jsonline | Fewer than 1% of calls from Wisconsin residents
who lost their jobs during the pandemic were answered by state officials
overseeing unemployment benefits, and the Evers administration did not
report key information to lawmakers showing the full scope of the
problem, a new state audit shows.
The audit confirms stories the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has heard for months
from hundreds of people who were forced out of jobs or work because of
the pandemic, and it is being released a week after Gov. Tony Evers
fired the agency's secretary over lack of progress in clearing claims
from more than 90,000 people.
The analysis
from the Legislative Audit Bureau Friday shows 93.3% of the 41 million
calls to the state Department of Workforce Development unemployment call
centers between March 15 and June 30 were blocked, or callers received a
busy signal.
About 6% of callers hung up before reaching anyone and 0.5% of calls were ultimately answered.
But the agency didn't report the full scope of the problem to lawmakers on the audit committee, the audit shows.
Between
April and June, the agency reported to Republican audit committee
co-chairs Sen. Rob Cowles and Rep. Samantha Kerkman that 4.9 million
telephone calls were "blocked, abandoned, and answered."
But auditors found a total of 19.6 million calls were actually blocked or resulted in busy signals.
"That's the piece that is most troubling," Cowles, R-Green Bay, said in an interview.
Amy
Pechacek, former deputy secretary of the Department of Corrections who
now oversees DWD until a new leader is chosen, said in a statement the
agency's antiquated IT system hamstrung staff's ability "to quickly
implement new changes and programs, which prompted even more calls and
questions" to the call centers.
tribunemag | All over the world, Covid-19 is putting jobs and incomes under threat. As UNCTAD’s most recent Trade and Development report outlined,
more than 500 million jobs across the globe are at risk during the
crisis, and at least 100 million won’t be coming back. And this is only
half the story. Much of the world’s population never had formal
employment to begin with; for them, the future looks particularly bleak.
Between 90 to 120 million people are likely to be pushed into extreme
poverty by the pandemic.
UNCTAD’s report points out that the dire predictions about
the potential impact of the crisis are not preordained; what happens
between now and the discovery of a vaccine, and the shape of the
recovery after that, will be determined by policy decisions made by
governments. In much of the rich world, jobs protection schemes of one
kind or another seem to have limited the impact of the crisis on formal
employment so far. The main outlier is the United States, which had no
such centralised scheme. While statistical estimates aren’t all that
reliable in the midst of a crisis like this, unemployment claims, which
tend to understate the scale of the problem, hit one million in the US
this August.
In the Global South, the picture is far bleaker. UNCTAD’s
report points to precarious work conditions, high debt levels and
pressure from international financial markets as the main constraints on
Global South states seeking to respond to the crisis. The report claims
that the Global South is facing a $2-3 trillion financing gap as a
result of the pandemic. If this gap is not bridged, many of these states
will simply be unable to implement the public health and employment
support measures needed to tackle the crisis.
One of the most significant challenges for states in the
Global South is the scale of the euphemistically termed ‘informal’
economy, which often employs the majority of the population. Street
vendors, transport workers and waste collectors make up a significant
proportion of the urban economies of the Global South, which have
swelled substantially in recent years due, in part, to falling
employment in agriculture. Providing targeted support for these workers
is much harder than those in ‘formal’ employment – i.e. employment
recognised by the state.
Yet these workers tend to be the ones who will require the
most help. Many live on or near the poverty line, have few savings and
large families. Informal workers are also disproportionately likely to
live in informal housing, where crowded conditions and poor sanitation
facilitate the spread of the virus. In fact, many of these workers may
already have had the virus – recent research
suggests that 80% cases of Covid-19 in Africa have been asymptomatic,
and the mortality rate for Covid-19 on the continent is much lower,
meaning the virus may have swept through the population almost
unnoticed. This is substantially due to Africa’s youthful population and
lower life expectancy.
Even if the virus may prove less deadly among younger
populations in the Global South, the economic impact of the looming
global economic crisis will be severe. Indeed, the entirely avoidable
economic consequences of Covid-19 may end up killing more people than
the virus itself.
rollingstone | Following Wednesday’s announcements that Quaker Oats would discontinue the Aunt Jemima brand
and Mars would “evolve” its Uncle Ben image, B&G Foods, the parent
company of Cream of Wheat, said it will launch an “immediate review of
the Cream of Wheat brand packaging.”
