We are the goon squad
And we're coming to town
Beep-beep
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
CDC Director Almost Admits Failure...
Yesterday the CDC director Rochelle Walensky tweeted that we must protect people at highest risk of bad outcomes from COVID19.
The tweet is a subtle shift from prior messaging, and likely reflects her realization that the pipe-dream of ZeroCovid—eradication of the virus—is dead. Omicron makes it clear, COVID19 will not go away. Even more, holding society hostage to slow spread is no longer a tenable policy choice. We will have to return to living life, and balancing important societal priorities while minimizing the harms of COVID19. Alpha and delta variant thinking won’t help us for Omicron.
Omicron has three characteristics different than prior variants. First, it spreads very fast. Second, it is less lethal, and, third, vaccines do less to stop symptomatic infection. These three features mean that in this wave, or in a series of subsequent waves, the virus will eventually reach all people. You cannot avoid it forever. There are five key policy lessons from all this.
First, mask mandates make no sense. Almost all community wide mask mandates this entire pandemic asked people to wear any mask, and most people chose a cloth one. Cloth masks never worked to slow the spread of the virus. We analyzed all relevant studies months ago, and found no benefit, and a cluster randomized trial in Bangladesh found that cloth masks failed. Recently, CNN admitted as much.
Now, some argue that we need to wear higher grade masks, such as n95s or equivalent. Anyone who wishes should be free to do so, but they should not be mandated. We have no evidence such population wide mandates will help, and the truth is, even if worn perfectly, the mask might only delay the time until you are eventually infected, and not avert it. Worse, along the way you will suffer the discomfort and inconvenience of the mask.
Second, schools should not close. Closing schools was always a fool’s errand. High quality studies show school closure does not even slow spread in communities. Kids, working moms and society suffer significantly when schools close. Kids have bigger worries in life than COVID19. Outcomes for healthy kids are excellent and on par with seasonal flu. School closure in the USA was disproportionately an indulgence of liberal cities with...
Vaccinated More Likely To Get Omicron....
U.S.–American businesses are now requiring employees to test positive for COVID before beginning their workday, since catching COVID is now the best way to prove you've been vaccinated.
The new self-imposed mandates come hot on the heels of President Biden threatening to maybe require it among federal employees at some arbitrary point in the future possibly.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has applauded the businesses for the new approach. "You know, since the vaccine has been so perfect, but ineffectual, this will enable people to take advantage of natural immunity as if it were a sort of booster shot. I think the sooner we all get sick the better because it'll really bump up that vaccine efficacy."
"We do still recommend masks, though," he added.
California governor Gavin Newsom has picked up on the new trend and doubled down with a new requirement that all Californians be forcibly infected by a legion of...
Shoppers Get #BareShelvesBiden Trending, Document Sparse Grocery Stores on Twitter
The hashtag #BareShelvesBiden has been making the rounds on Twitter as shoppers use the slogan when posting pictures of empty and sparse grocery store shelves to the social media site.
Images of barren shelves were shared by Americans far and wide, including media members, politicians, and other shoppers as they feel the effects of supply chain issues and labor shortages under the Biden administration.
Curtis Houck, the managing editor at NewsBusters, shared images of shelves that appear to be picked clean in Oakton, Virginia:
Journalist Jack Posobiec tweeted a photo of a seemingly empty aisle at a Trader Joe’s in Arlington, Virginia, with the caption “Biden’s America in 2022.” He also shared images of a naked produce section at a store in Falls Church, Virginia:
Australia has recorded 12 times more Deaths in 10 months due to the Covid-19 Vaccines than Deaths due to all other Vaccines combined in 51 years
Data published by Australia’s Medicine Regulator confirms that there have been twelve times as many deaths reported as adverse reactions to the Covid-19 vaccines over a period of just ten months than deaths reported as adverse reactions to every other available vaccine combined over a period of 51 years.
The Department of Health Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is the medicine regulator for the Australian Government, and as part of the Department of Health, the TGA regulates the quality, supply, and advertising of medicines, pathology devices, medical devices, blood products and most other therapeutics.
However, a Freedom of Information request made by Doctors for Covid Ethics back in February 2021 revealed that the TGA never saw the extremely limited study data for the Pfizer mRNA Covid-19 vaccine prior to granting it emergency approval and deeming it safe to be injected into the arms of Australians.
However, a Freedom of Information request made by Doctors for Covid Ethics back in February 2021 revealed that the TGA never saw the extremely limited study data for the Pfizer mRNA Covid-19 vaccine prior to granting it emergency approval and deeming it safe to be injected into the arms of Australians.
The TGA originally attempted to suppress the FOI request by requesting a 6-month extension in view of the amount of work required to respond satisfactorily. But after a complaint was made to the Office of the Information Commissioner the TGA responded confirming that they had never seen or requested the patient data from Pfizer and simply accepted Pfizer’s report of their study as fact, despite their proven history of fraudulent claims.
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc., have been fined at least £3,573,465,793.97p since the year 2000 for over 80 offences / violations.
This includes over £26.1million in Kickbacks and Bribery offences, £870million in False Claims offences and £2.5billion in...
Activist pressure to nix DOJ program to catch Chinese spies grows despite conviction of Harvard prof
Legal experts had predicted conviction of renowned chemist Charles Lieber for concealing ties to China would build support for initiative to prosecute those engaged in economic, technological espionage for the PRC on U.S. soil.
A loose coalition of lawmakers, nonprofits, and academics has continued to pressure the Biden administration to end the so-called China Initiative, despite the Justice Department program to thwart Chinese spies winning a key conviction last month of a high-profile Harvard professor.
