Rule Of Law: Elite, Establishment Politics, Psyops, And Livestock Management Methods (REDUX from 5/13/15)

Kahneman |  Another scholar and friend whom I greatly admire, Cass Sunstein, disagrees sharply with Slovic’s stance on the different views of experts and citizens, and defends the role of experts as a bulwark against “populist” excesses. Sunstein is one of the foremost legal scholars in the United States, and shares with other leaders of his profession the attribute of intellectual fearlessness. He knows he can master any body of knowledge quickly and thoroughly, and he has mastered many, including both the psychology of judgment and choice and issues of regulation and risk policy. His view is that the existing system of regulation in the United States displays a very poor setting of priorities, which reflects reaction to public pressures more than careful objective analysis. He starts from the position that risk regulation and government intervention to reduce risks should be guided by rational weighting of costs and benefits, and that the natural units for this analysis are the number of lives saved (or perhaps the number of life-years saved, which gives more weight to saving the young) and the dollar cost to the economy. Poor regulation is wasteful of lives and money, both of which can be measured objectively. Sunstein has not been persuaded by Slovic’s argument that risk and its measurement is subjective. Many aspects of risk assessment are debatable, but he has faith in the objectivity that may be achieved by science, expertise, and careful deliberation.

Sunstein came to believe that biased reactions to risks are an important source of erratic and misplaced priorities in public policy. Lawmakers and regulators may be overly responsive to the irrational concerns of citizens, both because of political sensitivity and because they are prone to the same cognitive biases as other citizens.

Sunstein and a collaborator, the jurist Timur Kuran, invented a name for the mechanism through which biases flow into policy: the availability cascade. They comment that in the social context, “all heuristics are equal, but availability is more equal than the others.” They have in mind an expanded notion of the heuristic, in which availability provides a heuristic for judgments other than frequency. In particular, the importance of an idea is often judged by the fluency (and emotional charge) with which that idea comes to mind.

An availability cascade is a self-sustaining chain of events, which may start from media reports of a relatively minor event and lead up to public panic and large-scale government action. On some occasions, a media story about a risk catches the attention of a segment of the public, which becomes aroused and worried. This emotional reaction becomes a story in itself, prompting additional coverage in the media, which in turn produces greater concern and involvement. The cycle is sometimes sped along deliberately by “availability entrepreneurs,” individuals or organizations who work to ensure a continuous flow of worrying news. The danger is increasingly exaggerated as the media compete for attention-grabbing headlines. Scientists and others who try to dampen the increasing fear and revulsion attract little attention, most of it hostile: anyone who claims that the danger is overstated is suspected of association with a “heinous cover-up.” The issue becomes politically important because it is on everyone’s mind, and the response of the political system is guided by the intensity of public sentiment. The availability cascade has now reset priorities. Other risks, and other ways that resources could be applied for the public good, all have faded into the background.

There Was No Coup Attempt But There Will Be An Authoritarian Clampdown

mtracey |  There was no real “coup attempt,” despite incessant politician and media histrionics to that effect. Just a pitiful outburst that was quickly dispersed.

It was clear within about ten minutes of the intrusion that the most severe consequences would stem not from the incident itself, but the deliberately-stoked over-reaction. The bipartisan political and media class, whether cynically or sincerely, is broadcasting their steadfast conviction that this was something like a “MAGA Terrorist Insurrection” — which is literally how it’s being described on CNN. Under such allegedly extreme circumstances, of course extreme remedial action is going to be demanded.

Few entities capitulate to upswells of political hysteria more reliably than the tech companies. Knowing that there will soon be a Democratic presidential administration and Congress to appease, they launched this week what is the most drastic corporate censorship offensive in modern history. Not only was Trump banished from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter — the latter being his primary communications platform (for better or worse) — multiple high-profile Trump allies were likewise purged. Steve Bannon was nuked from YouTube. Trump and his supporters are being neutralized online not because he currently poses any kind of bonafide “threat” to the Republic, but because his enemies are desperate for revenge. And they have been gifted with a perfect “crisis” that will justify their getting it.

Sen. Josh Hawley Defunded And Disavowed For Tryna Get Off The Fist Up His Sock-Puppet Ass...,

newsweek  |  A Missouri businessman who spent millions of dollars funding Sen. Josh Hawley's political campaigns has disavowed the lawmaker in a damning statement, accusing him of inciting the riot in the U.S. Capitol and calling for his censure.

The president and CEO of Tamko Building Products, David Humphreys, had been a major donor for the Missouri Republicans, with his family giving $4.4 million of the $9.2 million that Hawley raised for his campaign to become attorney general in 2016.

His family also donated about $2 million to independent groups who backed Hawley's bid to become a senator in 2018.

But in a statement to the Missouri Independent, Humphreys expressed his disgust with Hawley for backing President Donald Trump's claims of election fraud, accusing him of fuelling the unrest on Wednesday that had fatal consequences at the heart of American democracy.

Humphreys said he publicly opposed Trump in October 2016 because "you have to look in the mirror and recognize that you cannot possibly justify support for Trump to your children."

He went on: "I need to say the same about Missouri's U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, who has shown his true colors as an anti-democracy populist by supporting Trump's false claim of a 'stolen election.' Hawley's irresponsible, inflammatory and dangerous tactics have incited violence and further discord.

"Hawley should be censured by his Senate colleagues for his actions which have undermined a peaceful transition of power and for provoking yesterday's riots in our nation's capital.