The breakfast food — first manufactured in 1893 — has long been criticized for its use of Rastus,
a smiling African-American chef whose name has been shorthand for a
derogatory slur against African-American men and whose visage has been
criticized for being stereotypically subservient. The character of
Rastus has appeared in numerous minstrel shows dating back to the 1800s.
Rastus was removed from the packaging in 1925, but the company replaced
it with a similar image that remains today. Calls to remove the
character altogether have grown louder as brands have reconsidered their
packaging and marketing in recent weeks.
“B&G Foods, Inc. today announced that we are initiating an
immediate review of the Cream of Wheat brand packaging. We understand
there are concerns regarding the chef image, and we are committed to
evaluating our packaging and will proactively take steps to ensure that
we and our brands do not inadvertently contribute to systemic racism,” a
rep for B&G said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “B&G Foods unequivocally stands against prejudice and injustice of any kind.”
In
a statement Wednesday, Quaker Oats — who purchased the Aunt Jemima
brand of syrup and pancake mixes in 1926 — admitted the racial history
of the brand, which was named after the minstrel song “Old Aunt Jemima”
and has drawn controversy for its racial insensitivity and stereotyping.
“We recognize Aunt Jemima’s origins are based on a racial
stereotype,” a Quaker Oats rep said in a statement. “As we work to make
progress toward racial equality through several initiatives, we also
must take a hard look at our portfolio of brands and ensure they reflect
our values and meet our consumers’ expectations.”
Quaker Oats also announced a $5 million donation over the next five
years in order “to create meaningful, ongoing support and engagement in
the Black community.”
theintercept | The objections typically raised to Rogan concern his questioning
of some of the very recent changes brought about by trans visibility
and equality, particularly asking whether it is fair for trans women who
have lived their entire lives and entered puberty as biological men to
compete against cis women in professional sports (a question also asked —
and even answered in the negative — by LGBT sports pioneer Martina Navratilova,
among many others), and whether young children are emotionally and
psychologically equipped to make permanent choices about gender
reassignment therapies and gender dysphoria.
If embracing and never questioning the full panoply of trans advocacy
is a prerequisite to being permitted in decent society, I seriously
doubt many prominent Democratic politicians will pass that test (even
Kamala Harris, from San Francisco and the very blue state of California,
has a very mixed record on trans rights).
Moreover, though polling data is sparse, the data that is available
show that there is still much work to do in this area: Only a small
minority of Americans believe it is fair to allow trans women to participate in female professional sports.
While Rogan is politically liberal, he is — argues former Obama 2008 campaign strategist and Rogan listener Shant Mesrobian — culturally conservative,
by which he does not mean that Rogan holds conservative views on social
issues (again, he is pro-choice and pro-LGBT rights). He means that
Rogan exudes culturally conservative signals: He likes MMA fighting,
makes crude jokes, hunts, and just generally fails to speak in the lingo
of the professional managerial class and coastal elites. And it is
those cultural standards, rather than political ones, that make Rogan
anathema to elite liberal culture because, Mesrobian argued in a viral Twitter thread,
liberals care far more about proper culture signaling than they do
about the much harder and more consequential work of actual politics.
As Rogan’s platform grows, it is worthwhile to understand his appeal,
his audience, and what he is doing that is new and different to attract
such a large following. But it is also very worth examining the
reaction to him by the political and media class because in that
reaction, one finds many revealing attributes about how they think, what
they value, and the priorities that they actually venerate.
digitalmusicnews |A group of Spotify staffers are now reportedly pushing to introduce direct editing oversight over The Joe Rogan Experience
— before the episodes go live. That includes content flags, trigger
warnings, references to fact-checked information, or simply refusing to
publish an episode at all.
The demands follow a string of
controversial comments by Joe Rogan, who was lured to Spotify in a
massive, $100 million deal. Rogan’s appeal to millions of listeners is
his unfiltered and irreverent approach, though that style isn’t sitting
well with an activist group of Spotify staffers who say he needs to be
reined in.
Earlier this month, Digital Music News first reported that multiple podcast episodes were missing following
a migration to Spotify’s platform. That included controversial
interviews with the likes of Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Gavin
McInnes. Also missing are episodes featuring right-wing figures like
Owen Benjamin, Stefan Molyneux, and Charles C. Johnson.
But
despite the glaring omissions, Spotify staffers are now stepping up
their demands to control more of Rogan’s content. Vice first reported
that Spotify employees have conducted more than ten meetings to discuss possible changes. Those discussions included proposals for the outright removal of additional podcast episodes.
