unlimitedhangout | The devastating hack on SolarWinds was quickly pinned on Russia by US
intelligence. A more likely culprit, Samanage, a company whose software
was integrated into SolarWinds’ software just as the “back door” was
inserted, is deeply tied to Israeli intelligence and intelligence-linked
families such as the Maxwells.
In mid-December of 2020, a massive hack compromised the networks of
numerous US federal agencies, major corporations, the top five
accounting firms in the country, and the military, among others. Despite
most US media attention now focusing on election-related chaos, the
fallout from the hack continues to make headlines day after day.
The hack, which affected Texas-based software provider SolarWinds,
was blamed on Russia on January 5 by the US government’s Cyber Unified
Coordination Group. Their statement asserted that the attackers were “likely Russian in origin,” but they failed to provide evidence to back up that claim.
Since
then, numerous developments in the official investigation have been
reported, but no actual evidence pointing to Russia has yet to be
released. Rather, mainstream media outlets began reporting the
intelligence community’s “likely” conclusion as fact right away, with
the New York Timessubsequently reporting that
US investigators were examining a product used by SolarWinds that was
sold by a Czech Republic–based company, as the possible entry point for
the “Russian hackers.” Interest in that company, however, comes from the
fact that the attackers most likely had access to the systems of a
contractor or subsidiary of SolarWinds. This, combined with the
evidence-free report from US intelligence on “likely” Russian
involvement, is said to be the reason investigators are focusing on the
Czech company, though any of SolarWinds’ contractors/subsidiaries could
have been the entry point.
Such narratives clearly echo those that
became prominent in the wake of the 2016 election, when now-debunked
claims were made that Russian hackers were responsible for leaked emails
published by WikiLeaks. Parallels are obvious when one considers that
SolarWinds quickly brought on the discredited firm CrowdStrike to aid them in securing their networks and investigating the hack. CrowdStrike had also been brought on by the DNC after the 2016 WikiLeaks publication, and subsequently it was central in developing the false declarations regarding the involvement of “Russian hackers” in that event.
There
are also other parallels. As Russiagate played out, it became apparent
that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and a foreign power,
but the nation was Israel, not Russia. Indeed, many of the reports that came out of Russiagate revealed collusionwith Israel,
yet those instances received little coverage and generated little media
outrage. This has led some to suggest that Russiagate may have been a
cover for what was in fact Israelgate.
Similarly, in the case of
the SolarWinds hack, there is the odd case and timing of SolarWinds’
acquisition of a company called Samanage in 2019. As this report will
explore, Samanage’s deep ties to Israeli intelligence, venture-capital
firms connected to both intelligence and Isabel Maxwell, as well as
Samange’s integration with the Orion software at the time of the back
door’s insertion warrant investigation every bit as much as SolarWinds’
Czech-based contractor.
Forbes | The World Economic Forum
cancelled its annual meeting, which was scheduled to take place in
Singapore this August, due to uncertainties surrounding the continuing
spread of the Covid-19 virus around the world.
“Regretfully, the tragic circumstances unfolding across geographies,
an uncertain travel outlook, differing speeds of vaccination rollout and
the uncertainty around new variants combine to make it impossible to
realize a global meeting with business, government and civil society
leaders from all over the world at the scale which was planned,” the WEF
said in a statement on its website late Monday. “This is despite the
excellent support provided by the government of Singapore.”
The decision came as Singapore battled to stem the increasing number
of unlinked or untraceable Covid-19 infections in the city-state. The
government implemented more stringent social distancing measures over
the weekend and delayed the launch of a much-anticipated air travel
bubble with Hong Kong for a second time.
Singapore had been managing the Covid-19 situation better than most
countries until infections spiked this month. The government reported 21
new community cases on Monday, 11 of whom are unlinked to previous
cases.
WEF said its next annual meeting will instead be held in the first
half of 2020. The final location and date of the event will be
determined later this year, it said.
“It was a difficult decision, particularly in view of the great
interest of our partners to come together not just virtually but in
person, and to contribute to a more resilient, more inclusive and more
sustainable world,” said Professor Klaus Schwab, the founder and
executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. “But ultimately the
health and safety of everyone concerned is our highest priority.”
Below is a condensed timeline of events that tracks the Great Reset agenda that went from just a “hope” in 2014 to a globalist ideology touted by royalty, the media, and heads of state the world-over in 2020.
2014-2017: Klaus Schwab calls for Great Reset and WEF repeats message
Ahead of the 2014 WEF meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Schwab announced that he hoped the WEF would push the reset button on the global economy.
The WEF would go on to repeat that message for years.
Between 2014 and 2017, the WEF called to reshape, restart, reboot, and reset the global order every single year, each aimed at solving various “crises.”
2014: WEF publishes meeting agenda entitled “The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.”
2016: WEF holds panel called “How to reboot the global economy.”