Many are lining up to criticize Hawley—a chorus of condemnation that could hurt his presidential chances in a 2024 race in which he was positioning himself to inherit the mantle and support base of Trump.

His mentor, former Sen. Jack Danforth, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that supporting Hawley and trying to get him elected "was the worst mistake I ever made in my life."

Look What We Can Do to You Any Time We Fucking Want

consentfactory |  Even if one accepts the official “science,” you do not transform the entire planet into a pathologized-totalitarian nightmare in response to a health threat of this nature.

The notion is quite literally insane.

GloboCap is not insane, however. They know exactly what they are doing … which is teaching us a lesson, a lesson about power. A lesson about who has it and who doesn’t. For students of history it’s a familiar lesson, a standard in the repertoire of empires, not to mention the repertoire of penal institutions.

The name of the lesson is “Look What We Can Do to You Any Time We Fucking Want.” The point of the lesson is self-explanatory. The USA taught the world this lesson when it nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. GloboCap (and the US military) taught it again when they invaded Iraq and destabilized the entire Greater Middle East. It is regularly taught in penitentiaries when the prisoners start to get a little too unruly and remember that they outnumber the guards. That’s where the “lockdown” concept originated. It isn’t medical terminology. It is penal institution terminology.

As we have been experiencing throughout 2020, the global capitalist ruling classes have no qualms about teaching us this lesson. It’s just that they would rather not to have to unless it’s absolutely necessary. They would prefer that we believe we are living in “democracies,” governed by the “rule of law,” where everyone is “free,” and so on. It’s much more efficient and much less dangerous than having to repeatedly remind us that they can take away our “democratic rights” in a heartbeat, unleash armed goon squads to enforce their edicts, and otherwise control us with sheer brute force.

People who have spent time in prison, or who have lived in openly totalitarian societies, are familiar with being ruled by brute force. Most Westerners are not, so it has come as a shock. The majority of them still can’t process it. They cannot see what is staring them in the face. They cannot see it because they can’t afford to see it. If they did, it would completely short-circuit their brains. They would suffer massive psychotic breakdowns, and become entirely unable to function, so their psyches will not allow them to see it.

Others, who see it, can’t quite accept the simplicity of it (i.e., the lesson being taught), so they are proposing assorted complicated theories about what it is and who is behind it … the Great Reset, China, the Illuminati, Transhumanism, Satanism, Communism, whatever. Some of these theories are at least partially accurate. Others are utter bull-goose lunacy.

They all obscure the basic point of the lesson.

The point of the lesson is that GloboCap — the entire global-capitalist system acting as a single global entity — can, virtually any time it wants, suspend the Simulation of Democracy, and crack down on us with despotic force.

The Elites Used Greece - Post 2008 - As A Model Of Just How Far They Can Push

thebellows  |  On January 19, 2020, Washington state reported the first US case of coronavirus. By the end of March, 245 million Americans were under stay-at-home restrictions to “flatten the curve.” Mainstream news terrorized the public with exponential graphs, threats of a medical supply shortage, and displays of hygiene theater. Appeals to science were weaponized to enforce conformity, and the media portrayed anti-lockdown protesters as backwards, astroturfed white nationalists bent on endangering the public. 

Today millions of Americans have fallen into poverty or are on the verge of destitution. Stimulus money has largely been used as a handout to corporations, and over 160,000 small businesses have closed. In March and April 30 million Americans filed for unemployment. Now temporary job losses are becoming permanent. 12 million unemployed people may see their benefits lapse even if Congress passes a new aid deal. Homelessness is spiking, 11.4 million households owe $70 billion in back rent and fees, and 40 million people are at risk of eviction. In some states, food bank lines stretch for miles, and 1 in 4 children are expected to experience food insecurity. 

Meanwhile, Walmart and Target reported record sales. Amazon tripled its profits and Jeff Bezos made $70 billion. Billionaires have collectively made over $1 trillion since March. Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft now make up 20% of the stock market’s total worth. The tech industry has achieved an unparalleled level of wealth and dominance. Data, which has been more valuable than oil since 2017, is expected to expand its economic footprint.

Unemployment, hunger, institutional breakdown, and the destruction of social bonds are not symptoms of a virus. They are the indirect violence of class warfare. The pandemic is a convenient scapegoat for the largest upward wealth transfer in modern human history. Under the pretext of a public health policy, elites have successfully waged a counterrevolution that will result in the erosion of working conditions and quality of life for generations to come. 

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Death, disease, and pandemics have always been part of human life and they always will be. 2.8 million Americans die every year and 56 million people die worldwide. Each year 1.3 million people die of tuberculosis, 445,000 die of malaria, and 290,000-650,000 die of influenza. In 1968 1-4 million people died in the H2N3 influenza pandemic, during which businesses and schools stayed open and large events were held. 

Indefinite closures have never before been used as a disease control method on a global scale. These experimental restrictions were shaped by the discredited Imperial College Model which predicted 2.2 million US deaths. Many epidemiologists and doctors questioned these doomsday projections and pointed out that there was not sufficient data to justify lockdowns. The virus has a low mortality rate, especially for people under 65, and 94% of US covid deaths have occurred with comorbidities. Most statistical analysis does not show lockdown measures to be an effective strategy for reducing mortality.