Of particular focus in an earlier conversation featuring author Abigail Shrier, who wrote Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.
Shrier’s opinions on the matter drew howls of protest from certain
Spotify staffers, who demanded its removal — though the episode is still
available on the Spotify platform.
digitalmusicnews | A contingent of activist Spotify staffers are now considering a
walkout or full-blown strike if their demands for direct editorial
oversight of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast aren’t met.
Late last week, we first reported that Spotify employees were demanding direct editorial oversight over the recently-acquired Joe Rogan Experience
podcast. That would include the ability to directly edit or remove
sections of upcoming interviews, or block the uploading of episodes
deemed problematic. The employees also demanded the ability to add
trigger warnings, corrections, and references to fact-checked articles
on topics discussed by Rogan in the course of his multi-hour
discussions.
Some of the group’s demands have already been met by
Spotify management, though a refusal to allow further changes is
stirring talk of a high-profile walkout or strike. According to
preliminary plans shared with Digital Music News, the strike would
principally involve New York-based Spotify employees, and would be
accompanied by protests outside Spotify’s Manhattan headquarters. Other
aspects would involve media appearances and coordination with other
activist organizations.
For Spotify, the decision to offer some concessions may have only emboldened demands for wide-scale editorial oversight.
During
the transition of Rogan’s podcast episodes onto the Spotify platform,
multiple past episodes were omitted. Those included interviews with
Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, and Alex Jones. Additionally, Rogan
issued a rare public apology and correction over his claim that
left-wing anarchists had set fires in Oregon, a point that was made
during a recent interview with Douglas Murray. The apology is now
believed to be the result of pressure from Spotify staffers.
But
those measures apparently don’t go far enough. Rogan’s claim during the
Murray podcast is still part of the podcast recording, despite demands
that the offending section be removed or directly corrected within the
audio itself. It now appears that Spotify is unwilling to directly edit
or otherwise alter any existing episodes, with content alteration
considered a bright line that shouldn’t be crossed.
Spotify’s
management has also refused to remove a more contentious recent episode
involving Abigail Shrier. Shrier, a Wall Street Journal writer and
author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience in July and has drawn the most protest from the activist Spotify employees.
washingtonexaminer |U.S.
Attorney John Durham is investigating the handling of the FBI’s
investigation of possible bribery and pay-to-play at the Clinton
Foundation as part of his broader inquiry of the Trump-Russia
investigators, according to a new report.
The New York Timesreported
Thursday that Durham “has sought documents and interviews about how
federal law enforcement officials handled an investigation … into
allegations of political corruption” at the Clinton Foundation, founded
by former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton. Durham was picked by Attorney General William Barr in 2019 to
investigate the origins and conduct of the Trump-Russia investigation,
and the outlet said that “Durham’s team members have suggested to others
that they are comparing the two investigations.” The article claimed
that “it was not clear whether Mr. Durham’s investigators were similarly
looking for violations in the Clinton Foundation investigation."
Durham’s office declined the Washington Examiner’s request for comment. The Clinton Foundation told the New York Times
that it “has regularly been subjected to baseless, politically
motivated allegations, and time after time these allegations have been
proven false.”
Barr has denied that he is being pressured by President
Trump in his handling of Durham’s inquiry and claimed that any actions
taken won't affect the 2020 election. House and Senate Democrats have calledfor the Justice Department's independent watchdog to investigate Durham’s work.
After Robert Mueller was appointed in 2017 to look into the Russia matter, Republicans called for the appointment of a second special counsel to investigate Clinton-related controversies. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions tasked
U.S. Attorney John Huber of Utah in November 2017 to investigate
several issues, including the FBI's corruption investigation into the
2010 Uranium One deal and allegations that Clinton orchestrated a "quid
pro quo." The sale of Uranium One, a Canada-based company with U.S. mine
holdings, to Russian state-owned Rosatom was the focus of scrutiny from
Republicans who claimed Clinton may have helped coax the Committee on
Foreign Investment in the United States not to block the deal and that
the Clinton Foundation may have stood to benefit.