2017: WEF publishes article saying “Our world needs a reset in how we operate.”
Then in 2018, the Davos elites turned their heads towards simulating fake pandemic scenarios to see how prepared the world would be in the face of a different crisis.
2018-2019: WEF, Johns Hopkins & Gates Foundation simulate fake pandemics
On May 15, 2018, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security hosted the “Clade X” pandemic exercise in partnership with the WEF.
The Clade X exercise included mock video footage of actors giving scripted news reports about a fake pandemic scenario (video below).
The Clade X event also included discussion panels with real policymakers who assessed that governments and industry were not adequately prepared for the fictitious global pandemic.
“In the end, the outcome was tragic: the most catastrophic pandemic in history with hundreds of millions of deaths, economic collapse and societal upheaval,” according to a WEF report on Clade X.
“There are major unmet global vulnerabilities and international system challenges posed by pandemics that will require new robust forms of public-private cooperation to address” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)
Then on October 18, 2019, in partnership with Johns Hopkins and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WEF ran Event 201.
During the scenario, the entire global economy was shaken, there were riots on the streets, and high-tech surveillance measures were needed to “stop the spread.”
Two fake pandemics were simulated in the two years leading up to the real coronavirus crisis.
“Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security issued a public statement on January 24, 2020, explicitly addressing that Event 201 wasn’t meant to predict the future.
“To be clear, the Center for Health Security and partners did not make a prediction during our tabletop exercise. For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction. Instead, the exercise served to highlight preparedness and response challenges that would likely arise in a very severe pandemic.”
Intentional or not, Event 201 “highlighted” the “fictional” challenges of a pandemic, along with recommendations that go hand-in-hand with the great reset agenda that has set up camp in the nefarious “new normal.”
“The next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)
Together, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation submitted seven recommendations for governments, international organizations, and global business to follow in the event of a pandemic.
The Event 201 recommendations call for greater collaboration between the public and private sectors while emphasizing the importance of establishing partnerships with un-elected, global institutions such as the WHO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Air Transport Organization, to carry out a centralized response.
One of the recommendations calls for governments to partner with social media companies and news organization to censor content and control the flow of information.
“Media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including though [sic] the use of technology” — Event 201 pandemic simulation (October, 2019)
According to the report, “Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation.
“National public health agencies should work in close collaboration with WHO to create the capability to rapidly develop and release consistent health messages.
“For their part, media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including though [sic] the use of technology.”
Sound familiar?
Throughout 2020, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have been censoring, suppressing, and flagging any coronavirus-related information that goes against WHO recommendations as a matter of policy, just as Event 201 had recommended.
foxnews | A former Navy pilot says he witnessed UFOs flying in restricted airspace off the coast of Virginia nearly every day for two years beginning in 2019.
Former Lt. Ryan Graves told CBS’s "60 Minutes" that the unidentified objects — like ones seen in a Pentagon-confirmed Navy video near San Diego — are a security threat.
The latest firsthand account comes a month ahead of a report by the
national intelligence director and secretary of defense on unidentified
aerial phenomena, a measure that was including in a COVID-19 relief bill passed in December.
"I
am worried, frankly. You know, if these were tactical jets from another
country that were hanging out up there, it would be a massive issue,"
Graves said, according to a clip of the "60 Minutes" interview, which is
set to air Sunday. "But because it looks slightly different, we’re not
willing to actually look at the problem in the face. We’re happy to just
ignore the fact that these are out there, watching us every day."
Seamen
who have seen the unidentified objects believe they could be a secret
US technology, enemy surveillance devices, or something entirely
different, Graves told CBS.
"This is a difficult one to explain.
You have rotation, you have high altitudes. You have propulsion, right? I
don’t know. I don’t know what it is, frankly," the lieutenant told
correspondent Bill Whitaker as he watched an unclassified video.
"I would say, you know, the highest probability is it’s a threat observation program," Graves said, according to the report.
A
former defense official who spent years investigating unidentified
aerial phenomena told the network program that the vehicles have
technology vastly exceeding any human invention.
foxnews | Video taken aboard a US Navy ship off the coast of San Diego shows a mysterious, spherical object flying in the air before disappearing into the ocean, reports said Friday.
The
black and white clip, taken aboard the USS Omaha in July 2019, shows a
small round object flying parallel to the ocean, hovering for a moment
before it drops into the water out of sight.
"Whoa, it’s getting close," a voice can be heard saying in the clip as the craft got closer to the water’s edge.
"It splashed!" the voice said when the object hit the ocean.