In March unprecedented policies were rationalized through shocking stories and videos from northern Italy. The region’s crowded ICUs were presented as a warning for the rest of Europe and the US. Unknown to many was the fact that Lombardy had been severely impacted by ongoing privatization efforts and a shrinking hospital system regularly overwhelmed by influenza. This omission by mainstream media played a key role in developing the mythology that economic shutdown could magically eradicate a virus. In reality lockdowns have accelerated a cycle of austerity and created a self-fulfilling prophecy of perpetual crisis.

 

America Caught In A Police State Pincer Movement

alt-market  |  The establishment supports social justice violence and unrest, and is cracking down hard on any resistance to medical tyranny. The hypocrisy is evident.

But this brings up some questions; such as why they are so keen to allow the BLM riots to continue? As noted at the beginning of this article, I think the strategy is evident – It's a two pronged attempt, a bait and switch: If the Marxists are successful and meet little resistance from the public then they will tear down the current system, and the elitists institutions that fund them like George Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation will use the opportunity to build an Orwellian collectivist society from the ashes.

On the other hand, as in Germany in the 1930s, the civil unrest caused by hard left groups could also convince the general public that martial law measures are an acceptable solution and make them willing to sacrifice constitutional protections in order to rid themselves of the threat. There have been examples of this recently when federal agents initiated black bagging of protester in Portland using unmarked vans; all I saw from most conservatives was cheering. This would undoubtedly lead to a long term totalitarian structure that, once again, benefits the elites that inhabit every aspect of government including Trump's White House.

In both cases, the power elites get what they want – a police state.

In terms of the pandemic response, a police state is already being established in many nations, and with most Western people's predominantly disarmed there is little chance they will be able to resist the crackdown that will ensue as they try to protest the restrictions. But what about in America?

This is why it does not surprise me that the BLM riots are being encouraged so openly in the US. Look at it this way: If the elites cannot get us to go along with medical tyranny for fear of sparking an armed uprising from conservatives with actual training and ability, then they figure maybe they can trick us into supporting martial law in the name of defeating the political left.

The only solution is to refuse to support either option. We must repel the establishment of medical tyranny and stand against any overstep of state and federal governments against the constitution when it comes to protests. Riots and looting can be dealt with, and dealt with within the confines of the Bill of Rights. Also, once again I would point out that in almost every place where armed citizens organize and take up security measures in their communities the protests remain peaceful, or they don't happen at all.

There is no legitimate excuse for a police state. There is always another way. Anyone that tells you different has an agenda of their own.

Opie and Anthony Caused Roy Den Hollander To Start Killing...,

NYTimes | Roy Den Hollander sounded bitter and angry when he bumped into a former rugby teammate in December at a library in Manhattan. He said he was so sick from a rare cancer that he could die at any moment, wondering aloud if he should sue his doctor for malpractice.

Things kept getting worse for Mr. Den Hollander, a self-described “anti-feminist” lawyer who was known for his misogynistic tirades and the dozens of lawsuits he filed, many frivolous. A Manhattan judge dismissed one of them in May, and a few weeks later, a federal judge in New Jersey named Esther Salas canceled a scheduled hearing in a different suit.

The delay followed years of resentment that he had harbored against Judge Salas over his unfounded claim that she was moving the case too slowly. That, in turn, built upon a lifetime of seething hatred toward women: He accused his mother of preventing him from having a girlfriend, and his ex-wife of marrying him only to obtain a green card.

Mr. Den Hollander’s rage turned to violence this month when he showed up at Judge Salas’s home in New Jersey posing as a FedEx deliveryman and opened fire, killing her 20-year-old son and wounding her husband, investigators said. The judge, who was in the basement at the time, was not injured.

Days before, Mr. Den Hollander, 72, had traveled by train to San Bernardino County, Calif., where he shot and killed a rival men’s rights lawyer at his home, the authorities said.

Hours after the shooting in New Jersey, the police found Mr. Den Hollander’s body off a road in upstate New York with a single gunshot to the head.

In his nearby rental car, investigators found a list naming more than a dozen possible targets, according to people briefed on the investigation. Aside from Judge Salas and the rival lawyer, the list included the names of three other female judges and two oncologists, at least one of whom had treated Mr. Den Hollander.

An examination of Mr. Den Hollander’s life shows how he represented the most violent elements of a male supremacist movement whose discourse online has become increasingly threatening toward women.

Quivering, Age-Spotted Old Poodle ALL-IN On The Great Reset

cnbc |  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday said that a federal mandate on wearing masks is “long overdue,” as state governors call for a consistent national message on the issue amid a surge in coronavirus cases across the nation.  

Pelosi said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the use of masks to reduce the spread of the virus but never mandated it as to “not offend” President Donald Trump.

The president has repeatedly flouted public health guidelines by refusing to wear a mask in public since the start of the outbreak. 

“The president should be an example. Real men wear masks, be an example to the country, wear a mask,” Pelosi said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “It’s not about protecting yourself, it’s about protecting others.” 

Mask wearing has become a point of contention across the U.S., despite research showing that face coverings prevent coronavirus transmission.

U.S. coronavirus cases surged by more than 45,000 in one day on Friday, a record breaking spike that brought the nation’s total to more than 2.5 million cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday deflected a question about a federal mandate requiring Americans to wear masks, and said people should listen to what state and local officials are saying about wearing masks in public. 

The vice president said in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that “every state has a unique situation” and “we believe people should wear masks wherever social distancing is not possible.”