Barr told
CBS’s Jan Crawford in May 2019 that DOJ Inspector General Michael
Horowitz and Durham had taken over much of Huber’s inquiry. Barr said
that “the other issues [Huber has] been working on relate to Hillary
Clinton” are "winding down and hopefully we'll be in a position to bring
those to fruition.” Crawford asked Barr if “now Durham is going to pick
up this” Huber inquiry, and Barr said, “Yes, right.” Huber's inquiry
did not lead to any "known impacts," according to a Washington Postreport in January. Fox News reported
Thursday that "parts of what Huber was investigating in 2017 —
involving the Clinton Foundation — have been incorporated in Durham’s
investigation."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said
in August that “there was a clear double standard by the Department of
Justice and FBI when it came to the Trump and Clinton campaigns in
2016.” Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley told
Fox News in April 2019 that “if the Democrats want to be consistent,
they'll have to treat Clinton, Uranium One, and Russia-related
investigations the same.”
realclearinvestigations | Former CIA Director John Brennan personally edited a crucial section of
the intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and
assigned a political ally to take a lead role in writing it after
career analysts disputed Brennan's take that Russian leader Vladimir
Putin intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump clinch the
White House, according to two senior U.S. intelligence officials who
have seen classified materials detailing Brennan’s role in drafting the
document.
The explosive conclusion Brennan inserted into the report was used to
help justify continuing the Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation,
which had been launched by the FBI in 2016. It was picked up after the
election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in the end found no
proof that Trump or his campaign conspired with Moscow.
The Obama administration publicly released a declassified version of
the report — known as the "Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian
Activities and Intentions in Recent Elections (ICA)” — just two weeks
before Trump took office, casting a cloud of suspicion over his
presidency. Democrats and national media have cited the report to
suggest Russia influenced the 2016 outcome and warn that Putin is likely
meddling again to reelect Trump.
The ICA is a key focus of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s ongoing
investigation into the origins of the “collusion” probe. He wants to
know if the intelligence findings were juiced for political purposes.
RealClearInvestigations has learned that one of the CIA operatives
who helped Brennan draft the ICA, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, financially
supported Hillary Clinton during the campaign and is a close colleague
of Eric Ciaramella, identified last year by RCI
as the Democratic national security “whistleblower" whose complaint led
to Trump’s impeachment, ending in Senate acquittal in January.
The two officials said Brennan, who openly supported Clinton during
the campaign, excluded conflicting evidence about Putin’s motives from
the report, despite objections from some intelligence analysts who
argued Putin counted on Clinton winning the election and viewed Trump as
a “wild card.”
The dissenting analysts found that Moscow preferred Clinton because
it judged she would work with its leaders, whereas it worried Trump
would be too unpredictable. As secretary of state, Clinton tried to
“reset” relations with Moscow to move them to a more positive and
cooperative stage, while Trump campaigned on expanding the U.S.
military, which Moscow perceived as a threat.
These same analysts argued the Kremlin was generally trying to sow
discord and disrupt the American democratic process during the 2016
election cycle. They also noted that Russia tried to interfere in the
2008 and 2012 races, many years before Trump threw his hat in the ring.
saracarter | Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Lindsey Graham hinted more than a week ago that more bombshell information regarding the FBI’s handling of its probe into President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia was about to be public. He was right because it was Graham’s committee that discovered the information.,
In a bombshell letter released a letter Thursday night by Graham’s committee from Justice Department Attorney General William Barr revealed a declassified summary from the bureau indicating that former British spy Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source in his debunked dossier was believed to be a Russian spy. Not only was the sub source believed to be a spy but the FBI knew about it and had conducted a counterintelligence investigation on the individual.
“In light of this newly
declassified information, I will be sending the FISA Court the
information provided to inform them how wide and deep the effort to
conceal exculpatory information regarding the Carter Page warrant
application was in 2016 and 2017,” said Graham. “A small group of
individuals in the Department of Justice and FBI should be held
accountable for this fraud against the court. I do not believe they
represent the overwhelming majority of patriotic men and women who work
at the Department of Justice and FBI.”
One of those individuals being investigated by Connecticut Prosecutor John Durham is former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe,
who was fired from the FBI by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for
lying to the Inspector General on multiple occasions. He is now in
Durham’s crosshairs, along with multiple other former senior FBI
officials that were involved in the investigation, according to a source
with direct knowledge.
McCabe, along with other FBI officials, withheld that information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,
as well as some of the FBI special agents investigating Trump’s
campaign and its alleged ties to Russia, according to the source.
“McCabe and others were suppressing information, misrepresenting it
or lying about the information that they had in order to purposefully
undermine the Trump candidacy and that turned into the predication for
undermining the Trump presidency,” said a source with direct knowledge
of the situation.
thehill | An Ohio police officer tased and arrested a woman on Wednesday after
she refused to leave an eighth grade football game for not wearing a
mask, officials said.