The
clip was taken with a cell phone inside the ship’s Combat Information
Center, a classified location on the vessel where phones are not
allowed, a Navy source told The Post.
newyorker | Leslie
Kean is a self-possessed woman with a sensible demeanor and a nimbus of
curly graying hair. She lives alone in a light-filled corner apartment
near the northern extreme of Manhattan, where, on the wall behind her
desk, there is a framed black-and-white image that looks like a sonogram
of a Frisbee. The photograph was given to her, along with
chain-of-custody documentation, by contacts in the Costa Rican
government; in her estimation, it is the finest image of a U.F.O. ever
made public. The first time I visited, she wore a black blazer over a
T-shirt advertising “The Phenomenon,” a documentary from 2020 with
strikingly high production values in a genre known for grainy footage of
dubious provenance. Kean is stubborn but unassuming, and she tends to
speak of the impact of “the Times story,” and the new cycle of
U.F.O. attention it has inaugurated, as if she had not been its
principal instigator. She told me, “When the New York Times story came out, there was this sense of ‘This is what the U.F.O. people have wanted forever.’ ”
Kean
is always assiduously polite toward the “U.F.O. people,” although she
stands apart from the ufological mainstream. “It’s not necessarily that
what Greer was saying was wrong—maybe there have been visits by
extraterrestrials since 1947,” she said. “It’s that you have to be
strategic about what you say to be taken seriously. You don’t put out
someone talking about alien bodies, even if it might be true. Nobody was
ready for that; they didn’t even know that U.F.O.s were real.” Kean is
certain that U.F.O.s are real. Everything else—what they are, why
they’re here, why they never alight on the White House lawn—is
speculation.
Kean feels most at home in the
borderlands between the paranormal and the scientific; her latest
project examines the controversial scholarship on the possibility of
consciousness after death. Until recently, she dreaded the inevitable
dinner-party moment when other guests asked about her line of work and
she had to mumble something about U.F.O.s. “Then they’d sort of giggle,”
she said, “and I would have to say, ‘There’s actually a lot of serious
information.’ ” Her blunt, understated way of talking about
incomprehensible data gives her an air of probity. During my visit, as
she peered at her extensive library of canonical ufology texts—with such
titles as “Extraterrestrial Contact” and “Above Top Secret”—she sighed
and said, “Unfortunately, most of these aren’t very good.”
In her best-selling book, “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record,”
published in 2010 by an imprint of Random House, Kean wrote that “the
U.S. government routinely ignores UFOs and, when pressed, issues false
explanations. Its indifference and/or dismissals are irresponsible,
disrespectful to credible, often expert witnesses, and potentially
dangerous.” Her book is a sweeping reminder that this was not always the
case. In the decades after the Second World War, about half of all
Americans, including many in power, accepted U.F.O.s as a matter of
course. Kean sees herself as a custodian of this lost history. In her
apartment, a tranquil space decorated with a Burmese Buddha and bowls of
pearlescent seashells, Kean sat down on the floor, opened her file
cabinets, and disappeared into a drift of declassified memos, barely
legible teletypes, and yellowing copies of TheSaturday Evening Post and the Times Magazine featuring flying-saucer covers and long, serious treatments of the phenomenon.
Kean
grew up in New York City, a descendant of one of the nation’s oldest
political dynasties. Her grandfather Robert Winthrop Kean served ten
terms in Congress; he traced his ancestry, on his father’s side, to John
Kean, a South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress, and, on
his mother’s, to John Winthrop, one of the Puritan founders of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony. She speaks of her family’s legacy in rather
abstract terms, except when discussing the abolitionist William Lloyd
Garrison, her grandfather’s great-grandfather, whom she regards as an
inspiration. Her uncle is Thomas Kean, who served two terms as New
Jersey’s governor and went on to chair the 9/11 Commission.
Kean
attended the Spence School and went to college at Bard. She has a
modest family income, and spent her early adult years as a “spiritual
seeker.” After helping to found a Zen center in upstate New York, she
worked as a photographer at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. In the late
nineteen-nineties, after a visit to Burma to interview political
prisoners, she stumbled into a career in investigative journalism. She
took a job at KPFA, a radio station in Berkeley, as a producer and
on-air host for “Flashpoints,” a left-wing drive-time news program,
where she covered wrongful convictions, the death penalty, and other
criminal-justice issues.
In 1999, a journalist
friend in Paris sent her a ninety-page report by a dozen retired French
generals, scientists, and space experts, titled “Les OVNI et la Défense:
À Quoi Doit-On Se Préparer?”—“U.F.O.s and Defense: For What Must We
Prepare Ourselves?” The authors, a group known as COMETA,
had analyzed numerous U.F.O. reports, along with the associated radar
and photographic evidence. Objects observed at close range by military
and commercial pilots seemed to defy the laws of physics; the authors
noted their “easily supersonic speed with no sonic boom” and
“electromagnetic effects that interfere with the operation of nearby
radio or electrical apparatus.” The vast majority of the sightings could
be traced to meteorological or earthly origins, or could not be
studied, owing to paltry evidence, but a small percentage of them
appeared to involve, as the report put it, “completely unknown flying
machines with exceptional performances that are guided by a natural or
artificial intelligence.” COMETA had resolved, through the process of elimination, that “the extraterrestrial hypothesis” was the most logical explanation.