Folks Are Broke, Fireworks Are Expensive, George Floyd Rebellions Are Perfect Mimetic Cover

Slate |  Everyone in my neighborhood in Boston—not just the narcs and NIMBYs on my local NextDoor—is convinced they’re hearing way more fireworks this year. It turns out we’re not imagining it: Boston police recorded 1,445 fireworks complaints in the first week of June, compared with just 22 in the same week last year, the Boston Herald reported last week. This seems to have started when the weather began warming up—complaints in May were also up by more than 2,300 percent compared with May 2019—and it’ll only continue as we near a July 4 in which organized fireworks displays are yet another casualty of this semi-reopened pandemic summer. 

To go by the complaints cities are registering, it appears way more people are spending their free time dabbling with pyrotechnics this year. The mayor of Syracuse, New York, vowed action after a rash of 911 calls about fireworks last Tuesday night, and Syracuse police claim a 335 percent increase in fireworks complaints since the beginning of the year. Looking at New York City’s 311 data, I calculated a 920 percent year-over-year increase in fireworks complaints for the month of May. (The city made it easier to submit these complaints last June, when it began accepting reports online—but that by itself doesn’t appear to explain the May increase. The NYPD did not respond to a request for further comment.) More anecdotally, in Baltimore, “longtime residents” say individual fireworks use is noticeably more prevalent this year. In other parts of the country, Facebook and Twitter are full of complaints that it’s the worst year ever. As my colleague Ben Mathis-Lilley put it: 

We all need hobbies.

Alexander Kagan on Unsplash

Everyone in my neighborhood in Boston—not just the narcs and NIMBYs on my local NextDoor—is convinced they’re hearing way more fireworks this year. It turns out we’re not imagining it: Boston police recorded 1,445 fireworks complaints in the first week of June, compared with just 22 in the same week last year, the Boston Herald reported last week. This seems to have started when the weather began warming up—complaints in May were also up by more than 2,300 percent compared with May 2019—and it’ll only continue as we near a July 4 in which organized fireworks displays are yet another casualty of this semi-reopened pandemic summer. 

To go by the complaints cities are registering, it appears way more people are spending their free time dabbling with pyrotechnics this year. The mayor of Syracuse, New York, vowed action after a rash of 911 calls about fireworks last Tuesday night, and Syracuse police claim a 335 percent increase in fireworks complaints since the beginning of the year. Looking at New York City’s 311 data, I calculated a 920 percent year-over-year increase in fireworks complaints for the month of May. (The city made it easier to submit these complaints last June, when it began accepting reports online—but that by itself doesn’t appear to explain the May increase. The NYPD did not respond to a request for further comment.) More anecdotally, in Baltimore, “longtime residents” say individual fireworks use is noticeably more prevalent this year. In other parts of the country, Facebook and Twitter are full of complaints that it’s the worst year ever. As my colleague Ben Mathis-Lilley put it:

Sudden Fireworks All the Time outbreaks seem to be happening everywhere but the media won’t talk about it. And I think that’s because everyone deep down knows the truth about who’s setting them off: The evil clowns from 2016. https://t.co/uoJzfg5pvG

— Ben Mathis-Lilley (@BenMathisLilley) June 17, 2020

It’s true that Americans always complain more about fireworks in the run-up to July 4. And a pandemic alone can’t explain why Americans are generally setting off more explosives than they used to; we can also thank a liberalization of laws in a slew of states over the past two decades. These factors make it challenging to establish just how extraordinary 2020 is in terms of DIY fireworks displays and whether the apparent boom (sorry) is a local or national phenomenon.

Can America's Poor Self-Organize To Survive The Dystopian Now?

tomdispatch |  This society has long suffered from a kind of Stockholm syndrome: we look to the rich for answers to the very problems they are often responsible for creating and from which they benefit. The wreckage of this pandemic moment is a bitter reminder of this affliction, as well as a signpost suggesting how we must emerge from this crisis a just and more equitable nation. With a possible depression ahead and more social unrest on the rise, isn’t it time to stop vindicating the wealthiest people in this country and look instead to leadership from those who were living in a depression before Covid-19 even hit and already organizing and protesting?

Here’s a story from a long-ago moment that's still relevant. Two months before his assassination in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., travelled to Chicago, to enlist the women of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) -- the predecessor to the National Union of my day -- into the Poor People’s Campaign. As he walked into a conference room at a downtown Chicago YMCA, Dr. King encountered more than 30 welfare rights leaders seated strategically on the other side of an exceedingly large table. One of his advisers later noted that the women’s reception of the southern civil rights leader was a “grand piece of psychological warfare.”

Representing more than 30,000 welfare-receiving, dues-paying members, they had not come to passively listen to the famed leader. They wanted to know his position on the recent passage of anti-welfare legislation and quickly made that clear, pelting him with questions. Dr. King felt out of his element. Eventually, Johnnie Tillmon, the national chairwoman of the NWRO, stepped in. “You know, Dr. King,” she said, “if you don’t know about these questions, you should just say you don’t know and then we could go on with this meeting.”

To this, Dr. King replied, “We don’t know anything about welfare. We are here to learn.”

That day, Dr. King would learn much about the long struggle those women had waged for dignity in the workplace and the home. They taught him that programs of social uplift should be a permanent right and that the welfare system of the mid-twentieth century, much like our own, was structured as a public charity that callously differentiated between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor. They introduced him to policy proposals that were generations ahead of their time, including a demand for a Guaranteed Adequate Annual Income, or what many now call a Universal Basic Income (UBI).