The Trump administration launched the China Initiative in 2018 to preserve America's technological edge. The program, which the Biden administration has so far continued, is designed to identify and prosecute those engaged in hacking, stealing trade secrets, and conducting economic espionage for the Chinese government on U.S. soil.
Charles Lieber, a renowned nanotechnology professor who chaired Harvard's Chemistry Department, became one of the China Initiative's most prominent targets. Federal prosecutors accused him of lying to government authorities about multiple links to Beijing.
Legal experts predicted Lieber's trial last month would be a possible bellwether for the future of the federal program.
"It may have a real impact on the future of these cases being brought under the China Initiative," Derek Adams, a partner at the Potomac Law Group, told the Harvard Crimson. "If Lieber ends up being found not guilty on this one, then I think it's just going to increase the pressure of some folks in Congress to shut down the initiative entirely."
After the six-day trial, it took a federal jury less than three hours to find Lieber guilty on all six felony charges against him, including two counts of making false statements and four related tax offenses.
Lieber had concealed his involvement in China's Thousand Talents Plan, a Chinese government initiative meant to recruit experts in science and technology, and withheld information about becoming a "strategic scientist" at Wuhan University of Technology. Beyond making misleading statements to investigators, he also failed to report any income from the program on his tax returns and failed to disclose a Chinese bank account used to pay him.
Lieber will be sentenced at a hearing at a later date to be determined.
Despite the conviction, the Lieber case has so far had an effect opposite to that which some experts predicted. Rather than quell opposition to the China Initiative, the conviction has only intensified the pressure campaign to abolish the program.
"The tax evasion conviction of Harvard chemistry professor Charles Lieber for failing to report income from work at Chinese universities is just the latest example of the China Initiative's selective investigation and prosecution of academics not accused of economic espionage or trade secret theft, but apparently targeted instead for their association with Chinese academic institutions," wrote Alex Liang and Michael German of the left-leaning Center for Justice.
Their criticism echoes the arguments of other critics, who say the China Initiative is mainly focused on innocent academic researchers, largely yielding charges of fraud — such as lying about links to Chinese entities or accepting foreign money — as opposed to concrete espionage. Other activists say the program targets people of Asian descent with racial profiling.
The MIT Technology Review found in a recent study that nearly 90% of China Initiative defendants are of Chinese origin, only about a quarter of defendants charged under the initiative have been convicted, and the initiative's focus has shifted from espionage to cases of "research integrity," often involving researchers failing to disclose ties to China.
Hundreds of professors from U.S. universities have signed on to letters arguing the initiative is having a chilling effect on scientific research and academic freedom. Several pro-China nonprofits and business groups have made similar arguments — as have Democratic lawmakers such as Rep. Ted Lieu, who called on the Justice Department to investigate "the repeated, wrongful targeting of individuals of Asian descent for alleged espionage."
The China Initiative has led to several arrests and convictions. Most recently, a Chinese national formerly residing in Chesterfield, Mo. pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy to commit...
What Makes Riots, Conspiracies, Cabals, and Insurrections ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’?
“Indeed, men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of doing away with those general laws to which alike can look for salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against the day of danger when their aid may be required.”
—Thucydides, on the stasis at CorcyraIf the Republicans take the House or perhaps even the Senate, what new norms will they inherit from the Democratic majority of 2019-2021?
Will Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on national television ritually tear up the text of Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address and grimace while he speaks? Was that Speaker Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) intended vision of her new “narrative” for the 21st-century Congress?
Will the new majority, calling back to 2018, almost immediately begin impeaching an unpopular Biden? And will Republicans likewise dispense with a special counsel’s report, or with formal hearings with an array of witnesses with spirited cross-examinations?
Will they establish a special committee to investigate the rioting of summer 2020? Perhaps, in the new cannibalistic spirit of the age, will they dig into which national political figures—or colleagues—communicated with the Antifa or Black Lives Matter riot leaders, or offered them bail?
Will Speaker McCarthy veto Democratic committee members and instead appoint his own Democrats—on three criteria: one, that they have previously voted to impeach Biden; two, that either they cannot realistically again run for, or cannot conceivably be reelected to, the House; and three, that in advance they publicly praise and agree with McCarthy on the unwarranted virulence of the 2020 riots?
Will Republicans claim as reason to impeach Joe Biden that he failed to execute the laws as he swore to, by nullifying U.S immigration law? Was he not also guilty of an “abuse of power” and “obstructing Congress,” as he allowed 2 million aliens unlawfully to cross the southern border, during a pandemic without either testing or vaccinations, helping to spread the disease with reckless disregard? Will the new Congress subpoena generals to investigate the surrender and flight from Afghanistan, and especially who ordered it and why?
Would the Republicans follow the new norms and thus impeach a once-impeached and acquitted Biden a second time as he leaves office, and have the Senate try Biden in 2025 as a private citizen—again with neither a special counsel nor formal report—nor with the chief justice presiding over the trial, as the Constitution demands?
Will they appoint a special counsel to appoint a dream team of conservative lawyers? And would they allot a budget of $40 million and a lifespan of 22 months to get to the bottom of the Biden family pay-for-play syndicate, as federal investigators try to square Biden family expenditures and lifestyles with reported incomes?
Would such a counsel subpoena all the records of the Biden family, especially those concerning the financial labyrinth of Hunter Biden, to determine whether the Bidens registered as lobbyists for foreign governments, declared to the IRS their entire incomes, told the truth while under oath, or contacted public officials to influence U.S. foreign policy?
As far as “domestic terrorists”—who, according to Vice President Kamala Harris, rival the Imperial Japanese Navy’s killing of 2,400 Americans at Pearl Harbor or Bin Laden’s 9/11 hit team that murdered 3,000 civilians—should a bipartisan Warren Commission of distinguished citizens, without politicians of either party, be convened and entrusted to look at both the...
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