“For What It’s Worth” ~ Buffalo Springfield
“Paranoia strikes deep Into your life it will creep”
A Change Is Gonna Come
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEBlaMOmKV4
Most Americans don’t like where the country is going, and are fearful of their future not only economically, but environmentally. Gradual change is history. Old people want to protect their money the young don’t have any money or a future unless they get change.
Under 40 outnumber the old.
It’s been a long time coming. Speak Up Against The Madness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DUqplxIcNk
Coronavirus (named “2019-nCoV”) that was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China and which continues to expand.
The FLU started after people allowed pigs to live in the house with them.
“We will kill one of you then you will kill ten of us, but in the end you will tire of it first.” — Ho Chi Minh to Pashto
Coronavirus in the pipes? How a Hong Kong policy change may have helped it spread faster
A Housing Department policy change has allowed tenants in government flats to alter the pipe design in their bathrooms since 2016, a problem which might have helped the faster spread of the deadly new coronavirus which led to an evacuation of a Tsing Yi…
CHINA FINALLY BANS EATING WILD ANIMALS
COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO), is closely related to SARS and MERS.
We’ve seen the Trump movie. And most people don’t like it. The public is scared.
Preparing At Home For A Potential Coronavirus Outbreak In The U.S.
During a press conference yesterday, President Trump said he is not worried about the spread of coronavirus, because America is “very, very ready for this.”
Yale Study Says Medicare for All Would Save U.S. $450 Billion, Prevent Nearly 70,000 Deaths a Year Yale Study Says Medicare for All Would Save U.S. $450 Billion, Prevent Nearly 70,000 Deaths a Year
Trump’s historical place defined by his amorality
Trump’s historical place defined by his amorality
Brazenly, Trump disdains even the idea that moral or ethical norms shape his conduct or define the nation he leads. He rejects distinctions between right and wrong for an ethos of explicit self-interest that Americans have never before seen from the White House.
At last week’s National Prayer Breakfast, Trump waved off the biblical command to “love your enemies” invoked by another speaker. “I don’t know if I agree,” the President said.
No ballot box is safe: Volunteers hacked into all 100 voting machine types they went after
Senators on key panel reject Donald Trump’s skepticism about vaccines
By Lev Facher @levfacher January 18, 2017
Most members of a key Senate committee are rejecting President-elect Donald Trump’s skepticism about the safety of vaccines, which suggests Trump could face significant backlash in Congress if he seeks to advance the anti-vaccine movement from the Oval Office. Donald Trump met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a dangerous anti-vaxxer advocate
One of America’s leading vaccine conspiracists now has the ear of the president-elect.
People in power need to be held accountable. “New York City doctor says he has to ‘plead to test people’ for coronavirus”.
Is America is actually prepared for the next pandemic:
Answer is NO
7.6 billion people and cities around the world contain half of them. Within six months, sars had reached 29 countries and infected more than 8,000 people.
This is the complete DNA of the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). We are being attacked by a 8 kilobytes virus. Remember this when you hate on computers security.
China’s attempts to use digital contact tracing to keep the covid19 infection curve tamped down while simultaneously restarting its economy. It’s messy, not the joined-up hypersurveillance regime the West often imagines
https://www.economist.com/china/2020/02/29/to-curb-covid-19-china-is-using-its-high-tech-surveillance-tools
Is there any intelligence left in government?
The Trump administration repatriated infected Americans over the objections of the CDC. HHS then sent federal workers to interact with the infected population without adequate training or protection
Fauci described the science behind the #coronavirus, saying it *jumped from a bat* to a *”civet cat” served at feasts in China* and then humans. A civet cat also known as a *”skunk”*. Fauci saying the virus almost certainly jumped specifies.
Pence Will Control All Coronavirus Messaging From Health Officials
Government health officials and scientists will have to coordinate statements with the vice president’s office, one of three people designated as the administration’s primary coronavirus official. The vice president’s first move appeared to be aimed at preventing the kind of contradictory statements from White House officials and top government health officials that have plagued the administration’s response. Even during his news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Trump rejected the assessment from a top health official that it was inevitable that the coronavirus would spread more broadly inside the United States. “Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, one of the country’s leading experts on viruses and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told associates that the White House had instructed him not to say anything else without clearance.” The new White House approach came as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged Thursday that a California woman with coronavirus was made to wait days before she was tested for the disease because of the agency’s restrictive criteria about who may get tested.
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And All the idiots that decided not to vaccinate their children. Disinformation is making people even more afraid. Especially in a world where facts take a back seat to emotions, where facts are fungible anyway.
Majority of anti-vaxx ads on Facebook are funded by just two organizations
ROBERT F KENNEDY JR
LARRY COOKStudy finds Robert F Kennedy Jr’s World Mercury Project and Larry Cook’s Stop Mandatory Vaccinations bought 54% of ads The World Mercury Project chaired by Robert F Kennedy Jr, and Stop Mandatory Vaccinations, a project of campaigner Larry Cook, bought 54% of the anti-vaccine ads shown on the platform during the study period.