Four months into the Covid-19 crisis, with this country already afloat on a sea of inequality that would have been unimaginable even to those women in 1968, a sea change in public opinion may be underway when it comes to what’s necessary and possible. Ideas that only a few years ago would have been considered unimaginable like universal healthcare, guaranteed affordable housing, and debt relief are now breaking into the mainstream. Don’t think, however, that such policy positions, like the idea of a UBI, have materialized on Capitol Hill and in Beltway think tanks out of thin air. They are, at least in part, the result of long-term agitating, educating, and organizing led by the poor themselves.

Those of us in the welfare rights movement always saw our work as the kindling for a wildfire of organizing by the poor and dispossessed. Our projects of survival, like Tent City, were not just about housing and feeding people. They were also about securing the lives of those committed to building the kind of movement necessary to transform society. Projects organized around immediate needs also became bases of operation for policy analysis and future plans.

DAYYUM! There Go Those Virus Reparations Lawsuits - Er, Uh, You See What Happened Wuz...,

washingtontimes |  Meanwhile, a number of suspicious actions and a paper trail suggest that the virus escaped from one of the labs, though China is clamping down on the ability to pursue those leads.

 “The most logical place to investigate the virus origin has been completely sealed off from outside inquiry by the CCP,” said the document, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

The party has taken draconian steps to control information about the virus since January.

“A gag order to both places was issued on Jan. 1, 2020, and a major general from the PLA who is China’s top military microbiologist essentially took over the [Wuhan Institute of Virology] since mid-January.”

Labs face scrutiny

Both of the labs under scrutiny in the report have conducted extensive research on bat coronaviruses, including those that have close molecular similarities to SARS-Cov-2, the full designation of the new pathogen.

Among the most significant circumstantial evidence identified in the report are the activities of Shi Zhengli, a leader in bat coronavirus research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, China’s only high-security, level four research laboratory.

Ms. Shi has been involved in bioengineering bat coronaviruses, and a medical doctor named Wu Xiaohua launched an online campaign to expose Ms. Shi’s work. Dr. Wu said she believes the coronavirus at the root of the pandemic is one of 50 viruses in a database Ms. Shi manages.

The document also points to a 2015 academic report in Nature Medicine by Ms. Shi and 14 other scientists who said that while researching the potential for bat coronaviruses to infect humans, “we built a chimeric virus encoding a novel, zoonotic [animal-origin] spike protein … that was isolated from Chinese horseshoe bats.”

The scientists said the “hybrid virus” allowed researchers to study the ability of the virus to “cause disease.”

Dr. Wu stated in an internet posting that Ms. Shi used laboratory animals to test the human-infecting virus, and one of those animals may have been the origin of the pandemic.

Dr. Wu also asserted that the institute’s virus-carrying animals had been sold as pets, dead laboratory animals were not properly disposed of, and lab workers were known to boil and eat laboratory-used eggs.

“Wu’s charges of WIV management negligence are specific and have not been convincingly rebutted by WIV,” the analysis said.

Ms. Shi has worked closely with several U.S. virologists, and some American scientists have defended her and the institute from critics who point to her work with bat viruses as a needed focus of an investigation, the analysis says. Ms. Shi, in response to Dr. Wu’s assertions, said in March on her social media account: “I promise with my life that the virus has nothing to do with the lab.”

Mitch, Go Head On And Ninja Turtle SCHLAP The Taste Out Of Andrew Cuomo's Mouth

CTH  |  The biggest of all the bigger financial issues around the economic shut-down will ultimately come down to a battle this spring/summer over a massive bailout for state governments to replace their missing revenue.  States like California, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut & New York have been struggling with financial issues for years.

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”  ~ Rahm Emanuel

Long before the Wuhan Virus those states were near financial collapse.  The only thing keeping them afloat was as expanding economy, and new revenue as a result of President Trump’s economic policies (making bigger pies).

The economic shut-down in those specific states makes their preexisting financial trouble exponentially worse.

Not only will CA, NJ, IL, CT and New York demand a bailout, a very massive bailout to cover their revenue shortfall, but they will almost certainly use the wuhan virus as an excuse to cover and bail-out preexisting budget deficits.  Governor Andrew Cuomo hinted toward his intention weeks ago.  He sees this as an opportunity to get federal money.

So when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell throws a bucket of ice water in the face of blue state governors who were anticipating to “make money” by forcing the country to subsidize their overindulgent spending habits, obviously Cuomo is apoplectic.

For several decades, and particularly since 2008, the issue of unfunded liabilities has been a growing problem for the Blue State governors.  One reason Obamacare was created was to address this issue on the union and healthcare side. However, the underlying over-spending by state legislators/governors was never addressed.

The solution of allowing states to declare bankruptcy has been a part of that discussion for years. However, every Blue state governor knows if they declare bankruptcy they will never sell another bond again…. which means no investment… which means they will implode.

If the laws changed allowing states to declare bankruptcy, internally the blue states would collapse… there would be a massive exodus… people would flee the rust and collapse…. housing values would plummet overnight in Blue states…. business would leave… unemployment would skyrocket…. it would be statewide chaos.

The ultimate result would be smaller populations within the Blue state misery zones.