Police in Logan, Ohio, who identified the
woman as Alecia Kitts, said the officer told Kitts she would be asked to
leave because she was not wearing a mask, in violation of school
policy. After Kitts refused to leave the stadium, the officer warned she
would be cited for trespassing. She was tased after she resisted
arrest.
A video circulated online appears to show the officer, identified as School Resource Officer Chris Smith, handcuffing the woman and saying, “Put your hands behind your back.”
“I will not put my hands behind my back,” she responds. “I’m not currently doing nothing wrong.”
Approximately two minutes later, the officer tases the woman, arrests her and takes her away from the stands.
Police
said in a statement that when Smith informed Kitts she needed to wear a
mask, she responded she had asthma and would not put it on.
"Officer
Smith advised the female several times that she needed to put her mask
on, and that if she did not, she would be asked to leave and would have
to wait outside the stadium," the statement reads. "The female
continually refused his request and Officer Smith advised her that if
she refused to leave, she would be cited for trespassing and escorted
off the property."
nakedcapitalism | Basically, WHO and the CDC people have been droplet proponents for a
long time, and, since science proceeds by conflict — which is why “Trust
the science!” doesn’t work when applied uncritically — they need to be
persuaded, or, if worst comes to worst, defenestrated in the usual way:
One funeral at a time, as Max Planck said. To be fair to the medical
profession, they have proceeded with far greater dispatch than
physicists!
So, one explanation for the new CDC guidance being pulled is that, institutionally, the old guard won.
Politically, you know the already congealing narrative. Here is the classiest, least hysterical example of it.
As we have explained at length, “the science” is not always a matter of “facts”
but of the paradigms we use to give an account of facts. WHO, for
example, does not regard aerosols as the primary transmission path for
Covid as a fact at all. Zeke’s embarrassing Neera on this, and he should
do better.
Experts with knowledge of the incident said on Monday
that the latest reversal appeared to be a genuine mistake in the
agency’s scientific review process, rather than the result of political
meddling. Officials said the agency would soon publish revised guidance.
Of course, one never knows when the blow may fall; anonymous sources
could contradict the Times tomorrow. Nevertheless, Occam’s Razor would
suggest than when we have an institutional account, we don’t need to
invent a political one.
Third, and ironically, if there was, anybody doing the squelching —
in today’s impoverished analytical environment — would be able to say “I
did trust the science! I checked with WHO!!”
So that is the state of play on the CDC’s aerosol guidance as of today. Let’s see what they come up with!
bbc | Emily Thomas asks whether the coronavirus pandemic will turn out to be
the defining moment in the fight against obesity. Will we see
governments take radical action, now that the pandemic has turned the
spotlight on this growing global
problem? And why hasn’t the pandemic made most of us eat more
healthily? Even experts have been surprised by just how strong an impact
obesity has been found to have on the risks of coronavirus. We hear
from Professor Barry Popkin, of the University of North
Carolina, who led a major study into the relationship between the two.
He tells us he’s worried that food companies are using the pandemic to
push ultra processed food on low-income populations.
Professor Corinna
Hawkes, of City, University of London, explains
how obesity policy became personal in the UK after Boris Johnson caught
the virus. And Jacqueline Bowman-Busato, Policy Lead for the European
Association for the Study of Obesity, tells us how her own experience of
living with obesity has led her to lobby
for changes in how obesity is viewed and treated. She says the pandemic
has provided a much needed wake up call on a neglected and
misunderstood public health issue. If you would like to get in touch
with the show please email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk
dailywire | A bombshell report from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs (HSGAC) and the Committee on Finance makes a
series of damning new allegations against Hunter Biden, the son of
Democrat presidential nominee.
The investigation launched after
Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) publicly raised
conflict-of-interest concerns about the sale of a U.S. company to a
Chinese firm with ties to Hunter Biden a month before Congress
was notified about a whistleblower complaint that was the catalyst for
Democrats’ impeachment of President Donald Trump. The Senate’s
investigation relied on records from the U.S. government, Democrat
lobbying groups, and interviews of numerous current and former
officials.
The report also stated that the investigation found that the Obama
administration “knew that Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board was
problematic and did interfere in the efficient execution of policy with
respect to Ukraine.”
thepoliticalinsider | FBI agent John Robertson, the man who found Hillary Clinton’s emails
on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, claims he was advised by bosses to erase his own computer.
