generalized principle, and that will become more than obvious in the coming months. Then the backlash hits. I expect a widespread social closening movement to develop here pretty quickly. You will see the bars and dance floors packed, and probably a new baby boom will emerge in a post-COVID19 world. And the handshake will again become what it began as, a sign of mutual trust. 5. Backlash Against Regulation In the midst of panic, we discovered that many rules that govern our lives don’t make sense. The regulations on disease testing clogged the system and gave us an epistemic crisis that kicked off this insanity in the first place. Fortunately many politicians did the right thing and repealed many of them. The Americans for Tax Reform has assembled a list of 350 regulations that have been waived. This is hugely encouraging. Let’s keep them waived and never go back. 6. Backlash Against Digital Everything We keep hearing how this trauma is going to cause everyone to communicate more with video. I don’t believe it. Everyone is experiencing tremendous burnout of these sterile digital environments. Hey, it’s great that they can happen but they are far from ideal. “Can you hear me?” “I can’t hear you.” “Is my picture blurry?” “Why am I looking up your nose?” “Change your settings.” “Silence your mic!” And so on. At first we thought this was merely a period of adjustment. Now we know that we just don’t like all this nonsense. It’s no way to live. There is nothing like real people in a real room. 7. Backlash Against Anti-Work I suppose many workers weren’t entirely unhappy when the boss said work from home. But millions of people have now discovered that this comes at a cost. There is loneliness. The dog. The kids. The spouse. The depressing failure to dress up like a civilized human being. Everyone I know misses the office. They want to be back, be on a schedule, see friends again, experience the joy of collaboration, share jokes, munch on the office donuts. It was only recently that everyone seemed to be complaining about the workplace. There were endless squabbles about pay, pay equity, race, metoo, executive compensation, family leave policies, and you name it. No one seemed happy. We didn’t know how good we had it. 8. Backlash Against Experts The media from the beginning trumpeted some experts over others. We went credential crazy. How many letters you have after your name determines your credibility (unless you have the wrong opinion). But soon we discovered some interesting realities. The experts that everyone wanted to cite were wrong or so loose with their predictions that their predictions were useless in practice. Dr. Fauci himself wrote on February 28 that this would be a normal flu. Merely a week later, everything changed from calm to panic, and with that change came the wild government response, long after people on their own realized that being careful would be a good idea. Under expert guidance, we swung from one end to the other with very little evidence, exactly against the strong and compelling advice of one of the few experts with credibility remaining. 9. Backlash Against Academia Just like that, we went from enormously expensive campuses and a huge administrative apparatus to a series of Zoom calls between professor and students, leaving many to wonder what the rest is really worth. Surely many colleges and universities will not survive this. The other problem concerns the marketability of degrees in a world in which whole industries can be shut down in an instant. The college degree was supposed to give us security; the lockdowns took it all away. Also there is the problem of the curriculum itself. Of what value are these soft degrees in social justice in a world in which you are struggling to pay next month’s rent regardless? As for elementary and secondary education, homeschooling anyone? It's existed under a cloud for decades before suddenly it became mandatory. 10. Backlash Against Unhealthy Lifestyles There has been no small effort to suppress the demographics of COVID-19 fatalities but the word is still getting out. This BBC headline sums it up: Nine in 10 dying have existing illness. And here’s another: Obesity is the number one factor in COVID deaths. This should not be lost on people considering improving their overall health and reducing disease vulnerability. Maybe you already feel it and are using your quarantine time to reduce and get fit or at least stop advancing too quickly toward your final demise. There are things we can do, people! This would be an enormous change in American culture, to say the least. 11. Backlash Against Spending You are likely saving lots of money from cutting entertainment. Feels good, doesn’t it? Regret not having saved more to prepare for these days? This will change dramatically. Those mattresses are going to get stuffed with cash in the coming year or two. It’s all fine: savings leads to investment, provided people have an ironclad promise that nothing like the monstrous destruction of the last month will ever occur again. "It Wasn't A Black Swan" - Nassim Taleb Blasts Bail-Outs As Misguided And "Morally Unacceptable"
We need a Constitutional Amendment, which eliminates the ability of the federal government to give money to any non-human entity except for goods or services received. No bailouts, ever! The Data Is In... Stop The Panic & End The Total Isolation
We need leadership, not panic-ship. We need to end the careers of many of these incapable politicians and elect people who can lead. Authored by Scott Atlas, M.D., op-ed via The Hill, The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function. Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown. Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19. The recent Stanford University antibody study now estimates that the fatality rate if infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent, a risk far lower than previous World Health Organization estimates that were 20 to 30 times higher and that motivated isolation policies. In New York City, an epicenter of the pandemic with more than one-third of all U.S. deaths, the rate of death for people 18 to 45 years old is 0.01 percent, or 11 per 100,000 in the population. On the other hand, people aged 75 and over have a death rate 80 times that. For people under 18 years old, the rate of death is zero per 100,000. Of all fatal cases in New York state, two-thirds were in patients over 70 years of age; more than 95 percent were over 50 years of age; and about 90 percent of all fatal cases had an underlying illness. Of 6,570 confirmed COVID-19 deaths fully investigated for underlying conditions to date, 6,520, or 99.2 percent, had an underlying illness. If you do not already have an underlying chronic condition, your chances of dying are small, regardless of age. And young adults and children in normal health have almost no risk of any serious illness from COVID-19. Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding. We can learn about hospital utilization from data from New York City, the hotbed of COVID-19 with more than 34,600 hospitalizations to date. For those under 18 years of age, hospitalization from the virus is 0.01 percent per 100,000 people; for those 18 to 44 years old, hospitalization is 0.1 percent per 100,000. Even for people ages 65 to 74, only 1.7 percent were hospitalized. Of 4,103 confirmed COVID-19 patients with symptoms bad enough to seek medical care, Dr. Leora Horwitz of NYU Medical Center concluded "age is far and away the strongest risk factor for hospitalization." Even early WHO reports noted that 80 percent of all cases were mild, and more recent studies show a far more widespread rate of infection and lower rate of serious illness. Half of all people testing positive for infection have no symptoms at all. The vast majority of younger, otherwise healthy people do not need significant medical care if they catch this infection. Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem. We know from decades of medical science that infection itself allows people to generate an immune response — antibodies — so that the infection is controlled throughout the population by “herd immunity.” Indeed, that is the main purpose of widespread immunization in other viral diseases — to assist with population immunity. In this virus, we know that medical care is not even necessary for the vast majority of people who are infected. It is so mild that half of infected people are asymptomatic, shown in early data from the Diamond Princess ship, and then in Iceland and Italy. That has been falsely portrayed as a problem requiring mass isolation. In fact, infected people without severe illness are the immediately available vehicle for establishing widespread immunity. By transmitting the virus to others in the low-risk group who then generate antibodies, they block the network of pathways toward the most vulnerable people, ultimately ending the threat. Extending whole-population isolation would directly prevent that widespread immunity from developing. Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections. Critical health care for millions of Americans is being ignored and people are dying to accommodate “potential” COVID-19 patients and for fear of spreading the disease. Most states and many hospitals abruptly stopped “nonessential” procedures and surgery. That prevented diagnoses of life-threatening diseases, like cancer screening, biopsies of tumors now undiscovered and potentially deadly brain aneurysms. Treatments, including emergency care, for the most serious illnesses were also missed. Cancer patients deferred chemotherapy. An estimated 80 percent of brain surgery cases were skipped. Acute stroke and heart attack patients missed their only chances for treatment, some dying and many now facing permanent disability. Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures. The overwhelming evidence all over the world consistently shows that a clearly defined group — older people and others with underlying conditions — is more likely to have a serious illness requiring hospitalization and more likely to die from COVID-19. Knowing that, it is a commonsense, achievable goal to target isolation policy to that group, including strictly monitoring those who interact with them. Nursing home residents, the highest risk, should be the most straightforward to systematically protect from infected people, given that they already live in confined places with highly restricted entry. The appropriate policy, based on fundamental biology and the evidence already in hand, is to institute a more focused strategy like some outlined in the first place: Strictly protect the known vulnerable, self-isolate the mildly sick, and open most workplaces and small businesses with some prudent large-group precautions. This would allow the essential socializing to generate immunity among those with minimal risk of serious consequence, while saving lives, preventing overcrowding of hospitals and limiting the enormous harms compounded by continued total isolation. Let’s stop underemphasizing empirical evidence while instead doubling down on hypothetical models. Facts matter. * * * Scott W. Atlas, MD, is the David and Joan Traitel Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center. Kim Jong Un evacuated from Pyongyang, reports say
The ally state is about to become the vassal state China just needs to find the right lackey to place on the toilet, er, throne. Behind Oil-Market Gyrations: Few Places Left to Store Unwanted Crude
I've been hoping fuel prices would drop but here in Oregon, prices have been flat for weeks with the western part of the state's best prices of $1.63 for regular and $2.09 for premium both at the intersection of I-5 and Hwy 34. Here in Portlandia premium, which is what Cerberus eats, is about $2.59. What gives? Europe is trying to build up the courage to admit the elites want to euthanize the unproductive4/24/2020 Dutch Supreme Court rules doctors can euthanize dementia patients
How long before they begin adult "abortions" of the unproductive? 'They Are Transporting This Virus': MTA Subway Conductors Say Trains Are Filthier Than Ever Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
"The subways are only supposed to be for essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic, but conductors say the trains are filthier than ever. The MTA says only about 5% of its regular ridership is taking the subway during this pandemic, and that’s made up of people who work in hospitals, grocery stores and every other essential service. But conductors say the subway has become a homeless shelter and social distancing is nearly impossible." |
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