If You Don't Follow MSM You Are Uninformed - If You Do Follow MSM You Are Misinformed

off-guardian |  We have been given a very clear narrative about the declared coronavirus pandemic. The UK State has passed legislation, in the form of the Coronavirus Act, to compel people to self isolate and practice social distancing in order to delay the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (SC2). We are told this “lockdown”, a common prison term, is essential. We are also told that SC2 has been clearly identified to be the virus which causes the COVID 19 syndrome.

At the time of writing SC2 is said to have infected 60,733 people with 7,097 people supposedly dying of COVID 19 in the UK. This case fatality ration (CFR) of 11.7% is seemingly one of the worst in the world. Furthermore, with just 135 people recovered, the recovery rate in the UK is inexplicably low.

Some reading this may baulk at use of words like “seemingly” and “alleged” in reference to these statistics. The mainstream media (MSM) have been leading the charge to cast anyone who questions the State’s coronavirus narrative as putting lives at risk. The claim being that questioning what we are told by the State, its officials and the MSM undermines the lockdown. The lockdown is, we are told, essential to save lives.

It is possible both to support the precautionary principle and question the lockdown. Questioning the scientific and statistical evidence base, supposedly justifying the complete removal of our civil liberties, does not mean those doing so care nothing for their fellow citizens. On the contrary, many of us are extremely concerned about the impact of the lockdown on everyone. It is desperately sad to see people blindly support their own house arrest while attacking anyone who questions the necessity for it.

The knee jerk reaction, assuming any questioning of the lockdown demonstrates a cavalier, uncaring disregard is puerile. Grown adults shouldn’t simply believe everything they are told like mindless idiots. Critical thinking and asking questions is never “bad” under any circumstances whatsoever.

Only the State, with the unwavering support of its MSM propaganda operation, enforces unanimity of thought. If a system cannot withstand questioning it suggests it is built upon shaky foundation

is and probably not worth maintaining. Yet perhaps it is what we are not told that is more telling.

Among the many things we are not told is how many lives the lockdown will ruin and end prematurely. Are these lives irrelevant? 

We are not told the evidence for the existence of a virus called SARS-CoV-2 is highly questionable and the tests for it unreliable; we are not told that the numbers of deaths reportedly caused by COVID 19 is statistically vague, seemingly deliberately so; we are not told that these deaths are well within the normal range of excess winter mortality and we are not told that in previous years excess winter deaths have been higher than they are now. 

We didn’t need to destroy the economy in response to those, far worse, periods of loss so why do we need to do so for this?

Quiet As It's Kept The Kochtopus Is A Reservoir Of Managerial Intellect And Unified Cultural Vision

state.gov |  Last year, I announced that I would give a series of speeches on China, and this is part of that. It’s the context in which state and local government officials ought to think about the way they lead with respect to our relationship. It’s important. China matters.

It’s been part of my mission at the State Department to mobilize all parts of the United States Government. I was out in Silicon Valley a couple weeks ago to talk to America’s leading tech companies about this very set of issues.

And I need your help, too.

What China does in Topeka and Sacramento reverberates in Washington, in Beijing, and far beyond. Competition with China is happening. It’s happening in your state.

In fact, I would be surprised if most of you in the audience have not been lobbied by the Chinese Communist Party directly.

Chinese Communist Party friendship organizations like the one that I referenced earlier are in Richmond; Minneapolis; Portland; Jupiter, Florida; and many other cities around the country.

But sometimes China’s activities aren’t quite that public, and I want to talk about some of that today. 

Let me read you an excerpt of a letter from a Chinese diplomat. It was China’s Consul General in New York sent a letter last month to the speaker of one of your state legislatures.

Here’s what the letter said in part. It said, quote, “As we all know, Taiwan is part of China… avoid engaging in any official contact with Taiwan, including sending congratulatory messages to the electeds, introducing bills and proclamations for the election, sending officials and representatives to attend the inauguration ceremony, and inviting officials in Taiwan to visit the United States.” End of quote from the letter.

Think about that. You had a diplomat from China assigned here to the United States, a representative of the Chinese Communist Party in New York City, sending an official letter urging that an American elected official shouldn’t exercise his right to freedom of speech.

Let that sink in for just a minute.

And this isn’t a one-off event. It’s happening all across the country.

Chinese consulates in New York, in Illinois, in Texas, and two in California, bound by the diplomatic responsibilities and rights of the Vienna Convention, are very politically active at the state level, as is the embassy right here in Washington, D.C.

Maybe some of you have heard about the time when the Chinese consulate paid the UC-San Diego students to protest the Dalai Lama.

Or last August, when former governor Phil Bryant of Mississippi received a letter from a diplomat in the consul’s office in Houston, threatening to cancel a Chinese investment if the governor chose to travel to Taiwan. Phil went anyway.

Black Political Co-option Dwarfs Tulsi/Bernie Media Erasure

Living Memory Black political history and struggle is not only co-opted but ruthlessly distorted and exploited in furtherance of everything from the the "replacement negroe program" to degenerate identity politics in America. As go black folks, so goes America!

blackagendareport |  There really is no more to the clap-trap about a Black electoral “strategy” than attempting to figure out which way the white folks are going and then circling the Black wagons, accordingly.

“Black have been convinced by corporate media that white folks will hold Sanders’ socialism against him and allow Trump another mandate.”