Kean had read Whitley Strieber’s “Communion,”
the 1987 cult best-seller about alien abduction, but until receiving
the French findings she had never had more than a mild interest in
U.F.O.s. “I had spent years at KPFA reporting on the horrors of the
world, injustice and oppression, and giving voice to the voiceless,” she
recalled. As she acquainted herself with the plenitude of odd episodes,
it was as if she’d seen beyond our own dismal reality and the
limitations of conventional thinking, and caught a glimpse of an
enchanted cosmos. “To me, this just transcended the endless struggle of
human beings,” she told me, during a long walk around her neighborhood.
“It was a planetary concern.” She stopped in the middle of the street.
Gesturing toward a heavily overcast sky, she said, “Why should we assume
we already understand everything there is to know, in our infancy here
on this planet?”
NYTimes | What’s across the River Styx? Robert Thomas Bigelow would like to know.
Wouldn’t anyone, especially now? But Mr. Bigelow is not just anyone, or
any 76-year-old mourning a wife and confronting his own mortality. He’s a
maverick Las Vegas real estate and aerospace mogul with billionaire
allure and the resources to fund his restless curiosity embracing outer
and inner space, U.F.O.s and the spirit realm.
Now he’s offering nearly $1 million in prizes for the best evidence for “the survival of consciousness after permanent bodily death.”
In
other words, was Hamlet right to call death an inescapable boundary,
“the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns?” Or does
consciousness in some form survive bodily death — what the Dalai Lama
called how we merely “change our clothes”?
Is Raymond Chandler’s Big Sleep only a nap?
Mr. Bigelow believes so. “I am personally totally convinced of it,” he said.
A daunting quest, perhaps fringe to some,
but the shaggy-maned and mustached entrepreneur, the sole owner of
Bigelow Aerospace and Budget Suites of America, is not easily put off.
He amassed a fortune to pursue his interests, including the designing
and building of inflatable astronaut habitats for NASA, like his
soft-sided expandable activity module called BEAM attached to the
International Space Station.
His
aerospace ventures have been financed by his Budget Suites business, one
of the first extended-stay rental chains, now housing some 15,000
people in three states. The profits have enabled him, he says, to sink
more than $350 million into Bigelow Aerospace, “my own real black hole,”
as he put it in recent phone interviews.
They have also enabled Mr. Bigelow to indulge a celebrated, if sometimes
derided, interest in what he called “anomalous events” including his
20-year ownership of a spooky Utah ranch overrun by flying orbs and
other creepy phenomena. The strange goings-on drew the interest of the
Defense Intelligence Agency and, through funding secured by Harry Reid,
the former Democratic Senate majority leader, led to the formation of a
Pentagon effort to study unidentified flying objects — the Advanced
Aerospace Threat Identification Program, revealed by The New York Times in 2017.
thesun | BILL Gates has been urged to come forward and give evidence about his
ties to Jeffrey Epstein - as it's revealed he bought homes near the
disgraced financier and one of his billionaire pals.
Lawyer Spencer Kuvin, who represents nine Epstein victims, told The Sun that Gates should volunteer any information about the perv or his pals that could help in the Ghislaine Maxwell investigation.
Gates and the billionaire pedophile first met each other in 2011 - three years after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage girl in Florida - and met on numerous occasions
"The issue I have is a similar issue as with Prince Andrew," Kuvin told The Sun.
"Why are you taking business meetings with a person like that? I
question anyone's moral character who chooses to take business meetings
with someone who's exhibited that kind of behavior and admitted to that
type of behavior.
"With Bill Gates, his wealth and investigatory powers, I find it
incredibly hard to believe that he would not have known the full extent
of the allegations that have been brought against Epstein here for that.
"And yet he continued to take meetings with him. It just shows poor judgment."
Gates has always denied witnessing any wrongdoing during any of his meetings with Epstein. Prince Andrew has also denied any wrongdoing.
While records show Gates flew on Epstein's notorious Lolita Express in 2013, Gates claims he didn't know who the jet belonged to.
Melinda Gates was reportedly disturbed by her then husband's
relationship with the wealthy Epstein way back in 2013, telling friends
how uncomfortable she was in his company and that she wanted "nothing to
do with him", the Daily Beast reported.
The business magnate announced last week he and Melinda would be parting ways after 27 years of marriage.