After railing for years against the “Deep State” and the “Russia Hoax,” the president is on his way to getting the docile intelligence community he’s always wanted.
President Donald Trump is tightening his grip on the intelligence community as part of a post-acquittal purge of career officials and political appointees deemed insufficiently loyal, and the abrupt firing of his last intel chief is only the tip of the iceberg, current and former intelligence officials say.
Trump’s decision to replace acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire with a loyalist with no intelligence experience, Ric Grenell, shocked the national security world and has raised questions about who the president will nominate to serve in the post after Grenell’s “acting” status expires next month. In India, Trump hinted that his decision would come soon.
But it also revealed a deeper trend: namely, the steps Trump has taken to shield the public from intelligence that could be politically damaging for him, and keep the flow of information coming out of the agencies firmly under his control.
also https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/19/trump-ric-grenell-director-national-intelligence-116137
When a Pandemic Meets a Personality Cult By Paul Krugman
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/opinion/coronavirus-trump.html
So, here’s the response of the Trump team and its allies to the coronavirus, at least so far: It’s actually good for America. Also, it’s a hoax perpetrated by the news media and the Democrats. Besides, it’s no big deal, and people should buy stocks. Anyway, we’ll get it all under control under the leadership of a man who doesn’t believe in science.
From the day Donald Trump was elected, some of us worried how his administration would deal with a crisis not of its own making. Remarkably, we’ve gone three years without finding out: Until now, every serious problem facing the Trump administration, from trade wars to confrontation with Iran, has been self-created. But the coronavirus is looking as if it might be the test we’ve been fearing.
And the results aren’t looking good.
The story of the Trump pandemic response actually began several years ago. Almost as soon as he took office, Trump began cutting funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, leading in turn to an 80 percent cut in the resources the agency devotes to global disease outbreaks. Trump also shut down the entire global-health-security unit of the National Security Council.
Experts warned that these moves were exposing America to severe risks. “We’ll leave the field open to microbes,” declared Tom Frieden, a much-admired former head of the C.D.C., more than two years ago. But the Trump administration has a preconceived notion about where national security threats come from — basically, scary brown people — and is hostile to science in general. So we entered the current crisis in an already weakened condition.
And the microbes came.
The first reaction of the Trumpers was to see the coronavirus as a Chinese problem — and to see whatever is bad for China as being good for us. Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, cheered it on as a development that would “accelerate the return of jobs to North America.”
The story changed once it became clear that the virus was spreading well beyond China. At that point it became a hoax perpetrated by the news media. Rush Limbaugh weighed in: “It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump. Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. … The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.”
Limbaugh was, you may not be surprised to hear, projecting. Back in 2014 right-wing politicians and media did indeed try to politically weaponize a disease outbreak, the Ebola virus, with Trump himself responsible for more than 100 tweets denouncing the Obama administration’s response (which was actually competent and effective).
And in case you’re wondering, no, the coronavirus isn’t like the common cold. In fact, early indications are that the virus may be as lethal as the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed as many as 50 million people.
Financial markets evidently don’t agree that the virus is a hoax; by Thursday afternoon the Dow was off more than 3,000 points since last week. Falling markets appear to worry the administration more than the prospect of, you know, people dying. So Larry Kudlow, the administration’s top economist, made a point of declaring that the virus was “contained” — contradicting the C.D.C. — and suggested that Americans buy stocks. The market continued to drop.
At that point the administration appears to have finally realized that it might need to do something beyond insisting that things were great. But according to The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman, it initially proposed paying for a virus response by cutting aid to the poor — specifically, low-income heating subsidies. Cruelty in all things.
On Wednesday Trump held a news conference on the virus, much of it devoted to incoherent jabs at Democrats and the media. He did, however, announce the leader of the government response to the threat. Instead of putting a health care professional in charge, however, he handed the job to Vice President Mike Pence, who has an interesting relationship with both health policy and science.
Early in his political career, Pence staked out a distinctive position on public health, declaring that smoking doesn’t kill people. He has also repeatedly insisted that evolution is just a theory. As governor of Indiana, he blocked a needle exchange program that could have prevented a significant H.I.V. outbreak, calling for prayer instead.
And now, according to The Times, government scientists will need to get Pence’s approval before making public statements about the coronavirus.
So the Trumpian response to crisis is completely self-centered, entirely focused on making Trump look good rather than protecting America. If the facts don’t make Trump look good, he and his allies attack the messengers, blaming the news media and the Democrats — while trying to prevent scientists from keeping us informed. And in choosing people to deal with a real crisis, Trump prizes loyalty rather than competence.
Maybe Trump — and America — will be lucky, and this won’t be as bad as it might be. But anyone feeling confident right now isn’t paying attention.