Former FBI Director James Comey, you may recall, announced days
before the 2016 presidential election that he had “learned of the
existence” of the emails on Weiner’s laptop.
Weiner is the disgraced husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Robertson alleges that the manner in which his higher-ups in the FBI handled the case was “not ethically or morally right.”
His startling claims are made in a book titled, “October Surprise:
How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election,” an excerpt of
which has been published by the Washington Post.
Robertson alleges that the FBI did nothing for a month after discovering Clinton’s emails on the Anthony Weiner laptop.
It was only after he spoke with the U.S. Attorney’s office overseeing the case, he claims, that the agency took action.
“He had told his bosses about the Clinton emails weeks ago,” the book contends. “Nothing had happened.”
“Or rather, the only thing that had happened was his boss had instructed Robertson to erase his computer work station.”
This, according to the Post report, was to “ensure there was no
classified material on it,” but also would eliminate any trail of his
actions taken during the investigation.
Speaking to Fox News’ “Hannity”
Tuesday evening, Gaetz (R-Fla.) said he had spoken to Florida Attorney
General Ashley Moody prior to his appearance on the show about
Bloomberg’s voter effort in the Sunshine State.
On Tuesday, it was reported that the former NYC mayor had raised over
$16 million for, and donated $5 million to, the Florida Rights
Restoration Coalition.
Bloomberg’s push would benefit ex-cons as part of a 2018 state
constitutional amendment allowing felons who have served their time to
regain their right to vote.
Before they can regain that right, however, they need to pay any fines, fees or restitution.
In a statement to Axios, a representative for Bloomberg said, “The
right to vote is fundamental to our democracy and no American should be
denied that right. Working together with the Florida Rights Restoration
Coalition, we are determined to end disenfranchisement and the
discrimination that has always driven it.”
To Gaetz and Moody, however, there are legal concerns regarding Bloomberg’s political spending in this specific case.
“I believe there may be a criminal investigation already underway of
the Bloomberg-connected activities in Florida,” Gaetz told Sean Hannity.
“[Under Florida law] it’s a third-degree felony for someone to either
directly or indirectly provide something of value to impact whether or
not someone votes. So the question is whether or not paying off
someone’s fines and legal obligations counts as something of value, and
it clearly does. If Michael Bloomberg was offering to pay off people’s
credit card debts, you would obviously see the value in that.
“When you improve someone’s net worth by eliminating their financial
liabilities, that’s something of value. Normally, it would be very
difficult to prove that that was directly linked to impacting whether or
not someone was going to vote. But they literally wrote their own
admission,” the Florida Republican argued, referencing a Washington Post report.
How do you get your booty to the poll? It’s easy as 1-2-3!
REGISTER TO VOTE.
Deadlines vary depending on the state, so just register now bruh. It literally takes like 2 minutes. You can register to vote here: Register to Vote Online There is some shady mess going on out there, so even if you think you are registered, double check it. You can do that here: Am I Registered to Vote?
RESEARCH - DOWNLOAD A SAMPLE BALLOT AND LEARN ABOUT WHAT’S ON IT.
There is a lot more than the president on the ballot, and you need to know who cares about the stuff that will help you and yours and who DGAF. A lot of polls won’t let you take out your phone when voting, so print your sample ballot or write down your choices. You can download a sample ballot here: Personalized Ballot | VOTE411
If you’re looking at your sample ballot thinking, “WTF do these folks even do?” you are not alone. You can find information on candidates, referendums and what the various political offices are responsible for here: BallotReady: Vote Informed on the Entire Ballot
Still not sure who to vote for? This website tells you what candidates have the same beliefs as you. https://www.isidewith.com
Vote Early.
Most states have early voting. Vote early and avoid the lines. And yeah, you still get the sticker. There is some shady mess happening with the post office, so if you don’t have a completed mail-in ballot mailed by Oct 3rd, just plan to vote in person. Check how early you can vote in your state here: Early Voting Calendar
off-guardian | COVID 19 is being used to create a global fascist
dictatorship. From New Zealand to the the U.S, so called western
democracies have adopted and developed the Chinese model of technocracy
to create a single biosecurity State.
This globalist corporate State is to be centrally controlled and
administered by a distant global governance cartel of appointed
bureaucrats. Tasked only to serve the interests of a tiny,
disproportionately wealthy group we can call the parasite class.