Kuvin added that the timing of the divorce, the process of which is
believed to have started in 2019, by Melinda, around the time of
Epstein's arrest on sex trafficking charges "does seem suspect".
politico | Jeffrey Epstein has become a
near-universal villain in the public eye. Dozens of women, some of whom
were as young as 14 at the time, have accused him of molesting them over
two decades, primarily in the 1990s and 2000s, in Florida, New York and
New Mexico, as well as on his private Caribbean island. A number of
powerful men, from Britain’s Prince Andrew to lawyer Alan Dershowitz, have been accused in courtdocuments of having sex with a young woman Epstein introduced them to, allegations both men deny. One male associate of Epstein’s has been charged
in France. Other influential men were friends with Epstein or accepted
his money. Yet after reporting on Epstein for months and speaking to
associates like Oh, I came to a realization: Beyond these men exists a
group of women, possibly even larger,who helped keep Epstein’s massive sex-trafficking operation running for more than 20 years.
Dozens of these women worked for
Epstein, formally or informally. If you think of this group as a
pyramid, at the top sits Maxwell, a longtime Epstein employee and
confidante who now stands accused of recruiting minors for Epstein and sex-trafficking
a 14-year-old girl, charges she denies. Below her were women Epstein
employed as assistants, who allegedly scheduled and managed dozens of
minors for Epstein to abuse. There were also women like Oh who brought
friends to meet Epstein and received gifts or access to his wealth.
These women aren’t household names,
even for people following Epstein’s story. But his victims say they were
key to grooming and deceiving them and allowing Epstein to operate with
impunity. In fact, most of Epstein’s victims were introduced to him
through other women, according to the 12 victims I’ve spoken with over
the past year and a half, as well as dozens of allegations in court and
in the media. Often, victims say, it was the women around Epstein who
tried to make them feel comfortable, as if what they were experiencing
was normal or harmless.
Once Epstein began to face legal
scrutiny, other women made it easier for him to rehabilitate himself and
reemerge with his power and social cachet largely intact. Two women
served as the lead prosecutors on his case when he first faced charges,
in 2006, and were closely involved in crafting his federal
non-prosecution agreement, plea deal and lenient sentence. For those
without deep knowledge of the case, Epstein’s short incarceration of 13 months in a county jail
could be read as a signal that, whatever crime he had committed, it
wasn’t that bad. After his release, a number of female socialites and
professionals helped to welcomeEpstein, by then a registered sex offender, back into elite circles. His abuse then continued, court documents assert.
To point this out is not to excuse any of the men or prestigious institutions—universities, banks, funds—that
also helped to protect Epstein, nor is it meant to hold women to a
higher standard. But as a woman myself, I have been struck by the sheer
number of women around Epstein, and many of the victims I’ve spoken with
say they feel especially betrayed by those who violated the unspoken
rule that women protect other women, especially minors.
miamiherald | The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has cleared Palm Beach
state prosecutors and the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office of any wrongdoing
in connection with the lenient criminal prosecution and liberal jail
privileges received by sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
FDLE
investigators found no evidence that Barry Krischer, who was the Palm
Beach state attorney when the case was investigated in 2005-2006, or his
assistant state attorney on the case, Lanna Belohlavek, committed any
crimes, accepted any bribes or gifts, or did anything improper in their
handling of the case, according to a 24-page summary of the state probe
into their actions obtained Monday by the Miami Herald.
FDLE’s criminal investigation was ordered by Gov. Ron DeSantis following a series of stories
in the Miami Herald, beginning in 2018. The series detailed how Epstein
received unprecedented federal immunity and served a short jail
sentence in 2008. After the series, Epstein was indicted in New York in
2019 on new sex trafficking charges, but died a month later behind bars
while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.
The state’s probe was two-fold: focusing on Krischer’s initial
decision not to prosecute Epstein, a wealthy New York financier accused
of molesting and raping more than a dozen middle and high school girls
at his Palm Beach mansion; and on Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw’s
role, if any, in Epstein’s unusual accommodations while he was in
custody in the Palm Beach county jail.
In 2007, Epstein’s
criminal case was taken over by the Miami U.S. Attorney’s Office, which
compiled enough evidence to charge him in a 53-page sex crime
indictment. However, Miami’s U.S. attorney at the time, Alexander
Acosta, approved a non-prosecution agreement giving Epstein and an
untold number of other conspirators immunity in exchange for Epstein
agreeing to plead guilty to relatively minor state charges and serve
what turned out to be a 13-month sentence in the Palm Beach county jail.
FDLE released three summaries of its investigation Monday — an
examination of the state attorney’s office’s handling of the case; a
look at allegations that Epstein sexually abused two women while he was
on work release in Palm Beach; and an inquiry into whether anyone in the
Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office committed any crimes or received any
benefits for giving Epstein special privileges while he was
incarcerated.
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article251285139.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article251285139.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article251285139.html#storylink=cpy
NYTimes | At Fort Bragg,
soldiers who have gotten their coronavirus vaccines can go to a gym
where no masks are required, with no limits on who can work out
together. Treadmills are on and zipping, unlike those in 13 other gyms
where unvaccinated troops can’t use the machines, everyone must mask up
and restrictions remain on how many can bench-press at one time.
Inside Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles, where lines not long ago snaked for miles with people seeking coronavirus vaccines, a special seating area allows those who are fully inoculated to enjoy games side by side with other fans.