With his victory in the Blacktropolis of Detroit,  the clueless corporate champion Joe Biden has definitively won the “Black” Democratic presidential contest. Unlike South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi, where collaborationist preachers have always held sway over huge sections of the Black electorate, Detroit was once home to the Marxist-oriented League of Revolutionary Black Workers  and sent avowed socialist John Conyers to Congress for 52 years, from 1965 to 2017. Detroit isn’t afraid of people that call themselves socialists – actually, very few Black people are socialism-phobic, and young Blacks are even more socialist-friendly than their white counterparts.But this is the election cycle when Blacks circle their wagons around the Democratic establishment, perceiving it as the only refuge from Donald Trump and his marauding White Man’s Party.

The difference between 2016, when Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in Michigan, and this year’s primary is simple: the experience of four years of Donald Trump. Black people want desperately to sweep the Orange Menace and his Amerikaners from power, and have been convinced by corporate media that white folks will hold Sanders’ socialism against him and allow Trump another mandate. 

“Very few Black people are socialism-phobic, and young Blacks are even more socialist-friendly than their white counterparts.”

Black people don’t vote their own political convictions in Democratic primaries; they give their votes to candidates they believe are the best bet to defeat the White Man’s Party. With such a “strategy,” Black folks almost never win -- in terms of getting an officeholder who thinks as they do -- but are content to avoid losing catastrophically to the worst “crackers.”

Black voters are aware of Biden’s many transgressions against them -- but that’s what white “moderates” do, and older Blacks have convinced themselves that a white moderate is needed to flush the overtly white racist Trump from power. Black voters support Bernie Sanders’ agenda, which very much resembles a Black political center of gravity that decades of polling has shown is far to the left of the white political spectrum. In fact, majorities of the very voters that awarded sweeping victories to Joe Biden in the March 3 Super Tuesday primaries told exit pollsters  they “support a single government health insurance plan for all?” – the very definition of Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All. Sanders’ signature program won the primaries, hands down – but Bernie lost to the corporate hack that opposes Medicare for All. Indeed, all  of Sanders’ core issues – Green New Deal, a living minimum wage, cancellation of student debt – are supported by super-majorities of Democrats (and huge numbers of Republicans).

The Pritzkers and Transgenderism: (Obama Was A Pritzker Sock Puppet)

unz  |  It seems like we woke up one day to find that, out of nowhere, distinguishing between male and female has become illegal. In defiance of intuition, common sense and 3rd grade biology, a number of liberal plutocracies like Canada and the United Kingdom have legislated to force-feed their subjects the doctrine of transgenderism, which contrary to the idea that it is an individual choice, is always coupled with mandates that ordinary citizens acknowledge the delusions of wealthy narcissists and perverts.

In the United States, using the incorrect pronoun or expressing suspicion that transgender people are simply mentally ill incurs a massive personal cost. Such expressions can get one put on a Southern Poverty Law Center hit list, banned from the ability to use social media and banking services, and opens one up to harassment and violence from anarchist and radical liberal militias given vast leeway to operate by the police.

An army of phony scientists, shameless academics, politicians and activist legal fronts, armed with unfathomable amounts of money, have been successful in using every dirty trick to completely circumvent and upend legislative democracy. Christopher Caldwell’s recent book, “The Age of Entitlement,” outlines how elites have been able to use Civil Rights precedents – where laws are decided in courts rather than by elected representatives and referendum – to radically transform American society by overruling the US Constitution and the will of the people.

Civil Rights, what was originally promoted as a second “Reconstruction” that would only impact issues related to Jim Crow in the South, has become a parallel vein of political power, where laws and rules that impact society as a whole are no longer tethered to public opinion or consent, but instead decided by a small group of rich Jews and capitalists, sometimes in the same family and playing diverse roles on the pitch to make their grotesque and oppressive dystopia real.

Vast Fortunes - Degenerate Political and Narrative Agendas - Negroe Figleaves

henrymakow |   Jon, heir to the fortune, is gay. In 2000 he created the Arcus Foundation, a nonprofit serving the LGBT community, because of his own experience coming out as homosexual. Arcus has given more than $58.4 million to programs and organizations doing LGBT-related work between 2007 and 2010 alone, making it one of the largest LGBT funders in the world. Stryker gave more than $30 million to Arcus himself in that three-year period, through his stock in Stryker Medical Corporation.

Stryker founded Arcus right when the AIDS epidemic was being brought under control in the U.S. Before he started Arcus, he was president of Depot Landmark LLC, a development company specializing in rehabilitating historical buildings. This would serve him well when he later renovated space for Arcus in Kalamazoo. He was also a founding board member of Greenleaf Trust, a privately held wealth management firm also in Kalamazoo. 

Jon's sister Ronda Stryker is married to William Johnston, chairman of Greenleaf Trust. She is also vice chair of Spelman College, where Arcus recently bestowed a $2 million grant in the name of lesbian feminist Audre Lorde. The money is earmarked for a queer studies program. Ronda and Johnston have gifted Spelman $30 million dollars overall, the largest gift from living donors in its 137-year history. She is also a trustee of Kalamazoo College (where Arcus bestowed a social justice leadership grant for $23 million in 2012), as well as a member of the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows. 

Pat Stryker, another sister to Jon, has worked closely with gay male Tim Gill. Gill operates one of the largest LGBT nonprofits in America and has been close to the Stryker family since Jon created Arcus. In 1999, Tim Gill sold his stakes to Quark, his computer software company, and went to work running the Gill Foundation in Colorado. Working closely with Pat Stryker and two other wealthy philanthropists, who together became known as the four horsemen due to their ruthless political strategies, they set out to change Colorado, a red state, to blue. They proceeded to pour half a billion dollars into small groups advocating LGBT agendas. Gill noted in his opening introduction for Jon Stryker at the 2015 GLSEN Respect Awards that, since knowing each other, he and Jon have "plotted, schemed, hiked and skied together," while also "punishing the wicked and rewarding the good."