Every aspect of your life will be monitored and controlled, as we
move towards the ultimate surveillance State. Your ability to work, to
socialise, to travel, conduct business, access public services and to
purchase essential goods and services will be dictated to you, and
restricted, by the State, based upon your biosecurity or immunity status.
This transformation process is well underway. You are no longer a
human being, you are a biosecurity risk. As such you may be removed to a
military controlled quarantine camp as and when the State sees fit.
Detention without trial will be the norm. All protest will be outlawed
unless the protest suits the agenda of the parasite class.
We have a diminishing window of opportunity to stop this global
fascist dictatorship. Violent protest will not work. Not only are they
morally indefensible, they are tactically naive.
Violence is the language of the oppressor. The global State holds total dominion over instigation of the use of force. To crack down, in
response to a violent uprising, is the fervent hope of the oppressor.
It allows the State to exercise more, not less, authoritarian control.
In reality, to stop it, all we need to do is refuse, en masse, to
comply. We must do this with our eyes open. It won’t be easy and many of
us will face harsh punishment from a desperate tyrant. However, if we
don’t stand up now, we are condemning future generations to unimaginable
levels of slavery and misery.
In order to foist this upon us, the apparatus behind it has invested
billions in propaganda. The fascist technocracy, presently being
constructed at an alarming pace, requires our cooperation. Without it,
the biosecurity dictatorship cannot gain its desired authority.
WaPo | The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday removed language from its website that said the novel coronavirus spreads via airborne transmission, the latest example of the agency backtracking from its own guidance.
The
agency said the guidance, which went up on Friday and largely went
without notice until late Sunday, should not have been posted because it
was an early draft.
“Unfortunately
an early draft of a revision went up without any technical review,”
said Jay Butler, the CDC’s deputy director for infectious diseases. “We
are returning to the earlier version and revisiting that process. It was
a failure of process at CDC.”
Evidence
that the virus floats in the air has mounted for months, with an
increasingly loud chorus of aerosol biologists pointing to
superspreading events in choirs, buses, bars and other poorly ventilated
spaces. They cheered when the CDC seemed to join them in agreeing the
coronavirus can be airborne.
Experts
who reviewed the CDC’s Friday post had said the language change had the
power to shift policy and drive a major rethinking on the need to better
ventilate indoor air.
Jose-Luis
Jimenez, a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder
who studies how aerosols spread the virus, told The Washington Post
before the CDC reversed its guidance “this is a good thing, if we can
reduce transmission because more people understand how it is spreading
and know what to do to stop it.”
Although CDC officials maintained Friday’s post was a mistake,
Democratic lawmakers were incredulous. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.)
tweeted Monday afternoon that he would investigate why the language to
airborne transmission had been scrubbed.
abcnews | As the daily headlines and mounting death tolls sow widespread anxiety among a population grappling with the coronavirus
pandemic, many businesses and others have sought to ease fears through a
newfound and costly obsession with deep cleaning and sanitizing.
The
pandemic-era trend of publicly exhibiting all sanitation efforts has
taken both the private and public sector by storm, but some medical
experts express concern that these surface-cleaning endeavors may not be
the most effective means of combatting the spread of the respiratory
virus.
Hotels in California proudly display their $100,000 UV disinfecting robots. United Airlines similarly announced it was using high-tech antimicrobial-spraying robots
on some aircrafts to ensure the "deepest cleanings." United noted that
it was a complementary technology used in combination with masks and
other measures.
The New York City subway system, which operates
around the clock, announced nighttime closures for the first time in its
history in order to disinfect train cars, a move that comes with an
estimated additional price tag of $500 million in 2020 alone. That price tag includes a small portion for protective gear and temperatures checks for employees.
The
often-overlooked sanitizing industry has boomed. Stock for Clorox
reached a new all-time high last month, and has spiked some 35% in 2020.
And a slew of private firms and startups touting disinfecting wands and
other gadgets have also reported skyrocketing spikes in interest.
he public-facing displays of disinfecting efforts by companies have been dubbed "hygiene theater" in a recent The Atlantic article,
which equated the showy presentations to the post-9/11 "security
theater" phenomena, an endeavor that was slammed for focusing more on
quelling people’s worries rather than actions that actually emphasized
safety.
Is there a 'danger' in so-called hygiene theater?
Dr.