When
Bill Duggan reopens Madam’s Organ, his legendary blues bar in
Washington, D.C., people will not be allowed in to work, drink or play
music unless they can prove they have had their shots. “I have a
saxophone player who is among the best in the world. He was in the other
day, and I said, ‘Walter, take a good look around because you’re not
walking in here again unless you get vaccinated.’”
Evite and Paperless Post are seeing a big increase in hosts requesting that their guests be vaccinated.
As the United States nudges against the
soft ceiling of those who will willingly take the vaccine, governments,
businesses and schools have been extending carrots — actually doughnuts, beers and cheesecake — to prod laggards along. Some have even offered cold hard cash: In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine this week went so far as to say that the state would give five vaccinated people $1 million each as part of a weekly lottery program.
On Thursday, federal health officials offered the ultimate incentive for many when they advised that fully vaccinated Americans may stop wearing masks.
Now, private employers, restaurants and
entertainment venues are looking for ways to make those who are
vaccinated feel like V.I.P.s, both to protect workers and guests, and to
possibly entice those not yet on board.
Come
summer, the nation may become increasingly bifurcated between those who
are permitted to watch sports, take classes, get their hair cut and eat
barbecue with others, and those who are left behind the spike protein
curtain.
You can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic.
You can resume activities without wearing a mask or staying 6 feet
apart, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or
territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and
workplace guidance.
If you travel in the United States, you do not need to get tested before or after travel or self-quarantine after travel.
You do NOT need to get tested before leaving the United States unless your destination requires it.
You still need to show a negative test result or documentation of recovery from COVID-19 before boarding an international flight to the United States.
You should still get tested 3-5 days after international travel.
You do NOT need to self-quarantine after arriving in the United States.
If you’ve been around someone who has COVID-19, you do not need to stay away from others or get tested unless you have symptoms.
However, if you live or work in a correctional or detention facility
or a homeless shelter and are around someone who has COVID-19, you
should still get tested, even if you don’t have symptoms.
WaPo | Delta
Air Lines chief executive Ed Bastian said Friday that new employees who
join the company will be required to be vaccinated for the coronavirus.
The
announcement makes Delta the only major U.S. airline to require
vaccines for at least a portion of its workforce. While most carriers
have taken steps to boost vaccination rates, including setting up
centers at airports to encourage employees to get the shot, others
aren’t requiring they do so.
In an interview on CNN,
Bastian said: “Any person joining Delta in the future, we’re going to
mandate that they be vaccinated before they can sign up with the
company.” The vaccine will continue to be optional for workers already
at the airline.
“I’m
not going to mandate and force people if they have some specific reason
why they don’t want to get vaccinated, but I am going to strongly
encourage them and make sure they understand the risk to not getting
vaccinated,” Bastian said.
Even
so, those who opt not to be vaccinated might encounter limits to the
work they can do, he said. For example, he said unvaccinated employees
may not be able to fly international routes since shots might be
required in other countries.
Bastian
said more than 60 percent of Delta’s 75,000 employees have received at
least one dose of the vaccine, adding that he expected between 75 and 80
percent ultimately would be vaccinated.
realclearpolicy | We hear a lot about “unity” these days. The Biden administration
promises and even demands it. Meanwhile, Republicans (and some
Democrats) charge the administration with hypocrisy because its radical
programs can’t garner a legislative majority — let alone the consensus
support the word “unity” implies. But the charge of hypocrisy misses the
point: The demand for unity is dangerous because it aims to undermine
the genuine diversity that is essential to a free people.
To call for unity is, in effect, to call for obedience. But free
people are not obedient. Free people should obey the law, of course, but
they do so only because they have consented to the law. And before
consent comes debate: Free people air differing opinions that reflect
their differing backgrounds and experiences, rather than bowing to those
who claim they know what’s best. Free and open debate — and the
diversity of viewpoint such debate implies — is therefore essential to
lawmaking in a democratic republic.
This is our constitutional inheritance. Our lawmaking process is
structured by mechanisms — such as the separation of powers, checks and
balances, and lesser rules like the Senate filibuster — that ensure the
views of the minority are not simply brushed aside by a fleeting
political majority. Of course, from time to time, Americans do come
together as one nation, for instance in the face of great tragedies or
crises. Yet, unfortunately, such crises can easily be exploited or
manipulated to stifle dissent and centralize political power.
RT | Merriam-Webster is again redefining language to fit a narrative,
this time framing its definition of “anti-vaxxer” to include not only
people who oppose vaccination, but also those who are against
inoculation mandates.
The definition on Merriam-Webster's website says “anti-vaxxer” means “a person who opposes vaccination or laws that mandate vaccination.”
It’s not clear when it was written to include opposition to forced
jabs, but many observers noticed for the first time on Wednesday.