Why Shouldn't the CBC Dedicate Itself to Defunding Indians and Israel Alike?

WaPo  |  About US is a new initiative by The Washington Post to cover issues of identity in the United States. Look for the About US newsletter launching this fall.

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A decade after the Cherokee Nation voted overwhelmingly to deny citizenship for descendants of the people it enslaved, a district court judge has invalidated the tribe’s decision. The Cherokee Nation has long argued that only those with Cherokee blood should be citizens — excluding the descendants of its black slaves — and a legal ruling otherwise would be an affront to its sovereignty and self-determination. Journalist Kenneth J. Cooper disagrees and is gathering evidence to show he and his relatives are among the estimated 3,000 living descendants of Cherokee Freedmen and deserve citizenship. (Leaders of the freedmen’s group have said as many as 25,000 descendants could be eligible to apply for citizenship.) Cooper explains why this part of his family’s identity deserves formal recognition:

I’m preparing to order certified copies of birth certificates: seven of my grandmother’s from Oklahoma, seven of my mother’s from Kansas, and 10 from Colorado, where I was born.

I’m getting them to enroll myself, my siblings and our nieces as citizens of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. My birth certificate and my siblings’ identify both our parents, in the language of that bygone era, as “Negro.”

So why are we, African Americans, seeking citizenship in a Native American nation?

Two weeks ago, Thomas F. Hogan, a senior U.S. district court judge in D.C., ruled that descendants of the former slaves of the Cherokee — yes, the Cherokee had black slaves, an unusual bit of American history most people don’t know — were entitled to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation under a treaty signed in 1866.

On my mother’s side, some of our ancestors were enslaved by prosperous Cherokee. Our family’s history with the Cherokee Nation goes back at least 200 years, to the early 1800s, in Georgia and North Carolina. The history of the Cherokee Freedmen and the Cherokee Nation are intertwined, a point Hogan makes in his opinion.

The lawsuit that led to Hogan’s ruling was prompted by a 2007 referendum that kicked the freedmen out of the tribe, a move supported by the great majority of Cherokee who voted. That summer, I confronted then-Chief Chad Smith, who orchestrated the referendum, at a panel discussion on the issue at the Unity: Journalists of Color convention in Chicago. I spoke angrily because of a comment Smith made to The Washington Post: “A lot of Cherokees don’t know who the freedmen are.” I read that as trying to erase slave-holding and my family from the tribe’s history.

Through a decade of genealogical research, I have identified my enslaved ancestors and most of their Cherokee slaveholders. One of those ancestors for sure, and likely two, Thomas Still and Malinda Thompson, separately trekked with the Cherokee on the “Trail of Tears.” Under the Indian Removal Act of 1830, Army soldiers forced that tribe and others from the southeast to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, so white settlers could take over their lands.

Has Trump Crossed the Black Chasm?

tomluongo |  Do you remember the Zune?  I barely do.

Do you remember the iPod?  Silly question.

The iPod changed everything.

While the Zune was technically superior in nearly every way to the iPod, the iPod became a phenomenon.

Why?  Because Apple focused on how the iPod made your life better.

In marketing there is something called “The Chasm.”  It’s an idea put forth by Geoffrey Moore in the early 90’s.  Getting 16% market share is easy. There are nearly always one in six people who are willing to adopt the new or different thing.

But, to become a social phenomenon that ‘new thing’ has to ‘cross the chasm’ by shifting the marketing message from its newness superiority to why this ‘new thing’ will make your life better.

The message has to appeal to people’s sense of shared experience and community.  And if that shift is successful your product or message will ‘cross the chasm’ and begin to see mass adoption.

For that shift to win out conditions have to be right and the message aligned perfectly with it.

If you do your new thing will explode in the public consciousness literally overnight.

Look at how quickly Jordan Peterson has blown up.

Conditions were right for people to receive his message.  And all it took was for the right moment him to stand up to a virulent ideologue like Kathy Newman of the BBC to become a hero to millions.

The First Black President

So, what does all this 16% Chasm stuff have to do with Donald Trump?

Intelligence Community and Its Captive Media Oligopoly ARE the Enemy of the People

Globe |  A central pillar of President Trump’s politics is a sustained assault on the free press. Journalists are not classified as fellow Americans, but rather “the enemy of the people.” This relentless assault on the free press has dangerous consequences. We asked editorial boards from around the country – liberal and conservative, large and small – to join us today to address this fundamental threat in their own words. 

There was once broad, bipartisan, intergenerational agreement in the United States that the press played this important role. Yet that view is no longer shared by many Americans. “The news media is the enemy of the American people,” is a sentiment endorsed by 48 percent of Republicans surveyed this month by Ipsos polling firm. That poll is not an outlier. One published this week found 51 percent of Republicans considered the press “the enemy of the people rather than an important part of democracy.”  

“The press was to serve the governed, not the governors,” Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote in 1971. Would that it were still the case. Lies are antithetical to an informed citizenry, responsible for self-governance. The greatness of America is dependent on the role of a free press to speak the truth to the powerful. To label the press “the enemy of the people” is as un-American as it is dangerous to the civic compact we have shared for more than two centuries.