Emanuel Goldman, a microbiology professor at Rutgers University and
co-editor of the Practical Handbook of Microbiology, warned in a
commentary published in the medical journal Lancet in July that the risk
of catching COVID-19 from a surface has been "exaggerated" and became
one of the major voices raising concerns over misdirecting resources to
so-called "hygiene theater."
But
that writer, who goes by the pseudonym “streiff,” isn’t just another
political blogger. The Daily Beast has discovered that he actually works
in the public affairs shop of the very agency that Fauci leads.
William
B. Crews is, by day, a public affairs specialist for the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. But for years he has been
writing for RedState under the streiff pseudonym. And in that capacity
he has been contributing to the very same disinformation campaign that his superiors at the NIAID say is a major challenge to widespread efforts to control a pandemic that has claimed roughly 200,000 U.S. lives.
Under
his pseudonym, Crews has derided his own colleagues as part of a
left-wing anti-Trump conspiracy and vehemently criticized the man who
leads his agency, whom he described as the “attention-grubbing and
media-whoring Anthony Fauci.” He has gone after other public health
officials at the state and federal levels, as well—“the public health
Karenwaffen,'' as he’s called them—over measures such as the closures of
businesses and other public establishments and the promotion of social
distancing and mask-wearing. Those policies, Crews insists, have no
basis in science and are simply surreptitious efforts to usurp
Americans’ rights, destroy the U.S. economy, and damage President Donald
Trump’s reelection effort.
“I think we’re at the point where it
is safe to say that the entire Wuhan virus scare was nothing more or
less than a massive fraud perpetrated upon the American people by
‘experts’ who were determined to fundamentally change the way the
country lives and is organized and governed,” Crews wrote in a June post on RedState.
“If
there were justice,” he added, “we’d send and [sic] few dozen of these
fascists to the gallows and gibbet their tarred bodies in chains until
they fall apart.”
After The Daily Beast brought those and other
quotes from Crews to NIAID’s attention, the agency said in an emailed
statement that Crews would “retire”
from his position. “NIAID first learned of this matter this morning,
and Mr. Crews has informed us of his intention to retire,” the
spokesperson, Kathy Stover, wrote. “We have no further comments on this
as it is a personnel matter.”
CDC USA Stats: 2/1/2020 to 9/16/2020 - 7 months of data on 6,649,000 cases.
Note that these numbers are a snapshot in time
and literally change by the minute as people catch and survive/die from
Covid-19. The best use of these numbers is to show us the trend and
provide a statistical answer to the question "what's
happened so far?'.
~~~~
Comorbidity Deaths = 94% of deaths.
- Covid-19 >AND< some other serious health issue were recorded on
the death certificate: Covid-19 was present and contributed to the
death.
Covid-19 Deaths = 6% of deaths
- Covid-19 was recorded on the death certificate as the sole cause of death...Covid-19 killed the person.
~~~~
USA “odds of dying” from Covid-19 vs. 2018/19 common flu
Age 14 and younger :
>1 in 167,715 chance of dying from the common flu (ages 0 to 17)
>1 in 1,010,223 chance of a Comorbidity death
>1 in 15,826,823 chance of a Covid-19 death
Age 15 to 24 :
>1 in 60,687 chance of dying from the common flu (ages 18 to 49)
>1 in 134,506 chance of a Comorbidity death
>1 in 2,107,257 chance of a Covid-19 death
Age 25 to 44:
>1 in 60,687 chance of dying from the common flu (ages 18 to 49)
>1 in 18,059 chance of a Comorbidity death
>1 in 282,927 chance of a Covid-19 death
Age 45 to 64:
>1 in 10,943 chance of dying from the common flu (ages 50 to 64)
>1 in 2,672 chance of a Comorbidity death
>1 in 41,862 chance of a Covid-19 death
Age 65 to 84:
>1 in 2,066 chance of dying from the common flu (age 65 plus)
>1 in 572 chance of a Comorbidity death
>1 in 8,956 chance of a Covid-19 death
Age 85 and older:
>1 in 2,066 chance of dying from the common flu (age 65 plus)
>1 in 111 chance of a Comorbidity death
>1 in 1,738 chance of a Covid-19 death
What is “The Science” telling us?
If you have a serious preexisting condition,
Covid-19 is a threat to your life; and the older you are, the more
extreme the threat.
If you do not have a serious preexisting condition, Covid-19 is less deadly than the common flu; exception being age 85 plus.
~~~~
Disclaimer:
I am not a statistician, I only play one on the
internet.
If statistics is your line of work... please check my work and
report back.
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