“Welcome to ‘1984.’ This is the Ministry of Truth,” rapper and podcaster Zuby said on Twitter, referring to George Orwell’s dystopian novel.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary has changed their definition of 'anti-vaxxer' to include
'people who oppose laws that mandate vaccination'.
Other reactions were similar, with many commenters noting that they now fit the dictionary definition of “anti-vaxxer,”
even though they believe in the benefits of vaccinations and choose to
receive the shots themselves. Merriam-Webster's definition appears to
dismiss the concept of favoring a product personally but being opposed,
on principle, to forcing others to use it.
arvix |Controversial understandings of the coronavirus pandemic have turned data visualizations into a battleground. Defying public health officials, coronavirus skeptics on US social media spent much of 2020 creating data visualizations showing that the government’s pandemic response was excessive and that the crisis was over. This paper investigates how pandemic visualizations circulated on social media, and shows that people who mistrust the scientific establishment often deploy the same rhetorics of data-driven decision-making used by experts, but to advocate for radical policy changes.Using a quantitative analysis of how visualizations spread on Twitter and an ethnographic approach to analyzing conversations about COVID data on Facebook, we document an epistemological gap that leads pro- and anti-mask groups to draw drastically different inferences from similar data. Ultimately, we argue that the deployment of COVID data visualizations reflect a deeper sociopolitical rift regarding the place of science in public life.
This paper has investigated anti-mask counter-visualizations on social media in two ways: quantitatively, we identify the main types of visualizations that are present within different networks (e.g., pro-and anti-mask users), and we show that anti-mask users are prolific and skilled purveyors of data visualizations. These visualizations are popular, use orthodox visualization methods, and are promulgated as a way to convince others that public health measures are unnecessary. In our qualitative analysis, we use an ethnographic approach to illustrate how COVID counter-visualizations actually reflect a deeper epistemological rift about the role of data in public life, and that the practice of making counter-visualizations reflects a participatory, heterodox approach to information sharing. Convincing anti-maskers to support public health measures in the age ofCOVID-19 will require more than “better” visualizations, data literacy campaigns, or increased public access to data. Rather, it requiresa sustained engagement with the social world of visualizations andthe people who make or interpret them.While academic science is traditionally a system for producing knowledge within a laboratory, validating it through peer review,and sharing results within subsidiary communities, anti-maskers reject this hierarchical social model. They espouse a vision of science that is radically egalitarian and individualist. This study forces us to see that coronavirus skeptics champion science as a personal practice that prizes rationality and autonomy; for them, it is not a body of knowledge certified by an institution of experts. Calls for data or scientific literacy therefore risk recapitulating narratives that anti-mask views are the product of individual ignorance rather than coordinated information campaigns that rely heavily on networked participation.
Recognizing the systemic dynamics that contribute to this epistemological rift is the first step towards grappling with this phenomenon, and the findings presented in this paper corroborate similar studies about the impact of fake news on American evangelical voters [98] and about the limitations of fact-checking climate change denialism [42].Calls for media literacy—especially as an ethics smokescreen to avoid talking about larger structural problems like white supremacy—are problematic when these approaches are deficit-focused and trained primarily on individual responsibility. Powerful research and media organizations paid for by the tobacco or fossil fuel indus-tries [79,86] have historically capitalized on the skeptical impulse that the “science simply isn’t settled,” prompting people to simply“think for themselves” to horrifying ends. The attempted coup on January 6, 2021 has similarly illustrated that well-calibrated, well-funded systems of coordinated disinformation can be particularly dangerous when they are designed to appeal to skeptical people.While individual insurrectionists are no doubt to blame for their own acts of violence, the coup relied on a collective effort fanned by people questioning, interacting, and sharing these ideas with other people. These skeptical narratives are powerful because they resonate with these these people’s lived experience and—crucially—because they are posted by influential accounts across influential platforms.Broadly, the findings presented in this paper also challenge conventional assumptions in human-computer interaction research about who imagined users might be: visualization experts tradition-ally design systems for scientists, business analysts, or journalists.
Researchers create systems intended to democratize processes of data analysis and inform a broader public about how to use data,often in the clean, sand-boxed environment of an academic lab.However, this literature often focuses narrowly on promoting expressivity (either of current or new visualization techniques), assuming that improving visualization tools will lead to improving public understanding of data. This paper presents a community of users that researchers might not consider in the systems building process (i.e., supposedly “data illiterate” anti-maskers), and we show how the binary opposition of literacy/illiteracy is insufficient for describing how orthodox visualizations can be used to promote unorthodox science. Understanding how these groups skillfully manipulate data to undermine mainstream science requires us to adjust the theoretical assumptions in HCI research about how data can be leveraged in public discourse.What, then, are visualization researchers and social scientists todo? One step might be to grapple with the social and political dimensions of visualizations at the beginning, rather than the end, of projects [31]. This involves in part a shift from positivist to interpretivist frameworks in visualization research, where we recognize that knowledge we produce in visualization systems is fundamentally“multiple, subjective, and socially constructed” [73]. A secondary issue is one of uncertainty: Jessica Hullman and Zeynep Tufekc
Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of
California, San Francisco called the exchange “very, very troubling.”
“What seems strange to me here is there would be this very intimate
back and forth including phone calls where this political group gets to
help formulate scientific guidance for our major public health
organization in the United States,” Ghandi told The Post. “This is not
how science-based guidelines should work or be put together.”
The New York Times on Tuesday published a report
from David Leonhardt that questioned the CDC’s recent guidance on mask
wearing outdoors. Upon releasing the new guidelines in April, the agency
announced that “less than 10 percent” of COVID-19 transmission was
occurring outdoors.
According to the report, the 10 percent figure is “almost certainly
misleading.” A review of the data by the Times found that certain cases
in the study were misclassified as outdoor transmission and quoted
numerous experts who contend the share of cases linked to the outdoors
is less than 1 percent, and could be as low as 0.1 percent.
“I’m sure it’s possible for transmission to occur outdoors in the
right circumstances,” Dr. Aaron Rictherman of the University of
Pennsylvania told the Times, “but if we had to put a number on it, I
would say much less than 1 percent.”
As noted in the report, the CDC’s newest guidance on summer camps
says these facilities should require mask wearing “at all times” with
few exceptions. Considering the low rate of outdoor transmission and the
fact that many summer camp activities take place outside, it seems
unnecessary to have hordes of children playing outside with masks on.
“Dr. Walensky, I used to have the utmost respect for the guidance
from the CDC. I always considered the CDC to be the gold standard. I
don’t anymore,” Collins said Tuesday during the hearing.
“Here we have unnecessary barriers to reopening schools, exaggerating
the risks of outdoor transmission and unworkable restrictions on summer
camps. Why does it matter? It matters because it undermines public
confidence in your recommendations,” Collins said.
foreignpolicy | “It’s an act of war,” said
Christopher Miller, former President Donald Trump’s last acting
secretary of defense. He was talking about alleged attacks on diplomatic
and intelligence personnel by an unknown microwave directed-energy
weapon. But before the United States declares war on the unknown enemy
wielding that weapon, we should know what it is—and whether it exists at
all.
Every few weeks, another alleged attack on Americans is reported, some recent, some decades ago. The symptoms are neurological, such as dizziness, headaches, and brain damage. The first wave of reports came in 2016,
from the American and Canadian diplomatic missions in Havana, hence the
name “Havana syndrome.” Since then, similar cases have been reported in
other places, including China; Washington, D.C.; and Syria. State
Department and intelligence personnel make up most of those affected.
The State Department and the CIA have investigated Havana syndrome, with much criticism by the victims and their legal counsel. The Jasons, a group of defense advisors, have been reported to be studying the incidents. Most recently, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine also conducted a study
that concluded a microwave attack was the most plausible explanation;
it also considered chemical pollutants, infectious agents, and
psychological and social factors, and found all these explanations
wanting.
Here’s the problem. Aside from the reported syndromes, there’s no
evidence that a microwave weapon exists—and all the available science
suggests that any such weapon would be wildly impractical. It’s possible
that the symptoms of all the sufferers of Havana syndrome share a
single, as yet unknown, cause; it’s also possible that multiple real
health problems have been amalgamated into a single syndrome.
It’s not the first time microwaves and embassies have mixed. From 1953 to 1976,
the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was bathed in high-powered microwaves coming
from a nearby building. The purpose seems to have been related to
espionage—activating listening devices within the embassy or interfering
with American transmissions. But a 1978 study concluded that there were
no adverse health effects.
Back in the United States, microwave ovens came into common use during the 1970s.
Their ability to heat food by imperceptible waves created many myths.
How they actually work is well understood. Some molecules, notably
water, absorb microwaves and turn them into heat. That happens across
the microwave and visible spectrum: Substances absorb energy of a higher
frequency and turn it into heat. It’s why sunlight heats surfaces.
There’s a persistent myth that microwaves heat things from the inside
out. Anyone who has heated a frozen dinner knows that this is not true.
The outer part of the frozen food thaws first, because it absorbs the
microwaves before they can reach the inner part. Back in the day, when I
was working for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, I had to debunk the
idea that microwave heating could produce oil from underground oil
shale. Water and minerals between the shale and the microwave source
above ground would absorb the microwaves. In the same way, if a directed
microwave beam hit people’s brains, we would expect to see visible
effects on the skin and flesh. None of that has accompanied Havana
syndrome.
"It's not a vaccine anyway?" She is admitting having conscious awareness, she never informed him before he took his sample away for analysis ... Is that the first to cry ... "I was just doing my job"
Luke 1-5 Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. 3 Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. 4 And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. Fist tap Dale.
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sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
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